World of Warcraft: Midnight's 'stay a while and listen' monologues might've just heavily hinted at a future big bad

I'm still plugging through World of Warcraft: Midnight's story campaign, and I can say for a fact that Blizzard's continued to improve its storytelling—in particular, I've been pleasantly surprised by the "stay a while and listen" conversations. Optional snippets which I'd absolutely encourage you to absorb whenever they come up.

Carving my way through the Zul'Aman story (spoilers for it to follow) I found myself pretty taken by the narrative at play here. Lady Liadrin, a woman who endured the Amani's worst impulses, in a begrudging alliance-turned friendship with Zul'jarra, the Amani's current leader.

There's some genuinely interesting little conversations between the two—Liadrin was tortured by Zul'jarra's grandfather, who we knocked over in the Zul'Aman raid years ago. Being an elf, she now gets to steward Zul'jarra away from the same anger and vengeance she once sought—it's good stuff.

It also means that Zul'jan gets to make villain noises in the background.

See, the Amani have been abandoned by the Loa, but Zul'jan finds power in lightwood weapons (which are possible because of the surge caused by the Sunwell's weaponisation against Xal'atath) and does a bit of a political incident about it—raiding the outskirts of Eversong for recently light-imbued kit.

He plays a bit of a heel to Zul'jarra throughout the entire questline, though it's clear they still love each other as siblings. One of these "stay a while" monologues, however, has players—including myself—wondering if we'll also be knocking Zul'jan over and stealing his pants for our best-in-slot at some point.

Once you've reconnected Zul'jarra to the Loa and given the Amani people hope, you find Zul'jan sulking, away from the party—given his ambitions with the lightwood went awry. If you choose to stay a while and listen… well.

"I see de strength of the Amani—our tribe. We should conquer those around us! Zul'jarra doesn't understand. When Mor'duun came, I saw my vision of de Amani coming to life. With de lightwood, we would conquer de Twilight's Blade and then Eversong."

I mean, yeah, that's pretty bad—but hey maybe he's about to learn his lesson? "De loa say our grandfather, de great Zul'jin, betrayed them. But why believe them? Or my dotterin' uncle." Wuh oh. He then promptly snarls: "They abandoned us. They abandoned us," then tells us to "forget what I have said."

Honestly? It's a great little character moment. Blizzard plonks us next to a sulking troll who has slinked away from a party, and doesn't land on the idea of him learning his lesson all of a sudden. He's still pissed that his plans didn't work. And I know anything about the way Blizzard creates villains, this sure feels like foreshadowing.

That's echoed by players in this thread on the game's unofficial subreddit, with a choice selection of meme:

The player character after choosing "Stay a while and listen" with Zul'jan on the Sky Bridge from r/wow

"He really said, 'Don't come to Big Frog Island next patch, bruh'," writes one player. "I like him. Shame we're going to have to put him down," adds another. Mind, Blizzard also could just be rearing up for a big subversion—after all, one of the studio's most popular antagonists ever, Illidan Stormrage, eventually became our ally.

Still, I'd bet a decent amount of ill-gotten frog gold that we'll be wrestling with Zul'jan in a future patch.