Wuk Lamat

[TaleraRistain]

She is dialed back in the post-DT quests so you'll have that to look forward to. They're allowing her to show her strengths and have the other characters who are strong at doing other things handle the things they should be handling.

[RedLolly]

My theory; Wuk Lamat is meant to represent us raising up the next generation of heroes to protect the Source. Her genuine love of people, sincerity, willingness to throw hands when needed is a great start, and she's introduced as only participating as a claimant for the throne because she wants to block her warmonger brother and not for personal gain. She's an excellent candidate for our legacy.

Since Legacy is the core theme of DT, it's set up as a great stepping stone between the last story arc as we step into the new one.

But then DT utterly fumbled the bag with Wuk Lamat by having too many events just work out in her and our favor because they had barely any time to show her actually grow. She's in almost every scene but feels stagnant, and because we don't get to be in her POV much, it feels like we have far more telling and not showing of her accomplishments. We don't witness the labors and our crew does so much of it.

We're supposed to feel proud to see her handling Alexandria as well as she did, but instead it feels like she cheated. Did she really earn this? She did, technically, but it still feels bad as the WoL.

I think the best comparison is Alphinaud's arc in ARR. He's an arrogant and high-handed little asshat in ARR, but got humbled hard and was able to grow into the beloved companion he became. He was given all the time he needed as a character and was allowed to mess up and become better.

Also, the desperate need to build up Wuk Lamat gave no time to Krile and Erenville until the very end of DT.

She's being retired now as she's also a world leader character. But there are plenty of reasons she's like a black hole of criticism for DT's story.

[AlucaDragonheart]

I hated how Y'shtola called Wuk on the linkshell to tell me something, when Y'shtola, who has known my character for a while and has been through many hardships and adventures with them, didn't decide to call ME directly instead.

[Auro_Seldaris]

I don't mind the character but I agree she's way too prominent in the quests. Every time we visit a new area, we're always paired with her and never with Krile or Erenvile. Our only respite is in Shaaloani. Plus, her intervention in the last trial was clearly not required/desired.

I can imagine people not liking the character much, be quite pissed by the end of Dawntrail.

Concerning the Warrior of Light, it's kinda hard to always focus on a "empty" character with no voice. We need people around us to talk and interact in our stead.

This is why I always volunteered to run Interphos with people from my Friends groups and FC who were clearing it for the first time. I wanted to see their reactions to Wuk crossing the line and being totally obnoxious in the final trial. It was wonderful salt mining. Literally every single one, to the very last, were shocked, frustrated, and angry by her interrupting. Even people that liked her prior to that felt it was a line that shouldn't have been crossed. And I think mostly everyone can agree with that. It's one of the very few moments in DT that even Wuk fans can believe was a bridge too far. (Not to mention that annoying and insulting "buff" that states she's the one inspiring YOU. You know, the person who defeated the personification of entropy and despair. GTFO with that idiocy.)

Shadowbringers and Endwalker - ESPECIALLY Shadowbringers - found clever ways to give the WoL more personality that didn't involve voice acting. There were many instances of dialogue in ShB/EW where I gave my character a voiceover during the "Silent mouth flaps", just saying what I felt was her appropriate response at the time, and remarkably the NPC's reactions were almost always in line with what I imagined my character saying. So it can be done, just not by this writing team, they don't have the nuance or chops for it.

In another sense, this is why Alphinaud and Alisaie exist. They serve as sort of a proxy speaker for the WoL. That's why they have the most dialogue in the game. Or, well... the second-most amount of dialogue, I suppose, a certain cat notwithstanding.

As for Wuk herself, pairing us with her screamed PLEASE LIKE MY OC DONUT STEEL FURRY WAIFU! She came off less like a cool new friend and more like the "DMPC" that a particularly overbearing Dungeon Master shoehorns into the plot to railroad the PCs or keep them on the "right moral track". An obnoxious self-insert, in other words. We needed a break from her. That's why I enjoyed the Shaaloani segment, Wuk wasn't around and overwhelming everything and everyone else. You can't miss someone if they're always around.

I will also chime in and agree with a couple of other forum posters and say that I think the original plan for 7.2 and 7.3 was to have Wuk bond with Real Sphene just like she bonded with Endless Sphene. It struck me as extremely odd and out-of-character for her to have basically zero interest in getting to know the Real Sphene. After all the backlash against her far too prominent role, I believe they pulled the handbrake on the Wuk train and rewrote the plot to have Sphene and the WoL become friends instead, while Wuk took literally every opportunity to go somewhere else and do anything else than interact with Sphene, which is completely out-of-character for her if. "Oh, so the real Sphene wasn't dead. Neat. Well, bye. I'll be over here, talking to random people in the background." There's even a shot in the cutscene where Sphene is ordering coffee or something, and Wuk Lamat is literally off to the side, staring into the distance blank-faced like she's in Offline mode.

I think they realized they took their creator's pet character a bit too far and, like a middle-schooler creating a new Sonic the Hedgehog character, became totally irritating in how hard they tried to convince people their "edgy Sonic OC" was the BEST THING EVERRRRRRRR and YOU JUST DON'T GET WHY THEY'RE SO AWESOME! I mean, Yoshida almost literally said that in inerviews. Thankfully, they seem to have backed off and decided the best course of action is for her to fade into the background once her role was essentially finished, to the point of potentially cutting it short. We'll never know for sure, but the strange change in her behavior toward Sphene in 7.2 has me believing that's the case.

Disappointed by this. The WoL is almost a non-entity and struggles to serve as a main character within the narrative. I hope feedback like this thread does not discourage the devs from centering their story on other NPCs in future.

You are the only person who thinks this.

[Exmo]

You are the only person who thinks this.

Either you live in a bubble or you're brand new to the internet. People have been talking about the problems with silent protagonists for close to two decades.

[RedLolly]

I actually forgot how many times in pre-Dawntrail interviews building up the expansion that the devs mentioned how lovely and great Wuk Lamat is. It must've been shocking to see that she wasn't just received poorly, many exclusively blame the character for destroying DT's narrative.

Especially when it worked for Zero. Some fans didn't jive with her but the plot there was interesting and she wasn't smothering everything. (I do prefer Zero on every way)

[Gwenkatsu]

Or to sum it all up: The idea behind DT wasn't that bad. The execution was.

[Stormfur]

I think it's just that they leaned TOO much on Wuk Lamat Saves The Day. Like how are you going to be the ruler of an entire continent when you know nothing about its people? Oh but it's okay because you stand for Peace, Love and Happiness.

[Auro_Seldaris]

Either you live in a bubble or you're brand new to the internet. People have been talking about the problems with silent protagonists for close to two decades.

This must be a Young People thing. Do you get annoyed with your book when it doesn't talk to you? When I was young, ALL video game protagonists were silent. It may surprise you to know we made it through ok, with the power of imagination!

To be less sarcastic, what I mean is that you are the only person who thinks the WoL needs to be permanently sidelined in favor of an ever-rotating cast of Guest Star Main Characters. Some people love that their character is special, and have a lot invested in their WoL. If you get your way, then they lose out on what they want from the game, all to satisfy your own wants. You need to remember that not everyone sees everything the way you do.

The real answer is there's a happy middle ground between having pov characters and having the player character be important.

[Exmo]

This must be a Young People thing. Do you get annoyed with your book when it doesn't talk to you? When I was young, ALL video game protagonists were silent. It may surprise you to know we made it through ok, with the power of imagination!

Unless you consider anyone born after 1970 to be young, this is just not true. Given you're saying "silent protagonist" means "anything that doesn't have audio, such as books", it's clear you're just being rude and asinine for the sake of it. Not engaging with you further.