They are painting him as this mastermind who has been planning his escape from the Maw for hundreds of years. He has been this master manipulator, influencing ALL of the events in the Warcraft Universe that we have been playing. From the original Warcraft RTS all the way to now.
They took all of these stories and past events and simple ruined them. They lost a lot of their meaning for me at least, as now they arent supposed to be these events in history. Instead they are all part of this master plan by the Jailer, which he influenced in some way. It feels cheap and uninteresting.
And this expansion, with all his infinite power and influence, and his masterful planning… He just lets us run around with the Primus looking for “This one last chance to stop him.” If he was this amazing god tier evil genius, why not just wipe us out? Are we to believe that through all of the planning and manipulating, he is just going to miss that there is still a way to stop him? And then just let a bunch of people work toward that end, unimpeded?
Additionally I think that they were hoping for a big “DUN DUN DUUUUUN!!!” reveal with the Jailer. Where we go “WoW this story is so deep. This evil being is so powerful he has been influencing everything we have done in the game, just to get us to this point!!! He is the most dangerous and complex villain we have ever seen!”
But the reveal was more of a “Huh? So who is this guy? Really? Manipulated everything? The lich king, burning legion, freeing old gods? And who is he again?”
And he wants to “Remake Reality where all will serve him?” So… huh? Even this is just a gray, uninteresting plot goal. So his master end game plan, is to just retcon the entire universe’s history, to where he is the ruler of it all?.. Sigh
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It doesn’t help that Mister Mastermind is a super boring and one dimensional character and absolutely doesn’t seem capable of having planned anything.
If the Jailer was in The Simpsons he’d be Ralph Wiggum.
The Jailer makes Snidely Whiplash look like a well rounded character.
I like him, he seems like a swell guy.
I don’t mind the Jailer myself. I don’t really see it as undermining old history, but just adding another layer on top of it. The Legion, the Lich King, all those arcs still did the things they did on their own will. Even if the Jailer just added his own element into it, he’s not overwriting their actions.
But the thing is the OG villains are all pretty much defeated. From here on out in WoW expansions are really going to be going even further into brand new territory and they have to start setting up new major villains who were not present prior to this.
Retroactively connecting the Jailer to the old guard is just a way to try to more strongly tie him into WoW’s shenanigans. Which makes sense given he’s a super ancient being and is bound to have done something by now. I don’t see it as a big deal personally. It’s just expanding the universe even more.
I really dislike that they made the Lich King just a pawn of this guy. Because as a huge WC3 fan, the thing that made the Lich King such a compelling villain was that Ner’zhul was cunning and sort of just made Machiavellian plays on everyone in RoC and TFT. Of course that cheapened that with Golden’s additions in WotLK but that was still very minor to this.
But sadly, this is the CDevs team plan for all aspects of WarCraft lore moving forward. Old Gods will be replaced and invalidated by the Void Lords. Burning Legion will be replaced by some new, made-up force representing Disorder. Which of course sucks not because its new but because what they are replacing old lore with is significantly worse than the original