Child-like characters?

[Melichoir]

The creep factor comes in because Thancred sorta helped raise Minfilia for 15 years after her dad died in the 1.0 Ul’dah intro echo scene. It’s touched on more in 1.0. At the very least he was a big brother figure and has known her since she was 12. In 2.0, Minfilia is 27 and Thancred is 32, but his age is locked in at ~27 since he’s an archon if that means anything. I still wouldn’t ship it. And Ryne is right out.

Thancred is actually 32 years old in ARR, and probably still is, due to the whole time bubble thing in lore. I think Minfilia is around 22 years old in ARR, but the Encyclopaedia Eorzea only mentions when she first experiences the Echo (at around 17 years old) so her actual age depends when she formed the Path of the Twelve. (Edit: Completely missed the first sentence that mentions her current age as 27) I'd say that's at least old enough to be sort of an older brother figure, with how much he wanted to protect her.

Even wierder then cause their personalities dont line up this way by the way theyre written and presented. If they wanted to do the couple route, 27/32 pairing isnt unusual nor creepy? 4-5 year age gaps between couples that are late 20s or early 30s isnt uncommon. But for the sake of argument, yeah, I could see the older brother angle more readily than father figure. That never worked as a plot point for me simply because the characters didnt really display that attitude from my PoV. Theres a pretty big difference in the older brother being protective of a younger sister and a father figure. This then comes across as either a translation or writing issue. Seems to line up cause when you take into context Ryne, his reservations and disdain towards Ryne becomes unusually weird. From themes alone, Thancred shouldnt feel nearly that much animosity towards Ryne for the reasons he does if the relationship was completely platonic between him and Minfillia. This is the writers failing to write the characters interactions and motivations correctly, translation errors, or that pre-existing lore and etc is making the reasoning difficult to work with.

[Alacran]

Even wierder then cause their personalities dont line up this way by the way theyre written and presented. If they wanted to do the couple route, 27/32 pairing isnt unusual nor creepy? 4-5 year age gaps between couples that are late 20s or early 30s isnt uncommon. But for the sake of argument, yeah, I could see the older brother angle more readily than father figure. That never worked as a plot point for me simply because the characters didnt really display that attitude from my PoV. Theres a pretty big difference in the older brother being protective of a younger sister and a father figure. This then comes across as either a translation or writing issue. Seems to line up cause when you take into context Ryne, his reservations and disdain towards Ryne becomes unusually weird. From themes alone, Thancred shouldnt feel nearly that much animosity towards Ryne for the reasons he does if the relationship was completely platonic between him and Minfillia. This is the writers failing to write the characters interactions and motivations correctly, translation errors, or that pre-existing lore and etc is making the reasoning difficult to work with.

Thank you. Thought i was the only one who felt this way about their dynamic.

[Melichoir]

Thank you. Thought i was the only one who felt this way about their dynamic.

From a purely writing stand point, their dynamic couldve worked as follows:

He was tasked with being her warden. They grow up together and as they age, there is an underlying connection or romance that isnt really touched upon. He flirts with her but hes a bit of a rapscalion so he flirts with everyone. She rebuffs him and admonishes his playboy life, but does appreciate him on a deeper level but wont admit that to herself. Stuff happens, romance eventually starts to occur, they finally are honest with their feelings but everything goes to hell immediately after (assassination plot we have). She gets lifestreamed or whatever the hell happened to her. Tries to bring her back, especially after Yshtola is brought out of the lifestream herself, which gives him hope.

Eventually finds her, finds out she cant come back as shes gotta go to the first and do her thing there, in the end resulting in a lot of bitterness, regret, and unrequited feelings over how everything went. Gets Emotastic like he does, story progresses kind of as we know it. He gets sucked to the first, hears about Minfillia, has hope only to have it dashed realizing its not the Minfillia, has a lot of resentment, anger, and bitterness towards Mini-Fillia because she ends up representing his personal loss and vents his bitterness and feelings onto her all the while knowing that he cant let her alone cause she is integral to saving the first. Eventually snaps to and comes to terms with Minfillia not coming back and with Ryne, especially if this is done by him seeing Minfillia one last time where he can finally have resolution and lighten up and properly look out for Ryne and actually treat her as a daughter figure


It may be a bit cliche, but it is a lot more cohesive a story and character arc for Thancred then what we got IMO. I think most of the story arcs involving the Scions tend to be poorly handled over all, which is unfortunate. It's not that I dont like the scions or their characterization for the most part, it's just their individual stories tend to be clunky or poorly played out. But Im not 100% up to speed on 1.0 lore as it were, so I dont even know if this would work. Considering 1.0 is kinda like the red headed stepchild of the whole FFXIV continuity, Im fairly certain they couldve retconned a lot of it and no one wouldve really cared to deeply. But anyways, this is getting a bit off topic though.