Quote Originally Posted by Voidmage View Post
snip
How is showing admiration towards someone creepy? The game doesn't force your character to reciprocate, the character does their thing and it's up to you how you react, specially in every situation that you mentioned there.
Y'shtola teases G'raha in 5.4 about wanting to go with us, and your character just stands there, and you can interpret that as you wish. He wants to talk to you in private to thank you, and you can actually pick an option that scolds him for doing so. Yes, he admires you and cares about you as a friend, just like Alisaie and all of the Scions, but each has a different way to demonstrate it.

I'd be more disappointed if they did it because of haters. It would be very unconsiderate towards fans of a character to change how they behave, specially because it's not the majority that thinks so. Imagine if a loud minority decided they hate Erenville because he's introverted, and then next patch he is very talkative without any development to ease him there? They could very well decide they wanted him that direction, but that had to be a gradual development, and not just ignore who he was before.

No character will ever be beloved by everyone, but every character should stay consistent. And consistent writing is something that is greatly missing from this game right now.

And, again, if the story is going to present me some very meaningful thing about a character, ANY CHARACTER in a very important scene, then yes, that should be addressed if the character is to keep appearing. G'raha's biggest wish is to go on adventures with us - one specifically even mentioned Ishgard. When I see him immediately turning down adventure, not caring about being in one and not even mentioning saying such things, it's bad writing, it's out of character - it's not toning down. And also, you seem to be reducing your memory of actually-well-written G'raha to the 2 or 3 moments you can think of when he is a little more enthusiastic about us, but please don't forget him during the entirety of Endwalker as well. It was a very nice balance between his younger self, happy to be in an adventure, while being wise and acting accordingly to the situation.

When he offered to stay behind in 6.55, knowing how the game told me leaving on one would be MEANINGFUL to him, I imagined he would have a really good reason not to go. It's not about giving him any kind of special treatment or more screentime, it's just respecting his motivations and wishes as a character, and making it consistent. Instead, it was just a very weak excuse to not have him there in the first part, and treat his arrival as cheap fanservice later.

If by your logic they don't have to aknowledge the things the characters want to do and their motivations, they why mention any at all? Just keep writing them like they did in DT - yes men NPC to the current main character. That's what they are now, and I can't imagine you're happy with it either.