You can say Iridikron is better because he is more…grounded.

gonna be real, I'd have always accepted Iridikron having a gravelly voice because... he's the Earth Incarnate

I really love how careful Iridikron is around the player character...it makes you feel like a badass when the villain has to work his plans around your actions and throw 2-3 big distractions at you, and even then they barely work (we actually beat him until we go back and stop Deios instead)

Favourite subtle dig 'The first time we see the jailer he is discarding Baine ... just like blizz.'

"Is he a dumb-looking robot?" I love this.

“He is discarding Baine, just like Blizz.” Got me laughing way harder than I should have 😅 spot on!

I just want to dissent on one thing: I never thought the Jailer looked cool. The instant I saw him, I just went "but that's just The Lich King. Again. They reinvented the lich king!" It felt almost embarrassing how they just gave him more spikes, just like how they redesigned Sylvanas to have more spikes, or how they introduced scourge architecture but with more bones, etc. It just felt like such a bare-faced attempt to appeal to fan nostalgia while at the same time paradoxically throwing the things people were nostalgic for out the wayside.

I'm on team "Zovaal was manipulated by the Primus who is in cahoots with the Titans" so I think that he'll get a literary redemption arc when we get to the "the Titans are bad guys" part of the story. I'm looking forward to it. The Shadowlands story can still be turned into something decent in the grand scheme of things, if this is indeed the direction Blizz is going in.

I have always loved that the Incarnates are worried about us, Fyrakk lost due to his own ego and want for destruction, Ice Queen (Can't spell her name) joined us as she realised the fight was pointless and life was better and FAMILY! Iridikron is the scheming and planning type which I love in a Villian where it feels like you have caught them but realise they were always 20 moves ahead

Anyone else notice that ZOVAALS specific music motif plays in TWW cinematic when the sword is revealed? The motif that only plays in the context of Zovaal? Man.

Honestly, I have NEVER cared this much about characters or the narrative before. I loved all four of the primal dragons, especially Fyrakk. Everything about him was just so fun. I loved the blue dragonflight story. I literally cried at the nelf homecoming party (was a nelf for 12 years before switching mains). I even loved the little niffen guys and the exploration feeling you get with the dragonscale expedition.

Ok i know its talking about lore but the thumbnail makes it look like its a boxing match and i love that

The Jailer had so much potential. My fear with Iridikron is they still have to to make him just the impetus behind void stuff getting to Azeroth and he'll be done after that.

"The first time we see him, he's discarding Bain just like Blizz." LOL I CAN'T...

The Polybius behind you is amazing

Well, you put your finger on the exact moment the Jailer lost me too. The whole "Pitiful mortal" scene. It's where it really became clear we shouldn't expect much from him, where it came to interesting villain. Honestly at some point I was convinced he was a misdirect. Being played by Denathrius, as his battering ram into Zereth Mortis, only to be betrayed.

This may be your best video ever

Great set up! I dig the behind the desk look but “dapper stool Tali” has the “pay attention folks it’s about to get real fam” feel, i like it!

I just wanna say, this is a fantastic video Tali. Funny af and honestly hits all the nails on their heads. Iridikron is an absolute badass and the cinematic during the epilogue quests was soooooo good. It was like proper super villain vibes

I actually LOL'd at "Stony Boy versus Nipple King"

It just occurs to me that Zovaal said his whole "cosmos divided" thing like a million years ago when we was imprisoned right? So he must've seen something imminent...so then did we miss it? Is it still coming all these years later? Then why was it urgent before?? Huh???

quality of this vid is crazy! loving the new set up

"He's discarding Bane, just like Blizz" Ouch

I love Iridikron. Best villain in a long time!

"A divided cosmos will not survive what is to come.." I believe is actually a brilliant nod and foreshadowing towards midnight and the void. Most of xal'ataths moves are COSMIC void. Zovaal was talking about the cosmos as a whole what if the first ones knew of the cosmic voids plans and knew what was eventually going to come to azeroth?

Love the classic Street Fighter vs screen splashes for the vs ‘ screens. Classic! 😊

Love that Tali keeps going back to his "the Jailer was just an opportunist" theory despite it making _way_ less sense than the admittedly ridiculous "the jailer planned it all" theory. As bad as the jailer was, while the "mastermind" version might feel unearned, the "opportunist" version of the character is somehow even worse.

We first heard of Iridikron from Alextraza when Wrathion found her. She said something about his hunger.

If the theory about the Primus proves true, then there may be more to the Jailer than we've seen so far that could make for more interesting development of his true character (even if he'd be no more than the Primus' puppet as a villain).

Love the Jailer Shadowlands lore summary

The street fighter 2 music and banner comparisons for this film were great .

On the deep evil voice point, Iridikron may be more tolerable because, as you point out, he's one of three and has the vocal variance of the other two to break the monotony. But while it's boring having the same vocal profile time and time again, it's kinda realistic. These enemies are usually much, much larger than standard human size, so their larger vocal cords would lead to deeper voices.

"He's discarding Baine, just like Blizz." Ouch

The voice crack at the beginning pure slayage

If only Dragon Ball Z Abridged's Buu Bits had came out while Shadowlands was in development. Because then the Jailer's first line could have been "Fucking morties"

Great video. And that back ground.. “chef’s kiss”

I hate how moisturized the graphics are in this expansion. Everything is made to look cuter like a Disney movie.

What is the "Zovaal master plan," music?

I'm here for the squarespace ads. The rest is also good though.

I also love Iridikron because they made it known even BEFORE he was introduced that he was supposed to be the most "dangerous" and extreme of the Incarnates as Alexstrasza and Nozdormu had explained when giving exposition on the Vault of Incarnates. And then they show us the actions that Iridikron takes to see his plan go through, even having tortured Dracthyr of the Sundered Flame to get information that he wanted before going down to Zaralek to get this strange "Vessel". And when that scene is done and over with, we don't see him. Iridikron made himself scarce because he would have known that We, the mortals he said to be wary of, were going to be hot on his trail the moment we caught wind. We didn't see anything of him until Dawn of the Infinites. As Tal mentioned, the use of the Infinite Flight's goal of corrupting Nozdormu in order to present a choice between the lesser of two evils to let go was perfection... I'm willing to be that when we were fighting Iridikron the first time, he was expecting that to have been the first encounter because "These mortals wouldn't be stupid enough to let Deimos corrupt the Bronze Aspect. I may die here, but I will win in the end." And when he was going past us later, he might even have been able to piece together that he WAS able to be stopped the first time and that there WAS a first time. Which makes the reason for him choosing to retreat all the more important for himself and his own plans. Iridikron is a very clever Incarnate and I'm glad that Dragonflight didn't try to introduce a character as being "dangerous" and "extreme" or a "strategist" only for them to end up just like N'zoth.

Until you explained exactly what was happening in the Dawn of the Infinite dungeon I had no idea... This plays into what you've mentioned before about Dragonflight having an EXCELLENT Story, that is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to find in the right order.

I'm not sure how the Jailer gets 0/10 for "Are they a dumb looking robot?" - surely he nails this category, 10/10?

AU Guldan is also worried about the player characters

Jailer kinda got screwed with the game obviously being changed last minute and then ended early just like WoD to get out of it early At least half the quests have us set up to seemingly not trust the death pantheon, then all of a sudden they're our best friends. This story was cut everywhere. I do agree that Dragonflight had the better story and better vilians but it was also a complete game and didn't have a world shut down in the middle of it. Every story had time to play out at the speed that blizz wanted us to know the story. Everything had time to breath and was just fun to play so it makes the story experience feel even better

As someone who recently was lured into Wow again, I'm very happy to see yall excited about things to come. Also, great video, it was super fun to watch!

That big brain brainstorming was fun af 😂

You are spot on as usual and I wanna thank you for helping me save my sanity. Things like Jailer being an opportunist shouldn't be such a hot take! I just wanted to say - I think Arthas was also not meant to be a 4D chess guy. He just didn't have to care too much. He made his move, he saw us moving against him. He played some pawns, we got the better of them. No worries, he is undead. Minions are undead. Most are recreatable and he knows he can best us. Maybe he gets a bit angry now and then but overall no worries. Maybe he even enjoys the challenge. Maybe whatever good left in him secretly wants us to win. Maybe the evil inside him wants us to hope and be crushed. Maybe a part of him thinks this as getting back to Uther and those who cast him out. Regardless - he's chill. We do our thing and he sees we are almost good enough to beat him so he goes "welp, let's end this". Also possible that he wasn't THAT confident and he just want to use his ult to end it before we actually end him.

The Primal Incarnates are just an awesome concept. I was on board with their motivation right away. Like yeah, it makes sense that not everyone was cool with the titans coming in and pouring their influence over the entire planet. I love their different character designs, both in dragon form and visage. I like the curious and thus far unexplained exploded chest and missing t-rex arms on Iridikron. I also love that they gave us that epilogue cutscene with Iridikron and Viranoth. That was so satisfying. It would have just been so awkward and lame if she had switched sides and it never got remarked upon.

I love Iridikron because while yes, he's a big, powerful rock dragon, he's also the first real smart, tactical villain we've gotten in a while outside of Sargaeras. He doesn't win because of brute force, he outsmarts us, gives us an impossible choice: allow Murozond to come to power, or let Iridikron escape to continue with his terrible plans. He not only overpowers us, but outsmarts us. He used TIME to outsmart the BRONZE dragons! THE time dragons!! You can tell he's spent every single second imprisoned planning and scheming.

3:02 You know I just watched SypherPK do the same joke with Fortnite's Ice King (albeit in a video uploaded a year ago) but better (I know this is supposed to be a reference to the _Lich_ King but that's part of why SypherPK's version of the joke worked better)

Loving the production on this one! Good job

Iridikron: "I'm going to corrupt the planet to lure the Titans here, then see to their destruction." The Jailer: "I'm going to unite the cosmos. Through domination. Rewriting reality to remove free will and make all suffer." Zovaal managed to be the worst thing about his own expansion. And honestly worsened two previous ones too.

“It was this guy all along!” type plot twists only work if we know and are invested in the character that it was. If they pulled that shit with like, a titan who we grew to know and trust over a hypothetical in-between-Legion-and-Shadowlands BFA replacement, and then Shadowlands started with that guy betraying us and revealing all the “Zovaal did it” nonsense I think it could’ve been amazing.

The jailer plan summary was gold 😂 !

I haven't played wow in years but I still like these vids to "keep up" with whats going on! Cheers and thanks :)

they really need to capitalize on Denathrius, such a good character. i would spin it to where he actually was using zuvaal.

I would like to say Anduin actually grabbed two runes for Zorval, Bastion's and Ardenweld's.

Is it just me or are taliesin and evitel starting to look like eachother more and more every day?

We could have totally thwarted Iridikron's plans and destroyed his shiny relic, but he was far from defeated. The fight played out as a desperate struggle with only Chromie's overpowered magic keeping him from squashing us like bugs. And this is before he powers up with whatever he's working with the Void to get. :)

Honestly I love Iridikron so far. I really like that his motivation isn't some grand scheme for taking over the world or 5D chess, but rather it's downright petty. He wants revenge, and he's let it consume him to the point he's willing to hurt those that were once important to him, hurt his home and his family, just to get it. I'm also hoping we'll see more of Fyrakk (I have a theory he'll come back as an elemental and that's definitely not just wishful thinking of course ;-;) too as I really just outright enjoyed him as a villain. He has a flair that a lot of WoW villains lack and I always find any scene he's in fun. (E.g. I never skip the scene after killing Smolderon where he thanks the player because I find it so fun how in that moment it's made obvious to us we just accidentally sped up his plans. I also love how he just outright mocks two of the bosses while we fight them.)

Or...OR - and this is likely the case - the design for The Jailer never changed. The first trailer showed The Jailer, the second trailer showed Zovaal. Because Zovaal is a puppet. He's not The Jailer, The Primus IS. The "master tactician/Sargeras" of the Shadowlands is and always was The Primus. That first trailer outline looks way more like The Primus than Zovaal. It's intentionally left as just an outline of his figure for a reason, and that reason isn't "Zovaal's design wasn't finalized yet." Name one time in WoW's history that the main villain of an expac wasn't finalized art wise in the reveal trailer for an expansion. I'll wait...forever. Illidan, Arthas', Deathwing. Everyone's design was known by Blizzard by the time they announced an expansion. This is no different. SL was one expansion where who we thought was the big bad actually wasn't the big bad. It's next level storytelling, and the moment Blizzard fully reveals this insanely amazing plot twist openly, everyone is going to change their mind about SL and call it one of the greatest expansion stories of all time. Just like when people talked shit on MoP and it's regarded as great all of sudden so to will SL. Gameplay means nothing, the story is what matters in WoW, and SL was S tier. It simply was too deep of a story for 99% of the playerbase who don't even care to read quest text, let alone use their brain to connect the subtle dots needed to comprehend SL's story and lore. SL's hate showed me just how dumb the playerbase truly is. We need more stories like that, and with Metzen back, you better bet your ass we're getting insane plot twists like that again. And the reason Zovaal seems so emotionless in all but one flashback, is additional proof he's being Dominated by The Primus, who invented Domination gear by the way. The runes are etched into Zovaal's body. Anduin and Arthas' both showed no emotion while Dominated. Zovaal being emotionless is absolutely on point with the narrative and this twist. DF's story was mid. Nothing amazing happened, a bunch of missed opportunities in the lore with Galakrond, Murozond, and Deathwing. The focus on the Incarnates was a misstep. They barely added anything to the overall lore. SL gave us a metric ton of new amazing lore that we'd been waiting for for over a decade. The only great thing about DF is Dragonriding, the S tier music, and a few fun raid fights. Story wise, lore wise, DF disappointed me. Can't wait to see the Worldsoul Saga play out. It's going to be legendary.

Zovaal looked like the robot dude on the cover of Queen's "News of the World" album.

The "pitiful mortal" part is what got me

I always figured the plan was for the jailer to be in jail for the majority of the expansion. Like a being in prison like the thing that follows you in torghast after too many deaths. Like an old god or sauron its motivations doesn't need to be explained a lot, but also needing agents to do his bidding since he is trapped in torghast. These agents could be the bad guy defence force and include sylvanas plus some old and new characters. This means we have the boring overlay of the jailer that's just supposed to be evil and then the underlying threat that is the bad guy defence force that has motivation that can be more human and can also be more directly manipulated by the jailer. You could have had like 4-5 characters and reveal one of them to actually be a simulacrum of the jailer at a later date or something. There was so much you could do with a "jailer of the damned-type" character and I feel like they had a huge missed opportunity with the jailer .

Releasing of the primal dragons is like 80s superman II with the release of Zod and his crew. Parallel in there personal importants are the same. Takes a banger to make a banger

I feel like if Shadowlands had some flashback cut scenes where events were shown to have been directly put into place by the jailer then that might have helped out the narrative to feel less like 5D chess. It was blizzard. Just wanted you to swallow, the whole storyline as presented and just accept the fact that this guy was secretly, the evil menace everybody should have been looking out for in the first place without any pretext

Once the World Soul Sage is finished, we will be pushing 10 years since Shadowlands. One way or another, we will go back. We will discover the truth. Won't be for an entire expansion again however. The dead will come to us.

The one bit I don’t get in Dawn of the Infinites is… why can’t we just do both things? Like our Galakrond’s Fall selves should still be able to fight Iridikron, and then 30 minutes “later” our Murozond’s Rise selves show up at the same point in time to fight Deimos. Essentially having us in two places at once. We’ve seen past and future versions of ourselves interacting directly with us before so I don’t know if any time travel reason why that shouldn’t work. Just seems like it’s that way because that’s the result the story needed.

I'm still catching up on the end of the DF story, but as soon as they introduced the post-Raz baddies, Iridikron was my favorite. I was happy to hear he's going to be sticking around. One thing I've liked about this expansion in general is how the villain's motivates are so clear and make sense. Are they complex, nuanced motives? No, but I don't care. I don't need every villain to be Emet Selch; I just want to know what characters care about.

The fact he had us almost waste time in abberus shows us how smart he is. Along with the sundered flame!

I like the Iridikron doesn't seem to care for the void either. He's not like Gul'dan who loved fel for the power he got from it. Iridikrom just wants these cosmic forces to take each other out instead of fucking with his home. I hope when we go to his actual layer at some point we don't get the "and he also did horrific experiments and stuff all the time so it's 100% cool to take him out"-treatment.

"You've Done it! You Have all the Lego pieces you need to find where you left your Super Suit and Remake Unmake Undo Redo Bless you Gazontite Reality" What a sentence for the end of shadowlands!

Ice king jailer would have been awesome. With Gunter as second to last boss where he transforms to Orgalorg in the last phase.

perfect video, 10/10, ty Taliesin!

I would have loved it if the reason Zoval was a bland puppet is that he was a red herring put there by Denathrius as a distraction for some nefarious thing he's been directing the Dreadlords to do for the last several aeons.

I used to play just for the fun of playing and had no idea about the story line or the lore, so I never knew when it was lacking. However, for the last several expansions, I have enjoyed following the story with my main for the first run through, but I haven't felt vested at all in any boss fights, other than Sylvanas. Maybe Jaina a little bit. I would certainly appreciate a bit more depth in that aspect.

I actually liked the dumb looking robot reveal...

That bit about the Jailer's plan (even with Tali's apologist revision port-commentary that he didn't see it that way... he's a lovely Welsh but he's wrong on this one!) will NEVER get old. I laughed the whole time!

I'm at a point where my entire WoW experience is essentially watching Taliesin & Evitel's videos. Classic->BFA, skipped Shadowlands, Played a month of Dragonflight. Just can't back into it. On the plus side, I don't feel the irrational need to set up TSM anymore and feverishly check auctions and mail. Winning?

Imagine being neutral force to life yet still being shackled just as life was. The jailer could have been so much more guys. Makes me wonder if the Titans of order are more like a correction code

Ya see, the outline of the Jailer's "5000 IQ Plan" is why I liked the lower stakes in Dragonflight. People who complain about the "lack of stakes" are quick to forget that after BfA and Shadowlands there was a large animus regarding world shaking and cosmic level events.

Love that room corner ! Nice

I do hope in The World Saga they use the old world more. Sure we know some zones will be included, as far as they said during Blizzcon but I don't know. Seeing the Jailer using the Forge of Souls for some reason got me saying "Wow, that's cool". And I want more of that!

Does Stoney dragon has nipples that can cut glass? No! One point for Zoval!

Gotta say, it feels great to have an antagonist who's aware of the player and Azeroth heroes as more than a minor inconvenience. As others have said already, that Iridikron must engage with multiple forces to find something the heroes of Azeroth can sink their teeth into while he works is definitely one of his finer points. Unlike the joke that Zovaal was playing 4D chess Iridikron actually is - dude literally had a contingency plan that hinged on Chromie/us redoing the timeline.

Agreed and good run-down: I like how Iridikron takes the players seriously, it feels a lot better narratively to have us actually MATTER and not just being a side-character watching a series of side-shows about someone else. I would like to have more active engagement between us and the Big Bad over the course of an expansion though, and not in a "haha, you fell into my trap and everything is proceeding as planned, u suck lol next dungeon." have our actions MATTER, have the enemies suffer a SETBACK and have to improvise, and maybe it's WORSE, but let us FEEL like we are actually making a difference and not just going from one scripted sequence to another, even if that's still exactly what happens. The ends of raids always feel like "But wait, there's more!" when they should be "damn you adventurers!" before retreating.

Can confirm Emet-Selch is waaaaay better than Fandaniel

Funny thing is the Lich Kind was right, we weren't a threat to him. Tyrion and as it turned out Teranas were without them we'd have been his too

I LOVE your content, thank you so much for all this

The Emperor from BG3 is such an incredible, manipulative baddie that you don't even know he is one.

imagine if the Jailer had Danathreus's Personality

Lets not forget we killed the jailer in a factory dedicated to "first ones" so we have zero real idea if they're the originals or not. Plus that would lean to the idea something made them. Which is a detail that was entirely glossed over and never touched again. So he was crowbarred in and then left unfinished in storyline almost entirely.

"discarded Baine just like Bliz" blink and you'll miss the sickest burn of the whole video. omg.

Zovaal, 20 years of history to that disappointment

Such an unfair match up, but it is so true. I am so happy Iridikron wasn't a 1 and done antagonist like so many expansion villains. It's good to see WoW setting up a a much larger story that will span multiple expansions. The only other time they've done something like this is with WoD and Legion.

tali your skin looks incredible in this video

My all-time favorite bad guy was probably handsome jack from borderlands 2.

Yes to all your questions at the end, except the one about you being wrong. I also sincerely hope we get to side with Iridikron at a later point in the upcoming expac's.

I agree. Honestly, I think the obsession with mystery boxes harms the narrative too much. A mystery is only interesting if you have plenty of clues and breadcrumbs and feel like you are making some progress in uncovering it. As it is, even people who follow lore very closely got confused to the point of giving up.

Zovaal did not have a personality because he was dominated the whole expansion. Same as Anduin when he was dominated. Zovaal was framed, imprisoned, and then used. The figure standing behind Zovaal in the original release art is/was the true mastermind. We are lead to believe Zovaal is the villain in the early storyline but by the end (if you paid attention) you realize he was not the 5000IQ mastermind behind everything. Due to managerial decisions, we never finished the original and intended storyline.