Tales from the Storm Discussion

[Rosenoire]

In other words, to me, there's a greater focus among her critics of who Lyse was, rather than who she's portrayed in the present moment; that's essentially the issue with the GoT episode I highlighted. Many viewers couldn't separate the fact of who the actor was, from the role he was playing at that particular point, in that particular present moment.

I concede that the way Yda was re-written into Lyse could have been done better. Or, for that matter, it may have made more sense to introduce an entirely new character, someone with a link to Yda's past. That could also have worked as a hook to tie Yda's character development with the larger story of revolution.

For me, the Yda/Lyse reveal was emblematic of the problem with the character: I was told that she was important, but I was never shown anything that gave me a reason to care about her prior to Stormblood, Once in Stormblood, as Alleo said, Lyse's characterization was too much telling us how she'd grown without showing it.

As someone who didn't play 1.0 and who started in Limsa, my first real story interaction with Yda was the sylph questline. She comes across as basically the dumb muscle of the Scions, and her bickering with Papalymo provides some comic relief after the Ifrit questline and the heavy stuff that followed. While Thancred and Y'shtola were actively involved and worked with the Warrior of Light throughout ARR, Yda and Papalymo were, for me at least, afterthoughts. I probably had more conversations with Urianger than with those two.

Y&P were completely absent from the main (3.0-3.3) Heavensward arc. They miss some of the Warrior of Light's deepest hurts and greatest triumphs. Y'shtola's there for most of it, and we get Thancred back in 3.1, and we learn how much both of them have sacrificed to ensure victory. Meanwhile, Y&P don't resurface until late in 3.4; when they showed up, I'd almost forgotten about them. This, more than anything, hurt Yda/Lyse for me, because she was so much of a non-factor in most of Heavensward that I had zero investment in her as a character. That lack of investment meant that the big reveal left me cold--and more than a little confused. The little I thought I knew about the character--her identity--was false, but it was essentially "This person you didn't know is really some other person that you don't know." Any emotional punch from the moment was ruined by the fact that the other Scions already knew, and I had no reason to care as a player. Worse, from the point of view of my character, the fact that the rest of the Scions all knew but didn't bother to let him in on the secret was yet one more indication that the Scions view him as a symbol of hope and a sentient weapon they can aim at primals, and not so much as an actual person.

As a writer, it's a challenge to develop an unlikeable character into someone that an audience can relate to and empathize with. It can be done, and SE did it well with Alphinaud and Alisae. I couldn't stand Alphinaud in 2.X. When the WoL leaves for the Excellent Ishgardian Adventure, I wanted a dialogue option to bury Alphinaud in a Coerthas snowdrift and leave him there. By the time we got to Stormblood, I found myself missing him and his diplomatic skills, because I got to watch him mature through the course of the Ishgard arc. Alisae managed to annoy me more than her brother in her brief time in 2.0. But after running the Coil, and after being around her in 3.4, and seeing her grow and change and learn to manage her strengths and weaknesses, and now next to maybe Aymeric, there's no NPC I'd rather have at my side in a fight. With Lyse, I'm constantly told that she's grown and changed and learned, but I don't see that process.

The way that she gains leadership also doesn't help. The trope of someone thrust into a leader's role when they're not ready and rising to the challenge is classic, and that's fine. But when Conrad tells the WoL in confidence that he wants Lyse to succeed him, they might as well have tagged him with the <Dead Mentor Walking> title. The only question there was how he was going to die in that act There was no drama from his death for me because it was so obviously telegraphed. And then Lyse steps up, does something reckless, Raubhan gives her another Lesson In Leadership, and then she puts on a sexy red dress to show how much she's matured and grown into her role as a leader.

Okay, that's a little unfair, but cool as re-creating the trailer moment was, like so much else about Lyse's storyline to me, it felt forced. Her big "growth moments" all involve other people telling her things. She has almost no plot-relevant moments in Doma; have Alisae punch catfish-man and Lyse could be removed from the plot at that point without much change to the story. For someone who is essentially positioned as the NPC protagonist of 4.0, she's remarkably passive. And if it's challenging to make an unlikeable character sympathetic, it's very difficult to make a character who's a cipher into someone I actually care about. Lyse had some good moments, but at the end of 4.0, my main reaction to her leaving the Scions was, "Eh. Whatever."

end tl;dr

All that said, her "Tales" story does a lot to flesh her out, and to show (that word again!) why Lyse is someone people might follow. It's just too bad we didn't get enough of that in the actual game.