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

[CuteBucket]

I thought it might get better, but it seems like the entire story is getting from bad to worse. I would've liked a Rhalgr's reach like solo duty where we tried to help people, even the attack on the crystarium/lakeland felt more involved. I think it would've been nice to have arrived LATE at the palace because we were saving civilians or TRYING. Instead we just stood there to watch. Even Estinien is getting way more action than us...what the hell?

[Spoilers for the last 2/3rds of Dawntrail]
I had a lot of patience for the first half when I first played through. Are there issues? oh GOD YES, there's many, but I was kind of willing to quash my feelings for the moment because I still believed "well, this is kind of silly and stupid, but it's probably building to something cool." There's been some stupid moments in the plot before (like everything with the Lopporits in Endwalker) where I could just roll my eyes and move on because I trusted we'd get to something interesting and good again soon. I was trying to give it the benefit of the doubt so hard. Wuk Lamat is an annoying idiot? That's okay, I bet she'll have a moment of character growth and get better. The people of Tural seem kind of shallow and need some outsider to come solve very obvious problems for them? It's all part of the Rite of Succession, it's a test to see how the challengers approach problem solving, sure, whatever. Gulool Ja Ja dies in a stupid way to his son? Well, they could have handled that better, but I understand what they were going for thematically I guess.

I kept doing that over and over and over again until I got to zone 5 and couldn't do it anymore, because I realized they were building toward NOTHING. Wuk Lamat has the poorest excuse for character development I've ever seen. Lyse had her annoying moments in Stormblood, but she was humbled by her naivete and got better later (even if she didn't quite earn her position in a satisfying way). Wuk Lamat just learns that empathy is her superpower and that somehow lets her win fights and make friends with everyone she wants (not even remotely how empathy works, obviously). The people of Tural apparently ARE just that shockingly clueless and needed Wuk Lamat to solve their problems by teaching them to [checks notes] listen to others and believe in each other. That's great for resolving disputes among friends, but that can't actually solve a lot of political conflict, now, can it? Gulool Ja Ja dies while we just stand there slack-jawed and watch it happen? That whole "siege" felt like a nothing-burger when there was no instanced battle where we had to fight off and defend people in the city, and while we were busy doing Hero Stuff, Gulool Ja Ja dies, and we see it in an echo vision or something to catch us back up.

And then we learn nothing and go to Solution 9 with the same Friendship is Magic mentality in a place it explicitly does not belong because they are a hostile enemy nation! But I'm sure if we all get to know each other and share some food, we can overcome all of our differences and find peace, right?

Can you imagine if the war with the Garlean Empire was handled this way in Stormblood? If we had some tag-along insisting that all we needed to do to end the war was just befriend Varis or Zenos and share some Garlean Pizza and Doman Rice Balls together? If we could come to understand them by learning about how sad it is to be a Garlean, and they just have to conquer the whole world to be able to end prejudice against Garleans or something completely unethical and ridiculous like that? Can you imagine if during the fight with Shinryu at the end, the annoying tag-along came bursting into the fight out of literally nowhere and went "Zenos! Listen to me! I understand you, I really do!" Because that's pretty much how the last 2/3rds felt to me.

[MoiraTerrwell]

[Spoilers for the last 2/3rds of Dawntrail]
"Zenos! Listen to me! I understand you, I really do!"

Not a single chance in hell for Zenos not to instantaneously obliterate you if you were to do this.

[TaleraRistain]

Not a single chance in hell for Zenos not to instantaneously obliterate you if you were to do this.

He wouldn't think they were remotely worth bothering with and would just leave which would be even worse.