Who is your least favorite major character and why?

[Lauront]

You also forgot that they force us to be far to courteous to our enemies... Take Praetorium for example. We stand by and let ppl deliver long winded speeches before fighting them instead of just walking up and punching them in the face while they talk then just let them casually walk off during a fight to go get into a giant robot? >.>

Most of the big ones are too powerful for it to be that easy anyway and you'd learn little of their goals in so doing. At most it'd alter the cutscene sequence and little else. Gaius in particular can simply teleport...

[RitsukoSonoda]

Most of the big ones are too powerful for it to be that easy anyway and you'd learn little of their goals in so doing. At most it'd alter the cutscene sequence and little else. Gaius in particular can simply teleport...

There's a number of cutscenes where our character literally just stands there and lets things happen instead of taking action or initiative that could have prevented the kupo nuts from hitting the fan.

[Theodric]

There's a number of cutscenes where our character literally just stands there and lets things happen instead of taking action or initiative that could have prevented the kupo nuts from hitting the fan.

Arguably, yes.

Though it's balanced out by the rather ridiculous plot armour that the player character and his allies are clad in at pretty much every turn. There's been many points in the story where it would make sense for an antagonist to just step forward, slit the throat of one of the Scions or the Warrior of Light himself and be done with it - but then there wouldn't be much of a story to be told.

[KizuyaKatogami]

That has always been the FF way of storytelling, you're not playing from the characters POV. Think of it as an interactive book from a 3rd person perspective.

Outside of combat, you're not playing the WoL, from a story-telling perspective.

Eh idk. A majority of ff games you are playing the pov of people. The problem with 14 is i just feel like a stand-in a majority of the time, with Alphinaud i guess being regarded as the mc. It doesn’t help though that it’s an mmo and our options are severely limited in what we can do, dialogue wise.

[TTiscancer]

Eh idk. A majority of ff games you are playing the pov of people. The problem with 14 is i just feel like a stand-in a majority of the time, with Alphinaud i guess being regarded as the mc. It doesn’t help though that it’s an mmo and our options are severely limited in what we can do, dialogue wise.

There's a difference between 1st person POV and 3rd person POV. In JRPGs it's usually 3rd person and you don't have a say in how your character behaves or who they are. To put in another way, you are following a character, not playing it outside of combat.

[Lauront]

There's a number of cutscenes where our character literally just stands there and lets things happen instead of taking action or initiative that could have prevented the kupo nuts from hitting the fan.

As Theodric said, it cuts both ways and it's down to narrative choice. I agree it doesn't make all that much sense in some cases.

[MoofiaBossVal]

G'raha Tia. I loved the Crystal Exarch in 5.0 for being a competent leader, but then he took the hood off and became a raving fanboy who competes with Alphinaud (a much better character) for screentime.


G'raha Tia has three major problems.


First: G'raha trying to cut into the WoL's life.

By the time of Shadowbringers, the WoL is famous and lots of people want to know him, and he's being called by everyone in the realm to help them out. The WoL just doesn't have enough time to help out and hang out with everybody. The WoL already has a circle of friends that he's spent a lot of time, are his preferred crew to tackle problems with, and the people he prefers to spend his time with.

The WoL worked with him during the Crystal Tower questline for all of 1 or 2 hours. This was before the WoL had really formed a circle of friends with the Scions. So in Shadowbringers, you have G'raha - a stranger to the WoL - trying to cut into the WoL's life. "Take me on an adventure with you". I mean, yeah, by the time he says that in 5.3, I've known him long enough that it'd feel nature, but it feels really weird that he was harboring this desire during 5.0, and says it to you in Kholusia. It's like a fanboy seeing a celebrity idol at the mall and saying "please let me be your best friend!".


Second: G'raha Tia is NOT an old man.

I think the other problem with G'raha Tia is that... he's supposed to have come from a time period in which he woke up and everyone he knew was dead, and there was immense bloodshed and the new people he made friends with were dying left and right, and then he goes to the First and lives there for a hundred years... and he's known generations of people from their birth, watched them grow up, get married, grow old, and die. He should be a really old man, but he never ACTS like it. He acts like a fresh faced teenager. He TALKS about being an old man, but I never feel it. ​This is in the same expansion that had Emet-Selch, who felt like a really old man who had lost his civilization and his friends and his family. This is the same expansion that had Ardbert, who really felt like he had lost his civilization and his family and his friends.

It's also extremely bizzare that G'raha Tia just so casually leaves the Crystarium behind. He lived 20 years in Eorzea. He lived 100 years at the Crystarium. The people of the Crystarium should be family to him. This should be his home, more so than Eorzea ever was. I cannot believe a grandpa or an elder or an old man like that would just up and leave his community just like that to go adventuring with some celebrity he had met for 2 hours over 100 years ago in some far off land that was just a vague memory. Now, obviously once his body was crystalizing, stashing his consciousness into his body on the Source was the obvious thing to do, but he was clearly planning to go back to Eorzea long before then, otherwise he wouldn't have made the extra crystal.


Third: G'raha Tia is just the same character as Alphinaud.
​
G'raha Tia fulfills the same role as Alphinaud in the narrative: the bright eyed dorky little brother to the WoL/deuteragonist of the story who is a magus and the man with the plan. Literally the same character, just a different design and voice actor. It's especially telling that G'raha Tia and Alphinaud hardly ever talk in the same scene, let alone talk to each other... because that'd draw attention to the fact that they are literally the same. When one character is in focus in the narrative, the other has virtually no lines at all. I would've been content with Alphinaud being sidelined and G'raha Tia hogging the spotlight for 5.0 through 5.3... but then he survives 5.3, and continues hogging Alphinaud's place in 5.4. It isn't until 5.5 that Alphinaud gets back his role again... and it's rather telling that G'raha Tia has pretty much no lines in 5.5 and it's jarring. You have two characters both competing to fulfill the same role in the narrative and it's very jarring.

Stormblood had a similar problem with Lyse and Alisae. They were the same character both competing for attention: the spunky bash bro sister who flips out at the drop of a hat. Fortunately Lyse was written out of the story by having her leave the Scions, so Alisae is able to fulfill her role uncontested. I don't know why the writers forgot to do that with Alphinaud and G'raha Tia. More than one character per role is redundant. Get rid of one. I prefer Alphinaud to G'raha, but G'raha Tia is clearly preferred by the current writer and no way he's going to die after surviving 5.3, and if killing off Alphinaud means we don't have this content anymore and scenes can be written naturally, then so be it. I just don't want this conflict anymore.

[KDSilver]

It's also extremely bizzare that G'raha Tia just so casually leaves the Crystarium behind. He lived 20 years in Eorzea. He lived 100 years at the Crystarium. The people of the Crystarium should be family to him. This should be his home, more so than Eorzea ever was. I cannot believe a grandpa or an elder or an old man like that would just up and leave his community just like that.

He was dying in its crystal exarch body.
Crystarium is his long time community and family.
But while he can eventually return somehow from the source, he has to be alive first.
He indeed wished to go on an adventure with his idol, but he didn't have much choice but to try to return to the source if he at least wanted his soul to live.
He's not an ascien.

[TheMightyMollusk]

I mean, if other characters were going to go out and solve their problems without the WoL, we wouldn't really have much of a game left to play.......

[TTiscancer]

I mean, if other characters were going to go out and solve their problems without the WoL, we wouldn't really have much of a game left to play.......

I would spend my time racing chocobos, playing TT and spending my winnings on catgirls.