[SPOILERS]Considering that new Minfilia feature.

[YanderePrincess]

Just jumping in to add that my friend plays the Japanese version and according to him Minfillia and Thancred's relationship is shown as being an older brother and younger sister type scenario. I think the English translation often messes that up.

As someone who plays using the Japanese, this is very true.

[Antoine_Lenheim]

I mean, they could have brought her back for certain. I'm not denying that fact, but what would be the point other than bringing back a character? What greater thematic point would they be making with her resurrection, or what narrative purpose would it serve? What would be the resurrected Minfilia's new role in the story?

I'm very excited to hear the answer! This sort of theorycrafting is super enjoyable to me!

I am taking pause on this topic to finish my MSQ, felt like I dont have enough ground to stand on to actually make some theories or even continue debating. Will respond to this soon though, as well as to some other messages that appeared here. Will be another wall of text lol.

[Riastrad]

The relationship between Thancred and Minfilia was of father and daughter. An absentee father, but a father none the less. I encourage you to watch the 1.0 Ul'dah story cutscenes. Golden Sacrifices is still my favorite scene in this game.

I posted this on reddit a few days back, but I will post it here.

I have been a wreck since our last (final?) talk with Minfilia. I know a fair amount of people don't care for her, but I did. I dislike how there was always a reason we couldn't help her. In 1.0 Thancred and I failed to save her father. In the end of ARR, she gets swept away by Hydaelyn. In Heavensward she travels to the first to save it, leaving with a promise to return once she found a way to do so. In Shadowbringers, we find she halted the flood of light, only to constantly die and be reborn in a never ending cycle. And once we bring her latest incarnation to the very spot it all began, she once again gives her all to save a beaten down and terrified child.

I don't begrudge Ryne for wanting the strength she never had, but I see where Thancred was coming from because I felt the same way. Only I didn't find closure. I just found more regret because once again Minfilia was taken away from us.

I know she is gone. But I desperately want to find a way to bring her back. I want her to keep that promise.


I have a theory, as I am sure we all have a few, that Hydaelyn is still in possession of Minfilia. I understand she fused with Ryne, however Emet-Selk makes a point of mentioning that Hydaelyn works by halving anything she strikes, and even makes a point of it by pointing to Ryne and simulating what that would be like. Would it not work by extension if we were to say be attacked by "Warriors of Light"? Elidibus makes the point that he will use such warriors to kill the scions. Perhaps instead of killing us, they will strike us using a blade of light. Reducing ourselves into two forms. One group stays on the First, the other goes back to the source. I may be wrong and this is just wish fulfillment on my behalf.

[YanderePrincess]

The relationship between Thancred and Minfilia was of father and daughter. An absentee father, but a father none the less.

Not untrue, though I think Thancred always preferred to view himself as more of an older brother than a father. ^_~

Man, talking about Minfilia so much is making me so sad. I loved her so much. The only character I've enjoyed as much as Minfilia is Feo Ul.

[Vayanne]

I have been a wreck since our last (final?) talk with Minfilia. I know a fair amount of people don't care for her, but I did. I dislike how there was always a reason we couldn't help her.
...
I don't begrudge Ryne for wanting the strength she never had, but I see where Thancred was coming from because I felt the same way. Only I didn't find closure. I just found more regret because once again Minfilia was taken away from us.

I know she is gone. But I desperately want to find a way to bring her back. I want her to keep that promise.

I feel sorry about Minfilia as well. She had everything taken away from her - her parents, her body, her life. She was used as a tool both in terms of lore (as a figurehead of the Scions, the Word of the Mother and the Oracle of Light) and in terms of writing (for Thankred's character development). The only time I've been angry with Hydaelyn was when I first saw Minfilia transformed into the Word of the Mother. I know Minfilia agreed to it but it was still creepy. At least Ryne is trying to be her own person and live her life as best as a girl her age can.

[Antoine_Lenheim]

So first of all I want to say thank you to all of you whos been participating in this conversation. I actually managed to turn it into a relatively civil discussion with people on both sides. This pleases me. I know many of you dont share my point of view on this but what matters most is that we share our opinions on it. Means we are concerned.

And I just finished my MSQ and must say, Im deeply sorry for Emet that his plan got ruined by almighty WoL. Really grew fond of this character (and Ascians in this expansion in principle). Wished that his strike at Ryne would be deadly but of course not, cycle of Disney-like deaths continued (still dont understand why the fek they decide to bring Yshtola back from the soulstream again. Ah, yes, shes a "Trust" NPC now...).

But to finally answer some posts now.

I'm very excited to hear the answer! This sort of theorycrafting is super enjoyable to me!

I was never really good at any sort of theories, maybe because I think its really pointless to speculate and invent "unexpected" moves and "what if" scenarios. It will change nothing and if they decided long ago that they will introduce a new girl to us which will absorb our old Minfilia and that it will even reflect on a cosmic-scale conflict, no amount of forum whines will be enough to make them change their way. But lets try to speculate if you want it that much.

So firstly, about "technical" aspects. How could they bring her back and what body would she have. Our gang (WoL, Alphi and the others) were incomplete transports, they left their bodies behind. The Exarch explains that they are just souls. Souls that you can see, feel and touch, and who themselves can see, feel and touch. Like their bodies are just aetheric reconstructions that aren't really actually there. It werent stated that Exarch can only do this with souls from Source but not from other shards/universes. So when our gang got faced with a problem of Lightwardens, knowing full well that Minfilia were there ages ago and probably have some knowledge/powers that can be handy when attempting to battle them, they could ask Exarch to try and summon her. You might say that: "nah, shes a vessel of Hydaelyn, its not the same". But it was she who stated it herself that shes storing powers in her that needed for her resurrection, she just dont want to use them right now. And besides she has been resurrecting herself countless times before, just using bodies of girls as a container. So its not that being a vessel can screw up with her ability to resurrect. Hence why Exarch idea comes to mind, if he can summon the souls all across worlds, not incomplete summons but still, why not ask him to do it for Minfilia? Yes, its not tying well with current plot about generations of Minfilias before, completely new girl and Minfilia's wish to give her power over her own life but thats speculations are for, right? They just didnt want to give Minfilia new chance but we will speak about it later.

Now that we stated that there could be a way of returning her without introducing this foul plot, lets talk about your "narrative purpose" and what would be the new role of Minfilia. For the role, I already mentioned that she could take the same role as Ryne, helping us fight Lightwardens, take care of us when we fall victim to surplus of Light inside us, say inspirational speeches idk. As for your "greater thematic point" which you are so determined on defending, I must ask you a counterquestion, why you need to kill a character in order to live up for your greater thematic point? Its really depressing how many people think that "killing characters" is the ultimate in how to write a good story. What were the greater thematic point of killing Papalymo? Cuz "there were no other way"? To bring tear to our eyes and to steel Lyse up? What were the reason behind killing Ysayle? I can go on and on but the thing is, there can be OTHER ways of securing your grand thematic plots rather then killing a character to drive that plot further. Good example is Gosetsu and Yotsuyu's story, they could kill Yotsuyu for good and make that only Gosetsu gets out of that rubble alive but no, they brought them all back in order to show us a great story, beautiful development of relationships between Gosetsu and Yotsuyu and as a whole made us feel for their character. Yes, they only brought her back to kill her again but thats didnt change how awesome her story was and thats what could be done with Minfilia! You could go all in for your chosen line of plot, introduce Ryne, microcosm of Ascians and Shards etc. But instead of killing Minfilia for good, give her a chance to redeem herself. Give her a chance to finally do something, she lived a screwed up life, her father being killed in a public accident, friends and allies being cut down as she is kidnapped, she got essentially abducted by and turned into an avatar of a god, being sent to another dimension and living 100 years as basically a body hopping ghost. And after all that she still didnt even earn herself a proper place in a story. Make her appear along with Ryne, make it that Ryne isnt a next incarnation of Minfilia generation but a separate person who trying to fight sin eaters for all she can. Or if you want to retain this generation thing, make them a line of warriors who kept killing sin eaters whilst dying in battle. I know these are some really rough and poor speculations but you wanted them and I cant just take solid lines out of my head easily. But this way you could have Minfilia at least finally do something, finally be meaningful. She could take Ryne's role in tracking down Lightwardens and if you want to stay with this microcosm plot, let Minfilia give her life when trying to save us from Light surplus or let her merge with Ryne like it were planned to have Ryne become more powerful but give Minfilia a chance! Give her a Yotsuyu kind of plot! Give her a chance to say goodbye words to Thancred after he went from one edge of the world to another just in attempt to save her. Like what the hell! They all spoke so highly about her "lagacy" but what legacy? Only legacy they gave her is hate legacy, hate about her writing, her about her looks, hate about how she was a fetch questgiver. Theres no good legacy to carry on and she will be remembered as "that annoying girl from ARR who died in Shadowbringers". Thats not the legacy I wished for her...

So like I said, Im not really into theorycrafting and I doubt my pity attempts at creating some were enough to impress any of you. But the point of them were not to impress, but to rather show that there were a ways of returning her into the story, whilst keeping your greater theme and microcosm. They are just raw and unpolished but I believe that if mere me could come up with them, so could almighty SE.

The issue is you're trying to defend her virtue like she's an actual person.

Im quite confused here. Like, isn't that what the author of any media should strive for when he's writing a character: to make his writers feel like his characters are real, make us feel for them like we would feel for a real person? If you dont have that feeling then you have a poor written characters which failed to deliver. Thats an axiom. So I really cant understand what you're trying to say here, you blaming me for caring and feeling for a fiction character? Well yes, I often do get quite attached to a character I like and I often empathize with them when they putted into unfortunate situatuons. Thats absolutely normal and I think without that feeling you cant enjoy any sort of story. So dont get you here.

Okay, about Princess Plot-Device now. For me Ryne now is a COMPLETE copy of Minfilia and I can provide something to back me up on this. So what we get to know first time we learn about that new girl. She got captured by Vauthry, Thancred saved her 3 years ago. They travelled a bit then something happened and she got captured again. Sounds familiar? Okay, moving on. We save her, she starts to travel with us, kept whining about how useless she is and how she wished that she would die and old Minfilia will take her place. Still not familiar enough? Well, heres this then. Straight after Ryne got her new powers, it was a sudden poof from her out of the story. Since then things that shes doing are offscreen, she tracks new Lightwarden offscreen, she helps our hero supress Light offscreen (think only time it was showed is at the end battle with Emet). Basically started to appear much less in cutscenes after that. Familiar now? Yeah, the only difference between Ryne and Minfilia is that Ryne is adorable, cute and she fights with us. Yeah, duh. Even that ability of tracking is completely the same kind of utility that Minfilia used when she helped us FIGHT PRIMALS! Her every discovery were done offscreen but nonetheless was very useful. Everything Ryne did could be done by Minfilia like I explained above. So you are telling me they replaced one Princess Peach with another? Or what other redeeming features she has depsite being cute, shy, nice to everyone, having a tragedy in her life. What? How is she more interesting than Minfilia?

Maybe because again, its all tied well together into this grand plot of microcosm so you all get an impression of a well-written character. Oh yeah, and she helped in "progression" of Thancred. More like regression for me but what the heck.

So I will never agree that Ryne is a better variant of Minfilia or a better character, shes just a more polished copy. A copy and a poor way out of their own screw up.

That doesn't mean she was killed off because of player hatred. Unless someone can find the source of that?

Her ARR outfit didn't look like anything that was part of the realm we were in

There will be no proof because no such proof can exist. Developers will never admit that it were their fault, their poor writing of Minfilia that caused so much hate being thrown at her. They would never outright say: "yes, we sorta screwed up here". There are only two ways for them, getting rid of a character who got a lot of hate and on which they quite frankly failed or try to fix their mistakes by redeeming Minfilia into the story. Of course the took the easy way out. Everybody would. Doesnt mean Im going to stop blaming them for it. Its not Minfilia who deserved all this flak but only them.

And again, as about her outfit I thought the same that its very unapropriate for Scions leader to be dressed like this. But at the same time it was mentioned that shes has Ala Mhigan roots and we didnt know much about Ala Mhigo back then. I thought its their tribe clothes or something and shes just representing it. Guess you should say thanks that they didnt introduce a Thavnairian person into story lol.

her role was one where we wouldn't get to see a lot of it because it'd be boring to watch

This. I mentioned this in some of my previous posts as well: bureaucracy and politics are boring. Would they provide us with a cutscene every time Minfilia go and do some errands, negotiations, political affairs, ARR plot time would stretch beyond belief. It would be hours of cutscenes. So they did the right thing, they replaced it with action and fights while making Minfilia work offscreen, STILL providing us with lines about how hard shes working for the common good and how hard and next to impossible it would be to get this far without her. Im still confused why people cant wrap their head around this common "how you write a story in videogame" thing.

P.S. Oh and I also wanted to say that I rewatched some of the cutscenes before writing this and noticed that in Amh Araeng after that Thancred vs Ranjit battle, he get collapsed on a ground and started to mumble some things into the sky, adressing Minfilia. And in the end of his speech there were clearly "i love you" coming from him. I know you can argue if it still was a manifestation of his family feelings but come on, really? At such climax point? No way.

[Antoine_Lenheim]

Just started doing Eden after a long craft spree lol, can you guys tell me what is plot about cuz Ive been skipping it because of Ryne -- hate her lol. Maybe it has some plot about Minfilia cuz I heard Eden was first of Eaters Minfilia defeeated or something like that.

[Ardox]

Just started doing Eden after a long craft spree lol, can you guys tell me what is plot about cuz Ive been skipping it because of Ryne -- hate her lol. Maybe it has some plot about Minfilia cuz I heard Eden was first of Eaters Minfilia defeeated or something like that.

If you're not interested in reading your quest journal or see the cutscenes, will you really be interested in reading an explanation? I don't care if you skip the cutscene, but you really shouldn't ask that if you can't bother..

[LineageRazor]

Antoine Lenheim: Can you tell me the plotline for Eden?

Lore Forum: Well, I suppose...

AL: The expurgated version.

LF: The EXPURGATED version of the Eden plotline???

AL: The one without Ryne in it!

LF: The one without Ryne - she's a standard Shadowbringers character! She's in all the plotlines!

AL: Well, i don't like her. She's a whiny brat!

LF: All right! I'll remove her! *RIIIIP* Anyone else you don't like?!?

AL: I don't like Urianger. He's a pompous blowhard.

LF: Urianger! Right! Let's see, Urianger - there! *RIIIIP* Any others????

AL: Thancred?

LF: Right! Thancred, Thancred, Thancred - here we are! *RIIIIP* There you are! NO Ryne, NO Urianger, NO Thancred! There's your plotline!

AL: I can't read that, it's got no characters in it!

LF: *Sputters incoherently*

Apologies to Monty Python...

[QT_Melon]

There will be no proof because no such proof can exist. Developers will never admit that it were their fault, their poor writing of Minfilia that caused so much hate being thrown at her. They would never outright say: "yes, we sorta screwed up here". There are only two ways for them, getting rid of a character who got a lot of hate and on which they quite frankly failed or try to fix their mistakes by redeeming Minfilia into the story. Of course the took the easy way out. Everybody would. Doesnt mean Im going to stop blaming them for it. Its not Minfilia who deserved all this flak but only them.

That's a lie and a half since Developers have readily admitted other faults before.

Cough....

And to another degree this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs0yQKI7Yw4

So not buying that at all since those are even larger screw ups. Don't try to conspiracy theory this pls.