Why the Jailer wanted to stop the Void Lords

Lore Story Forum
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recapping the Jailer’s motives!

The Jailer and Sargeras had the same motive, and they’re really similar because they go through world-demolishing methods. Much of the difference between Jailer and Sargeras is that Sargeras was built up over 15 years, and the Jailer over two.

Sargeras is the reason why the Orcs drank the blood of Mannoroth, and why the Draenei got driven off of Outland. The Burning Legion made the Lich King, who razed Silvermoon and Lordaeron. Literally four of WOW’s playable races had serious reasons to want to beat Sargeras: Undead, Draenei, Blood Elves, Orcs. All of their homes got wrecked because of him.

In contrast, the Jailer? Because of his plans, the Night Elves lost their home. And Ok, he let the Scourge loose. The Mawsworn made a drought in the Shadowlands. And… that’s about it. The Night Elves home, 1 race wrecked in the Jailer’s way. Albeit, one of the most popular races - but you get it. The scope is far smaller and different.

Although, that’s not necessarily to say The Jailer is worse than Sargeras as a baddie. It just goes to show that the threat of more powerful enemies could scare Zovaal and Sargeras to try stop them.

Understanding Zovaal

Zovaal wanted to reshape the reality to protect the reality. Paradoxical to think at first, but from a different lens, its more understandable.

Think Rick and Morty’s views on the hit 2013 show. They go through several universes where they see multiple versions of their family. And Rick and Morty have the capacity to love all or many versions of them.

Did we lose you there? No? Anyway, compare this kind of view to the Jailer. Perhaps, if he reshaped reality, it would have been a similar one. One without a regular afterlife, and one with people similar to the previous reality.

Basically, if Zovaal reshaped reality, he could unite and rule it without it being completely different from before. Perhaps to him, that wouldn’t be evil.

The Void Lords

In my opinion, how similar the Jailer’s motives are to Sargeras is fascinating. It reaffirms that the Void Lords and the Light are the last baddies, because they scared the both of them. There’s always a bigger fish.

Not to mention, the Jailer third-handedly informed Sargeras! The Nathrezim told Sargeras about the Void Lords. Those same Nathrezim led by Denathrius - the Jailer’s business associate.

and how about that recap

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Except that the Void Lords are part of the 6 cosmetic forces that Zovaal wanted to dominate so he had a army to stop the “unknown enemy only known to him”.

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What does the Light have to do with the Jailer’s supposed fear of the Void Lords? And Sargeras dismissed the idea of the Light being a threat long ago.

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So for clarity, nothing suggests or implies that either the Void or the Light were the mystery enemy Zovaal had a thing against. In fact, the enemy he was trying to prepare the cosmos from was pointedly and ominously never named. There’s more evidence suggesting it to be the First Ones or a mysterious “Seventh Cosmic Force” than any pre-existing one. That said…

It was pretty good otherwise!!

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I think there’s a 7th cosmic force that is unknown to the 6 or rather very few of them may know. If this 7th force is the actual enemy of the 6 then us waging war with the Void or Light may very well be the catalyst to the end of us all. I think the world soul saga should build up on this hidden force which Zovaal tried to stop. I know we don’t like the idea or tropes or even the character of Zovaal, but his story and his chapter should not be retconned out of existence or made moot. He knew something and we should uncover that as well.

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Do we necessarily know that the Void Lords were what the Jailer was attempting to stop? Are they the famed “Wotis Tocum” that he was so afraid of? I haven’t played Dragonflight, so I might have missed some clarification.

Tangentially related, but I think this topic lends to the idea that Zovaal COULD have worked as an accessory to Sargeras, rather than some grand mastermind who invalidated his plans somewhat. Sargeras’s plans involved wiping out all life in the universe, so he wouldn’t much care what the dead did. If Zovaal’s plans sped up the eradication of all life, then he’d likely welcome him as an ally to his Burning Crusade - it might’ve even been likely the Nathrezim were upfront with Sargeras about their loyalty to Denathrius (and by proxy, the Jailer), because it didn’t impede the Burning Crusade’s plans.

If Argus was unable to be a living weapon for Sargeras, then using him to disable the Arbiter - and enable the Mawsworn’s invasion - as a backup plan to continue the Burning Crusade’s purpose EASILY could have worked. Long and short, had they established that Sargeras and Zovaal did not have opposing goals, and Sargeras only cared about the Void Lords losing rather than who “won” at the end, then this all could have worked quite well.

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Because the enemy of your enemy is also - your enemy. We saw on AU Draenor that the Light would gladly conquer the orcs. Many of them were forced to accept Light against their will.

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I do not think it had anything to do with the void lords. Whatever horrible truth Zovaal discovered that made him blow a fuse in his little robot god brain was something outside the design of the Progentiors which threatened to unmake all things. To Zovaal the only way to protect creation from whatever the progenitors shut out was to unite all the warring cosmic forces into one army under him and have it act together in self defense.

Personally I think this outside threat is Nothingness. The seven realms of creation are all part of a grand pattern of Somethingness. Nothingness wants to tear Somethingness down and revert all to primordial chaos.

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My crazy theory is the force that threatens us all is literally Death itself, it being an all consuming force and everything needing to die eventually.

Would explain the very robotic nature of the Shadowlands. The First Ones couldn’t comprehend the idea of a cosmic force that simply didn’t care.

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I acknowledge that the ending was vague. But because it’s open-ended, we can assume that the enemy is the strongest in the universe - the Void Lords and the Light. Fun fact: when a naaru dies, they turn into a “void god”: literally flipping cosmic sides.

Standing point, the polarizing power struggle between the Void, Light, and Azeroth getting caught up in it is the biggest threat.

Also, I hope there’s no cosmic force stronger than the Void Lords. If there is, for a plot development, that would be hugely empty and lame.
The story was fine in Vanilla - MOP when it was contained to Azeroth and Outland. Any grander cosmic settings would obviously be ungrounded, and would alienate us playing.

This would be neat: very deep in theme. Ah, the big bad Death man is scared of Death! Jokes aside, it would be a relatable theme. Everyone is afraid to die, and if the Jailer wanted to stop that, it wouldn’t be hard to understand him.

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Meh!!

I think you are overstimating the strength of Void Lords and the Light. Their top servants, Old Gods and Naaru, are not particularly durable. We’ve beaten up three of the former, and two of the latter with a third one getting eyebeamed to death. Both have been played as chumps by the nathrezim, and we’ve even had a fragment of a void lord get smacked around by a humble team of adventurers.

I think you are severely overestimating their strength.

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Shadowlands even introduced the devoures, those blue/white creatures that came from the space between realms/realities and that even zovaal forces and those of the first ones were battling against in Zereth mortis, those creatures even evolved by consuming those they felled in battle.
Their existence were never truly explained and they are interesting, hope to see more of these creatures and their origins. Perhaps even related to this misterious force.

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My interpretation of the Devourers is their function is that of the back stage demolition crew of the Shadowlands. When a realm is no longer needed, they are supposed to come in and break it down to allow its energy to be recycled. The anima drought caused them to go haywire because anima depletion is what is supposed to trigger them to come into a realm and tear it down. They were never meant to go into the core realms as they are integral to the entire system and cannot be torn down as such.

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Yeah, at one point it was indicated that the Devourers served a purpose in the workings of the Shadowlands, but they’ve since gotten out of hand with their unhindered incursions during the anima shortage.

Kind of like the gorm.

One supposes that given their origin outside the periphery of the Shadowlands, their purpose could be to help keep balance by consuming errant anima that bleeds out of the various death realms so it doesn’t spill into neighboring realms or even other planes of existence. Then with anima in short supply, excess anima would no longer be a thing, so they’d have started invading said realms in search of what would, in times of abundance, have just naturally been seeping out into the In-Between where they live at all times.

Admittedly the later addition of the humanoid, and at times seemingly more sapient “controller” Devourers made it seem like they might not all just be like animals looking for “food,” and there could be some measure of calculated intent behind their incursions, though even that could just amount to more intelligent Devourers organizing and directing the more bestial variants to seek out anima rather than there being some more complex agenda behind them.

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Should we count the one we also fight in the outdoor Theater of Pain? Cause that would make 3 that we have killed. M’uru, L’ura and Ti’or. Interestingly, all 3 of them are darkened Naaru but only one spawned a Void God upon their death. L’ura’s void essence was absorbed by Alleria upon her death, which might explain why a void god was not formed. Unlike with M’uru and AU K’ure (although the latter was done by AU Cho’gall). Ti’or just dies.

Also I just find it funny that from a gameplay pov, that they get downgraded w.r.t. the content they appear in. M’uru = raid, L’ura = Dungeon, Ti’or = group quest. I guess the next Naaru we fight will just be a standard, non-group “kill X” quest.

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Oh yes, I forgot that one.

Naaru are actually pretty easy to kill, come to think of it.

Every Old God is an endboss in a raid dedicated to beating them up.

The toughest Naaru was second-to-last, and then they all got chumpier from there.

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Incidentally L’ura’s Void state is stated to be rare among Naaru Void states and usually the result of Mortals.

M’uru was the result of being drained of Light before being killed off while AU K’ure was drained of Void so much that a Void God was spawned.

Incidentally Sarkareth draining Void from a Stained-Glass Window caused a portal to the Void to open so perhaps the Void Gods are summoned through trying to drain matter(even Void matter) from something increasing the Void to the point that the Void Lords can breach that area either on their own or by having the object being drained broken open.

K’ure was using Orc Spirits to heal the damage and is still doing so in a way that turns the Spirits into temporary Void Portals to summon Void Entities: by consuming the matter of the Spirits as fuel basically leaving behind a Void. He will eventually heal the Void in his heart yet either remain a being of Shadow or become a being of Anima…

Infusing Void into a Naaru with a Void in said Naaru’s Soul should also heal the Naaru especially if you suck the normally present Void out of the Naaru since you are basically replacing a hole with something even if that something originally came from the other side of the hole.

That logic should also work for repairing the Stained Glass Window sealing the hole into the Void in the Sarkareth Raid Boss Chamber.

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Hard to hold that against Yrel’s group or the Light given what AU Grom and his Iron Horde did first…

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The void lords were supposed to be part of his army. All six forces United to fight something he caught a glimpse of as arbiter that terrified him so much he thought everything he was doing had to be done in order to stop it. That the ends justified his means. There is a seventh force out there that doesn’t show itself. He seems to be the only one who’s ever caught a glimpse of it. But whatever it is, it’s gunning for alll of existence all six forces.

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When you put it like that they’re Bohroks from Bionicle.