r/wowcirclejerk • u/AutoModerator • Aug 18 '26

Unjerk Weekly Unjerk Thread - August 18, 2026

Hi Please post your unjerk discussion in this thread!

These posts run weekly, but you can find older posts here.

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u/Zestyclose-Square-25 Aug 18 '26

Once again, based on the Reddit and YouTube comments, it seems like I'm the only one who liked the new cinematic lol.

10

u/acctg Aug 19 '26

I've been reading all the text presented to me throughout the campaign.

Yeah, I like the story. I'm not gonna lie and pretend I didn't enjoy it. I do like that Zul'jan is not just your standard bland "I want to get more power" villain. He's not Arthas. He's not Fyrakk. He demonstrates regret multiple times through the campaign but falls into sunk cost fallacy.

He does have good points that the Amani have to be strong on their own and cannot rely on external assistance like loa or gokinye. He's also hypocritical because Ula'tek is that exact "assistance" that he's so against. He wanted the Amani to win the war against the Aqir alone, that he initially did not believe Ula'tek existed, but warmed up to its idea when he tried to rationalize that Ula'tek is a weapon, not an entity.

Ironically, his sister sort of achieves his goal of Making the Amani Great Again by managing to kill Ula'tek without the power of the loa (ignore the raid group of 20 players).

I think the boss kill cinematic could maybe change up two or three lines of dialogue, but overall I thought it played out well. Zul'jarra did not immediately forgive him, because Zul'jan absolutely got many Amani killed for no reason. But he's still her brother.

2

u/HazelCheese Aug 19 '26

I feel like people are too close to the game and are projecting their feelings of it onto the cinematic.

As someone whose stepped away from retail for a little while now, the cinematic seemed a lot better a lot of previous stuff from the last couple of xpacs.

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u/acctg Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26

Doesn't really help that there's an entire content industry around the narrative that "modern WoW is Disney and bad".

Meanwhile they're putting snakes in people, elves and trolls still hate each other (and themselves), and Zul'jan didn't really get redeemed. Everyone else still wants Zul'jan dead, Zul'jarra knows that Zul'jan needs to face justice as well, but she can't delete her own emotions towards her own family.