So, the timing of 9.2 was a bit tough for me in terms of game enthusiasm, because, as this blog can show, I've fallen deep into Elden Ring, and honestly, I just haven't been playing World of Warcraft.
This is going to have spoilers for stuff in 9.2, including the finale to the raid, so be aware.
The Jailer has, I think, fallen flat as a villain. I say this as someone who thinks that the "Death" elements in Warcraft have historically been its strongest look, with the Scourge and Arthas being the best villains, the Forsaken probably having the most interesting story as a playable race, and just generally feeling that the slightly cartoony feel of WoW's visual style really works well when it goes into the darker, macabre, spooky mode.
But a crazy theory posted by WoWHead suggests that maybe we've been getting the story wrong all throughout Shadowlands.
The post is pretty long, but I'll link it here and kind of summarize it and add my own takes in this post.
Ok, so:
The basic gist of the theory is that Domination magic is the whole crux of the Jailer's power. The Helm of Domination was what he had the captured Primus craft in order to create the Lich King. Now that we know that the Nathrezim have been working for Sire Denathrius all along, who was himself working for the Jailer, it stands to reason that they got the Helm out to the Nathrezim, who then took it to Kil'jaeden (who believed the Nathrezim were loyal to the Legion) and told him how to lock Ner'zhul's soul inside to create the original Lich King.
Just as the Scourge's ultimate goal was to transform all life on Azeroth into undead whose wills were bound to that of the Lich King, the Jailer wants to basically do the same to the entire cosmos, with himself as the dominating power.
But there's one thing that's kind of funny: Zovaal did not invent Domination magic. The Primus did.
Indeed, when the other Eternal Ones banished Zovaal to the Maw, the Primus carved domination runes onto his body as part of his imprisonment: runes that still mark him after he's defeated and transformed back into a robotic-looking construct.
We saw with Anduin that Domination magic is extremely powerful - it took a full-on raid fight for us to break him out of it, and probably a lot of inner will (and maybe even the souls of Varian and Saurfang? Unless that was more of a metaphor for Anduin's inner strength personified by two honorable men who were role models).
So... why couldn't the Primus just yank on Zovaal's leash when he started all of this?
The theory is that he wouldn't want to: because the Primus has been the big bad all along.
Now, this theory is way out there, but I think it's important to take visual clues seriously - WoW's cinematic team is really good at subtly hinting at future developments. In the Battle of Lordaeron cutscenes, a lot of people noted that Anduin was shot very similarly to how Arthas was in the Warcraft III cinematics when he returns from Northrend as a Death Knight. There was always a parallel being drawn between Anduin and Arthas, and that paid off when Anduin was forcibly made into a Death Knight-like runeblade-wielder to serve the Jailer. Subtle hints that lead to really concrete plot developments.
When we see flashbacks to Zovaal's original imprisonment (which was insanely long ago, when you consider this pre-dates the foundation of the Burning Legion) we get shots of the Archon, the Winter Queen, and Sire Denathrius, but the Primus only appears as a shadow looming over Zovaal.
Again, it's subtle, and could mean many things, but it's clearly a deliberate choice.
But given that Zovaal's covered with domination runes, wouldn't it then make perfect sense that he's been being dominated all along?
Consider also that The Primus is known to be a master strategist - he is, of course, the leader of the kind of military branch of the Shadowlands. The WoWHead article makes mention of quotes from Grimoire of the Shadowlands that suggest The Primus was a master of attaining victory at any cost, even seeming to lose only to wind up in a better position than before (I'll note that this is also an attribute we heard N'zoth had).
The Primus sure seems to be in a bad spot when we find him as the Runecarver. We find out that he was the one who crafted the Helm of Domination and Frostmourne (and apparently other "mourneblades"). But he might have arranged for himself to be put there in the first place. He's not above appearing weak to serve his longterm strategies.
I won't go much more into the evidence in favor of this theory - the WoWHead post does a pretty good job, and honestly, I'm convinced enough to think this has a strong possibility of being a longterm story plan for the future of WoW.
I think the question is whether, if this theory is correct, it's a good thing for the game.
I wrote in a recent post (I think earlier today/yesterday because it's after midnight) about WoW's need to give its villains time to grow and develop, and for us to feel like we have a connection to them before we fight them. One of the problems with the Jailer is that he came onto the scene as basically "Just as powerful as Sargeras" only for us to beat him in an expansion with two patches. It didn't seem long enough a time to really establish a figure so monumental in the lore.
If the Primus has actually been the bad guy in Shadowlands all along, but that we won't get official confirmation of that until long down the road, it would likely make his eventual "heel reveal" hit a lot harder. If, eight or twelve years from now (not going to think about how old I'm going to be at that point) our characters discover the Primus' duplicity, and he winds up playing the final boss of his own expansion, it'd likely land more satisfyingly given that, well, we'd have the whole Shadowlands aspect of the cosmos established for eight or twelve years.
On the other hand, it would reframe the Shadowlands expansion as more of an exploration of a new plane of existence than a fight against an ultimate threat to existence. Perhaps that's actually what this should have been all along.
The way they used N'zoth in Battle for Azeroth was definitely flawed. That expansion really wanted to be two different things, and it wound up shortchanging the Old Gods/Cosmic Horror side, even if that technically carried the back half of the expansion.
But I think the way that they introduced and later paid off N'zoth was really cool.
See, back in Cataclysm, we had faced two Old Gods - C'thun in vanilla and Yogg-Saron in Wrath. C'thun I actually think succeeded at being more effectively creepy and played with some really classic Lovecraftian imagery (I really love the calm, creepy voice C'thun is given) but Yogg-Saron was better-integrated into the overall lore and mythos of Warcraft.
With Cataclysm, the fact that Deathwing was driven mad by the Old Gods was a pretty big part of it, and when he assaults Wyrmrest Temple in the Dragon Soul raid, we have a lot of Old God minions who are aiding in the attack (much later we'd be given a name for the General Vezax-like creatures: C'thraaxi). And in that raid, and the newly-introduced Dungeon Journal, we saw descriptions of two of those bosses making references to an as-yet unseen Old God: N'zoth.
Then, we went through Mists (which introduced, posthumously, Y'Shaarj - yes, we got a new Old God three expansions in a row,) Warlords, and Legion, before, in BFA, N'zoth wound up finally coming around as the final boss of the expansion.
Four whole expansions, eight years, after he was first mentioned, we finally got to face down and fight N'zoth. Was it worth the wait? Honestly, I don't know because I never finished that raid (my patience for LFR has really waned over the years, and my guild hasn't been super active since Legion). But the notion that N'zoth was finally coming out was exciting.
So, I have mixed feelings about this Primus theory. On one hand, I think it would really cheapen this expansion, turning it into a mere prologue to a story that won't be resolved for a long time (at a time when I'm arguing for more self-contained expansions) but on the other hand, it could be setting up an epic confrontation with an established villain down the road.
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