The key to Azys Lla

After defeating Bismarck, the WoL is ambushed by Igeroyhm and the Archbishop. Igeroyhm then takes the key to Azusa Lla from the WoL who makes no effort to defend themself or stop the key being stolen. A few hours/days later they kill Igeroyhm pretty easily and destroy them utterly. So how come the key is stolen so easily?

According to friends the answer is 'story says so' which is very unsatisfying

Everything from "We're fresh from killing a sky whale god" to "we were surprise attacked" could apply here; you said it yourself, we were ambushed.

The WoL never/almost never engages in combat during MSQ cutscenes. I have always presumed that this is due to SE not being able to figure out a feasible way of incorporating animations for all the jobs that a given WoL could be playing as during those cutscenes. It's very disappointing, compared to something like SWtOR, but they have many fewer classes in that game, and many of them use the same/similar weapons.

Something to remember also, Igeroyhm spears the Warrior of Light with dark Ascian magic that practically immobilizes them (notice how after she drops and releases them, the WoL is panting and kneeling in pain on the ground) so little wonder she and Thordan were able to get the key.

It is also justified that at that point the WoL hasn't completely restored the Blessing and the Crystals of Light either so they're not quite up to full strength thus allowing an Ascian to overcome them (Igeroyhm even remarks that the WoL's strength is returning but is still not enough to overcome her power). By the time the WoL reaches the Singularity Reactor in Azys Lla though, it's a different story - the WoL completely trounces both her and Lahabrea and... well.. we know how the rest turns out. ;)

So yeah, although it can be chalked up to "she couldn't be defeated until the plot said she could be defeated", it is fully justified for the aforementioned reason the Warrior of Light's Blessing has not been completely restored with all Crystals relit - once the final Crystal is relit after meeting Tiamat though, they're more than ready and able to curbstomp both Ascians at once even when amalgamated as Ascian Prime.

Igeyorhm: I see you have regained the blessing of Light- albeit at a fraction of its former strength.

Yeah she caught us off guard though we did some stupid choices but hey we were tired after fighting a primal and unblocking one of the Crystal's of light... so yeah not hard to see that it happened and why.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

Everything from "We're fresh from killing a sky whale god" to "we were surprise attacked" could apply here; you said it yourself, we were ambushed.

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The WoL isn't ambushed in the sense that Igeroyhm jumped out and had them in a headlock before they could do anything. If this had been the case, I wouldn't be querying it. If Igeroyhm crept up and tangled the WoL in darkness before they even knew she was there, fine. Not what happens though. They just stand there and get talked at for quite some time without even trying to draw a weapon.

I can kind of swallow the Blessing of Light being missing as a reason for us losing, but not as a reason for us not even trying to fight. It makes no sense. We just found this REALLY IMPORTANT ARTIFACT but we just let the bad guys take it off us.

Don't get me wrong, I love the story and think they've done a fantastic job with most of it. Which is why episodes like this bother me. They make no sense. It feels like the writers just got impatient and wanted to rush to the next bit without bothering to make it internally consistent.

Stuff like this throws me out of the story, breaks my immersion, or however you want to describe it. It was a moment of real dissonance for me (obviously this stands out more on a replay of the game though) akin to the moment in ARR when Iceheart breaks the ward around Ishgard and goes all 'Mwahahaha'. Fine when she's being touted as a villain but completely out of character for Ysayle

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Originally Posted by Rannie

Igeyorhm: I see you have regained the blessing of Light- albeit at a fraction of its former strength.

Yeah she caught us off guard though we did some stupid choices but hey we were tired after fighting a primal and unblocking one of the Crystal's of light... so yeah not hard to see that it happened and why.

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Sadly I disagree. Not hard to see that we might not prevail, but very hard to see why we don't even attempt to stop it. Us attempting to stop it could have comfortably ended in our 'defeat' allowing the Idyllshire chapter to proceed as planned. The scene as it stands now is very poorly done.

The real question is why Igeyorhm doesn't just push us off into the Sea of Clouds after taking the key. I guess it's just another "puny mortal isn't worth it" moment.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

The real question is why Igeyorhm doesn't just push us off into the Sea of Clouds after taking the key. I guess it's just another "puny mortal isn't worth it" moment.

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I take it as she won't do anything that could potentially cause another flood, so she will follow orders to the letter.

Really wish was in game that Igyorym caused the flood of darkness on the 13th shard that is major information and gives some reasonings to her actions.

If the WoL is left helpless, instead of stealing the key and monologuing they should have just killed us then and there. That's my problem with those kind of cutscenes. If we're helpless, we should be dead in the face of the enemy.

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Originally Posted by Edax

If the WoL is left helpless, instead of stealing the key and monologuing they should have just killed us then and there. That's my problem with those kind of cutscenes. If we're helpless, we should be dead in the face of the enemy.

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I think we get away unscathed simply because the Ascians are just so arrogant and prideful, that we're 'beneath them', as a mortal we're like insects that we're not even worth the effort finishing off. Of course, pride definetely comes before the fall, and thus that means they hold the Idiot Ball well and truely, and are consistantly having their butts kicked accordingly when said 'insects' give them one hell of a nasty venomous sting (Emet all but evokes this with his little racist rant at the end of Amaurot). :p

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

I think we get away unscathed simply because the Ascians are just so arrogant and prideful, that we're 'beneath them', as a mortal we're like insects that we're not even worth the effort finishing off. Of course, pride definetely comes before the fall, and thus that means they hold the Idiot Ball well and truely, and are consistantly having their butts kicked accordingly when said 'insects' give them one hell of a nasty venomous sting (Emet all but evokes this with his little racist rant at the end of Amaurot). :p

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But then, we have Lahabrea mercilessly delivering an extremely long monologue of exposition about Hydalean before trying to murder the Warrior of Light in the MSQ roulette. Utterly no point in explaining any of this if the intent is to kill the Warrior of Light and that does seem to be their intent so I'm not even sure arrogance and pride can be an excuse. Ascians are diametrically opposed to agents of Hydaelyn, there's no reason not to cause the Warrior of Light's mission to fail. I can understand Thordan VII leaving the WoL alone since he's a neutral party, but the Ascians are not neutrally aligned to the Warrior of Light.

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Originally Posted by Edax

But then, we have Lahabrea mercilessly delivering an extremely long monologue of exposition about Hydalean before trying to murder the Warrior of Light in the MSQ roulette. Utterly no point in explaining any of this if the intent is to kill the Warrior of Light and that does seem to be their intent so I'm not even sure arrogance and pride can be an excuse.

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Isn't that just the Evil Plan Trope in action?

That and I think a bit of the Evil Gloating also with Lahabrea.

Which fits in perfectly how

Lahabrea was mentioned to be the 'master Orator' as an Ancient...

/sarcasm

Hells, Varis stated to Emet's face bluntly that the Ascians outright love "the sound of their own voices", so a tendency to monologue evilly for dramatic effect only goes hand in hand with that. ;)

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Originally Posted by Edax

But then, we have Lahabrea mercilessly delivering an extremely long monologue of exposition about Hydalean before trying to murder the Warrior of Light in the MSQ roulette. Utterly no point in explaining any of this if the intent is to kill the Warrior of Light and that does seem to be their intent so I'm not even sure arrogance and pride can be an excuse. Ascians are diametrically opposed to agents of Hydaelyn, there's no reason not to cause the Warrior of Light's mission to fail. I can understand Thordan VII leaving the WoL alone since he's a neutral party, but the Ascians are not neutrally aligned to the Warrior of Light.

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Honestly I'm not sure how representative the MSQ roulette duties are, because everyone in those monologues incessantly, like holy carp. I can only assume it's due to the writers at the time not being able to really write a convincing "final dungeon" type of dialogue without motive rants.

Like, Livia definitely intends to kill us, and monologues at us about being thirsty for Gaius. Nero sees us as a mere roadblock on the way to Proving Himself Over Cid, and monologues about it endlessly too. And then we have Gaius "How Glib" van Baelsar, who made a good effort to try to kill us multiple times, and has a monologue about it every time.

Lahabrea was either influencing the XIVth Legion rather too much, or he decided that if everyone was going to prepare a speech, he might as well join in.

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

Honestly I'm not sure how representative the MSQ roulette duties are, because everyone in those monologues incessantly, like holy carp. I can only assume it's due to the writers at the time not being able to really write a convincing "final dungeon" type of dialogue without motive rants.

Like, Livia definitely intends to kill us, and monologues at us about being thirsty for Gaius. Nero sees us as a mere roadblock on the way to Proving Himself Over Cid, and monologues about it endlessly too. And then we have Gaius "How Glib" van Baelsar, who made a good effort to try to kill us multiple times, and has a monologue about it every time.

Lahabrea was either influencing the XIVth Legion rather too much, or he decided that if everyone was going to prepare a speech, he might as well join in.

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I can make arguments that Nero and Gaius are trying to justify to themselves what they are doing with their monologues. With the way Gaius desperately tries to justify how Eorzea is his by right, I get the impression he knows he's wrong and he experiences a character arc with every defeat. I'm not even sure he even would kill the Warrior of Light, seeking to platonically conquer the Warrior of Light instead. With Lahabrea, he's so comically evil and diametrically opposed to the Warrior of Light that there's no point for him to utter a word. He doesn't accomplish anything by talking to the Warrior of Light nor does his character develop, if anything his monologue contradicts his own goal at attempted murder. I'm sure Lahabrea had a fun conversation Elidibus afterward.
"Yes, thank you Lahabrea for telling the Warrior of Light our plans right before she crushed you. Your a credit to Amaurot! Now go to Ishgard and manipulate Thordan VII and try not to tell him all our plans too or get defeated by the elderly."

We were literally paralyzed by an Ascian (who would most likely have killed us if we didn’t have Hydaelyn’s Blessing protecting us) after a rough fight with a flying whale primal on top of not having Hydaelyn’s full protection again at the time, as others have mentioned. If that isn’t a good enough reason, I don’t know what is.

The problem I have with this scene and others like it where we just got done with a huge fight we tend to never look like we're tired. Mostly just because SE seems to have this problem of never showing our character being tired. The only time we seem to actually need a break is the first time we are shown there might be a slight problem with us absorbing lightwardens. Yet after we get back to our feet we just look like we're good to go and I want to say we even start to go ok what's next, but we get told to go to bed because we've exerted ourselves too much. Before Shadowbringers npcs even comment to us on how they don't know how we continue to go at the pace we are and that they feel bad about giving us yet another task for us to do. Then comes Shadowbringers and even though our character looks like they can continue the amount of times we're told to go get some rest increases to the point where it felt like they were going to tell us to go get some rest after attuning to an aetherite. If SE did a better job of showing that we're actually in need of catching our breath we wouldn't end up having scenes like this one where we just stand there and watch.

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Originally Posted by kujoestars

We were literally paralyzed by an Ascian (who would most likely have killed us if we didn’t have Hydaelyn’s Blessing protecting us) after a rough fight with a flying whale primal on top of not having Hydaelyn’s full protection again at the time, as others have mentioned. If that isn’t a good enough reason, I don’t know what is.

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But we weren't immediately paralysed by an Ascian. We stood there and did nothing while she talked at us. If she had taken us by surprise and wrapped us in darkness before we could react, fine. But that isn't what happens. If we'd attempted to stop her and failed, fine. But we literally DO NOTHING. The only reason for us doing nothing is the story - Thordan needs the key - which is poor and lazy writing.

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Originally Posted by Elladie

But we weren't immediately paralysed by an Ascian. We stood there and did nothing while she talked at us. If she had taken us by surprise and wrapped us in darkness before we could react, fine. But that isn't what happens. If we'd attempted to stop her and failed, fine. But we literally DO NOTHING. The only reason for us doing nothing is the story - Thordan needs the key - which is poor and lazy writing.

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To be fair, we could just still be out of it after the fight, but I can agree having us at least dive at the key before we get paralyzed would have worked better.

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Originally Posted by Elladie

But we weren't immediately paralysed by an Ascian. We stood there and did nothing while she talked at us. If she had taken us by surprise and wrapped us in darkness before we could react, fine. But that isn't what happens. If we'd attempted to stop her and failed, fine. But we literally DO NOTHING. The only reason for us doing nothing is the story - Thordan needs the key - which is poor and lazy writing.

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Or animation budget limitations.

Tbf the whole Sea of Clouds section was handled poorly.

Bismarck shouldn't have shown up but be hinted at when we 1st go there. He was a primal and we straight up put killing it on hold(heck completely forget about it for ages) despite full knowing the dangers in doing so. Heck our response to Ravana was way way faster.

Why was the key immune to Bismarck's aether consumption (whole islands go but small key perfectly fine so I just chalk it up to allagen shenanigans).

The empire just goes from 1 batch of cannon fire ik protecting Varic would take precedence but still you'd return fire or at least hunt down Bismarck.

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Originally Posted by Crushnight

Why was the key immune to Bismarck's aether consumption (whole islands go but small key perfectly fine so I just chalk it up to allagen shenanigans).

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This is probably not the right explanation, but I always assumed that the floating islands themselves were mostly made of crystal, which by its nature is faster to digest into aether by primals than other solid items.

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Originally Posted by Crushnight

Tbf the whole Sea of Clouds section was handled poorly.

Bismarck shouldn't have shown up but be hinted at when we 1st go there. He was a primal and we straight up put killing it on hold(heck completely forget about it for ages) despite full knowing the dangers in doing so. Heck our response to Ravana was way way faster.

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If you do the Sea of Clouds part after the first Western Highlands section, then you're immediately getting dragged from that into Alphinaud and Tataru's trial, and from there straight into rescuing Raubahn, and then into tracking down Ysayle and heading off to find Hraesvelgr (which directly includes facing Ravana). You never really have time to go back to Bismark this way, so it's somewhat more understandable.

Of course, if you do the Sea of Clouds part first, then it's a bit looser. It could sorta be justified in Bismark being in a far less populated area than most other primals we've faced up to that point (all of whom were within spitting distance of a major Eorzean city), or in just not having the means to fight Bismark available (for Ravana, we pretty much just walk in and pick a fight).

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

If you do the Sea of Clouds part after the first Western Highlands section, then you're immediately getting dragged from that into Alphinaud and Tataru's trial, and from there straight into rescuing Raubahn, and then into tracking down Ysayle and heading off to find Hraesvelgr (which directly includes facing Ravana). You never really have time to go back to Bismark this way, so it's somewhat more understandable.

Of course, if you do the Sea of Clouds part first, then it's a bit looser. It could sorta be justified in Bismark being in a far less populated area than most other primals we've faced up to that point (all of whom were within spitting distance of a major Eorzean city), or in just not having the means to fight Bismark available (for Ravana, we pretty much just walk in and pick a fight).

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We literally had no means of catching Bismarck until we befriended a Vanu Vanu tribe and got their permission to use an island as bait because unlike the other primals, he doesn't stay in any one location and just flies around and periodically eats an island.

That would be the "not having the means to fight Bismark" part, yes. We also probably wouldn't have enough pull with Ishgard to borrow the dragonkillers used in the fight before taking out Nidhogg at the Aery; even if we did, they'd be disinclined to loan out weapons if they still expected a full-on Dravanian offensive.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

That would be the "not having the means to fight Bismark" part, yes. We also probably wouldn't have enough pull with Ishgard to borrow the dragonkillers used in the fight before taking out Nidhogg at the Aery; even if we did, they'd be disinclined to loan out weapons if they still expected a full-on Dravanian offensive.

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Yep, exactly. Basically, Bismark was just a unique case of a primal being untouchable at its initial appearance due to both behavior and resources. We wouldn't have been able to reach Garuda or Leviathan either if we didn't have the resources on hand, and even then it was hard pulling from allies for one reason or another (the corrupted crystals for Garuda's first appearance, and having a big enough boat to hold all the crystals for Leviathan).