Why Erenville succeeded as a character where others did not

[Astronema]

Oh it definitely isn't a normal result, but we don't know what other rare outcomes. Just look at the animal kingdom where we know that sort of thing can happen but the pregnancy doesn't come to term. Or the baby ends up being sterile like a mule. Not that any of this matters as none of this is related to the topic of the thread. Unless someone is going to suggest that the reason Erenville was well developed was cause of this crap theory.

Allegan technology could probably solve most fertility issues since they can clone and create horrible cimeras like Scylla.

After spending so much time with jarjar lamat and knowing she is in 7.1 and beyond, I realize with the current quality of the writing we haven't hit bottom yet...

[Cleretic]

Allegan technology could probably solve most fertility issues since they can clone and create horrible cimeras like Scylla.

After spending so much time with jarjar lamat and knowing she is in 7.1 and beyond, I realize with the current quality of the writing we haven't hit bottom yet...

Oh, so this is just a long walk towards more 'Dawntrail Bad' whinging?

Just saying that is so much easier for everyone. you can follow rxantos' example, who just came right out and said it so we could all ignore it as the nothing opinion it is and move on. Go back to General Discussion, where your meaningless screeching is tolerated; over here, we actually talk about the game itself.

[fulminating]

I strongly doubt cachihua can do better, solus was unsundered, a king, militarily successful, high ranking member of a secret society, pretty decent at magic, tall, rich, pretty smart, sponsored the arts, fairly funny and pretty compost mentos for his age. I think you’d struggle to find a more eligible bachelor in all of hydaelyn, especially if his wife was already dead some nebulous period of time roughly 2-3 decades before ARR.

It does reraise the question of whether solus’ wife predated the bodyjacking, was part of some political manoeuvre, necessary for a dynastic crisis later down the road or a sentimental relationship that also proved to be particularly mortal like with his son.

[Cleretic]

I strongly doubt cachihua can do better, solus was unsundered, a king, militarily successful, high ranking member of a secret society, pretty decent at magic, tall, rich, pretty smart, sponsored the arts, fairly funny and pretty compost mentos for his age. I think you’d struggle to find a more eligible bachelor in all of hydaelyn, especially if his wife was already dead some nebulous period of time roughly 2-3 decades before ARR.

You forgot 'committer of war crimes both on and beyond the scale fathomable by human minds and metrics'. I dunno about you, but I'd call that a pretty big red flag.

Also, noticeably absent is 'good and nice person'; I admit I don't really know Cahciua's type, but she strikes me as someone who values a partner that'd give her freedom, respect and kindness. And Solus/Emet isn't offering any of those.

[Lyth]

'Compost mentos' [sic] is probably an apt description at this stage. Even now, nobody seems willing to let Emet just rest.

I will say that the one thing I find amusing about this stray idea is that in the midst of spending over ten thousand years getting finessed by Venat in a 4D chess match for the fate of the star, Emet would go on to promptly fall for a mortal with the same bubbly sense of wonder and discovery. He'd never be able to live it down.

Jokes aside, Erenville's popularity was already well established in Endwalker, so it would have been pretty hard to mess that up. Cahciua worked out naturally by virtue of being his perfect foil. I think it's fine to let these things play out organically over time. There's no need to 'construct' the perfect character in a serial work. The audience will make it obvious to you who they want to see more of, and who they want to take forward into future stories.

[Rosenstrauch]

The Wachumeqimeqi Miner/Botanist quests go a bit into Shetona lore, and iirc one of the things touched on is that Shetona men will form multiple families over the course of their lives, traveling between them frequently and otherwise living in isolation.

In other words, Erenville not knowing much about his father isn't an exceptional circumstance for a Shetona. It's entirely reasonable to assume he's just another Shetona living out on the fringes of Xak Tural.

As for whether or not Erenville meeting his father would be an interesting direction for the story to go... not really? Erenville's father played no significant role in his life, something of which Erenville makes no bones about. I can't imagine any scenario where Erenville meets his father that wouldn't play out exactly the same if the man in question wasn't his father, because Erenville does not care. Best case scenario, Erenville gets a sibling or two he can play off of, but he already has that with Wuk Lamat.

As for that father being Emet-Selch instead of something less blatantly fanservice...

Maybe this'll sound hypocritical coming from me, but I find Erenville's active participation in the story in spite of his lack of combat prowess to be refreshing. He is, imo, what Minfilia should've been from Heavensward to Endwalker, rather than Crystal Jesus, Ryne's GF (Guardian Force), and a cameo in the afterlife dungeon. And I would hate to lose that on the altar of "only fighters matter". So any secret Ascian fathers would ruin the character for me—because that is the only remotely meaningful thing that could come out of revealing Erenville's father to be an immortal wizard ghost.

Besides, after Myths of the Realm I thought we were all rather sick of "Actually, Ancients!" being deployed to fill in the blanks of other, more interesting characters/lore figures.

[Cleretic]

Besides, after Myths of the Realm I thought we were all rather sick of "Actually, Ancients!" being deployed to fill in the blanks of other, more interesting characters/lore figures.

This is largely unrelated, but yeah, even Ancient fans have seemed to consider that one a step too far in retrospect. And while I agree that it's definitely an example of them overusing the note, part of me maybe wonders if the communal rejection of that one isn't actually because of Ancient overuse. Because I personally thought the overdoing was the short story that was literally nothing but Ancient fanservice, but people seemed to like that one. And this is far from the only person that I've seen try to make some part of Dawntrail into some form of Ancient Time (usually around some member of the Ascians/Convocation) even after its release, this is just perhaps the most poorly-justified one.

I worry if maybe 'the Twelve are Venat's crew' starting to be considered the bad note isn't actually because of 'it was really Ancients' for a lot of people, but because it was the wrong Ancients, not the lineup people are invested in. That maybe if we replaced Elygios with Pashtarot doing an 'it was me all along, here's my tragic backstory' dance a lot of those people would actually be completely fine.