Wow, Wuk Lamat is really single-handedly ruining the DT story...

[Tekotako]

Just came to this thread to share some thoughts. I played through the story pretty quickly because I was enjoying myself so much. I thought the new lands were interesting, enjoyed the story, and grew attached to the new characters...especially wuk lamat. I was very surprised after I finished to hear how many people dislike her. It also makes me sad. Like...I want to be her bestie and go on adventures. Her and G'raha Tia are welcome in my trust anytime haha.

She was a little obnoxious at first and could be corny...but I appreciated that about her character and enjoyed her growth. Just a differing opinion. I don't think she ruined it at all. Some criticism I see people say is reasonable and I've had a few debates. Some people just seemingly hate her for no reason which is confusing. But I guess not everyone will always enjoy every character.

[Antharaes]

Just came to this thread to share some thoughts. I played through the story pretty quickly because I was enjoying myself so much. I thought the new lands were interesting, enjoyed the story, and grew attached to the new characters...especially wuk lamat. I was very surprised after I finished to hear how many people dislike her. It also makes me sad. Like...I want to be her bestie and go on adventures. Her and G'raha Tia are welcome in my trust anytime haha.

She was a little obnoxious at first and could be corny...but I appreciated that about her character and enjoyed her growth. Just a differing opinion. I don't think she ruined it at all. Some criticism I see people say is reasonable and I've had a few debates. Some people just seemingly hate her for no reason which is confusing. But I guess not everyone will always enjoy every character.

I am happy for you, really am. Always good to hear a different sound. Sadly I can't share your view of her. To me, she took so much away from Krile and Erenville, it simply is criminal. There are scenes, where she doesn't belong and even my rl cat knows her bounderies and has respect for my personal space. Not Wuk Lamat tho, she hoggs every spare moment we have, is annoying to a point it's nauseating. I have over 40 days left to play, came back after a 3 months break, will take another break till this is over.

Currently don't have the stomach to finish the MSQ, leveling a new character from scratch as we speak. Just to get away from that....

[Papayatar]

Disney princes was just a over the top comment.

That's what I'm saying. She went out and talked to people so why does she know nothing about them? Is she ignorant?
No, its because of bad writing. There is no deeper meaning besides that.
We absolutely do know that she did that, that she talked with people.
She knew the taco seller and the Mamool Ja next to him who also seleld food.
She knew the PeluPelu who crafted her axe.
When told at the beginning of the two guards that "they would like to keep coming to her and talk" she responded with "I wouldn't want to have it any other way because I love talking with my people" (in one form or another).
So she really actually interacted with her people before we arrived in DT otherwise they wouldn't be so lax about approaching her.

Yes Galool JaJa had a terrible aproach to the Dawnservant thing and made mistakes but no... the children not respecting the people and cultures are their own fault. These arent little children. They are short of adults.
They can and should think for themself even more so if tehy want to rule a country.

Aren’t all the people mentioned only within the city? Most of her interacting with people seemed like it was mainly with those who lived with Tulliyolal. She was approachable and sociable with the city people but other than, one time out with dad for Hanu Hanu festival and goes out for hunting, we’re not shown or told she’s done more than those things to interact with Tural citizens outside of Tulliyolal.

So theoretically the inside the city people, which are a melting pot, should be different than who’s outside. And if she had interacted with people outside the city she could have said more things like, the Hanu Hanu in the city love tacos but outside the city reeds a main food staple. But if I’m remembering correct she only has surface knowledge of everyone at best, and at worst she knows nothing and Erenville filled in the gaps for her.

Guloool Ja Ja we needed more stuff with him about how he raised the kids. Cuz yeah they’re adults now but also how’d they all go this long with not one of them being even 50% worthy of being Dawnservant? Did he at a certain point just be like, well you’re on your own to learn about the cultural of continent you live on and if you need advice just read the stone pillars about how I united everyone? And then Koana bounces of to Sharlyan, Zareel Ja does his thing, Wuk Lamat stays at home eating tacos and engaging with city citizens?

[Voidmage]

shorted for character limit.

Just because those people are in the city doesn't mean they don't live their culture I think (and it's "only" been 80 years since the fighting stopped. The city is probably far younger in this form.
Even in real life culture is preserved for generations.
The PeluPelu are still traders and take care of Alpaca in the city.
The HanuHanu should still use those plant things and the greeting between them wouldn't be droped because they live somewhere else.
The entire story tells us that culture should be presevered.
So even if she was mostly in the city she should have seen at least some cultural stuff of those people in my opinion.

Agreed that we needed more scenes of Gulool JaJa to flesh his point of view out.

He clearly taught them fighting and the most basic things about culture.
At one point though even children need to find answers for themself. That's actually what they did to a certain extent. Everyone of them found their own answer in the beginning but in the end only two of them were told as correct.
The entire trial stuff was about using the base that they were taught and meld them into someone who could lead the country.
The biggest problem was though that Gulool JaJa from the start wanted a new Dawnservant that had HIS view of the world. Culture and technology (he approved of the Aetherytes).
Zarool Ja and Bagool Ja never had a chance in the first place (not that I pardon their ways mind you) but not everything of their thinking was wrong.
Valigarmanda WAS dealt with through strenght and might in the end not by talking or technology. In the Ff14 world a certain "army" is needed to protect against wild life.
I think if the story showed that all of the combatants had their drawbacks it would have been better and that the trials were actually about teaching that instead of just respecting the cultures.

That's the biggest fault of him in my eyes. his onesided approach to all this and favouring one single approach.

[Balmung_Griffin]

Guloool Ja Ja we needed more stuff with him about how he raised the kids. Cuz yeah they’re adults now but also how’d they all go this long with not one of them being even 50% worthy of being Dawnservant? Did he at a certain point just be like, well you’re on your own to learn about the cultural of continent you live on and if you need advice just read the stone pillars about how I united everyone? And then Koana bounces of to Sharlyan, Zareel Ja does his thing, Wuk Lamat stays at home eating tacos and engaging with city citizens?

No surprise Zoral Ja turned the way he did with an absentee father like that.
Writers probably don't have kids of their own because they failed Gulool Ja and they failed WoL mentoring role.

Such a pity because Gulool Ja has an interesting past (that pretty much makes him a Mamool Ja WoL), but it looks like that between his Quest and our arrival, he did absolutely nothing but neglect his children even when Wuk Lamat go out of her way to say the contrary.
It's such a jarring oversight, to make this specific storyline work.

Also surprising enough, we did mentored Zero and she was eager to learn, observed our actions, didn't hesitate to question...just like a kid would do.
With Wuk Lamat we just played the role of cameraman and were stripped of any agency, we didn't teach anything, she's just like those pesky kid that think they always know better.

This story could be told in a better way if WoL went to Tural without any involvement in the succession race and sometimes our path crossed with theirs.

We would truly explore and learn at our own pace instead of getting the "Tourist Adventurer's Guild package" (Grandia anyone?)

[LisseyCrowe]

I'mma be honest, I don't think she's a Sheltered Princess so much as the culture in Tural is so underdeveloped that she forcibly comes off that way.

The Hanuhanu are actually a great example of what should've been. Here is a small village, Wuk tells us they love to party, they throw festivals every year, she even went to one! Great! Then we learn it's the other way around, they party because they must. The festivals are a requirement for a good harvest. Well, what actually happens is the birds didn't know the harvests needed a festival either, so they really ... do just love to party. Dang it.

But still, if Wuk could introduce every culture as "This is what they are, what they like to do, etc", and then the trials were about learning the "Why" she wouldn't come off as a Sheltered Princess. But instead it's a coin flip if she does that or not and the why is never/barely discussed, so every culture comes up flat.

The reality is all three siblings are "sheltered". The entire trial is meeting the people to learn about their culture. Which is weird, they should all have been thought that ages ago, with the trials being how well they understood it. And more importantly, how well they understand their own people, which again the writers seem to have been trying to do that, but they were so casual about it, like they didn't really want to expand on the stuff despite making it the core justification for the story.

[Remiferia]

I think trying to talk about Wuk Lamat's shortcomings in characterisation is missing the forest for the trees. The issue is that the new writing team seemingly don't know how to execute a full character arc across the form of an MMO expansion story and that is infinitely more concerning to me than one dud character.

Wuk Lamat is the worst offender because she eats up like 90% of the screen time and devours the characters arcs of everyone else in the process, but the same core writing issue can be felt with Zero, Golbez, Koana, Bakool Ja Ja and ESPECIALLY Zoraal Ja. These characters are NOT lacking, but they are explored in the most cookie-cutter, wishy-washy, half-baked ways that the players are sat here scratching our heads and making character analyses to fill in the blanks on the writers' behalf.

'You just lack media literacy!' is becoming more and more of a catch-all handwave to ignore opposing opinions on social media but this isn't a question of media literacy at all - it is a question of execution. Stories are written for the layman and not people who 'read as a writer' so if a story or a character isn't hitting with a wide swathe of the audience then there is no other way to look at it than as a clarity fault with the writing team.

Wuk Lamat is Hiroi's 'OC donut steel' whether by design or by accident and that is a failure. The Rite of Succession is a contrived mess and that is a failure. The tribes are all homogenised into singular traits that define their people and that is a failure (and also borders on problematic). The new characters are doomed to be poorly explored and that is a failure. The tonal dissonance of getting a nation together to build a train-turmed-nuclear-warhead while High School Musical plays in the background is a failure. The embarrassing contrivances needed to push the story along like letting Zoraal Ja walk free from Tuliyollal is a failure.

The writing team have simply failed. Wuk Lamat is a primary victim of a far more ominous outlook on the quality of future content, not the perpetrator of a bad story.

[Galvuu]

snip.

Having a character take that much screen time is, in itself, symptomatic. You have a varied cast, but no one's allowed to breathe. There are legitimate moments where characters want a private moment with the WoL... and Wuk Lamat just forces herself into them. I watched Cider's playthrough recently, and I didn't realize that she accompanies Koana when he asks for a moment with the WoL to give you some new gear (actually wiped from my mind... that, or I skipped that cutscene). She wasn't necessary there, she added nothing of value, and detracted from the scene by divesting it of some intimacy and potential moments of characterization and development. This happens constantly.

As for the "media literacy" comments, a lot of it feels, to me, like people using the text as an end-all justification. Like a mutated argument from scripture- the script says X, so X is true and implicitly justified... regardless of how X is portrayed, the fact that's it's often Y shown on screen, that, in the past, the story and lore said Z instead of X, and that the justification of X contradicts/retcons fundamental pillars of the past stories/world-building.
I gave this example before, but it's as if in 8.0 the story went "bananas are the source of Dynamis" and further went "actually, Meteion had a secret garden of banana trees, that's why she could manipulate it... also, the WoL is part-banana"- many people would see the contradiction and call it out, saying it's bogus. But I bet someone would immediately crawl out of the woodwork to go "didn't you read the quest?!?! It's all about the bananas, they explain Meteion had tons of bananas on the edge of the universe, and the WoL is part banana! Media literacy is dead lol!". You see this a lot if you raise an issue with the characterization, retconning or lore inconsistencies in DT (and already saw in EW).
If you stretch your suspension of disbelief enough and accept any retcon presented in the body of the text without questioning, then anything is possible really. Even the banana-WoL.

[Papayatar]

snip

I think 80 years is reasonable enough for cultures and practices to meld a fair bit. At minimum the Mamool Ja citizens would be changing cuisine since they’re not limited to rainbow bananas, and whatever gets secretly traded with the Xbr’aal. The Mamool Ja and Xbr’aal interacting at all probably started a culture change quickly compared to the ones that stayed in their respective zones not or barely interacting.

I think Pelu Pelu are the only ones that kinda stayed the same since the Custom Deliveries area is run by one and the Alpaca stand too.

So far the city HanuHanu don’t seem to use the greetings of the town or incorporate reeds like they did in their zone? The idle NPCs I’ve run into are eating tacos or drinking and if they’re not doing that there’s none locked into doing the Hanu greeting to others for NPC flavour. The only Hanu I remember taking to at length was Donuhanu for the deliveries quest but it was fish related and I don’t think he talked about Hanu culture like say in the BTN/MIN one where we got how Tural Viera/Shetona operate differently than the ones across the ocean.

Honestly I think the story didn’t do a good job at the culture preservation part within the city. We go outside the city it’s a prominent theme but inside the city what’s shown more to us is just that everyone is united. Maybe it’s shown in the city side quest? If it is I haven’t done those.

Yeah Gulool Ja Ja is IDK weirdly done. Yeah kids become adults and should eventually go and discover and learn about the outside world on their own, but like you said since it seemed his goal for picking a replacement was someone close, or identical, to his own views it was already going to be biased to whoever just naturally was like that. Which just happens to be Wuk Lamat because the story said so.

It wouldn’t have been that bad if we got some info that he had hinted or tried to push all his kids equally to that idea and that was more or less what he was looking for in a replacement. Then maybe we could get a clearer motivation for Zareel Ja hating his dad and siblings and not just “I gotta live up to high expectations” but also “the game was rigged from the start”, and he could resent his dad for only wanting a similar replacement and hating Wuk (and Koana) because they were getting favouritism and preferential treatment becase of it.

[Papayatar]

No surprise Zoral Ja turned the way he did with an absentee father like that.
Writers probably don't have kids of their own because they failed Gulool Ja and they failed WoL mentoring role.

Such a pity because Gulool Ja has an interesting past (that pretty much makes him a Mamool Ja WoL), but it looks like that between his Quest and our arrival, he did absolutely nothing but neglect his children even when Wuk Lamat go out of her way to say the contrary.
It's such a jarring oversight, to make this specific storyline work.

Def think cuz his relationship with his kids was undercooked he comes off as neglectful cuz all we get about him as a parent is Wuk being like “my Papa is great and amazing” and Zareel at the 13th hour being like “I hate my dad and this family”.

His questionable parenting is semi-highlighted when he’s surprised Zareel Ja became the way he did. Like you didn’t notice one of your kids was a silent brooding guy and didn’t question it? He’s like those parents who never check on their kid who stays locked up in their room 25/8 and are surprised when something serious happens.