Yeah, I get that Xal'atath is active and effective and stuff. That does make her more compelling as a villain, but I'm convinced there's a substantial portion of the audience who sees Dommy mommy.
(It's also not like Zovaal isn't "doing stuff" in Shadowlands. He does plenty of stuff, he's just not whispering seductively to Alleria.)
Edited by Fighteer on Jun 20th 2025 at 12:19:42 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"In my corner of the Internet, Xal'atath's bare feet have been met with more derision than anything.
Like, someone at Blizz went through a lot of effort to model them in off-puttingly great detail. And then cinematics have gone out of their way to focus on them at points.
It feels more like those were more done for someone at Blizzard, in a "Yes, it is absolutely vital for the character that she be barefeet all the time and that we see them" kind of way. Like how Quiet in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is virtually naked because she "Breathes through her skin".
I dunno, she has that "I made this character for me" kind of vibe.
That's also possible, but believe me, the demographic for that sort of thing exists.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I still think World of Warcraft Warcraft has a way to go in terms of its reoccurring villains.
Arthas was a great villain, but only for one expansion. No one really has managed to be a great villain for more than two expansions. Gul'dan in Warlords and Legion, Sylvanis in Battle and Shadowlands. No one has yet managed the hat trick being a major villainous force in three different expansions (Though Garrosh comes close) and eventually, if wow is to be a perpetual narrative, they will need characters to have that kind of mainstay.
I'm certain Illidan will be a mainstay of the franchise, but he's not been a villain since burning crusade, and even then not a very effectively used one.
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Well obviously the issue is that it's difficult to make a villain last because ultimately, you as the player will be gunning after that villain expansion after expansion and it gets frustrating if you don't get to do anything tangible to them and their plans. As a writer, you want to make the villain effective so they stay a while, but not too effective that it feels like nothing you do matters, while at the same time giving you enough interactions with the villain that you actually get a connection with them without feeling like they're mustache-twirling in front of you for the hell of it.
It's a very fine balance and it's very hard to get right, especially over multiple expansions. They didn't get it right with Sylvanas (their method of having her keep getting away with her evil was making the Horde too pathetic to meaningfully contest her). They mostly got it right with Gul'dan (and part of it is that he never was the frontliner villain, he mostly stuck to the background).
I haven't played in years so I don't really have an opinion on Xal'atath.
Gul'dan did take over as the primary antagonist in the latter half of Warlords, and got to show off just how powerful he really is as a Warlock, but he didn't fight the heroes at the end, Archimonde(Who is also somehow the same Archimonde from Warcraft 3.) became the final boss.
And he did show up personally on the Broken Shore to kill Varian.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"Not towards the heroes till Legion because that would be suicide, but he was an active presence is what I'm saying. Personally showing up to humiliate Grommash, corrupt the Orks, Khadgar's bodyguard, as well as being on the field himself to open up the portal to summon Archimonde (Which as Warcraft 3 taught me, is not easy.)
Like, he's got all sorts of cool scenes in Warlords alone. I respect that after starting the expansion pack on the backfoot but even then was pro active in attempting to reclaim the plot like leading a Legion attack on Draenei territory.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"Sylvanas had to pull double duty as a faction leader for a while, so regardless of when we imagine Blizzard's writing team decided to "retcon" her into the awful person she already bloody was, she couldn't be a full villain until Shadowlands*. So, despite being present throughout multiple expansions to a greater or lesser degree, she only got one as the actual bad guy... and like Gul'dan she wasn't the Final Boss.
By the by, we do have a boss fight with Draenor's version of Gul'dan in Legion, in the Nighthold raid, where we kill him once and for all. Or rather, Illidan does after being resurrected.
* I suppose we could call Sylvanas a villain in Battle for Azeroth, but we don't get a raid battle against her and she's still Warchief until the very end. Heck, Horde players are even given the option to fully side with her.
Xal'atath is interesting in that she was given her introduction in Legion but only promoted to Big Bad status in The War Within, a full three expansions later. And even in this one we won't have a raid fight against her, so she's technically getting the Sylvanas treatment. But if we want to tally up the long-running baddies, Azshara must take some sort of cake for the length of time (in-story) between starting her evil career and when we actually fight her. (Okay, the Old Gods probably qualify there, technically.)
The point is that the Warcraft universe is absolutely loaded down with arch-evildoers of varying degrees of mortality and power, who come and go throughout the narrative until we finally smash their faces in.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"And he looks like Kratos if he were a Hollow.
Azshara debuted in 2007 I believe in the War of the Ancients book series. She's been alive for nearly twenty years of continuity. Which I think is the longest of any Warcraft villain.
Gul'dan might compete with the Nighthold releasing twenty years after Warcraft; but I think he looses out on the technicality of being two different people.
I enjoyed the audio drama with Alt Gul'dan reacting to his other self's corpse and failure.
It's a very fascinating character study of a cartoon villain having an existential crisis.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"Hi I remembered this thread existed.
Definitely agreeing with
X5 about the Jailer being the worst villain. He was already just kind of boring and generic, but the second they started piling on all these "Actually it was him/Denathrius on his orders all along!" with old threats to try bump up his threat level and importance in the scheme of the overarching storyline I got actively annoyed, trying to swivel him to a Well-Intentioned Extremist at the very end just kind of cinched it for me. I don't want to be mean towards the writers, because from what we've heard leaked from that time period the writing team was in a messy scramble after Afrasiabi leaving without any future story plans and Danuser getting kicked upstairs and figuring out how he was going to lead, but...
I think that's why I enjoyed Fyrakk so much, he really was just what he was, an evil bastard who savored being an evil bastard, even Deathwing fell because of outside corruption when he became a cartoon villain, Fyrakk was just a monster from the start, the shadowflame just made him worse.
I think it's a good example of how so much writing tries to be subversive, sometimes an archetype that plays itself as straight as it possibly can ends up feeling refreshing.
Edited by NaraNumas on Jun 21st 2025 at 3:41:20 AM
A detail that often gets forgotten is that while the Nathrezim worked for the Jailer, they also had their own agenda running.
This was most illustrated in the final 9.0 cinematic the Jailer denies any plan to rescue Denathrius...who gets promptly rescued by the Nathrezim in patch 9.1.
Once we consider this, it actually inserts a fair bit of ambiguity into how much influence the Jailer really had because most of his supposed influence ran through the Nathrezim. And I think in general, the Nathrezim having a more complicated allegiance than purely to the Burning Legion works just fine since they were always sold as being master manipulators.
My issue is that they were working for Denathrius ultimately, but when they were of the Burning Legion, they were agents of the Jailer.
It feels like a cheap attempt at legitimizing both villains with the Dreadlords.
And you know it'll be revealed they were working for other villains all along till the cycle repeats.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"I wouldn't mind the Jailer so much if his manipulation and plan was a little more clear in scope.
Until the final patch of his expansion what his plan is so opaque. Not to mention it wasn't clear who he did or didn't directly dominate.
It seems it had two things it needed to happen: a world soul tainted with death needed to die, so he could break the arbitrator and amas power, and a second world soul needed to be injured so he could power his reformate the shadowlands plan.
To be fair, both are within the scope of the burning legion unknowingly delivering him given the Burning Legion's MO is killing world souls.
But the weird thing is they establish The Jailer had access to loads of different worlds and has had tens of thousands of years attempting his escape, but we only see how his plan ties to Azeroth and what we've gotten up to. I'd believe the plan more if we got evidence of failed attempts on Draenor, Karesh, Nathreza and so on.
Eh, really Zovaal works better as a vehicle for Sylvanis storyarc. Or he would be if she had any clear connection to him in Battle for Azeroth.
The Jailer had no power to break free of his chains in the Maw until the Arbiter was broken. That gave him access to an enormous flood of Anima to vitalize his plans. It's not that hard to understand. He made a deal with Denathrius, the Nathrezim helped to manipulate events towards the death of Argus, Zovaal got all the Anima to break free of the Maw, yadda yadda.
Heck, Zovaal is only, what, the fifth or sixth cosmic-level entity to try to do something horrid with the World-Soul of Azeroth? And we always knew there was some power in the realm of Death that was driving the Undead Scourge, among other things. Sylvanas' brief journey to the Maw is covered in a short story from ages ago, and something created Frostmourne and the Helm of Domination. We even see the deal that would lead to Sylvanas' alliance with Zovaal take place in Legion.
I broadly agree that Zovaal is underdeveloped as a character, but it's not exactly out of left field that there's some cosmic Death entity trying to take over. Given the history of the Warcraft universe, it would be weirder if there weren't, and I'm still waiting for the shoes to drop on Life and Light.
Granted, it seemed like Blizzard's story team had already written him off by the end of the expansion, as his death scene is not one of the better cinematics. But I don't really care since we got so much spectacular storytelling from the rest of Shadowlands. (I recall that N'Zoth's defeat cinematic was pretty lame, too.)
Edited by Fighteer on Jun 21st 2025 at 9:25:37 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I am excited at the idea of a life villain at some point. I also want to see heroic anarchy demons now that they're out from under Sagaras' thumb.
What I like about the six cosmic forces of warcraft is that they all have ideologies to them that can be applied to good or ill.
Light is devotion and faith, which can make you selfless or could make you an unquestioning zealot,
Void is suspicion and doubt, which could make you the best detective of all time, or an easily manipulated conspiracy theorist.
Arcane is order, which can have you organise and create, but also can make you rigid and inflexible.
Fel is destruction, which could have you read down empires and figureheads that have outlived their usefulness, but also can have you just destroy indescrimitably.
I think death is something about persistence. And life is about succession, I think?
Death and Life form an eternal cycle. When the system gets out of balance, they go kind of crazy and start doing bad things.
The lore around Shadowlands contains a lot of truth and a lot of inference. Zovaal was the Arbiter ages ago but had his little Sargeras-like breakdown and decided that he wanted to remake the cosmos to his own plan. The other members of the Pantheon opposed him, threw him in the Maw, and put together a new Arbiter using his Sigil. This Arbiter was a construct and not as... "effective" as the original.
The machinery of Death ground on, with everyone stuck in their patterns, but those patterns felt very unfair to certain folks. Particularly Sylvanas, who had a unique perspective given that she was undead and had actually seen the Maw briefly. (That was after Arthas' death, when she attempted suicide and was brought back by the Val'kyr.)
Sylvanas decided that any system whereby souls could be arbitrarily condemned to eternal suffering and dissolution without a chance at redemption was fundamentally unfair and resolved to prolong her own existence so she would never see that fate. Along the way, she encountered Hela, one of those ancillary Death gods, and made contact with the Jailer. Around that time, Mueh'zala, another Death god in Zovaal's service, bullied his way into Vol'jin's spirit conference call and told him to make Sylvanas the Warchief after his death.
Sylvanas' deal was that she would feed souls to the Jailer in return for his promise to help her remake the afterlife into something fairer. Along the way, she attempted to persuade her fellow Forsaken to give up their attachments to life and join her in her crusade against the structure of Death itself. This had partial success.
The outcome of Shadowlands was that we got a new Arbiter committed to remaking the cycle into something more reasonable: no longer would souls be condemned to the Maw, but even the worst would get a chance to go to Revendreth and repent. Sylvanas got her soul back and was ordered to do penance by scouring the Maw for every last soul that remained, sending them to the Arbiter for a new chance.
Meanwhile, the disruption of the cycle of souls was hardest on Ardenweald, the place where Nature spirits go to find healing and restoration before returning to the Emerald Dream for a new shot at life. The Winter Queen thought that her sister, Elune, had abandoned her and sent a desperate plea for aid. Elune, not knowing what was going on, arranged for a "flood of souls" that she thought would go to Ardenweald. These souls were the Night Elves slain at Teldrassil. But because the Arbiter was broken, they went to the Maw instead, as Sylvanas had intended.
Normally, Night Elves get a choice after death. They can become Wisps to sustain the forests, or they can go to their afterlives. Elune denied this choice — something that became a bit of a sticking point with the race (and with the fandom). The trauma motivated Tyrande Whisperwind to become the Night Warrior, borrowing Elune's power for vengeance. She hunted Sylvanas through the Maw and into Ardenweald where the conflict came to a head.
Using Tyrande's body as a vessel, Elune spoke directly with the Winter Queen and learned the truth. Devastated, they combined their power to create a new Tear of Elune, which would become the seed of a new World Tree, Amirdrassil. The Night Elf souls that we rescued from the Maw put their power into this seed as well. That Tree became the focus of the conflict of the Dragonflight expansion, with Fyrakk attempting to corrupt it. We won, and the Night Elves have their home back. Many of the souls that were slain at Teldrassil can be seen there as Wisps.
[takes a breath]
Whew.
Edited by Fighteer on Jun 21st 2025 at 11:03:47 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"The Jailer is interesting in that he sorta falls back to the old WC 3 beta lore were the Cult of the Damned was independent from the Burning Legion, and sorta explains while the MO differs between the two so much.
His biggest shortcoming is that we as a player never really interact with him, we just sometimes overhear him monologing but he isn't really a personal nemesis.

Yeah I mean Alt Gul’dan since he actually gets to have character and scenes of him being awesome. Like when he turned the tables on Grommash and took over the Iron Horde. There’s also killing Anduin’s dad.
Plus his backstory does a good job of explaining his deal without making him too sympathetic.
I did play Warcraft 2 and Gul’dan showed up for like 2 scenes IIRC.
I read the manual but other than that, he doesn’t have much going for him.
Edited by RedHunter543 on Jun 20th 2025 at 11:59:15 PM
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"