Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XXVII Lore Discussion

[Anselmet]

They killed plenty... including Wilred.

Name one main character other than Haurchefant and I guess Moonbryda that they sincerely killed off. The main reason Haurchefant's death is so impactful is because he is truly gone and not coming back (unless Yoshi-P wants to mess up on that one). The story had more heart behind it when we thought we were trying to move on and over come our failures by trying to help Ishgard. The scions all living negates that. One of the final cutscenes has Tataru even saying we need to rebuild the scions (and we need money). Well now we don't because all of the major players are still alive. So Tataru, start becoming unuseful again because we have five other characters to take your place.

EDIT: But seeing how we are stuck with scions, we could have had them come back gradually. Imagine if Yshtola had to deal with the impact of her forbidden magic, thinking Thancred is dead only to find him patches later. Or to have Yda and Papalmo show up in the next expansion. I think my main critique is that its all a happy ending one patch after Heavensward which had a solid story.

[Knahli]

I fully agree with you. What makes me even more angry with none of the scions dying is that it makes Alphinaud's character growth kinda pointless. His character growth is something Yoshi-P was proud of, however now him learning from his arrogance is pointless because in the end, 'Hey your Crystal Braves didn't kill anyone, buddy!' So now I feel that Heavensward's story is kinda more lame because it takes away so much from Alphinaud's journey.

But what I fear, is that 3.2 will have only a couple of cutscenes dealing with Ishgard, then all the rest dealing with pointless Minifilia and the utterly boring scions just like 3.1. Maybe if they take some characters from this expansion and they were to join us and make this all worth wild then maybe I would be less critical. But we are just going back to the 'good old days', or so it feels.

No-one needed to die for him to learn his lesson, he just needed to think that they died. All that their survival really meant was that he was alleviated of some of the guilt that had followed the realisation that he had been an idealistic fool. In the end, a lot of people were put in serious danger if not killed. The fact that he might have been a bit closer to the Scions than some of the lower key characters doesn't really count for a whole lot considering that their deaths/wounds/grievances would still have been on his conscience. Not to mention the fact that he completely destabilised the Ul'dahn government and indirectly threatened to bring about a civil war as a result. He spent the entire MSQ fighting for a united Eorzea that could stand strong and repel the inevitable return of the Empire only to perceivably shatter the existing alliance following the tensions that 2.55 would only have surely brought about between the three powers - again, not even mentioning how Eorzea's strongest military force was now further crippled and sent into disarray so soon after it had been disrupted by the discovery of Garlean agents and sympathisers among their ranks. To add another layer to it, a lot of Brass Blades that were killed or maimed during the course of the 2.55 storyline were very likely just following orders and had no idea that they were on the wrong side of things. As well as that, at least some fragmented remnants of the Crystal Braves continued to function for at least a while without his leadership following his forced departure, meaning that he had a powerful and potentially rogue military force acting on their own beyond his control.

Guilt aside, talking to the NPCs between every dialogue exchange often reveals a lot of extra information and it was clear that Alphinaud was very eager to prove his worth and redeem his past mistakes. That would include, though not be limited to, searching for and potentially rescuing the missing Scions, all of whom were put in jeopardy because of his actions and only continued to remain missing all throughout the storyline and up until now. His motives aren't simply 'doing the right thing' and striving for a united Eorzea as they had once been, he is still seeking to make up for the damage he has caused. Hell, he even insists on joining you and fighting by your side on a number of occasions despite the serious risks it poses to himself. If I'm not mistaken, he even intended on joining you for your encounter with Ravanna(or perhaps it was Nidhogg) before being discouraged by Estinien. None of that was a return of his arrogance, that was his way of trying to do all that he could to make things right.

Alphinaud has come a long way from just being a mere political figure, going to and fro with his bright ideas. He accompanies your party throughout the entire journey despite the fact that he didn't have to. He could have just stayed back in Ishgard the entire time and worked toward finding the Scions, but he wasn't interested in wasting any time he felt could be better spent being more proactive. He, a privileged noble boy, was actually eager to collect firewood on at least two occasions.


With that and perhaps a lot of other points I didn't think to mention, I respectfully disagree that there were no real consequences for him in the end which diminished his lessons learned, even considering how things turned out. Alphinaud has still come a long way from the boy he was back in the 2.0 line. Feel however you may about deaths being written off because, believe me, despite how utterly crushed the 2.55 scenes had left me feeling in their wake, I felt a little strange to see at least Nanamo return in the end, but I cannot agree that Alphinaud's journey was "pointless".

[myahele]

Yeah, her "crystallization" makes me think that she won't be with us in the physical sense, but spiritually ... meaning instead of linkpearl, she'll use telepathy to communicate with us

Though, on a more serious note, I do wonder if this was Elidibus' plan? Nabriales did say that Elidibus had plans for her, so he bound her to Zodiark's crystal ... now she's bound to a White crystal.

By the end of 3.0 we saw that the "true power of the echo" allows for beings to merge with each other ... perhaps what we're seeing is truly Minfilia merging with Hydaelyn?

Maybe this will be the change that'll color our perspective regarding Hydaelyn? That she's a parasite and not as good as we thought?

[Fenral]

Exactly, I want them to have the stones to kill off someone at the least, from the Scion's (no, Moony doesn't count) and have them stay dead.

Oh, it's this debate. Again. (I'm one to talk. :P) I wonder what kind of world we live in where it's become the norm for audiences to demand that characters die.

Killing characters off isn't a matter of having "stones" or not. Well, it is if you're a hack writer with no ongoing plans for any of your characters and just going for shock value and one-off emotional manipulation, but as a rule characters only die to suit the demands of the ongoing narrative.

Moenbryda and Haurchefant, at least, continue to have an ongoing presence in the narrative even after death, and the jury's still out but signs suggest that Ysayle will play a role in whatever happens to Estinien. Granted that still leaves a ton of other "lesser" allies who have been killed off and forgotten, but I want to believe that the writing team is capable of learning from the backlash they've got over that.

This Scions aren't expendable and never will be. Sorry. It also wouldn't be right to kill anyone off after Nanamo came back as easily as she did, unless something were to cast doubt on the current, otherwise "happy," resolution of that arc. I suspect if anyone's dead for real it will be Yda, because Yoshida keeps a list of my favorites on hand just so he can check them off one at a time.

Sephirot should be MSQ. I'm expecting it to be, the HM (normal) version at least.

It sounded like the NM is MSQ and the EX is an independent unlock that won't require the NM. Not sure how that's supposed to work.

[Alisa180]

Oh, it's this debate. Again. (I'm one to talk. :P) I wonder what kind of world we live in where it's become the norm for audiences to demand that characters die.

Killing characters off isn't a matter of having "stones" or not. Well, it is if you're a hack writer with no ongoing plans for any of your characters and just going for shock value and one-off emotional manipulation, but as a rule characters only die to suit the demands of the ongoing narrative.

Moenbryda and Haurchefant, at least, continue to have an ongoing presence in the narrative even after death, and the jury's still out but signs suggest that Ysayle will play a role in whatever happens to Estinien. Granted that still leaves a ton of other "lesser" allies who have been killed off and forgotten, but I want to believe that the writing team is capable of learning from the backlash they've got over that.

This Scions aren't expendable and never will be. Sorry. It also wouldn't be right to kill anyone off after Nanamo came back as easily as she did, unless something were to cast doubt on the current, otherwise "happy," resolution of that arc. I suspect if anyone's dead for real it will be Yda, because Yoshida keeps a list of my favorites on hand just so he can check them off one at a time.

Please not Yda. She's my favorite Scion after Alphinaud. D:

But otherwise, I can't second this enough. I think the desire to kill characters off comes from the reasoning of 'death=dark=good story'. But a story that kills off characters ala Game of Thrones can be just as bad as a story that cheats everyone out of dying. On that subject, FFXIV has actually handled the matter of character death exceptionally well. Even the impact of the Waking Sands attack is still felt, as Urianger has stated that the attack, along with Moenbryda's death, has motivated him to ensure such a tragedy does not happen on his watch again. This fueled his motivation to agree to hear Elidibus out, however begrudgingly.

Heck, even the death of otherwise-minor villain Livia came back to hit us like a boomerang when we found out Lucia was her sister. A couple have theorized that was why Lucia was rather cold to us at the start. And if you talk to Wilred's father in Little Ala Mhigo (I forget his name) you find out he hasn't learned of his son's death yet. Yeah, that's not going to crop up again if we're heading into an Ala Mhigo expansion.

[AstralKaos]

snip

I'm saying it because seeing all our "beloved" Scion's get killed in a big old scene only for them to be crapped back out takes any scene involving death and so on have zero urgency or impact.

Nanamo, Thancred, Y'shtola, Papalymo, Yda, Minfilia... all apparently done over... big drama etc... oh, nope! The only folk that do die are those who were only made to die, Moenbryda for example, who, might I add is more deserving to come back than that useless little crumpet.

I'm also not demanding anything, I just find it meh that they can't stick to their guns at all when it came to killing off anyone in that scene.

Edit: It also isn't about dark, edgy wow things either, it's them not sticking to things they do, the first time in the whole game we deal with our bestest friends for everest being done over and all of them just come back. Moenbryda, Haurchefant, Ysayle, Louisoix... all fair game, dead, gone etc. But from the way they've handled the Scion scene, why should I not think that any of them will come back, or any other person who dies will just come back, why would I care if they make some scene about some guy dying if deep down I don't know if I believe it's going to stick?

[CyrilLucifer]

I actually think Minfilia coming back completely warped might lead to an interesting parallel. It was pretty clear when she left us that she was the one in the least amount of danger. So we might have underestimated how much trouble she ended up in and might actually have been the one most challenged by the affair. She might have been summoned for a completely different purpose than everyone expected.

I'm also looking to see some Thancred character development. Y'shtola, while a fun character, didn't really develop per se. She died and came back and that's it, very static. yay for her fans, I guess, but it left a sour taste in my mouth on the character development front. Thancred is in a prime place to either grow or at least be tested in some way. If you talk to him after the 3.1 quest, he's really fierce about his desire to find Minfilia. That can mutate and go too far very quickly.

That being said, I'm quite fond of the idea that the crystal there is more metaphorical and Minfilia was trapped by some of the more, ah, hardcore Sharlayans and they're using her to study the Echo against her will. Hence the appearance of being bound by the crystal, and a Sharlayan facility that seems to have been warped. I know it's probably not going to happen, but I like it, okay?

Alternatively, and to me more realistically, it could be that she is bound to her duties to Hydaelyn and she feels imprisoned by them.

[Fenral]

I'm saying it because seeing all our "beloved" Scion's get killed in a big old scene only for them to be crapped back out takes any scene involving death and so on have zero urgency or impact.

Um, that scene happened to put them in limbo, not to kill them off, as a lead-in to a story arc where we reassess their value to us and reestablish the core ensemble. Nobody was ever meant to die there. Nanamo was certainly a cop-out, because hear death had serious game-changing potential, but she's the only one of that sort so far.

If they were to, say, kill off Minfilia in a way that made it clear that it played into the plans of exactly nobody, that could have some serious potential, as it would leave Eldibus, Lahabrea, and even us struggling to fill the void left by her absence. This isn't quite the same as axing a character before they're allowed to have lingering implications (i.e. Ysayle), which is just a cop out.

[Theodric]

Characters dying helps move a plot forward. It also makes the antagonists seem like a genuine threat. Killing off characters for the sake of killing them off is silly, of course, but at the same time...when we have a massive plot device such as the WoL in play then we need other characters to take the fall because we're obviously not going to be killed off.

[Belhi]

If Minfilia had ended up just dead it would have been very sloppy writing. She gets a message, runs off into the tunnels apparently perfectly healthy, and oh now she is dead.

Honestly in 2.55 I didn't think any of the Scions were dead. What was the critical issue with 2.55 wasn't the Scions dying. Us being scattered, outcast and alone served its purpose enough. The mistake was that Nanamo survived. It was her survival that undermined all the drama of 2.55 and made it lose it impact. Having Minifila dead would have done nothing to get it back.

So far they seem to have handled the Scions return reasonably well. I'll wait and see what they are doing with Minfilia. It isn't what I was expecting but honestly we have so little to go on its impossible to speculate how this will change things. At the very least what we have seen so far is both an attempt to flesh out the Scions a bit while at least showing the events of 2.55 had a cost on them.

I cant help but think people want Minfilia dead just cause they don't like her :/ Seriously if Minfilia had ended up dead, the way she generally seems to be talked about a lot of people would just say 'good'. That's no impact at all. If a death is supposed to have impact you have to care that the person has died.

Anyway they haven't held back in killing off characters in HW. I don't think they are lacking that narratively. Frankly doing it too much would cause it to lose it's impact.