Quote Originally Posted by Malthir View Post
So I give you actual examples of poor writing and your response is "Nuh uh, that's just your opinion.". I don't feel like it has no subtlety, it has no depth, everything is 2D. You're told how to feel in direct lines to the audience, like being shown a laugh sign in a live audience show...
I mean, you're trying to pass it off as objectively bad by using aspects of literary theory and criticism. But nothing about literary criticism is objective and it never has been.

Literary standards have changed multiple times over the centuries. Some things that were once accepted as the "right way" to do things have fallen out of favor, and things that were once considered average, controversial, or bad, are now hailed as cornerstones of literature. Not to mention the fact that for every "rule" that there is about good writing, it can be subverted by someone that decides to purposefully break convention.

I'm not saying that I view Dawntrail as a literary masterpiece or anything like that and I think that most people would agree with that, but using literary analysis doesn't mean that your viewpoint suddenly becomes objective. It's still ultimately, just an opinion. Pacing, characterization, subtext, prose; those are all things that people will not necessarily agree upon. Just because you interpreted the characterization as flat, that does not mean that everyone will.

I'm not here to change your opinion, because I don't really care to do so. But just as an example to show how subjective opinions like that are, I'll pick on the "Wuk Lamat and Erenville are childhood friends" bit you posted earlier. From my standpoint, I'm wondering why you need some sort of overt gesture in game to show you that? And why do you think the dialogue doesn't show it?

I think that it's very clearly shown in the way that they speak to each other, and in their presence around each other despite their different personalities. I have outwardly mismatched friends just like that IRL, and we have had, and will continue to have very similar interactions to the ones that Wuk Lamat and Erenville have. I found their rapport with each other to be immediately relatable and fitting for their personalities, so I don't need a character arc just to convince me that they're old friends. I would have viewed that as kind of redundant and may have wondered why we needed that to be reinforced when it was already so obvious.