Missed Opportunity: a TRUE Mentor to Wuk Lamat?

[Gaddes]

Apologies if this has been mentioned already, but I think going over our WoL's role in DT, the thing I possibly get the most frustrated over is that we are referred to as her Mentor a few times, but never did I ever actually feel like her mentor (apart from maybe 2 small times I can think of where I was allowed to cross my arms and stare at her disapprovingly lol). Considering the wide breadth of nations and experiences we've had from ARR to DT, I think it's a huge missed opportunity that we couldn't have more actively instructed her, as a mentor, in our past experiences with other nations and leaders, and how some of those stories could've served as lessons for her on either what went right or what went wrong.
There have been many times in other expansions where we've waxed nostalgic on moments from our past; there could've been some nice moments where we could give her flashbacks as to important times where we dealt with a similar enemy, or felt a similar way towards a government or situation... we certainly have enough experiences dealing with tumultuous nations and their leaders. Then, she could ask questions about those moments, and start to gain a better understanding outside of her initial childlike "I want everyone to be happy" mindset of how that's not that simple and how to think critically about topics in a more realistic, sophisticated way. If she can't be worldly since she's barely seen the world for herself, then it should've been on our shoulders as her Mentor to teach her about those worldly moments that WE experienced.

Also, in the fight with Bakool Ja Ja, she pretty clearly uses Dynamis, as she's able to solo LB several times in the fight, but the narrative doesn't really tell us how she either trained or advanced herself to do so. I guess it could be just from the rage from her birth father being held hostage, but then there's other times where she rages and she's nowhere near as powerful. It would've been far more satisfying if the WoL could've had some sort of gameplay moment during their travels where the WoL could've imparted to Wuk what they learned about the power of Dynamis from their EW adventures, and the Wuk in turn learns from this and levels herself up with our teachings. Then think how satisfying that would be to have the game reveal she could LB on her own in the fight thanks to us, while we look on behind her, arms crossed with a smug grin on our faces.

I just feel that this was a huge missed opportunity in letting the WoL have an active contribution on this new character. I think people would've felt more connected and less like the tag-along character that we ended up being. Rather than a true Mentor, we just ended up being a weird sort of bodyguard/gofer attendant who functionally was way too much of a crutch for someone who really needed to learn things the hard way but ultimately didn't.

[DiaDeem]

A true mentor would have taken her to Rathalos EX and then left duty.

[SDaemon]

A true mentor would have taken her to Rathalos EX and then left duty.

She wouldn't have stayed there and fought her own battle. Instead she'd run off to find someone else to do it for her.

[illutian]

Having not played past ShB yet, but heard enough about all the expansions beyond it.

I feel they should have first made the WoL severely injured from the final fight in EW. It might seem unnecessary, but there needs to be a reason why we're not the main focus (apparently this is the case in DT).

((I got like a whole headcanon lore, who's 'wall of text' would put the Baelsar's Wall to shame. Suffice it to say, I think most would like it.))

[Lady_Silvermoon]

Her "official" flaw is a lack of confidence and we do help her become more confident, so we did technically help her through her arc, however, her unofficial flaw is she's developmentally delayed. She has the mind of a child. And while that's not her fault, I'm guessing it has something to do with being dropped in a hole as a baby and she'd be perfectly fine as she is under most circumstances, but what we're building her confidence to do is become the sovereign ruler of her nation. That's literally insane. She can't carry her own things. She can't count. And we convinced her she is fit to rule. Based on what metrics?

We can't mentor away brain damage. The options they had here were either to change the character or to change her role in the story. Emmanellain is just as silly a character, but we're not trying to make him king of Ishgard.

[Zaniel]

Her "official" flaw is a lack of confidence and we do help her become more confident,

It's like those job interview questions: "So what would you consider your biggest flaw"

"Well I guess I just have trouble stopping working, I just work so hard I can't stop. Then there's my flaw of getting along with people too well, I really should get that under control so I can work more efficiently."

[ZXN]

The main issue is that our "mentoring" is completely worthless. Yes, Wuk HAD confidence issues...which are completely resolved by the giant's area and then she cranks the "I LOVE PEACE" knob to 11 and never turns it down once and is constantly rewarded for it every single step of the way. Wuk was written to be perfect from the very beginning, so there was ultimately NOTHING there to really mentor after she got confidence.

If anything, the "mentors" should've been swapped: US with Koana and Thancred/Urianger with Wuk Lamat. Given Koana starts the contest not caring at all about his nation's cultures: Our WoL, having first hand experience in SEVERAL cultures given our world touring as an adventurer, would've been absolutely perfect to teach someone that keeping up with and respecting a nation's culture shouldn't be seen as a detriment to said nation's growth. Meanwhile Thancred and Urianger can go full "Team Dad" mode and teach Wuk that while her ideals of "I want everyone to be happy and friendly and peaceful" are nice in theory, she is going to need a lot more then just child-like ideals to really rule an entire nation. Plus looking at the change Team Dad did to Koana's mindset and views during the whole rite of succession, I absolutely believe Wuk Lamat would've really grew as a character under their guidance.

But while "What if's" are nice, we cannot change what we ultimately got with Dawntrail and our "role" in it. I genuinely wouldn't have cared if we were just a background mentor character...if our "mentoring" wasn't just reduced to being another Cheer-leading Yes Man for Wuk Lamat.

[Mondschnee]

I agree, we were under-utilized in our supposed role as mentor, but not only us, the other Scions as well.
I wish they would have used our WoL and the Scions to challenge Wuk Lamat's frankly quite childish world view during the rite of succession. Heck, I wish they would have challenged Wuk Lamat at all. All the pieces were there: She, who repeatedly "wanted to know and understand", never really made an effort to even understand the other contestant's motivations. The story should have pitted them against each other more, and in the process, we could have learned more about them.

Maybe that way Bakool Ja Ja would actually have had proper build up to his character development as well, and we would have learned more about Zoraal Ja's psychology.

By extention, maybe we as the player would have felt more invested in the events. I didn't feel acknowledged at all, but that's another topic altogether.

The game was never afraid to explore characters and their views, so why now?
It's so... weird. This is just not the FFXIV I know.

Also, in the fight with Bakool Ja Ja, she pretty clearly uses Dynamis, as she's able to solo LB several times in the fight, but the narrative doesn't really tell us how she either trained or advanced herself to do so.

Honestly, I'd prefer if they would keep as far away as possible from the concept of Dynamis in the future and if they really have to, use it as sparingly as possible. Seeing how they exploited this concept in Dawntrial and thereby cheapened many events from previous expansions, I honestly started wishing they'd never introduced Dynamis at all.

[Talamh]

Well even the player can't solo-Limit Break so..

[Bellybell]

i want my "friend" come back to take her away from me