Betrayal and Wuk Lamat

[jadeharley]

That would make Erenville her accomplice though, since he is vouching for her good intentions.

Technically erenville is still a little suspicious. his 2 big story moments are helping us, total strangers, do espionage in sharlayan, and pointing us towards the aetherfont. I don't think he's untrustworthy, but he's a bit of a blank slate at the moment

my greatest fear is that they kill her off. and her betraying us would lead to that so pls, pls nooo

(my suspicion is that either one of the siblings wins and then shit hits the fan in a way that they have a very hard time handling even with our help)

this is my real fear i want to keep our new furry friend

[Eastwall]

It would be great if l can betray her and say "look, this is not personal"

[Supersnow845]

My whole point is that there is mutual interest.

Firstly there’s the whole thing about the sibling who wants to invade us if he wins the throne. In addition, we’re going because of the letter Krile has and promise of adventure. We also got involved in Azdaja’s whole thing because of a promise of adventure and accidentally broke something.

There’s more than one reason to motivate the WoL to go west and I don’t believe for a second they’d prefer to twiddle their thumbs in Sharlayan or dance in Limsa Lominsa when we’ve been invited to be an actual adventurer again in a place we’ve never been to before that is referenced by Emet-Selch in his last words to us with the potential for treasure while at the same time a potential invasion is at stake.

I’m not saying the WOL doesn’t want to explore the new world, I’m saying they have no stakes in attaching themselves to one particular person in the succession conflict and currently the reasoning to even help anyone is the paper thin promise by wuk that someone else in the conflict want to invade the 3 great continents

As it stands right now the WOL would be perfectly justified taking the boat to the new world then going “bye b****** I’m going to go exploring, figure the conflict out yourself”

They are going to have to do a lot more to actually draw the WOL in as an active participant given they are trying to write the WOL recently as actively hesitant to throw themselves into political conflicts as a human weapon for one side or the other

[Boblawblah]

My head canon for my WOL is that she's excited about the adventure and meeting new people, and doesn't particularly care about the politics and succession of Tural. I think the final scene with the WOL remembering Emet Selch's words to them and smiling show that perfectly.

Seeing new things and helping people is what drives my WOL and I think this is a perfect opportunity to do both.

[Supersnow845]

The WoL has not agreed to help Wuk Lamat. Per our conversation with G'raha, we are traveling to Tural in our capacity as Azem to seek new horizons, and also to form an opinion for ourselves. Everyone in here is acting like the WoL has already decided when they gave us a whole cutscene (and even dialog options) about how we have not.

And I didn’t say they had, I said currently the WOL really has no justification to pick a side, that may change going forward but right now it’s a weak as hell hook especially since the current direction of the story is setting up wuk as the “default” option so to speak

We haven’t actively agreed to help Wuk but right now nobody in the succession conflict has done anything to actually give the WOL a reason to help, and I highly highly doubt we are going to pick nobody

[Supersnow845]

I am sure the first two zones where they do the whole "pick which one you wanna visit first" will be all about learning about Tural and considering Wuk Lamat's offer.

Obviously, we aren't going to be given an actual choice, but I'm still of the mind that the whole "contest for succession" is a red herring that will be done away with by the first trial. I know people have their grievances with the game on this forum, but they've been writing a (often better than not) narrative for well over a decade now. I really have no reason to suddenly treat them like amateurs.

I mean observing the parts of the conflict or even the reasons of the characters should have been the 6.1-6.5 story with the void quests being the trial storyline (which is obviously what it was designed to be)

Right now we are coming off 2 years of a bad parody of a side story being the MSQ providing no lead up to DT (remember how many theories went around and how much graha pulling the scions into the first set the playerbase off during 4.4-4.58) then they plan to potentially waste 1/4 of the main DT setting up plot threads for a conflict that should have been fully set up by now

You can argue the succession conflict is a red herring and I wouldn’t be surprised if you were right, but that still leaves us in the current position we have no good hook for DT because the WOL hasn’t really agreed to do anything (and still won’t fully embrace their role as Azem)

[Zaniel]

The obvious rationale is that she is politically incompetent (naive?) and hence all the local powers and figures are already in the pocket of her competitors. So overseas mercenaries are just her only remaining option to avoid being surrounded by traitors. Personally I think her current personality and showing is mildly annoying/bland but we'll just have to let Dawntrail unfold before casting too many judgements.

I did NOT like when talking with G'raha about this I made sure I was pretty specific to choose the "I don't like getting involved in politics" option but then the next moment I'm in boots first as her best bud. They should have had a more gradual "I'll come to the New World and sus out what's going on before I commit" intro, like how your conversation with G'raha went. The WoL has always stayed as distant as possible from taking sides in politics (eg the 3 city states) until it became obvious who was clearly good or bad.

[Jojoya]

Do we really know Erenville any better than we knew Ilberd?

And also, note that Erenville doesn't seem particularly enthusiastic about Wuk's plan. He's been busy being a gleener, and may not be current on Wuk Lmat's doings; it's possible she's is using him, too.

Why stretch things into some sort of grand conspiracy theory?

SE's made it clear that Erenville can be trusted as far as the Scions are concerned. Erenville is a long time friend of Wuk Lamat and is the one who recommended us as her support.

Both Erenville and Wuk are insistent that there's a third party in the contest that can't be permitted to win because they would bring war not just to Tural but to Eorzea, Ilsabard, the Far East and beyond.

The only thing I will say is that I think this is a contest that Wuk and the WoL will lose, though with the satisfaction of the mentioned feared 3rd party not winning either. I have a feeling the winner is going to be the other party that studied in Old Sharlayan and that Wuk also mentioned.

[Supersnow845]

Why stretch things into some sort of grand conspiracy theory?

SE's made it clear that Erenville can be trusted as far as the Scions are concerned. Erenville is a long time friend of Wuk Lamat and is the one who recommended us as her support.

Both Erenville and Wuk are insistent that there's a third party in the contest that can't be permitted to win because they would bring war not just to Tural but to Eorzea, Ilsabard, the Far East and beyond.

The only thing I will say is that I think this is a contest that Wuk and the WoL will lose, though with the satisfaction of the mentioned feared 3rd party not winning either. I have a feeling the winner is going to be the other party that studied in Old Sharlayan and that Wuk also mentioned.

I mean why not stretch it into a conspiracy theory, the bloody banquet is arguably the high water mark of anything prior to ShB (HW’s story is overall better but lacks a key single moment like this that pulls it all together)

Court intrigue is a fun topic to many and arguably what yoshi p is most well known for in his vision for FF as a collective

the problem is simply there isn’t enough hooks for DT’a story as it is because they didn’t set it up in the post patch story like they did every expansion before it

[Bun_Vivant]

Why stretch things into some sort of grand conspiracy theory?

SE's made it clear that Erenville can be trusted as far as the Scions are concerned. Erenville is a long time friend of Wuk Lamat ...

Why not stretch it out into some sort of grand conspiracy theory?

SE made it clear that Raubahn could be trusted as far as the Scions are concerned. Ilberd was a a long time friend of Raubahn ...

Anyway, the key issue for me is:

Why can't Wuk find enough support at home, and therefore has to come to foreigners like us?
What do her own people know about her that we don't?

Also, note the character of the Scions on Wuk's side versus the Scions that aren't. The ones with a lot of experience with subterfuge and plots (Thancred, Urianger) are no joining Wuk's cause. I think that says something.

On a differnet note: In an earlier post somone mentioned the mystery woman at the top of the heap-of-characters in the Dawntrail poster. In the Endwalker poster, Hydaelyn occupies that spot; in Shadowbringers poster it's Ryne. Conclude whatever you like from that.

Furthermore, Erenville is left-top, which is aproximately where Zenos and Emmet-Selch are in the earlier posters. Conclude what you like from that too.

Poster Links: ShB | EW | DT