About Zoraal Ja (DT Spoilers)

[HighlanderClone]

I have pretty hot takes on Zoraal Ja because I unironically think he's the best villain we've got in a long time. I wrote them here (https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-full-spoilers) originally but I'll copy-paste it here.



This might be controversial, but I think Zoraal Ja is hands-down the best villain we had in the entire game.

Moreover, Zoraal Ja is my favorite character in the entire Dawntrail MSQ. I think Zoraal Ja is the best three-dimensional villain that we've got who isn't just a moral dilemma villain like Emet Selch.

I admit my bias here, in that I love ASOIAF and am loving the current season of House of the Dragon. I love seeing the conflicts within a family. Some of the best stories in literature use the family as a unit to explore the tension and drama of humanity. This is why Zoraal Ja worked so well for me. He is a villain that only works in context of his family.

We get slight hints that Gulool Ja Ja isn't necessarily the best father in the story. Zoraal Ja feels spurned by his father and does not seem to bear the same love for him his siblings do, despite being Gulool Ja Ja's son by blood. We don't get many details of his relationship with Gulool Ja Ja, but it seems that Gulool Ja Ja wasn't trying to prod his son open and wasn't opening him up as a parent should. Zoraal Ja also did not have a close relationship with his siblings. Koana and Wuk Lamat both describe him as introverted and a mystery.



The pressures of his birthright and people's expectations of him also, ironically drove a wedge between him and his citizens. Effusive praise leads to alienation. By calling him a Miracle, he was Othered and treated not as his own person, but as the culmination of people's hopes and their wants. This is also why I hate people like G'raha Tia constantly praising the WoL and calling us a hero. It's not friendly. It's alienating.

Imagine for a moment all the pressures of living up to your heroic father, who united the two continents, brokered peace between centuries-old rivals, and pacified continent-ending threats. Can anyone really even achieve half of what Gulool Ja Ja has done? What will they say if you fail? What would happen if tensions between the tribes flare up again? Will the people who called you a "Miracle", the "Promised", the "deserving heir" start to call you a "mistake"? A "Curse"? The "decay" in the natural cycle of civilization after your father's "growth"?

No wonder Zoraal Ja is not just alienated from his subjects but also his father.



In the end, alienated from everyone, he could only trust himself. The expectations turned his father into the object of hate, the source of his woes. The pressures he experienced as the trueborn heir perverted his ideology and drive, compelling him to prove that he is superior. Because if he conquered the world, no one would dare call him the lesser to Gulool Ja Ja.

He sank deeper into this dark path, became a patricide, and nearly became a filicide.



In these moments we see how closely the writers stuck to the theme of Zoraal Ja. His backstory and the atrocities he committed are all closely related to theme of "family". His choice of weapons mirrored that of his father. Even his attacks relate to his theme:


He hates his son because he hates what his father has done to him. But his father hasn't probably antagonized him or beat him up directly. I can't imagine Gulool Ja Ja doing that to Zoraal Ja when he loved Wuk Lamat and Koana. Zoraal Ja is the product of what happens when lofty expectations and worship alienate someone from their own family. We see this at play with royal families too. Gulool Ja Ja probably just did not have the capacity to reach out to his son, or he was simply too busy to. Much like real world royal families.

I hope Square Enix can write more villains or characters like these in the future. It's deep, dark at the right moments, and speaks to the nature of human conflict. Unfortunately neither Wuk Lamat nor Koana came close to this depth despite getting far more screentime.



Also he's just a badass with a badass theme (but some people might understandably think it doesn't fit FF14). I don't think we've really seen that many badass villains like Zoraal Ja since Gaius and Ravana.

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As to how we can improve Zoraal Ja...

I think Zoraal Ja is on the extreme end of the "show, don't tell" spectrum, where much of his characterization comes from very subtle cues like him staring a second too long, and a lot of it comes from what he does not do.

I just don't really know what the right balance between "show don't tell" and "so vague and subtle that everyone missed it" would be.

I personally don't think Gulool Ja Ja was abusive towards his son. He does love his children after all.

I thought about this for a bit and I think there are a few small changes that could've been done to make Zoraal Ja a more compelling villain:

1) During his father's death scene Gulool Ja Ja could've said something like "I failed him... I failed Zoraal Ja". My takeaway of their relationship was that Gulool Ja Ja was a good king but not necessarily a good parent. He notices Zoraal Ja's flaws (he doesn't listen to advice) but does not seem to have taken any action to remedy that. It's like a parent noticing your school shooter child being aloof but not really doing anything about it.

It would be weird for Gulool Ja Ja to not love his son and only his love for Wuk Lamat was very clear. He barely talks about Koana too. More should've been written to convey his love for all three of his children.

2) IMHO the "family" theme of Dawntrail was the most compelling theme to me. As such we would also probably benefit from learning more about their family history (this would probably also flesh out Koana and Wuk Lamat more). We need to learn about how Zoraal Ja became closed off. Wuk Lamat mentioned how Zoraal Ja never talks at the dinner table while she and the Vow of Resolve talk a lot, with Koana and the Vow of Reason chiming in here and there. This was an interesting family dynamic to me but it never really gets fleshed out. Wuk Lamat looked up to Zoraal Ja once, and it would benefit the player to learn about how he slowly changed and why Wuk Lamat finally decided to become a claimant.

3) The first arc of the story was dreadfully boring and honestly if it we were also learning more deeply about their family dynamic and history it would alleviate a lot of the boredom.

At the moment, indeed a lot is left to interpretation and the cues are pretty subtle. I personally enjoy leaning far into subtlety and filling in the blanks, but I don't think that will be compromised if they fleshed out the backstory of Gulool Ja Ja's family further during the first five levels. There's so much potential there because I don't believe his family was fully functional. Even mildly dysfunctional families can create catastrophe. It's why The Crown was so compelling because it offers a look at how family dynamics can become distorted and magnify even the mildest of dysfunction because of the pressures of royalty. ASOIAF and HotD also shows us some of that, though to a more extreme level. This would've been a perfect theme to chew on in the first five levels because man... stuff like trading with Pelupelu is just really boring.

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Another comment:

I can agree that Zoraal Ja deserved more exposition. I wish we actually got more insight to the family dynamics of his family. That would've been something somewhat low-stakes but still intriguing and has potential for great depth. Instead after 50 hours we still barely know anything about Wuk Lamat's family and a lot of it has to be pieced together.

I do still think Zoraal Ja was a really nuanced and good villain though. His scenes in the first arc already hint at a deep-seated rage and also his alienation from everyone else. He barely responds to his follower when he praises him, and he has that intense stare when he's angry at someone. I think only a few tweaks would make him much better:

1) Some flashbacks to what happened when Zoraal Ja was young and the family dynamics.

2) At least one scene where he shows rage against his father (which would be his silent seething stare).

3) Show his discomfort with people constantly praising him in at least one scene.

It might not be everyone's cup of tea because much of his characterization actually comes from what he does not do, but this is exactly why I find him such a fascinating villain. It's deep, deep into the end of "show, don't tell".

[SillyCrow]

Oh dang I was looking for that thread, but it wasn't about Zoraal Ja in the title so I missed it.

[Midare]

Moreover, Zoraal Ja is my favorite character in the entire Dawntrail MSQ. I think Zoraal Ja is the best three-dimensional villain that we've got who isn't just a moral dilemma villain like Emet Selch.

The only thing I want to say is... I've never seen Emet-Selch as a villain, but instead, an antagonist. He would get on the WoL's way aggressively, but not with overt malice intent.

[Bellybell]

snip

I whole heartly disagree, tho i'd say he has potential to be one

He was my favourite until s9 happen
He is no longer a stoic brave general with dark philosophy view
He's just a wuss who refuse to fight anyone even the house cat without spare soul at his disposal
He became a coward gecko who broke his own oath and honor to duel 1v1 and made a call to arm to involve citizen without finishing the fight he started
He even using the child as a shield just to save his skin

AND last if not least, he has no philosophy left in him by the end, just and inferiority complex lizard