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

[Kozh]

Remember when Wuk Lamat's real dad rigged a cooking contest in her favor because he wanted her on the throne?

As much as I dislike Wuk and DT, I don't think her real dad rigged a cooking contest. Yes him and the other villagers put clues and the banana leaf, but in order to get that information in the first place, you still have to ask around and show that you genuinely want to know how to make the dish. There's zero way Zoraal ja and Bakool jaja being paired together (by luck) will do that.

[Shuuli]

I just feel bad that we didnt get a proper Krile story because Wuky needed to be in everything and everywhere... I was promised the best girl's story and I got tasteless ice cream... shame.

[Plumerian_Ariadust]

As much as I dislike Wuk and DT, I don't think her real dad rigged a cooking contest. Yes him and the other villagers put clues and the banana leaf, but in order to get that information in the first place, you still have to ask around and show that you genuinely want to know how to make the dish. There's zero way Zoraal ja and Bakool jaja being paired together (by luck) will do that.

Maybe but i found it sus that not every claimant would be able to get their own keystones moreso with the pairings.
One had his daughter and a more level headed claimant while the other had a war mongery claimant and a two-headed mamook claimant (a group which his dad have reservations with how one pushed llamatea into a hole).

Would have been more intereseting if wuk got paired with bjj but yeah. Missed opportunity to flesh out Bakool, understand his motivations earlier.

[Serilyn]

I found the whole cooking thing and all the trials badly set up really.

For the cooking trial I at least expected that she would have to cook it herself, but nope Krile cooked it (and ignored WoL max culinarian). She also had help both gathering information and getting the ingredients (which they all did, we'll get to that in a moment), not to mention the big help of having an inside man to explain everything. None of the others had that. While yes the other team were the one who created the problem of getting the leaves (so why couldn't they get some?) it would have been more fair to just let both teams use the leaves they had. Maybe add more random leaves in and let them pick so they had to find the right ones.

The bird being released Bakool Ja ja should have plain been disqualified for and imprisoned as it was capable of killing a lot of people previously and instead they just... glossed over that because he has a sad backstory he never showed any sign of until he got beaten up. And they teamed up and defeated the bird so all got stones... But in the Mamook trial they teamed up and Koana showed character growth being willing to put aside his own wants to support his sister. And gets nothing for it. No, I don't consider her sharing it with him being rewarded. The contest/their father should have rewarded his selfless act and given him a stone for that fight because both he and his helpers participated. Isn't it a good quality to show you're willing to put others ahead of yourself?

With the float while Wuk Lamat suggested it, I got the impression she just wanted to see the festival. She wanted them to be happy yes but didn't seem to show much concern or empathy for how they were suffering and starving. I wished my WoL could have just refused to help her and instead helped them rebuild and recover. Yes the float did end up being the solution, but only by chance. It was her team that did the thinking and working out that it might do something and would need specific items.

The alpaca one was one of the only ones she did do alone (though again, had help with all the trading from the girl).

And now around to the whole concept of even having people they chose to help them from foreign countries who they didn't know for a bar of soap. They even tell you when you arrive they don't want foreigners interfering. Yet bringing the greatest heroes from a foreign land to help two claimants is fair? This is meant to be a test of the claimants and their ability to rule right? You would think those with them would be people who would be helping them once they are ruling too. Yet none of the scions nor the WoL will be sticking around to help her govern, which means those people doing the thinking for her will not be there to do it when she is ruling. So why are they allowed to help her? The whole thing just seems bizarre.

[Lyndina]

The funny thing about Wuk lamat seeking our help...it doesnt make sense. She barely left her city to explore the "lands" she will govern...but travels basically over the atlantic ocean to "europe" to get our help.

[Rannie]

The funny thing about Wuk lamat seeking our help...it doesnt make sense. She barely left her city to explore the "lands" she will govern...but travels basically over the atlantic ocean to "europe" to get our help.

Oh god I hope people don't start trying to compare her to Pocahontas then.... we wouldn't want to insult that poor woman so (pocahontas)

[Alchemii]

You know, thinking about it, does anyone else find it weird that we hear no reference to the Final Days in Tural. Like we get there, and we see no signs that it even happened. Maybe I'm miss remembering, as my brain is desperately trying to make me forget anything to do with this story.

[Lyndina]

Nope, there wasnt even an mentioning of those events. Its like nothing ever happened there. At least in the Main Quests there wasnt any mentioning.

[Raven2014]

You know, thinking about it, does anyone else find it weird that we hear no reference to the Final Days in Tural. Like we get there, and we see no signs that it even happened. Maybe I'm miss remembering, as my brain is desperately trying to make me forget anything to do with this story.

On one hand it really wants to give the writer the benefit of the doubt, rationalizing because Tural didn't really get hit. Remember as serious as it were, we did manage to nib the Final Day sequence in the bud. Only the most severe depressed population - Garlemand which was already nuked, and Tharvanar which was undergoing severed economic depression had an outbreak. The Eozia Alliance countries were riding high in moral due to economic recovery, long term issue resolved and/or just regaining independence didn't really see the effect outside of minority report from small misaligned groups. If you think about it logically, Tural is supposed to be a stable countries where everyone is happy. So it makes sense they didn't see the effect.


So yeah ... I really did try to give the writer the benefit of the doubt ... but than they had to do the Mamook Ja crap. If they've been depressed enough to be killing their own babies for 80 years ... all of my reasoning evaporated, because there is no freaking way their tribe would have survived End Walker. And so I was once again remind of the morbid reality of DT, if I can sum up the approach of the writting in DT with one sencetence:

Always aim for cheap emotional shots at the expense of pace and consistency..

[BigBoom550]

Always aim for cheap emotional shots at the expense of pace and consistency..

This is where I get twitchy with people who say anyone who doesn't like DT is 'media illiterate'.

DT has, moment to moment, decent emotional ideas. The issue is it never actually... does anything to earn them. If we'd seen Bakool Ja Ja struggling with what he's doing in an emotional sense, if we'd seen more desperation, we'd be able to come around to him better. But he had to be a complete villain early on so there's a 'villain' and Zoraal Ja's twist makes 'sense', so he turns into a Captain Planet villain. Erenville's supposed to have a whole lot going on in the last section, but no real time was devoted to setting up his relationship with his mother. I'll be honest, I didn't *realize* Cacihua was his mother for a huge chunk of the story because of the narrative problem that is Wuk Lamat.

Nothing exists outside Wuk Lamat. Nothing. Heavensward had the greater context and wheels of the Dragonsong War moving, Stormblood for all its faults had the stories of Ala Mhigo and Doma, Shadowbringers had the Crystarium and Eulmore. Endwalker's was the weakest, but it made up for that by being the culmination of all the previous stories.

Tural's at peace. Everyone's happy. It's ha-ha smiley happy funtimes. Gulool Ja Ja tells us if nobody's worthy, nobody gets the throne. Our investment is undercut almost *immediately* because we know Zoraal and Bakool are both idiots, and while Koana's an idiot too he's the correctable sort, as Thancred and Urianger did in a surprisingly competent bit of writing for this expansion.

There is no larger-stakes story at play until Alexandria, and by the time that happens they start trying to go into this philosophical bend that had been loosely present earlier in the story, but do it in one of the most clumsy, blunt, and simple ways possible with legacy and remembrance.

But when I say 'loosely' I mean 'Loosely'. They didn't talk about Zoraal's interest in his own legacy, they didn't have characters talking about events from their past- even Wuk talking about things she'd done with her alleged brothers in their youth. That's not there. Gulool Ja Ja's funeral is offscreen. Every emotional beat they try for is either spur-of-the-moment, or detracted from by the fact that Wuk Lamat has to be involved. Constantly.

I really, really hate calling characters Mary Sues but... Wuk *is*. There's no grander plot that exists outside of her. The Alexandrian war was a chance for Wuk to step up as not 'Wuk the aspirant' but 'Wuk the Vow' and she... didn't. She wasn't acting as a head of state, she wasn't reflecting on those decisions, no, it became the story of Wuk and Sphene's conflict, not Tural and Alexandria's.