(Spoilers)Can we retcon Zovaal yet?

Community General Discussion
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You could recton the entire shadowlands in a simple steps.

Zovaal, the Jailer we engage is but a construct - Android, made by the first ones to replace his previous iteration, which is a copy of the real king of the damned.

As many theorist speculated, there has being a war over the cosmic forces, and The Order is the one who one the last war. taking over Death’s realm gates, not the realm it self.

Now Oribos is but a funnel, a conduit per se which transfers all souls to their machine of afterlives. Effectively leaving everyone imprisoned in the eternal cycle and feeding First ones appetite.

The real death king, could look similar to the leaked concept art and or to the giant head in Pit of saron, or maybe that head is one of his minions.

Now the First ones create 2 Zovaals, the one we fight is the second, having memories conflict with the purpose, he believing is the true arbiter and by default the death god / king.

As for the Real Death realm’s Lord, king or God. He isn’t and all consuming being, he isn’t a judge, he is the lord of the eternal resting place, which has nothing to do with any living mortal believe.

His power can be borrowed and or used by other, a kin to the elementals, but in a much lesser way, main example is the scourge. He doesn’t look for a fight unless it breaks the balance.

Lastly you can re link this to all the original Wc3 plots and some wow plots effectively retconing what was brought forward in Shadowlands.

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Adding to my own post.

There are encounters within the need raid that may help support a similar way to retcon the shadowlands, since an encounter claim there are other machineries of realities, realities that were re shaped in the image of the First ones or Order Titans / Supreme Beings.

Notable feat. This will inevitable make every hero, and the player rethink what are the real intentions of the titans and opening up a window, a door, to representing the other cosmic forces as equally necessaries in Azeroth to attain cosmic balance.

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Why don’t you work for blizzard seriously this is fantastic.

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Simple case of causality, where the cause is partly responsible for the effect, and the effect is partly dependent on the cause. Thus an effect can in turn be a cause of, or causal factor for, many other effects, which all lie in its future. Denathrius and Zovaal were opportunist and took gambles as the dice fell. If one plan did not go as they saw they just looked how they could manipulate the end results in their favor.

Take any of Blizzard‘s story arcs from any of their big franchises over the decades and you will find that everything always boils down to the very same corruption trope. That‘s just their story thing – corruption and regurgitating the same patterns over and over again, culminating without fail in some version of but that was Evil‘s plan all along …“.

Obviously Jailer wasn’t ever planned ahead, since we well know that reason for Sargeras corruption was first major retcon that started the World of RetconCraft - him being manipulated not by the Eredar, as WarCraft III manual stated, but rather by the Nathrezim, which in turn let Blizzard to have an opening to shoehorn in Jailer’s involvement is a classic retroactive move and he’s just inserted into the previous lore, pretending that this was the case from the beginning.

Blizzard just needs to realize that they messed up entirely with how they presented Zovaal and shift the entire idea of the mastermind behind this scheme to be Denathrius. Keep Denathrius around, he could end up leading the remnants of the Legion with his Nathrezim later on and make it clear he was the one guiding Zovaal through all the intrigues and that they were working together since the start. After all, Denathrius was the one who did pretty much everything important when it came to infiltration and manipulation, Zovaal’s only real involvement was through the Helm (in which he failed, miserably) and through Sylvanas and the Nine.

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They originally wanted the Jailer to be the Runecarver(the face of the Primus and the Jailer’s original design are the same) but decided to instead give it to the Primus whose statue is suspiciously similar to Akarek!

Of course if that’s the case then they were likely going to have Sylvanas as the Main Villain of the Expansion only for Afrasiabi to get fired and have his plan for Sylvanas thrown out… or have Tichondrius or Ulthalesh as the Big Bad of the Expansion instead.

https://ptr.wowhead.com/zone=13742/sepulcher-of-the-first-ones

The Proto Pantheon Raid Journal says thus:

Bereft of the cosmic spirits of the Eternal Ones, these incomplete host bodies can only carry out their base directives without mercy or compassion. With the enemy at the gates, Lihuvim has little choice but to activate these dangerous prototypes.

Zovaal was clearly not the only member of the Pantheon of Death to go rogue after being summoned into a Robot Body as all of them went out of control necessitating them being inserted into new Bodies that are programmed to be Good!

Zovaal was the only Eternal One who avoided making waves while the First Ones were present and thus wasn’t shoved into the intended new Host Body. Unfortunately the First Ones’ decision to make Denathrius in charge of Sin made it easy for him to find loopholes to rebel against his new Host Body’s programming!

The Archon herself had her host body be so heavily programmed that she was relentlessly stuck on the Path until Spires of Ascension caused a “Does not compute!” reaction in her Host Body’s programming causing the Path’s part in the Programming to shut down while leaving the “Be Good” part of the Programming intact.

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Adding Note 3.

If you want to retcon the Old Gods again, to their former glorious place. it is even simpler.

everything said, involving they being dead and how to kill them, is effectively a lie, no one really knows how to kill them, not even the Order Titans.

I give credit to the red dragon quote, it was a throw away line, but it was great, saying that a titan would feel fear on their presence, would take value again.

I believe many players love the previous mysterious version of the Old Gods, as much as i do. having them fake their death and vanish, may sound cheap, but is the most believable way.

We could have a proper expansion themed on it. with real instances that embody the eldritch feeling, like the second raid in BFA, a descent in to madness. Dungeons like the ghost manor, shadowmoon crypts, a karazhan like dungeon, but of oldgods, places that inspire fear and unknowing.

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Side note, i don’t think it is one mans fault only, they had plenty of time and opportunities to turn that back or in a different direction, hell i believe most of us would be ok with a hard turn at this point.

Yes that encounter fueled part of that post, thanks

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There is the slight possibility that the Void Lords like the First Ones had merely summoned Old Gods to Host Bodies they created in order to get a Void Titan!

Furthermore it could also be possible that Zovaal, G’huun, Mueh’zala, Vol’zith the Whisperer and Yogg-Saron are all Avatars of the exact same Eldritch Deity trying to pry it’s limbs free by wiping out all afflicted by the Curse of Flesh!

Yogg-Saron partook in Deathwing’s corruption(though N’Zoth claimed credit for Deathwing’s insanity during Cataclysm as a result of a Whisper) as well as the creation of the Emerald Nightmare so everything might literally be part of the God of Death’s master plan!

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This reminds me of the DreadExpanses youtube channel, his theories where great. Like you mentioned here, he said something like that, that the old gods were possessing primitive life forms and infusing them to become their host in the mortal realm on Azeroth and on Draenor.

Why wiping the curse of flesh? (i’m curious now)

It would be nice, a scheme with actual and solid base on events that happened on wow.

Another thing i wish they do, is they re name the “Void Lords”. they doesn’t sound interesting in my opinion, Eldritch is kinda taken already, Old gods sounded nice in the beginning. I’ll think of a better name, for now what comes to mind is something like “Forgotten Ones”, but it has already being use in game

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The Curse of Flesh is the result of the Cosmic Realms of the First Ones trying to gain a foothold in reality by forcing the Old Gods to corrupt it!

Death only gifted Flesh to Mortals because the Void Lords and whoever sent out the Sporemounds(probably in the Gardens of Life) forced their Avatars to do so! Death has no desire to be bound ever! Death believes it was never meant to be chained! Not by the Void Lords, not by the Gardens of Life and definitely not by the First Ones!

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No, actually he isn’t.

The lines he mentions aren’t specific, they speak of how long he waited, the plans he created, and the pawns he moved around. And that’s all he says. Which of his plans is he referring to? We don’t know. Which of the pawns is he referring to? We don’t know.

Too many people are assuming that he is referencing all these major events, but within the context of just the Shadowlands expansion he’s had multiple plans and pawns moved around. Devos, Denathrius, Kel’thuzad and the various barons of Maldraxxus, Mehuzela and the Drust, Helya, the Runecarver/Primus, Anduin and Sylvanas, Arthas (in the context of using his soul to create a mournblade) etc.

The list of pawns he’s moved around is substantial, and that’s just within the context of this expansion, without referring to anything that happened outside of it. Now obviously we can throw some events of BFA in there, since we know Mehuzela was responsible for telling Voljin to name Sylvanas as the Warchief, and we know Sylvanas really burned the tree to move closer to her goal of opening the way for Zovaal and his forces into Azeroth.

But that’s it.

He makes no claims to any other major event. So really your ‘headcanon’ does not trump contextual evidence.

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Zovaal is basically Aizen from Bleach but dollar store copy. Not surprised Blizz copied Azien terribly.

I personally think that they printed out a college degree and presented that at interview. They need to hire writers from FFXIV.

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This is great, a multi layered plot by the forces of life, which is always seeing as good, mine the genasaur in draenor.

which i originally thought were the place where ner’zhul and kil’jaden got the idea of the scourge.

Don’t know how to quote here, but that las paragraph is great !. the never ending pursuit of life to grow clashing with the eternal will to rest of death

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:,) how miss bleach, Op Urahara ftw

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Yes please, just retcon BFA and SL, 95% of us will be more than happy with that

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Yeah thats what irritates me most. They keep talking about the first ones and how their designs so great but if it was why does the jailer want to change it. WHY is he evil? Other then domination we know nothing about the why and even the how is rediculious. The way its all gone the jailers plan only got to where it is from dumb luck not actual planning.

Its belittled the Titans the panthion and all the threats we encountered…and again all these big “God’s” are just automitons? Its just fallen flat and the jailers been turned into such a rediculious character hes not threatening or interesting because there was no build up. He was just inserted and retconned to be the one behind it all insert Looney toon bad guy laugh

Deathwings back was more interesting.

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They actually did this with N’zoth. Retconning the origin of the Naga and Deathwing’s backstory with the War of the ancients trilogy to have the “Old Gods” be behind both. Which neither of them had much going for them prior to the changes. Azshara and the origin of the Naga was just a footnote and Deathwing was just a generic evil dragon in WC2. Deathwing was planned to be killed off by Thrall in the cancelled Lord of the Clans point and click game. Then in Cata, N’zoth was named dropped as being the primary old god behind corrupting Neltharion. While hinting towards his involvement with Azshara and the naga in Vashj’ir. Which was made reality with the Warbringers: Azshara video. Through Chronicles vol 1 they had Yogg-saron be the source of the Emerald Nightmare but N’zoth was the one who actually used it. N’zoth was even hinted at being behind the Nightmare in the Stormrage novel. When Malfurion looked into the Rift of Aln, what he described was hinting towards N’zoth.

All that build up across several years and over a mixture of sources for N’zoth. Only to be killed off as the secondary antagonist of BFA. What a waste.

N’zoth is a retconned villain done right. Spread the changes over a few years so it gives the audience time to accept them. Picking things that needed expanding upon helped as well. Instead with Zovaal we got hit with all of them at once.

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Well you see

They wanted to name him after a time god because he’s basically Kronos

But they used all those names up on Bronze dragons

So they were like, “Who was the villain of Chrono Trigger?”

“Lavos”

“His name will be… Soval scribble scribble Zovaal!”

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Reply 2.

Friend, i just realize that this plot could easily use some elements from shingeki no kyojin (attack on titan), “the source of all matter” “the alucinogen” as the an entity that was used by the life realm beings

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Nice find, it’s being a long time since i play that beautiful game. I wonder which other things they took from it