wow The Jailer Might Not Be The Final Boss of the Shadowlands Expansion

[Stan 5,240]

Everyone expected the Jailer to be the final boss of the Shadowlands, but things might take an interesting turn, according to the VG247 interview.

VG247 interviewed World of Warcraft's Assistant Lead Quest Designer Johnny Cash and Art Director Ely Cannon.

One of the interesting questions that caught my attention is that the Jailer might not be the final boss of the expansion, even though they set him up as the main antagonist.

Quote

G247: At the beginning of BfA we didn’t know who we would be fighting at the end of it. That was a move away from some past expansions, when the box art would be who would be facing in the final raid. Is the Jailer with Shadowlands a move towards having a big end-game boss we can set our sights on, or is it going to be more like N’zoth in BfA, where we don’t know until later in the game?

Ely Cannon: So, with all our storytelling in each new game that we release we’re going to make choices specific to the story we want to tell. That seemed like a really good choice with BfA, but it doesn’t necessarily set a tone for anything we’ll do in the future. In the case of N’zoth, that surprise ending was the right choice. Here in Shadowlands, we’re making this story as poignant and as fun to experience as possible.

Johnny Cash: The Jailer is absolutely one of the primary antagonists of the expansion. He is a significant person we’re going to have to deal with at some point, right. But as far as how that story all comes together, who’s X boss in Y raid, that’s something I don’t want to spoil because I think all the fun is getting there.

Ely Cannon: I don’t think we want to get too serialised in the way we tell stories either, right, we always want to tell the right story and tell it at the right times.

VG247: So… not necessarily the last raid boss of the expansion?

Johnny Cash: We make decisions depending on how things evolve. We have lots of ideas, but we also don’t want to set everything in stone one way or the other.

All this makes me think even more that Sylvanas might be in for a Kerrigan-style redemption and that the main villain of the expansion might, in fact, be...

Click on "Reveal Hidden Contents" for speculations and story spoilers.

Spoiler

Spoiler

...the Arbiter!

Who's the Arbiter?

The Arbiter is an entity that judges mortal souls when they enter the Shadowlands. All the good and bad things one has done are equated before her, and as a result, the soul is sent to one of the many afterlives. The Arbiter currently dwells atop Oribos, but she has gone dormant for an unknown reason, meaning souls are flowing directly into the Maw, which is not good.

In July, we speculated about a potential connection between the Jailer and the Arbiter, based on the holes they both have in their chests. The Jailer also comes with runes that match Frostmourne.

Is Primus the Key to Unraveling the Mystery?

In Maldraxxus, we encounter a mysterious entity called the Primus. He's missing during the whole questline in the zone and only communicates with us through his voice. There's also a statue of him that resembles the Runecarver from Torghast, who doesn't remember anything. We have to collect memories (Legendary Power recipes) for him to craft Legendary items.

Just for comparison, here's the statue of the Primus and the Runecarver from Torghast...

A lot of things remain unanswered. Is Primus the Runecarver? Did he forge the Helm of Domination? Why is the Primus being held hostage by the Jailer in Torghast?

What About Sylvanas?

While we currently do not know anything of her motives, I think Blizzard is setting up a redemption arc for Sylvanas in the Shadowlands. I'm guessing that we will learn about some hidden threat very late in the expansion, and we'll be in for a surprise.

The post is just based on my personal speculations, so take it with a grain of salt.

Blizzard further discusses delays, balance, and minority representation in the interview so don't forget to read it.

[Ogerscherge 43]

Burning innocent women and children alive, knowing full well that their souls go straight to the maw for further torment sure is a redeemable deed...

I could also see the ... being the true final boss, considering Blizzards fetish for the "the good guy is actually evil"-trope, but every attempt at making Sylvanas one of the real good guys would be highly tasteless in my humble opinion.

[Brutalis 165]

I coulda sworn we already had confirmation from Ion in an interview from months ago that the Jailer is gonna be the final boss.

[darkgreenwax 412]

take their redemption arc and give it to garrosh or arthas, please ?

[Ogerscherge 43]

20 minutes ago, TyZone said:

take their redemption arc and give it to garrosh or arthas, please ?

Honestly, I can totally see that happen as well. We know that they're there and with Blizzard being hell-bent on setting the precedent that genocide is a forgivable offense, basically just bad manners, why not?

[Arcling 898]

35 minutes ago, TyZone said:

take their redemption arc and give it to garrosh or arthas, please ?

Hopefully it's not going to end (after teaming up) with Jailer yelling "Shadowlands are free!".

[Starseed 113]

2 hours ago, TyZone said:

take their redemption arc and give it to garrosh or arthas, please ?

nah i think arthas deserves to rest in peace and garrosh dont deserv it sylvi hates every one but garrosh dear god when i hear him speak about the mighty orc horde as a german i get flashbacks 

[Dejo93 1,023]

3 hours ago, Ogerscherge said:

Burning innocent women and children alive, knowing full well that their souls go straight to the maw for further torment sure is a redeemable deed...

I could also see the ... being the true final boss, considering Blizzards fetish for the "the good guy is actually evil"-trope, but every attempt at making Sylvanas one of the real good guys would be highly tasteless in my humble opinion.

MoRaLlY GrEy don't you know?

[Dejo93 1,023]

I'm ok with the twist reveal of the Arbiter being the villain, but for the love of God

DO NOT GIVE HER A REDEMPTION ARC

[Starseed 113]

Just now, Dejo93 said:

MoRaLlY GrEy don't you know?

but isnt it the world of WARcraft in a war innocent people die its not a nice thing but it happens

[jinsu2301 273]

Fighting a former Warchief in Siege of The Mawgrimmar. Make it happen, Blizzard.

[Migol 433]

A Sylvannas redemption arc would be stupid beyond all reason.     She is shown several times (including in books where we see her inner thoughts!) to be a power hungry, paranoid, and so very angry and cruel zombie woman.    "Oh but she was hiding a good side" would be just so bad.

[Senou 40]

4 hours ago, Brutalis said:

I coulda sworn we already had confirmation from Ion in an interview from months ago that the Jailer is gonna be the final boss.

He did say that, yes. I can definitely remember hearing it in a video which Preach did on that topic.

[Monlyth 75]

1 hour ago, Migol said:

A Sylvannas redemption arc would be stupid beyond all reason.     She is shown several times (including in books where we see her inner thoughts!) to be a power hungry, paranoid, and so very angry and cruel zombie woman.    "Oh but she was hiding a good side" would be just so bad.

I think the only way to make a redemption arc work would be for her to see the error of her ways, to truly look back and reflect on all that she has done, realize the horror of it all, and spend the rest of eternity trying to atone for it, knowing full well that what she did can never truly be forgiven.

[Ogerscherge 43]

1 hour ago, Monlyth said:

I think the only way to make a redemption arc work would be for her to see the error of her ways, to truly look back and reflect on all that she has done, realize the horror of it all, and spend the rest of eternity trying to atone for it, knowing full well that what she did can never truly be forgiven.

That could indeed be one way to make me, at the very least, abhor her a tad bit less. After all, she has been to the Warcraft equivalent of hell, of course she would accept every deal offered by anyone to get out of there. That way her actions would of course still be evil, but at least there would be a valid reason. But I can't really see that happening. Blizzard has spent far too much effort on making her the strong character who always is in charge and is seeing stuff that other's don't. So as much as I despise the thought, I am sure Blizzard will spin it in a way that (in their twisted minds) make it seem as if she was right all along and we were small minded fools for not trusting her. And I must say I already hate this moment with a passion.

The only complete redemption I could see for her would be the very, very cheap plot twist of "her" having been an imposter the whole time. Like, she never made it out of The Maw after her suicide and whatever came back in her stead was just a puppet/avatar of the Jailor. I am pretty sure that would contradict some of the passages in the books though, since, as someone mentioned here, we were able to see inside her head in those.

[Monlyth 75]

2 hours ago, Ogerscherge said:

That could indeed be one way to make me, at the very least, abhor her a tad bit less. After all, she has been to the Warcraft equivalent of hell, of course she would accept every deal offered by anyone to get out of there. That way her actions would of course still be evil, but at least there would be a valid reason. But I can't really see that happening. Blizzard has spent far too much effort on making her the strong character who always is in charge and is seeing stuff that other's don't. So as much as I despise the thought, I am sure Blizzard will spin it in a way that (in their twisted minds) make it seem as if she was right all along and we were small minded fools for not trusting her. And I must say I already hate this moment with a passion.

The only complete redemption I could see for her would be the very, very cheap plot twist of "her" having been an imposter the whole time. Like, she never made it out of The Maw after her suicide and whatever came back in her stead was just a puppet/avatar of the Jailor. I am pretty sure that would contradict some of the passages in the books though, since, as someone mentioned here, we were able to see inside her head in those.

I think at this point, it's simply not possible to write a full redemption arc for Sylvanas that would feel satisfying to the audience. She starts wars, razes cities, murders innocents, and betrayed everyone around her, including her own people and the Horde. Not even Garrosh went that far. She could turn her life around and try to repent, but no amount of penance would fully make up for all her cruel deeds. 

What I think would make her an interesting and somewhat sympathetic villain would be to make it clear that she made all these bargains with dark masters like the Jailer, purely for the sake of self-preservation. She's experienced what's waiting for her after death, and all of her actions are motivated by her desire to escape her mortality forever. If we have a moment, somewhere along the story, that shows just how utterly terrified of death Sylvanas truly is, it would make her an interesting character imo. She doesn't need a redemption arc or to make her actions seem justified; you just need to show the audience the reasoning behind Sylvanas' actions.

[Starseed 113]

7 hours ago, Monlyth said:

Not even Garrosh went that far.

exept for when he got all germany 1945 and startet to decide who is worthy to be horde ?

 

i am a forsaken with my heart and soul and to be honest i was kinda shockt after she said we dont matter but after that you can speak with her if you sidet with her and i realy think she is not the demonic person all the player think

[Ogerscherge 43]

35 minutes ago, N3ilo said:

exept for when he got all germany 1945 and startet to decide who is worthy to be horde ?

 

i am a forsaken with my heart and soul and to be honest i was kinda shockt after she said we dont matter but after that you can speak with her if you sidet with her and i realy think she is not the demonic person all the player think

Then you are quite frankly an enormous part of the problem. If her murder of the innocent didn't shock you, but her, in a moment of rage, making the statement that you don't matter did, then your priorities are mighty twisted. The point is, it doesn't matter what she said, it matters what she did and for what she did there can never be absolution.

You ARE evil if you murder innocent people. There are no two sides on that matter. Players think she's evil because of her evil actions. If you think that murdering children isn't enough to be considered evil, that makes you... well, do the math.

[Starseed 113]

8 minutes ago, Ogerscherge said:

Then you are quite frankly an enormous part of the problem. If her murder of the innocent didn't shock you, but her, in a moment of rage, making the statement that you don't matter did, then your priorities are mighty twisted. The point is, it doesn't matter what she said, it matters what she did and for what she did there can never be absolution.

You ARE evil if you murder innocent people. There are no two sides on that matter. Players think she's evil because of her evil actions. If you think that murdering children isn't enough to be considered evil, that makes you... well, do the math.

for f sake you are evil if you kill innocent people? normaly i would say you are 100% right but how do you all miss the fakt that this is a game with the word war in its freaking titel the hord is in war with the allince and in a war killings happen even killings of innocent cause if you even try to see it from a forsaken perspektiv you see a world full of people who hate you for simply existing no one has ask to be raised but exept the people of the horde every living being wants you dead even if you never hurt a fly the dont care so i think kill people that hate you for existing and being in a war justifys atack a major city of the enemy

[Ogerscherge 43]

1 hour ago, N3ilo said:

for f sake you are evil if you kill innocent people? normaly i would say you are 100% right but how do you all miss the fakt that this is a game with the word war in its freaking titel the hord is in war with the allince and in a war killings happen even killings of innocent cause if you even try to see it from a forsaken perspektiv you see a world full of people who hate you for simply existing no one has ask to be raised but exept the people of the horde every living being wants you dead even if you never hurt a fly the dont care so i think kill people that hate you for existing and being in a war justifys atack a major city of the enemy

That's my entire point. Your moral compass is broken if it is context-dependent. And whilst I'm not surprised to see you justifying war crimes as well, I don't think I need to tell you what I think about them. They're crimes. It's in the word.

People treating you badly, doesn't give you any justification for killing some random women and children who are explicitly not combatants.

[Starseed 113]

45 minutes ago, Ogerscherge said:

That's my entire point. Your moral compass is broken if it is context-dependent. And whilst I'm not surprised to see you justifying war crimes as well, I don't think I need to tell you what I think about them. They're crimes. It's in the word.

People treating you badly, doesn't give you any justification for killing some random women and children who are explicitly not combatants.

If its not context  dependent how can you justify war and killing in any game I can guarantee you if this would be a real cenario I would hate her just as much as every one of you but is an rpg and ich justify it from the point of view of my Charakter not from a real life point of view cause that would just be dumb

[Teufel 331]

Can we just burn the b*tch, since she's undeserving of "redemption"?

I swear lately media is plagued with characters that commit genocides for their own twisted vision of saving/libearting their world/people, and each bloody time the author expects you to sympathize and forget millions - sometimes factually innocent - lives lost just because another edgy freedom fighter decided they have the right to remake the world.

Just let her die and rot in that endless darkness she's so afraid of.

Edited November 22, 2020 by Teufel

[Ogerscherge 43]

15 minutes ago, N3ilo said:

If its not context  dependent how can you justify war and killing in any game I can guarantee you if this would be a real cenario I would hate her just as much as every one of you but is an rpg and ich justify it from the point of view of my Charakter not from a real life point of view cause that would just be dumb

First off, people who are smarter than you and me came up with the word murder for that exact reason. Murder is a killing that is by definition morally unjustifiable. A soldier shooting another soldier in a fire fight is NOT the same as burning an inncocent child alive to make a point.

The reason these different words exist is so that people like you don't even have a square inch to stand on, when trying to defend murder. You can find a justification for killing someone, depending on the context, but when the act committed is classified as murder, all reasonable justifications have already been ruled out.

And this is a forum about the game, not the game itself, so if you want to roleplay as a ruthless Forsaken, which is fine, this is the wrong place for it. This is where real people utter real thoughts about the game.

By your logic nothing that ever happens in any work of fiction is something people can talk about seriously, unless you want to make the adventurous claim that when talking about fictional characters, it is only valid to have positive feelings about them and you're never allowed to view and judge them from a moral point of view.

 

[Ogerscherge 43]

6 minutes ago, Teufel said:

Can we just burn the b*tch, since she's undeserving of "redemption"?

I swear lately media is plagued with characters that commit genocides for their own twisted vision of saving/libearting their world/people, and each bloody time the author expects you to sympathize and forget millions - sometimes factually innocent - lives lost just because another edgy freedom fighter decided they have the right to remake the world.

Just let her die and rot in that endless darkness she's so afraid of.

Yeah, I miss "ye olde" stories like LotR, where you just have good heroes fighting a great evil villain. Thanos, for example, certainly was a fantastic villain as well, as where the movies in general, but man, did all those "he somehow has a point" people bother me. ?

But sadly the majority of people really seems to be over stories like LotR. Stories these days are far more about pure entertainment value than about delivering a message, let alone a moral one.

I know that real life is a "morally gray" place to most, but I really prefer my fables and epics at least to be more black and white. The portrayal of a hero in a tale should be something that people strive towards, it should be someone they want to be like someday, a constant, unreachable goal, not someone they already are: a regular person with their strengths and weaknesses. Making peace with the status quo leads to complacency and thwarts you from bettering yourself.

That's my two cents at least.

 

[Arcling 898]

12 hours ago, Monlyth said:

What I think would make her an interesting and somewhat sympathetic villain would be to make it clear that she made all these bargains with dark masters like the Jailer, purely for the sake of self-preservation. She's experienced what's waiting for her after death, and all of her actions are motivated by her desire to escape her mortality forever.

It's hard being sympathetic for her, when she sacrificed so many souls just for survival. Unless they pull up some mind control stuff, but then she would have to be influenced by it for many years for it to make sense. Which again brings us to Kerrigan-like story. Doesn't help the fact that both universes have some sort of void dimension.

Edited November 22, 2020 by Arcling