Y'shtola is a Mary Sue.

[Soge01]

Meh. I like Y'shtola. Never had a problem with her. She's been one of the few Scions that you can always count in for anything and she can take care of herself without heavily relying on us.

The only thing the XIV writers messed up with her is not actually explaining and showing in detail the pros and cons of her eye sight. Otherwise, she's a perfectly fine character. Not every character needs an emotional growth arc to make them great. Some characters have already gone through that off screen and are just perfectly fine the way they are.

I'd much rather have the ever dependable Y'shtola around because she can always do something the other Scions can't: Get her own sh*t together and fix her own problems.

[aveyond-dreams]

Otherwise, she's a perfectly fine character. Not every character needs an emotional growth arc to make them great. Some characters have already gone through that off screen and are just perfectly fine the way they are.

Why are they going through arcs off-screen when the whole point of the story is to see that actually happen in-game? Why are characters with nothing to do being prioritized over those with unresolved business? Granted, Y'shtola is finally doing something useful when it comes to the Void Exploration and thus *finally* doing something to advance her goals, but she has a long way to go before I can consider her redeemed.

I cannot consider characters who do not evolve or grow as "fine." Her continued presence represents stagnation and the fact that no matter what happens she always comes away completely unscathed makes for a story with hardly any stakes. This goes for not only her but all the Scions. You can't ask me to care about these characters when they don't do anything and are never in any serious danger.

After an expansion set against the literal end of the world when the stakes should have been at their highest, we wished upon a magic rock and managed to invalidate any meaningful sacrifices the Scions may have done for us. But anything to keep the fandom's comfort characters alive I suppose. Not even Stranger of Paradise pulled ridiculous plot devices like that at the last minute.

The ending of that game somehow managed to make me feel more emotional than the end of Endwalker. Jack Garland earned his finale song "My Way" at his journey's end, but Endwalker hardly earned the right to use the theme of Final Fantasy after the massive narrative failures in its later portions.

[Magikazam]

Why are they going through arcs off-screen when the whole point of the story is to see that actually happen in-game? Why are characters with nothing to do being prioritized over those with unresolved business? Granted, Y'shtola is finally doing something useful when it comes to the Void Exploration and thus *finally* doing something to advance her goals, but she has a long way to go before I can consider her redeemed.

I cannot consider characters who do not evolve or grow as "fine." Her continued presence represents stagnation and the fact that no matter what happens she always comes away completely unscathed makes for a story with hardly any stakes. This goes for not only her but all the Scions. You can't ask me to care about these characters when they don't do anything and are never in any serious danger.

After an expansion set against the literal end of the world when the stakes should have been at their highest, we wished upon a magic rock and managed to invalidate any meaningful sacrifices the Scions may have done for us. But anything to keep the fandom's comfort characters alive I suppose. Not even Stranger of Paradise pulled ridiculous plot devices like that at the last minute.

The ending of that game somehow managed to make me feel more emotional than the end of Endwalker. Jack Garland earned his finale song "My Way" at his journey's end, but Endwalker hardly earned the right to use the theme of Final Fantasy after the massive narrative failures in its later portions.

I agree. FFXIV has an issue of focus IMO, we got a lot of characters or plots to uncover, but they're only so much you can get in one patch. So we end up with Lyse being poorly developed until Stormblood where she gets the spotlight, then goes back to being useless the next xpacs. We got 3 major faction yet it feel like Uldah is the only one where plot happend. Like seriously, can you recall an important Npc or event that happend past ARR from Limsa or Gridania that ain't the faction leaders?

[Zabuza]

Why are they going through arcs off-screen when the whole point of the story is to see that actually happen in-game? Why are characters with nothing to do being prioritized over those with unresolved business? Granted, Y'shtola is finally doing something useful when it comes to the Void Exploration and thus *finally* doing something to advance her goals, but she has a long way to go before I can consider her redeemed.

I cannot consider characters who do not evolve or grow as "fine." Her continued presence represents stagnation and the fact that no matter what happens she always comes away completely unscathed makes for a story with hardly any stakes. This goes for not only her but all the Scions. You can't ask me to care about these characters when they don't do anything and are never in any serious danger.

After an expansion set against the literal end of the world when the stakes should have been at their highest, we wished upon a magic rock and managed to invalidate any meaningful sacrifices the Scions may have done for us. But anything to keep the fandom's comfort characters alive I suppose.

I felt nothing in Ultima Thule, since Y'shtola herself mentioned the powers of the magic rock and I knew we would use it to bring them back. Then they joke about their predicament after being brought back, as if they themselves know they are untouchable. Why should I worry about the characters who are joking about they wish they at least had a scar from the experience, and that they kill gods every day after their morning tea and it's just another day? There's no sense of tension for these characters. It really disappoints me since Yoshi-P teased that something heavy would happen to the characters, implying at least one character death. Now, it is all too predictable. I am hoping Y'shtola gets some development in the 6.x patches, but I'm not getting my hopes up.