Tales from the Storm Discussion

[YianKutku]

A question I've been asking myself, and I'm still not sure about the answer:

If you think Lyse is (or will be) a good leader or otherwise, do you have the same opinion of Minfilia during ARR?

Have none of you ever wondered, if Lyse were truly such a horrible person — as many of you seem to think she is — how did she come to have such friends who are willing to go through hell and high water for her?

It's possible for someone to be a great person, and a horrible choice for a leader, at the same time, without contradictions. The qualities required to be seen as a "good person" and the qualities required to be a "good leader" may have some Venn diagram overlap, but they are not identical.

Lyse is a good person, and up until 3.55, an inveterate optimist. As Conrad says, she's seen death and sorrow, but does not let it break her. However, as I've complained about before, this aspect of her gets shoved into the sidelines hard during Stormblood, just so they can do the character growth plotline of an uncertain leader learning what leadership means. This requires a character who questions themselves often (for the benefit of the audience), and that doesn't mesh with Yda-Lyse's cheerful happy-go-lucky style.

Lyse is also a combat monster, of the "solo multiple magitek armours" sort. This aspect has not changed, and the only reason we don't see a lot of it on-screen is due to game engine restrictions. We do often encounter her in the aftermath of some battle, surrounded by the broken debris of however many enemy critters unwisely decided to engage her.

So Lyse is, and will always be, a valuable member of the Scions and the Resistance. The Tales From The Storm story illustrates that very well.

It just doesn't mean that she'll be a good leader, the way everyone else keeps pushing her into being. At this point, I'd say that Lyse will be a competent leader; she's not going to make any hugely stupid decisions, at least not twice.

But in the aftermath of the Stormblood story, Ala Mhigo needs more than mere competence. And nothing shown so far has proven that Lyse is up to the task.

Which is what the 4.x patches should be doing, I suppose. It's just that, as mentioned, we've had an entire expansion supposedly focusing on Lyse, and there hasn't seem to be as much progress as that would imply.

Setting aside discussion of Lyse for a moment, M'naago's inner monologue where she offhandedly dismisses the notion that liberated Ala Mhigo will be ruled by a king I felt was a very interesting and easily overlooked tidbit from this story. Sod that. We've had enough of kings.

It would be interesting if Ala Mhigo turned into a democratic republic, like Ishgard. (Exact degree of democracy may vary, but it would definitely qualify as "more than before".) From what I can tell, the one person actually in line for the Ala Mhigan throne has no more interest in it.

However, setting up a democracy of any sort takes time and a lot of effort; I've always been irritated by how easy Ishgard made it look.

If I had to pick, Raubahn seems the natural choice for a new political leader. He's no stranger to politics, he's extremely charismatic, he's Ala Mhigan by birth, and played a very prominent role in Ala Mhigo's liberation (albeit as the representative of another nation's army). He does have that troublesome berserk button, but said button takes some mighty extreme circumstances to push. Probably most troublesome, though, is that he almost certainly does not want the job - he's extremely attached to the Sultana, and it's unlikely that he'll ever leave his place by her side by choice.

I always got the impression that the whole point of 2.55 and subsequent quest dialogues is that Raubahn has, either consciously or otherwise, decided that his loyalties lie with Ul'dah now, not Ala Mhigo. As Ilberd more or less accused him, Raubahn has left his homeland behind for a new one. He still wants to liberate Ala Mhigo, and he still thinks of himself as Ala Mhigan with pride, but his home now is Ul'dah. And that was what made Ilberd betray him in the end.

With Raubahn's dialogue in 3.56 and onwards, though, it seems like this aspect of him is being softened, to increase the possibility that he'll decide to return to Ala Mhigo. It's only a small possibility at the moment, but it's there, and more than there was in, say, ARR.

EDIT:

Further, she wants an Ala Mhigo which is inclusive of everyone, even people like Fordola who operated under imperial rule.

I think this is especially important to remember. To be fair, I don't count it as a narrative plus point for Lyse being leader, since that sentiment could have been voiced by anyone, but the game picked Lyse, and that's what we have to work with.

We've already seen some combat chatter from random Ala Mhigan NPCs about killing all Garleans, and I think I remember something about death to all collaborators and such. On the one hand, we have Fordola and the Skulls, who have been shown on-screen to brutalize their fellow Ala Mhigans, for little to no reason.

On the other hand, we have the people of Radiata, who work for the Garleans because they were more or less forced to. How far do we consider collaboration with the enemy? Is there a clear demarcation? Should the people of Radiata be subject to the same punishment as the Skulls?

What about mere fraternization? There's the woman who became close friends with an Imperial soldier stationed at Specula Imperatoris, and after the battle, the woman asks for your help in performing a memorial.

And then there are the merchants of Ala Ghiri, who sold goods to the Imperials simply because the Imperials were the only customers they had.

One of Lyse's new and more important duties as the leader of the Ala Mhigan Resistance is to sort all of this out, and convince everyone else that her way is the best way for all concerned. For some cases like Fordola, justice needs to be served, and seen to be served. For others like Baut, mercy and forgiveness is almost a given. But for everyone else in between, things get a lot more complicated.

Seeing as one of Lyse's defining character traits is that she is not a thinker, I can only hope she gets some good advisors.