Looking back at this Yoshi P statement(story spoilers)

[TaleraRistain]

But then that begs the question. Why whisk away the rest of the scions in a cloud of black swirling smoke? Just so they could set up the cutscene where the WoL walks up the stairs by himself?

Yes, it meant the WoL was going to face despair having lost those closest to them. Set aside our omniscience as the player. The WoL didn't know they would be able to get their friends back. Y'shtola had made it pretty clear that even though we had the means for it, doing it before the mission was a success would mean we would fail and the world would be lost. We the player knew there was going to be something that made us able to use that stone. Our part of the ride was seeing exactly how it played out. But the character in the story is experiencing the story being told.

But heres the thing, even in ShB we see some of the scions give in to despair, namely alisaie. You mean to tell me that none of them give in to it even once throughout the course of the final days? .

Have you never been in a situation where everything was relying on you holding it together, where you need to be the rock while others around you are losing it? Internally you're as affected as everyone else. Outwardly, you have to be the steady person because *someone* needs to be.

If you do the healer quests, Fordola almost turns a couple of times. But the fate of the world isn't on her. If the WoL or the Scions give into those thoughts, they may never be able to come back from them. I'm sure the thoughts were there but they knew how important it was they didn't give in to them.

Clearly some people here don't like those sorts of stakes presented unless the audience is equally unconfident at the character's chances of success, but I find it a powerful emotional thing regardless. Imagining how the character must be feeling in that moment, heavy-hearted, everything counting on them so they mustn't give in to despair, mustn't give up, must keep walking forward.

Exactly. How many times do you watch or read something and think "Yep, gonna end this way" but you keep watching or reading to see just how they do it. And our character did feel that, so much that we had a debuff to indicate it. I don't know if people missed that or not, that we weren't just walking for dramatic effect. We were walking because our character was at the lowest point of their life but still had to continue on.