Can we talk about Soreel Ja?(Spoilers)

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

Because a deliberate planned twist should be fleshed out enough to actually know it's a twist when it happens. If we actually knew Sareel Ja's intentions and weren't all just saying "he seems like he might've been plotting something" then you'd actually know what to expect and that expectation could be subverted.

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I don't feel like the details of the plan are necessary to see he's Up To No Good and specifically has aspirations regarding the Golden City that he is oh-so-eager to "assist" his lord in reaching – while muttering about how it's "vexing" when Zoraal Ja doesn't take his advice. He's so clearly flagged as the evil advisor who will turn out to be the true villain in a twist that everyone will see a mile off.

So they double-twisted it and instead of having the advisor betray the unwitting and manipulated lord, the lord was onto him all along and strikes first.

It's really not much different to Thordan and Lahabrea back in Heavensward, neither of whom had much of a plan beyond "bring about a primal summoning and use it to further my agenda".

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I don't feel like the details of the plan are necessary to see he's Up To No Good and specifically has aspirations regarding the Golden City that he is oh-so-eager to "assist" his lord in reaching – while muttering about how it's "vexing" when Zoraal Ja doesn't take his advice. He's so clearly flagged as the evil advisor who will turn out to be the true villain in a twist that everyone will see a mile off.

So they double-twisted it and instead of having the advisor betray the unwitting and manipulated lord, the lord was onto him all along and strikes first.

It's really not much different to Thordan and Lahabrea back in Heavensward, neither of whom had much of a plan beyond "bring about a primal summoning and use it to further my agenda".

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They not only double-twisted it, they even made a god damn pretzel out of it by flipping the script AGAIN with Sphene on who the BBEG was. If anything the writers were definitely all over the place when it came to storytelling here. Like, I get the tribes and Wuk's development, but Soreel Ja could've easily been a villain and it would've been fine. Is it blatantly obvious? Perhaps. Is it much better than the War vs. Peace issue and would it have been better to give Zoraal Ja more character development than how shallow he is up until we beat his ass into the ground? Probably.

Like I couldn't connect to any of the characters this time around(even the damn Scions and Sphene) because of the fact we always had a cat center stage. The cat should've been left at home and we should've taken Koana instead honestly because wasn't he the guy who was focused on Technology which would've made his perspective on Solution Nine different?

But the archbishop and Lahabrea both had agendas. Agendas that we as a player knew or had a very good idea about. With Sareel Ja we do not get anything like that. We know he has/had plans but we never learned or received hints at what his plan was. We only know that it seems to have partially be seperated from Zoral Ja's goals as he wanted to use the Golden City for something else. But that is the overall issue of the Dawntrail writing. We, as a player, do not receive a lot of crucial information or background to a number of characters and because of that we do not really care for them. Imagine playing Shadowbringer and not having the "Meanwhile in Garlemalde" moments. Or Endwalker and not getting Zenos and Fandaniels interactions.

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

However, he got relegated to Death territory because apparently the writers wanted Zoraal Ja to be the big bad(War vs. Peace) instead of considering a different angle to use where Soreel Ja didn't die. What were his aspirations for the Golden City? What did he want to do? Like, if he pulled a Jafar and became King instead of Zoraal Ja while the First Promise led his armies, it would've turned out far different aside from the war he started. Heck, we even had SOME foreshadowing only for it to get scrapped for Soreel Ja's death.

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It almost feels like the writers mixed up Zoraal Ja and Bakool Ja Ja at some point in the plot.

I honestly thought this guy was going to be the main antagonist. I feel Zoraal Ja was just poorly written because we are only told that he should be not allowed to rule, but outside a bit of dialogue I was never given that impression. Honestly, I felt like he didn't even want to be Dawnservant and the whole reason he was participating was because it was expected of him. I felt like Soreel Ja was the one that wanted Zoraal Ja to be Dawnservant because he had a lot more to gain and would reveal some grand scheme he had in mind upon reaching the Golden City.

Yeah, it might be predictable, but it would of been better than what we got. Dawntrail's story has a lot of poorly written parts to it, and Zoraal Ja's and Soreel Ja's character arcs are some of the biggest issues I had with it. People may like dunking on Wuk Lamat, but at least she had motivation driving her forward the entire way with trying to continue on her father's peaceful legacy. She also realizes she has many faults, hence why she asks Koana to help her lead. Zoraal Ja was like "I want to unite the world through fear!" but we never see him act in such a manner until he disappears for 30 years from his perspective and returns with an army.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Why do you think that feels like a mistake and not a deliberate planned twist?

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Mostly because Zoraal barely had a personality up until that point... Like his entire character was that he wanted to have the least successful invasion ever of all time just to show how bad war is to people.

The only purpose of Sareel Ja was just to be a "Red Herring" antagonist for Zoraal Ja. Sareel was pretty much just a completely standard and obvious scheming royal advisor who just wanted whatever was behind the gate all to himself and wanted to use Zoraal Ja to do all the work before no doubt probably just stabbing him in the back eventually. After all, Gulool Ja Ja made him write the letter to Galuf to begin with. Galuf and Gulool go and explore the place and they come back with a strange artifact that is to be kept in the vault and a living baby? Of course Sareel would want to know what was behind the gate himself and possibly seize whatever power made such a thing possible, especially if he is told by Gulool Ja Ja's most trusted circle that beyond the gate laid a power that could change the course of history. Of course, Zoraal Ja struck him down after Sareel Ja handed him the artifact to open the gate on a silver platter because it was insanely obvious what Sareel Ja's plan was the whole time and at that point his duty was done.

Sure, MAYBE Sareel Ja can come back in the patch cycle because it'll be revealed that Zoraal Ja also slashed him in the back with a rubber sword just like he did Ketenramm and he was just knocked out and survived the fall, but ultimately Sareel Ja was just a disposable plot device, so his "plan" that was hinted all through his time onscreen was most likely a whole lot of nothing.

I think Soreel Ja AND Zoraal Ja were completely wasted characters, to be honest. Hell, Soreel Ja was apparently the scribe that wrote the message to Krile's grandfather, and that was an interesting little tidbit they did nothing with. Of course, doing something with it would have meant involving Krile's story more, and we couldn't have that with Wuk Lamat around.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

He fell off a bridge and we never saw a body. We've had people show up alive and well from worse odds.

Fifty-fifty chance he's still alive and he'll be the villain for the next couple of patches.

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It was at this point I began to wonder if he was Pashtarot or whatever the Ascian-adjacent for this shard was.

ngl, whatever Zoraal Ja doing in Sol9 was more in line with Soreel Ja's personality than Zoraal Ja himself