Moggleification: One thing about Zoraal Ja that I noticed, was in the introduction scene of him. All the virtues and boons Erenville describes him with, all feed back into Gulool Ja Ja (heading the landsguard, like Gulool Ja Ja used to etc). Almost as if there is very little of his that he can truly call his own. Which makes it somewhat sad that when he does get an achievement that is genuinely disconnected from his dad, something that Zoraal Ja should be able to take pride in (being King of Alexandria), but because he never got over his one hyper fixation he never appreciates it.
amichau: “Everyone’s third favorite lizard”
NoOne-gg5mc: Comparing Zoraal Ja to a toxic solo Souls player is not a take I expected, but it's a take I can truly get behind.

I was in that "I don't get Zoraal Ja" camp in the beginning, and it was only at the end when he was going through his existential crisis and was haunted by the visions that I finally begun to understand what he was all about. While I find him less engaging than our previous villains, I do like this new direction of character writing.
sinom: "dimensional grafting" is a really great description of what happened with the bubble
ursulcx299: The thing that struck to me the most with how out of touch the man was is that when we first reach Tural, we are told that Tural doesn't have a proper navy, only fishing vessels that cannot cross the ocean like the one in Eorzea do.
How did he exactly plan on even reaching the rest of the world to conquer it?
Gravitysonic0: I could understand him but...

1) there's almost nothing more to his character other than Krile's omnious Echo visions about him resenting his own familly.

2) I guess I emphathized way too much with Wuk Lamat at that point of the story:
Girl finally acomplishes her dream, she says a brief goodbye to her adoptive mother and then everything goes to HELL.
Kpiozero: Bakool Ja Ja of course, taking the first and second spot comfortably.
spencer6736: I don't understand the confusion about Zoraal Ja. His motivations were always very clear to me: he has daddy issues and wants to surpass his father in every way because that's the heavy expectation placed on him. He's the first-born, he's the 'rightful heir', he's the actual child that felt unwanted compared to his adopted siblings. To me, this was shown very clearly in the story from the very beginning to the very end when we interact with his own unwanted son. He wants war because war and conquest is what he believes is his father's legacy and what he must do as well. This is his path to his own version of peace for his people, no matter how flawed that path may be. I don't like Zoraal Ja, I think he's stupid and I disagree with what he stands for in the story, but he just always felt very clearly defined to me.

I think your constant comparisons to Dark Souls is right though in terms of storytelling. DS tells its story a lot by showing rather than telling, and maybe FFXIV players aren't used to interpreting things that way.
SchrosDinger: I really like Zoraal Ja, the character. He's such a goober in the grand scheme of FFXIV.

I think a missed bit about him is that his whole "instilling a love of peace through war" is almost certainly bullshit. The guy has lived in Tural his whole life during an era of unbroken peace; what does he know about the horrors of war? Unless he's 90 years old and has secretly travelled the world, he's never seen or been in a war.

And on that same note, we see a point of comparison between himself and Wuk Lamat: their ignorance. Wuk Lamat starts out the story assured that she knows Tural and her people, only to be stumped and shocked at every turn when her views are shown to be shallow at best. I think it's fair to assume Zoraal Ja also did not know very much about the various cultures --- but something we don't have to assume is his ignorance regarding the rest of the world. The man has no idea what the Garlean Empire was capable of, but called them "a congregation of simpletons." Bro, Zenos would have waffle stomped him so bad. He also assumed he could just flatten Tulliyolal with no resistance and got embarrassed for it. He's been on guard duty, he thinks he's a 5 star general.

Difference being, Wuk Lamat opened her mind up and resolved (harhar) to learn more of Tural. Zoraal Ja straight up refused to entertain the idea that he needed to learn anything --- if he couldn't do it himself through force, he wasn't worthy of being The Resilient Son.

Innocent Ignorance vs Aggressive Ignorance situation. There are other comparison points between the two, like Wuk Lamat being written off and wanting to prove herself to others vs Zoraal Ja being glazed 24/7 but wanting to prove himself to himself, Wuk Lamat being a Warrior (a tank job, meant to protect others) vs Zoraal Ja being a Viper (meant to destroy obstacles in his way), etc.
neobahumuth6: bit wierd finding positive opinions on DT despite my youtube feed really wanting to recommend me why DT is the worst thing ever
dunethewanderer8944: Zoraal Ja's understanding of War being... incredibly juvenile, if we're being honest, makes a lot more sense when you take his upbringing into considering. He wasn't raised in a society in active warfare on multiple fronts, unlike Zenos - he was raised in an era of peace. He never fought an enemy nation or occupied hostile territory, also unlike Zenos, who was awful on purpose so he had something to do when the rebels eventually rose up. Zoraal Ja fights tural vidraal, which are basically Monster Hunter creatures. He doesn't have a grasp of strategy greater than "flush out the target to him to get to" because that's literally all he's needed to do, and he doesn't even know what logistics or tactical deployment are because the first was handled by the infrastructure that was already established by his father and the latter wasn't necessary for him to just bulldoze through most challenges solo, and I think he KNOWS all of this, or at least realizes it later on but can't bring himself to fix it out of pride. Him saying that Garlemald was "weak" for falling to internal strife was such a blatantly ignorant remark that it shook me from my "the characters are at least always honest with themselves" mindset and I started seeing him less as a FFXIV character and more of an Obsidian RPG character, who is more than willing to lie - especially to themselves - out of pride, misplaced confidence, or fear more than deception.

Yes, that's right, I just compared Zoraal Ja to Atris from Knights of the Old Republic 2. They both come off as haughty, incredibly self-assured, and have incredibly wrong
TheGoodOne1998: On Zoraal Ja lacking reason, I feel there is an interesting contrast with Bakool Ja Ja, as when Wuk Lamat was kidnapped when the WOL faced down Bakool Ja Ja, his Mystic head immediately realised that fighting the WOL was a bad idea and when he kidnapped Humnu Rruk, he made sure that the WOl hands were tied while he fought Wuk Lamat. If Zoraal Ja had become Dawnservant, how would he have carried out his invasion if he knew of even some of Eorzea's capacity, as all can agree that it would have been disastrous for Tural, even with Alexandrian technology.
25xxfrostxx: My problem with Zoraal Ja is that he was very tell don't show and whatever telling they did was either third person from people that clearly didn't understand him or directly from him in sparse exposition that stated a different motivation every time he opened his mouth. In Urqopacha it was "These people have peace so I am going to teach them to want peace by showing them that war sucks when I try to conquer the world". That would have been a brief and somewhat hilarious failure and we all knew it so it had no weight. It was also amusing that he was too young to know what war was like either.

In Koza'mauka he went on more about "taking by force" with no real indication that even he really knew what that meant. Nor were we given any indication as to why this one person was completely opposite in motivation to anyone else on the continent.

Then before the Valigarmanda fight he wanted to see the creature that his father fought. Then after the fight was the first time we ever even heard any reference to "proving the miracle". We never got a definition of what that phrase actually would have meant to him or anyone else.

Then he gets sad because he can't cook (a feeling I actually do identify with) so he does something completely against his already thin character and tries a tactic that would have fit better with Bakool Ja Ja. If you don't get your way, attack the person that can immediately disqualify you. Basically, he gave up and threw a tantrum.

Then he enters the portal and comes out 30 years later talking about how he's glad he gets to kill his father himself. We never got any indication of any animosity between the two. We didn't even get any sense of friction. Something that could have easily been communicated by his siblings.

At the end of his trial he's spouting stuff about how his father "spurned him". That's never shown and the character of his father indicates otherwise. He then talks about how his son (who was born from no female mamool ja in the bubble so I am guessing clone) would receive that which he earned by the sweat of his brow.

He didn't earn a thing, he took. He stole and tried to steal more. Also, lizards don't sweat.

This turned into a book but his characterization was paper thin and changed with the wind. He didn't make a bit of sense to me. I can get if a character is an idiot, or evil, or driven by something external to the central plot but he just didn't come off as complete. He felt like they cut a large amount of characterization from the script and then proceeded as if they had left it in.
Liltama: I still think Zoraal ja's writting was pretty weak, understanding him was not hard, it's not a trope we haven't seen before... but the way they chose to write it is what I have a problem with, even so this video gave me a new perspective of things
CH-dr1ds: I love Zoraal Ja because he's a laconic guy, which is needed to have that personality variety, especially with Wuk Lamat's extreme extrovert and the WoL's single real canon trait being a willingness to entertain, listen to whatever random quest, and help others. And of course in an expansion preoccupied with learning about others and having productive dialogue to solve problems, there has to be a character that sucks at outreach, at sharing pov, who stonewalls. Who in his death spells out clear as day to the audience that he's lost, he doesn't know what to do or who he is. That's far more realistic than a villain who has their shit together.
His problem is internal and caused by the expectations being more nebulous than Bakool Ja Ja's despite close similarities and that they are self-inflicted rather than just for the sake of his family/society. And audiences have lower tolerance and patience for motives about the self. His path is unclear and he only has one tool in the arsenal.

Eldest daughter, former gifted kid, yeah he's easy to understand. But people weren't expecting that archetype and for him to be something else?

Oh well. He is probably my favorite XIV villain. Not a lot of competition there. Hermes/Fandaniel is second.

Also I love that the Resilient Son is referring to the virtue but also to the name of the palace itself, Vollok Shoonsa.

Aug 24 2024

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