The Actual Problem With Dawntrail

[arstoka]

Wuk Lamat is a symptom of much bigger technical writing issues.

Pacing: writing choices that repeat information unnecessarily (the walk around the city with Wuk, Koana and Gulool Ja where they talk about the events of everything we, the player, just witnessed). Important character moments and world building are glossed over and have no repercussions on the narrative (Bakool Ja Ja's redemption arc.)

Character writing: more telling than showing leading to inauthentic character development. Flaws are "present" but have no meaningful impact on the narrative. (Wuk Lamat's sea/air sickness being played for laughs. Her confidence issues being magically resolved resulting in her having the physical ability to defeat Bakool Ja Ja not long after having been bested and kidnapped.)

Passive protagonists: the narrative pilots the characters to their destinations instead of the characters making meaningful choices to drive the narrative forward (characters tend to be more reactive then proactive. The entire first half of the story is an example).

Themes: barely fleshed out in meaningful ways that leaves the audience to fill in the blanks to make sense of everything, a result of failing to create characters and meaningful scenarios/interactions to reinforce the message(s) of the story. (This loops back into passive protagonists and telling rather than showing.)

Lack of meaningful conflict: the narrative goes out of its way to have everyone agreeing with the protagonist without challenging her views. Most problems are black and white and are resolved with either deus ex machina (the crystal bird descending upon the Yok Huy conquerors and) or feel artificial due to lack of consequences (Valigarmanda doing zero damage once it is released in order to make Bakool Ja Ja's redemption easier, to name a couple.)

Failure to critically engage with the protagonist's ideals: Yes, we agree peace and happiness for all is a lovely sentiment. What do they actually mean to the character though? How will they "preserve the peace". What lengths will they go to?

Tone: failing to properly establish characters, settings, themes and conflicts results in a shift of focus and subsequent failure to identify what should be tonally accurate for a plot point (see the 'Smile' theme song playing after we defeat Sphene as an example).

Bonus round: Cutscene direction and composition

Many of the scenes are poorly composed and fail to invite the viewer into the scenes. Such examples are the positioning of NPCs that are in front of the player's character. Other scenes take place over the anticipated action expected of the genre and narrative cues (for example, rescuing Wuk Lamat and the train battle sequences). FF14 has set scenes such as these up for battle content and have subverted the expectations causing an unintended release of tension and less impactful climaxes.

[Zaniel]

Wuk Lamat is a symptom of much bigger technical writing issues.

Pacing: writing choices that repeat information unnecessarily (the walk around the city with Wuk, Koana and Gulool Ja where they talk about the events of everything we, the player, just witnessed). Important character moments and world building are glossed over and have no repercussions on the narrative (Bakool Ja Ja's redemption arc.)

Character writing: more telling than showing leading to inauthentic character development. Flaws are "present" but have no meaningful impact on the narrative. (Wuk Lamat's sea/air sickness being played for laughs. Her confidence issues being magically resolved resulting in her having the physical ability to defeat Bakool Ja Ja not long after having been bested and kidnapped.)

Passive protagonists: the narrative pilots the characters to their destinations instead of the characters making meaningful choices to drive the narrative forward (characters tend to be more reactive then proactive. The entire first half of the story is an example).

Themes: barely fleshed out in meaningful ways that leaves the audience to fill in the blanks to make sense of everything, a result of failing to create characters and meaningful scenarios/interactions to reinforce the message(s) of the story. (This loops back into passive protagonists and telling rather than showing.)

Lack of meaningful conflict: the narrative goes out of its way to have everyone agreeing with the protagonist without challenging her views. Most problems are black and white and are resolved with either deus ex machina (the crystal bird descending upon the Yok Huy conquerors and) or feel artificial due to lack of consequences (Valigarmanda doing zero damage once it is released in order to make Bakool Ja Ja's redemption easier, to name a couple.)

Failure to critically engage with the protagonist's ideals: Yes, we agree peace and happiness for all is a lovely sentiment. What do they actually mean to the character though? How will they "preserve the peace". What lengths will they go to?

Tone: failing to properly establish characters, settings, themes and conflicts results in a shift of focus and subsequent failure to identify what should be tonally accurate for a plot point (see the 'Smile' theme song playing after we defeat Sphene as an example).

Bonus round: Cutscene direction and composition

Many of the scenes are poorly composed and fail to invite the viewer into the scenes. Such examples are the positioning of NPCs that are in front of the player's character...

Another serious crime I would add: World-building disconnect: A complete loss of memory of previous events and critical world concepts in the game if not outright contradictions. I mean, the Scions ... THE SCIONS ... take part in what amounts to a primal-summoning ritual in the Hanuhanu area without blinking.

[arstoka]

Another serious crime I would add: World-building disconnect: A complete loss of memory of previous events and critical world concepts in the game if not outright contradictions. I mean, the Scions ... THE SCIONS ... take part in what amounts to a primal-summoning ritual in the Hanuhanu area without blinking.

I agree though it does fall back into the failures of building a believable setting, character writing and lack of meaningful conflict. The issues exist because these three parts are not considered as base storytelling requirements. If you do not write the characters in a meaningful way, ignoring their traits and expertise and flaws you will inevitably fail to acknowledge meaningful conflict and resolution because the setting you have built is in direct conflict with characterization.

I take adhering to lore and world-building disconnect somewhat on an aside because, often times, the way we understand the world is through the characters (and by extension their writer(s) ) and their understanding of the world can change and be expanded upon. You can have something be logically consistent while being tonally inconsistent/subversive (in a negative way).

I would also argue that the process by which the Hanuhanu is not akin to primal summoning as it was stated that it was the use of their magics that stimulated stagnant aether which is actually commented upon shortly after both Koana and Wuk Lamat have competed their trials. The Scions shouldn't make a jump to that kind of conclusion given the context of the situation and would be, if you consider it, in poor taste to compare their crop growing rituals with summoning a deity that has been known (in the context of Eorzea) to be the result and answer to years of oppression and conflict.

If you wanted a better example, I'd look at expectation verses execution regarding the opening of the Golden City gate. The writers had set up Krile with the magical USB stick that has the ability to open the gate. The expectation was that she should use the key to open the gate. This is subverted by denying Krile entry and is resolved by having a npc we met only a couple of hours ago being able to unlock the gate. Does it make sense? Yes, on a technical level because of the permissions set up for royal authority access only. Is it impactful? No, it is tonally discordant as the writes spent the entire game telling us that this was important to Krile only to undermine the emotional core by denying her the ability to resolve one of her CORE motivations/plot points.