Wuk Lamat is the worst and most annoying character ever in this game

[Avoidy]

I usually do not like Graha, but he was somewhat bearable in 6.55. He seemed a lot more subdued and more like his crystal exarch side, and that was preferable to the incessant fanboy gushing in earlier chapters.

As for Wuk Lamat, I'm neutral. I barely know this character. And that's kinda what makes the plot surrounding her seem so rushed and stupid, like ... some lady we don't even know just pulls up and asks us to tip the scales so her group can gain power in a country we've never even been to. And when we ask for more info, she basically tells us "my side good. other side bad" and we just nod and agree. Followed, of course, by a post-credits fanservice sequence of scion characters signing on to join up. If the job of 6.55 was to hype me for Dawntrail, it didn't succeed at all for me.

The deeper we get into this, the more I feel like the Zero arc was such a mistake if it was going to be self contained. We could've had a slow boil of rising conflicts escalating from that region, originating from that guy who Wuk is so opposed to. In 6.1 maybe we could've dealt with them stirring the pot in Garlemald or something, idk, and in 6.2-6.5 maybe we're just constantly dealing with seemingly unrelated skirmishes and international incidents that keep leading back to this mysterious warmonger in a region we've never been to, and with each update the casualties rise and the conflicts escalate and there's mounting pressure to figure out who's the madlad behind it. And THEN in 6.55, we meet Wuk who reveals that she not only knows who that man is, but that he's vying for the throne and she's actively opposed to him and needs our help to prevent him from obtaining more power. And this way it doesn't feel like we're just trusting some stranger and rushing into a conflict that barely concerns us. Idk, it's just a thought. So much time was spent on Zero and on exploring her doomed shard, and for what? Watch it never get mentioned again. We could've had a buildup into the next expansion instead. I keep wondering who's in charge of this game's story pacing because it's so hit or miss. Post-shb was great from 5.1-5.3 and then fell off hard leading into EW imo. And all of post-EW was just a huge miss imo and failed to setup 7.0 at all. I wouldn't even care because "imagine expecting good storytelling in an mmo," except they keep branding FF14 as an FF game first and an MMO second, so why is the writing so weird here? I've played other FF games and they can pace themselves really well and tell an engaging story. This right here, feels like a Naruto filler arc. It's just unrelated stuff happening until something new comes along to happen and at the moment it feels hella disconnected.

Didn't mean to go on so much. I think Wuk has potential to be a very interesting character but I don't think the writers in charge of DT will utilize her well at all and I don't think there's going to be any setup or payoff in this expansion if post-ew and 6.55 are any indication. I wish to god they'd just put Ishikawa in a room and let her cook up some more of that DRK kino only for dawntrail instead, because she can at least craft an interesting lead-in and a satisfying conclusion. We already got an introduction to our opposition and we just kind of agree to help Wuk based on hunting with her once and deciding that she's a nice person. Kinda grim if this is how the rest of DT is gonna go. Of course, there's always room for this to change. Many many jRPGs will establish a status quo only to turn it on its head (hell, final fantasy 10 does this; 14 does it too, quite often) so I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just not hopeful based off of the last two years and seeing who's in charge of the writing for dt.