What was the point of Lyse?

[TheSuperior]

Being white and marketable.

[Necrotica]

Being white and marketable.

I will never deny that Lyse is good looking. Just think we could have kept Yda.

[Theodric]

I quite liked Yda as she was initially introduced. The dynamic with Papalymo worked rather well and not only added some much needed flavour to the Scions it helped to have a 'lovable idiot' in the group who served the important role of an audience surrogate to have concepts explained to her by the much more straight talking Papalymo.

We also already had Widargelt and Arenvald in play if the writers wanted to lean more heavily into characters who were more directly tied to Ala Mhigo. It felt strange to me that they chose to pull out the 'Yda was actually dead all along and I'm not actually her' card with Lyse. Especially when after Stormblood concluded Lyse ended up fading into the background.

I liked her moments with Hien and their discussions regarding the burden of leadership, at least. Though my character started in Gridania so Yda and Papalymo were the Scions I met first and the ones that stood out to me the most as a result.

[Brightamethyst]

This always felt odd to me too. Papalymo's death was supposed to set Lyse free to be her own character separate from Yda but that whole plot point ultimately went nowhere. Literally nothing would have changed if they just had Yda leave the scions to join the resistance. Instead we were left scratching our heads trying to figure out a new character for no good reason.

[Cleretic]

I wonder if Necrotica's just going down a list of things to sling crap about at this point. This one's sadly not even that contrarian, though, so it's far less interesting than her other ones.


I do prefer to chew on this more as a metatextual approach, though; why did Stormblood need Lyse, specifically? And honestly, I think it's because Yda would've been completely incapable of carrying a serious story, and yet... well, they couldn't do Stormblood without her, because she's the only (surviving) Ala Mhigan in the Scions. Sidelining her for Stormblood would've been like doing an entire story about Louisoix and then just not inviting his grandkids.

Now, did they stick the landing on that? No, not specifically, but I wouldn't say they fell flat on their face. Lyse doesn't actually drag Stormblood down at all, her only crime is really just that she doesn't manage to be as interesting as any of the people around her. As far as Scion proximity she's mostly around Alisaie being a much louder hothead that generally appeals closer to an aesthetic the audience tends to like. In Doma she's overshadowed by Gosetsu, Hien, the entire Azim Steppe, and to a lesser extent Yugiri. And when we get to Ala Mhigo... she's sharing a stage with goddamn Raubahn, and Raubahn is such a commanding entity that every single other person sharing a scene with him by default becomes a supporting role.

That kinda makes for a situation where she just doesn't make a strong enough case for herself to counteract the people who are turning up with an axe to grind. If it makes sense, she's not a bad character, but she's also not a strong enough good character to eclipse the people who say she IS a bad character.

[Carin-Eri]

I quite liked Yda as she was initially introduced. The dynamic with Papalymo worked rather well and not only added some much needed flavour to the Scions it helped to have a 'lovable idiot' in the group who served the important role of an audience surrogate to have concepts explained to her by the much more straight talking Papalymo.

We also already had Widargelt and Arenvald in play if the writers wanted to lean more heavily into characters who were more directly tied to Ala Mhigo. It felt strange to me that they chose to pull out the 'Yda was actually dead all along and I'm not actually her' card with Lyse. Especially when after Stormblood concluded Lyse ended up fading into the background.

I liked her moments with Hien and their discussions regarding the burden of leadership, at least. Though my character started in Gridania so Yda and Papalymo were the Scions I met first and the ones that stood out to me the most as a result.

That's a really good point actually, and I do feel that the Scions, on the whole, became a little less interesting as a result.

I can't help but feel that the Scions needed a 'Yda' to add flavor to an otherwise predictable dish.

[Kesey]

I wish this topic would be put bed. Lyse isn't perfect, but makes sense through the character development through the story.

First off, and most importantly, she narrates the story of Stormblood. But it's not enough that she narrates, she uses a tone as if she is addressing someone--that someone is Fordola. She is essentially retelling the tale of how the journey to retake Ala Mhigo has taught her to change and why she couldn't put Fordola to the sword. All those times she is in the background of the story, the msq has you go talk to her and let her reflect on what is going on. She has the personal character growth that's essential to story telling that none of the other characters involved can even touch.

Next, the argument that she isn't Yda is ironic because no one who has played this game since ARR has even met Yda. The Yda you know is Lyse. Yda is literally the immature version of Lyse because they are the same character. So if you like Yda, you like Lyse. They aren't two people if we are stuck behind the lens of the player, which we all are.

They even explain in universe why her identity needed to be hidden. The real Yda died escaping with refugees from Ala Mhigo. Lyse survived but since she and Yda were the children of the leader of the first Ala Mhigian Revolution, they were branded as war criminals by the empire. Luckily Yda had been accepted to the studium in Old Sharlayan, which would protect her from persecution, so Lyse took her sister's place.

Now, I know her existence as Lyse feels like a retcon and frankly it is. But that doesn't mean they did a poor job with her character. The failing is in the story craft, where Doma areas were more developed than Ala Mhigo areas, the narration requires critical thinking instead of just plopping the character revelation in your lap, and often her moments with the WOL were introspective and reflective of her thinking about what she needed to become (although justifiable to the character, too much of it can become underwhelming pretty fast).

I'm also sure not being a real "dancer" also didn't help her case either, as portion of the player base was jaded from the trailer.

But at this point can we let it go? This was 2 expansions ago.

[Jaquan]

Personally as someone who just finished Stormblood I can't say I really care about Lyse? Unless you start in Gridania your interaction with Papalymo and Lyse will be very limited. There's also an issue in HW where both Thancred and Y'shtola are given some time to establish themselves in a slower moments (Y'shtola's training with Motoya, Thancred's guilt over his past mistakes) but by the time we reunite with Papalymo and Yda the game pushes the duo into the background and keeps them there until the grand finale. As a result both Papalymo's death and Lyse's reveal feel flat because... We barely spent time with those two compared to the rest of the main cast. For pete sake we were given better grasp and freaking Urianger who keeps himself to the background than those two. I genuinely felt "Ok, and?" when the reveal happened made even less impressive when rest of Scions went "we already knew". Throughout the Stormblood her self righteousness (though to be fair most of the core cast shared that trait) and inability to grasp why would the villagers not flock to the rebels (especially painful in Ala Mhigo who just lost most of their youths to Ilbert's madness) just wore me down on her really fast.

[Necrotica]

I have fans!!

Thank you all! I appreciate your love and support and will do everything I can to continue bringing enjoyable topics for interesting group discussions.

[Hurlstone]

It did feel rather strange and overly sudden what they did with Yda becoming Lyse so quick. Would have been different had we teh WoL actually known the OG Yda, or even had a build up to her and who she was to everyone in the Scions, but it just seemed to come from nowhere. Feels like the writers felt like they wanted us to have a main travelling character who had a connection with Ala Mhigo, but felt Yda was not serious enough a character and so had to do a quick switch-a-roo to try and make her more ‘serious’. Its a strange way they handled all that…

That said, when it comes to Stormblood itself I did like what with Lyse and showing her grow into a leader over the story. Its one of the reasons why I like the expansion so much really, and despite it being her swan-song from the Scions I hope she does not disappear for good. It was nice seeing her in Endwalker, but that just felt like a cameo.