Ardbert's Party vs the Scions Analysis

[Brinne]

If there was a topic or active discussion regarding "how we felt about the Scions [in EW or otherwise]," it would probably be interesting - and my personal critiques would possibly stack to the moon. Discussing media like this, I've felt for a long time, and have said so in context of other works, that all one can do is speak for oneself and elaborate on the reasoning behind why one feels that way. That has value for both myself as someone trying to work out my own thought processes (and where my subjective biases lie, and how my brain works) and try to make sure I'm reading carefully - and for other people, in that it can hopefully clarify their own perspective for them in some way or another. This might be through persuasion, or continued conversation, or even simply making it clear to a different person "yeah, I don't agree with this at all." Ideally, growth and insight all around! One of the best outcomes for fiction in terms of audience response!

I include, potentially, the writers in terms of "hopefully my expressing my personal thoughts and responses clarifies things for other people, too." As far as things I really can't stand, such as Venat and how she was handled, my (faint) hope has always been: I hope that if I point out what the writers did in terms of what they produced and the aspects of it I found painful and repulsive, it means something to them and they might say "no, now that you point this out, we didn't want to do that, actually." There's no "you better listen to me or else" ultimatum I can reasonably offer beyond, like, my own monthly charge of fifteen dollars. Trying to do otherwise is empty posturing and really obvious attempted rhetorical sleight of hand. It's entirely in SE's hands to take my small piece of feedback in aggregate with everyone else's and make decisions based on where opinions as a whole are trending.

If you truly want to have a discussion centered around "the fanbase feels like this" or "most people feel like this", or speculating on future developments based on general fan response, that's an entirely different conversation and one that necessarily asks for a reference to data. And most of the "data" we have available puts forth that the majority of the Scions - Alphinaud, Alisaie, G'raha, Estinien, probably even Urianger - are well liked. Thancred and Y'shtola don't do as well as the others, for better or worse.