Unpopular opinion on G'raha Tia (spoilers)

[Midareyukki]

Personally I'm not the type who want characters to be killed once they complete their story. But I think the handled g'raha the wrong way. He shouldn't have received the Exarch's memory, only his soul if they really want to push the "Exarch doesn't really die you guys" narrative (even though it's unnecessary as well tbh). Let g'raha be g'raha, instead of this mess of a character.

I'm guessing they wanted G'raha to have natural progression. As in, it'd be too awkward for people spending an entire expansion and a half with G'raha as The Exarch to suddenly see him be his old energetic and investigative self.

The issue is that we're only given a glimpse of his Exarch self in Endwalker once. And that's when he steps up to tell the people of Radz to take shelter and calm their collective mammary glands.

Sure, he's always admired us. He's always wanted to have an adventure with us; he's had two of them. But he's not some puppy dog whose ears flare up at the mere mention of heroic figures. During the ARR raids, he struck me as someone who would have kept his cool, even if he was admiring the person. Now he's just an anime trope...

...just like making Y'shtola's younger self a magical girl...

It all just feels so unnecessary. He's such an interesting character who CAN offer a bit more if allowed, but his personality is just degraded and cliché. It's not sober.

I'll be honest, I fail to see his purpose. I understand his character and motivations, I just don't get his role in the group. Thancred is the big guy, Y'shtola is the smart Chick doubling as a power bomb, Urianger has become the smart guy Team Mom who teaches people to be kind and understanding of those they cannot comprehend at face value. Alisaie is our Lancer who Red Oni\Blue Oni's with her brother who's the team strategist and diplomat. Tataru is the Rowena and Krile is the older version of Alphinaud but with a more limited sphere of influence: she serves as liaison to some groups that the party can't just simply approach without rubbing anyone off. And we're the Hero, the designated party leader.
G'raha is... smart, yes. Investigative, but we already have 3 of those. He's strong, but not really a tank anymore, he's just combat-capable. What is he? Morality chain pet? Love interest\Emotional core? And what does he bring to the narrative? The experienced one who's seen Hell and can guide people through the darkest of times? Well, that's really only ever surfaced once since, if he's just gonna be like that all the time, then I worry for the people we meet.

[Iscah]

making Y'shtola's younger self a magical girl

There's a difference between "making her a magical girl" and showing her casting one spell magical-girl style, which is what we got.

For me, that is actually really relatable because it's her, as an adult, having to perform a chant she invented when she was seven years old. I can imagine the embarrassment if I had to do the same.

[aveyond-dreams]

There's a difference between "making her a magical girl" and showing her casting one spell magical-girl style, which is what we got.

For me, that is actually really relatable because it's her, as an adult, having to perform a chant she invented when she was seven years old. I can imagine the embarrassment if I had to do the same.

From my perspective it was a ridiculous scene that only made her character even more insufferable and added next to nothing. Yoship himself called it out as an example of going to far away from what her character is supposed to be. (What a pit that he never said the same of the many nonsensical scenes involving G'raha Tia.) The sole positive aspect of it was the English version's brief reprise of that VA's Titania voice, though that only brings the sting of the fact that aside from flying pigs the faeries have no further role to play in this story.

[Midareyukki]

There's a difference between "making her a magical girl" and showing her casting one spell magical-girl style, which is what we got.

For me, that is actually really relatable because it's her, as an adult, having to perform a chant she invented when she was seven years old. I can imagine the embarrassment if I had to do the same.

You are correct, of course. It was an one-off thing.

Yet it was unnecessary.

The point still stands: why are we portraying characters in different lights and showing off how over the top and expressive they can be when normally they're rather sober?

I understand it was just a singular note to display why Y'shtola was so uncomfortable, and how her younger self would act. Yet... it just doesn't fit the game? And now they're forcing these things into the game to make future additions fit. A sort of precedent case. But this caters to... who exactly? The game worked just fine without these things, I fail to see why Endwalker decided to double down on them.

Amusing, sure. But... If you fridge logic it, it's like... Why??

They could honestly use the resources they spend on these animations and effects for the characters and improve other things about the game, but that's a can of worms and a half, is it not?

[aveyond-dreams]

You are correct, of course. It was an one-off thing.

Yet it was unnecessary.

The point still stands: why are we portraying characters in different lights and showing off how over the top and expressive they can be when normally they're rather sober?

I understand it was just a singular note to display why Y'shtola was so uncomfortable, and how her younger self would act. Yet... it just doesn't fit the game? And now they're forcing these things into the game to make future additions fit. A sort of precedent case. But this caters to... who exactly? The game worked just fine without these things, I fail to see why Endwalker decided to double down on them.

Amusing, sure. But... If you fridge logic it, it's like... Why??

They could honestly use the resources they spend on these animations and effects for the characters and improve other things about the game, but that's a can of worms and a half, is it not?

I suspect this is supposed to cater to the Twitter fans who often portray their wols and Scions doing stuff like this. However, despite how loud they are I don't believe for a second that pandering to them is in the game's best interest, nor that they represent any sort of majority. FFXIV's core base is fantasy fans. That means give us a cast full of heroes we can get excited about that have unique characteristics to them - not the same character copypasted 7 times in different outfits. Adding jokes in poor taste and the other stuff we saw in Endwalker isn't conducive to that.

It's not an exaggeration when I say that the Scions are the worst Final Fantasy party in the entire franchise. I fully believe this. I would rather travel alone than be saddled with the likes of G'raha Tia and Y'shtola. Even Scions fans have reached the point where they realize that keeping characters around for longer than is reasonable doesn't represent anything good for the story. We need better and more unique characters. A brash, rough around the edges knight who likes drinking like Branden. A womanizing Bard or Rogue like Thancred in ARR, or magic users with tragic pasts and fates like Terra Brandford, Celes Chere, Yuna, and so on. Not more scholars from the same handful of races.

Side note, among further depictions of the Ancients and the events leading up to the Sundering, animation resources should probably be focused on female Hrothgar. Would love an Elezen animation rework at some point as well, practically no one is satisfied with the way they move and the person responsible for the state of them did not stay on the FFXIV team for long if what I heard is true.

[Iscah]

The point still stands: why are we portraying characters in different lights and showing off how over the top and expressive they can be when normally they're rather sober?

I understand it was just a singular note to display why Y'shtola was so uncomfortable, and how her younger self would act. Yet... it just doesn't fit the game?

Why doesn't it fit the game? Why shouldn't it?

Y'shtola can't be boring and stoic all the time. We spend a lot of time with these characters and I'm fine with seeing other aspects of them than serious all the time.

Edit to add: I feel like the difference may be that they're putting effort into properly cutscening some of the lighter bits of the script instead of burying them all in optional dialogue while saving the cutscenes purely for big serious stuff. One of my favourite, funniest bits of ARR's dialogue was trying to find the Scions in the Sylphlands with all the imposters about, but you'd miss most of that interaction if you just went through focused on following the MSQ marker, and now it's been swept away entirely in the editing process. A genuine loss to the story IMO.

[aveyond-dreams]

Why doesn't it fit the game? Why shouldn't it?

Y'shtola can't be boring and stoic all the time. We spend a lot of time with these characters and I'm fine with seeing other aspects of them than serious all the time.

You're right. Like more beloved heroines such as Yuna, Celes, and Garnet, she could have had a moment of emotional vulnerability that would have actually endeared us to her. Portraying her as mostly strong and a one-off quirky embarrassing moment isn't working. If I'm ever supposed to take this character seriously I want to see her cry, suffer, and potentially even die.

I want her to actually grow instead of being the same thing each expansion, defined more by fakeouts than any other of her personality traits that she shares with way too many other cast members. If this cannot be achieved, let her bow out of the story with grace. She is the only female character in this game that I despise more than Lyse. Not even Venat, as Mary Sue as she was, is anywhere close to being as detrimental to the story as Y'shtola's presence is.

[Midareyukki]

Why doesn't it fit the game? Why shouldn't it?

Because I'm the sort of person who enjoyed Thor: Dark World and hated Thor: Ragnarok. When you've established a game without blatant, cliché and forced comic relief that didn't feel natural and only made it look like an anime, moments like those are jarring.
When you go from comedy such as "Alphinaud yeets himself into the ocean", "Little Sun", "Urianger got lost in the sea because he too cannot swim" and you replace those with "Puppy dog catboy has a fanboy moment" and "level-headed woman devolves into an over-the-top girly girl", it isn't natural.

Y'shtola can't be boring and stoic all the time, you are 100% correct. My friends would get angry at me for pointing out how boring and stoic Y'shtola was. Since then she's come out of her shell, be more laid back, with mature humour that wasn't based on gags.

Again: it was amusing, but unnecessary.

Had this been a more natural occurrence, had she had better indications of this, it would have worked. Everyone else is often rather serious, and this would have worked just fine. But Y'shtola was on the extreme end. And going to these lengths on her without giving her a bit more natural cadence is an extreme measure.

We don't need the game to have such blatant and forced moments. If it wants cutesy stuff with sparkles and bubbly animations, we have that naturally in the MSQ. Again: other characters are also serious, yet this works better for them. Y'shtola just randomly whipping that out of her ass isn't.

G'raha is even worse. We knew this kid as energetic and hero-loving, being inspired by us and idolizing us. We see the natural progression of that after 100 years of going through actual hell and needing to guide an entire country through despair on the vague hope that one day his hero might come to him and help fix the mess. And now he's just... blushy blushy uwu fanboi. Slay, I guess?

And this is what I don't like in my stories and why I didn't like Thor: Ragnarok. I'm fine with comedy, and as I've stated before, I don't like it when characters are nothing but a serious face spouting knowledge without you having any more meaningful interaction. But when you go from that and don't capitalize on the sheer good humour that someone serious and stern can bring without devolving them into something cliché and immature*, it's JARRING. People liked these characters for a reason, and if others didn't, that should be fine. Not everyone likes Thancred or Urianger, and we have to respect that, don't we? So why must we make Y'shtola endearing to everyone else when she's already endearing to the people she's meant to be endearing to?
*I understand the whole point of the scene was to show Y'shtola's immature side when she WAS immature. Hence why I say G'raha is worse. The real issue is why we have that to begin with. Why are we so willing to accept that this anime-esque degradation is fine? And why is it that the only argument I've seen people say was "Why not?". That's not an answer.

But I know what you'll say. It's the same thing to critics of Thor: Ragnarok. "You just hate comedy". No. Just that not every comedy needs to be built on gags and be blatant. It can be subtle. It can be mature. It needs to fit the character and the story you're telling.