Quote Originally Posted by Mansion View Post
Thank you, you say it very well. I am in the same situation with Emet too, and also Graha to some degree. To me the problem with FFXIV writing is that it can be very one-dimensional and while it doesn't bother me most of the times, it was too much of that throuhout Dawntrail (Wuk Lamat is like that but so are the bad guys).
I wouldn't call a lot of it 'one-dimensional' per se, but I think that you're observing something similar to what I have, that FFXIV has always been willing to write parts and characters to one single purpose, and to just make them really good at that purpose. Historically my examples have always been Vauthry and Nidhogg; they are little more than the things they appear to be right from the first moment you see them, but that's okay, because their role doesn't need anything deeper. Dawntrail has one of those, and I'd say it's Zoraal Ja; he's a brick-simple character, but he knocks the one thing he is right out of the park.

Wuk Lamat and Koana are a similar-but-different thing; they're characters with very loud and broad initial archetypes that are never really changed or proven wrong, but the characters are proven to be deeper than that. It is a very 'theater' approach to writing a character, so I'm not surprised that's part of Hiroi's background, but I feel like there's distinct shades of shonen anime in it, too, which often have a very similar approach to characterization; pretty much the entire internet has seen the Naruto-style protagonist vibes in Wuk Lamat, but I'd also point out Koana has big Seto Kaiba energy, that 'self-assured genius with a plan for everything' style. Zero's very similar, too.

Quote Originally Posted by honest_psycho View Post
Yes, you finally admit that the player has too less of a role.
This is literally in no way the point I was making, and you know that. I meant things like 'I don't like Emet-Selch or his story, but I like how Shadowbringers never gives us a clear depiction of any of what he exalts, we're always seeing either spectral forms or abstracted art pieces, while the things he fears and vilifies like the Terminus Beasts are very distinct and detailed'.

There are parts of the expansion that you will like, if you give yourself the leeway to appreciate them as they are, instead of declaring everything to be wrong, bad and the result of an entirely imagined rot at the head of the writing team.