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

[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.