The Calling

[MirronTulaxia]

Wasn't Lyse poorly received by a lot of people who were mad about the whole Yda identity thing? Plus she just had a whole expansion where she was a major focus. That's the real world reason.

In game story reason has been pointed out, but another thing to consider, though it's already been alluded to, is that the Exarch knows of our future since he wants to prevent the Calamity that he's already lived through. The way I look at it, is he called over everyone that had a similar happenstance in regards to their death in that Calamity.

I took it as, all of the Scions who got called were warriors who were killed by Black Rose in that timeline, like the WoL. This would explain why they're similar enough to who he is trying to call, in order for them to be mistakenly snatched.

She was? Interesting. In general I'm not a huge fan of how they handled the Gridania duo. But really it's mostly a meta reason. As said it was all accidental.

[Brightamethyst]

I think the biggest issue with the whole Lyse/Yda thing is that it was completely pointless. I mean, why? You'd expect a shocking revelation like that would be game changing but it changed absolutely nothing. They could have had Yda say "I'm leaving the Scions to help the resistance" and the story would still have played out exactly the same way. Why did the writers even bother with the stupid plot twist if it didn't mean anything?

[goerahl]

I think the biggest issue with the whole Lyse/Yda thing is that it was completely pointless. I mean, why? You'd expect a shocking revelation like that would be game changing but it changed absolutely nothing. They could have had Yda say "I'm leaving the Scions to help the resistance" and the story would still have played out exactly the same way. Why did the writers even bother with the stupid plot twist if it didn't mean anything?

I think this was supposed to be a part of her character development, from an insecure girl only following in her sister's footsteps to a charismatic leader of a rebellion. The thing is, none of this really worked as the changes didn't land too well and it all seemed kind of forced, especially because she wasn't really a character prominent enough early on for most players to care about her enough for the reveal to actually have any weight.

[JeanneOrnitier]

I found more people saying Lyse was just boring rather than issues with the Yda swap

[Vyrerus]

Man, I didn't think Lyse was boring. I mean, sure, Alisae is way more interesting to me, but I dug the hole transition giving Paplymo's sacrifice more weight. I like to think that was the reason, though I remember at the time that some people were joking that it was just their way of covering up forgetting her neck tattoos in the Stormblood trailer.

[Rosenstrauch]

I would say it's a little of both, but I'll also throw in the whole "Everyone (but you) knew Yda was Lyse the whole time" thing, as to me that's a clear enough symptom of the problem. First impressions are important for establishing who a character is, and my first impression of "Yda is really Lyse" was that all of the characters who should be surprised by this already knew, and just kept me/my character in the dark because it didn't matter if I knew or not. Yda would still be Yda, no matter what name they called her by.

And from what I remember of Stormblood's story, that much is true. They didn't do anything with Lyse that they couldn't have done with Yda, and didn't change her character in any particular way to differentiate her from Yda—aside from taking away her dynamic with Papalymo and giving her nothing in return. So in a roundabout fashion, changing her identity actually made her less interesting.

[RenewalXVII]

I would say it's a little of both, but I'll also throw in the whole "Everyone (but you) knew Yda was Lyse the whole time" thing, as to me that's a clear enough symptom of the problem. First impressions are important for establishing who a character is, and my first impression of "Yda is really Lyse" was that all of the characters who should be surprised by this already knew, and just kept me/my character in the dark because it didn't matter if I knew or not. Yda would still be Yda, no matter what name they called her by.

And from what I remember of Stormblood's story, that much is true. They didn't do anything with Lyse that they couldn't have done with Yda, and didn't change her character in any particular way to differentiate her from Yda—aside from taking away her dynamic with Papalymo and giving her nothing in return. So in a roundabout fashion, changing her identity actually made her less interesting.

Thematically, I think part of what the writers were aiming for in SB were the stories of young people who had grown up entirely in the shadow of conquered states: Lyse, Fordola, and Yotsuyu all spent most of their formative years with a homeland controlled by the Empire. It's clear that a thematic parallel was set up among them. Yda as we knew her by HW was a bit too old for that, and the writers wanted their two-fer with an Ala Mhigan Scion invested in freeing their nation, while also being young enough to parallel Fordola and Yotusyu.

Like, the obvious counterfactual for SB's story is for Lyse to be introduced as an entirely separate character from Yda in late HW/early SB, and I don't think people would have been any more invested in such a Lyse than the one we did get. The writers were attempting to bind old affection for Yda--which I certainly have since I started the game in Gridania--with a new character concept in Lyse, and their two-fer attempt didn't land cleanly enough for a lot of people.

[Draginhikari]

Lyse to me suffers from what I like to call Minfilia-syndrome. Both Minfilia and Lyse were intended to be important characters in their respective part of the stories, however due to the way the story was being written at the time resulted in a less than stellar presentation in the story though I will say Lyse fared better then Minfilia in general at the end.

In Realm Reborn, Minfilia was intended to be the leader of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. Someone with the Echo who wasn't fighter but dealt with a lot of the backend negotiations and communications between different groups the Scions worked with but due to Realm Reborn giant plot bloat resulted in really giving no time to actually demonstrate any of her strengths (Something most of the Scions suffered in 2.0 frankly). This resulted in only showing the worse parts of Minfilia's personality: Her overly trusting nature, her emotional baggage and general combat weakness.

Lyse on the other hand was intended to be the narrative of pretender to identity type of character. Someone who did not know who she was and needed to find her place in the world as herself rather than pretending to be her sister. Stormblood's biggest weakness was actually very similar to Realm Reborn: The need to get through a lot of plot elements related to Ala Mhigo and Doma very quickly. So even though Lyse did do things, did act, and did grow which would normally be a good way to proceed, the plot a few times basically handed her victories because there was not enough time to actually establish everything in a natural way making certain things feel forced. Which basically created this weird idea that Lyse intentionaly stole the Warrior of Light's Thunder in Stormblood (Even though Lyse says nothing in the game to suggest that she dismisses the Warrior of Light's accomplishments as she tends to praise the WoL the same as most of the characters in the game do).

It kind of shows why the Characters in Heavenward and Shadowbringers are held in high regards. Neither Minfilia or Lyse are bad character concepts in and of themselves but when the story does not have time to do something with those characters it can lead to unintended interpretations of who those characters are to the audience. Heavensward and Shadowbringers were focused and spent time informing the characters while Realm Reborn and Stormblood simply was doing too much to do so.

[Brightamethyst]

Neither Minfilia or Lyse are bad character concepts in and of themselves but when the story does not have time to do something with those characters it can lead to unintended interpretations of who those characters are to the audience.

Agreed. Minfilia comes across as annoying and useless because the game never lets us see her shine. We're told that she's a great administrator, diplomat, etc but we never see any of the day to day stuff she's really good at. We only get called into the office when there are battles to be fought.

Lyse is similar. NPCs are always talking about her leadership but we rarely see it in action. We see her fairly infrequently, and when we do we see her struggle and lose more often than we see her succeed. That makes her seem weak and ineffective to the player.

[MirronTulaxia]

Agreed. Minfilia comes across as annoying and useless because the game never lets us see her shine. We're told that she's a great administrator, diplomat, etc but we never see any of the day to day stuff she's really good at. We only get called into the office when there are battles to be fought.

Lyse is similar. NPCs are always talking about her leadership but we rarely see it in action. We see her fairly infrequently, and when we do we see her struggle and lose more often than we see her succeed. That makes her seem weak and ineffective to the player.

I think part of the issue is that a lot of the diplomacy, paperwork kind of things aren't exactly appealing for a lot of people to see. While I would have enjoyed it most players want action. And even then I don't think people would have changed their mind on how useless she was, because they only value action.