Meteion vs WoW's The Jailer (Spoilers)

[iheartlove42]

Meteion was slightly hinted at especially in Shadowbringers with the Final Days. We just didn't know what the cause was. In Crystal Tower there's also morse code that decrypts to something she oftens says: "It's all wrong!". Ever since the end of 1.0 and ARR, we knew the Ascians wanted to bring back Zodiark we just didn't know why. In general there was a natural progression to her.

I used to play WoW so I can speak on this. Back in Legion, Vol'jin chose Sylvanas to take over the Horde with his dying breath. Nobody knew why except the spirits told him. In BFA then the troll god of death started mentioning how she had a secret boss. And she was acting erratic, but there were hints she was serving someone else.

In Shadowlands that's revealed to be the Jailer. There are a few issues with the Jailer though. The first is that he's retroactively retconned to have secretly been manipulating events thoughout history the entire time. That he was secretly behind the Legion, the Scourge, etc. But there's never been any hints of this ever. WoW up until WOTLK was pretty much following off of Warcraft 3's storyline, and in WOTLK when you fight the Scourge there's no hints of the Jailer at all. Now they're retroactively acting like The Lich King Arthas was trying to defend Azeroth against the Jailer even though he never mentioned anything of the sort. They're telling us the Nathrezim secretly served and manipulated the Legion and its Demon Lords the entire time, even though again there's no hints of it. Even the Appendices of the Warcraft 3 manual, which is what Blizzard had to dig into so they didn't have to finish off the Legion storyline for three expansions after WOTLK, nothing about the Shadowlands or the Jailer or First Ones etc is ever mentioned. The problem with WoW's story is after WOTLK it started to become more centered around its player retention model, which is to drag things out as long as possible and timegate everything. WoW's other big issues is they constantly retcon things to suit their needs. I could go on for days about WoW and Blizzards fall from grace but that's not what the topic is about.

[Larirawiel]

So far, consensus seems to be no real complaints about Meteion being brought into the narrative while there seems to be a lot of griping about The Jailer being brought in as a plot device in WoW.

Thoughts?

Meteion and Zovaal were introduced too fast, IMHO. I have also a problem with Meteion that ... he/she/it became way too powerful in a very short period of time. Wiping out the entire life on a planet is crazy.

But i find Meteion was way better introduced than Zovaal. The problem with Zovaal is that he is a boring standard villain. In Shadowlands the player gets told that he is the mastermind behind all troubles since Warcraft 3. But ingame he is ... stupid. You will never ever believe that he is a mastermind of something because he stumbles some one-liners like Arnold Schwarzenegger in a 1980ish action movie. Such a stupid villain would never be a danger for anyone. But why is he a successful villain? Because his enemies .. and your allies are more stupid than he is. So one not so smart villain overhelms totaly stupid "good guys". That is the story of Shadowlands in a nutshell.

But because your allies ... bilion years old powerful beings are so stupid this is totaly immersion breaking. It is unbelievable how your allies can act like that. Elune could save the lives of millions of nightelves. But she let them die because she wanted that the souls of those nightelves would be a kind of fuel for the Ardenweald. What happened? Zovaal got the souls of millions of nightelves. But because nobody of this billion years old powerful beings in Shadowlands told Elune that the arbiter is dead. So every soul which enters the Shadowlands will be directed into the maw.

Maybe six years old kids could be impressed with such a story but not teenager or adulds.

Cheers

[RyuDragnier]

Normally, it is poor writing to add in a plot element that was not in any way known earlier in a long story mystery, but in Endwalker we have Meteion introduced for the 1st time as the core trouble behind the End of Days. Over in WoWland we have The Jailer introduced for the 1st time as the puppeteer behind most everything that happened before.

So far, consensus seems to be no real complaints about Meteion being brought into the narrative while there seems to be a lot of griping about The Jailer being brought in as a plot device in WoW.

Thoughts?

I think it's more the Jailer having been retconned to be behind a lot of stuff. Whereas Meteion was only behind one event, the Final Days, and nothing else, retconning absolutely nothing, since everything that followed was a result of a domino effect. She pushed the first domino, but had her hand in nothing else.

[Slatersev]

The Jailer is also worse because his introduction opens up a story that was already done just to retcon it real badly.

Warcraft 3's story was done, Wrath and Legion for better or worse put a pin in all its plot threads. The Jailer popping up just to be behind it all not only undoes that, but it does so in an insane and nonsensical way.

The plot of Warcraft 3 is now a bunch of pawns of the Jailer stumble around fighting each other despite all working for the same dude. Its just dumb and totally removes every characters agency

[vormela]

The jailer has been introduced as the god of death (on an entirely new pantheon) after the original Pantheon\\'s death titan, Argus, was inexplicably killed by us in the same patch he was introduced. He had been corrupted, so it had to happen. There seems to be no explanation for whether his responsibilities overlapped with the jailer\\'s or how they were both titans of death. (I am conflating the titan/death pantheons here but there is no dividing line I have been able to find and as of 9.0 there was no way to compare "power levels" so the threat he is making is impossible to measure.)

Meanwhile, the planet has had a titan sword sticking out of it for two expansions now with the rogue titan "jailed" in another dimension that is still visible in the skybox of every zone.

So they have developed this new, extremely flat character on top of the story that was developing with actual titans that have been in the lore since forever.

I would compare the jailer to Ranjit in Shadowbringers. He is ever present, ever watching, he is on the hunt for you constantly, he never really seems villainous because there is no way to assess his motives.

When you meet him, he is from a different planet with different rules, and you are already disoriented enough. In both experiences (going to the Maw, going to the First) you\\'ve been kidnapped or held against your will somehow. Ranjit is like the jailer of the first only more relatable because at least he was loyal to Eulmore, had a backstory, and cared about all the Minfilias he felt guilty for not being harsh enough toward in their training.

With Hydaelyn/Zodiark, it was always going to end with both eventually killed. They could have been the same entity, there could have been an older entity/pantheon/force, corruption of one or both, or a third party. I thought Meteion made total sense and can see how Venat would incorporate the emotionally affecting star showers into her vision for Hydaelyn.

You could contrast the jailer\\'s lack of clear motivations in WoW to Fandaniel/Zenos\\' pact to bring on the Final Days. We knew and found out more about how that plan came to be and how it unfolded. That was the entire story from 80-83. We made observations, went back in time, and the way we reached Meteion unfolded throughout the rest of the story made sense. They even took us back to the actual source of the problem at t=0! I wasn\\'t expecting that AT ALL!

I am not sure if the WoW 9.1 or 9.2 patches expand upon the jailer/maw\\'s purpose or how it fits into the system, or its relevance if the "rules of reality" are changed, or what the limiting bounds for that change are (at least in FFXIV it is explained through rejoinings... and we have seen a place that experienced an elemental flood, and 90% of it is pretty much gone). There is nothing like that to compare to in WoW that they have decided to compare reality-unmaking to in the two patches since this guy was introduced.

ETA: I am not the one to come up with the Ranjit/Jailer comparison but I cannot for the life of me find the original post I saw. It was on a gaming forum. If anyone has this that'd be helpful. Sorry for copying. It was just such a good analogy that I haven't been able to forget it.

[BlackClaud]

Meteion and Zovaal were introduced too fast, IMHO. I have also a problem with Meteion that ... he/she/it became way too powerful in a very short period of time. Wiping out the entire life on a planet is crazy.

It was explained why she grew so powerful so fast, it's because she was the first being able to freely use Dynamis, and that concept was introduced this expansion only afaik.

Also, they also pinpointed a very few selection of people knew something about Dynamis, Hermes being probably the sole expert in the area. Even Venat knew close to nothing about it, and Meteion being the only one to properly manipulate Dynamis at will is what made her insanely powerful.

Remember, even to the present days, there was only 1 entity was aware of it's existence, that Arkasodara I forgot it's name, Nadhila or something like that, and she only knew as a theory of what it was.

[Bhearil]

It was explained why she grew so powerful so fast, it's because she was the first being able to freely use Dynamis, and that concept was introduced this expansion only afaik.

Also, they also pinpointed a very few selection of people knew something about Dynamis, Hermes being probably the sole expert in the area. Even Venat knew close to nothing about it, and Meteion being the only one to properly manipulate Dynamis at will is what made her insanely powerful.

Remember, even to the present days, there was only 1 entity was aware of it's existence, that Arkasodara I forgot it's name, Nadhila or something like that, and she only knew as a theory of what it was.

Akasa or dynamis was basically only a theory that was only proven with the Elpis flowers during the ancient times, problem is that it was stated to be weaker than aether during a time the world was bursting with aether so generally speaking was pretty useless and incompatible with the Ancients due to them being filled with aether that negated dynamis

When the Final Days appeared first dynamis was used on a very subtle way making creation magicks go crazy, only when Zodiark was gone when dynamis was used more bluntly (and probably due to stockpiled power during 13k years), due to people having less aether thus making them more vulnerable to dynamis direct action

[JeanneOrnitier]

Meteion works because she isn't retconned in to be the cause of everything bad in history the way the Jailer was. She was only responsible for the Final Days, something that we didn't know the cause of beforehand anyway so of course the person behind it was going to be new. And she wasn't a secret chessmaster manipulating the Ascians all along who deprived them of their agency as characters, the way that half of WoW's villains were actually working for this guy Blizzard just made up a year ago.

Meteion also works on a thematic level since the WoL being a symbol of hope fighting against despair has been present since at least ARR.

[Raikai]

Meteion and Zovaal were introduced too fast, IMHO. I have also a problem with Meteion that ... he/she/it became way too powerful in a very short period of time. Wiping out the entire life on a planet is crazy.

But i find Meteion was way better introduced than Zovaal. The problem with Zovaal is that he is a boring standard villain. In Shadowlands the player gets told that he is the mastermind behind all troubles since Warcraft 3. But ingame he is ... stupid. You will never ever believe that he is a mastermind of something because he stumbles some one-liners like Arnold Schwarzenegger in a 1980ish action movie. Such a stupid villain would never be a danger for anyone. But why is he a successful villain? Because his enemies .. and your allies are more stupid than he is. So one not so smart villain overhelms totaly stupid "good guys". That is the story of Shadowlands in a nutshell.

But because your allies ... bilion years old powerful beings are so stupid this is totaly immersion breaking. It is unbelievable how your allies can act like that. Elune could save the lives of millions of nightelves. But she let them die because she wanted that the souls of those nightelves would be a kind of fuel for the Ardenweald. What happened? Zovaal got the souls of millions of nightelves. But because nobody of this billion years old powerful beings in Shadowlands told Elune that the arbiter is dead. So every soul which enters the Shadowlands will be directed into the maw.

Maybe six years old kids could be impressed with such a story but nut teenager od adulds.

Cheers

Very short amount of time? It was millenia ever since she left Elpis to join her sisters until the present days.

[Catwho]

Meteion also isn't a singular being - it's an untold number, maybe hundreds or thousands, of beings that can hook into each other to become a lot more intelligent than each one individually. Unfortunately, Hermes failed to put any kind of fail-safe in there, so when each unit failed, the emotion that they generated was despair and horror, and that soon became the only emotion that each Meteion could feel - all radiating from each other.

The local Meiteon seems to have been drowned out by them, but she was still in there, desperately trying to change her sisters all that time, probably because she knew that destroying the world would make Hermes even sadder than his experiment's failure. But it was too late - all the sisters were overwhelming and she lost control of the meta mind.

If the local Meiteion is the "bluebird of happiness" then her sisters became the "ravens of despair" which is a pretty neat metaphor.