I miss telling Lyse to shut up
https://cdn.betterttv.net/emote/58fa...088397/1x.webp
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I miss telling Lyse to shut up
https://cdn.betterttv.net/emote/58fa...088397/1x.webp
I've explained this in other places, but Writing 101 is to not replace your main characters with an unestablished character, and do NOT establish said characters at the expense of your main characters.
Take, for instance, the Lord of the Rings. That series has several secondary characters, some of which get even more time than Frodo and Sam. But the series took the time to flesh them out before that point. You know Gandalf, Pippin, and Merry. You understand Aragon, Legolas, and Gimli. They don't just drop a random dude on you, and push the characters you've known into the background.
That is Wuk Lamat in a nutshell. To use a different comparison, let's use the Harry Potter series. It seems like a fitting comparison. 7 books, and DT is 7.0. Let's say you read 6 books, all about Harry's adventures, and struggles to defeat Voldemort. Book 7, is suddenly about a character mentioned in a single chapter at the end of book six. And in book 7, Harry has almost no lines, has almost no interaction with the plot, and only exists to make this new character look good. Oh, and of course, the new character gets the killing blow on Voldemort, because of course they do.
That is Dawntrail, right there. A character with no development, no establishment, suddenly taking center stage at the expense of every established character around her. Even if they weren't one of the worst characters in the game, that alone is a cardinal sin of writing.
It was a totally different vibe. If anything, The Adventurer's reputation in FFXI was more earned because grinding it up was actually something you had to do before some people would even talk to you (for both side content and main scenario missions). So it had that air of "Oh yeah, we can rely on <your character here> because they've been pretty helpful to others." But yes, your character was never the focus of the story and was mostly along for the ride. That being said, it captured the feel of going on an adventure with the characters very well, especially in CoP which had a nice little entourage involved in the quests.
I remember getting to Solution Nine and being relieved Wuk wouldn't follow me. Then she followed me yet again... It was surreal that I was getting my social battery drained by a fictional character. Meanwhile in StB didn't feel Lyse was always breathing down my neck. Cannot say the same about Wuk.
It's weird that people take Lyse as not a joke character all of a sudden, when we had what 2+ years of her being comedic relief and a joke for a origin, then we repackaged her into an arguably troubled "oh we can just solve it forehead".
Sorry but the first intro to Lyse starts with Yda and we need to stop pretending like we can forget that she was a joke character for quite a long time just cause its convenient. In that respect, her (in her Yda faze) and Wuk were comparable, if not almost a similar archetype outside of the "family / papa" stuff.
Wuk Lamat in her first 7 months of introduction is far superior to Lyse in the way she was handled even after 3+ years of development of the character and anyone saying otherwise is ridiculously capping considering to this day most people still think Lyse was handled terribly (even when they improved her in the 4.X patches). What Wuk needs right now, is a bigger challenge philosophically, something that power of friendship can't outright solve. They could have had it with Sphene maybe but that has passed, needs to be something else now.
Wuk Lamat and Lyse were both at their best in comedic moments. They both should have had more.
https://i.imgur.com/AF7S9Od.gif
https://i.imgur.com/VTp79Ar.gif
Compared to Wuk Lamat ...... Let's have another Lyse expansion.
I'll be honest I still dislike Lyse slightly more as she ruined Papalymo and Yda for me. Though stormblood was far more tolerable because she wasn't inserted in every single scene like Wuk is. I had breathing room away from her so I didn't hate my entire time in the MSQ.