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

[Kennar]

But in DT, we do a double dipper and decide who deserved to rule and who doesn't, then execute it. I'm pretty sure it's that very same scene that you're citing in your argument, Thranced said the Scion will go back and against observe silently from the shadow. Excuse my French but "from the shadow" my arse, our foray in DT is anything but that. Not only we were straight up playing king maker, we did it from pretty much front and center. Remember that even before DT was released, the story premise already rub people the wrong way. Some already asked the question "why do we agree in participating in a rite of successor?" because that just how much out of character for the Scion was. And believe it or not, I actually defended the story back then. I told people that the invitation is probably just an excuse to start the story, there would probably some twist and turn that'll take the story in a different direction. And obviously I was wrong, not only they didn't change the direction, they're double down on it and the Scion basically became a paradogy of the CIA.

I agree with a lot of your points, but I must be contrarian about this.

I never felt like our characters did anything to put Lamat on the throne. We cheered her on, talked to the locals on her behalf (and then she took credit for our observations), and stayed out of the way of the other claimants. Gulool Ja Ja even said that this rite of succession was really more of a test to see who was fit to lead, and that he would not step down if he felt no one was ready. Ultimately, it was Gulool Ja Ja who made the decision. We were also invited to participate, everyone was fine with it, and there were no clandestine meetings or plans to install a puppet ruler. She was going to be Dawnservant with or without our help. That whole succession arc could have happened in a vacuum without our involvement, and nothing would have changed.

I still don't like this being our reason for going to the New World, though. I said in an older post that I was mad at the 6.5 story, and that still holds true. I didn't want my character to willingly get involved in a strange nation's politics, but there are interesting and dramatic ways to make that happen if it fits the larger story. That story has to be written for adults, though; it needs to be more complex, more fleshed out, and the characters need more depth and personality.

Reading your comment made me realise Alphinaud could still work. But it shouldn't have been to Radz-at-Han. It should have been Garlemald. Throughout the whole game we've had people coming to our rescue against Garlemald. It'd flip the script!
Alphi was there helping them rebuild during the patches. He was trying to get them to make trade agreements with other nations to rebuild.

Imagine how powerful it would have been for the remnants of the Garlean Empire to come save Tural during its darkest hour. It would have actually made Alphi and Ali's time there during the patches well spent.

I actually had a similar thought, but sadly, Garlemald will never be more than a smoldering pile of rubble.

[lolnotacat]

I still don't like this being our reason for going to the New World, though. I said in an older post that I was mad at the 6.5 story, and that still holds true. I didn't want my character to willingly get involved in a strange nation's politics, but there are interesting and dramatic ways to make that happen if it fits the larger story.

What annoyed me is that it wouldn't have taken a huge change to make the story fit better and give us time with the other characters.

- 6.5 Hits. Urianger introduces us to Koana, someone he befriended at Sharlayan.
- Koana heard about us through Urianger, and asks us for help finding his sister.
- He promises us and some friends (for duty support) room & board at an inn in Tuliyollal, free passage on his ship, and a passport to explore Tural.
- Cool, more adventure!
- We do some quests, do our dungeon, find Wuk being her Naruto self & save her from some kind of danger.
- We camp out that night before Koana and Wuk have to head back and prepare.
- Talk to Wuk a bit, find out she came to Eorzea, "The land of adventurers" to make a name for herself after hearing stories from travelers and Ketenramm.
- She confides in us a bit about her family, we find out he has an inferiority complex as she's always comparing herself to her brothers and father.
- *Stick a pin in that plot point for DT*
- 7.0 Drops
- We meet Gulool Ja Ja
- Duel him right away.
- Koana tells him we saved the star and what went down.
- Gulool Ja Ja takes a liking to us, asks us to observe all the participants the Rite of Succession. We can travel along with them, but we shouldn't interfere too much.

Granted this would require adjusting the first half of story a little bit, but this gives the story opportunities to show us other viewpoints and give the other characters time to breathe instead of nonstop love and peas.

[Bellybell]

I actually had a similar thought, but sadly, Garlemald will never be more than a smoldering pile of rubble.

The same is true for Doma even after we did help them rebuilt it. They'd just hail WoL as hero but hand waving us good luck and continue to mind their own business.

[Raven2014]

I agree with a lot of your points, but I must be contrarian about this.

She was going to be Dawnservant with or without our help. That whole succession arc could have happened in a vacuum without our involvement, and nothing would have changed.
.

Highly debatable. Without us, Kona likely won't success in bailing her out when she was kidnapped. They're likely won't be able to deal with Valigarmanda. And it's doubtful they'll be able to resolve the Mamook Ja issue as smoothly without the Scion's connection. By the end, the Scion pretty much throw the entire weight behind Wuk Lamak to make her success.

Even if you want to argue that it wasn't entirely necessary and Wuk would still make it to the finishing line through a bunch of convenience coincident, the spirit of the narrative is still troublesome. Remember that in the beginning we were shown in no uncertain term that Wuk had almost zero popular support while her brothers were extremely popular. Yet by the half-way mark after just a few limited interactions, we already decided Wuk is the best person to rule simply because she align with our view of the world order, while also declared (by Thranced) that Zoraal Ja can not be allowed to win no matter what despite him being overwhelmingly more popular among his people ... that's just incredibly hubris and out of character for the Scion to say the very least.

Whether it's right or wrong decision is not the point either. Say if there is an election coming up in another country and we (correctly) identify one of the candidate is a neo fascist, even if it's not gonna be something like "bay of pigs", would be ok for us to funnel resources behind the scene to bankroll and make sure the opposition win? Doesn't matter if it's the right thing to do, or that most people ok with it, it's still meddling.

And like I said, the most jarring part of this is the fact it happens right after the 7.0 declaration when the Scion wanted to limited their influence, yet DT immediately threw us into the other extreme of the spectrum, that's why it's a consistency problem.

Gulool Ja Ja even said that this rite of succession was really more of a test to see who was fit to lead, and that he would not step down if he felt no one was ready.

And that would be a much more interesting scenario: all of them fail (in fact without our help Wuk Lamak probably would be the very first to fail). Gulool Ja Ja then lead the defense against the Alexandria and get killed, forcing the failed candidates to come together to protect their nation. The Scion then offer help as it is our role and also as the experts in term of interdimension invasion.

Or, let Zoraal Ja win because face it, if there is one candidate who can win on his own merit, it's him. Yes he's not ideal, yes his vision is troublesome but that's exactly the kind of things that's inline with the Scion mission. To keep an eyes out for trouble, to brace and prepare for the fallout, and to put out the fire when the issue flare up. Remember originally all 3 of the original Eorzia nations had bad governance issue, and we painfully help them resolves those issues one at a time (some time fumble and fail ourselves).

[Xieldras]

Honestly I would've preferred if the "Bad Candidate" (Zoraal Ja) won. Would've made things going forward more interesting as we now have a neutral-to-hostile leader to navigate around and not just a happy-sunshine one that we always agree with.

Wuk got hard carried in every trial.

The only trial Wuk Lamat would've achieved on her own merit would be the taco one, and even then she's not even the one to cook it....Krile and the WoL did.

Even then I would argue that the rite was heavily in her favor because she got paired up with someone she got along with, instead of her ideological opposite or Bakool Ja Ja.

[Allegor]

Even then I would argue that the rite was heavily in her favor because she got paired up with someone she got along with, instead of her ideological opposite or Bakool Ja Ja.

Yup, complete waste of potential to explore more into Zoraal ja or Bakool ja ja as characters, or at least set up more tension between them. Instead, they played it safe going with Koana, in a rite that somewhat contradicts the previous statement they had no time limit, and could do the rites in any order, yet that one not only needed all claimants present (making the whole Valigarmanda incident narratively pointless, something Bakool ja ja himself pointed out...), only one team would get a keystone... like, did Hunmu Rruk not get the memo? or was that just a cheap way to take out "the bad guys" from the competition? now that I think about it, Zoraal ja being officially disqualified in the Mamook rite is redundant since he and Bakool ja ja already can't get all 7 keystones unless they steal one from Wuk Lamat or Koana, something Gulool ja ja would likely not condone.

I know the point of the rites wasn't to 'win' it but to shape the next dawnservant into a good ruler, but the more I think about it the more messy the whole arc feels.

[Xieldras]

Yup, complete waste of potential to explore more into Zoraal ja or Bakool ja ja as characters, or at least set up more tension between them. Instead, they played it safe going with Koana, in a rite that somewhat contradicts the previous statement they had no time limit, and could do the rites in any order, yet that one not only needed all claimants present (making the whole Valigarmanda incident narratively pointless, something Bakool ja ja himself pointed out...), only one team would get a keystone... like, did Hunmu Rruk not get the memo? or was that just a cheap way to take out "the bad guys" from the competition? now that I think about it, Zoraal ja being officially disqualified in the Mamook rite is redundant since he and Bakool ja ja already can't get all 7 keystones unless they steal one from Wuk Lamat or Koana, something Gulool ja ja would likely not condone.

I know the point of the rites wasn't to 'win' it but to shape the next dawnservant into a good ruler, but the more I think about it the more messy the whole arc feels.

One other thing to note is the failure rate of this Rite in particular. In the previous ones (Pelupelu, HanuHanu & Moblins), you do not have a hard cap failure rate. You seem to be able to try and try again (you know, learn from your mistakes and grow) hence why a time limit being absent makes sense. But with Yak Tel's in particular it just throws everything out the window because it's not about growth, but about getting it right the first time. It's essentially a Personality Test, with a heavily biased judge, where your failure is absolute and you cannot try again. What kind of growth is there to be had here? If you do not mesh well with this Rite (which is absolute bullshit in my opinion), you are disqualified without retrial and are thus out of the race for good. Not to mention that this is a team event, and everyone having done group projects at school knows how awful these are for judging individual skills!

Like you said, this cooking trial seemed to be for removing any "threats" Wuk had in the Rites by artificially propping her up with this sham of a test. This zone in particular is where the immersion got 100% broken for me, and it's the sole reason why.

[Regis_Paran]

(...) Even if you want to argue that it wasn't entirely necessary and Wuk would still make it to the finishing line through a bunch of convenience coincident, the spirit of the narrative is still troublesome. (...)

You are technically right in all points. But the thing is - Gulool Ja Ja made it very clear, that it would be his final decision if the winner of the contest is made Dawnservant. He also made it very clear that he wanted WL to rule. So with or without us, winning or losing, he would have put her on the throne somehow, anyway. If he never made those comments, if the contest wasn't rigged from the start, then we could argue if our support had any relevance.

Imo he just wanted us to make WL "winning" look somehow more legitimate. Make it look good for the masses. We were used and what's worse, we allowed it.