What happened to SB (story)?

[Jandor]

Really what bothered me is how SE basically jokes around about how you supposedly cannot defeat primals alone, while according to the ARR and HW story you do all the time without any help.

Going and getting your adventurer buds to help with whatever fight you're about to take on is done multiple times in both ARR and HW, including for primals. I don't remember every word of dialogue over the course of the MSQ, but I think if I recall correctly it's actually soloing primals that's never really explicitly mentioned, although granted having your friends along with you doesn't make much sense for a couple of primal fights (story Ifrit and story Ravana being the most obvious.)

At the end of the day, the story team tend to leave the dialogue and circumstances open ended enough that you can justify it either way. Although the constant over the top references to your friends in SB makes me think they personally lean towards the 'you're generally not alone' line of thinking.

[Alleo]

Going and getting your adventurer buds to help with whatever fight you're about to take on is done multiple times in both ARR and HW, including for primals. I don't remember every word of dialogue over the course of the MSQ, but I think if I recall correctly it's actually soloing primals that's never really explicitly mentioned, although granted having your friends along with you doesn't make much sense for a couple of primal fights (story Ifrit and story Ravana being the most obvious.)

At the end of the day, the story team tend to leave the dialogue and circumstances open ended enough that you can justify it either way. Although the constant over the top references to your friends in SB makes me think they personally lean towards the 'you're generally not alone' line of thinking.

The story would often not make sense if we have other adventurers with us. Also the lore book states us at going against any primal alone and only the fights in the Garlean base (lvl50) is fought with a group. Also the enemies often talk about us like we are alone. So yes them going back in SB with their hints of having others with us (even in the trial where we should prove that we are a warrior for the Mol) is completely annoying, especially since Doma is quite far away from Eorzea and we only traveled with the scions there.

To OP: I agree with a lot of your points and HW > SB for me. I never felt like we went to war and everything went way to smoothly. I also did not feel that positive about Lyse so that might be one big point for me too. (Why was she chosen as a leader when she is still reckless at the end?)

I also cant believe how Zenos just stomped us twice and suddenly we are not even able to defeat him..no we defeat him combined with Shinryu. I am a bit shocked that they already used the dragon here and not later. As the WoL we fought lots of difficult enemies in HW (after getting to level 60), even the WoDs and the Warring Triad. Yet we somehow did not get stronger with that. But somehow two out of nowhere primals and some Garlean soldiers are enough to make us stronger? Even strong enough to defeat Shinryu? (Also we defeat Zenos in the dungeon with four people, that are nowhere to be seen in the cutscene after that, then we go to fight him right after that with 8 adventurers that come out of nowhere again and are gone again after that..so yes I would believe that it makes more sense that we did those fights alone)

I also kinda question why nobody ask how the settlement of the rebellion was found? I mean shouldnt that mean that there was a traitor? Yet it seemed like nobody cared about this. (And somehow they decided to just stay there..)

I did like the freeing of Doma castle but I was a bit annoyed that we got no party after that. Its just like "well one part done, lets go back". Would have been nice to see a cutscene where everyone parties a bit (Xaela too) and maybe raise their glassed to all the fallen ones. I mean its not everyday that we free a country of their oppressors and one day more would have not changed much. Yet we did not even get that. And somehow even though Tataru (who decided to stay behind, even though she is part of the scions too) only booked for four people, Yugiri can just leave with us (making it five). I am still not sure why Yugiri even went with us, since she was nowhere to be seen anyway, until the last battle, where she and Hien (how did he get there that fast?) fought on our side.

In the end its kind of funny how we go into human made war, even after we learn about all the things from the WoD..Yes there is a big chance that the Ascians have their hands behind it too and yes its our task to stop primals. But its not our fight to help with wars, especially since the scions should know that losing us, would mean losing the battle against the Ascians thus losing all the worlds too..I always feel a bit off when you have world threating enemies exist yet the heroes always just take care of the smaller stuff first.

Unlike HW I am also not looking forward towards the rest of the expansion story. We do not even know what might come and I am a bit sick of war and political situations. I just hope that we suddenly dont have another big bad threat that comes out of nowhere and that is somehow stronger than the WoL..(Echo is really the deus ex machina in this game..it can just be used for anything..)

[Jandor]

The story would often not make sense if we have other adventurers with us. Also the lore book states us at going against any primal alone and only the fights in the Garlean base (lvl50) is fought with a group. Also the enemies often talk about us like we are alone.

The lore book directly contradicts the game in that case, all the following are taken from the in-game journal entries.

Given the likelihood that Iceheart is now aware of your plans and making haste to complete the summoning ritual, Alphinaud advises you to assemble a party of battle-hardened adventurers capable of felling Shiva if necessary.

You have attuned yourself to the Sylphlands aetheryte. Gather your companions, and challenge the Lord of Levin beneath the boughs of the Striking Tree!

You inform Wedge that you are ready to hunt the white whale. Board the Enterprise with your companions and rid the Sea of Clouds of Bismarck's ravenous presence.

Time is of the essence. Summon your faithful comrades to your side and cast down the dread Goddess lest all be judged upon her scales!

Regula's sacrifice has afforded you the chance to strike at a weakened Zurvan. With their tasks assigned, your companions depart to secure the controls to the eikon's shackles. It falls to you and your handpicked company of warriors to bring oblivion to the Demon himself.

There are plenty of entries where companions are not mentioned, but I haven't found any (so far) that explicitly state you beat the primal solo. The dialogue leaves things rather open-ended, but digging deeper it really seems the canon is that you have help doing the things you do, at least if we go by what the game says rather than the book.

So yes them going back in SB with their hints of having others with us (even in the trial where we should prove that we are a warrior for the Mol) is completely annoying, especially since Doma is quite far away from Eorzea and we only traveled with the scions there.

We didn't only travel with the Scions though, we took at least three people with us, remember when the boat crashed and we all went off to investigate together?

[Malzian]

The lore book directly contradicts the game in that case, all the following are taken from the in-game journal entries.

-Range of quotes-

There are plenty of entries where companions are not mentioned, but I haven't found any (so far) that explicitly state you beat the primal solo. The dialogue leaves things rather open-ended, but digging deeper it really seems the canon is that you have help doing the things you do, at least if we go by what the game says rather than the book.

This boils down to being an inevitable artifact of having a multiplayer game while still trying to present to every single player that they, singularly are the hero, the one and only WoL. What you get is a disconnect in that the story presents to you that you're the sole protagonist and everyine else in the game, every other player you partner with, it's just a normal adventurer that is helping you. It's an illusion and its really hard to maintain since we all know that literally -everyone else- is seeing the same thing we are, just with the perspective shifted so that THEY are the heroic, sole and singular WoL. There's no real good way to balance this, unfortunately, and as-such you will always run into this paradox unless you, as a player, just decide to think only about the singular perspective you are being presented with.

[Alleo]

The lore book directly contradicts the game in that case, all the following are taken from the in-game journal entries.

We didn't only travel with the Scions though, we took at least three people with us, remember when the boat crashed and we all went off to investigate together?

I would dare to say that a lore book is probably way more cannon than ingame writings, especially since they heavily depend on the language. For example in the german version of Susanno there is no sentence about our other adventurers. Also the part with the ship shows exactly how bad this is. We go to Doma only with the scions, all the cutscenes before and after that show it. We are also completely alone again when Alphinaud runs towards us after the boss fight. Why are the other adventurers always leaving us alone? Its the same in Doma castle. Where are the others that should have fought with you in the last cutscene? Why are there no birds for them in the sky, because there is only one bird left without someone on it. Why would the adventurers leave us behind in the most crucial scenes? Why would we always get full credit if we always have others with us?

Also in HW you have dungeons like Sohr Khai that are trials so we should do them alone, yet ingame mechanics have us with others that are again gone afterwards. We go with Cid and Co. toward Azys Lla, there is no other adventurer with us, so we did beat the dungeon (and Regula) and Thordan and his 12 knights canonically alone.

And about the rest of primals. Many situations itself do not make sense with other people there. Ifrit captures you and the other soldiers, yet they would leave you without bindings and there is truly a lake there where you can just go and gather other people (that you randomly met in the desert since you cant get far away or they will notice that you are gone?). How big is the chance that you do all of that without them noticing it, and with gathering three other people that have echo too. Also again in the cutscene Ifrit only mentions you and its also only the WoL there. Afterwards Thancred also only worries about you. Bismark is another case of jerks as other adventurers if they were there with you. Because after the fight you are ganged up by Thordan and one Ascian. Where are the others? Why did they not help?

Ramuh wants to fight against the WoL (which only got there with the scions) to test our strength and talks only about us again. If we should show him our strength wouldnt it be cheating to go with others against him? The same in SB where Lyse, Gosetsu and Hien all take the path solo..yet the text says that we should gather other people. WoL = cheater confirmed? Yet again, when we are finished and Lyse is already there, we are alone again. I just cant believe that we have that many adventurer friends that are especially where we need them all the time, are on the same power level as we are, disappear in nearly every cutscene after the dungeon/trial and are not known in the world too.

I am not sure why they went out of their way to write it down again, especially after it was Koji that had a big hand in the lore book thus used it to confirm that most of the stuff is done alone. Maybe its some type of humor?

Sorry for the bit of off topic.

[Jandor]

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I would guess the game is more canon than the lore book, especially when the point of contention that started this conversation is them mentioning your adventurer friends a lot in Stormblood, which came out after the lore book. It just doesn't make sense for the extra out of game source to take priority over the latest update to the game itself.

As for never seeing other adventurers in cutscenes, there are two parts to that. The first is that you do see them, I think in basically every multi player event you participate in the victory scene at the end shows your adventurer friends celebrate with you. The second is that they are not shown in story cutscenes for gameplay reasons, your adventurer friends are obviously actual random people put together from whatever the duty finder can assemble, the cutscenes before and after the duty proper have no idea who will be with you or who you were just with. In the lore whoever you're running it with is a close friend, in reality they're some random people you'll probably never see again. Gameplay and story segregation at work.

Your adventurer friends are basically like your chocobo companion, you're meant to just assume that they're always close enough that circumstances will allow you to go get them.

For Sohr Khai, the journal states: "Hraesvelgr commends you and your companions for your unwavering determination, and pledges to aid you in the coming battle with Nidhogg. Inquire of Alphinaud how he fared in his own trial."
For whatever reason Hraesvelgr was pretty chill with the idea of you bringing help to your trial.

Ifrit story mode is, as I already acknowledged, by far the most likely to have been solo'd. "Having failed to make you his minion, Ifrit attempts to exterminate you, but against all odds you succeed in overcoming the god-like being."
It never mentions any help and while it doesn't explicitly state solo in the same way as it repeatedly states you have help, that would be the default reading of it.

After Bismarck, your journal explains that you're still exhausted from fighting when Thordan and the Ascian take the key from you. "still weak from your struggles against Bismarck and Igeyhorm, can only watch, powerless to stop them."
You're adventurer friends are good, but your character is still the strongest one, they're your team, you lead them. If you're too exhausted to fight they must be on the verge of collapsing.

Essentially as far as I can tell in game, it either doesn't explicitly say either way, or it says you have help. They rarely make a point of shoving it in your face that you had help, but some of the dialogue and a lot of journal entries show that you have it. I personally think the point of not shoving it in your face is to allow players the freedom to for the most part explain it how they like.

If that's not the end of it then lets agree to disagree, not the end of the world. How you choose to interpret your characters story has no bearing on me and how I look at mine none on you.