The story direction for Zul’jan in 12.1 is terrible (SPOILERS)

Community General Discussion
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Spoilers ahead, you’ve been warned. I hope this post reaches someone at blizzard, if the numerous other posts in other places haven’t already

In season 2, with what is currently planned, Zul’jan will be villain batted, turned into a snake mutant thing, and then killed off

How come the Scarlet Crusade, a white supremacist allegory, gets to be redeemed but the native who is rightfully angry doesn’t get to be redeemed and instead gets villain batted and killed off?

Mind you, the term “Amani” is the Swahili word for peace. You can’t just ignore the African and native influences in troll culture, and how much of the Amani lore reflects persecution’ of native people in real world history.

Besides the problematic context with this story… there’s also the fact that blizzard is killing off a widely loved character that was just introduced

Current WoW suffers from the issue of many of its characters getting old. They need characters like Zul’jan to carry the torch so they don’t need to rely constantly on old characters.

Zul’jan was lightning in a bottle, a new and young character that players loved. Keeping him around could have been a big W after many years of narrative blunders

I’ve been one of the worldsoul saga’s biggest defenders… but if season 2 continues as planned, I can’t defend it anymore.

As a side note, I find Ula’tek as a villainess to be predictable, boring, and uninspired. Imagine if instead she was the loa of forbidden magic and was wanting to teach trolls to use forbidden magic for the greater good, but she was being mind controlled by the Vilebranch and the main villain was Hakkar all along. A loa of forbidden magic who is actually a good guy would fit in well with midnight’s themes of “x type of magic isn’t inherently good or evil”

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I don’t love him, I find him more whiney than Arator. In fact he embodies everything a man in his position should not of done.

Find better role models

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What is it with these forums and that genre of guy.

He’s like baby Garrosh before the war crimes (for now). Edgy, standoffish, doesn’t listen to anyone, constantly fawning over glory days that haven’t existed for millennia (though what troll doesn’t), and has a chip on his shoulder the size of detroit.

Then you have his sister, who just fuels the fire by acknowledging that she’s overshadowing him, and continues to shame in him front of other people anyway.

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I dunno man from what I can tell he wants power to take out the elves. Doesn’t seem like such a standup guy tbh

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Thats… the point. After the story he goes to think about the mistakes he made. Like actual character growth. I don’t want perfect characters. I want characters with flaws and growth. In a natural way. He has a strong personality and conviction which would make an amazing character after tempering himself with his past. It would give him a reason behind his future convictions and a source of strength in his leadership.

The writing direction now is basically oh well he realized he got a ton of people killed for his arrogance and instead of learning (both stated and implied in the already existing story) he just double downs as a villain??? Like wtf is the writing?

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It’s fine and I’m convinced you just like to complain about everything.

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I honestly don’t care what happens to Zul’jan in the slightest. I didn’t find him even remotely interesting. It was quite obvious from the start they were going to make him a dungeon or raid boss to die off.

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iT MAKES no sense. You have an expansion of void vs light and suddenly, amani have come into play, like GIMME a break lmao

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I hate the fact that I actually gave Blizz’s writers the benefit of the doubt that they WOULDN’T kill off one of the few characters I actually liked from this xpac.

How silly of me.

Why is Metzen even back, other than to collect a paycheck? I cannot imagine someone like him would write off this sort of direction in good conscience.

TBF, the only thing that can salvage this xpac for me is playable Amani AND ethereal (either this xpac or next). It’s highly unlikely we’ll get either, so this xpac is pretty much over for me.

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He was literally set up as the spoiled/jealous brother who continued to kill his own people due to his bad decisions.
How anyone could “love” him as a character is beyond me.

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I figured people would be used to the trash writing at this point. Not really sure why people are surprised, the writing/story in this game is always terrible lol.

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Fr, people have been calling this since Midnight dropped, before even.

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Is it confirmed we kill him? We might just smack him sensible.

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Nobody is surprised, just upset that they’re doing it to the only interesting character the writers have created in well over a decade.

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Ah, the twist we all saw coming from the start. :dracthyr_a1: I wonder if the writers have an actual contempt for the handful of story/lore enjoyers left.

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Writing these days at Blizzard is a democratic process. In other words, he doesn’t have control. The man who’s vision built Warcraft has no say in its development unless the other writers agree with him.

Considering what we’ve seen of their work over the past few years? I think its easy to say, few to none agree with him.

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I couldn’t care less about Zul’jan. The Amani are not at all as cool as the Zandalari. Now those were some cool trolls. Princess Talanji was a well-liked character. I made Zandalari troll characters I liked the Zandalari and Zandalar so much. I could care less about the Amani. They are bog standard trolls living in huts.

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your surprised? the current team are out of touch with the wow community and dont understand good writing. legit they try and gaslight you to belive its good story when everyone knows it isnt its funny and their surprised why people are upset.

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To be clear: Zul’jan villain-batted himself in 12.0 very clearly. If you talked to him at all it was clear the path he wanted to take and in 12.1 he’s taking it. This is not out of left field for him at all.

What’s up in the air is if he lives and learns (or learns and sacrifices himself for his sister)–which are the potential outcomes I’ve been assuming based in the 12.0 quests–or doesn’t, and chooses death over brains.

I could also see him surviving, but cutting ties with his sister, and becoming the subordinate of another big bad to further his crusade to return the Amani to blood-drenched imperial glory. Kicking the reckoning down the road.

If he somehow teamed up with Iridikron I wouldn’t complain but idk how they’d establish that connection.

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I don’t think anyone is upset over the path he’s taking, only the end Blizzard decided for it.

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