About Zoraal Ja (DT Spoilers)

[SillyCrow]

I have been thinking about one thing Zoraal Ja mentions early on, about how the younger population is clamouring for expansionism that would result in war without knowing the kind of hell that war is.

Then you have Koana stepping down and giving Wok Lamat his support at some point and I thought Zoraal Ja would do the same in a completely different way.

I thought he would pretend to contest Lamat's rule by causing a civil war so he could teach the cruelty of war to the young generation so Lamat's peace offering feels more attractive. Then at the end of the conflict he would either be defeated and/or killed as a bad guy and that would cement support for Lamat despite her inexperience. Lamat would of course be devastated by this once she realizes it (either because he states it outright on his dying breath, speculation, or just because it's obvious).

Yet this isn't what happened. Would this angle make a better story or better characterization than simply one selfish guy who has daddy issues and wants to rule at all cost? Maybe it's a little cheesy.

[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.

[Loggos]

To m Zoraal Ja suffers from the same thing Wuk Lamat suffers: the idea of is character is very good but the execution is so abyssmal that I just couldn't take him seriously. Imo it's not enough to have a good struggle (and I agree in principle Zoraal Ja's conflict is very interesting) but also how it is conveyed. But whereas Wuk showered us with platitudes about friendship and peace, he showered us with one-liner platitudes in his own right that sound about as deep as a puddle.

The "I don't trust myself screenshot" is a good example for this imo. During that last fight it seemed like they wanted to forcefully make him Profound(TM) by giving him a bucket list of exposition lines that felt so out of place in that moment.
They didn't feel like something a person like him would just say out loud all of a sudden in that situation, but what the writers needed to get out there before the story ends (why would he, who valued strength above all else and rejected everything weak while also never talking to others about his struggles, suddenly openly admit even possessing weaknesses in front of his arch enemies?). Instead of 1) competently building up his conflict over time and then 2) using the methods of showing/contextual story telling to get their message across (as past expacs have done in many other boss fights).

He seemed more like a mouthpiece that spoonfed us "characterisation" the last minute, shoving down our throat what the writers desperately wanted us to think.

Coming back to the "weakness" example, during the boss fight there are mirages of other Mamool Ja (a bit like the adds during Tsukuyomi's fight but less impressive) and he has to announce for us "Is this my weakness given shape?" or something. As if the writers had to make really, really sure that we got it because "do you understand, those NPCs that talk about the things he very obviously doesn't like are reflections of his weakness and inner conflict!!!".
Him officially proclaiming "behold, those are my weaknesses" felt so OOC and unnatural, not like a normal person would react. (He could have said something like a mad "What the hell are you doing here?" or any kind of other emotional reaction instead of some very obvious exposition comments.)

I felt the very same about his final speech to Mini Gulool Ja.

On that note, his son suffers from the "good idea, bad execution" phenomenon as well: In principle the idea that Zoraal Ja has a child he neglects and rejects because of his own struggles with his father is very intriguing. The same goes for mini Gulool Ja connecting with Wuk who wants to kill his father. In itself this is a complex and tense family constellation.
But. But. The way it was written completely ruined it for me, because it was implemented in the most illogical, amateurish, on the nose way. Where does this child come from? No idea, nobody cares. Does this child have any kind of personality? No, he's just an idealised mouth piece that spouts the lines the writers need him to say even though a normal child wouldn't sound like that.
Mini Gulool Ja as a person felt like an afterthought. He was nothing but an offensively obvious plot device that was thrown into the story to make you feel Big Things(TM). (Offensive because I really felt like the writers think their audience is plain stupid. Which is an impression I had gotten on several occasions.) He had absolutely zero emotional effect on me.

Because of the poor writing Zoral Ja just felt like a comically one-dimensional cartoon villain to me. It is sad because he had potential to be very interesting. It would also have been very interesting to paint a more complex picture of Gulool Ja. As you said, somebody who wasn't necessarily the best father even though he meant well. That would have been a nice contrast to the likeable and heroic old man he was presented as to us.
But then again, Wuk Lamat had potential to be interesting. Dawntrail had potential to be interesting. The good foundation couldn't save it from the horrible execution.

[HighlanderClone]

Zoraal Ja suffers from the same thing Wuk Lamat suffers: the idea of is character is very good but the execution is so abyssmal

You know, the more I think about it, the more I realize that perhaps the reason I like Zoraal Ja so much is because the rest of the cast was so bland that Zoraal Ja seemed much more interesting in comparison; the idea of Wuk Lamat isn't even interesting in the first place, much less the execution.

Also 100% agreed that it would've been better if he said "what the hell are you doing here" instead.

However I do have to defend his execution a bit, because it's not every day we get a character from Square Enix where you learn so much about his personality from merely a scene of him just staring at someone without saying anything (although it was partially ruined by Krile just explaining it out a few times). The theming of Zoraal Ja was also really tight, and is something I wish the writers tried a bit more of. He killed his father, choked his son, and wanted to kill his siblings. This is a villain whose most shocking deeds in the story wasn't invading another reflection, or harvesting souls, or genocide (though of course he wanted to do that as well), but something much more primal, much more raw: killing his family. I also felt his seething rage growing and growing over the story even if he barely ever shows it. At least on this part I thought the writers did a good job at portraying his increasing anger.

I think part of the problem is that by the time we meet Zoraal Ja, he was already irredeemable. Most of his inner conflicts would've happened before we even met him, while he was still growing up. We really needed to learn about the royal family's history much more, and in a way without any flashbacks it's like we met a villain whose development is already complete and leaves us to piece together what happened before.

[Titor]

The whole time I was like "this is just lizard zenos"

[KageTokage]

Zenos somehow managed to be a more believable villain then him by virtue of the fact that the circumstances he was raised under felt like something that could have reasonably led to him becoming the fight-crazy simple-minded individual he was.

The sole motive for Zoraal Ja's behavior is he wants to prove the "miracle" of his birth by surpassing his father...except he not only goes about it in about the worst way possible, it runs so insanely contrary to how anyone else in his family feels that it just feels extremely forced out of need for them to have a designated villain against all logic. I cannot reasonably believe someone raised under an individual widely believed to be one of the benevolent people in the world could end up the way he did; that he never once expressed the burden of expectation he put on himself to others in his family to be talked away from the self-destructive mindset he ended up adopting.

[Post]

Of all the new characters introduced in DT, Zoraal Ja is the only one whose introduction I think about, so at least he made an impression.

I just wish that the writers executed him differently, because by the second time Krile had to explain that she got real bad vibes from him, Wuk tells us he's a warmonger (and yet has no idea how he's become this way despite growing up with him -- yes, I think digging into that past could have made ALL the new characters more compelling) and then he just stops being a character and starts doing blatantly evil stuff as soon as he's disqualified...

I didn't get to see how he dealt with any of that pressure and questioned why he didn't at least return to his father because at that point in the story I still wasn't fully sure who he was, and the next time I saw him he was himself 30 years later doubling down that same path. I was pretty bored and confused by how he turned out because I felt blindsided by a character that felt like the writers largely forgot about (even the ending didn't want to include him).

Zoraal Ja's motivations are revealed far too subtly in a game that no longer has the restraint to not make comedic 'boink' sound effects emphasizing character movement in the main story.

[ReynTime]

A less subtle way of explaining to the player why Zoraal Ja is the way he is would be with the WoL's echo.

Instead all you get is Krile's echo telling her he has a lot of scary hate. This probably makes most of the playerbase see him as simply a really evil person who is evil just because.

[CaptainLagbeard]

The whole time I was like "this is just lizard zenos"

For me, Bakuul at first came off as trying to be "Lizard Zenos"... But then when they gave him a backstory and proper motivation, I'd say he became the best written character of the first half of the expansion. Only to be completely dropped for the second half... He is in a total of 3 cutscenes in the second half of the expansion, it was a massive wasted opportunity by just leaving him be... They could have given him an actual proper redemption arc by bringing him to Vanguard and beyond and ultimately to fight Zazool.