Why Erenville succeeded as a character where others did not

[Banggugyangu]

Erenville seems like a poor example for this phenomenon, because when he finally got his time in the spotlight, it was entirely squandered. He desperately wants to find his mother, then when he finds her he just silently and begrudgingly tolerates her emotional abuse, then after hours of that he has a sudden character shift where he professes to the abusive AI copy of his mother that he'll make his life's purpose to continue working towards her dreams or whatever. He was with us for so long, and in all that time nothing meaningful or coherent happened. And that has the unfortunate effect of making him seem like a more hollow and uninteresting character than he was before he was given his time to shine.

This is extremely well put. I think that Erenville was a poorly utilized character for how much time he got in the spotlight during Dawntrail. Compare Erenville to Lyna, who had FAR less time in the spotlight, but every moment she spent on screen was so brilliantly done. (Also shout-out to her English VA that absolutely rocked the line where she was lamenting her own inabilities. I play with Japanese voices, but this was one of the best delivered lines in the entire game on English.)

I don't think Erenville is a bad character, but all he did this entire expansion was just brood. While that probably moistened a lot of thighs, it did little as far as character development goes.

[LilimoLimomo]

I mean, yeah. It's a double-standard. But at the same time, what about it?....But I don't really see how it pertains to the topic of the thread since, again, this topic came up because people are debating the moral quandary of the Endless.

Let me try to express the connective tissue a bit more clearly. I'm going to be pretty methodical, as I want to try to make sure I show my work and don't skip any steps.

When you see a boar, you judge it to be an animal. When you see a Midlander, you judge it to be a person. You treat these two things differently based on that judgment.

Assuming you aren't simply operating on habit or instinct, you probably have reasons for why you judge a boar to be an animal while you judge a Midlander to be a person. They are similar in ways, but they are also different in ways, and you have identified some of those differences to be meaningful enough to warrant a difference in judgment (which includes a difference in rights and treatment).

And of course, there are other labels you can apply via judgment as well. A flower is a plant, which is a living thing with less rights than an animal. A rock on the ground is an object, which has even fewer rights than a plant. A robot...what do we judge a robot as? It seems to depend on certain factors...

So, what does this have to do with the Endless?

The Endless are a new thing to us. So what should we judge them to be? Are they a person? Are they an animal? Are they even alive?

As readers of this fictional story, we're going to be taking into consideration the things we learn about the Endless to help us decide what judgment feels appropriate. The process is much the same as with the boar and the Midlander, it's just that we're not accustomed to doing it with the Endless.*

So when Oolong says "people passing judgement on others and their lives for their own selfish benefit are the bad guys", they seem to be overlooking the fact that they have already judged the Endless. For the Endless to deserve better treatment than an animal or a rock suggests that Oolong has already judged the Endless to be something akin to "people". This is the most important judgment in the entire process, and it is not being taken into consideration.

And we need to take it into consideration if we want to have a constructive dialogue, because it's fundamental to the discussions of the Endless. When readers of Dawntrail discuss the Endless, a major source of disagreement comes from the fact that different readers have judged the Endless to warrant different classifications. Some feel they are robots, some feel they are people, some feel they are more akin to ghosts, etc. And this difference of interpretation seems to be the focus of the majority of the discussion on the Endless. As long as we can discuss it constructively, that's great.

But when we simply assume our judgment is right and dismiss those of others, or if we fail to even realize that all of us are judging the Endless, then we won't be able to have a productive discussion.


*And notably, the characters in the story are going through the same process, and it's possible that they'll come to different conclusions than we do due to the subjective nature of this judgment.

[Dikatis]

But when we simply assume our judgment is right and dismiss those of others, or if we fail to even realize that all of us are judging the Endless, then we won't be able to have a productive discussion.

My issue is that discussion of the Endless is not the point of this thread. The original post was this:

I'm dropping this in the Lore category for multiple reasons, but primarily because it speaks to how Erenville and a few other MSQ characters were introduced and handled correctly in the storyline and sidequests over the various expansions.

Yoshi P apparently expressed the dev team's concerns over introducing new characters, versus keeping the old cast around.

We're not bound to immediately hate new characters! But I think they need to be introduced briefly, cycled out of MSQ, and left to cook a bit before being thrust into the spotlight again.

Characters that were introduced EARLY and then got turned into MSQ companions later that we love a bunch:

• Krile was name dropped by Minfilia during a linkshell call because of the disappearance of the Isle of Val in base ARR or early 2.X if I remember right.
• Yugiri was introduced during the ARR 2.X series but did not get her time to shine until Stormblood.
• The Warriors of Darkness were introduced in the 3.X series but did not get their time to shine until Shadowbringers. We love Ardbert!
• Erenville was introduced during Endwalker MSQ very briefly. We've had two and a half years to be intrigued by him.

My recommendation to Yoshi P, the development team, and the writing team, is to give us a brief introduction to a new character as early as possible in MSQ (NOT side content... don't make another mistake like G'raha - I love him but forcing new players to do CT was a ham fisted solution to that problem) before making them become a full time companion or the "main star" of their own expansion.

For example, a character that I'm genuinely intrigued by and would like to know more about that was only barely mentioned in MSQ so far is.... Shale. 10/10 character design, I'm guessing she's Ysayle's soul shard companion, and I'd like to get to know her better. (Make her the star of 8.0 as a hacker queen and it's justified IMO /s)

Any yet somehow it's circled back around to discussing the Endless just as 90% of the discussion in the past 4 years has been whether or not Venat's judgment was sound and if she should be condemned for causing the Sundering. This is complete and utter thread derailment. If you want to discuss the Endless, fine. Just do it in another thread.

[Banggugyangu]

That's probably because of the fact that the only time Erenville did anything the whole expansion was when he figured out his mother was an Endless.

[LilimoLimomo]

My issue is that discussion of the Endless is not the point of this thread. The original post was this:

Any yet somehow it's circled back around to discussing the Endless just as 90% of the discussion in the past 4 years has been whether or not Venat's judgment was sound and if she should be condemned for causing the Sundering. This is complete and utter thread derailment. If you want to discuss the Endless, fine. Just do it in another thread.

If you want to discuss whether Erenville's story was handled well, you're going to have to talk about his story.

If you're going to talk about his story, you're going to have to talk about Cahciua.

If you're going to talk about Cahciua, you're going to have to talk about the Endless.

Ergo, any reader's interpretation of Erenville's story will be reliant upon their interpretation of the Endless, which makes it quite understandable that the issue organically came up in the course of this thread.

[Lyth]

That line of reasoning sounds extremely tangential. You could equally claim that this is a discussion about Viera hats using that logic.

We never had the opportunity to meet Cahciua in life, but we do have some insight into Erenville's memories of her, and what her will and final wishes were. The Endless in this specific context is just a narrative device for exploring that mother/son relationship, much the same way that time travel and Echo flashbacks have been employed to explore characters' memories previously.

I can appreciate your frustration around being unable to voice your dissent around how the Endless are represented and evaluated, and I think this relates back to the point about the lack of an 'interactive narrative' within Dawntrail's storytelling. But I do think that Dikatis has a point here.

[LilimoLimomo]

That line of reasoning sounds extremely tangential. You could equally claim that this is a discussion about Viera hats using that logic.

I'm guessing you know you're being hyperbolic. But if you truly think that, I'll ask you to provide a line-by-line explanation of how Viera hats are an important aspect of discussing Erenville's story.

We never had the opportunity to meet Cahciua in life, but we do have some insight into Erenville's memories of her, and what her will and final wishes were. The Endless in this specific context is just a narrative device for exploring that mother/son relationship, much the same way that time travel and Echo flashbacks have been employed to explore characters' memories previously.

With respect...you literally just explained an aspect of your thoughts on Erenville's story based on your interpretations of both Cahciua and the Endless. You just did the thing I said you had to do to discuss Erenville's story, the thing that you are supposedly arguing against.

[Dikatis]

If you want to discuss whether Erenville's story was handled well, you're going to have to talk about his story.

But you're not talking about this in relation to Erenville. You're talking in circles around a tangent about the value of non-human lives versus human lives without a single mention of Erenville in your previous three responses. There's plenty to criticize about the use of the characters, but going off on this tangent isn't productive to the discussion about the usage of the characters in the expansion. You are expositing for the sake of expositing while derailing the thread with your constant talk about the Endless.

I too was disappointed in the lack of screentime Krile and Erenville got despite all the marketing centered around them and I don't think he was inherently more or less successful of a character than Krile or Wuk Lamat. I also would have liked more scenes between WoL and Krile or WoL and Erenville without Wuk Lamat present. Not because I dislike Wuk Lamat, far from it, but because I think there's a lot that could've been explored. Krile faced feelings of ineptitude despite her accomplishments and talents because she couldn't keep up with the other Scions as a combatant and in one instance was captured and used to empower both Zenos and Krile. The story could have easily spent some time exploring how Krile is dealing with these feelings while wanting to know more about the secrets Galuf kept and never had the time to reveal to her. We could have easily checked in on her because she is definitely brave but has not seen the same kinds of combat the rest of the Scions have. She could've had a reaction similar to Alphinaud's by Gorgagne's Mills where he killed a bear for the first time and had to come to grips with him taking a life in the face of his pacifistic upbringing. She could have expressed exhiliration or horror while wondering about how her experiences compared to her father's.

As for Erenville, I liked the story's portrayal of his fraught, but still loving relationship with his mother. There is clearly distance between them despite still loving one another, what with Cahciua's insistence on using his birth name and Erenville referring to her repeatedly as his "mentor" rather than his "mother". Him clamming up and bottling up his feelings when he learned about Cahciua's death and conversion into one of the Endless was compelling for me since I had a similar reaction when I learned about a family member's terminal cancer diagnosis. I would've liked to learn more about them too, especially since Cahciua apparently wasn't privy to Gulool Ja Ja's and Galuf's discovery of the gate to Living Memory. But I also would've liked more unpacking of his past in Tural and how he and Wuk Lamat met too. They have a vitriolic best friends relationship and I do think he serves as a good foil to him. But a little more character conflict between them about her choices could have been neat.

[Lyth]

I'm guessing you know you're being hyperbolic. But if you truly think that, I'll ask you to provide a line-by-line explanation of how Viera hats are an important aspect of discussing Erenville's story.

The proof of this was both obvious and trivial, so it was previously omitted. But since you asked:

• If you're going to talk about Erenville's story, you're going to have to talk about Erenville and Cahciua.
• If you're going to talk about Erenville and Cahciua, you're going to have to talk about the Viera.
• If you're going to talk about Viera, you're going to have to talk about the limited hat options that the Viera have access to.

Ergo, any reader's interpretation of Erenville's story will be reliant upon a discussion of Viera hats. ∴, this is now a Viera hat thread. □/QED/gg (Yes, modern mathematicians optionally conclude their proofs with gg).

As for Erenville, I liked the story's portrayal of his fraught, but still loving relationship with his mother. There is clearly distance between them despite still loving one another, what with Cahciua's insistence on using his birth name and Erenville referring to her repeatedly as his "mentor" rather than his "mother". Him clamming up and bottling up his feelings when he learned about Cahciua's death and conversion into one of the Endless was compelling for me since I had a similar reaction when I learned about a family member's terminal cancer diagnosis. I would've liked to learn more about them too, especially since Cahciua apparently wasn't privy to Gulool Ja Ja's and Galuf's discovery of the gate to Living Memory. But I also would've liked more unpacking of his past in Tural and how he and Wuk Lamat met too. They have a vitriolic best friends relationship and I do think he serves as a good foil to him. But a little more character conflict between them about her choices could have been neat.

I got this feeling as well, and I think that part of their relationship dynamic comes out of watching an introvert deal with his very extroverted mother. I don't think that it's necessarily negative, and I've seen a suggestion that this may be a localization nuance around whether you portray that interaction as familiarity or irritation.

[Banggugyangu]

But you're not talking about this in relation to Erenville. You're talking in circles around a tangent about the value of non-human lives versus human lives without a single mention of Erenville in your previous three responses. There's plenty to criticize about the use of the characters, but going off on this tangent isn't productive to the discussion about the usage of the characters in the expansion. You are expositing for the sake of expositing while derailing the thread with your constant talk about the Endless.

Do you see no value in positing on a topic that directly relates to a character without mentioning said character for some time? The moral implications of the very existence of the Endless, as well as many other aspects, are directly related to Erenville's character. Speaking in length about said moral implications, regardless of the mentioning of said character, is not tangential. So long as the topic directly relates to the character, mention of the character is not necessary for relevance.