Thancred... what are you doing? [3.1-2 Spoilers]

[CyrilLucifer]

I agree with your general sentiment, but I'm positive Y'shtola has an escape in Matoya's crystal eye. SE is even cheating away her life drain because popularity. Y'shtola basically being immortal due to her nature as the game's representative is one of those choices I don't think I can ever agree with, but accept as an inevitability. At least with Shantotto in XI, she didn't have a lot to do with the MSQ in XI outside of one small section in ToAU and was more used for amusing side quests or side events.

(Wouldn't it be better return such a supposedly powerful crystal to Hydaelyn, though? Would that even be possible at this point?)

Raubahn - that one I have no explanation for, especially because it wasn't terribly long in-game ago that he was rotting away in jail, his muscles no doubt suffering some atrophy in that time. I can't imagine he would be back at full strength just yet, especially learning to fight with one hand. But yeah, fantasy, I guess. Rule of cool and whatnot.

Edit: That's not to say I want all of these characters to sit around passively on their behinds because of their disabilities, but at least having them more restricted for more than half of a patch (not even half of an expansion in Raubahn's case) would be nice. I think Thancred's recovery taking a full patch from 2.0 to 2.2 was fine, for example.