Quote Originally Posted by Nilroreo View Post
I don't wanna be too hard on the current writers as I'm sure they're really passionate about the prospect of working on this franchise, but It's a bit hard to ignore that some of the more aggressive retcons and recontextualizations became more frequent starting with Shadowbringers, which I believe was around the time Ishikawa came on board full time.

Random example, when Emet confirms he was tempered in Shadowbringers, I decided to take him at his word, since I have no reason to assume he would lie about something like that. But when paired with the revelation a few patches later that the Echo isn't some phenomenon tied exclusively to Hydaelyn but instead to all Amaurotines in general, it brings to mind every single instance of immunity to tempering up until this point and how all have been attributed to the Echo. In ARR, I believe we didn't even have Hydaelyn's blessing for most of the story, so it would've been the Echo protecting us. In Heavensward, our blessing was revoked by Middy, and in Stormblood, 3 separate characters, none of which have the blessing were able to resist it with their Echo. But then Shadowbringers drops this revelation and Endwalker confirms it was actually the blessing of light protecting us this whole time!

So now, if we assume the Echo is what gives us immunity, then Emet couldn't have been tempered, but if we assume it was actually the blessing, then every single instance of the Echo being used to resist tempering between ARR and Stormblood is now called into question. the "light tug" comment in Endwalker doesn't really help much to clarify things either.
I don't think Ishikawa is a bad writer, but the direction they went with starting with ShB is decidedly more "shounen" than any FF has been since VI. And credit where credit is due she IS good at making sympathetic antagonists... Meteion is just not one of them and I blame it on how rushed her development and exposition is.
I just think Maehiro is better at writing stories that don't underestimate an adult viewer's intelligence.