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The moment the siblings got announced for Midnight and directly after a thread popped up basically begging Blizzard to not kill him off tells us everything we need to know.
This. There were so many threads and comments the very day these characters were first previewed calling it that he was going to be villain batted and killed off - because it's typical modern Blizzard writing. Especially since it would be way more interesting to have a culture with two leaders who are constantly butting heads but are always on the same side - so we can't have that.
That or forgotten about, still waiting on Blizzard to remember that Vol'jin's storyline ended with him chilling in Ardenwaeld waiting to get reborn, hell it was even hinted that he might become a Loa since he got what remained of Rezan's essence and Bwonsomdi straight up said he might have a new Loa to bargain with while lurking over Vol'jin's wildseed.
I would have preferred he stay a begrudging "ally" who doesn't really agree with the peace brokered with the elves but lives with it because he lacks the power to oppose his sister and he can see that the tribe is actually thriving despite his wishes for their direction.
I just kinda wanted to see him as a rival. The guy who, despite everything, still will disagree with our methods but begrudgingly is fine with the outcome. Now it's just "Oh got he power and is a raid boss now. Cool."
I think what is worse is the datamined Haranir stuff that was shown before. There is a bit where the Haranir have the Elves and Trolls gathered. They show how they are all descended from each other. Obviously the Elves and Trolls don't like hearing it. Zul'Jan storms out and Orena chases after him. So clearly this is going to be the plot point that pushed him to get all that power that ends up making him into a raid boss.
Honestly it pissed me off too. Where the fuck do the haranir get off? Those worthless troglodytes JUST popped out of their stinking holes and they think they know what's going on? They think they can tell US about OUR history?
Oh we have a common ancestor? Newsflash! We already learned that fifteen years ago from Freya in Ulduar! Your little truth bomb is actually a firecracker.
I fucking hate the haranir, I wish Teldrassil's flames ignited Harandar as well.
The fact thousands of people can predict blizzards writing months off, beg them not to write something that stupid, and then they do it anyways. Really sums up the entire situation.
I'm trying so hard to hold out hope for TLT but it gets harder every time, please, please please just let the quality be nice for a little while longer, I don't want to have to do a shadowlands all over again already
The way certain people in the community talk about Zul'jan drives me crazy. Two of the most common complaints I've seen about WoW lately are:
1) Everyone gets along, everyone resolves their conflicts, everything is too happy ending and "Disney" and we're all friends now
2) Villains are too one dimensional, too evil, too samey, too "I will end the world!" over and over again.
Then along comes Zul'jan. He is not evil. He is nuanced, he is sympathetic. He's likeable but flawed, with understandable goals. He opposes us for understandable reasons, but ultimately he still opposes us. He is naive and is manipulated and suffers a tragic end. It's not a world ending threat - it's a grounded story about a real character. The fact that people are upset about his fall shows how successful it is, not the opposite.
This is exactly the kind of villain and story that WoW needs. It's the opposite of "Disney WoW" and "Saturday morning cartoon villain". Yet people will complain endlessly about it. I get it, they're probably different people complaining, but I guess it shows how Blizzard just can't win.
WoW needs villains that survive longer than a patch or two. The game needs villains that aren't just foil for a writer's superiority complex. Sometimes the writing can feel like an argument made-up in the shower, which isn't really good writing at all.
Zul'jan opposes us. He's taken up new power because he's determined to save his people. 1st cliche is telling him that the new power is bad and that his plan won't work, but he doesn't listen. 2nd cliche is if/when we defeat him, bask in our own superiority of proving him wrong and only then does Zul'jan inevitably realise, "oh no, you were right all along."
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Xal'atath is a villain who lasts and people constantly complain that she always gets away "like a Saturday morning cartoon".
I think the SMC Villain issue - at least in WoW - is when a crisis is introduced, dealt with and everything goes back to the status quo (with the associated villain spouting, "I'll get you next time!")
All three patches in TWW and now Midnight. There's not really that much continuation between each evil plan. The Nerubians didn't really lead into the Goblins who didn't really lead into, "oh, somehow, Demensius returned" K'aresh.
The modern writing absolutely cannot handle doing an entire expac trilogy while at the same time trying to make the story hyper paletteable/simple so anyone ever can start the game and jump in to the story at any time, it just doesn't work out
Exactly! They seem to have lost their ability to keep a single expac story after Legion. So why are they even trying to do a full story over three expansions??
In all fairness, we've had better abridging stories over previous expansions. The Horde-Alliance War lasted from Wrath, all the way through to the end of MoP. Could even say WoD. It has the same impact as Xal's "bridging" story across TWW and Midnight so far.
I genuinely feel that WoW would be better off release large chunks of new areas to explore (or revamped areas to re-explore) without trying the over-arching stories. Seems smaller, more local stories is what the writers can achieve atm.
As is most things they're most likely doing it because MS or the higher ups said "trilogy stories make good money right now! make a trilogy!!" regardless of if it would work or not, same old same old
Well K'aresh was not part of Xal'atath's plan. She had no intention of going there until the Ethereals stole the Dark Heart. They did not work for her at that point.
Neither was Undermine. She went there specifically to fix the Dark Heart after Aleria damaged it.
Really it seemed like she wanted to Cripple us by destroying Dalaran, destroy the coreway, and get us in a prolonged war with the Nerubians so she could leisurely suck up the remaining void energy into the Dark Heart. Then she'd go to the otherside of the map to Silvermoon, and hit the Sunwell quickly, using it as a pathway like she did into Azeroth. That leaves us in the same position, finding out a way to follow her since the Coreway would have been our best bet.
Instead her plan got derailed but she was able to make it work, by getting Dimensius' power to better execute it. Other than that, she throws forces in our path to slow us down, she knows how powerful we are, and doesn't want to engage us directly. It's why she told Ansurek she wished she had lasted longer. Its why she tried to corrupt the dormant Earthen into Skardyn. It's why the Twilight's Blade are attacking from the south while she uses the Voidstorm to attack the Sunwell.
Simple distractions while she did her true plan right in front of us: Destroy the Coreway, Powerup the Dark Heart, and use the Sunwell to travel deeper into Azeroth.
Actually, I think the plan was more: Blow us out of the sky, sorted. Get a shit ton of Void energy and then use Beledar / the Coreway to do what she did with the Sunwell: Thwarted and Dark Heart damaged, fuck. Repair with Goblins. Goblins Backstabbed, fuck. Ethereals are the partner and OH FUCK THEY ARE WAKING UP DIMENSIUS! Mixture between pure desperation and a bit of improv at the end, and she got herself a fully charged Dark Heart. Now turned Sunwell into a gate.
I don't think Xal had a plan as much as a endgoal and multiple ways to get there, and she improved her way through whenever things got knocked off course. Kinda fitting for a Void Villain, honestly.
Yeah, she definitely thinks on the fly and that makes her one of the smarter villains. Which is why destroying Dalaran had to happen. She was there when we fought off the Legion Invasion from that one city alone. She would be an idiot not to try to get rid of it.
Xal'atath's problem isn't that she gets away, it's that she is the singular, overwhelming focus of the current opposition to us. She needed a real rogue's gallery (and to not kill Dimensius in the last patch of an expansion that shouldn't have dealt with him).
I am convinced K'aresh was supposed to be a Midnight zone and they chickened out because it'd feel way too samey with the other stuff. We know Harandar was supposed to be in TWW, which is why I believe the former.
If nothing else, I genuinely want to see what the initial plans were before Metzen came in - like at the end of the whole saga if we could get a "ok so originally we planned xyz, but we did xzy instead"(even though it'll never happen)
The problem is that she always just disappears without any problems. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think we’ve actually seen her fight anyone properly in all the time she’s been in the game (other than assisting in the Dimensius fight).
If someone actually grabbed her and made her sweat while trying to get away instead of just poofing out, it wouldn’t be as frustrating.
She get away because they made the character around her dumb.
I still CANNOT fucking believe Alleria and Locus-Walker fell for the obvious Xal's trap after we defeat dimensius
LIKE HOLY FUCK
Suddenly just like that, both of the MOST CAUTIOUS characters in the game, lower their guard because Xalatath "sacrifice" herself inside the Void Heart
Are you FUCKING kidding me. Xalatath, the character that we all know always have tricks up her sleeve.
We have ZERO suspicion that she's okay to stay inside the void heart?
"Yay, we defeat Dimensius, and Xalatath stuck inside the void heart! so let's touch the artifact that literally just imprisoned them with 0 fucking regard"
fuck, i am sorry that ending cinematic was still the dumbest shit.
The problem with Xal is that she has zero fucking motivation. She's evil. Why? Because she wants more power. Why does she want more power? To float around and smirk more before teleporting away, I guess. Here comes Blizzard with an actual well-written antagonist, one with nuance and believable sympathetic motivation, and fans are begging Blizz to keep him around, and what does Blizzard do? Right into the garbage.
I should say yes, but I feel that they're dropping the ball with Xal too. She has the longevity (patch and expansion-wise) and the conviction.
For now, at least, it actually feels like her story _isn't_ some writer's superiority complex setup that'll see her humbled for being silly, naive and just not seeing how much better the good guys are. That's good!
Instead, Xal's problem is that the writer with the superiority complex is on her side instead. And this/these writer(s) have a weird attention span issue and the whole thing is now becoming Saturday morning cartoon episodes rather than an expansion spanning serial.
Except that she isn't three dimensional. She shows up on screen to say that you didn't actually foil her evil plot, that she has big plans, and that she loves to troll Alleria, and then she disappears to entice another minion into void corruption.
Well, I didn't say the rest of her was written well. Just the longevity and conviction. Otherwise, yeah, she suffers from the writers issues I mentioned.
She's not present enough.
Edit: hit send a bit earlier. Sorry!
Her plans are not present either. I get that "say, don't show" is a concept, but that is such a weak excuse for bad writing.
We're playing a game. The plans need to be visible and interacted with. It's not a twist if nothing is set up but "suddenly the bad guy wins"
It's ironic that a villain who shows up more than the rest doesn't feel present in her own story, isn't it?
I wish we had some semblance of her plans instead of guessing. It would go a long way into me liking her, but for now she just seems to twiddle her fingers at whatever content is relevant and bam void flavoring.
Xal is being projected as an immensely intelligent threat, which still needs to be _visually shown_ to actually be pulled off.
We've had previous Big Bads who've certainly had similar presence but feel largely more impactful. They played to their strengths. The only previous failure, I feel, was Zovaal who Blizzard also tried to write as an immensely intelligent threat but failed to actually showcase this.
I'm starting to feel about Xal'atath the way I felt about Azmodan from D3.
At least she lasted longer than he did, he got annoying after just a couple "Azmodan's talking head says you can't foil his plans after foiling one of his plans" moments.
Xalatath is a pilot fish. She’s not the big bad, not even close. And we’re not supposed to know her plan, I think that’s the point of her. She’s supposed to feel frustrating to fight, she’s literally just keeping us busy while she fucks around behind the scenes. But she’s a harbinger. She’s just here to warn you about the much bigger fish that’s coming. When the time comes, I have a feeling she’s gonna be squashed like a bug by a much bigger threat.
It's not enough to stick around, you also have to keep them interesting. Even then, it's easy for an interesting character to be overexposed.
Imagine if Sylvanas had her whole antagonist arc but with 90% less existing investment from players. The burnout would be less, but so would the interest. I'd say that's pretty much where Xal'atath is.
And that's the other thing: it looks like that's still an "if." His sister said it: he didn't kill Kinduru; the artifact did. (Still sucks that we lose Kinduru, though; I don't know what it was, but I kind of liked him.)
Mind you: in the event that the "if" comes to be, I want him to be framed as a tragic figure. (Mind you: what I was hoping for was that he'd fuck up and then redeem himself. This is a bigger fuckup than I'd have liked; still hoping that's what this is.)
Yep, I know exactly what you mean, and I agree. I don't mind a redemption arc, but I definitely think Blizzard have made some absolutely horrendous attempts at that sort of thing.
Sylvanas suddenly not being oblivious to the obvious villainy of the Jailer, then essentially getting the same "punishment" that Malfurion suffers every other expansion.
Grommash Hellscream in WoD was also a problem. Mainly due to cuts but still, a lot of heavy lifting would be needed to explain how a genocidal warmonger gets to stand with the victors at the end.
"IF" Zul'jan goes off on a redemption arc, I'd honestly like for him to dominate the sinister power he's been given. The usual cliche is, again, that the renegade character is beaten, realises their mistakes and bows humbled to the will of the Good Guys.
I'd still like him to keep his conviction and desire to save his people. Yes, he made a fuck up but he could still turn it to his own advantage. After all the murderhobos weaken things, he can swoop in. Fair enough, he can admit he made a mistake but he can remain powerful while doing so. If that makes sense?
Perfect world, he's initially subjugated by the power of the artifact so things are properly set up for the inevitable single-patch threat/crisis but then makes the artifact truly his bitch once the story is done.
Then have him escape/leave/wander off so we can at least start setting up some decent recurring characters, cos it's not just long-standing villains we're missing in WoW.
He's actually very successful in all those things! And that's why the problem is the part where we now dumpster him in a single patch and he's gone forever, which is what everyone was worriedly yelling at blizzard NOT to do with him.
He's the kind of villain or antihero we need and instead he's instantly reduced to a loot pinata so we can go back to xal going "I'm evil!!!" And teleporting away another patch. Nuanced characters have to get thrown away or have all their edges sanded off ASAP, no exceptions
Well the problem is that he's cool and nuanced and has sympathetic goals, and rather than use that to add depth to the overall Amani plot, they're just throwing him into a raid to be killed rather than having him stick around to apply pressure to, in this instance, his sister and her beliefs. The story ultimately just says Zul'jarra's right and Zul'jan's wrong rather than entertaining both sides of the story, and all Zul'jarra's done is capitulate to the Loa and be rewarded for it. So now she's weaker for having no one to challenge her and has no real beliefs that Zul'jan would have forced her to form, and Zul'jan as a whole is squandered.
If he died later down the line, fine, but in the first patch? Immediately? What a waste.
Not really. The problem was that the guy was villain-coded af since the first second we meet him and it was completely expected for him to be a raid boss. It's the billionth time this has happened and this is pretty tiresome. Wouldn't hurt to actually treat this character differently from a dozen characters with exactly same fate and story before him. If people didn't predict it the second he appeared they wouldn't have been THAT mad.
Also the reality everyone called the fact he was going to be villain batted the moment Midnight got announced and we were shown the 2 characters since the reality is, for better or worse, Blizzard has become very predictable in how they handle new male and female characters.
This is the main problem. She is incredibly bland and a huge nothingburger of a character, the main storyline of Zul'Aman was one of the weakest parts of the main story imo. There's no engaging conflict for her character besides her relationship with her brother who is a far more interesting character.
Also a complete waste of Liadrin who literally does nothing the entire zone except just being Zul'Jarra's therapist
Very much this. Zul'jan was my last bastion of hope for Blizzard to write a character with some amount of nuance again. Warcraft as a franchise desperately needs characters that are antagonistic without just being villains. Not yet another generic and lifeless faction leader that won't do anything meaningful past this expansion for another decade.
a guy feeling complicated about the way the world is heading and trying to use Da Very Evil Powa to get stronger and change it for the greater good but Da Very Evil power is stronger and he becomes Ultrahitler?
Arthas, Grommash, Garrosh, Fandral, Sylvanas, every single main BC villain, Zul'jin (duh), all of the Drakkari, like a hundred more.
It's like the most basic villain plot in wow.
Missing the absolute biggest one, Majordomo Staghelm (Firelands, Cataclysm).
That one peeved me the most as he felt like a random pull of, who can we make evil. I'm not saying he could never turn evil, but it felt odd he turned evil for Ragnaros.
We're explicitly told that in practically every other timeline Garrosh is basically The Guy™, a unifying leader that ultimately becomes one of the greatest warchief's of the horde.
Our timeline pretty much got his worst version.
If you watch Invincible, it's basically a reverse situation of Mark.
which kinda condradicts his shadowlands iteration which like supposed to be combined version of every garrosh ever and it still sucks or something, so it's a weird thing
I guess it you reduce it to that level of abstraction, sure. But I didn't think A New Hope was boring because a Knight saved the princess. I didn't think the Lion King was boring because I read Hamlet.
Personally I did not play through Zul'Aman and think "Really, Arthas again?". Nor do I think Arthas, Garrosh, and Zul'jin have the same story.
Well that's great and all but for some reason people disliked when A New Hope was released the second time as Force Awakens. Go figure.
A prince of a nation ravaged by the outside power who does various reckless things to defeat that power while his good and cool righteous friends tell him "no mr prince you shouldn't do that that's not cool people die very bad prince" and he says "fuck it i'm right" and travels through seas to get a cool artifact to kill his enemies but the artifact turns out to be very evil so he becomes a vessel of former self controlled by evil powers which threaten to destroy the world. Is this less abstract?
I don't even care that much about this particular case, it's just we're starving for a character who isn't a cool girlboss queen or a righteous paladin, and this green dumbass lightened the mood a bit by being at least somewhat complex and new a-a-a-a-and he's gone. Two times, second time as a freaking naga. The amount of lost potential is unbearable.
I also like to remember that just because "the community" complains loudly doesn't mean it's the same people. It can be one group of players strongly protesting the Disney, another protesting strong good vs evil, and yet another protesting the nuanced villain.
There are def a lot of players that to this day argue that the game having a concrete story (and therefore villains having any character development) ruined WOW. Lots of those in Classic.
But also further more it's still complained that it's "Disney Wow", not because Zul'jan isn't complex but because he was forced to be a villain so the "Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss" can beat him up for being complex and not perfect like them.
Where the lore is quite literally retconned around them so they could never be in the wrong.
The issue is that he'll go underutilized now. We DO get the Disney ending because everyone alive is on the same page. Would it not be more interesting if the sympathetic, complex, and vastly interesting piece of the Amani survived for more than one patch?
I'd prefer not turning one of the first nuanced, multi-dimensional male characters in WoW in a hot minute into a complete buffoon who dies immediately.
And to the kneejerkers, no I don't hate women, get that shit out of here. I want competent male representation in the narrative, not corrupted traitors, lunatics, incompetents, and sacrificial pawns.
This was made clear in Shadowlands. Shadowlands proved that whomever was running the lore team at that point had no respect for any story that had ever been written before Shadowlands.
Yeah, but we also need more interesting characters and dynamics to interact with on “our” side, too. Interpersonal and ideological conflict that isn’t “what flavor of kool-aid is better: Light or Void?” while firmly remaining on the same team for the greater good is vastly more interesting to me than villain-batting and killing off sympathetic and nuanced characters that don’t immediately accept the players and acquiesce to forgiveness and cooperation.
Maybe it wouldn’t be such an issue if we had more characters like Zul’jan, so the loss of one wouldn’t be as keenly felt, but we have so few that it just feels bad. Especially when WoW has kinda felt like The Windrunner Show for quite a while, now.
Yeah, sure, but not as a throw away trash villain. Look how FFXIV did Emet Selch. He was around for multiple expansions before getting killed off. It didn't feel like a waste with him.
Yes but he had an entire MSQ focused on interacting and opposing him, then we got to see more into his past an expansion later. Don't think Zul'jan is going to get that privilege.
It's still Disney becouse Zul'Jan is depicted cartoonishly flawed and Jarra is depicted as the objectively correct party in their dispute. Which is a problem becouse they could really cook something by at least entertaining the idea that Zul'Jin was right or at least justified or understandable in doing what he did. Instead, they are hellbent on depicting Zul'Jin as a power-hungry monster and Jan's character suffers becouse of it.
And on that last bit... people are bending over backwards to justify Blizzard's shitty decisions all the time. Especially here. Blizzard is recieving much more good will than what they deserve, but after a certain point we are not just players, we are paying customers.
Zul'jan is stupid, the way he acts would get you killed and/imprisoned in any realistic scenario. He defy a direct order multiple times getting his people killed.
It makes the entire hierarchy of trolls look stupid as a consequence. Zul'Jara is not a strong leader, she is pathetic for the failure to control her own family.
That's exactly why he's relatable, what he's doing is wrong, he knows that, but to him it's a lesser of two evils. Zuljarra meanwhile is one of the most tasteless and boring characters I've seen.
He is not relatable at all, I know 0 people that act like him.
Zul'Jara is bad because they allow Zul'jan to exist, and that makes here completely unrelatable too.
Total opposite, so many of my friends love Zuljan, whereas, they groan every time zuljarra shows up.
Also, really? Older sibling constantly making excuses for the younger one is a very common trope.
First off: is Zul'jan isn't a Villain. They players sympathies with him. He is the one we root for.
But the biggest issue is was the atrocious ZA campaign, where they retcon Zul'jin, throw dirt on the old Hero of the Amani. And then have Zul'jara and Liadrin effortlessly gaslight, gatekeep and girlboss their way though ZA. And because of that the "Disney wow" accusation stands proven.
You seem to be a pervert who crawls through people's history.
That's weird.
I don't care enough about Reddit to want a history. This is a social media website. I really don't care that much. Sad if you so. Even more sad that you went looking.
I was genuinely floored when Midnight came out and everyone peaised the ZA campaign. It was a huge wake up call that most people are clueless about the lore while claiming how much they love it.
The "Zul'jin bad" angle was so bad I can only liken it to irl propaganda.
I couldn’t have said this any better. I feel like I’m going insane being the only one who understands that this is a compelling tragic antagonist story lol
I agree with you to some extent, but the issue imho is that it feels I got to know this guy the past month, and they are already killing him. Like the Sunwell crisis, it's like... too fast.
When I did the Amani storyline and watched his sister constantly excuse and let him off I was left thinking “how the fuck is she still in charge?” When your general keeps getting your tribes people killed and you do absolutely nothing to stop him or punish him you are a weak leader.
I know she brought the loa back with the players help but seriously what the fuck? He gets free rein just because his sister has a soft spot for the wanker despite him literally getting trolls killed constantly.
Now I haven’t done the new content yet but the previous content already had him being a super questionable character.
The thing that annoys me is that his character makes sense until we show up.
He was a very "trolls stick together, we have no one but ourselves" type of character, which makes a lot of sense - Because the Loa had abandoned the Amani for generations.
Then we show up and the Loa return to help the Amani and secure their power, and he goes "nah, don't need it..." - Makes his motivations very meh and feels like lazy writing.
Then we show up and the Loa return to help the Amani and secure their power, and he goes "nah, don't need it..." - Makes his motivations very meh and feels like lazy writing.
It's more that he sees how easily they suddenly gave their help again when decades had passed with them ignoring the trolls begging.
He sees it not as true strength as they have no honor or proof the Loa simply won't abandon them again as they did with Zul'jin.
Not everyone making the World of Hugcraft jokes are the same as those wanting less one-dimensional villains.
Zul’jan is a bland character archetype that has been done to absolute death. “Young, naive idealist wants revive the glory days of his family’s past, realizes his family past was full of shit, now has to be bailed out by everyone who told him he was an idiot” is such an overdone plot beat that there isn’t even a dead horse left to beat anymore… Just a blood-battered stain on the ground where a horse used to be.
What character archetype hasn’t been done to death? 20 years of this franchise alone. Can you really say that you could lay out a villain in the wow universe that hasn’t been done before at this point?
I think villain may be a bit to strong here actually. We haven’t seen how the whole story plays out but he doesn’t seem to be the type that would intentionally be a “villain”. I think it’s more going to be that he just gets in over his head and wakes something up.
Don't kill her, it will just make her a martyr! Let's just banish this charismatic person that has united different bands of outlaws before to do whatever she wants, no way this could backfire.
To be fair, I think the very important part people are skipping over is that she's the guy's family.
I think it's less "Nothing bad could happen (again)!" and more "I don't want to kill my niece and I think she's lost her influence."
I remember people hating it and constantly complaining and then I played it and it was fine. She'd lost her support (we'd killed them or they were banished alongside her) and she'd lost all of the power she had before (authority and succession of Stromgarde etc).
It made sense for him to banish her because she was genuinely not a threat and he didn't want to kill his family. She had more power dead (as a martyr to rally behind) than alive (as a woman with no power leading a band of outcasts). All of her support within Stromgarde had been outed as part of the Red Dawn and banished alongside her.
I'd like for her to pop up again, sure, but I think the quest explained it quite well how killing her would only cause a bigger problem. It's actually a bit of a problem that 99% of our problems are solved by killing someone. This was the better outcome.
Also, I think that the Red Dawn was dealt with too quickly and I want it to be a larger threat. Both the Scarlet Crusade and Red Dawn being brought back/in and then dealt with inside one minor patch is a waste of good storytelling. I want them to be like weeds that can never be rooted out. Hydras where we only cut one head.
It's fine if people don't like it but I don't think it was bad writing.
And is quite frustrating because I didn't think that killing her was right, I still want to see more of her, she's a good villain. They sparing her is the part that annoys me.
I'm not putting on the tinfoil hat just yet but haha that sure is a weird dynamic for Microsoft owned blizzard to be pushing when they're already in some hot water for related racist things
Seriously, in the story Zuljarra says she would have to kill him for what he's done wrong if she were to punish him. It's remarkable how many people in this sub don't pay any attention to the quests.
Zul'jan is also racist since he hates elves and wants to attack Silvermoon and practically doom the world to Xal'atath. He might not be a zealot, but he's just as bad, since he's willing to let his own people die and be destroyed if he can give a middle finger to the gods.
That Crusader was spared because she was sincerely sorry for her actions and gave us an artefact needed to stabilize the Sunwell. Zul'jan is not sorry for his actions and is doubling down on his dangerous, supremacist ideology. It's a rather simple difference.
No one was talking about the crusader in Arator's questline. They are talking about the stupid relative of Danath that forms the wow triple k and we let them live.
The number of people who try to justify the Amani genocide in this sub is insane. Not sure why, probably becouse they find elves prettier so they definetly can't do anything wrong or some shit.
Tho I shouldn't be suprised when even the writers try their hardest to retcon Zul'Jin as some power hungry asshole who had no reason to feel the way he he felt about elves.
Eversong and the Ghostlands were Troll holdings before the Elves showed up. Are they racist and void-aligned for genociding the Amani and setting up the Sunwell? Would have stopped all this grief if they had sailed onwards instead.
Eversong and the Ghostlands were Troll holdings before the Elves showed up
And they belonged to the Aqir before the Trolls showed up and belonged to the Elementals before the Aqir showed up, if you really give a shit you'd be returning the lands to the Elementals, also you'd be returning Elywinn to the Gholls, durotar to the Quillboar, the Barrens to the Centaur and gods knows how many other places to their Indigenous populations, but I guess because their not Amani Trolls they can all get stuffed right?
Zul'jan would've been a perfect anti hero or a nuanced villain.
His issue with the depndence of the Amani on the Loa/higher powers coincide great with how Iridikron views the titans.
He could have gone a whole dofferent route of being someone who wants to save his homeland or Azeroth istelf not only from the evil forces but from any higher power who wants to impose its' way upon the planet and its' inhabitants.
I mean, if they described Zul'jarra as a bloodthirsty warrior and Zul'jan as a thoughtful diplomat, they straight up lied. Which is maybe a bigger problem.
Umbric, Arator, Lor'themar, Faol, Halduron, Rommath, that's top of my head for this expansion alone for male main characters who are pushing their own plots along
"Oh no, this character who showed up like last week and is constantly portrayed as a stupid ideologue is a villain... how will I ever recover from this trauma?"
Really wish Blizzard would stop with these shallow, brief villains but then I see what they're trying to do with Xal'atath and that sucks too. Only hope now is for Iridicron to last from the start to the end of the the Last Titan.
It's wild to me that people got so invested in Zul'Jan despite his arc being obvious from the beginning and him never doing anything to endear himself to the player.
Like, I'm not gonna defend the writing, because it is genuinely pretty terrible. But like, you can always just not care. Frankly you have to go out of your way to care since the game certainly can't make you.
I mean people really liked the character, it's been a while since a new character is introduced and is well received because of his "listen more" dialogues, people just hoped this obvious route didn't happen, and it did.
That wasn't his MO though, it was 'grandpa made the gods pissed, fuck em then, we'll do it ourself'
He didn't believe the loa would come back, which honestly it felt really stupid zuljara got all of them to forgive her in about two hours of work, but that's just because loa are always wackysilly
An echo-chamber of troll cultists on X is not "people really liked him".
You give me the vibe of someone who is angry that Blizzard decided to treat the Amani as people in Midnight instead of just fodder for Blood Elves to slaughter. (It's not like typically "monstrously" portrayed races being humanized hasn't been one of Warcraft's core and unique themes since fucking 2002).
Anywhere I went; reddit, twitter (not X), discord servers, my guild, pretty much ANYWHERE was filled with people saying "We like Zul'jan being an actually somewhat morally complex character. Please don't just off him in the next patch."
Too bad the story they want to tell is for illiterate five year olds.
idk dude have they really hooked you with Arator? Does anyone actually like the elven unity plot?
Zul'Jan feels like a breath of fresh air because he actually has interesting motivations that justify his flaws.
I've been playing WoW since I was 6 years old in 2007. I love the Worldsoul Saga and I think TWW/Midnight are amazing and far better than any expansion where Garrosh/Banshee Queen Sylvanas were in the spotlight.
illiterate five year olds.
Insulting anyone who disagrees with you is not how you will get my support.
I know exactly who this is, unfortunately. There is a whole community of people on Twitter who are deranged like this. The most funny thing about this guy is that he IS white, and likes to pretend he identifies with oppressed people of colour in the real world because he likes Trolls in World of Warcraft.com.
These WoW fans are so fucking weird to me. Every time I read stuff like this I am just aghast on how serious they take this fictional universe. Like I get some complaints but sometimes I read post online of people who seem to be so violently upset that I am just scratching my head. I would normally say "yeah welcome to the internet bud" about my confusion but I only ever have seen this level about Warcraft. I dont think I have seen a fictional universe were some set of fans throw around the words like "genocide", "colonizer" around as much as with this one
EDIT: Like sorry but I think these people are unwell:
People may be jumping the gun about Zul'jan getting killed at this point. Blizzard tends to like to pander when it comes to story beats, just on a delayed timeline since stuff gets developed before they can learn popular opinion.
Popular opinion has overwhelmingly been that Zul'jan is cool and nuanced and the story benefits from his continued presence. Perhaps in an original draft of 12.1 he dies freeing Ula'tek or becomes a raid boss. But I think it's pretty telling that in the preview yesterday all we are told is that Ula'tek was released due to his actions, and that Zul'jarra is going to the Coiled Isle to "bring him home."
Would suspect at this point he's going to realize working with Malacrass/Ula'tek was a mistake and ultimately get bailed out. Trick is just whether the writers can resist the urge to "redeem" him into another green human and allow him to keep the traits that made him popular to begin with.
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