Tales from the Dragonsong War

[Frederick22]

I have to admit.. the story was meh.....

At least we know how she might had gotten her connections for the 2.55 story

Also this kept me thinking something. Does Alisaie have any idea of the big changes that his brother suffered?
He isnt annymore the person she thinks, infact Alisaie may like his "new" brother.

[FJerome]

Also this kept me thinking something. Does Alisaie have any idea of the big changes that his brother suffered?
He isnt annymore the person she thinks, infact Alisaie may like his "new" brother.

Their Tales even mirror them gaining some of the other's strengths, Alisaie learns how to deal with people a little better while Alphinaud begins to train to be a better fighter.

[Alisa180]

I was a bit disappointed by Alisaie's story. When she and her brother parted ways, she seemed gung-ho about finding her own way to save the world. So, while Aphinaud has been at our side investigating Primals, thwarting Garleans, and entreating peace with dragons, I would expect Alisaie to have been engaging in similarly breathtaking ordeals. Instead, the story chosen to highlight her adventure is her travels with a not-particularly-notable merchant caravan?

Well, at least we have the Binding Coil of Bahamut to show that Alisaie DID find at least one world-threatening crisis to deal with.

I get the feeling that this story is meant to endear Alisaie to the audience by giving her a chance to live life for a bit as an ordinary girl practicing an ordinary trade and making friends like an ordinary girl would. I guess it just fell a bit flat for me; I don't think we've seen enough of the extraordinary Alisaie to justify a vignette featuring the ordinary Alisaie.

Actually, this lines up pretty well with what we saw of her at the end of the Binding Coil storyline, in which she said she would travel Eorzea and find her own purpose for fighting. And in this story, we found her doing exactly what I expected: Traveling Eorzea, helping people, and getting to know them.

I thought the story was awesome, if sad, because it confirmed a few things I had long suspected about Alisaie's character. For one, she's implied to be a straight-up better fighter, and made of tougher stuff then her brother ("if you insist on hitting something, then I would be happy to arrange a meeting between you and the floor." Anyone?). Compare her relatively comfort and ease with traveling, with Alphinaud's struggles when with Eistinien, Ysayle, and the WoL. Alphinaud admits in his own story that he had only studied fighting as an 'academic exercise' before, whereas this story implies Alisaie had been putting her arcanima to, ahem, 'practical' use long before he thought of it.

An interesting note was that Alisaie wasn't too popular at school, and she admits to herself that her brother is far better with navigating various social situations. But while she's no diplomat like her brother, she's actually more capable of forming close bonds with others, once they get past her somewhat-harsh exterior, thanks to her more emotional nature. Hence, why she makes close friends with Emery in such a short period of time (and takes her death fairly hard). To put it another way, pre-character development, Alisaie was the kind to have a few, close friends, while Alphinaud had a wide pool of acquaintances.

This story also re-affirmed that Alphinaud had to go through all that character development before Alisaie could be re-introduced into the story. Alisaie feels things very deeply, which is why she couldn't stand her emotionally-cold twin (not to mention his arrogance drove her up the wall). She couldn't rejoin the Scions proper until the rift with her brother mended, and that couldn't happen until he dealt with his flaws. Now that Alphinaud has been brought down several pegs, and has learned to be a bit more emotional himself, reconciliation is possible, which means she can now be introduced into the story with the (hopefully) eventually intention of her properly joining the Scions for 4.0.

I'm glad this story filled in the gaps as to what Alisaie has been up to since she left at the end of the Binding Coil storyline. Its the perfect set-up for her proper return to the MSQ in 3.4. (Fingers crossed!)

[Frederick22]

I just hope that the next tale is interesting..

[Chewy2nd]

I really enjoyed the story, while it might not have had far reaching implications, it gave us more insight on not only Alisae, but also more on the lesser seen areas of Eorzea, it kinda lets us know that, the settlements and areas we see in the game arent the whole of Eorzea, there's probably dozens of little towns and areas that we don't see. It also makes sense for Alisae to take some time away to figure out what she wants to fight for.

[Alleo]

Maybe the last tale would be about one of the dragons? Since it kinda the last story about the war. Hopefully its a little bit more interesting than the last one. We did learn a bit about Alisae but still wished it has some more input on the recent events or maybe even her reaction to what happened at the end of 2.55 and her worrying at least a little about her brother and us.

[Chewy2nd]

They usually save unexpected ones for last, last year we got Lolorito's story, would be interesting if we got an Ilberd tale.

[Fenral]

I'm increasingly sure that Elidibus' endgame is "Hydaelyn allows death, so join me!"... There are enough subtle hints in song lyrics, and now everyone is focusing on stories of loss... Prime time for him to swoop in and go "Yo, Hydaelyn allows death and suffering, Zodiark doesn't dawg!", though after Emery I guess Alisaie is just as likely to buy that as everyone else... Not sure who'd be left to step in and slap some sense into everyone by pointing out that overcoming adversity is a fundamental part of our existence...

Sure, but I think it's very easy for even the purest belief to become corrupted. Is that not the entire point of our conflict with the primals?

I'm still holding out for the possibility that somehow, something in our future has taken "suffering makes people better" to its logical endpoint: "to make people better, I should make them suffer." If not primal!Hydaelyn, then Zodiark, maybe?

Or maybe that's just a villain character I want to write someday. /shrug

[Mysterysword]

I feel like whoever's writing these stories is a little too in love with the plot device of killing characters off for whatever reason. The story tries to make Emery's death meaningful and dramatic, and I suppose it is for Alisaie, but it did nothing for me.

Of course, I've seen Final Fantasy kill off characters before, but when you introduce a character for the sole purpose of killing her off to tug at the reader's heartstrings, it's going to come off as cheap, especially when you only have a few paragraphs to make her more than a cardboard cutout. In particular, the raid on the Waking Sands after Titan, and even Ysayle's death, were poorly-handled, in my opinion, and that's the nicest phrase I can find for it. We barely knew anyone who died in the raid, so that hardly made an impact on me, and Ysayle's death felt glossed-over in the MSQ itself.

Honestly, I like these Tales for the insights they provide me, into characters and events that we wouldn't be able to see in-game. It's a great help when I'm working on my own fanfiction. But the pacing of Alisaie's tale was entirely too rushed, basically trying to summarise everything she's been doing and in doing so, fails to make me care about any of it.

[Theodric]

Ysayle's death was tastefully done and hardly something that didn't receive a great deal of attention. If anything, one might suggest that she was mourned a little too much considering that her actions - justified as they may have been - resulted in a lot of death and torment for Ishgard. It's very refreshing for both major and minor characters to perish from time to time - and it's hardly as frequent an event as people make it out to be considering that the bulk of the main cast are virtually immune to dire injury or death at this point. Even many minor characters receive that luxury.

There's nothing cheap about Emery's death. The point was to show that the wilds and roads of Eorzea are dangerous enough that the average person's life is at risk of ending in the blink of an eye. Which makes sense given that one bite from a monster, a stabbing from a bandit or a landslide is going to kill most people who do not have luck on their side. I think a lot of people around these parts honestly forget that not everybody in Eorzea is like the Warrior of Light or his allies.

Then there's the simple fact that no matter how well done a death is in a videogame, book or movie someone, somewhere will have a strange 'snobby' mentality that all death is cheap and forced. Others will become incredibly angry if their precious fan favourites are harmed which, in turn, does far more damage to a story simply because it results in numerous characters being free from any and all major consequences.

I also feel the need to point out the irony that a lot of the same people complaining about this story also posted in the 'Where is Alisae?' threads that cropped up over the past year or so. The story was, in my opinion, quite obviously written to explain her absence. It's also a short story so it's hardly going to be crammed with the same amount of depth as an elaborate in-game quest chain would boast.