The Calling

[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.

[Morningstar1337]

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.

Specifically sine is a significant portion of the playerbase that do skip cutscenes and/or lack an interest in the MSQ. Though I wonder if the heads of state had gotten similar baggage to Minfillia as politics is by nature part of their gig

[Draginhikari]

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.

The thing is we have seen diplomacy and politics in the Main Story before, it is not exactly a foreign concept. All Minfilia probably needed was a short cut scene, or even a general dialogue between her and other characters to at least given an indication of what she does. Same thing with Lyse, she really needed a scene of her leading or inspiring others or something of that nature. It didn't need to be a massive thing but both ARR and the Ala Mhigo section of Stormblood kind of wrote themselves into a corner where there was no time for anything that wasn't immediately relevant to the plot.

Specifically sine is a significant portion of the playerbase that do skip cutscenes and/or lack an interest in the MSQ. Though I wonder if the heads of state had gotten similar baggage to Minfillia as politics is by nature part of their gig

To be fair, if people are skipping the story, they probably don't care about any of the characters regardless of how good or bad they are written.

[MirronTulaxia]

The thing is we have seen diplomacy and politics in the Main Story before, it is not exactly a foreign concept. All Minfilia probably needed was a short cut scene, or even a general dialogue between her and other characters to at least given an indication of what she does. Same thing with Lyse, she really needed a scene of her leading or inspiring others or something of that nature. It didn't need to be a massive thing but both ARR and the Ala Mhigo section of Stormblood kind of wrote themselves into a corner where there was no time for anything that wasn't immediately relevant to the plot.



To be fair, if people are skipping the story, they probably don't care about any of the characters regardless of how good or bad they are written.

I don't think we've seen a character who only does that though and is considered part of the main cast. Alphinaud was like that, and people hated him previously (not necessarily solely for that reason but I imagine it played some factor).

[Draginhikari]

I don't think we've seen a character who only does that though and is considered part of the main cast. Alphinaud was like that, and people hated him previously (not necessarily solely for that reason but I imagine it played some factor).

I would say in Alphinaud's case it had more do with his overblown self-confidence, arrogance, and expressing of our character as means toward his goal rather than any of his diplomatic stances (He does a lot of that off-screen and the few scenes that are shown are more to show his character issues more then anything).

At least in Alphinaud's case, unlike Minfilia or Lyse who shortcomings were made worse by writing issues, was kind of the point of his 2.0 version. Alphinaud was supposed to start off as an unlikable, overachieving, arrogant brat who thought he knew better than everyone else. His arc was basically to have his overconfidence bite him in the ass so he could be built up as a better person after he picked up the pieces. Compared to the other Scions in 2.0, there was a least an indication that they did have an arc planned for him that did pay off in the long run.

[JeanneOrnitier]

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.

I quite like when this game gets into diplomatic stuff, personally. At least for me though, Minfilia never came off as being the diplomat of the Scions in ARR. Alphinaud did. Minfilia was really just dead weight. And that's not because she was in a talky role exactly, because again, Alphinaud. Minfilia was dead weight because we never saw her succeed in anything the way other characters did. She was always needing protection.

[Morningstar1337]

I quite like when this game gets into diplomatic stuff, personally. At least for me though, Minfilia never came off as being the diplomat of the Scions in ARR. Alphinaud did. Minfilia was really just dead weight. And that's not because she was in a talky role exactly, because again, Alphinaud. Minfilia was dead weight because we never saw her succeed in anything the way other characters did. She was always needing protection.

I mean there is more to politics and management then just diplomacy. A small early game quest-line where the player can see her usual day to day work and help with the paperwork might had gone a long way towards establishing her, or maybe a series of quest delving into the formation of the Scions (with the side bonus of catching up non-legacy players on the lore regarding the Circle of Knowing and the Path of the Twelve)