Quote Originally Posted by Loggos View Post
I'm glad you brought these points up because I see it in a similar way.

I don't actually agree with the thread's premise that Wuk ruined DT.

Imo she isn't a bad character in principle. The idea of an unprepared royal heir trying to shoulder a burden far too big her for in order to help her people, and then maturing into this role over the course of a satisfying journey is a compelling premise in my eyes.
(And I think she has a very cool and well-conceived visual character design, too.)

If written well this could have been a really fun story.

But that's the problem, the overall writing of DT is abyssmal and this affects everybody, not just Wuk. But since Wuk is so important she will obviously turn into the most grating reflection of the writers' terrible performance. As a result, people may be inclined to attribute the cause of the disaster that is DT's story to her.
But at a closer look I don't think that's fair towards the character.

It's like the writers got handed an interesting idea and thought "how can we make this as obnoxious as possible? Oh right by cramming the worst parts of any shonen anime's protag into one person and amping the cringe up by 1000%."

Wuk Lamat was a promising MC who got completely sabotaged by the incompetence of FF14's writers' room.
It makes me mad to think what we could have had. She deserved better than that.
I think this is what I can agree with, her character itself isn't entirely the issue. I believe it's the pacing and writing itself. Being at the level 96-ish part of the story I think watching her grow into her role has only solidified my fondness for her. Honestly I think the characters with the least amount of depth come from the other claimants. They just sort of throw a highly generic trope at them that drives their entire personality regardless of how absolutely insane their actions might seem to make the point. Even with some of them having revealed their reasons, it just feels like a stretch IMO.