The Tragic Love Story of Zohaqan & Nakis, or: a rant about the unnecessarily lonely tormented grief of the storm djinn and how to fix his broken heart
So yesterday I finished reading one of the best long fanfictions I've ever found. If you are interested, here is the link. But by the gods, it made me sad that ANet never continued the story of this canon inter-species homosexual couple.
Down below, I put my own ideas on how their story could end.
But to provide the context:
A powerful male djinn lived on mainland Elona, around the Elon Riverlands. He was not only attuned to one element, as most djinns are, but to three: water, air, and earth. His name was Zohaqan.
Some unknown time before the beginning of the events of Living World Season 4, he fell in love with a male human. His name was Nakis.
Something or, more probably, someone, made the Riverlands undesirable, maybe even dangerous for them. And so, from their dilemma, we have one letter, which Zohaqan left in a cave:
"My darling Nakis, my tender Nakis, my clever Nakis…you're right. Let's go. We'll flee tomorrow."
Eventually, they found their new home on the eastern coast of the northern Sandswept isle. There, they left their own marking. They burnt an image of themselves into a tree on the beach. With it, also their initials, Z + N, in a heart.
Their happy life wouldn't last long, though.
The nearby Inquest somehow managed to capture Nakis.
And eventually killed him, presumably during experiments in Rata Primus.
Poor Nakis's prayer beads would later be found inside the main complex. It is not known how Zohaqan learned of his death. Maybe he stormed the facility Nakis was being held in and found him dead there, most probably from experiments on the scarab plague. Or killed by a mutated specimen. Or turned into a corrupted subject himself. Or maybe, given how magical djinns are, Zohaqan just felt it.
But it is definite that it absolutely broke the powerful djinn. By the time the Commander made it to the islands, Zohaqan had turned mercilessly hateful towards all mortals. In his deep grief, he created large violent storms that threatened everyone on the islands. This is known in the game as the "Gathering Storms" meta event.
Blinded by rage and sorrow, he didn't let anyone near his cave which was very close to his and Nakis's tree.
During the meta event, he would scream:
"There shall be no mercy for your trespass!"
"Heartless fools! You will pay in blood!"
"You mortals feign civility, yet speak nothing but treachery and lies!"
The Stormcaller, as he was nicknamed, was confronted in his own cave at the end of the meta event.
One of the last things he said before he was defeated was:
"They stole from me, and now you barge in here with empty demands? You know nothing! You ARE nothing!"
Some Olmakhan say he was destroyed for good. Some say he is powerful enough to return and continue his grief-stricken rage. Depending on how you understand the canon or non-canon repeating of the meta event, anything could be true.
Either way, his story never had any real closure.
Zohaqan either died alone and was metaphorically spat on, with no memorial or grave for either him or Nakis.
Or, he is now stuck in a loop of living in tormenting grief, getting beaten to a pulp, laying dormant for a while, and then living in grief again. And that's such a horrible horrible fate.
The Commander helped Efi, an Olmakhan cub, with her grief of losing her mother.
I'm asking: Why nobody helped Zohaqan?
Much worse people than him have been redeemed and forgiven in this game's story...
Why not him? He deserves it just as much.
Now finally to the theories and my ideas on what to do next:
First things first, we don't know what exactly happened to Nakis. Or where his body is. However, the closest we have to a hint is what I mentioned about him getting turned into a corrupted subject himself. And I could be simply reading too much into this, but: in the southern meta event of the Sandswept Isles, you fight in The Specimen Chamber. Two out of six possible mutated bosses spawn, all of them results of experiments with Elder Dragon magic.
Five of them have names. The last one is simply "Subject Beta".
Subject Beta is a Branded. A male human Branded.
You already know what I am hinting at...
Moving on, there is one more object related to Zohaqan. Under certain circumstances, one of the drops from the event where you defeat him is called "Smashed Vase". Its description says "A small vase, reminiscent of work from Vabbi."
Could it be what Zohaqan was bound to after he and Nakis fled the mainland? If so, does it mean smashing the vase released Zohaqan's spirit all over the islands? Or was the vase smashed before the event?
Lastly, how to fix Zohaqan's broken spirit?
As I mentioned, he is a very powerful djinn. I have never encountered any djinn in the game who could command two elements, let alone three. An Olmakhan elder also thinks that he's powerful enough to come back and return to his mad rampage.
But I do not blame him in the slightest for mourning in such a violent way.
Zohaqan should be redeemed and mainly, given his peace.
Who knows how long the djinns live? How deep their love can go?
However, he sure is suffering alone.
And I wish he wasn't. I wish the writers looked at his story again and gave him a proper closure.
He deserves it.
I, personally, can see three ways this could potentially go in the future:
1: Zohaqan joins the Olmakhan and/or fights with us to destroy the Inquest for good
A friend of mine got me thinking about this, and honestly, it's perfect. Zohaqan is an elemental being. He's commanding entire storms. He shouldn't have to be necessarily human enough to better avoid conflict and soul-rotting revenge at all costs.
But instead of blind rage, he could have taken the years since the second episode of season 4 to calm down just a little and finally not be an enemy of the Olmakhan. I am sure they would be understanding enough to accept him. Instead of putting the innocent in danger, he could finally, after all those years, have a goal, an ambition now: take revenge on the ones who brutally murdered his love, not on simply everybody near.
Zohaqan is voiced by Tommie Earl Jenkins, who voiced Blish, Cloudseeker, or the Wolverine Spirit. That being said, quite recent characters. Shouldn't be that big of a stretch to have him return to this role, too, no?
Still. The Inquest are one of the few major enemy groups that haven't been dealt with yet. It'll surely need quite a big story arc to destroy them for good. The Commander will need all the help they can get.
Why not the Olmakhan, still mourning their lost ones, together with Zohaqan, the heartbroken yet mighty and powerful three-elemental djinn, with revenge on his mind?
After he finally sees the Inquest are no more, he could consider Nakis avenged. And could finally move on with his life as not a threat to everybody around him, though still forever scarred.
2: Zohaqan puts up a fight one last time and is finally and definitely put out of his misery
The saddest of the three ideas.
We did not get any definite answer to what happened to Zohaqan after the end of the meta event. So, even if the writers want him dead and never redeemed, why not make it final?
Just destroy him to the point where his soul simply ceases to be, as the djinns seem to work in the way I assume.
That's better than living in centuries of torment.
3: Zohaqan and Nakis find peace in the afterlife, somehow
I doubt the djinns have an afterlife when they die. They're basically sentient elementals, after all. And though they have souls, could they be ghosts? Have there ever been ghost djinns in either of the two games? I don't think so.
But humans do have an afterlife either in the Underworld or as ghosts in the mortal realm.
Couldn't Zohaqan somehow find a way to the Mists? Or couldn't Nakis's spirit-ghost somehow be bounded to his and Zohaqan's tree so he could be with him for centuries?
If Belinda could infuse herself into Marjory's katana, why can't Nakis stay bound to the tree and use its life essence to be able to communicate and move around, too?
Would that even be possible if, given the worst-case scenario, Nakis's spirit is still trapped in the Domain of the Lost?
____
And this is the end of my rambling essay. I'm very emotional about these two poor guys as they have been my perhaps favorite queer GW2 couple ever since I learned about them a year or two ago.
Their love was so unexpected, so rare. Yet they decided to live so far away from their homes just to be together.
Only to be torn apart by violent death.
And only to have almost zero backstory, no definite answer as to what happened to the bereaved, and no answer to whether the spirit of the dead one is already in peace in the Underworld, or not.
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