I love the Warcraft universe, even if I've been forced to confront a lot of seriously conflicted feelings about the company that brought it to the world.
The premise of Shadowlands - journeying outside of the mundane reality of the Warcraft cosmos and entering what I've termed the Outer Planes of Warcraft - is super-exciting and cool. And I've loved a lot of it. The four main afterlives we've visited have been really interesting both in how their culture developed around their purpose and just how they look. The Maw presented itself as the genuine worst place we'd ever been in WoW, and I think they did a good job of making it feel oppressive and hellish (that isn't a snarky criticism of the experience playing there - I genuinely enjoyed the Maw in 9.0, but I'm also the kind of masochist who enjoy Dark Souls, so take it with that grain of salt).
But I think we can all agree that as a big bad, the Jailer is pretty dull. I remember having misgivings when we first saw his model - here was the embodiment of malevolence, death, and darkness, and he was... a buff dude. His first line, as pointed out in a video by Taliesin and Evitel, begins with "Pitiful Mortal." I mean, that's pretty hackneyed. There are a lot of issues with him as a villain - the way that he feels like a retcon, transforming practically the entire mythos of Warcraft into his magnificently complex plan (yes, it's more nuanced than that, but a lot of people interpreted it that way) in a way that feels like it robs established big bads like Sargeras and N'zoth of their due coolness.
Actually, let's talk N'zoth specifically, because I think he was done dirty, and I also think he's an example of part of the problem with WoW villains.
N'zoth was built up to be amazing. We first heard about him in Cataclysm - this other Old God, the only one we didn't immediately kill once we had discovered his existence. More excitingly, N'zoth was built up as being the brilliant manipulator. He was the "weakest" of the Old Gods, which I took to mean he had the fewest forces at his command and was the least magically, psionically powerful of them. But we kept hearing stories about how N'zoth had managed to feint and scheme in a way that every defeat he suffered ultimately turned to his favor.
N'zoth seemed to be the ultimate puppet-master, and I was convinced that he had orchestrated basically everything that led to the Legion invasion in Legion. And it was in character for him to have done so. I mean, we know that Yogg-Saron actually created the Emerald Nightmare, but somehow it wound up being N'zoth's asset. And, let's also not forget that he was the last of the Old Gods to actually be defeated - after manipulating Azshara and us into freeing him.
Our first introduction to N'zoth was in the Azshara: Warbringers short (man, hers and the Jaina one were fantastic). As the waves crash down upon Zin-Azshari, Azshara is desperately using her magic to try to hold them back, and then we get this one flapping, dying fish. And a voice comes to her, this alien intelligence speaking to her through the dying fish's eye.
And Darrin de Paul freaking knocks this out of the park. The playful tone he strikes suggests he recognizes Azshara is smart enough to recognize he's a threat, but he knows she's in too tight a space to truly be able to say no. When she tries to call his bluff, he erupts into rage with a deep, bellowing monster voice. At the time I was convinced that this rage was itself a ploy - a way to make Azshara feel like she had actually frustrated and outmaneuvered him.
Now, I'm not so sure. Because there's a kind of ethos that runs through Warcraft that I think undermines the variety of its villains:
There's a focus on hyper-masculinity
No villain in Warcraft has had as cool of a deep baritone as Michael McConnohie's digitally-altered Lich King voice. (No offense intended toward Liam O'Brien's Illidan). But they've been chasing that sound and tone ever since. Deathwing, Archimonde, and then rage-mode N'zoth.
In fact, talking about Old Gods, when you compare Yogg-Saron's rather generic deep-voice yelling with C'thun's super-creepy whispers, can't we all agree that the latter is a far better voice for a totally inhuman alien entity born of unmitigated malevolence?
I think there's a pattern in character design in the Warcraft games that really idealizes a hyper-masculine look - humans are already profoundly beefy, but then you get orcs, who are sort of the flagship race of the franchise, who are even more hyper-masculinized. There's almost a sense that only big, muscle-bound dudes are allowed to represent a major threat in the Warcraft cosmos.
And thus, we come back to Zovaal. When we got the first reveal trailer for the game, I think the general design now used for the Primus was initially intended for the Jailer. And if you're going to have someone represent not just death, but the terrifying, oppressive aspects of it, you'd think that they'd go for something a little more, say, Grim Reaper-esque, even if that's a bit of a cliche.
Wouldn't Zovaal be a way more compelling villain if he was an emaciated, skeletal figure that spoke from a position of intelligence rather than raw strength? I don't think we need some musclebound gym-rat as the banished, dark lord of death.
For one thing, we've had plenty of musclebound gym-rat villains before.
Indeed, I think this issues actually goes back to Cataclysm. Back when people were datamining that expansion, there was a lot of excitement when the model for human-form Deathwing was found. Of course, dragons in Warcraft (and lot of other fantasy stories) can take on humanoid form, and Deathwing's character history included his time impersonating a human noble named Daval Prestor, undermining the Alliance in the midst of the Second War. Instead, during Cataclysm, we never actually got to see that side of Deathwing - he was always in flying-natural-disaster mode, his cunning and scheming ignored in favor of a purely physical threat. And that was a huge let-down for a character who had been hyped up for a long time.
Basically, I think Blizzard needs to think about trying different kinds of villains. Yes, ultimately, we want to fight them all as a raid boss at the end of the expansion. But they don't have to all adhere to this consistent physical form and presentation to feel dangerous.
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