Nobbel, wouldn't dominance magic be way more interesting if it were connected to the undead in general, like every single soul that is an undead be bound by it. Silvannas being an undead and being used by the jailer to do his bidind and whatnot. We could have had a raid having major undead characthers and Silvannas as the fial boss as we discovered a method to release the undead from dominance magic. It maybe strange, but, give it a thought.
Maybe this is revenge for leaking the jailer model? Maybe N'zoth actually won? Maybe Blizzard is going under and they are trying to make the game so unappealing that the fans won't even miss it when it's gone?
I miss the good old days of orc clans and ogres. I miss the days of the twilight hammer and cho gall. I miss when dragons were a threat, and the elemental lords werent a joke. I miss dwarves digging up things the shouldn't in the southern barrens... I miss when questing and the lvling experience meant something.
Yea, I miss lower fantasy so much, Defias brotherhood had a couple of guys with knives and a big boat with guns, and they were a serious threat, right now, a single mage can summon a flying city-sized armed boat and wreck everything while players fight Titan-like characters without any external help
With all this Universe Enemis, and Spaceships etc it’s more like a weird SiFi but we still fight with sword and Shild, meanwhile the Dreiei fly Around in a spaceship and can shoot a Space whatever cannon, so Why we had to fight Arthas and deathwing? Oh the Gun was Broken at this Moment 🙄 Cant Wait for the Expansion That Turns wow into Cyberpunk or more SiFi but we still use sword and shild and no guns 🤣😂
@@mikhi7866 I can't help but be reminded of the escalation problem that shonen series can run into. There're only so much you can increase the power of the villains and protagonists before it gets absurd.
They were already fighting. The cosmos was spawned from the Void and the Light fighting, Zovaal was just manipulating a conflict that was already in motion.
@@nevermore7285 - That's not the impression one gets from that Nathrezim long-term agenda book, "Enemy Infiltration - Preface". Seems very much like deliberate escalation and chaos, supposedly for Death to eventually conquer and unite the ashes. And then the ashes will even more supposedly stand against the Even Bigger Big Bad.
@@nevermore7285 that was retconned. the cosmos was now made by the first ones who predate void and light and those 2 are minor cosmic forces now as life and death are the top cosmic powers for SL onward.
Blizzard: we need to make sure we respect the legacy of Arthas. Also Blizzard: Arthas is nothing but a wisp that fades into nothing. Just forget about him forever.
@@markup6394 I'd argue they did. They brought the character back into the lore with the introduction of the Jailer. To me, it seems they were afraid to do what they initially wanted to do, so tried to pull a garosh. However, it failed.
@@Mediados yeah I can’t help but think that blizzard is just trying to act like shadowlands didn’t happen. Like, for so much hinting at a threat behind the Jailer’s actions, the Dragonflight trailer was way too “feel good excitement” for them to even remotely follow the hinting. Also I find it funny that after this flops they decide “Hey let’s make sure WOTLK classic comes out this year. Remind them of Arthas so they forget this bullshit” I’d honestly be more happy if they just said “it was all a dream” or some cop out so that lore wise everything after Legion doesn’t actually matter
@@SaundersYT I wouldn't mind if they used this simple explanation, but maybe don't erase all of BfA. Zandalar and Kul Tiras can stay as they are, but everything after Tides of Vengeance is shit.
I've never understood why Sylvanas would EVER work with Zovaal to start with? If she despised Arthas so much and Zovaal was the one who created the Lich King, then why would she ever consider being a part of Zovaal's plan?
If I made any sense of the mess that was shadowlands I think its implied that like arthas she didnt have a choice once she got stabbed with frostmourne. I think it's implied that sylvanas' true character is the one we see after the jailer returns the other part of her soul to her which, yes is fucking retarded
The way I look at it is that whether you hate the Devil or not, wouldn't you make a deal to get out of Hell and stop your endless suffering? Because her other option was to just sit in the Maw for all eternity.
Because Arthas made her a pawn, only to realize that he had been a pawn of Ner'zhul, who was a pawn of Kil'jaeden. It was the Nathrezim, working for Zovaal that essentially hijacked the Legion's plans, and that meant that she would be free from their control. Zovaal showed Sylvanas what gate awaits her in the Maw, and offered her a chance to work for him so that she wouldn't be tortured for eternity, while simultaneously promising to break the cycle of eternal suffering that the machine of death perpetuates. If you don't understand Sylvanas' motivations for willingly joining Zovaal, you simply haven't been paying attention. She joined him because: a. She had no choice, and b. He was going to change reality. Once she realized that he had completely lost his mind in Sanctum, she turned on him. She's lucky Zovaal gave her her soul fragment back, making her whole again. That was clearly the majority of her motivation for working with him. He could've easily altered the deal once he got what he wanted. To him, it was of no consequences because he assumed he'd succeed. This is all pretty well described through all the cutscenes. You must not have watched them.
Have to destroy the old to make something knew. He needed to unmake the current reality in order to make a new one, one that wasn’t torn between the Light and the Void and everything spawned in their war.
@@Flacopro40 They were already divided. The Warcraft cosmos was born from Light and Void fighting. It was conflict from day one. All Zovaal did was manipulate it to his own ends with the plan of ending. Considering he was responsible for the Legion through Sargareas, the fact he and Sargareas share a basic plan and goal, isn’t really surprising.
So a soul split Sylvanas gets redemption, but Arthas, who was corrupted by a sword and helm infused with Zovaal’s domination magic doesn’t? Not only that, but his soul is utterly destroyed to nothingness? That is so unbelievably cruel to the character. Arthas made a mistake in chasing Mal’Ganis to Northrend, he should have stayed home and helped his people. He also shouldn’t have picked up Frostmourne. But you understood why he did it in his desperation and being caught up in his vengeance. But he shouldn’t be damned for eternity for those two mistakes. And for Sylvanas and the others to talk about him like he was a total monster is insane, especially with Anduin right there, seconds after being freed from the same power Arthas fell to. Uther should have said “I’m sorry.” For damning his pupil’s soul to annihilation, not even given a chance to atone for his sins in the afterlife. Sylvanas should have forgiven Arthas long ago since she was serving Zovaal, the guy who created the Lich King in the first place, for years.
You assume the WoW writers care. I bet they see Arthas as the neck beard era of WoW's highest moments which they'll never recreate. They now have a antiquated sinking ship and seem to be trying to make it crash and burn.
@@MorganRhysGibbons bad take/wrong take, arthas is legit a tragic character hero. A man that try to save his homeland no matter what. You should go play Warcraft 3 again to understand the plot better.
@@VoldoronGaming Dude she's literally with everyone now and can walk free and do whatever she wants.. She also got her soul back, what else do you want?
Arthas was a spoiled brat. He wanted to get into Jainia's pants, and after he did, dumped her when she mentioned the M word and the C word. Typical little boy. And he was already on the path to damnation when he nuked the people he was supposed to be saving.
It honestly kinda breaks my heart to see Nobbel, who I have watched for years and listened to countless hours upon hours of videos, being just so.. done with this. But I feel that. Its a game I loved for so long going down the absolute SHITTER is really sad and upsetting. Thank you for all of your lore videos and work that you have done, Nobbel
"may the last whisper of your name fade and be forgotten" is heartbreaking if you read a meta level into it. It sounds like blizz writers going "people, forget about the guy who got one of the best games ever to setup and had one of the generally regarded as among best wow expansions to his name. We cant pull him off so stop reminding us about it" It makes me sad and also honestly angry.
Absolute disrespect to the fans and to the character Arthas Menethil Why is SHE getting so much say? All she said was that she hated him and wafted him away like a fly Why didn't Jaina, the love of his life, and Uther, his cherished mentor, get any farewell and get to say they forgave him after all was done. Why wasn't there some sort of line to Anduin saying something like "You remind me of myself when I was younger" Why was Arthas just a blob of light and not a spirit of himself (oooooh but you see he was tortured) bad excuse for the most iconic character in warcraft This was a public execution by the new blizzard staff saying "that's right, this is ours now, what are you going to do about it?" Instead, they want to circlejerk Sylvanas as muh strong wymin
This..... This so so fucking much. Im not a huge lore guy but the way they handled Arthas and the story as whole lately has effectively made me loose all interested into coming back to retail wow. I might sub for WOTLK classic because the game / story was actually so good then. Beyond that, fuck the writers for this man. Really makes me upset. They played Arthas themes walking into Blizzcon in 2019! Arthas is so big to Blizzards success and fans nostalgia. This is what we get!! Grrr,,,, so mad lol.
thats what happens when you forget that a company is a company and that you dont own shit, they own, lol, kinda funny to me how disappointed people are even tho wow has changed fundamentally LOOOOOONG ago, you have to be blind to get disappointed by blizzard this days Yeab it does.sound super sad tho to be in ur position
@@MorganRhysGibbons He purged Stratholme because he knew what was to come with the undead, kill a few that was soon to become undead to save a ton, but also to give them mercy from undeath (which is null because they could just raise the dead). A new threat that no one knew how to fight properly yet. He wanted to protect his people from a certain imminent fate, at all costs, as the future king of his people. He felt an obligation to do so. He was also young and as it comes with being young, you act before you think. He could never foresee what would happen with the blade and the consequences of his actions. You could argue that the influnce had already deranged his mind a little. He did not "hate" Uther, but he felt betrayed when he wasn't as eager to help him. When he killed Uther, it wasn't out of his own volition, his soul was probably crying out when it happened, but could not control it.
@@MorganRhysGibbons I mean... there's the entire Jaina's locket cutscene thing, kinda makes you feel there was a bit more than just irrelevant highschool relationship, and iirc he didn't really resent Uther before he walked away from him during the hardest decision in his life, but I'd say the main complaint is that cinematic was supposed to be "Last farewell to Arthas" but it is not even about Arthas, Sylvanas didn't even need him to have that monologue. It could have been anything else, like Arthas actually saying something, or people who did care about him, saying something to him, instead of just being a stepping stone for Sylvanas' character development, Garrosh was a villain as well but he got a much better send-off
For me Lore ended, at Legion .. After Sargeras stabbing Azeroth, we "heal" it by sacrificing our legendary weapons. From that point legend ends and History begins..
@Christina Azarian Both of them existed before legion came out. Bwonsamdi in wotlk, and wrathion in cata. Although wrathion was an asshole in cata & mop and i hated him. Bwonsamdi was still a badass back then though.
@@bdenneysr85 It's a mmo-rpg, emphasis on the game part. If the book is what makes a difference then Danuser and anyone else responsible for this needs to be fired.
@@ProjectAyumiie he's the fucking lead writer. This falls squarely at his fight. Don't try and scapegoat for him when he's had 3 years to write something decent.
What amuses me is that there are still people defending the current state of lore. They call Nobbel and other content creators whinners and point out things like the Anduin cinematic had subtle points, the spirit of Varian and Saurfang were people who had split the sword before, or may be it is logash etc. and these content creators are not talking about things like this. Mate you are missing the elephant in the room, you cannot expect people to appreciate the subtle things if the overall plot is shit. It is like saying that the food gave you food poisoning but at least it was organic.
I don't think any one is defending the lore, but I do think there are a lot of people sick of youtubers and people in comments section endlessly complaining. Stop playing the game and move on. It is very boring to listen to. And no your incessant whining isn't going to improve the game, all it does is annoy people who still enjoy it for whatever reason.
@@thelawenforcerhd9654 So whenver there's a problem or a flaw people should just remain silent and move on? With that mindset NFTs would be all over every video game. No people complain in hopes to improve the product.
@@Thesamurai1999 You are under the impression your incessant whining is somehow useful or achieves things. It doesn't. No one important watches yt videos much less reads your dumb comment.
@@thelawenforcerhd9654 That's completely false. CEO's are very aware when gamers group up agaisnt something such as NFT. It's litteraly the reason why Ubisoft, EA and many other companies have backtraced on NFTs. So, yes they do care. Or how about when Microsoft tried to limit what you are allowed to say in Minecraft, like a 1984 novel. The entire communtiy whined about it, forcing Microsoft to take it away. But if everyone were like you, just silent. Then you wouldn't even be allowed to swear in Minecraft, you'd have games filled with NFTs and far more lootboxes and microtransactions than we've ever seen.
@@Thesamurai1999 *Sigh*. Once again. No one cares about or reads your youtube comments. This is obvious. Do you think the board of directors on these companies care about what you think? The naivete....
With all the focus on Sylvanas this expansion I at least expected by the end to know what her actual motivations were for working with the jailer. Like at first I thought it had something to do with changing the way the shadowlands worked, but was that a lie he told her or was she entirely on board with the whole remaking reality thing? Does she know what the bigger bad is, did the jailer tell her? Who the hell knows? Does Blizzard even know?
The Bigger bad is the Void Lords and maybe their Light counterparts but at the very least the Void Lords. That’s been the case for a long time. As for Sylvanas, she was corrupted. How much free will she had is as much as question of how much sanity she had until she got her full soul back.
How they handled Arthas was absolutely amazing! Drawing these parallels to how he (Blizzard) used to be beloved by many people, vanishing into nothingness to be forgotten, because there is nothing left to salvage. Absolute genius writing. Only the most accomplished writers could create such intriguing storytelling on multiple dimensions!
I honestly thought when SL was announced, we'd see Uther meeting Arthas, and Uther realizing that he was the one who failed Arthas or smthing like that and also Thrall and Garrosh, Thrall being depressed ever since he killed him but Garrosh being like "stop being a pussy, u were stronger than i was and thats that. Go lead the horde with that power" or something along tbose lines. But nothing. They couldve done anything with the story they wanted but instead they decided to do nothing at all.
@@vincent207 Tell me about it. Shadowlands was ripe with potential and so many interesting interactions could have been had here in the literal afterlife. Anduin meeting Varian and possibly his mother for the first time in years, Thrall not just with Draka, but Durotan, even Grom Hellscream possibly talking smack to Garrosh how he ended up a failure or smth along those lines, Jaina with her own father Daelin, Cairne suddenly attacking the Jailbait to help his son. I mean fucking Cairne and Thrall interaction man, those two dudes were big bros back in the day much like Thrall and Grom Hellscream. But nah, let Danuser's necrophilistic tendencies, aka his simping for Sylvanas reign in over what Shadowlands could have been to what it is now, a glorified and contrived redemption arc for Sylvanas :P
I think most of those are great ideas they really should have had, but the Garrosh finale was pretty badass to be fair. One of the only good parts of the Shadowlands story.
@@philip0544 True, but that still doesnt excuse at how much they ruined him after Cata, and arguably during wotlk. And Blizz can go fuck themselves with the whole "oh, he's the best warchief ever in other timelines, but it just so happens that you have an asshole version of him in this one."
Nobbel, you have put so much love and commitment into this lore and game! I just wanna say, even with the story going to shit, I want to thank you for your wonderful detailed lore videos and give you a virtual hug. It sucks seeing you so frustrated over this, as many of us are.
I'm so glad you mentioned the dark ranger loyalist twitter crowd, those people scare me. They get rowdy about Sylvanas but genuinely don't care about what happens, they just want Sylvanas moments. It's exhausting
This has really turned into the World of Sylvanas with the Jailer being nothing more than an ad for the next expansion. Sylvanas has literally been thrusted into being a good guy position with only a whimper of protest, all the while the nostalgia has been used and thrown away to keep giving people hope that MAYBE it will pay off. They couldn't even bother making the boss of the expansion have depth beyond the surface of a puddle. This is the reverse of Final Fantasy 14, they don't care about the characters or the players but rather how long they can keep you waiting with your subscription. The legacy of World of Warcraft is at an end at this rate. If the game developers don't care about their game, then how can players care?
They were so embittered by their inability to recreate what made Arthas such an interesting character that they felt the need send him off in the most heavy handed way possible. It must be weird to write stories for a game you hate.
Funny, I was thinking the same thing. Take a character that in many ways represented the time when so many players LOVED the game, and make him insignificant, make him be forgotten. It's like they messed up the story and they now want you to forget the time when you were truly into the game.
@@GoddessPallasAthena that literally makes 0 sense. Everything always has to be some sort of existential crisis regarding the game and how much the devs hate it and not just bad and simple writing which is clearly all it is lol
After decades of consumtion by Frostmourne, Maw, etc..... We have seen Anduin get "absorbed" to anihilation by his sword... And Arthas Daddy(s) were not there to safe his ass. In WOTLK Uther told us: "Arthas is only a small wisper in the lichkings head. There is nothing left to safe"...
I heard somewhere that he supposedly said that he thinks that season 8 of GoT was good and that they want to make something similar. I'm not sure if it is true or not, but it would make sense?
Honestly, as soon as Sylvanas started talking they should have showed Janina directly beside her and just reached out her hand and blasted her face with a fireball.
The Jailer was trying to stop the Super Jailer, which is just Deathwing from an alternate timeline. And that deathwing is Just the mount of an alternate Arthas Lichking, but who is secretly a good Guy to Stop the blazzing legion which the real demon Legion who are the real enemy that Sargeras was really afraid of.
He is already on record saying it's not. All expansion long. He still can point out the good things, the small things that are well executed even if the big stuff had been bad.
The bigger problem with that is, what comes after Bob then? And after that? 😂 in 1-2 Expansions we fight „god“ himself and then there like „but he was mind controlled by the god of the gods“ 🙄🤣
@@warllockmasterasd9142 they started the whole „bigger after bigger enemy“ way too soon. But they can’t do a Expansion story like „this expansion we only fight uhh some bad guy under water and that’s it“ they have to be a cosmos big treat now or even more. So yeah you are right. The Write themselves into a corner
To me WoW stopped after Legion, maybe some years pass for the races to clash and unite over Azerite but eventually balance out. Sargeras has always been the biggest threat in Warcraft and my headcanon will never change. Also, Vulpera didn't happen.
Activision fired and pushed out all the WoW original team, and this is the best story continuation the new team can come up with. Bravo! What a shitshow!
My take on the Forsaken being cut off from Sylvanas is simple - considering what they have always introduced regarding the Forsaken, they WANTED to make Sylvanas the villain and the Forsaken feeling betrayed. Thing is, most of the player base - including me - just went 'nope' at their attempts (Calia not working for us as a new leader, we're not feeling lost and betrayed by Sylvanas, we don't help the others to prove that we are actually good and just our leader was bad etc.) and one by one, we let them know that it is not acceptable for the Forsaken players to do stuff like that to us. So they just decided to completely ignore us and ignore Sylvanas' ties to the Forsaken as their leader. I mean, nothing quite literally works in this expansion - especially lore-wise, so why even try to explain that. The only GOOD thing coming out of Shadowlands was Denathrius and his voice actor.
@@storms287 Oh, please. Jaina killed her own father in an attempt to work together with a faction of unrepentant evil, and is STILL trying to work with them even after they have proven they are capable of nothing but genocide and death. Jaina is one of the most saintly people in the IP.
@@Skyblade12 Jains is monster and she purge dalaran, she killed king restksn and he’s ppls and she tried to drown orgrammar Twice , but thrall shaman stop jaina . so stop spread wrong news alliance even worse than horde becz alliance writers trash
@@storms287 They are humans and Remember you red washer. Jaina COMMANDED the Mages to be netural and the Sunreavers not only help hide the Bell but brought it to Dalaraan to ship it to the Horde. The Sunreavers broke the Trust, stole a doomsday weapon and... what else could be planning? It was rash and emotional BUT even in that mission, the Sunreaver you are with is like "This is a BAD idea!"
Gotta ask what happened you are one of my favorite content creator out there back when all I knew was warcraft 3 lore and never got to play WOW then luckly i foudn your channel and i learned what happened to arthas and watched almost all the lore vids on my old account hahah hop eyour doing well wherever you are!!!
Doing well, thanks for asking! Not really feeling the story of warcraft/shadowlands atm so stopped covering it and been focused more on the streaming twitch.tv/nobbel87. WIll prob return with dragonflight but still to be determined!
I love that you mention the Forsaken because I think they are also very interesting in the context of Shadowlands because they have a special relationship to death...
To be honest I thought Varian being there was more about Logush lore. Logush can appear even from beyond the afterlife to help those in need. & since Saurfang used the blades too he somehow was apart of it. I didn’t see it as Anduin having a moment of remembering
i feel like people like the author of this video are just whinners and fustrated beyond repair, because there is a lot of sense to be made out of this and other moments, but people like him only see what they experienced, which is the disclaimer he gave at the beggining, but i just think his opinion is dogshit at this point, even tho SL storyline isnt that great
@@yankokassinof6710 its a rather simple opinion, really, while I somewhat didn't mind the scene with Anduin splitting the sword there are so many missed opportunites, again, because they at the end of the day don't really care about being consistent with the lore they are stewards to. Why not include Anduins mother, or have more involvement and emotion from Bolvar, who cared for Anduin while he was younger? It's absured, and it's a lack of of the awareness of the art and characters they are handling. We are all rightfully frustrated. There is nothing that needs to be fixed with that frustration, because its justified, it's fine Nobble is mad, he and most of us are and should be. The story has been absolutely hurt and its potential squandered by so so many woke political influences, by Bobby's money rush, by people not liking where they work because they don't feel safe working there, etc., when we could have a really good and congruent story being told.
Part of the reason I stuck around WoW so long was my love for the lore and characters. I could no longer ignore how bad the writing was getting during BFA, but I stuck it out until just before shadowlands and ended up leaving after its launch. This is some pretty bad writing, and it reminds me why I left. Case and point, there is always another big bad villain. A villain who is doing bad things, because they are bad, and we need to stop them… because they are bad. When we do stop them though it’s always “all is well and finally there can be peace”, until the next person comes along to one up the last villain. It just gets so old; can I go back to being just some simple guy in a bathrobe throwing fireballs and not the "champion" or “chosen one” every other year?
@@kubasniak in my mind the story arc from Warcraft ended with sargeras being imprisoned/defeated. I wouldve been ok with the void lords being the next major baddie.
@@a40989d1 I understand that completely. I left before the lawsuits, but they just reinforced why I left. Some big changes need to happen before I would consider coming back.
Players: "Now that we have defeated you can you please tell us what you were trying to do?!" The Jailer: Spits right in the players face "A cosmos divided will not survive what is to come...." Players: "Oh my god.. I thought Blizzard said this was the final part of the chapter yet they set up more!? What gives blizzard!" Blizzard: Spits directly into the players face "Give us more money and we'll tell ya by telling you a half truth that itself is vague as all hell."
He also does the spit really quickly in a single frame without any music before it immediately cuts to the bit about a united cosmos with blaring orchestral tunes.
Lets be honest, it feels more like the current writers self-projecting to the players through Sylvanas - to forget Arthas. "Forget that guy, he's from the old time - this is our time now."
The sad part is you could probably take a preschooler who played this game for a week and ask them "hey what do you think shadowlands would be like in wow?" and they would come up with a better story
@@HiddenEvilStudios I agree. I myself stopped with MoP and started again with SL. I'm missing a lot of information. I haven't played many addons and hardly know what happened there. I'm not a good writer if you look at my school grades. i would have given you an infinitely better story in shadowlands than that, i can honestly say so.
Azeroth The First One. Origin of creation, slumbering to regain its strength after locking the Old One outside of the created universe in the nothingness it came from, where it has existed since before The First. Zovaal tried to warn us, the veil is breaking, the devourers are coming through to consume all of creation & return all to the nothingness it once was. Before The First arrived. The Old One comes, will Azeroth still be slumbering when it does?
Zoval the Jailer was obviously a spontaneous character, due to the obvious is he never fully exclaimed what he wanted until now, with also the key points not showing all these things he apparently did that it was ALL HIM. A lot of potential seemingly wasted but as usual I cope. They have a big opportunity if they do to make this all feel or seem worth it about the Jailer seeming like he was the good guy in a sense. But again it all seemed unplanned off the bat swing it. The whole thing with the chronicles only being an interpretation is literally them trying to bend the knee to all interpretations and views of the lore so everyone is happy only to ruin everything leaving people unsatisfied. I am someone who is generally who believes in Good vs Evil, Right and Wrong, in other words I generally believe the Light is Good and Void Bad. But there are other views which isn't wrong to have, those views are valid which makes the story more interesting. It only gets ruined when you take away it's value calling the source just "a point of view".
I have been waiting for this, for the master of Lore, to look at this train wreck, and I agree, with what was said one of the biggest problems with shadowlands was it was made to be about Slyvannas, I mean look at the Cinematic for the Expansion Slyv vs Bolvar, And she features in 80% of the Cinematics. and remember they changed 20 years of lore for this ending for this utterly, stupid lame ass Villian and Rug pulling "Surprise, he was a good guy" and YES You should never explain major plot points in a Book, Think of MoP into WoD if you didnt read "War crimes" you would be like, how did Garrosh get here, why are we here?
Oh so all you need to get rid of the Jailor is to remember really hard… SERIOUSLY?! What pains me here is the inconsistency and hypocrisy. So they are willing to give Sylvannas her redemption arc and yet here we have Arthas just being thrown to the trash… They could have at least shown his updated model, but no they need to keep favoring Sylvannas even though at this point nobody wants her. Oh so they are tripling down on constantly creating a bigger master mind behind the curtain. This just feels like a parody of Warcraft at this point, and nobody is laughing.
They wasted so many good characters, and you’re right that everything is about just cool lines. In BFA and Legion, we always had side quests that go into character stories. But in Shadowlands, it’s just characters talking. Like Uther and Jaina or Thrall and Draka reuniting could have been faction specific quests, but nope they just chat in Korthia.
I wish they would reboot this whole series. There was so much history on Azeroth. Queen Azshara should have had a whole expansion herself. Don't make it exactly like this series, but really focus on the thing they just pushed to the side.
Don't insult Ultron comparing him to this. Ultron had a clear objective and reasoning from start to finish and it used Scarlet Witch to enhance and exploit flaws of Avengers to weaken them from inside (unlike flat pout boring mind control Locki had in previous go) all in all he's much more consistent and well built villain than the Jailer.
Sylvanas' dialogue makes sense in a meta way when you use what remains of Arthas as a metaphor for the state of Blizzard as a whole and Sylvanas as a fan of their products. "No crown. No throne. Not even a soul left for judgement"
"You need resolutions. You need reasonings." I agree. Really feels like they went with a Game Of Thrones ending where some stuff did happen but were just irrational.. Really felt rushed..
I never thought they would top the disaster of bfa they managed to make an expansion that irredeemably harms all of the previous Warcraft stories by meddling into the background.
There's so much they dropped the ball on this expansion. The writing is so extremely messy I can't even fathom it. Why doesn't the story ever address how the Primus is really responsible for all of this. He created the power of Domination and basically placed it in Zovaal's lap and when Zovaal uses it to be a naughty boy, the Primus just goes "oh sorry I was angry and it wasn't ever supposed to be used like that :(" And then you have the issue of Sylvanas and how all the characters with reasonable beef with her are just shoved into a corner for more Sylvanas angst like... Tyrande is shelved in 9.1, Baine has one line in that cinematic and then becomes quiet, Jaina gets shushed by "bro trust me" Uther. And laughably keeps getting these moments to monologue, between the Anduin cinematic (poor Uther and Jaina get to say nothing to the remnants of Arthas lol) and the story quest where they're infusing the shattered helm shards with their memories- Anduin struggles and Sylvanas for some reason (not Bolvar or Darion) goes "let me give you MY perspective" like girl, you caused this, sit down not everything is about you (but I guess actually it is, since this whole expansion is just for her character development I guess.) Why does Sylvanas side with the Jailer? It only makes sense if she knew about the larger threat looming out there, but even then she has such strong reasons not to even THINK about siding with the dude that made Arthas. But if she knew about the larger threat then why did she get an entire cinematic that went 'oh she's not guilty of her crimes because it wasn't the *real* Sylvanas doing them' and then switch sides? There was SO much potential with writing with the Shadowlands, I thought 9.0 was such a strong start and had me excited for where they could go, but we got this absolute mess. What was the point of anything?????? They could have gone into what knowing the actual afterlife would do to the various races of Azeroth. They could have touched on some really heartfelt things (I was begging for a reunion between Kael'thas and his father with the Revendreth story) but. at this point it's so hard to care. They turned WoW canon from a solid foundation into mud, trying to build a grand castle on top of it thinking that the malleability will be to their benefit when it's making everything fall apart.
How the Primus got captured: In the finale we see the Jailer is bound *without* the domination runes. If i had to speculate I'd say the Primus was experimenting on Zovaal trying to figure out how domination magic works and did something that makes the control work both ways and got out-willed. This assumes Blizz actually thought about it though.
The whole part of the Jailer being a mastermind behind everything is very similar to a point in Bleach where the big bad evil guy is revealed to be the true mastermind behind everything, he planned for everything to happen this way to reach this end and it made no sense at all because it was not how the story was written it was a shoe horned in load of bull crap and this feels the exact same way. For the ending where a bigger evil is coming is very similar to Xcom 1 and 2 where at the end it is hinted that the bad guys are doing this to prevent a greater evil, that what they're doing is justified in the end and that is how this feels as well. The point I am trying to make here is that it feels like the writers are just copying things they have seen in other media, in other stories and trying to make it fit in the Warcraft story. Like they saw these other stories and thought "Wouldn't that be cool if we did something like that in World of Warcraft?" and it just doesn't work because that is not how the story was structured before and it all just feels like cheap shonen anime writing like someone who watched too much Naruto or Bleach or any other kind of long narrative where you just need to write as you go without a long term goal.
Since they did all those retcons... they should do this one, too: make the whole of Shadowlands just an horrific vision, too. We'll go back to the battle with N'zoth (I think that Ny'alotha, the Black Empire, etc. deserved WAY more than one single patch). Bet I'm not the only one that, seeing the "primorial Azeroth" page on Chronicle (the pyramid-like building, the lava, and the huge old god in the background) thought "amazing: I'd love to have a whole expansion pac with that setting".
Welcome to "World of Warcraft 2" - All great heros are death or missing in the realm of death. Sooooooo Welcome to the new game. Do you want to create a character to stand against the fascist Light-Dude on the throne in Stormwind ;)
Not to mention, what does the knowledge of the Shadowlands do to mortal's beliefs? Of all the different belief systems in Azeroth, will these change? Also, should they just get rid of factions now? How do you go from saving all of existence and discovering who the real creators of reality were to fighting over lumber disputes?
It feels like Shadowland's lore as a whole can be summarized with this one sentence: "It's cool as long as you don't think about it." If you take everything at face value, it's pretty dope. The Forge of Souls powering up, the Azerite beam connecting Icecrown Citadel with Torghast, Anduin breaking free, etc. etc. It's all pretty cool, as long as you don't stop and ask "Wait, so were the Forge of Souls built with this specific purpose? Cause that wasn't their function back in Wrath. Did Bolvar never check his basement? Did no one stop to think about the giant machine underneath Icecrown? What about the Saronite, what function did that serve? How did the Azerite get from Torghast to Zereth Mortis like that? Is the key to domination magic just remembering real hard? Was there a specific event that triggered the memories of Varian and Varok, or was it just a case of them sensing Anduin REALLY needing them now?" It feels more and more like they're doing what they've been accused of in the past: They write the stories around these big and cool moments, which can all be summarized with these bad-ass catchy quotes... But everything in between is just all up in the air, and they can't handle connecting the dots for the life of them.
"Just wait and see." is the meta definition of World of Warcraft, both in game and in story. The game designers go with the flow of things and so do the story writers.
I'm done with this. I really wish to keep the great memories I have from my childhood pristine and pure. The biggest crime of shadowlands isn't that the expansion itself sucked, but that it retroactively destroyed the rest of such an incredible franchise. Best wishes to all the wow veterans ❤. I hope you all find something that makes you happy.
The problem was not that they "haven't explained anything for so long" but it's that they explained away basically everything at the end patch and also killed off the main villain who just got introduced in that expansion. That was never done before in WoW's history. What y'all (Nobbel and Acco) didn't get at the time and maybe still don't get, is if you are going to write a cryptic, mysterious story then the worst thing you can do is to kill the mystery by explaining it all away at the end. Mysteries are cool because they live on (Twin Peaks comes to mind, you watch all 3 seasons and the prequel movie and you just get more and more questions). Shadowlands could have been so much more but the "lore devs" either had no balls (or no talent) to pull it off, or more likely Activision pressured them to end it quick, throw it in the trash and get to the next expansion. Dragonflight in contrast to early shadowlands (9.0 - 9.1) is so painfully boring. It now is starting to ramp up a little bit but it's still nothing that I can enjoy, it's just safe and tame and I couldn't care less about the Dragon Isles. The theme is just not warcraft, even in MoP you could say pandas and zen and what not, but MoP was one of the most aggressive expansions with the horde vs alliance war going on throughout.
That somber choral music- at the end of the Jailer's defeat scene -that's the final nail in the coffin for WoW as a game. It dies not with a glorious bang, but with a painful and pathetic whimper.
Why is Elune a robot? Pantheon of Order comes from world soul's and can manifest themselves (eg Argus). Pantheon of Death inhabit vessels (eg Zovaal). We have no idea how the Pantheon of Life were created. The entire pantheon could be mystical forces for all we know.
Elune is actually a giant gnome robot constructed by High Tinker Mekkatorque. Thats also the reason why gnomeregang got infested with green demon energy. The last patch will than reveal that mekkatorque was the jailer all along
I used to love this game so much, it's actually insane how invested I was. I am still very nostalgic about TBC - MoP and I would really want for it to return to form. No game will ever come close for me and that is what makes me so sad.
Shadowlands is basically just forgetting that the previous lore happened, like why Sauerfang who only just recently got close to him when back in the old books Anduin had so many people way closer to him.
I know I'm late here, but I think the only good piece of storytelling that came from Shadowlands was Garrosh sticking to his guns and staying true to his nature in his death cinematic. And that was the doing of one developer and was a last minute thing
Everyone else in the comments has already said what I think about this expansion and story, as well as these cutscenes specifically. Now I wonder if blizzard is gonna recover from this. Probably not
They dont have to: there are still too many players who dont care and who keep playing for whatever reasons. WoW is literally too big to fail, no matter what the devs do.
@@markup6394 subscription numbers, and player retention keep falling. WoW is also no longer the biggest mmo out there. Blizzards name is also in the dirt right now. Screwing up two expansions in a row doesn't help as well.
@@TheDerek14 I dont have the numbers, but there are still many fans out there who will return immidiately as soon as the new trailer for 10.0 rolls out. Yes, Blizzard's name is tarnished and WoW will never again be the king of MMOs but it will still be strong player in the field.
I think the call back Saurfang did was pretty neat. “Let it be finished” is what Dranosh Saurfang, Varok’s son, said before he got gibbed by Arthas at the Wrathgate.
Fuck me im so freaking sad about how they murdered the franchise I loved for all my adult life. I really got into the lore thanks to your early videos, learning about the lore while questing again and understanding the connections. I just dont have any hope for the story anymore and I fucking hate it. The lore of the warcraft universe has been so important for me for the last 10+ years, because it was filled with so many cool conecpts, ideas and charakters. And they threw it all away for this shitty expansion with this shitty villain and their cosmic ideas..... As someone how studied philosophy, I feel like the writers had an intrduction to some basic concepts of language, will and reality and tried to be so fucking smart by implementing it into their "new comsic story". But they don't understand shit and did such a bad job that they all deserved to be fired. Their whole stick about language and how it constitutes reality and how imporant it is, is such a bad and blantant reading of some basic Kant and Heidegger.... Fuck this shit! I will not care anymore. The lore is dead and nothing can bring it back
Tiffin died when Anduin was still an infant. Saurfang and Varian were participants and role models. I agree that Sylvanas does not belong here. A man's epitaph belongs to those who loved him (Varian and Uther and Jaina). And while it's true that Arthas was a pivotal moment in Sylvanas life, she was little more than road kill in his.
If Arthas was alive and able to talk, he would be like "I just needed the sunwell but you kept denying me, You caused your own suffering" he is remorseful but slyv thinkz she is the center.
I remember watching your Warlords of Draenor lore videos years ago and being really excited. Despite the expansion falling short of my expectations, I'd still take it over what we got for Shadowlands.
Arthas really got screwed over on this lore. Kinda wished he would have had a better ending. This was what to expect from the people who decided to burn down Teldassil. They might as well have the Jailer end the Universe as the last expansion. Thanks everyone, what a ride this was ha, The Jailer won.. Haha, you thought we were going to show Elune's true form, didn't ya? 😂🤣💀 Got ya's
@@geoffreybentley5619 He was controlled like Syvanas was. I don't know if you notice he did this all under control. Look what Sylvanas did too Teldrassil, and she wasn't under control. Killed all the night elves women and children, you forget that part.
I follow Nobbel since he got...i don't know, 10 thousand followers. This is the FIRST time i'm having the pleasure to see him talk loud and clear (with respect as always) what the current Blizzard have fucked up the Warcraft storie. Thanks for this, Nob. This...was a relieve.
I dont know if you ever gonna read this but here we go.. "But your legacy is at an end. Begone then, Arthas Menethil." for me this line echos Blizzards stand on the old lore, what was the quality of storytelling that came with all those years of build-up ever since Warcraft III.. And to add insult to injury, its this simped over corpse thats telling him to fuck of.. Im not cool with this.. At least give it to Uther.. Stop giving IPs the Star Wars treatment.. And if you even think of redeeming Sylvanas to some kind of "see she is just a victim! Its not her fault!", explain that shit to all players who mains a Night Elf.. So.. Instead of just bitching on what I think Blizz fluffed up, I will come with a productive suggestion.. This is totally a head-canon and would need some retcon... BUT.. I would mutch rather that Anduin be the illigitimate bastard of Jaina and Arthas, given away to the Wrynns to save the scandal and to not let him grow up with that Lich King bagage.. And instead of Varian and Horde-Daddy Saurfang it should have been that little part of Arthas that was still pure (the boy in ICC), something of "history repeats itself" kind of deal but knowing that he (Arthas) cant fix what he did as LK, at least he could save his son from becoming what he became (or actually killing Anduin as an act of mercy to pay for his sins, if you want a more edgy story). And as he appeas in the spirit form, looking like the golden lion-price he was before the purge, looking at Uther with a slight sigh and sad eyes, uttering a simple "Im sorry.. For everything" before he fades away.. Letting the part that was still Arthas die with some dinity, not redemption, but dignity. Sry for the long post, got a bit carried away.. Would love to get your opinion (whatever it may be) on my suggestion and thanks for your awesome lore videos!
Though I cringed a bit at the "make Anduin the bastard son of Jaina and Arthas" ... it would make up for such a better ending. I understand when people say "Arthas already had his farewell ins Wrath, hence why they didnt bother with it here", my answer always is "then why digging him up again?". Yes, he may have been a jerk in life, and yes, his arc was finished in Wrath, but that doesnt mean he deserved this. Not redemption, but dignity - amen.
@@markup6394 A bit cringe prehaps but I cant fix this shit show, all I can try is to stop the bleeding without rewriting too much, unlike Blizz I dont want to fuck with the old lore. Making Anduin a unknown bastard was the best I could come up with WITHOUT fucking up or totally rewriting events and the good moments with Anduin and Varian, dont wish to cheapen their relationship.
Also no redemption arc for Arthas eventhough he was a young man who was too eager and got tricked by a dreadlord into northrend and Muradin told him of the cursed blade which for Arthas just sounded like an ultimate weapon, who wouldnt seek an artefact like that? Arthas gets corrupted (by the jailor, says the new team.. ugh..) but he is not seen as a victim in this end? Sure his soul got forged into a weapon so we cant have his spirit as a whole BUT DONT SPIT ON THE CHARACTER THAT CARRIED PART OF THE FRANCHISE! The new team just wanted the nostalgiabois out of the game, for good. Sylvanas's words really nail it in.
It's clear that Steve Danuser only cares about his fan fiction fantasy anymore. I am pretty sure they long gave up on writing for the consumers. There's a reason why Sylvanas is in the focus of everything, no matter how unfitting it is. She's the main character now. And every one else is a side character, at best.
I think this is unfixable. The stench of the last two expansion's aren't gonna just come out in the wash. We need a large resetting of the table to even start with a good story. Cause everything in Warcraft right now is tainted. I was so hopeful that the Jailer would at least partially succeed in changing the laws of the universe because it could open so many avenues to fix what happened. Yes, it'd suckv and be a cop out. Just like how Warlords was ultimately just to get Gul'dan back for Legion to happen. But at least that allowed a cool story to be born from it God, it's so fucking strange but I would actually *welcome* a Warlords of Draenor completely cut off story from everything, anything else. At least a time travel to the past means we don't have to fucking care about any of the mountains of manure this expansion had produced. Honestly, reboot the series, time travel shenanigans it up, whatever I don't care. Just hit the giant emergency reset button cause this story needs it.
Per your last few lines, I've seen people suggest that the Jailer should've won and this should have been a realmreborn type situation, reset everything and start from the ground up. Fuck this is a mess.
![The Story of The Jailer aka Zovaal [Lore]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3gkKLfywZBI/mqdefault.jpg)
![The Story of The Jailer aka Zovaal [Lore]](/img/tr.png)
Timestamps:
Anduin Raid Finale 0:53 - 8:00
Jailer Intro 8:01 - 13:59
Jailer Outro 14:00 - 21:52
And beyond 21:53 - 49:05
thank you nobbel!
Nobbel, wouldn't dominance magic be way more interesting if it were connected to the undead in general, like every single soul that is an undead be bound by it. Silvannas being an undead and being used by the jailer to do his bidind and whatnot. We could have had a raid having major undead characthers and Silvannas as the fial boss as we discovered a method to release the undead from dominance magic. It maybe strange, but, give it a thought.
The thing with portals into the afterlife made me think of the suicide booths in Futurama, just step into it and you will be dead.
When the jailer was defeated why wasn’t there a hole in his chest??Did you notice that
Maybe this is revenge for leaking the jailer model? Maybe N'zoth actually won? Maybe Blizzard is going under and they are trying to make the game so unappealing that the fans won't even miss it when it's gone?
I miss the good old days of orc clans and ogres. I miss the days of the twilight hammer and cho gall. I miss when dragons were a threat, and the elemental lords werent a joke. I miss dwarves digging up things the shouldn't in the southern barrens... I miss when questing and the lvling experience meant something.
Yea, I miss lower fantasy so much, Defias brotherhood had a couple of guys with knives and a big boat with guns, and they were a serious threat, right now, a single mage can summon a flying city-sized armed boat and wreck everything while players fight Titan-like characters without any external help
With all this Universe Enemis, and Spaceships etc it’s more like a weird SiFi but we still fight with sword and Shild, meanwhile the Dreiei fly Around in a spaceship and can shoot a Space whatever cannon, so Why we had to fight Arthas and deathwing? Oh the Gun was Broken at this Moment 🙄
Cant Wait for the Expansion That Turns wow into Cyberpunk or more SiFi but we still use sword and shild and no guns 🤣😂
Cho gall
@@mikhi7866 I can't help but be reminded of the escalation problem that shonen series can run into. There're only so much you can increase the power of the villains and protagonists before it gets absurd.
Yep. I missing the deeper character building world building threats. Where they actually spent time on that personality,
"Let's infiltrate all the forces of the cosmos and get them to fight each other because we need a cosmos that's not divided!"
- Zovaal.
They were already fighting. The cosmos was spawned from the Void and the Light fighting, Zovaal was just manipulating a conflict that was already in motion.
@@nevermore7285 - That's not the impression one gets from that Nathrezim long-term agenda book, "Enemy Infiltration - Preface". Seems very much like deliberate escalation and chaos, supposedly for Death to eventually conquer and unite the ashes. And then the ashes will even more supposedly stand against the Even Bigger Big Bad.
@@nevermore7285 that was retconned. the cosmos was now made by the first ones who predate void and light and those 2 are minor cosmic forces now as life and death are the top cosmic powers for SL onward.
To quote russian badger "It's like shooting yourself with lower caliber bullets to build up a resistance to higher calibers."
@@flameknightdragon correction. the cosmos was made by the clockmaker.
Blizzard: we need to make sure we respect the legacy of Arthas.
Also Blizzard: Arthas is nothing but a wisp that fades into nothing. Just forget about him forever.
But don’t forget to buy the wotlk classic giga throne edition with an exclusive frost protodrake mount and a frostourmn corruption emote.
Blizzard- one thing we know for a fact is that we have to make sure Sylvanas lives and is forgiven as she is the character that our fans love. Smh
*+35 Anima*
Well, they promissed not to ruin him... and they didnt... but they also didnt do him justice, nor treated his legacy with dignity...
@@markup6394 I'd argue they did. They brought the character back into the lore with the introduction of the Jailer. To me, it seems they were afraid to do what they initially wanted to do, so tried to pull a garosh. However, it failed.
We will always remember Arthas, and we will do everything in our power to forget the Jailer.
Honestly by the looks of Dragonflight, Blizzard's writing team wouldn't mind us forgetting the sleep paralysis demon that was Shadowlands.
@@Mediados yeah I can’t help but think that blizzard is just trying to act like shadowlands didn’t happen. Like, for so much hinting at a threat behind the Jailer’s actions, the Dragonflight trailer was way too “feel good excitement” for them to even remotely follow the hinting.
Also I find it funny that after this flops they decide “Hey let’s make sure WOTLK classic comes out this year. Remind them of Arthas so they forget this bullshit”
I’d honestly be more happy if they just said “it was all a dream” or some cop out so that lore wise everything after Legion doesn’t actually matter
@@SaundersYT I wouldn't mind if they used this simple explanation, but maybe don't erase all of BfA. Zandalar and Kul Tiras can stay as they are, but everything after Tides of Vengeance is shit.
I've never understood why Sylvanas would EVER work with Zovaal to start with? If she despised Arthas so much and Zovaal was the one who created the Lich King, then why would she ever consider being a part of Zovaal's plan?
If I made any sense of the mess that was shadowlands I think its implied that like arthas she didnt have a choice once she got stabbed with frostmourne. I think it's implied that sylvanas' true character is the one we see after the jailer returns the other part of her soul to her which, yes is fucking retarded
Don’t forget her working with Kel’Thuzad for some reason.
The way I look at it is that whether you hate the Devil or not, wouldn't you make a deal to get out of Hell and stop your endless suffering? Because her other option was to just sit in the Maw for all eternity.
Cause the jailer is so cunning
Because Arthas made her a pawn, only to realize that he had been a pawn of Ner'zhul, who was a pawn of Kil'jaeden. It was the Nathrezim, working for Zovaal that essentially hijacked the Legion's plans, and that meant that she would be free from their control. Zovaal showed Sylvanas what gate awaits her in the Maw, and offered her a chance to work for him so that she wouldn't be tortured for eternity, while simultaneously promising to break the cycle of eternal suffering that the machine of death perpetuates. If you don't understand Sylvanas' motivations for willingly joining Zovaal, you simply haven't been paying attention. She joined him because: a. She had no choice, and b. He was going to change reality. Once she realized that he had completely lost his mind in Sanctum, she turned on him. She's lucky Zovaal gave her her soul fragment back, making her whole again. That was clearly the majority of her motivation for working with him. He could've easily altered the deal once he got what he wanted. To him, it was of no consequences because he assumed he'd succeed. This is all pretty well described through all the cutscenes. You must not have watched them.
I like how Zooval used the Nathrazim to divide the cosmos, to unmake reality, so that he could unite the cosmos . . .
Briliant storytelling indeed
Have to destroy the old to make something knew. He needed to unmake the current reality in order to make a new one, one that wasn’t torn between the Light and the Void and everything spawned in their war.
@@nevermore7285 so he started by dividing all the forces with the Nathrazim? How does that make sense
@@Flacopro40 They were already divided. The Warcraft cosmos was born from Light and Void fighting. It was conflict from day one. All Zovaal did was manipulate it to his own ends with the plan of ending. Considering he was responsible for the Legion through Sargareas, the fact he and Sargareas share a basic plan and goal, isn’t really surprising.
@@nevermore7285 It's not surprising, it's just dumb.
So a soul split Sylvanas gets redemption, but Arthas, who was corrupted by a sword and helm infused with Zovaal’s domination magic doesn’t? Not only that, but his soul is utterly destroyed to nothingness? That is so unbelievably cruel to the character. Arthas made a mistake in chasing Mal’Ganis to Northrend, he should have stayed home and helped his people. He also shouldn’t have picked up Frostmourne. But you understood why he did it in his desperation and being caught up in his vengeance. But he shouldn’t be damned for eternity for those two mistakes. And for Sylvanas and the others to talk about him like he was a total monster is insane, especially with Anduin right there, seconds after being freed from the same power Arthas fell to. Uther should have said “I’m sorry.” For damning his pupil’s soul to annihilation, not even given a chance to atone for his sins in the afterlife. Sylvanas should have forgiven Arthas long ago since she was serving Zovaal, the guy who created the Lich King in the first place, for years.
You assume the WoW writers care. I bet they see Arthas as the neck beard era of WoW's highest moments which they'll never recreate. They now have a antiquated sinking ship and seem to be trying to make it crash and burn.
@@MorganRhysGibbons bad take/wrong take, arthas is legit a tragic character hero. A man that try to save his homeland no matter what. You should go play Warcraft 3 again to understand the plot better.
Where did it say she got redemption?
@@VoldoronGaming Dude she's literally with everyone now and can walk free and do whatever she wants.. She also got her soul back, what else do you want?
Arthas was a spoiled brat. He wanted to get into Jainia's pants, and after he did, dumped her when she mentioned the M word and the C word. Typical little boy. And he was already on the path to damnation when he nuked the people he was supposed to be saving.
It honestly kinda breaks my heart to see Nobbel, who I have watched for years and listened to countless hours upon hours of videos, being just so.. done with this. But I feel that. Its a game I loved for so long going down the absolute SHITTER is really sad and upsetting. Thank you for all of your lore videos and work that you have done, Nobbel
Just goes to show even the most passionate of us can only take so much tauren shit
@@huuminbloodborn7570 my brother is a tauren, and I feel offended.
The intro cinematic for the Zovaal fight had more direction than his own story as a whole
lets not also forget the beam from azeroth goes into torghast but somehow ends in zeris mortis
@@unknownsample4801 he builded glass wire faster than we in germany here. so he never build it!
@@semiramisubw4864 hahaha nice one, good Ole slow Germany
"may the last whisper of your name fade and be forgotten" is heartbreaking if you read a meta level into it. It sounds like blizz writers going "people, forget about the guy who got one of the best games ever to setup and had one of the generally regarded as among best wow expansions to his name. We cant pull him off so stop reminding us about it" It makes me sad and also honestly angry.
Absolute disrespect to the fans and to the character Arthas Menethil
Why is SHE getting so much say? All she said was that she hated him and wafted him away like a fly
Why didn't Jaina, the love of his life, and Uther, his cherished mentor, get any farewell and get to say they forgave him after all was done.
Why wasn't there some sort of line to Anduin saying something like "You remind me of myself when I was younger"
Why was Arthas just a blob of light and not a spirit of himself (oooooh but you see he was tortured) bad excuse for the most iconic character in warcraft
This was a public execution by the new blizzard staff saying "that's right, this is ours now, what are you going to do about it?"
Instead, they want to circlejerk Sylvanas as muh strong wymin
This..... This so so fucking much. Im not a huge lore guy but the way they handled Arthas and the story as whole lately has effectively made me loose all interested into coming back to retail wow. I might sub for WOTLK classic because the game / story was actually so good then.
Beyond that, fuck the writers for this man. Really makes me upset. They played Arthas themes walking into Blizzcon in 2019! Arthas is so big to Blizzards success and fans nostalgia. This is what we get!! Grrr,,,, so mad lol.
thats what happens when you forget that a company is a company and that you dont own shit, they own, lol, kinda funny to me how disappointed people are even tho wow has changed fundamentally LOOOOOONG ago, you have to be blind to get disappointed by blizzard this days
Yeab it does.sound super sad tho to be in ur position
@@yankokassinof6710 as a company are you not supposed to please your customers and not spit them in the face, all in the name of fake "diversity"?
@@MorganRhysGibbons He purged Stratholme because he knew what was to come with the undead, kill a few that was soon to become undead to save a ton, but also to give them mercy from undeath (which is null because they could just raise the dead). A new threat that no one knew how to fight properly yet. He wanted to protect his people from a certain imminent fate, at all costs, as the future king of his people. He felt an obligation to do so. He was also young and as it comes with being young, you act before you think. He could never foresee what would happen with the blade and the consequences of his actions. You could argue that the influnce had already deranged his mind a little. He did not "hate" Uther, but he felt betrayed when he wasn't as eager to help him. When he killed Uther, it wasn't out of his own volition, his soul was probably crying out when it happened, but could not control it.
@@MorganRhysGibbons I mean... there's the entire Jaina's locket cutscene thing, kinda makes you feel there was a bit more than just irrelevant highschool relationship, and iirc he didn't really resent Uther before he walked away from him during the hardest decision in his life, but I'd say the main complaint is that cinematic was supposed to be "Last farewell to Arthas" but it is not even about Arthas, Sylvanas didn't even need him to have that monologue. It could have been anything else, like Arthas actually saying something, or people who did care about him, saying something to him, instead of just being a stepping stone for Sylvanas' character development, Garrosh was a villain as well but he got a much better send-off
For me Lore ended, at Legion .. After Sargeras stabbing Azeroth, we "heal" it by sacrificing our legendary weapons. From that point legend ends and History begins..
Unfortunately I have the feeling Legion was the last hurrah for WoW, I feel like I've lost an old friend.
@Christina Azarian Both of them existed before legion came out. Bwonsamdi in wotlk, and wrathion in cata. Although wrathion was an asshole in cata & mop and i hated him. Bwonsamdi was still a badass back then though.
And at the end of this expansion, we still don't know why Sylvanas was working with the Jailer.
Brilliant storytelling, Mr. Danuser.
@@bdenneysr85 so will 9.2.5 tell us?
@@bdenneysr85 It's a mmo-rpg, emphasis on the game part. If the book is what makes a difference then Danuser and anyone else responsible for this needs to be fired.
How do you know it is Danusers Fault?
Maybe he had all this brilliant story ideas but it was cut because of other people?
@@ProjectAyumiie he's the fucking lead writer. This falls squarely at his fight. Don't try and scapegoat for him when he's had 3 years to write something decent.
@@bdenneysr85 Can't wait for an apology for wanting the story based on IN GAME lore to be explained IN THE GAME and not in a fucking book!
What amuses me is that there are still people defending the current state of lore. They call Nobbel and other content creators whinners and point out things like the Anduin cinematic had subtle points, the spirit of Varian and Saurfang were people who had split the sword before, or may be it is logash etc. and these content creators are not talking about things like this.
Mate you are missing the elephant in the room, you cannot expect people to appreciate the subtle things if the overall plot is shit. It is like saying that the food gave you food poisoning but at least it was organic.
I don't think any one is defending the lore, but I do think there are a lot of people sick of youtubers and people in comments section endlessly complaining. Stop playing the game and move on. It is very boring to listen to. And no your incessant whining isn't going to improve the game, all it does is annoy people who still enjoy it for whatever reason.
@@thelawenforcerhd9654 So whenver there's a problem or a flaw people should just remain silent and move on? With that mindset NFTs would be all over every video game. No people complain in hopes to improve the product.
@@Thesamurai1999 You are under the impression your incessant whining is somehow useful or achieves things. It doesn't. No one important watches yt videos much less reads your dumb comment.
@@thelawenforcerhd9654 That's completely false. CEO's are very aware when gamers group up agaisnt something such as NFT. It's litteraly the reason why Ubisoft, EA and many other companies have backtraced on NFTs. So, yes they do care.
Or how about when Microsoft tried to limit what you are allowed to say in Minecraft, like a 1984 novel. The entire communtiy whined about it, forcing Microsoft to take it away. But if everyone were like you, just silent. Then you wouldn't even be allowed to swear in Minecraft, you'd have games filled with NFTs and far more lootboxes and microtransactions than we've ever seen.
@@Thesamurai1999 *Sigh*. Once again. No one cares about or reads your youtube comments. This is obvious. Do you think the board of directors on these companies care about what you think? The naivete....
With all the focus on Sylvanas this expansion I at least expected by the end to know what her actual motivations were for working with the jailer. Like at first I thought it had something to do with changing the way the shadowlands worked, but was that a lie he told her or was she entirely on board with the whole remaking reality thing? Does she know what the bigger bad is, did the jailer tell her? Who the hell knows? Does Blizzard even know?
@@bdenneysr85 You won’t be getting one lmao. Everybody can see how trash shadowland’s story was. Everyone except you apparently.
cause she was a crazy banshee lady that had no clue what she was helping with... i guess
@@gmoney9469 Also, 9.2.5 is not going to have story content. It's a final QoL/balance patch, just like the rest of the .5 patches.
The Bigger bad is the Void Lords and maybe their Light counterparts but at the very least the Void Lords. That’s been the case for a long time.
As for Sylvanas, she was corrupted. How much free will she had is as much as question of how much sanity she had until she got her full soul back.
@@nevermore7285 intill it stated and shown, it is a wanker excuse for "Dont kill me! Make me your best friend!"
Heeeeh this was cathartic
And Yogg Saron was gentle enough to provide his blood for Icecrown Citadel
How they handled Arthas was absolutely amazing! Drawing these parallels to how he (Blizzard) used to be beloved by many people, vanishing into nothingness to be forgotten, because there is nothing left to salvage. Absolute genius writing. Only the most accomplished writers could create such intriguing storytelling on multiple dimensions!
I honestly thought when SL was announced, we'd see Uther meeting Arthas, and Uther realizing that he was the one who failed Arthas or smthing like that and also Thrall and Garrosh, Thrall being depressed ever since he killed him but Garrosh being like "stop being a pussy, u were stronger than i was and thats that. Go lead the horde with that power" or something along tbose lines. But nothing. They couldve done anything with the story they wanted but instead they decided to do nothing at all.
Having solid ingredients but doing nothing with them infuriates me more than anything else in storytelling.
@@vincent207 Tell me about it. Shadowlands was ripe with potential and so many interesting interactions could have been had here in the literal afterlife. Anduin meeting Varian and possibly his mother for the first time in years, Thrall not just with Draka, but Durotan, even Grom Hellscream possibly talking smack to Garrosh how he ended up a failure or smth along those lines, Jaina with her own father Daelin, Cairne suddenly attacking the Jailbait to help his son. I mean fucking Cairne and Thrall interaction man, those two dudes were big bros back in the day much like Thrall and Grom Hellscream.
But nah, let Danuser's necrophilistic tendencies, aka his simping for Sylvanas reign in over what Shadowlands could have been to what it is now, a glorified and contrived redemption arc for Sylvanas :P
OK, that thrall/garrosh scene will be great, never taught of it but yeah, that will be amazing
I think most of those are great ideas they really should have had, but the Garrosh finale was pretty badass to be fair. One of the only good parts of the Shadowlands story.
@@philip0544 True, but that still doesnt excuse at how much they ruined him after Cata, and arguably during wotlk. And Blizz can go fuck themselves with the whole "oh, he's the best warchief ever in other timelines, but it just so happens that you have an asshole version of him in this one."
Nobbel, you have put so much love and commitment into this lore and game! I just wanna say, even with the story going to shit, I want to thank you for your wonderful detailed lore videos and give you a virtual hug. It sucks seeing you so frustrated over this, as many of us are.
I'm so glad you mentioned the dark ranger loyalist twitter crowd, those people scare me. They get rowdy about Sylvanas but genuinely don't care about what happens, they just want Sylvanas moments. It's exhausting
Those special people are a very special brand of cultist.
@@mat5669 yea like Covid people
They got keen eyes like their queen, any group that simps for character in game/movie/show are deadly breed to not fuck with lol
@@greenchilistudioz4537 stan accounts be crazy
@@CyclopsToppingWolverine They can be nutty, not as bad as shippers, they are next evolution of nutty cult
Can the jailor just be a sick nightmare that Malfurion has and we all go back to legion?
This has really turned into the World of Sylvanas with the Jailer being nothing more than an ad for the next expansion. Sylvanas has literally been thrusted into being a good guy position with only a whimper of protest, all the while the nostalgia has been used and thrown away to keep giving people hope that MAYBE it will pay off. They couldn't even bother making the boss of the expansion have depth beyond the surface of a puddle. This is the reverse of Final Fantasy 14, they don't care about the characters or the players but rather how long they can keep you waiting with your subscription. The legacy of World of Warcraft is at an end at this rate. If the game developers don't care about their game, then how can players care?
Honestly the bit that bugs me most is that's the last fragment of Arthas, and Jaina doesn't say A WORD
Welcome to world of wokecraft
They were so embittered by their inability to recreate what made Arthas such an interesting character that they felt the need send him off in the most heavy handed way possible. It must be weird to write stories for a game you hate.
Weren't they ripping off Arthur?
Funny, I was thinking the same thing. Take a character that in many ways represented the time when so many players LOVED the game, and make him insignificant, make him be forgotten. It's like they messed up the story and they now want you to forget the time when you were truly into the game.
@@GoddessPallasAthena that literally makes 0 sense. Everything always has to be some sort of existential crisis regarding the game and how much the devs hate it and not just bad and simple writing which is clearly all it is lol
I cant stop having a small laugh when they say Arthas to this little thing.
After decades of consumtion by Frostmourne, Maw, etc..... We have seen Anduin get "absorbed" to anihilation by his sword... And Arthas Daddy(s) were not there to safe his ass.
In WOTLK Uther told us: "Arthas is only a small wisper in the lichkings head. There is nothing left to safe"...
Eh, even in Wrath, it was made clear that Arthas’ soul was by far the most fucked up by Frostmourne. Him being nothing but as wisp isn’t surprising.
@@MircoBeier and yet we see Kyrian Uther taking Arthas soul to the maw, and guess what, arthas was whole.
@@XxBlackWarri0rxX the same "whole" as Uther? As Silvanas? ;)
Feel bad for this bald guy. Lost his spirits because of a video game
There could never be anything as bad as the last season of game of thrones….
Steve Douchenuser - Hold my drink.
I heard somewhere that he supposedly said that he thinks that season 8 of GoT was good and that they want to make something similar. I'm not sure if it is true or not, but it would make sense?
@@randjan8592 I would not be surprised at all. Haha
You're not giving the situation the amount of scrutiny it deserves by saying it's Danuser. It's Danuser and an entire team of writers.
Nobel said fuck this dropped nothing since this been 4 months
Honestly, as soon as Sylvanas started talking they should have showed Janina directly beside her and just reached out her hand and blasted her face with a fireball.
You know.... they need a way back to Azeroth.... Guess who is not invited to the group, if Jaina create a portal xD
@@MircoBeier As a person that mains a mage, I approve of this message. :D
Everyone should of just looked at her like why the fuck are you talking?
The Jailer was trying to stop the Super Jailer, which is just Deathwing from an alternate timeline.
And that deathwing is Just the mount of an alternate Arthas Lichking, but who is secretly a good Guy to Stop the blazzing legion which the real demon Legion who are the real enemy that Sargeras was really afraid of.
Inc. Taliesin to provide his mental gymnastics to say this is actually good storytelling
😂😂😂
He didn't like it
@@MrJustinArt but he'll still defend some of it.
@@warllockmasterasd9142 as he did in his last video
He is already on record saying it's not. All expansion long.
He still can point out the good things, the small things that are well executed even if the big stuff had been bad.
I love how the BBEG is always like "DO YOU PATHETIC MORTALS HAVE ANY IDEA WHO I AM" after we've killed like 7 gods and dozens of demigods.
We had Sargeras the Titan. Then we have Zovaal who was a "Titan plus plus". Next comes Bob the "uber Titan for real this time second edition premium".
Hey do not Underestimate Bob.
I heard he created the first ones because he wanted Order.
The bigger problem with that is, what comes after Bob then? And after that? 😂 in 1-2 Expansions we fight „god“ himself and then there like „but he was mind controlled by the god of the gods“ 🙄🤣
@@SaltareObscurum and that is why every story must end at one point.
@@warllockmasterasd9142 they started the whole „bigger after bigger enemy“ way too soon. But they can’t do a Expansion story like „this expansion we only fight uhh some bad guy under water and that’s it“ they have to be a cosmos big treat now or even more. So yeah you are right. The Write themselves into a corner
To me WoW stopped after Legion, maybe some years pass for the races to clash and unite over Azerite but eventually balance out.
Sargeras has always been the biggest threat in Warcraft and my headcanon will never change.
Also, Vulpera didn't happen.
Activision fired and pushed out all the WoW original team, and this is the best story continuation the new team can come up with. Bravo! What a shitshow!
My take on the Forsaken being cut off from Sylvanas is simple - considering what they have always introduced regarding the Forsaken, they WANTED to make Sylvanas the villain and the Forsaken feeling betrayed. Thing is, most of the player base - including me - just went 'nope' at their attempts (Calia not working for us as a new leader, we're not feeling lost and betrayed by Sylvanas, we don't help the others to prove that we are actually good and just our leader was bad etc.) and one by one, we let them know that it is not acceptable for the Forsaken players to do stuff like that to us. So they just decided to completely ignore us and ignore Sylvanas' ties to the Forsaken as their leader.
I mean, nothing quite literally works in this expansion - especially lore-wise, so why even try to explain that.
The only GOOD thing coming out of Shadowlands was Denathrius and his voice actor.
Well you choose to play forsaken, you aren't a good person.
@@travismcnasty51 even jaina not good person so what
@@storms287 Oh, please. Jaina killed her own father in an attempt to work together with a faction of unrepentant evil, and is STILL trying to work with them even after they have proven they are capable of nothing but genocide and death. Jaina is one of the most saintly people in the IP.
@@Skyblade12 Jains is monster and she purge dalaran, she killed king restksn and he’s ppls and she tried to drown orgrammar Twice , but thrall shaman stop jaina . so stop spread wrong news alliance even worse than horde becz alliance writers trash
@@storms287 They are humans and Remember you red washer. Jaina COMMANDED the Mages to be netural and the Sunreavers not only help hide the Bell but brought it to Dalaraan to ship it to the Horde.
The Sunreavers broke the Trust, stole a doomsday weapon and... what else could be planning? It was rash and emotional BUT even in that mission, the Sunreaver you are with is like "This is a BAD idea!"
Gotta ask what happened you are one of my favorite content creator out there back when all I knew was warcraft 3 lore and never got to play WOW then luckly i foudn your channel and i learned what happened to arthas and watched almost all the lore vids on my old account hahah hop eyour doing well wherever you are!!!
Doing well, thanks for asking! Not really feeling the story of warcraft/shadowlands atm so stopped covering it and been focused more on the streaming twitch.tv/nobbel87. WIll prob return with dragonflight but still to be determined!
@@Nobbel87 Hope to see you cover Dragonflight soon :D
How does Azerite make its way into the sepulcher? It went to the Maw. Right? Zerith Mortis is on a different plane of existence.
It went from the Maw through the portal of Blizzard writers
why are you even asking logic from this writers?
Stop questioning, applaud the powerful independent woman that is Sylvanas.
bluetooth prob XD
I love that you mention the Forsaken because I think they are also very interesting in the context of Shadowlands because they have a special relationship to death...
To be honest I thought Varian being there was more about Logush lore. Logush can appear even from beyond the afterlife to help those in need. & since Saurfang used the blades too he somehow was apart of it. I didn’t see it as Anduin having a moment of remembering
Maybe Logush only allows those worthy to split the blade which saurfang did
@@joshuagarner1654 as far as I'm aware they're the only two people who ever have, which now makes 3 with anduin
i feel like people like the author of this video are just whinners and fustrated beyond repair, because there is a lot of sense to be made out of this and other moments, but people like him only see what they experienced, which is the disclaimer he gave at the beggining, but i just think his opinion is dogshit at this point, even tho SL storyline isnt that great
@@yankokassinof6710 its a rather simple opinion, really, while I somewhat didn't mind the scene with Anduin splitting the sword there are so many missed opportunites, again, because they at the end of the day don't really care about being consistent with the lore they are stewards to. Why not include Anduins mother, or have more involvement and emotion from Bolvar, who cared for Anduin while he was younger? It's absured, and it's a lack of of the awareness of the art and characters they are handling. We are all rightfully frustrated. There is nothing that needs to be fixed with that frustration, because its justified, it's fine Nobble is mad, he and most of us are and should be. The story has been absolutely hurt and its potential squandered by so so many woke political influences, by Bobby's money rush, by people not liking where they work because they don't feel safe working there, etc., when we could have a really good and congruent story being told.
Wishful thinking. "He somehow was a part of it"
it's more so blizzards constant gas lighting telling us " oh no this was our plan all along" when it's beyond clear that it's not.
Part of the reason I stuck around WoW so long was my love for the lore and characters. I could no longer ignore how bad the writing was getting during BFA, but I stuck it out until just before shadowlands and ended up leaving after its launch. This is some pretty bad writing, and it reminds me why I left. Case and point, there is always another big bad villain. A villain who is doing bad things, because they are bad, and we need to stop them… because they are bad. When we do stop them though it’s always “all is well and finally there can be peace”, until the next person comes along to one up the last villain. It just gets so old; can I go back to being just some simple guy in a bathrobe throwing fireballs and not the "champion" or “chosen one” every other year?
I left a couple months before the lawsuits came to light. I then uninstalled the battle net launcher and game. Never going back.
It feels like a completely different game. I remember times when Sargeras was like this mythical big bad guy and here we are... what a joke
@@kubasniak in my mind the story arc from Warcraft ended with sargeras being imprisoned/defeated. I wouldve been ok with the void lords being the next major baddie.
@@a40989d1 we could have got a Warcraft 4 :')
@@a40989d1 I understand that completely. I left before the lawsuits, but they just reinforced why I left. Some big changes need to happen before I would consider coming back.
When the bannerman of your game’s lore, is this fed up with the current story….you have a problem that should be corrected quickly
Players: "Now that we have defeated you can you please tell us what you were trying to do?!"
The Jailer: Spits right in the players face "A cosmos divided will not survive what is to come...."
Players: "Oh my god.. I thought Blizzard said this was the final part of the chapter yet they set up more!? What gives blizzard!"
Blizzard: Spits directly into the players face "Give us more money and we'll tell ya by telling you a half truth that itself is vague as all hell."
And thus, Blizzard continues to drop it's fork from the table just to prolong revealing their obvious bluff.
He also does the spit really quickly in a single frame without any music before it immediately cuts to the bit about a united cosmos with blaring orchestral tunes.
Haha, Blizzard are the Void Lords!
Lets be honest, it feels more like the current writers self-projecting to the players through Sylvanas - to forget Arthas.
"Forget that guy, he's from the old time - this is our time now."
I'm actually mad how much potential they wasted with shadowlands. Also why the hell the portal in IC closed after the jailer got depressed?
Just coming here to say that I miss your videos, bro.
The sad part is you could probably take a preschooler who played this game for a week and ask them "hey what do you think shadowlands would be like in wow?" and they would come up with a better story
Doesn't even need to have played the game, because the writers don't seem to have either.
@@HiddenEvilStudios I agree. I myself stopped with MoP and started again with SL. I'm missing a lot of information. I haven't played many addons and hardly know what happened there.
I'm not a good writer if you look at my school grades. i would have given you an infinitely better story in shadowlands than that, i can honestly say so.
Azeroth The First One. Origin of creation, slumbering to regain its strength after locking the Old One outside of the created universe in the nothingness it came from, where it has existed since before The First. Zovaal tried to warn us, the veil is breaking, the devourers are coming through to consume all of creation & return all to the nothingness it once was. Before The First arrived.
The Old One comes, will Azeroth still be slumbering when it does?
Zoval the Jailer was obviously a spontaneous character, due to the obvious is he never fully exclaimed what he wanted until now, with also the key points not showing all these things he apparently did that it was ALL HIM. A lot of potential seemingly wasted but as usual I cope. They have a big opportunity if they do to make this all feel or seem worth it about the Jailer seeming like he was the good guy in a sense. But again it all seemed unplanned off the bat swing it.
The whole thing with the chronicles only being an interpretation is literally them trying to bend the knee to all interpretations and views of the lore so everyone is happy only to ruin everything leaving people unsatisfied. I am someone who is generally who believes in Good vs Evil, Right and Wrong, in other words I generally believe the Light is Good and Void Bad. But there are other views which isn't wrong to have, those views are valid which makes the story more interesting. It only gets ruined when you take away it's value calling the source just "a point of view".
I have been waiting for this, for the master of Lore, to look at this train wreck, and I agree, with what was said one of the biggest problems with shadowlands was it was made to be about Slyvannas, I mean look at the Cinematic for the Expansion Slyv vs Bolvar, And she features in 80% of the Cinematics.
and remember they changed 20 years of lore for this ending for this utterly, stupid lame ass Villian and Rug pulling "Surprise, he was a good guy"
and YES You should never explain major plot points in a Book, Think of MoP into WoD if you didnt read "War crimes" you would be like, how did Garrosh get here, why are we here?
Oh so all you need to get rid of the Jailor is to remember really hard… SERIOUSLY?!
What pains me here is the inconsistency and hypocrisy. So they are willing to give Sylvannas her redemption arc and yet here we have Arthas just being thrown to the trash… They could have at least shown his updated model, but no they need to keep favoring Sylvannas even though at this point nobody wants her.
Oh so they are tripling down on constantly creating a bigger master mind behind the curtain. This just feels like a parody of Warcraft at this point, and nobody is laughing.
@@bdenneysr85 I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or if you're defending Blizzard's terrible incompetence regarding story
i thought it was actually saurfang + varian's spirit actually helping because they were literally present in the shadowlands
They wasted so many good characters, and you’re right that everything is about just cool lines. In BFA and Legion, we always had side quests that go into character stories. But in Shadowlands, it’s just characters talking. Like Uther and Jaina or Thrall and Draka reuniting could have been faction specific quests, but nope they just chat in Korthia.
I wish they would reboot this whole series. There was so much history on Azeroth. Queen Azshara should have had a whole expansion herself. Don't make it exactly like this series, but really focus on the thing they just pushed to the side.
If they want to give the banshee a redemption arc, they can have her spend some quality time in Revendreth.
goes from being Thanos to being Ultron.
Character development.
Don't insult Ultron comparing him to this. Ultron had a clear objective and reasoning from start to finish and it used Scarlet Witch to enhance and exploit flaws of Avengers to weaken them from inside (unlike flat pout boring mind control Locki had in previous go) all in all he's much more consistent and well built villain than the Jailer.
Sylvanas' dialogue makes sense in a meta way when you use what remains of Arthas as a metaphor for the state of Blizzard as a whole and Sylvanas as a fan of their products.
"No crown. No throne. Not even a soul left for judgement"
Jailer: "Bear witness."
Previous players [to Blizzard?]: "Put your foolish ambitions to rest..."
Godrick the Grafted was a far greater villain, even though he had a fraction of the Jailer's screentime.
@@WarMonger_the-One-and-Only Every villian in WoW is better at his/her job that the Jailor...
"You need resolutions. You need reasonings."
I agree. Really feels like they went with a Game Of Thrones ending where some stuff did happen but were just irrational.. Really felt rushed..
I never thought they would top the disaster of bfa they managed to make an expansion that irredeemably harms all of the previous Warcraft stories by meddling into the background.
There's so much they dropped the ball on this expansion. The writing is so extremely messy I can't even fathom it. Why doesn't the story ever address how the Primus is really responsible for all of this. He created the power of Domination and basically placed it in Zovaal's lap and when Zovaal uses it to be a naughty boy, the Primus just goes "oh sorry I was angry and it wasn't ever supposed to be used like that :("
And then you have the issue of Sylvanas and how all the characters with reasonable beef with her are just shoved into a corner for more Sylvanas angst like... Tyrande is shelved in 9.1, Baine has one line in that cinematic and then becomes quiet, Jaina gets shushed by "bro trust me" Uther. And laughably keeps getting these moments to monologue, between the Anduin cinematic (poor Uther and Jaina get to say nothing to the remnants of Arthas lol) and the story quest where they're infusing the shattered helm shards with their memories- Anduin struggles and Sylvanas for some reason (not Bolvar or Darion) goes "let me give you MY perspective" like girl, you caused this, sit down not everything is about you (but I guess actually it is, since this whole expansion is just for her character development I guess.)
Why does Sylvanas side with the Jailer? It only makes sense if she knew about the larger threat looming out there, but even then she has such strong reasons not to even THINK about siding with the dude that made Arthas. But if she knew about the larger threat then why did she get an entire cinematic that went 'oh she's not guilty of her crimes because it wasn't the *real* Sylvanas doing them' and then switch sides?
There was SO much potential with writing with the Shadowlands, I thought 9.0 was such a strong start and had me excited for where they could go, but we got this absolute mess. What was the point of anything?????? They could have gone into what knowing the actual afterlife would do to the various races of Azeroth. They could have touched on some really heartfelt things (I was begging for a reunion between Kael'thas and his father with the Revendreth story) but. at this point it's so hard to care. They turned WoW canon from a solid foundation into mud, trying to build a grand castle on top of it thinking that the malleability will be to their benefit when it's making everything fall apart.
How the Primus got captured: In the finale we see the Jailer is bound *without* the domination runes. If i had to speculate I'd say the Primus was experimenting on Zovaal trying to figure out how domination magic works and did something that makes the control work both ways and got out-willed. This assumes Blizz actually thought about it though.
Bold of you to assume that they think things through
Honestly after years of watching Nobbel's content, I can't help but feel bad for him having to talk about Shadowlands lore
The whole part of the Jailer being a mastermind behind everything is very similar to a point in Bleach where the big bad evil guy is revealed to be the true mastermind behind everything, he planned for everything to happen this way to reach this end and it made no sense at all because it was not how the story was written it was a shoe horned in load of bull crap and this feels the exact same way.
For the ending where a bigger evil is coming is very similar to Xcom 1 and 2 where at the end it is hinted that the bad guys are doing this to prevent a greater evil, that what they're doing is justified in the end and that is how this feels as well.
The point I am trying to make here is that it feels like the writers are just copying things they have seen in other media, in other stories and trying to make it fit in the Warcraft story. Like they saw these other stories and thought "Wouldn't that be cool if we did something like that in World of Warcraft?" and it just doesn't work because that is not how the story was structured before and it all just feels like cheap shonen anime writing like someone who watched too much Naruto or Bleach or any other kind of long narrative where you just need to write as you go without a long term goal.
Apologize to Naruto and bleach right now.
Since they did all those retcons... they should do this one, too: make the whole of Shadowlands just an horrific vision, too. We'll go back to the battle with N'zoth (I think that Ny'alotha, the Black Empire, etc. deserved WAY more than one single patch).
Bet I'm not the only one that, seeing the "primorial Azeroth" page on Chronicle (the pyramid-like building, the lava, and the huge old god in the background) thought "amazing: I'd love to have a whole expansion pac with that setting".
If the Jailer wanted Eternity's End does that mean after defeating him we are stuck in the Shadowlands in perpetuity?
Welcome to "World of Warcraft 2" - All great heros are death or missing in the realm of death. Sooooooo Welcome to the new game. Do you want to create a character to stand against the fascist Light-Dude on the throne in Stormwind ;)
Nah we have hearthstones.
THANK YOU for saying that the current writing team is just as much at fault for not picking up for the weird story curveball they were left with.
Not to mention, what does the knowledge of the Shadowlands do to mortal's beliefs? Of all the different belief systems in Azeroth, will these change?
Also, should they just get rid of factions now? How do you go from saving all of existence and discovering who the real creators of reality were to fighting over lumber disputes?
Battle for Azeroth and Mists of Pandaria were faction war expansions. Both after huge "the world is almost destroyed" things...
It feels like Shadowland's lore as a whole can be summarized with this one sentence: "It's cool as long as you don't think about it." If you take everything at face value, it's pretty dope. The Forge of Souls powering up, the Azerite beam connecting Icecrown Citadel with Torghast, Anduin breaking free, etc. etc. It's all pretty cool, as long as you don't stop and ask "Wait, so were the Forge of Souls built with this specific purpose? Cause that wasn't their function back in Wrath. Did Bolvar never check his basement? Did no one stop to think about the giant machine underneath Icecrown? What about the Saronite, what function did that serve? How did the Azerite get from Torghast to Zereth Mortis like that? Is the key to domination magic just remembering real hard? Was there a specific event that triggered the memories of Varian and Varok, or was it just a case of them sensing Anduin REALLY needing them now?"
It feels more and more like they're doing what they've been accused of in the past: They write the stories around these big and cool moments, which can all be summarized with these bad-ass catchy quotes... But everything in between is just all up in the air, and they can't handle connecting the dots for the life of them.
I'll tell you why the Jailer didn't mention the greater threat till now, because they only just recently thought of it themselves.
RIP Nobbel87
Shadowlands killed his love of lore
The lore of Warcraft was littearly the only thing that interested me about the franchise. Wow completely butchered it.
"Just wait and see." is the meta definition of World of Warcraft, both in game and in story. The game designers go with the flow of things and so do the story writers.
The Jailer in his dying breath might have well have winked at the camera and said "Stay tuned for season 2 *bleh".
I'm done with this. I really wish to keep the great memories I have from my childhood pristine and pure. The biggest crime of shadowlands isn't that the expansion itself sucked, but that it retroactively destroyed the rest of such an incredible franchise. Best wishes to all the wow veterans ❤. I hope you all find something that makes you happy.
The problem was not that they "haven't explained anything for so long" but it's that they explained away basically everything at the end patch and also killed off the main villain who just got introduced in that expansion. That was never done before in WoW's history. What y'all (Nobbel and Acco) didn't get at the time and maybe still don't get, is if you are going to write a cryptic, mysterious story then the worst thing you can do is to kill the mystery by explaining it all away at the end. Mysteries are cool because they live on (Twin Peaks comes to mind, you watch all 3 seasons and the prequel movie and you just get more and more questions). Shadowlands could have been so much more but the "lore devs" either had no balls (or no talent) to pull it off, or more likely Activision pressured them to end it quick, throw it in the trash and get to the next expansion.
Dragonflight in contrast to early shadowlands (9.0 - 9.1) is so painfully boring. It now is starting to ramp up a little bit but it's still nothing that I can enjoy, it's just safe and tame and I couldn't care less about the Dragon Isles. The theme is just not warcraft, even in MoP you could say pandas and zen and what not, but MoP was one of the most aggressive expansions with the horde vs alliance war going on throughout.
Whenever a cinematic comes out you're the one guy who's reaction I really want to see
Edit: his reaction was everything I was hoping for and more
So the old gods are the good guys?
I mean, after an ending like that, I totally get why he wants to break away from WoW for a while. Or possible forever.
That somber choral music- at the end of the Jailer's defeat scene -that's the final nail in the coffin for WoW as a game. It dies not with a glorious bang, but with a painful and pathetic whimper.
I dont want to make it worse for you nobbel but...
We now know there's a very high chance Elune is just a robot . Nothing mystical.
Why is Elune a robot? Pantheon of Order comes from world soul's and can manifest themselves (eg Argus). Pantheon of Death inhabit vessels (eg Zovaal). We have no idea how the Pantheon of Life were created. The entire pantheon could be mystical forces for all we know.
Elune is actually a giant gnome robot constructed by High Tinker Mekkatorque. Thats also the reason why gnomeregang got infested with green demon energy. The last patch will than reveal that mekkatorque was the jailer all along
I used to love this game so much, it's actually insane how invested I was. I am still very nostalgic about TBC - MoP and I would really want for it to return to form. No game will ever come close for me and that is what makes me so sad.
"let it be finished" is the last thing Dranosh said before Arthas killed him. So Varok saying it here was a cool call back to that
Shit.. I just made a comment about this like two hours ago. Didn’t see this until just now.
This vid is gold tbh hope the game devs see this and NEVER FORGET their mistakes which was shadowlands as a whole
Shadowlands is basically just forgetting that the previous lore happened, like why Sauerfang who only just recently got close to him when back in the old books Anduin had so many people way closer to him.
I know I'm late here, but I think the only good piece of storytelling that came from Shadowlands was Garrosh sticking to his guns and staying true to his nature in his death cinematic. And that was the doing of one developer and was a last minute thing
Everyone else in the comments has already said what I think about this expansion and story, as well as these cutscenes specifically. Now I wonder if blizzard is gonna recover from this. Probably not
They dont have to: there are still too many players who dont care and who keep playing for whatever reasons. WoW is literally too big to fail, no matter what the devs do.
@@markup6394 subscription numbers, and player retention keep falling. WoW is also no longer the biggest mmo out there. Blizzards name is also in the dirt right now. Screwing up two expansions in a row doesn't help as well.
@@TheDerek14 I dont have the numbers, but there are still many fans out there who will return immidiately as soon as the new trailer for 10.0 rolls out. Yes, Blizzard's name is tarnished and WoW will never again be the king of MMOs but it will still be strong player in the field.
One thing that really grinds me gears, is the different usage and references to the words, Souls vs. Spirits.
I miss new videos...
Did he quit?
@@munirulusan He actively streams on Twitch now, though mostly just Final Fantasy.
Sad times for us who enjoy neither streaming nor FFXIV
I think the call back Saurfang did was pretty neat. “Let it be finished” is what Dranosh Saurfang, Varok’s son, said before he got gibbed by Arthas at the Wrathgate.
Fuck me im so freaking sad about how they murdered the franchise I loved for all my adult life. I really got into the lore thanks to your early videos, learning about the lore while questing again and understanding the connections. I just dont have any hope for the story anymore and I fucking hate it.
The lore of the warcraft universe has been so important for me for the last 10+ years, because it was filled with so many cool conecpts, ideas and charakters. And they threw it all away for this shitty expansion with this shitty villain and their cosmic ideas.....
As someone how studied philosophy, I feel like the writers had an intrduction to some basic concepts of language, will and reality and tried to be so fucking smart by implementing it into their "new comsic story". But they don't understand shit and did such a bad job that they all deserved to be fired. Their whole stick about language and how it constitutes reality and how imporant it is, is such a bad and blantant reading of some basic Kant and Heidegger....
Fuck this shit! I will not care anymore. The lore is dead and nothing can bring it back
Helloooooo everyone. I had to go watch the intro to another video because hearing your soothing voice without the intro was unnerving
Tiffin died when Anduin was still an infant. Saurfang and Varian were participants and role models. I agree that Sylvanas does not belong here. A man's epitaph belongs to those who loved him (Varian and Uther and Jaina). And while it's true that Arthas was a pivotal moment in Sylvanas life, she was little more than road kill in his.
If Arthas was alive and able to talk, he would be like "I just needed the sunwell but you kept denying me, You caused your own suffering" he is remorseful but slyv thinkz she is the center.
I remember watching your Warlords of Draenor lore videos years ago and being really excited. Despite the expansion falling short of my expectations, I'd still take it over what we got for Shadowlands.
Arthas really got screwed over on this lore. Kinda wished he would have had a better ending. This was what to expect from the people who decided to burn down Teldassil. They might as well have the Jailer end the Universe as the last expansion. Thanks everyone, what a ride this was ha, The Jailer won.. Haha, you thought we were going to show Elune's true form, didn't ya? 😂🤣💀 Got ya's
Arthas didn't deserve a better ending. Dude got what he deserved.
@@geoffreybentley5619 pretty much, in ways thought I was the only one
@@geoffreybentley5619 He was controlled like Syvanas was. I don't know if you notice he did this all under control. Look what Sylvanas did too Teldrassil, and she wasn't under control. Killed all the night elves women and children, you forget that part.
There were so many things he did before he was under the control of the jailer.
@@geoffreybentley5619 Ok Sylvanas simp
I follow Nobbel since he got...i don't know, 10 thousand followers.
This is the FIRST time i'm having the pleasure to see him talk loud and clear (with respect as always) what the current Blizzard have fucked up the Warcraft storie.
Thanks for this, Nob. This...was a relieve.
I dont know if you ever gonna read this but here we go..
"But your legacy is at an end. Begone then, Arthas Menethil." for me this line echos Blizzards stand on the old lore, what was the quality of storytelling that came with all those years of build-up ever since Warcraft III.. And to add insult to injury, its this simped over corpse thats telling him to fuck of.. Im not cool with this.. At least give it to Uther.. Stop giving IPs the Star Wars treatment.. And if you even think of redeeming Sylvanas to some kind of "see she is just a victim! Its not her fault!", explain that shit to all players who mains a Night Elf..
So.. Instead of just bitching on what I think Blizz fluffed up, I will come with a productive suggestion.. This is totally a head-canon and would need some retcon... BUT..
I would mutch rather that Anduin be the illigitimate bastard of Jaina and Arthas, given away to the Wrynns to save the scandal and to not let him grow up with that Lich King bagage.. And instead of Varian and Horde-Daddy Saurfang it should have been that little part of Arthas that was still pure (the boy in ICC), something of "history repeats itself" kind of deal but knowing that he (Arthas) cant fix what he did as LK, at least he could save his son from becoming what he became (or actually killing Anduin as an act of mercy to pay for his sins, if you want a more edgy story). And as he appeas in the spirit form, looking like the golden lion-price he was before the purge, looking at Uther with a slight sigh and sad eyes, uttering a simple "Im sorry.. For everything" before he fades away.. Letting the part that was still Arthas die with some dinity, not redemption, but dignity.
Sry for the long post, got a bit carried away.. Would love to get your opinion (whatever it may be) on my suggestion and thanks for your awesome lore videos!
Though I cringed a bit at the "make Anduin the bastard son of Jaina and Arthas" ... it would make up for such a better ending. I understand when people say "Arthas already had his farewell ins Wrath, hence why they didnt bother with it here", my answer always is "then why digging him up again?". Yes, he may have been a jerk in life, and yes, his arc was finished in Wrath, but that doesnt mean he deserved this. Not redemption, but dignity - amen.
@@markup6394 A bit cringe prehaps but I cant fix this shit show, all I can try is to stop the bleeding without rewriting too much, unlike Blizz I dont want to fuck with the old lore. Making Anduin a unknown bastard was the best I could come up with WITHOUT fucking up or totally rewriting events and the good moments with Anduin and Varian, dont wish to cheapen their relationship.
Also no redemption arc for Arthas eventhough he was a young man who was too eager and got tricked by a dreadlord into northrend and Muradin told him of the cursed blade which for Arthas just sounded like an ultimate weapon, who wouldnt seek an artefact like that? Arthas gets corrupted (by the jailor, says the new team.. ugh..) but he is not seen as a victim in this end? Sure his soul got forged into a weapon so we cant have his spirit as a whole BUT DONT SPIT ON THE CHARACTER THAT CARRIED PART OF THE FRANCHISE! The new team just wanted the nostalgiabois out of the game, for good. Sylvanas's words really nail it in.
@@erikkarlsson861 True that.
i haven't paid attention to the story for awhile, but this is my first time hearing Nobbel upset like this about the story, and I am here for it lol
Is this channel dead?
It's clear that Steve Danuser only cares about his fan fiction fantasy anymore. I am pretty sure they long gave up on writing for the consumers. There's a reason why Sylvanas is in the focus of everything, no matter how unfitting it is. She's the main character now. And every one else is a side character, at best.
I think this is unfixable. The stench of the last two expansion's aren't gonna just come out in the wash.
We need a large resetting of the table to even start with a good story. Cause everything in Warcraft right now is tainted. I was so hopeful that the Jailer would at least partially succeed in changing the laws of the universe because it could open so many avenues to fix what happened. Yes, it'd suckv and be a cop out. Just like how Warlords was ultimately just to get Gul'dan back for Legion to happen. But at least that allowed a cool story to be born from it
God, it's so fucking strange but I would actually *welcome* a Warlords of Draenor completely cut off story from everything, anything else. At least a time travel to the past means we don't have to fucking care about any of the mountains of manure this expansion had produced.
Honestly, reboot the series, time travel shenanigans it up, whatever I don't care. Just hit the giant emergency reset button cause this story needs it.
Per your last few lines, I've seen people suggest that the Jailer should've won and this should have been a realmreborn type situation, reset everything and start from the ground up.
Fuck this is a mess.
Needed a stairway to heaven momment
Since there were time travels, they can claim these being another universe.