Why do the Scions seem so incompetent?

[MetalSnakeXI1]

This has been bothering me since the days of ARR,and while the issue is less worse than it used to be when ...*ughh* Minfillia was around it still bothers me how incompetent the Scions of the Seventh Dawn are(btw I don't count the twins as members and Tataru is the scions's secretary more or less....yet she was more useful than Minfillia ever was xD)

With the exception of Thancred,Urianger and Yshtola(and maaaaaybe Papalymo but thats a big maybe),most people in this organization either lack common sense to see the obvious route to the immediate solution so they send you errands that are the very definition of padding(the lead up to Garuda having my least favorite questlines in all of 14),or spend most of their day doing nothing.

And nothing embodies that more than the former "leader" of the scions herself....Minfillia.

Like ok,I get that you don't have to be a fighter to be of use,heck Urianger's studies of the realm did prove helpful on multiple occasions.But Minfillia literally just sit there doing nothing despite having the power of the echo all this time.And as a leader she hesitates on even the smallest decisions and this hesitation is what made the scions go around in circles for a long time.

Heck I'd argue because of her the scions barely made any progress until the Warrior of Light came in and suddenly they start associating his/her achievements as theirs cuz the WoL is now a member.....more like the driving force behind all their operation and the reason they made any progress to begin with.

And it's only when Minfillia gets tethered to Hydaelyn for all eternity and she's forever out of the picture(Beside Krile,literally no one mentions Minfillia anymore in Stormblood....like at all) that the members of the scions finally felt more involved in what's going on in the WoL's escapades rather than just cheering from their base in the Waking Sands.And it took Lyse/Yda until her companion/mentor freakin DIED for her to finally get more involved.

Maybe it's just me but I feel like if Minfillia wasn't there to begin with,the scions would've been much better than what they felt like throughout XIV.Oh well what's done is done I guess....I'm just glad there is no sight of Minfillia ever returning in the future.

[ObsidianFire]

For better or for worse, the Scions would likely have never have formed at all if Minfillia wasn't there.

A lot of Minfillia's issues as a character stem back to most of her character development happening back in 1.0 and then never being re-hashed in 2.0 for the people who never played 1.0. Back in 1.0, the Scions as we know them didn't exist. Instead, there was two different groups of people. Minfilia started up and organized what was called The Path. It was based in Ul'dah and was dedicated to finding people with the Echo and giving them an avenue to figure out what the Echo really was. Back then, nobody knew what the Echo was and a lot of people feared those who had it. The Path was dedicated to seeing what could be done with the Echo and researching it. Although, many of the people who did look further into the Echo disappeared while researching it. It's from this group that we get people like Arenvald and some of the people who died when Livia raided the Waking Sands.

The second group were the Archons who were with Loiusoix's Circle of Knowing. They were going around the realm trying to alert the city-states to the coming calamity and growing threat of Nael van Darnus and Dalamud. The Circle of Knowing knew more academic knowledge of what the Echo was and started exchanging information with The Path. Loiusoix and Minfillia started talking to each other and realized that they had similar goals and formed a good relationship. This eventually resulted in Loiusoix meeting the 1.0 Warrior of Light and kicked off a lot of the later 1.0 plot. After the Battle of Carenaeu, the Circle of Knowing and the Path combined into a new organization, the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, under Minfillia as everyone agreed she was good at delegating who did what. She continued in this role until the end of 2.0.

In both 1.0 and 2.0, either organization doesn't make much visible progress because they aren't the main character. We are. The Warrior of Light is the one with all the combat skills and who can actually get stuff done. As it is, the Echo itself has very little to do with combat. Instead it has to do with transcending barriers between people's souls (speaking/hearing all languages) and transcending the barriers between the material and aetherial worlds (talking with Hydaelyen) and transcending the barriers between time (seeing past histories). It also is slightly different for each person who has it. Minfillia's Echo was said to be the strongest in transcending the barriers between worlds. Krile's Echo lends itself well to understanding people's motives. And ours? Ours is good at everything. The Warrior of Light is Hydaelyn's Chosen One. We're basically Her proxy on the Source. For better or for worse, it's not just the Scions who can't get anything meaningful done without us, it's pretty much everyone else in the realm as well. In a very real way, we are the Dues Ex Machina for everyone else.

As for the current Scions, the trope the Worf Effect explains a lot of why they are incompetent. At it's heart, that trope is about establishing a new threat as powerful by having that thing take down someone else that the audience already knows is powerful. However, doing that too often tends to make the powerful someone else seem incompetent. After all, if they really were powerful, then they could take out threats too. The writers need some way of showing that a threat is serious enough that the Warrior of Light is the one that needs to deal with it. However, the Warrior of the Light is the player character and constantly having threats that are powerful enough to beat us every time they come up wouldn't go over well and become really boring. So instead the writers have the new threat take out one of the Scions who we already know are stronger then most people are. This has the additional benefit of shrinking the cast a tad so that the writers can focus on less people for a bit. Unfortunately, this tactic has been used twice this expansion, so it's more obvious the writers are doing this then usual.

[Dzian]

Because they are. all the NPC's are.

let's go back to patch 2.0 ARR's early days. 1 single level 50 adventurer could run amok and cause absolute chaos in the castrums in mordhona or vineport absolutely stomp entire armies of garlean forces. yet the ENTIRE eorzean alliance could barely touch them. how incompetent must they be.

just one example. the same goes virtually everywhere in the game. NPC = not particularly competent. hahaha

[Jyera]

Don't forget that with regard to what player audiences know, there's a lot of dramatic irony at play. That disparity is always going to make characters who aren't privy to that knowledge seem misguided and silly.

[MetalSnakeXI1]

@ObsidianFire

I do understand the progress behind the scenes when I feel it's effect later

The Archons knowledge,like you said,warned Eorzea of the coming calamity.The knowledge Urianger had with his research,especially with Moenbryda later,proved quite fruitful against the ascian threat and the primals for example.Alphinaud,despite lacking in combat prowess,is an excellent diplomat

I'm not asking the scions to do the Warrior of Light's job cuz otherwise there won't be a game.But when it comes to post 1.0 plot from ARR onward,the scions's progress only felt more visible once she was out of the picture to send the warriors of darkness back to their world.So it felt like,despite how powerful her echo was, that Minfillia was holding back her own organization once the calamity passed.Heck it's after she was gone that we discovered more people with the echo like Arenvald

As for cutting down characters,Minfillia deserved it, but I didn't think Papalymo needed to die(assuming he's dead that is cuz if Louisoux and Gaius taught me anything...is that you only are confirmed dead if you die on screen.....unless you're Zenos xD)

[MetalSnakeXI1]

Because they are. all the NPC's are.

let's go back to patch 2.0 ARR's early days. 1 single level 50 adventurer could run amok and cause absolute chaos in the castrums in mordhona or vineport absolutely stomp entire armies of garlean forces. yet the ENTIRE eorzean alliance could barely touch them. how incompetent must they be.

just one example. the same goes virtually everywhere in the game. NPC = not particularly competent. hahaha

Well a level 50 jobber is still a jobber at the end of the day so even at a high level it doesn't mean much when you see them die to weak spawning FATE monsters on the field xD

[ObsidianFire]

The Scions did plenty of things under Minfillia. It's just that when she is the one running the Scions, the plot isn't doing anything earthshattering like it will later do in Heavensward. Instead it's introducing "average" concepts like defeating primls abd pushing back the Imperials. But that doesn't invalidate that Minfillia was largely sucessful in her rolecas antecedent. It's only when Alphinaud creates the Crystal Braves that she becomes more maginalized, and she never gets the chance to shine in her role as antecedent after that.

Stuff the Scions do Under Minfillia's Direction
Disperse the primals Ifrit, Titian, Moggle Mog, Rhamu, Leviathan and Shiva
Prevent a primal version of Rhalgr from being summoned
Figure out a meathod of permenantly killing Ascians
Unite the Eozean Alliance
Lay the groundwork for Ishgard to become part of the Eorzean Alliance
Become based in nutraul terretory
Help the Alliance repel the Garleans

The Scions were plenty busy and mostly succesful at what they did in 2.0 untill the last patch. It's just that 2.0 as a whole is focused more on establishing what the status quo will be for the rest of the game then on doing anything to interesting plot-wise. That shouldn't diminish what they did manage to acomplish though.

[Dreggit]

As for cutting down characters,Minfillia deserved it, but I didn't think Papalymo needed to die(assuming he's dead that is cuz if Louisoux and Gaius taught me anything...is that you only are confirmed dead if you die on screen.....unless you're Zenos xD)

Awful thought of the day; Papalymo gets possessed like Zenos did and complicates things down the line

[MetalSnakeXI1]

Awful thought of the day; Papalymo gets possessed like Zenos did and complicates things down the line

Lahabrea came back and possessed Papalymo xD

The Scions did plenty of things under Minfillia. It's just that when she is the one running the Scions, the plot isn't doing anything earthshattering like it will later do in Heavensward. Instead it's introducing "average" concepts like defeating primls abd pushing back the Imperials. But that doesn't invalidate that Minfillia was largely sucessful in her rolecas antecedent. It's only when Alphinaud creates the Crystal Braves that she becomes more maginalized, and she never gets the chance to shine in her role as antecedent after that.

Stuff the Scions do Under Minfillia's Direction
Disperse the primals Ifrit, Titian, Moggle Mog, Rhamu, Leviathan and Shiva
Prevent a primal version of Rhalgr from being summoned
Figure out a meathod of permenantly killing Ascians
Unite the Eozean Alliance
Lay the groundwork for Ishgard to become part of the Eorzean Alliance
Become based in nutraul terretory
Help the Alliance repel the Garleans

The Scions were plenty busy and mostly succesful at what they did in 2.0 untill the last patch. It's just that 2.0 as a whole is focused more on establishing what the status quo will be for the rest of the game then on doing anything to interesting plot-wise. That shouldn't diminish what they did manage to acomplish though.

Fair enough....though half of these were done either by the Warrior of Light

For Ishgard it was really Alphinaud not so much Minfillia that laid the groundwork.

As for changing from Horizon to Mor Dhona....Minfillia wouldn't have done it if it wasn't for Alphinaud cuz otherwise she would've remained in Uldah

I guess my problem is,and I probably should've made it clearer,is that at least for ARR,unless we're slaying a primal for the scions or fighting Garlemald,we don't get too involved enough in some of these instances with the exception of alliance meetings.and when we do get involved more it seems they send us on errands that ....wouldn't have been bad if the quests for those errands weren't so plentiful in ARR(looking at Coerthas in particular) cuz in Heavensward and Stormblood the quantity of small MSQs were considerably shortened.

[Iscah]

Minfilia does a lot of work that we don't see, and that wouldn't be all that compelling to watch. Meetings, assigning people to tasks, making sure the organisation is actually running and organised.

I know there's some point where someone actually remarks on the sort of work she was doing, but I don't know where to look for the quote.