Can we talk about Soreel Ja?(Spoilers)

[HyperiusUltima]

This guy was something I was looking forward to: An advisor to Gulool Ja Ja now going on a journey with Zoraal Ja to make him the ruler of Tuliyollal as The First Promise. He's always there when Zoraal Ja's around mostly, and the way he acts and speaks makes me want to think he could have committed a Jafar after we had made Wuk the next Dawnservant.

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.

I'm curious what the people on the forums would think on this topic since they had a focus thrown on Wuk this entire expansion - and how different it would be if Soreel Ja were still alive. Was his death even meaningful to the story in telling us anything about Zoraal Ja at that point?

[ovIm]

Honestly, I was half expecting for Soreel Ja to be the backstabbing asshole and seize power for himself. He always had a shady air around himself, after all. So yeah, personally, I would have preferred for Soreel Ja to become the BBEG.

Imagine this, Soreel Ja attacks Zoraal Ja and leaves him to die. Zoraal Ja gets rescued by the players party, and ends up becoming closer to his siblings in the process. Then, all three children of Gulool Ja Ja go protect Tulliyolal against the Alexandrian invasion.

[undull1]

It's pretty clear at this point he just existed to give actual dialogue with Zoraal Ja whilst he stands there brooding without saying anything.

[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.

[Carolingian]

Yeah, this was a really strange character and it really looks like he was the victim of rewrites or something. Up until his death the game really made it look like he was the more villainous of the duo, with Zoraal Ja being not that bad of a guy seeing as he did help fight Valigarmanda. We even have him saying how he has his own plans for the Golden City. But then he just gets killed off and his story just completely ends out of nowhere. Was he really just nothing more than a red herring to subvert our expectations?

[hydralus]

I don't think his story would've been interesting enough to care about his death. He was going to backstab someone but got backstabbed first, ho hum.

[HyperiusUltima]

It's pretty clear at this point he just existed to give actual dialogue with Zoraal Ja whilst he stands there brooding without saying anything.

That could simply be because he's wanting to have Zoraal Ja do all the work - he's not necessarily a helpful person, but I almost was expecting him to be manipulative with the throne of Dawnservant in mind. Besides, he doesn't help in any way during the Valigarmanda issue compared to Zoraal Ja.

[Iscah]

the way he acts and speaks makes me want to think he could have committed a Jafar after we had made Wuk the next Dawnservant.

Sareel Ja was 100% scheming to be Jafar; he just underestimated the sultan and got backstabbed (literally and figuratively) before he got to do the backstabbing himself.

I don't think it's necessarily a sign of a changed or abandoned plot thread – he just exists to be a red herring in the first half of the plot. Of course the scheming palace official with blatant ulterior motives is going to reveal himself as the true villain of the piece in the second act, right? Right? Wrong.

(It's also rather ironic that when the major characters were introduced and described for the first time in the pre-launch live letter, discussions were pegging Zoraal Ja as "the noble one who was probably going to get killed off for shock value halfway through".)

[Iscah]

That could simply be because he's wanting to have Zoraal Ja do all the work - he's not necessarily a helpful person, but I almost was expecting him to be manipulative with the throne of Dawnservant in mind. Besides, he doesn't help in any way during the Valigarmanda issue compared to Zoraal Ja.

He was annoyed that Zoraal Ja wanted to stop and help to deal with Valigarmanda instead of pressing on and gaining an advantage.

If you read between the lines it's quite likely that he influenced Bakool Ja Ja into releasing Valigarmanda in the first place, and on top of that I would speculate that perhaps he knows our reputation and that releasing a dangerous legendary beast in our path is just going to slow us down for a few hours and not actually going to leave said beast to decimate the countryside.

[Fawkes]

I don't think it's necessarily a sign of a changed or abandoned plot thread – he just exists to be a red herring in the first half of the plot. Of course the scheming palace official with blatant ulterior motives is going to reveal himself as the true villain of the piece in the second act, right? Right? Wrong.

Rian Johnson eat your heart out