Seriously, I’ve grown tired of the whole, “I’m going to kill everything down to the tiniest insect because I’m evil.” mentality. Every single ‘big bad’ wants to bring about the end times, kill all life, and just generally destroy everything… for what? Because Blizzard can’t write above a 3rd grade level?
Why does every new villain(s) have no deeper meaning to their character besides talking in a really deep voice saying, “I’m going to end all life and no one can stop me! Muwahaha! I’m so evil!” Arthas (Who had some reasons now? I guess?), Deathwing, the Old Gods, and now this stupid titan-ripoff jailer-dude all want to end life because… that’s the only thing Blizzard can think of nowadays.
Why can’t we have actual good villains? Y’know? Villains with actual depth to their character? Villains who don’t view themselves as villains, but simply someone doing something for the good of the universe sorta how Sargeras and Illidan was? At the end of the day, Sargeras had a good intentions, but a terrible execution to his plans. Illidan was the embodiment of, “The ends justifies the means,” and, “I’d kill a hundred to save a thousand.” Or even Garrosh who was all about making the Horde Great Again.
Like. I’m seriously so tired of these villains. All of them feel the same but with a different coat of paint layered over bad, downright awful, writing. Like. Is it really that hard to actually use your brain nowadays and write characters with more depth than a puddle?
There’s a comic that sums up the hierarchy of baddies pretty well.
The Jailer is so far the only villain to buck the existing hiearchy of “I’m committing evil to stop a greater threat” topped off by the Void Lords. That’s part of why he feels out of place. He doesn’t fit into the established “hierarchy of evil” so to speak. He’s just some monolith outside of our previously established lore, evil for the sake of evil because this expansion needed a villain. Heck, even the Void Lords, evil incarnate, are simply a part of a cycle of light and void chasing each others tails endlessly outside of the bounds of morality. Zovaal understand morality… he just chooses to twirl his mustache because he’s a fictional character.
Just like Arthas is a version of the dark knight, just like the old gods are a play on HP Lovecrafts work, just like Warcraft takes major inspiration from Tolkien/Everquest/war hammer/D&D
The worst part with Deathwing was that he used to be an incredibly interesting antagonist, largely orchestrating events behind the scenes - in fact, a good chunk of this “it was dreadlords all along!” stuff would have been much more interesting if they had kept Deathwing in character and had him manipulating events to to this day.
Instead, we got the force of nature that he was in Cataclysm. He was no more a character than an earthquake or meteor shower. And while he has always wielded that scope of power, it was such a small part of his character pre-Cataclysm.
From what I remember, Arthas kinda, sorta, had a plan at least? Kill all the champions of the Argent Crusade to rise them into the undeath and fight the Legion, I think? I’m not entirety sure anymore.
Because otherwise we’d have a war of smaller scale probably not involving all the races.
I mean, it’s always felt as if there’s a big bad affecting the narratives, pulling the strings of smaller conflicts,and in a twist…even the big bad was just a pawn of celestial 45D chess
I would legit be happy doing dailies to fix the dam in Loch Modan or carrying pails of water from Thousand Needles to Loch Modan to both fill the lake back up and empty Thousand Needles
I don’t need big stupid world destroying enemies I just need problems in the world that need fixing
I agree the story is pretty shallow but it seems weird asking for artistic storytelling from a game rated T. Things that really make you feel something are probably a little deep and/or dark for a kids game. I love movies and books that don’t have a happy or necessarily satisfying ending but they’re often not family friendly.
The Jailer is really nothing more than a plot device to tell more story about Sylvanas and introduce us to the concept of the First Ones. That’s why he falls short.
Does the Avengers fall into that category? Thanos beat them. Game over. But what’s this?! Time Magic! Yay! Now we can beat him before he beat us! Interesting note, didn’t we also have time magic in our game as well?
It’s wildly hilarious how offbase characterizing Thanos as ‘Wanting to destroy everything’.
His literal whole thing was balance, equilibrium etc. It was a huge point of the movie that he did not want to kill everything, just half. Like how do you even mischaracterize it that much? It’s like saying Voldemort’s aim was to kill all wizards
My assumption is that Blizzard thought people were tired of Nefarian and made Deathwing more “primal”. It’s a bit of a shame, but it is what it is I suppose.
This is probably the truth and it makes me sad. I feel like you could get to where you need to go though without having Zovaal be such a disappointment, but the talent is not there.
Interesting note, didn’t we also have time magic in our game as well?