Y'shtola is a Mary Sue.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Why repeat story beats we had with other characters? That would just be a Vauthry story on roids

All they do is repeat story beats though. To relate it to this thread that’s all Yshtola has been. Just repeating some death flag and some “sacrifice” that she always comes out alright after the fact. Also that wasn’t exactly vauthry’s story on roids. He wanted the flood to take over and kill everyone lol. Pretty different outcomes there.

[BrokentoothMarch]

Why repeat story beats we had with other characters? That would just be a Vauthry story on roids

The story's already doing this plenty. See Y'shtola and Alphinaud as the most egregious examples.

[Cach]

I disagree that characters need an arc to be interesting or worthwhile as in "What will character X do in this situation" instead of "How will this character change in this situation". Granted, it needs to be an already fleshed out character to work effectively.

As for the OP: Not all characters with platinum plot armor are Mary Sues. But all Mary Sues have platinum plot armor.

And if you want a spicy take, all the girl scions are more or less the same character with the only difference being their level of aggressiveness. That's why I like Krile the best, she is less obnoxious.

[aveyond-dreams]

Another contributing factor to the Mary Sue situation is that FFXIV is extremely unwilling to show the female protagonists in any states of emotional vulnerability, the only notable exception being Ysayle when her faith was utterly shattered. Moments like that offer those of us who may be otherwise closed off to a character a moment to potentially sympathize with them, rather than enduring another set of throwaway text boxes.

Characters like Y’shtola or goodness forbid Lyse never reach such states. Alisae occasionally has believable reactions to the more tense moments of the plot (Tesleen, telling Ryne to not make false promises, the crack in her voice when she screams at Alphinaud for letting their father walk away) - though these are few and far between.

They just don’t hold up to the heroines of previous Final Fantasy games. None of them can stand up to the likes of Garnet, Celes, or Yuna. Even Eiko from FFIX, a literal 6-year old, managed to evolve in more significant ways by their journey’s end than characters like Y’shtola - and all without meaningless fakeouts and depictions of physical impairments that ultimately do not affect the character in any notable capacity. Their growth shown *on screen* made the space these characters took up worthwhile. They did more than just react and make sassy comments. As for Krile, I have very little love for her given her status as another useless Minfilia wallflower whose direct influence on the plot only happens in moments that are extremely far apart.

[LLSmoothJ]

Unfortunately for a pretty big portion of the community, whenever it’s a man hitting on a woman it’s seen as “creepy and gross.” But if it’s a hot lady making comments about spanking or a female character hitting on a dude it’s “so cute and yas qween.” Double standards and all that.

Make that in almost any community. How many times have we seen men get condemned for something that a hot woman would otherwise be praised for?

[KizuyaKatogami]

Make that in almost any community. How many times have we seen men get condemned for something that a hot woman would otherwise be praised for?

True true, i’m just trying not to start a huge war in here but yeah…it’s shitty.

[Raoabolic]

Make that in almost any community. How many times have we seen men get condemned for something that a hot woman would otherwise be praised for?

It reminds me of that situation Wizards of the Coast had with a pair of cards they printed. I forgot the names but cards shows an evil looking female necromancer getting pinned down by a berzerker looking guy and the other card has her lording over the berzerker as some undead hands are about to crush his head in. I believe they kept the latter but removed the former. I like it when card games tell a story through the pictures and the flavor text, I really enjoy the concept of showing over telling.

[Theodric]

The story's already doing this plenty. See Y'shtola and Alphinaud as the most egregious examples.

Yep.

The game seems terrified of shaking up the status quo on any front. It's exactly why I question how many 'story driven' games many FFXIV players have actually played because so many of the established characters are very 'safe' and rarely react in realistic ways.

That not a single Scion was ever at risk of turning into a Blasphemy was utterly laughable to me. Yet if we look at other story driven games - such as The Witcher 3 - even some of the characters that show up in a single quest chain are more fleshed out and dynamic.

Meanwhile in FFXIV, the moment a character rises above the surface of the water they are usually killed off or forced to change. Not only are we stuck with a bloated cast, any character that dares to think or commit to different opinions and methods is shoved aside.

[JamieRose]

Y'shtola is a character with no weaknesses, and because of this, a character I can't relate with. She is the postergirl of FFXIV, the scion you chose to put in Dissidia and sell a doll of, and yet I feel she is the most underdeveloped as a character. I then realized why. She has no vulnerabilities to speak of and even death cannot claim her.

Thancred got his development in Shadowbringers.
Urianger got his development in Endwalker.
Estinien got his development in Heavensward.
Alisaie got her development from Stormblood onward.
Alphinaud got his development through... the whole game.
G'raha Tia got his development in Shadowbringers.

Of these aforementioned scions, I know what drives them. Their worries, their fears, their goals. They feel like fleshed out human-beings. Y'shtola feels like... something else. What do we know about her other than she craves knowledge and likes to roast people? Yes, she has someone dear to her. Master Matoya, whom she trades insults back and forth with. Have we ever seen her show anything besides stoicism or sarcastic wit? Even Emet-Selch, for as sarcastic and trolly as he is, shows his emotions when it's called for. It is for this reason I won't give the writers slack on this. They are skilled enough to flesh out any character should they so choose.

I really hope SE plans to flesh out her character in an upcoming patch or expansion so that the postergirl of FFXIV can stop being the most underdeveloped scion.

Troll thread.

[Jason_Ashford]

The end of EW made me lose a ton of respect for the writers because it shows me that they don't have any guts in their writing...."oh we might make some players mad if XXXXX dies".

except, they never even entertained the idea they were dead for good. almost right away they point out that you can bring everyone back with the magic Hydaelyn gave you. The only uncertainty was how we could accomplish it without undoing the changes they made to Ultima Thule which was revealed at the end of the zone. There are some flaws with how they wrote the ending to Endwalker, but that was not one of them.