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

[ggreeencake]

First I wanted to say, thank you for this post! This is my first post on the ff forums as well but I thought I had to say something in response ^^ I've just recently finished Dawntrail (a week ago exactly, in fact) and did my best to avoid any opinions & takes on it whether it be from twitter, reddit, shout chat(LOL) or anywhere else because I wanted to form my own opinion of the expansion going in. A lot of what managed to leak through that I did see were the "arguments" that you addressed at the start that were kind of just not really going anywhere in their discussion of the expansion, so I didnt really pay them any mind. I'm glad you highlighted that haha. That being said, having finished it I've been rotating Dawntrail in my head ever since trying to properly articulate to myself what I liked about it, what I thought it did well, and what I thought it completely dropped the ball on. I don't really have much to say on your point regarding the characterisation of the Scions or Wuk Lamat throughout the expansion other than that I agree with some parts, and disagree with others, but thats not really what I want to get at. While I did like that the Scions had kind of stepped back to take a more supporting role after how much spotlight they got in Endwalker (with the exception of Y'shtola which... I just won't get into that lest I get sidetracked), it did kind of feel like they had stopped being individual characters especially nearing the end.

What I actually want to talk about the most in response is your mentioning the tried and true method of writing a good story: showing and not telling, because to me what really started to just lose me in Dawntrail was the way certain moments in the expansion that were supposed to be emotional just kind of fell flat to me. Either that or I just simply didn't care. This is mostly in regards to the latter half, say around where the Rite of Succession concludes. I can think of two specific moments in Dawntrail where the writing does an excellent job of being not only more interesting, but also very expertly shows the audience over just flat out saying it. One of these moments is one you mentioned already with G'raha in the gondola. Admittedly I was a bit weary after Endwalker that he was just going to say another platitude about how happy he is to be on an adventure with WOL, and I was also a bit annoyed that he was about to get a standout scene where I thought Erenville was being tossed to the wayside to angst, but it ended up being possibly one of the most important scenes in the expansion to me. But you already said why this is so, so I won't rehash your points...! It was a very good way to develop his character, something they are clearly struggling to do with the Scions with them having been along for so long, which just makes me wonder why its so hard for them to do this. Y'shtola has literally become less of a character and more of a means to just get anything having to do with reflections accomplished OFFSCREEN... it makes no sense.

(continuing in next post bc character limit lol)

[ggreeencake]

The other scene is the one where Krile's mother hands her over to Galuf. The irony of this being a good SHOW moment is that there is almost little to no dialogue, but you can immediately tell what is happening, that there's something wrong with the world they're coming from, their love for Krile, their hopes that by taking the chance on giving their baby to a complete stranger they can protect her from whatever it is they're running from, even the last moments where Krile's mother turns around to look at her one last time with tears in her eyes, I thought that scene was done INCREDIBLY WELL. It honestly stunned me. I dont know if others felt this way about it haha, but it really was one of the standout scenes in DT to me. It's a shame to me that in contrast, writing for Erenville's relationship with his mother is done so poorly. All we know about Erenville's mother at the start from NPCs like blue haired viera or Gulool Ja Ja or I guess Erenville himself just saying this is that Erenville used to get left behind while she ran off on adventures, and that she tasked him with finding the golden city while he was a kid. That's pretty much it? It gave me the impression his mother was kind of negligent, &I was curious to see what Erenville's thoughts on his mother were, if he resented her, or how he felt giving up on this incredible task he'd been given (and we never actually know what lengths he went to to even find it, it's just told to us that he tried and failed). I dont even know why he even cares about the golden city beyond it being like "his mother told him to find it" so whenever he mentioned it I didnt believe he actually cared. Then we get to Xak Tural, and inexplicably Erenville is punished by the narrative until the credits roll. His hometown, which I would've loved to see & have him show me around with a "This NPC Is Now Accompanying You" quest is ruined. His mother is turned into this...robot thing I can only assume is for merchandising purposes, then its revealed she's been dead all along & he has to be the one to kill her. With Krile, I felt like this was a justifiable way to end her meeting her parents, with Erenville it just felt cruel and unnecessary. There's no actual moments where we get a sense of Cahciua's relationship with Erenville (beyond being his mother and calling him her fuzzy little bun bun), and there's no apology for things I think justifiably should've made him angry at her. Erenville talks about his mother's blase attitude towards her upcoming deletion tearing him apart, but that's it, like we barely get to go around Living Memory with him or see anything relating to his past with her, he just tells us that he's sad about it and that's it. And then we ride capybaras in the sky, and I'm supposed to believe that this is a better adventure than travelling around Tural with the likes of GULOOL JA JA? JUST BECAUSE HER SON IS THERE? THE SON SHE WAS ALWAYS LEAVING BEHIND???? Please be forreal.

[Seiki_Kisaki]

I've only just gotten to Solution Nine, so I haven't read all the posts to avoid spoilers, but the section in Solution Nine was so incredibly awful, I just had to write this out before I go insane.

Never in my life have I seen an RPG fail at being an RPG through bad writing alone.

Sphene invited Wuk Lamat for a tour of Solution Nine, that's great, but... why on Hydaelyn's Star was the WoL going with them? During the entire tour, Sphene and Wuk Lamat practically flirted with each other, and occasionally talk AT you for a line or two. You're forced to being the 3rd wheel on this date and it's the most awkward thing in the world. The most insulting section was the "escort mission" where they talked to each other at every stop, with the WoL acting as a taximan getting them to places on their date.

So why was WoL there at all? So that the game can exposition at YOU, the player. That realization followed immediately by another one: YOU, at this time, are not a Player; the YOU on the screen that is supposed to be your Avatar, is not YOU; That avatar is simply a glorified Cameraman, and YOU, you are simply part of the Audience.

Never before in my life have I seen a "Role Playing" Game actively dissociate me from the character I play as. And I've played a LOT of RPGs, JRPGs especially, I'm a huge weeb. I can go along with almost any hare-brained plot in most games, the suspension of disbelief usually isn't an issue for me at all, and yet, here is where it failed. It not only soured Dawntrail for me, but realizing this has kind of made everything soured as well. This whole time, that character you've been pouring your time and effort into making your own? That's the studio's cameraman, you're just here to watch a movie, but thanks for taking care of the staff, I guess.

To be fair, all characters are essentially just the cameraman for the game studio to tell you a story, but it's always masked very well. The character you play as usually have an actually good reason to be there, so while "Role Playing" as them, you typically won't notice the issue. I'm no writer and didn't go to any writing school, the most I've gotten to writing is a DnD campaign I run for my friends, but isn't this one of the worst things you can ever do in a game? If this was a DnD Campaign, this whole section is like the DM forcing the players to come watch them role play as the DMPC (with massive main character syndrome) flirting with a new NPC, and the party's not allowed to progress the story unless you sit down and watch it all. It's the kind of thing that horrible DMs do to players, and hey SE, if you're listening, this kind of thing is usually what drives players to quit the table. The advice usually given to this type of DM, I feel is appropriate here as well: "Please, for the love of God, just write a book."

[Iskra]

The other scene is the one where Krile's mother hands her over to Galuf. The irony of this being a good SHOW moment is that there is almost little to no dialogue, but you can immediately tell what is happening, that there's something wrong with the world they're coming from, their love for Krile, their hopes that by taking the chance on giving their baby to a complete stranger they can protect her from whatever it is they're running from, even the last moments where Krile's mother turns around to look at her one last time with tears in her eyes, I thought that scene was done INCREDIBLY WELL. It honestly stunned me.

Ok agreed 100%, you actually reminded me of one of the few things in the msq that I actually really liked. Loved the silence when she was speaking, the whole thing kind of gave me goosebumps. Excellent scene

[SchrodingersWaffle]

Wuk Lamat, over the course of this expansion, where 98% of the main scenario quests involve you interacting with her in some way, has managed to become my least favorite and most hated video game character of all time. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the VA since I turned off the voice acting after the first five words during EW.

Before this I have never understood how people can viscerally hate characters but oh boy they certainly managed to teach me with this stupid cat.

My character has had no agency for this entire story. This is not The Warrior of Light coaches a young hero, this is Wuk Lamat And Her Special Guest The Former Warrior of Light.

I do not, EVER want to interact with this stupid cat ever again. I want her to vanish into the Dawnservant palace never to be seen again while I'm still in Tural.

I was promised a vacation Road Trip with the homies. I was LIED TO. How in the actual fuck this got the green light is beyond me. How the fuck did Ishikawa not read this and go "Yo, hol up." How did Yoshi-P not read this and go "YO, HOL UP."

This is, by far, the worst expac the game has ever had, and that includes 1.0.

[SchrodingersWaffle]

Dawntrail might as well be evidence that they don't know what to do with the Scions anymore. Especially those with their personal arcs resolved (Thancred, Urianger, Alphinaud, arguably Estinien)

Even disregarding the poor characterization direction in Dawntrail as a whole Urianger, for example, is completely off-character taking some mercenary job just because Thancred invited him. Nothing in how he was written as a character since his introduction in 1.X made him come across as someone who'd take the job as someone's bodyguard just for sake of it.

I'm very much in the camp of "Not retiring the scions as main characters after Endwalker was a mistake." To paraphrase Tolkien "Bilbo's part in the story was over, there'd be no more adventures for him. Save one."

[ggreeencake]

Ok agreed 100%, you actually reminded me of one of the few things in the msq that I actually really liked. Loved the silence when she was speaking, the whole thing kind of gave me goosebumps. Excellent scene

Not to be dramatic but this scene genuinely made me cry LOOOL! A shame the rest of the expansion didn't have many moments like that (and I'm saying this as someone that again, generally enjoyed Dawntrail overall). U__U

[ggreeencake]

You know, I hadn't actually thought about this before, but it's such a good point!! Dawntrail's writing is so obsessed with telling you exactly what to think and feel every few minutes and simply treating the characters like mouthpieces, that one of the only actually good and impactful scenes is because there is no dialogue, so those problems by the nature of the scene can't be present.

Right?! like if you think about it, had that scene gone in such a way where like, Krile's mother started talking to Galuf like "I want you to take my daughter and raise her as your own our world is in peril etc. etc." it would've been no where near as strong a scene... and yet for some reason a majority of the expansion is written that way TT__TT it makes no sense to me...

[ThorneDynasty]

Right?! like if you think about it, had that scene gone in such a way where like, Krile's mother started talking to Galuf like "I want you to take my daughter and raise her as your own our world is in peril etc. etc." it would've been no where near as strong a scene... and yet for some reason a majority of the expansion is written that way TT__TT it makes no sense to me...

I'm convinced there are scenes like that and the gondola ride that were handed off to an entirely different writer. That or he's actually a decent writer if they'd manage to kill their darlings, since neither involve Wuk Lamat in any way.

Like when he turns in his first draft, the director should look at whichever character has the most lines in the story and tell them, "okay, good, now rewrite it but without this character."

[Amakai]

Hard agree with most everyone here in this thread. DT was insanely lack luster to me and I was very disappointed with the story. I started skipping cutscenes every time it was just Wuk Lamat blabbering on and on. I really wish I could have picked who my WOL backed because it for sure was not going to be Wuk. I would have loved actually going up against Koana, Urianger and Thancred in a battle like it was implied before you even left for Tural. Both Thancred and Urianger saying they won't hold back against the WOL made me excited that we could get to fight them but the most we got was Thancred blocking the path in a dungeon :/

I was disappointed as hell with Krile and Erenville's "story" or rather complete lack of. I had gotten the impression from the trailer that they would be way more involved than they were and alas, as many said, they were just side lined till the very last area. I remember completing their sections and sitting there like "that's it? That's all we get for them????"

The areas are gorgeous, dungeons were fun and challenging, the new gear is awesome and lord almighty I want to live in Solution 9 so bad. Overall DT was very meh to me. The more Wuk showed up on screen, the more annoyed I became. I had taken time off work and my coworker asked me how I'd enjoyed the game. It was almost embarrassing to say that I *did not* enjoy it like I had with SHB or EW.