[4.4 Spoilers] That hilarious Y'shtola Cutscene...

[LineageRazor]

After watching this scene, I thought to myself, "Damn, the kitty's claws are OUT. I know he's an ass, but that was just savage! Would it have killed you to have been a bit kinder in letting the poor fool down?"

I'll admit that I was a bit disappointed not to see any development on the Sadu/Magnai front, but honestly, I wasn't really expecting anything but the status quo. It was nothing more than a bit of fanservice for Sadu/Magnai enthusiasts, reiterating what we already knew about their relationship.

It also got me thinking about Y'shtola - and the Scion's in general - in terms of romantic entanglements. NONE of them seem to have any romantic interests whatsoever, with the exception of Thancred - and the implication with him is that his frequent liaisons are purely for physical gratification, rather than romance in any true sense. While it's true the Scions are all very busy, and that their work is very important, surely they have lives beyond that? Alphinaud and Allisae especially - teenagers brimming to the eyeballs with hormones. I mean, I don't want this to turn into a shojo manga or anything, but would it be too much to have one or the other swallow or stutter a bit in the presence of the next breathtakingly beautiful/handsome NPC that joins the storyline?

The Tale from the Storm a while back, in which the female Scions talk about boys just seemed to hammer this fact home. Lyse and Y'shtola were the ones targeted in particular, and Lyse was flummoxed at the very notion that a boy might have a crush on her, and Y'sthola was stonily tight-lipped on the topic (as expected). It's almost like the writers are actively working to reassure the Otaku that yes, their waifus are still unattached, their purity unblemished! It's an attitude I find vexing; I think the characters would be better fleshed out if their sexuality were to be explored a bit - even if that sexuality turned out to be asexuality.

Edit: Actually, there WAS one Scion who got a smidgen of romantic exploration - and it was awesome, if rather subdued: Uriange's affection for Moenbryda (may she rest in peace). I definitely appreciated that development in his character, and thought it helped make him feel like a bit more than just a walking encyclopedia on the topic of Primals. (Though, to be fair, his dalliance with Elidibus and the Warriors of Darkness did a lot for this, as well, and had nothing to do with romance whatsoever.)

[YianKutku]

Alphinaud and Allisae especially - teenagers brimming to the eyeballs with hormones. I mean, I don't want this to turn into a shojo manga or anything, but would it be too much to have one or the other swallow or stutter a bit in the presence of the next breathtakingly beautiful/handsome NPC that joins the storyline?

We did have the sly insinuations and teasing about Alphinaud's past girlfriends, or at least people he was close enough with for his sister and Krile to tease him about them being his girlfriends, back at the Studium. At least one of them mistook Alisaie for Alphinaud, which provided for some merriment at Alphinaud's expense when Alisaie recounted the incident to us.

I'm assuming this mostly happened at the Studium, because the twins enrolled there at the age of eleven, and I don't think they're that precocious to have romantic entanglements even before then.

Putting those aside, Alphinaud does have his moments of appreciating his female colleagues just a little too closely (eg Y'shtola and Lyse), but that never goes anywhere other than "lol hormonal teenage boy".

I do agree that the Scions do seem rather romance-free, and indeed unusually ignorant of each others' personal lives, given the sheer lack of anything they could talk about in Tales From The Storm that wasn't about work or the WoL. Probably the closest is, as you say, Thancred and his liaisons, as well as his slightly more serious crush on F'lhammin.

(We don't talk about Aenor and the Boulder brothers.)