I’m curious about what the Lore aficcionados take on this.
Any ideas? What is the Jailer trying to accomplish? Transform Azeroth into a wasteland like the Maw? Steal Sargera’s Sword ? Maybe something to do with the infinite dragonflight and re-write the past? What is Reality?
Context: For those unaware, this is what the Jailer (Zovaal) says to possessed Anduin at the end of the Sanctum raid cinematic.
As someone who’s very vested in this game’s lore and the varied baddies in it, Zovaal’s motivations don’t read any deeper to me than your run of the mill mustache twiddler looking to take over the world. I believe that Blizzard has a very tenuous idea of what the Sepulcher is supposed to be, and whatever it is will likely lead to more mystery boxes that will go unopened for years. There was this façade that Zovaal had some kind of deeper goal to him, but seeing how his actions speak loudly otherwise, “take over the world” really was the only outcome that made any sense.
I don’t mean to be super pessimistic about this, but when I try and theorycraft now, I come away with nothing. I don’t know if this is because this story is just so genuinely bland and unengaging, or if it just feels like the writers themselves don’t care anymore. Maybe both.
He intends to unmake reality as we know it and make a new one where everyone is a mindless obedient slave to him and him alone.
Practically speaking it is unlikely that he could unmake the cosmic forces, but he might be able to use the First One stuff to seal the mortal plane off from them and make every mortal a slave forever.
Zovaal is basically WoW Thanos… 9.1 was him collecting his Infinity Stones aka the Covenant Sigils. We are basically at the end of Infinity War where Thanos won and snapped himself away.
The Primus made a comment about his echo being a representation of what Zovaal wanted, broken, beaten down servants. That could be “perspective” or just means he wants everything to serve him. Which I doubt that would work.
Okay, yeah, so let’s say he gets all the Death powers and kills off… let’s say Light realm. Everyone else is going to be like, “Temporarily alliance time,” and beat him down.
It’s really the goal of most of the cosmic forces already, beat the others. Except here, it’s him holding all the cards? This is a problem I’m noticing with the old lore too. The Titans hoped Azeroth would be able to defeat the Void Lords… wouldn’t that have pretty drastic consequences?
I’m actually a Zoval fan. Here’s my speculation. Zoval ran the Shadowlands for Eons. The first ones (or their servants) decided they could turn the Shadowlands into The Matrix - where people’s anima could be used like batteries. Not only that, but the first ones made it a cycle - so you could never rest. Instead, you were reborn over and over so they could keep getting anima out of you. Zoval didn’t want this. He thought it was unjust and eliminated freedom. The first ones banished him to a new zone, the Maw, because he disagreed. So that’s the past.
The future. Zoval is going to unmake what the maker’s made. What that looks like specifically, is hard to say. But listen, we’re in 9.1 - - - 10.0 is gonna be an all new game. Zoval is gonna make it for us!! Evidence? Software companies. When they get to version 10.0 it’s a really big deal. OS X. Windows 10. WoW 10.0 - and Zoval is gonna create it for us. Whether his intentions are good or evil, I cannot be sure, but it’s gonna happen and we get a new game!!
He’s trying to do Thanos’ new plan at the end of Endgame. Rebuild from scratch, with a grateful universe that has never known anything different.
He makes angry clocks so the end result will be one big angry clock.
From the in-game Expedition Report added in 9.1:
These six forces existed in strife. Well, not strife in the way one such as you or I would see it. Opposition surely, but whether malignant or benign is unclear. There was imbalance, until there was a need for something more.
They came together (or were brought together, depending on how one interprets the fractal) and gave form to their design. Forged? Scribed? Shaped? The exact word is elusive. Each architect gave a portion of themselves, and thus the pattern was drawn.
It is from here that the language becomes clearer.
With a framework in place, all that we now comprehend came to be. As if reality were nothing more than a fungus growing upon the frame. Six forces now in balance, and from their intersections arose others. A simple structure growing infinitely more complex.
Now do you understand why my translations took such time? Why they still elude me? It grows! It changes! Glyphs and geometry and fractals everywhere!
Forgive me.
My guess? Reality is what “spawned” when the 6 cosmic forces balanced out. Hence why each cosmic force has an aspect within reality. You can see the void, the light, arcane, fel, etc. Reality ties into all of these forces at once.
It is a created 7th cosmic force. The love child of the other 6.
The Sepulcher is going to end up being Azeroth and the “titan soul” within Azeroth is going to be the Final First One. The forbidden knowledge was going to be how the Pantheon of Death could leave the Shadowlands or something equally stupid.
-.-’
Probably the same thing Sargeras wanted. To wipe out the known universe and remake it into something that isn’t a dichotomy of Light and Void that is perpetually at odds with one another. It needs to be wiped out and rebuilt from scratch without being a chaoskampf.
He’s currently seeking the Sepulcher which seems to contain buried records left by the First Ones. The First Ones built the framework that the rest of the universe and other cosmic forces bubbled off of.
We can only speculate. But I think by going there Zovaal’s trying to gain knowledge and insight into the mechanics of how the First Ones did it and how he himself might be able to take advantage of that. Thus giving him power over all aspects of reality to manipulate it to his end. Also on his to do list he does intend to later come through the hole in the sky on Azeroth and claim our titan’s soul. A Death Titan would be an extremely powerful tool to gain.
His overall goal is universal domination. To make Death under his rule the most dominant force in the universe, enslaving all others to its end. Just like the Legion and the Void are trying to do.
Zovaal alone probably doesn’t have the power to wage war against the other cosmic factions and all the living worlds out there. They’re not weak by any means. I think that might be why he’s prioritizing the First One’s Sepulcher to give him the advantage he needs to confront the rest by getting the foundation they’re built on.
Okay, so, my thoughts on this that will likely be proven wrong because it’s too complex for Blizzard writers:
Oribos and the Arbiter are all that’s left of the afterlife of the prior universe, or Creation. It was made by the First Ones who were, in fact, the Last Ones, ergo the last Pantheon of that prior version of Creation. They were all wiped out in the final clash between the Void and Light, causing there to be essentially nothing for a while until the two forces stirred again, collided, and made a new universe.
Zovaal and the rest of said Pantheon (and maybe Elune?) essentially were an adventuring party of young immortals trying to safeguard a chaotic afterlife from various threats. Zovaal was their leader, and the most powerful. They spent years and years trying to build something from both the remains of the prior Plane of Death and the constantly evolving new one.
Finally, Zovaal and co. found Oribos, and the Arbiter, and had a chance to bring actual order and stability to the Shadowlands. But Zovaal, who knew that the Light and Void would clash again and end this universe, as they likely have many times before, tried to seize that power more thoroughly in order to ‘break the cycle’, I.E make all the Planes that of Death, eternally.
There was a fight, and the rest of the group won, and severed his power from him, creating the sigils, before sealing him away in the Maw. Denathrius went along with it but secretly agreed with him, he just was too cunning to see any other way around biding his time. Elune maybe either agreed with Zovaal in terms of stopping the cycle, or felt the punishment was way too harsh, and left the group.
Zovaal’s continued goal is to, as he said, unmake reality in such a way that the Light and Void can never destroy and remake Creation again. Because he spent his formative years and his youth cleaning up the mess left behind by the last war, and doesn’t want everything he knows swept away again. In a way, he’s a reverse Sargeras. Of course, Death being the only power will likely mean the end of all things in a more permanent way.
This is why the other Eternals were so lax with things, they are characters who had their adventures, defeated all their enemies, and then spent hundreds of thousands of years in a basically idyllic afterlife until recently. Of course this is hard to relate to because it’s nigh impossible to relate to a being that old.
When we defeat Zovaal, this will set off the war of Light and Void again in earnest. We as mortals will need to be the ones to ‘break the cycle’ next expansion or two expansions from now, or at least stave off the end for another hundred thousand years or so.
I always find this to be a weird comparison- the two characters don’t really share anything in common.
Thanos is a false intellectual who wants to ‘do his good deed and retire in comfort’ while Zovaal wants to control existence forever.
Thanos getting the infinity stones was his win condition.
Zovaal getting the sigils was the start of his actual plan.
The Infinity Stones control reality
The sigils don’t really have stated power and are treated largely as the keys Zovaal needs for the Sepulcher (besides his own sigil which we can assume gave/returned power to him).
We could easily say the image of him armoured in front of a portal is inspired by Thanos, but that’s a very tenuous connection.
Heck the concept of ‘five macguffins of ultimate power’ is basically ignoring all context, which would also include Captain Pollution and likely others that I’m too tired to remember at the moment.
People need to move away from the idea that Zovaal is interested in doing anything to Azeroth, or that Azeroth is even important at this point in the narrative. He is not Sargeras - he does not need Azeroth to accomplish his goals, nor does it seem like he cares at all about what specifically happens to it in the long run.
Zovaal wants to un make the framework that everything has been built around, the division between the primal forces as well as the resultant reality that this division brought about.
He then wants to set up his own framework, one that puts Zovaal in charge with all of existence serving him. All mortals, immortals, and everything in between kneeling to him as the one supreme being with all the power and authority there implied.
A reality without even the illusion of free will.
Maybe I was not paying attention but why does the aspect of death in the cosmology have the power to rewrite reality?
What about the other forces?
Light, Shadow, Life, Order or Chaos? They are all going to just stand around and watch this happen?
If this is really the Thanos story Blizzard wants to tell then Death is just 1 infinity stone. He needs the infinity stone of every other cosmic force to rewrite reality.
That’s the problem with escalating the story so fast to cosmic force beings. Titans and their respected Pantheons should never had been defeatable by players. They should have remain the planet size overlords in a war we were all just peons in.
Because now it gets dumb and the next boss has to be worst than COSMIC GOD OF DEATH…
But as for where the other Pantheon are, that’s a bit tricky.
Sargeras was said to have slain the other Pantheon of Order when they fought, but that was then changed to, he destroy most of their being, sending their essence into Titan keepers to “regrow.” (regain their strength?)
Sargeras then captured these weaken pantheon souls with the Power of Plot and prisoned them on Argus.
Argus the Unmaker was “killed” and our Pantheon were still weakened after capturing Sargeras at the end of Legion.
Our Pantheon of Order are too weak, right now, to fight against Zovaal.
The Pantheon of Disorder is said to reside deep within the Twisting Nether, unable to escape as they are simply mystical beings. They may not have a “real form” aka a body, to leave the Nether and “help” in any way.
The Pantheon of Void live outside of reality, with only the ability to seep into the universe for a limited time, before being drained of their power. They fling Old Gods out into space, hoping to attach themselves to “something.” This is why they are trying to find an asleep titan soul, so they can have someone on the “inside.”
Unless the Void is piggy backed in - somehow - they aren’t much help.
The Pantheon of Life, aside from Elune, haven’t really been made out to be much help either. We are unsure if there is a Pantheon of Life, or if Elune is it’s only member.
We are unsure of Elune’s power level, though the Night Warrior Tyrande did counter Death Magic Slyvanas pretty easily.
It is speculated that she would help this time.
It is also speculated that the Winter Queen asked for help from Elune before… and she ignored/refused to help her. This is why the Winter Queen felt “abandon” by her sister.
Elune has the highest possibility to help in the current story.
The Pantheon of Light also haven’t really been made clear. We aren’t sure if the Pantheon of Light also live “outside” of reality similar to the Void. (Or if there even is one)
Tuyralon and the Light would probably make a big impact IF we were to leave the Shadowlands back to Northrend.
If 9.2 is updated Northrend, than probably expect the Light before Elune.