What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[CrownySuccubus]

Not exactly my point. They could have simply said it wouldn’t work on him. Considering the devs themselves stated they had 2 endings planned for 5.3, it stands to reason one of those was indeed him dying, and they chose not to kill him due to fan appeal. That is something i have a major problem with as again, the character has had nothing but bad writing, plot holes, and plot armor attached to him since his re-introduction.

I don't know what to tell you besides that being a problem of personal taste. Clearly, the argument that he "has had nothing but bad writing", is not universal...as evidenced by said "fan appeal".

Besides that, the situation of him surviving his own half-baked plan isn't really a case of "plot armor". Plot armor is not simply "this character could have died but didn't". The circumstances behind his survival made sense in the story, and likewise served as an excellent villainous moment for Emet-Selch.

My thing with it all is theres a time and place for everything. He's eating burgers during an expansion where theres a literal impending apocalypse and im what, supposed to find it cute and endearing?

I really do not understand why you guys keep bringing this up. The entire point to those moments was that the Scions were running themselves ragged racing from one crisis to the next and sometimes forgot to slow down and find time for their own comfort. Are we going to be angry about a scene of soldiers playing cards and drinking whiskey in a war movie? Hell, the burger scene comes at a time when your party literally has nothing to do but wait, and Gr'aha is the Scion who is least fitting for this criticism, because he's shown multiple times to have overworked himself to the point of exhaustion. He does it so often and so predictably that even Lyna calls him out on it from an entire planet away.

No, instead of wasting time on these shitty scenes give me more insight on actually important stuff.

Again, this is rather subjective. Personally wouldn't care, either way, but that's likewise just my personal opinion.

[AziraSyuren]

I don't know what to tell you besides that being a problem of personal taste. Clearly, the argument that he "has had nothing but bad writing", is not universal...as evidenced by said "fan appeal".

Besides that, the situation of him surviving his own half-baked plan isn't really a case of "plot armor". Plot armor is not simply "this character could have died but didn't". The circumstances behind his survival made sense in the story, and likewise served as an excellent villainous moment for Emet-Selch.



I really do not understand why you guys keep bringing this up. The entire point to those moments was that the Scions were running themselves ragged racing from one crisis to the next and sometimes forgot to slow down and find time for their own comfort. Are we going to be angry about a scene of soldiers playing cards and drinking whiskey in a war movie? Hell, the burger scene comes at a time when your party literally has nothing to do but wait, and Gr'aha is the Scion who is least fitting for this criticism, because he's shown multiple times to have overworked himself to the point of exhaustion. He does it so often and so predictably that even Lyna calls him out on it from an entire planet away.

Yeah, like, nonstop tension isn't good for a story and that's clearly what EW was verging on were there any actual tension felt. The slice of life scenes hit a lot different for people who actually felt that tension.

And, I've said it before and I'll say it again, G'raha actually dying would've been a betrayal of his character. He was literally called out on his eagerness to sacrifice himself and nobody bought his attempts to make his death any easier to handle. Personally, it showed me that he didn't understand what it really meant to be a hero (especially since his leadership as the Exarch, which, y'know, requires him to be alive, was more heroic than any attempt he made to sacrifice himself) and validating that lack of understanding would've been a character assassination worse than anything that happened in EW. The fact that he found a way to live on in the face of death is frankly one of the best moments in Shadowbringers.

[Lunaxia]

Yeah, like, nonstop tension isn't good for a story and that's clearly what EW was verging on were there any actual tension felt. The slice of life scenes hit a lot different for people who actually felt that tension.

I take issue with your implication that those of us for whom the scenes fell flat were "immune" to the tension in the story. Previous expansion packs have had similar moments of downtime, and handled them much better. The camping scene in the Mists, the scenes with Ardbert in the inn, the drinking scene with the twins sleeping in Stormblood. They were meaningful, poignant and suitably downtempo, without feeling contrived or wildly out of place in the context of the story.

[Midareyukki]

Yeah, like, nonstop tension isn't good for a story and that's clearly what EW was verging on were there any actual tension felt. The slice of life scenes hit a lot different for people who actually felt that tension.

Sis, I've felt the tension. I was fully engrossed in the tension. Even my sister told me to close my mouth when we went to the Moon or a fly would get in because I was feeling the tension.

You know what I felt once we killed Zodiark? Confusion. Followed by the only time I ever skipped Endwalker cutscenes: dealing with annoying rabbits. And no, Viera players, I'm not talking about you, you're not annoying and thank god for that.

I felt the tension and got nothing for it. I tried enjoying the story and getting emotionally involved in it, suspend my disbelief for one week and just love the game's story. But throughout all of it I just kept thinking "...this is kind of daft, but okay".

Endwalker was fine for the most part, but it does have flaws. So keep your Strawmanning to yourself. Because we don't strawman the story just because we acknowledge it has flaws.

[aveyond-dreams]

Yeah, like, nonstop tension isn't good for a story and that's clearly what EW was verging on were there any actual tension felt. The slice of life scenes hit a lot different for people who actually felt that tension.

And, I've said it before and I'll say it again, G'raha actually dying would've been a betrayal of his character. He was literally called out on his eagerness to sacrifice himself and nobody bought his attempts to make his death any easier to handle. Personally, it showed me that he didn't understand what it really meant to be a hero (especially since his leadership as the Exarch, which, y'know, requires him to be alive, was more heroic than any attempt he made to sacrifice himself) and validating that lack of understanding would've been a character assassination worse than anything that happened in EW. The fact that he found a way to live on in the face of death is frankly one of the best moments in Shadowbringers.

The expansion was set against the backdrop of the literal end of the world. Of course there was supposed to be tension. And it could have been alleviated every once in a while by scenes far less ridiculous than the hamburger sequence. As others have mentioned, it isn't that we were immune to the tension, we expected and wanted to see it instead of the fluff scenes. If we wanted to play a silly high school style game then we would be playing Persona instead of Final Fantasy XIV.

I once again insist that G'raha Tia's writing represents both a failure of the writers to commit to meaningful sacrifice (a trend we later saw repeat itself in Endwalker) and the prioritization of comfort over substance. Heroes staying alive is more heroic than sacrificing themselves for the causes they believe in? I'm sorry but are you kidding me? I think we have completely different definitions about what it means to be a hero. The High Summoners of FFX were praised as heroes because they gave their lives in order to bring peace to their world even if it was only temporary because they held on to hope, even if they were not told the full story of Sin. Noctis in FFXV saved the entire world by sacrificing his life after having enjoyed a relatively privileged life up until the invasion of Insomnia. Need I go on?

What we saw there was the product of "covid writing" where during that era I noticed that many writers (myself included) were unwilling to put their characters through a lot because of how bleak everyone's irl situations were. I recognized what had happened there on the spot. He didn't get a happy ending because he deserved one, he got one because people were understandably not in the mood to write that kind of ending for him at the time, even if that was what would have made the most sense for the story. 2 years later we are still paying the price for that decision, with one of the best characters in the game reduced to a bad joke.

[KizuyaKatogami]

I don't know what to tell you besides that being a problem of personal taste. Clearly, the argument that he "has had nothing but bad writing", is not universal...as evidenced by said "fan appeal".

Besides that, the situation of him surviving his own half-baked plan isn't really a case of "plot armor". Plot armor is not simply "this character could have died but didn't". The circumstances behind his survival made sense in the story, and likewise served as an excellent villainous moment for Emet-Selch.



I really do not understand why you guys keep bringing this up. The entire point to those moments was that the Scions were running themselves ragged racing from one crisis to the next and sometimes forgot to slow down and find time for their own comfort. Are we going to be angry about a scene of soldiers playing cards and drinking whiskey in a war movie? Hell, the burger scene comes at a time when your party literally has nothing to do but wait, and Gr'aha is the Scion who is least fitting for this criticism, because he's shown multiple times to have overworked himself to the point of exhaustion. He does it so often and so predictably that even Lyna calls him out on it from an entire planet away.



Again, this is rather subjective. Personally wouldn't care, either way, but that's likewise just my personal opinion.

When i bring up plot armor and plot holes, im mainly bringing up things like them telling us hes weaker the farther he is from the tower and that staying too far for too long can have severe consequences. Yet, despite being the farthest away he ever has been from the tower, and for presumably the longest, he is able to cast a spell he couldnt even cast properly once whilst under the full power of the tower, and multiplies it seven fold. Im sorry, but that goes against the lore we were given and seems to serve only as a way to prevent him from having any consequences. Fast forward to 5.3 where Elidibus has numerous opportunities to kill him and...just doesnt.

I think there's two--or three?--different complaints about G'raha sort of running through the discussion here, and some of those reasons I can partially understand, and some are a little more difficult for me. I can absolutely understand the frustration and resentment about G'raha's "success story" and the effort exuded to give him a happy ending whereas certain other characters were denied the same - but that's not something I can really blame G'raha himself for, and moreso is another piece of the overall plotting and thematic shakiness within Endwalker as a whole. And saying G'raha was saved purely "for fanservice" doesn't quite work because, as popular as he is, Emet-Selch outstrips him considerably, and Emet-Selch didn't get to run into our adventuring arms by Endwalker's conclusion, even though he easily could have.

G'raha being saved because we want to give the protagonists as a whole a happy ending makes more sense to me than being angry about any pandering to G'raha fans in particular. As Rulakir pointed out, nearly all the Scions are flourishing in ways that are baffling given their plot contexts. And I can actually even accept that uneven outcome, were it given more thoughtfulness - just like some people die for no good reason and it's arbitrary, the same applies sometimes to people who survive. (This is one of the elements that I loved about Zenos's story.) But it's when coupled with the judgmental factor the Ancients were on the receiving end of, and the opportunities to help them not being taken as aggressively, for Some Reason, it starts to grate.

G'raha's writing in terms of his personality, meanwhile, makes sense to me. Is it the most compelling personality for me in a vacuum? Nah, I like G'raha, but I wouldn't count him as one of my absolute favorites. But in terms of "does it make sense," I think it does. I actually liked the sort of insecure, manic quality to him after the union of his two different selves, and the clumsiness of him trying to navigate the rush of actually getting to do what he wants to do for the first time in over a hundred years. I liked that resuming his Exarch persona in Thavnair was a powerful moment, not just for his actions, but for the weight of him having to resort to acting in that role again as being painful and difficult for him - to the point I wished it had actually been elaborated on further.

The third issue is the uneven tone, pace, and placement and emphasis of the "light-hearted" scenes throughout Endwalker. Again, I think this speaks to probably a larger problem through the whole, but G'raha somehow became an easy target to lash out about something that applies to most of the protagonist group. (I would rather seethe about the Loporrits, personally, as far as that goes. <_<)

I bring up the fanservice thing because the devs themselves confirmed that they had two different endings planned. Combine that with the fact they look to twitter and reddit for feedback around the same time, combined with the fact graha was insanely popular on both platforms at the time and....i dont think its such an out there assumption. While yes, you can attribute a lot of the annoying fluff to other characters as well(ive gone off about alisaie and yshtola like this before trust me) Graha has been the common denominator every time since 5.4+. It just takes away from all the seriousness of any situation. Whenever hes wiggling his ears and fanboying it doesnt make me feel like im playing a dark final fantasy game. Its like im watching a slice o flife visual novel.Also.... they did basically bring emet back because of fan appeal. That much is quite obvious lol. Elpis was just a huge fanservice parade for emet as well as the end of UT. This is pretty obvious when you read his 5.3 short story where he states this is his last act....SPOILER IT WASNT.

Yeah, like, nonstop tension isn't good for a story and that's clearly what EW was verging on were there any actual tension felt. The slice of life scenes hit a lot different for people who actually felt that tension.

And, I've said it before and I'll say it again, G'raha actually dying would've been a betrayal of his character. He was literally called out on his eagerness to sacrifice himself and nobody bought his attempts to make his death any easier to handle. Personally, it showed me that he didn't understand what it really meant to be a hero (especially since his leadership as the Exarch, which, y'know, requires him to be alive, was more heroic than any attempt he made to sacrifice himself) and validating that lack of understanding would've been a character assassination worse than anything that happened in EW. The fact that he found a way to live on in the face of death is frankly one of the best moments in Shadowbringers.

Please tell me how im expected to feel any tension whatsoever when the final days only really comes to 2 zones in the entire expansion and the protagonists never have to face any consequences or ever get hurt or anything? Please explain this to me because i truly dont understand. This expansion when bad things happened, it was to nameless or only just recently met npc's. Never any main characters outside of the antagonists.

[CrownySuccubus]

When i bring up plot armor and plot holes, im mainly bringing up things like them telling us hes weaker the farther he is from the tower and that staying too far for too long can have severe consequences. Yet, despite being the farthest away he ever has been from the tower, and for presumably the longest, he is able to cast a spell he couldnt even cast properly once whilst under the full power of the tower, and multiplies it seven fold. Im sorry, but that goes against the lore we were given and seems to serve only as a way to prevent him from having any consequences.

The reasons he couldn't cast it properly in the Tower was because he was trying to summon entire whole people with bodies, memories, abilities, etc., intact. It's stated in 5.3 that the spell is significantly easier to cast if you don't care about summoning entities with their entire spirits and powers. In that moment, all he needed were seven temporary allies to assist the WOL.

Fast forward to 5.3 where Elidibus has numerous opportunities to kill him and...just doesnt.

Elidibus makes it clear that the WOL is his target, and no one else. The only time he ever attacks Gr'aha is in order to gain the power to summon other WOLs, and both Gr'aha and Beq Lugg use their power to escape.

I'm not seeing the problem, nor the "plot armor".

I'm sorry but are you kidding me? I think we have completely different definitions about what it means to be a hero. The High Summoners of FFX were praised as heroes because they gave their lives in order to bring peace to their world even if it was only temporary because they held on to hope, even if they were not told the full story of Sin.

........And the lesson of FFX is that they were wrong.

The entire point of FFX's story is that sacrificing your life without even looking for an alternative is stupid. Everyone praised the Summoners and their deaths because they falsely believed that if they did it enough times, Sin would be gone for good. Auron's entire plot is that he died trying to get revenge when he realized how senseless his friends' deaths were, and he spent the whole game nudging Yuna's party into seeing the truth. When Yunalesca makes it perfectly clear that sacrifices will NEVER make Sin go away, the party renounces the entire system of sacrifice and resolves to find another way. And to put emphasis on this point, Yuna is likewise upset that Tidus sacrificed himself without warning her, and multiple times when someone offers to sacrifice their lives as a solution, Yuna shoots them down immediately and tries to find another way.

You picked probably the WORST miniseries in the franchise to cherry-pick here.

Noctis in FFXV saved the entire world by sacrificing his life after having enjoyed a relatively privileged life up until the invasion of Insomnia.

Yeah, and it's hinted throughout the story (as well as the entire point of every DLC after) that the entire sacrifice was a rigged game set up by the start by the corrupt gods of the FFXV world. Noctis sacrificed himself to save the world, specifically because human lives were being used as playthings. His sacrifice is more tragic than it is heroic, and the DLC make the argument that it probably shouldn't have happened that way.

Need I go on?

Considering your examples thus far disprove your point, I think you should.