Can 7.0 focus on a storyline without the philosophizing

[Eorzean_username]

Heck, the only thing that comes to mind is when Alphinaud is at first trying to get someone to roger up to be the new antecedent, but everyone settles on doing their "own" thing, which just winds up going right back to working together as a whole group anyway.

For about 4.5 seconds we had hints of actual tension between Thancred and Y'shtola over his delusional hopes of turning Ryne into Minfilia 2 in order to "undo" his own guilt about past events at the cost of someone else's childhood/life.

However, this was waved-away almost instantly, and then we went off to run around a temple with rabbit amazons (which was awesome, don't get me wrong).

Then it got briefly lampshaded when Y'shtola outright says, "Yeah, I'm not going with you to Amh Araeng, because I'll probably say something mean to Thancred along the way. Good luck out there."

And then it just resolved itself, through Thancred's own self-realisations while looking for rocks, and the fact that the plot diverted him off into a fakeout death while the actual moment that he'd been building towards for 20 years solved itself without his presence — obviating the need for anyone to actually confront him.

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And then... I guess everyone was deemed "solved" and "fixed", because I think everyone in the MSQ-crew pretty much became a homogeneous mass after that plot point was done.

Unless you count Alisae sometimes being "bored" by serious adult discussions, Alphinaud saying something HiLaRiOuSLy tactless, Urianger's emotional vulnerabilities being exploited again (and him being shamed for it), or G'raha trying to figure out how to friend you on Instagram... as "tension / conflict".