What happened to SB (story)?

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Ultimately, you're free to prefer whoever you want, but you really can't claim Alisaie is a better or better written character when she's got zero presence in the story outside of a single side story arc and 10-15ish MSQ quests out of the hundreds that it took to get from the start of 2.0 to the finale of 3.5.

She is. Unlike Alphinaud, who's still the same twerp he's always been, Alisaie is in every way a more interesting and compelling character than the twit that stayed behind in Kugane, precisely because he's a completely useless and worthless character in the grand scheme of things. He hasn't done anything to grow or change. His presence on screen only serves to highlight how worthless he's been since ARR when literally everything we've done could've been done much faster if Alphinaud wasn't constantly going "B-But we mustn't, we must wait! We mustn't do anything just wait around!" Alphinaud has not changed. He's still the same worthless brat we ran into in ARR, and he will forever be the exact same brat we ran into constantly whining, whinging, and moaning. You're free to not like Alisaie, but you can't tell me that a character that isn't constantly wetting himself in fright is worse written then the biggest coward in the series.