Quote Originally Posted by Rosenstrauch View Post
I would say it's a little of both, but I'll also throw in the whole "Everyone (but you) knew Yda was Lyse the whole time" thing, as to me that's a clear enough symptom of the problem. First impressions are important for establishing who a character is, and my first impression of "Yda is really Lyse" was that all of the characters who should be surprised by this already knew, and just kept me/my character in the dark because it didn't matter if I knew or not. Yda would still be Yda, no matter what name they called her by.

And from what I remember of Stormblood's story, that much is true. They didn't do anything with Lyse that they couldn't have done with Yda, and didn't change her character in any particular way to differentiate her from Yda—aside from taking away her dynamic with Papalymo and giving her nothing in return. So in a roundabout fashion, changing her identity actually made her less interesting.
Thematically, I think part of what the writers were aiming for in SB were the stories of young people who had grown up entirely in the shadow of conquered states: Lyse, Fordola, and Yotsuyu all spent most of their formative years with a homeland controlled by the Empire. It's clear that a thematic parallel was set up among them. Yda as we knew her by HW was a bit too old for that, and the writers wanted their two-fer with an Ala Mhigan Scion invested in freeing their nation, while also being young enough to parallel Fordola and Yotusyu.

Like, the obvious counterfactual for SB's story is for Lyse to be introduced as an entirely separate character from Yda in late HW/early SB, and I don't think people would have been any more invested in such a Lyse than the one we did get. The writers were attempting to bind old affection for Yda--which I certainly have since I started the game in Gridania--with a new character concept in Lyse, and their two-fer attempt didn't land cleanly enough for a lot of people.