Y'shtola is a Mary Sue.

[MsQi]

She is using the "force" aether to be be able to see anything ,and its slowly killing her . If they forget that major character trait they created for her since Flow.exe V1.0 then there isnt any hope they will make something great about her.

I like Y'stola just fine but: (are people still concerned about EW spoilers?)

in Ultima Thule she can see as usual though there is no aether. At one point you can talk to her and she says so, but with no explanation. That seemed like a missed opportunity to me.

[TaleraRistain]

I thought she had some very decent character development in ShB. Y'shtola was raised by Matoya and you can see how both of them keep their feelings close to the vest. But there was and is vulnerability we saw in regards to her and the Night's Blessed. She's not researching how to go to different shards just to go to new places. She wants to go Home. She hides her feelings behind sarcasm or jokes just like Matoya, but there are real feelings there.

I do wish they would go back to the using her aether point. That does feel like a loose plot.

[SeverianLyonesse]

I think Y'Shtola is better described as a manic pixie dream girl. There is a lot of overlap, but typically the difference is being a self-insert main character versus a wish fulfillment deuteragonist. And I think she is solidly in the latter category.

I like sassy Y'Shtola, but I do agree that she is extremely underdeveloped. Though I also think that had she been given an actual character arc people would have complained about her getting too much screentime.

She is...fine. She's the Hermione. She mostly exists for exposition.

[Gullis]

How can a character with no weakness keep dying every expansion? Granted she doesnt really die, but she needs saving a lot

I dont see her being a Mary Sue more than any of the other scions

[Alpheus]

There are so many better designed female characters that the fact Y'shtola is the postergirl for this game is straight up criminal.

Its a FF MMO tradition to pick a bland character as the poster character for them in crossover media just have to look at Shantoto from FFXI being the poster character for that installment when there was a plethora of more interesting characters to do so, but in fairness I should mention JP FFXI players voted for Shantoto and if I recall YoshiP had a hand in deciding on Yshtola for Dissidia NT (for her reveal he did mention he considered Alphinaud but ultimately chose Yshtola)

Edit: Tbh I like Yshtola fine but I don't feel she's been used as a character to as best she could have been, instead having been used in repeated object lessons for Aetheric principles in the form of...well needless to say using her in that way to remind the player how things work (and to reinforce her character as an authority in such matters) kind of kneecapped her a bit, one of those instances should have involved somebody else entirely and have had Yshtola trying to problem solve it; we could have gotten a line about how dangerous it is to use Flow and why she's only comfortable risking her own life when using it and no one else's'. I don't want her dead but I'd settle for her retiring and hanging out with her boytoy while she....idk suffers from writer's block

[Jennah]

Exactly one character in FF14 qualifies as a Mary Sue.
The WoL herself.

[Mimilu]

yshtola cant be mery sue, shes goth!!!!1 >:v

[Akimori]

She showed some kind of caring emotion for runar o3o

[Jin-]

Bad character but still best of the bunch excluding Estinien. Says a lot about the Scions really.

If she is then are many of the others from the bunch

[LLSmoothJ]

Honestly, if the title replaced "Mary Sue" with "flat character" or something similar I probably would've never responded as it seems to be more accurate of your criticism. My whole thing is if you're going to criticize a character, do it right and use the correct term.