The Negative Impact of Poor Character Writing on the Quality of Dawntrail's MSQ

[duckorz]

This is masterfully put. I went into this expansion with a lot of hope and tried my best not to criticize anything until I had the full story, from start to credit roll. And yes, there were nuggets of concepts that I really enjoyed. But for every bit of enjoyment, there was a very bitter pill to swallow along with it:

I liked the idea of the rite of succession as a trial, but not only did they condense these 'trials' into the most mundane acts of fetch quest nonsense, but they also stretched everything way too thin by making them require SEVEN keystones. It should have been one per zone, maximum. To call the first half of this expansion a meandering slog is putting it lightly. It will be fun watching streamers as they start to stream the MSQ and their live reactions to the merciless drudgery this expansion puts you through.
I really liked Bakool Ja Ja as a character, but like others have mentioned in these forums, his motivations and acts during the trial did not align in any way.
I wanted to enjoy Wuk Lamat's growth as a character, but there were never any moments of growth. She just skated by on luck, relying on the WoL, or deciding that she was good enough as is.
The most unforgiveable aspect of it all is the utter disrespect for the Scions as characters this expansion. I would've much preferred to see them all left behind in the old world rather than see them so pathetically underutilized as bland servants to Wuk Lamat/Koana.

I think what makes me sad about it all is that there was a lot of potential here but it was just completely mishandled. And now, despite how good the writing may be in the future, there is now a second unavoidable "Stormblood" for people to try to slog through in an attempt to get their friends to join them in the 500 hour MSQ journey to future expansions. Except this one dwarfs any other expansion in size.

One of the biggest red flags for me was when I totally expected the stuff with Solution 9 and its invasion to interrupt the succession plot before we got all 7 keystones, which then just... didnt happen...? It's so obvious, so straightforwardly more compelling, that it was the prediction I was by far the most certain about. There was just going to be no way that we just did all 7 trials in a straightforward fashion with no complication along the way (No, Valigarmanda really doesn't count, here, because there are LITERALLY ZERO CONSEQUENCES FOR IT BEING RELEASED). And then it happened. Wuk Lamat just became Dawnservant, I got the Dawntrail orchestrion roll, and that was it. Everyone's happy, plot over, let's go to Texas to find a bracelet. Shadowbringers recognized this potential issue with its Lightwardens and introduced regular, significant twists and breaks in structure to keep the pacing tight and the narrative intriguing. I mean, they succeeded in expectations by making it completely straightforward and instead shoving all of Solution 9 and its nonsensical plot into the very end of the MSQ, but I don't really think it was a good subversion.

I still struggle to understand why Zoraal Ja was even involved with Solution 9 as an antagonist at all. Yeah, yeah, because he wanted power and Solution 9 had power. I get that's what the story tells me and wants me to just go along with. But structurally its just nonsensical and totally ineffective. Why did Sphene just give him total authority over everything? Why not just take the key from him if thats what she needed? Why did Zoraal Ja even feel this was necessary to prove his point? Did he do all of this *just* to prove a point? Why am I watching this fisher price Arbiter transforming into a completely different character all of a sudden with an even more utterly incomprehensible motivation than he had before he went into the portal? What on earth is happening?