According to Blizz, the Jailer is such a big threat he makes titans look like jokes, so I want you to consider that.
TBC
Illidan- “You are not prepared”, he’s just a man, but we spend most of the xpac preparing, destroying his followers across a shattered world, and when we face him we’re prepared.
Arthas- “When my days have come to an end, you shall be king” And what a king he was, a visible threat, showing up many times. Again, just a man who became so much more, and as we make the slog through Icecrown, see friends die, suffer betrayals, we bring his long reign to an end. “No king rules forever my son”.
MoP- “The true question is, what is worth fighting for.” A cinematic shows the entire HvA conflict in mere minutes- a pointless fight which turns to the human handing the orc a weapon when a new foe presents itself. The entire xpac reflects the futility of it.
WoD- “We will never be slaves! But we will be conquerors” This was a fan service xpac, a chance to both relive and rewrite history as ‘times change’. But it gave us a look at the greatest orcs in their full glory, albeit with a somewhat unsatisfactory ending (and Yrel does make them slaves again in the end, so I guess time can’t be changed?).
etc… point is, right from the cinematic to the conclusion, there’s a strong theme and villain, and most of the memorable grand villains of the xpacs ARE JUST MEN. Who wasn’t? Deathwing- and he’s almost universally considered the worst main villain of an xpac. I’ll give credit to the Legion for being a great xpac. Then BfA basically butchered N’zoth by making his every move seem to work to bring us back together as allies after Sylvanas tried so hard to break us apart… like, was N’zoth the hero we deserved?
Anyway, TLDR- from cinematic to end the xpacs follow a theme and a boss who shows he’s a threat by being a threat.
Queue Shadowlands.
“Nothing escapes the Maw”
-Five minutes later-
And we’re out. -five hours later- Oh, don’t mind us Jailer, just here to pick up a friend. -level 60- So we’re going to be going in and out of this place like Benny Hill.
The Jailer’s a joke within minutes of the xpac questline starting, and he remains one. Bllzz, you can tell us he’s a big threat, claim he’s titan plus plus (so, bigger deal than the guy that nearly split our world in half with a single sword stab?)- but once upon a time you made REGULAR MEN into powerful threats by having them BE something we needed to prepare for, a king to dethrone, or a crisis that made us realize we didn’t know what was worth fighting for.
“Nothing escapes the Maw!”
That’s the line that’s going to stick in our minds, because you deliberately made sure of it with your cinematic. Yet it’s immediately made into comic relief. Does anyone genuinely feel like sexy squidward is an actual threat right now?
