Character disconnect and disappointing Player Agency in Dawntrail's MSQ [Spoilers]

[Karkarov]

I really liked the story, but I understand why some didn't.
...Our imporance in Dawntrail was as a mentor figure for Wuk Lamat, a character going through a pretty classic coming of age story. We basically got to be what Thancred was to Ryne, and I don't think many would say Thancred was pointless in that story arc. Likewise, the fact all these people's problems would be kinda solved on their own isn't the point (and also isn't true, the resolution of blessed siblings and the redemption of Bakool Ja would *definitely* not have happened without Wuk Lamat being there with some lessons she learned from the WoL, and that is a major status quo change for the nation), the point is that it illustrates a philosophy the game has about leadership through Wuk Lamat learning it. Its... honestly a pretty basic narrative, "the test is a lesson," but it is a tried and true narrative and saying "the story would be the same if everyone failed the test because everyone actually didn't strictly need help" strikes me as very poor media literacy, because the vast majority of stories are about characters learning and growing and have events that would not really be important to resolve if not for the characters. ...

Where in this story do you mentor jack? You don't ever once give any advice or say anything the other characters act on. You are just there to "agree with Wuk Lamat". The only time in the MSQ you get a chance to disagree with her, you are immediately overruled by the scions and told point blank... "We should do what Wuk Lamat want's, after all we are only here to support her."

[dezzmont]

Where in this story do you mentor jack? You don't ever once give any advice or say anything the other characters act on. You are just there to "agree with Wuk Lamat". The only time in the MSQ you get a chance to disagree with her, you are immediately overruled by the scions and told point blank... "We should do what Wuk Lamat want's, after all we are only here to support her."

I don't have that recollection of the character at all. In fact, I would say Wuk Lamat's main flaw in the first half of the story is that she is an extremely passive character that you, the Scions, and Erenville (especially Erenville) to actually keep her on task. You need to lead around to accomplish anything, and her contributions are pretty minor (Thinking the festival is the important bit, and having a supporter during the trading questline).

Like Erenville's entire character for most of the first third of the story is 'Wuk Lamat wrangler.' She is portrayed as pretty seriously flawed early on and constantly goes to the WoL and has dialogue choices that amount to "I am unsure of how to do this" or "I lack confidence" and you basically get an (admittedly pretty basic) set of responses like 'Think about the people who depend on you' or whatever, or they do the thing where you silently talk and she goes 'oh that is good advice.'

If that didn't land for you, its fine, but I think its disingenuous to say 'There is literally no way you could interpret your character as having a mentorship relationship with this character' when the king *explicitly* asks you to have one. Like its not nothing, obviously, its literally not even subtext, its the literal text of the story.

I will say one other thing I do think is a legit problem with Wuk Lamat though, she gets way too much voiced screentime. I actually liked the voice actress, but even though most of the characters do contribute a lot all over the story, the fact that a lot of the moments where everyone is working together to solve a problem is unvoiced while the times where Wuk Lamat is having a moment are voiced does mean she is very 'over exposed' in this expansion.

[EusisLandale]

If that didn't land for you, its fine, but I think its disingenuous to say 'There is literally no way you could interpret your character as having a mentorship relationship with this character' when the king *explicitly* asks you to have one. Like its not nothing, obviously, its literally not even subtext, its the literal text of the story.

Wrangling a 7 foot tall toddler does not really equate to mentoring anything, even with them trying to use that word. We're babysitters.