Please, no more Wuk Lamat

[Drimn]

"Hi i am a Hrothgar Female which travels over an entire ocean even though i am sea sick very easily to ask the WOL if he helps me seize the throne of my Country which i do not know in the slightest even though i have no idea if he/she will agree.
Not to mention my personality of a 10 year old."

Yeah no i can't find anything to appreciate her. She has no buisness trying to get that throne her Miqo Brother is much better suited for.

Then, at some point around Origenics in the MSQ, she talks about how she's never been to Sharlayan and wants to visit someday. She's an idiot. And there were plenty of points in the story to show that empathy that everyone in the story seems to pretend she has, but instead she just makes it about herself again. And for whatever reason, the Scions seem to think she's the best thing to happen to the planet. She comes off as someone that's way more interested in the idea of people and being a good person than someone interested in people or being a good person. There's no contrition, there's no clue-by-four to the face like Alphinaud gets with the Crystal Braves to nudge her away from it, we're just supposed to nod and grin while she acts foolish and selfish. This is half of 7.0 and there's enough of it to put her just below Alphinaud in words said since 2.0 despite only being part of one expac.

I don't have anything wrong with writing someone that claims to have this deep interest and love in people around them, only to find out that their interest is self-serving, or they're more interested in the idea of being a people person than the people themselves. There are plenty of people out there like that. Just don't have everyone else in the story buy in. There's no way all of the Scions would be that dumb, especially Krile, who gets a keyhole through the fourth wall like you do.

I watched a video that posits Wuk Lamat was created later in development and retrofitted as Koana's replacement... and my god, it really is convincing

The seasickness, the intolerance to spicy food, the ignorance of her own culture and peoples, etc etc
These are traits that fit Koana REALLY well (having been in Sharlayan for so long) and they don't fit Wuk at all (who's supposed to have been in Tural her entire life alongside her father who is THE LITERAL DAWNSERVANT. HOW did her father not mentor her on the different cultures of Tural?)

She doesn't work because it wasn't her story to begin with. They basically put a character with a completely different personality in the same role at some point in DT's planning

This is the video I'm talking about btw:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjpxJV6_8Ic

It makes sense, but we're talking about a studio that said "People loved Shadowbringers' story so let's speedrun our way through the end", so who knows whether or not that actually happened, or if this is just what people originally thought, competent people being promoted into hands-off position with incompetent people taking their place, and upper leadership getting bored to the point that quality control slips.

[Barwara]

I don't think we will see much more of her from now on, considering how little we've seen of Lyse, Aymeric, Hien, and everyone else after we finished their storyline. Maybe some cameos here and there.

[Valence]

She could have been but she seemed to go from strength to strength.

Wuk would of been fine if she had a more non linear way to power or a noticeable flaw with consequences. Koana had his whole system of beliefs turned upside down when he slowly started the realize that tech wasn't the solution to every persons problem and the whole story of the rise, fall, and slowly rerising of Bakool Ja Ja kinda dances circles around Wuk's story.

Its like they tooked Lyse's story and took away all the hurt and struggles she went through and presented it as Wuk Lamat's story.

To be fair what people missed is that Lamat had a clear foil with the introduction of Endless Sphene once she got the throne. Endless Sphene was supposed to be a mirror to her, a leader that cares immensely for her population and would be ready to do anything for them. Anything.

And that's where the foil was, but the story didn't make anything of it because Lamat was never put in a similar situation where she would have had to take a long, hard look in the mirror. Like, having to destroy Alexandria, hurt their population, a "it's us or them" situation, or anything. This was never a thing. All Wuk did was "of course I'm not like that, I need to bring Sphene back to reason!" and that's where the writing lost the themes it tried to introduce and the character fell flat once more.

Koana was suited for Solution 9 and all the 7.1-7.5 patches, not her. She should be in Tuliyollal and Koana should be with us.

Koana could have worked but it would have changed the themes. Not that the themes were written properly or exploited well to begin with. But with Koana it would probably have needed for him to have Joraal as a foil instead of Endless Sphene. "Where are you ready to go in your pursuit of technology and efficiency in regard to your own population? Will you notice in time that your rationality doesn't account for the human side of society and you're losing all of its values in your blind pursuit of whatever you're trying to achieve?"

Could have been interesting too, though. I just think both characters in concept work in the second part of the story. It's just the writing that fell flat and didn't prove competent enough to exploit its own proposed themes.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

[...]I'd probably rant on forever if I list everything[...]

I getcha' lol. I myself recalled writing about 40+ pages of rambling on a google doc listing things that I dislike or unsure about, just so I can replay NG+ couple of times at later date to let the story sink in and digest them proper, but for DT it never came to be.

[...]Didn't Gulool Ja Ja tell you he wanted Wuk Lamat to win after we dueled him in the throne room or am I mistaken?[...]

I recall vividly he merely asks us to be her 'mentor', and nowhere he implies that he only wants Wuk to succeed.

[...]Urgency has left the writing room since Endwalker[...]

I wasn't fan of that rabbit mice introduction either, but at the very least the writer actually made effort to show our character & their companion's anxiety and impatience toward the Loporrits.

In Living Memory, it might be better if they reverse the order i.e. let us explore first > visit Meso Terminal entrance > Sphene starts the countdown > Immediately goes into the dungeon. The lack of awareness on our characters & our companions was a huge dealbreaker to me.

[...]Another thing that bothered me is that everyone's turning into a copy of their parent. Koana, Wuk Lamat, Zoraal Ja, all one dimensional aspects of Gulool Ja Ja, Erenville immediately chooses to not be a gleaner anymore, same with Krile, all these things happen way too fast imo...I would've loved to explore these emotions [...]

I'm gonna echo what you wrote there: "all these things happen way too fast imo...I would've loved to explore these emotions".

Yes, that's another major issue with Dawntrail narrative: very quick to move past things that should've mattered more i.e. letting the character(s) stumble and fall so we can be there and push for them (Wuk watches her father get murdered and had her world turned upside down in a matter of seconds, but we get to "Tuliyollal will not fall, peace will prevail!"-speech pretty quickly after). This compounded by bland, repetitive dialogues that amounts to spending too much time saying many 'nothings' (why do we need to learn about soils in 3 different maps? First Kozama, second in Mamook, and third in Heritage lol).

Wuk as a character is only the most noticeable example of these issues the writer had displayed. Even if we remove her entirely, it still won't remove the fact that the writer put so much pressure to trying to write a predetermined outcome without supporting this with a believable and coherent build-up.

I got a non-Wuk example: Sphene proceed to perform her monologue after we dealt with Zoraal Ja. Am I supposed to believe no one would try to stop her when there's nothing holding them back from just charging in? Alisaie and Thancred was also there lol, why weren't they acting like... you know, Alisaie and Thancred? At least when Emet-Selch does this at the end of Mt.Gulg, he's got Exarch as a hostage & threaten to kill him if the scion dared to interrupt.

Sorry I rambled xD

[Thaciscokidd]

snip

I don't think its missed more that it was kinda out of place. To piggy back on Darko's point also, I think Sphene is more of a foil for Koana than Wuk Lamat. Koana learned that tech wasn't the answer to all problems where in Solution Nine was technology run rampant to the point where the population suffered to the point of near apathy.

Koana going to Solution Nine would have been a great story moment for him to see a clear possibility of his want for technological advancement and having Sphene go with him for his little train expedition could of helped both of them grow.

If Sphene was supposed to be a foil for Wuk then they did a worse job than I originally thought. Sphene's whole deal was helping people by any means. Sphene sacrificed and sacrificed. She gave up her kingdom to see it saved. Yes, Wuk cared for her people but she just blundered her way to being a ruler of Tural. Comparing Wuk to Sphene is like comparing King Harkinian to Rimuru Tempest.

[Arrius]

I don't think we will see much more of her from now on, considering how little we've seen of Lyse, Aymeric, Hien, and everyone else after we finished their storyline. Maybe some cameos here and there.

She could be in a single flashback scene and people still will throw up their hands, complain about it in the forums for 10+ pages and pat each other their backs for hating her on social.

[SpookyKobold]

I don't get the hate. She has annoying moments but a lot of people hating because of the VA. She's not as annoying as Zenos.

EVERYONE is hating because of the VA. They'll lie to your face that that isn't the case, and then spout off some BS about the story (that they likely haven't even read) that contradicts itself and the actual text of the story (again because they haven't read it, but listened to some transphobe on youtube recount the story badly, one has already been posted in this thread too). They really sit there and say things like "Wuk Lamat just had a party instead of fixing the tribes wilting crops!" like y'all didn't pay ANY attention to the story did you, cause that ain't anywhere close to what happened.

[SpookyKobold]

I don't think its missed more that it was kinda out of place. To piggy back on Darko's point also, I think Sphene is more of a foil for Koana than Wuk Lamat. Koana learned that tech wasn't the answer to all problems where in Solution Nine was technology run rampant to the point where the population suffered to the point of near apathy.

Koana going to Solution Nine would have been a great story moment for him to see a clear possibility of his want for technological advancement and having Sphene go with him for his little train expedition could of helped both of them grow.

If Sphene was supposed to be a foil for Wuk then they did a worse job than I originally thought. Sphene's whole deal was helping people by any means. Sphene sacrificed and sacrificed. She gave up her kingdom to see it saved. Yes, Wuk cared for her people but she just blundered her way to being a ruler of Tural. Comparing Wuk to Sphene is like comparing King Harkinian to Rimuru Tempest.

Blundered her way into being ruler? Y'all really don't actually read the story do you? There is so much of it that you have to outright ignore to say this. You're ignoring all of Wuk's character growth over the story, ignoring every event leading up to her becoming ruler. It's incredibly disingenuous and anyone that has read the text knows that you're pulling this outta nowhere.

[Xylira]

EVERYONE is hating because of the VA. They'll lie to your face that that isn't the case, and then spout off some BS about the story (that they likely haven't even read) that contradicts itself and the actual text of the story (again because they haven't read it, but listened to some transphobe on youtube recount the story badly, one has already been posted in this thread too). They really sit there and say things like "Wuk Lamat just had a party instead of fixing the tribes wilting crops!" like y'all didn't pay ANY attention to the story did you, cause that ain't anywhere close to what happened.

Nope, Wuk is just a poorly written character.

Go take a look at the Japanese, French, and German communities, there's similar dislike for the character because of the way she's written. They all have a completely different VA voicing the character in those languages, so your silly argument to excuse bad character writing doesn't work.

[Aco505]

Koana could have worked but it would have changed the themes.

I believe Koana should've been involved at least on the first half of the Solution 9 part of the MSQ with Wuk Lamat then taking the front spot again due to her relationship with Sphene. Koana as a character has been quite wasted in the 7.0 story... to then have him do some questionable things in 7.1, such as trying to block the dinosaur with his bare hands instead of his ingenuity or just... his gun. That moment felt like a thing Wuk Lamat would do that they decided to change in the last second, perhaps due to the initial negative reaction, but it hurt Koana's established personality.