Yes officer, this post right here
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I used to hate Alphinaud as well. But as time went one his character changed pretty dramatically and he is now one of my favorite characters. He is young and has made mistakes. We've ALL been there. I feel like he and Alisae have had two of the most drastic character changes throughout the storyline and I appreciate them both much more because of it.
In all seriousness, he seems to be that type of character that attracts rather extreme dispositions about him, both positive and negative. I never understood it, but so many either love him or hate him with a passion.
I seem to be in the odd position in that I don't really feel either way about him. He's just....there.
His character has developed quite a bit but yeah I still don't like him very much.
lol sorry, tho I do recall quite a few instances of them mentioning years passed.
Edit: looked it up and apparently the only times has been in seasonal events(definitely what I was thinking of), which I guess aren't considered canon and all this stuff is 1 year. Which is very lazy imo but whatever. It's a game, they aren't even real people.
Both of them look like full-fledged adults.
Besides, why would I care about a fictional character's age?
I'd like to think this is a completely innocent statement, as it has restored some faith in humanity.
Surely, all those scantily-clad high-school anime girls are clearly labelled in the US releases as being 18 years old to emphasize their intellectual and emotional maturity. And for no other reason.
My main issue with alphi before and same with minfilia is they existed only to move the plot along and did absolutely nothing interesting or worthwhile besides that. Minfilia got written off because of that eventually and they decided to make alphinaud into an actual story character which is nice. He's pretty good now to be honest, we get a lot of "lol let's do politics" which is fine but points to him actually doing things rather than "pls come here lul crystal braves, save me halp". Alisaie is kind of going through the same thing now, she was the real do nothing during stormblood (not lyse) and had her failing bit at the end so we will see how it goes. To people pointing to do coil for alisaie and such, it didn't go anywhere because they didn't want to tie the raid into the msq or character development so unfortunately it's fun but doesn't really do a lot for them as characters. You get some neat info and backstory but doesn't improve the twins at all imo.
All I thought when Minfilia "died" was "Whelp, that's a plot hook for later."
I dunno, Alisae was always a bit better developed because of Coils and that info is semi canon (even if you dont do it, its just never really hard referenced in the MSQ IIRC). Alphinaud was a bit of a dumbass in ARR and moped around a bit in HW but kinda started coming into his own in after a while. Like it seemed like he had more purpose and actually influenced things. We were more filled in on the end results of what he was doing.
This isnt like Minfillia though. She was pretty much just a background admin that 'supposedly' did stuff. She never directly impacted things, and frankly, it just came off like "Why are you here when its clear that everyone else is far more competent and impactful than you?" It definitely is a writing issue at the end of the day, because I dont think she ever really demonstrated why shes leading the scions compared to anyone else. Urianger, if anyone, was probably best suited for it, maybe followed by Yshtola or Thancred. So it's no surprise when Minfillia "bit the bullet" that people cheered rather than felt bad. She was the useless waifu material character. She tells people what to do, gets kidnapped, and never solves anything herself. She was more a nuisance than a leader.
Alphinaud and Alisae were like that but have since moved away and became actual characters doing character things.
That was actually kind of addressed at the end of HW when the Scions were trying to figure out the new structure of their group. Whoever led them would have to more or less stay out of the field because they'd need to be available for contact and decision making between all other parties at a moment's notice. This essentially means Minfillia was the leader *because* she had no fieldwork ability, whereas everyone else, Urianger included, often preferred having the freedom to go out and do their own thing, whether that be taking action against a threat, investigating the beast tribes, or researching some new conundrum.
I do agree, though. She was a very flat character with no real purpose but to tell you what to do, which of course was more often than not to return to the Waking Sands, and to reach out and talk to other contacts, like the Baldesions.
I di hope they manage to improve her character on the First, especially since it appears we'll be dealing with two of her now.
I absolutely agree... some serious internal excavation into the psyche needs to be done to unravel so much hatred, sense of feeling sick and sheer anger towards a character within a game.
Also strange that the poster hates Alphinaud enough to wish him dead but finds his sister... in his/her words... adorable.
Interesting.
I reckon you are uncannily close to the truth... afterall, he's always been keenly central to the main over-arching tale. It is little wonder that even Yoshida himself has admitted a couple times that he considers Alphy as a younger brother.
He is also one of the main facet lens through which the Warrior of Light expresses himself/herself within the story because their interactive dialogue is purposefully very limited. He's also supposed to be an aspect of Sensei Louisoix's legacy as a member of House Leveilleur.
It is part of why the Twins are good characters as they grow through the storyline where majority of the characters stay the same because people already like the way they are.
In 2.X the Twins are still young and naive to the world in their own way with Alphinaud being more optimistic and Alisaie being more pestamistic due to spending most of their life in the isolated society of Sharlayan.
In 3.X, they begin their real development by being exposed to the world and the hardship people face in it.
In 4.X, the twins have a better understanding of the world thus they have a better understanding of the double nature people have in the world.
By the time of 5.0, I expect the Twins to have matured farther since from what Alphinaud said in the trailer they have all been in the First for years already (possibly for over 100 years) thus their experience in the First may have open a more leadership side due to helping the survives of the First. As to why they have not physically aged in the First, it is most likely due to them being "spirits" in the First since their actual body is in the Source thus they don't age even if the First time frame moves faster than the Source.
I've been waiting for them to get into this plot since that event in 3.X.
The reveal of the too much "Light/Law" alignment action can cause a Flood of Light is something that peaked my interests and I wanted to see how they will handle this plot due to Shin Megami series being one of the favorite game series that heavily involves the balance of "good/selfless" actions versus "evil/selfish" actions.
That's how they handle optional plotlines in general. It's supposed to be canon, and it takes place at Lv50 in post-ARR regardless of when you play it... but if you haven't personally done it then it hasn't happened in your version of the timeline. Alisaie will greet you at Lv60 saying that it's the first time you've met since the Carteneau memorial service very early in the game. Or there are several variants of dialogue for that scene if you've started the first Coil, reached the final one, or completed the quest.
Your current progress is treated as the canon state of what happened when characters within the game, but for "common" stories where a single static version exists for everyone (eg. the lorebook or Alisaie's chapter of Tales from the Dragonsong War) it's assumed to have happened in its proper place.