I'm with ChaoticCrimson on this. On paper, I like how all of these characters work. I like Lyse just fine as the character SB was trying to make her be. In fact, I'd say she more a victim of fandom hate for a character she isn't even trying to be then anything else at this point. Fordola is a great "stuck in the middle of two cultures with no good options" character. Yotsuyu is one of the few characters I've seen who does the amnesia tropes well. I like that in the end she gets her revenge on the people who really did make her life hell (her aunt, uncle and cousin) while it's made obvious that how she got mad and took it out on the rest of Doma wasn't right.

Unfortunately, Stormblood's overall pacing, especially in 4.0, was really bad. The writers tried to cram too much plot into the expansion so they could get to 5.0. The characterization of many of the characters, not just these three, suffered from that a lot. I never felt like we got a long enough time spent anywhere unless I slowed down and did sidequests. Taken out of the rushed plot, many of the characters work a lot better. The rest of the 4.x series doesn't feel so rushed compared to 4.0, so the characterization feels a lot better.