What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[KizuyaKatogami]

He’s twenty four years old—which is still extremely young—and the scene is being exaggerated for comedy (and also likely that the engine might just not be up to the task of expressing his desire to go in a more subtle way). The point is that he understands that his duties and promise to Krile come first beyond a non-Badesion excursion—and indeed, when he talks about going on future adventures with us in the aftermath of 6.0, it’s in the context of Baldesion commissions of particular difficulty or interest—but we’ve come here with a personal request for him, so the temptation to drop everything and go is real…

(And again as for that so-called all-consuming obsession with us, the first thing he does is suggest Y’shtola join us, so it’s not like he’s trying to get us alone to have his wicked way with us)

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you personally have to like G’raha or find the scene funny. I’m also not saying there aren’t things to criticize or that the game can’t lean a little too hard into him as a comedy character. I just don’t think it’s a character inconsistency that he’s excitable and loves the idea of exploring shit with someone he admires.

My thing with it all is theres a time and place for everything. He's eating burgers during an expansion where theres a literal impending apocalypse and im what, supposed to find it cute and endearing?No, instead of wasting time on these shitty scenes give me more insight on actually important stuff. This goes back to like, 5.4 or 5.5 where we just learn about these mass tempering towers and hes fawning over estinien with big glowing sparkly eyes. To me it isnt cute. Its unprofessional and horribly fitting for the situations they always occur in. It just seems like a great disservice to the character that he once was.

[tokinokanatae]

Everyone was eating burgers, though. The point of the scene was “even heroes need to rest.” It’s at level 81, right after they just succeeded in dismantling a tower. (The emphasis on G’raha eating during a celebration dinner as specifically egregious is strange to me, as it would be if there was similar disgust over Alisaie’s pickles.)

Likewise, the scene with G’raha admiring Estinien is during down time during the MSQ and features a much more obvious comedy note in Estinien mistaking Alisaie for Alphinaud. I don’t think every moment of comedy lands—and if you want an example with G’raha alone, I found the bit where he pretends to be a crystal buyer in 5.4 stupid and pointless—but all of it is in line with the rest.

[Lunaxia]

He’s twenty four years old [...]

It all comes down to your take on it, I suppose. As far as I'm concerned, Alisaie is sixteen years old; twenty four is too old to be acting like that, even if you don't see him as now being over one hundred now, which I personally do. I don't agree that it's normal that any given individual does not grow or change over the course of a century, or that it's... healthy to remain that fixated on a person, especially when the circumstances are as serious as they were. The discussion so far has really only cemented my view that his feelings towards the WoL drive quite literally every aspect of his character, and I've already commented how I feel about that sort of writing.

Some people will and clearly do like that his experiences have left his feelings unchanged, and I'm glad they take enjoyment from his character. I don't hate him, in the sense of who he is, I just think he's weakly written compared to other characters, and that brief instance in Garlemald was interesting to me in that I realised I could warm to him, if only they fleshed him out beyond his ardent affection for the WoL and gave him some more nuance.

It's interesting to see what appears to be a genuinely polarising issue here, though.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Everyone was eating burgers, though. The point of the scene was “even heroes need to rest.” It’s at level 81, right after they just succeeded in dismantling a tower. (The emphasis on G’raha eating during a celebration dinner as specifically egregious is strange to me, as it would be if there was similar disgust over Alisaie’s pickles.)

Likewise, the scene with G’raha admiring Estinien is during down time during the MSQ and features a much more obvious comedy note in Estinien mistaking Alisaie for Alphinaud. I don’t think every moment of comedy lands—and if you want an example with G’raha alone, I found the bit where he pretends to be a crystal buyer in 5.4 stupid and pointless—but all of it is in line with the rest.

But it seems like since hes re-introduced, hes been the focal point of non-stop slice of life. Combined with the fact that they clearly changed the story based on fan reception of him, he just doesnt sit right as a character to me. Especially taking into account his mary sue qualities, plot hole writing that follows him etc.

[CrownySuccubus]

Not exactly my point. They could have simply said it wouldn’t work on him. Considering the devs themselves stated they had 2 endings planned for 5.3, it stands to reason one of those was indeed him dying, and they chose not to kill him due to fan appeal. That is something i have a major problem with as again, the character has had nothing but bad writing, plot holes, and plot armor attached to him since his re-introduction.

I don't know what to tell you besides that being a problem of personal taste. Clearly, the argument that he "has had nothing but bad writing", is not universal...as evidenced by said "fan appeal".

Besides that, the situation of him surviving his own half-baked plan isn't really a case of "plot armor". Plot armor is not simply "this character could have died but didn't". The circumstances behind his survival made sense in the story, and likewise served as an excellent villainous moment for Emet-Selch.

My thing with it all is theres a time and place for everything. He's eating burgers during an expansion where theres a literal impending apocalypse and im what, supposed to find it cute and endearing?

I really do not understand why you guys keep bringing this up. The entire point to those moments was that the Scions were running themselves ragged racing from one crisis to the next and sometimes forgot to slow down and find time for their own comfort. Are we going to be angry about a scene of soldiers playing cards and drinking whiskey in a war movie? Hell, the burger scene comes at a time when your party literally has nothing to do but wait, and Gr'aha is the Scion who is least fitting for this criticism, because he's shown multiple times to have overworked himself to the point of exhaustion. He does it so often and so predictably that even Lyna calls him out on it from an entire planet away.

No, instead of wasting time on these shitty scenes give me more insight on actually important stuff.

Again, this is rather subjective. Personally wouldn't care, either way, but that's likewise just my personal opinion.

[Lunaxia]

But it seems like since hes re-introduced, hes been the focal point of non-stop slice of life. Combined with the fact that they clearly changed the story based on fan reception of him, he just doesnt sit right as a character to me. Especially taking into account his mary sue qualities, plot hole writing that follows him etc.

While I agree with you overall concerning G'raha, I think toki has a point that in the dinner scene especially, it was all of the Scions taking part in that. G'raha alone isn't responsible for Endwalker's sudden and really out-of-the-blue habit of turning various cutscenes into sequences from a high school slice-of-life anime. In fact, I don't know where it's come from or who decided it, but I certainly wish it would go back. It's incredibly jarring, and not so much as "comedy that doesn't land" to me as completely out of place and at odds with the story-telling we've been used to until this point. Alisaie's posing and pouting in some of them was absolutely god awful. They really need to stop this trend of massacring characterisation in order to appeal to what they think fans want.

[AziraSyuren]

I don't know what to tell you besides that being a problem of personal taste. Clearly, the argument that he "has had nothing but bad writing", is not universal...as evidenced by said "fan appeal".

Besides that, the situation of him surviving his own half-baked plan isn't really a case of "plot armor". Plot armor is not simply "this character could have died but didn't". The circumstances behind his survival made sense in the story, and likewise served as an excellent villainous moment for Emet-Selch.



I really do not understand why you guys keep bringing this up. The entire point to those moments was that the Scions were running themselves ragged racing from one crisis to the next and sometimes forgot to slow down and find time for their own comfort. Are we going to be angry about a scene of soldiers playing cards and drinking whiskey in a war movie? Hell, the burger scene comes at a time when your party literally has nothing to do but wait, and Gr'aha is the Scion who is least fitting for this criticism, because he's shown multiple times to have overworked himself to the point of exhaustion. He does it so often and so predictably that even Lyna calls him out on it from an entire planet away.

Yeah, like, nonstop tension isn't good for a story and that's clearly what EW was verging on were there any actual tension felt. The slice of life scenes hit a lot different for people who actually felt that tension.

And, I've said it before and I'll say it again, G'raha actually dying would've been a betrayal of his character. He was literally called out on his eagerness to sacrifice himself and nobody bought his attempts to make his death any easier to handle. Personally, it showed me that he didn't understand what it really meant to be a hero (especially since his leadership as the Exarch, which, y'know, requires him to be alive, was more heroic than any attempt he made to sacrifice himself) and validating that lack of understanding would've been a character assassination worse than anything that happened in EW. The fact that he found a way to live on in the face of death is frankly one of the best moments in Shadowbringers.

[Brinne]

I think there's two--or three?--different complaints about G'raha sort of running through the discussion here, and some of those reasons I can partially understand, and some are a little more difficult for me. I can absolutely understand the frustration and resentment about G'raha's "success story" and the effort exuded to give him a happy ending whereas certain other characters were denied the same - but that's not something I can really blame G'raha himself for, and moreso is another piece of the overall plotting and thematic shakiness within Endwalker as a whole. And saying G'raha was saved purely "for fanservice" doesn't quite work because, as popular as he is, Emet-Selch outstrips him considerably, and Emet-Selch didn't get to run into our adventuring arms by Endwalker's conclusion, even though he easily could have.

G'raha being saved because we want to give the protagonists as a whole a happy ending makes more sense to me than being angry about any pandering to G'raha fans in particular. As Rulakir pointed out, nearly all the Scions are flourishing in ways that are baffling given their plot contexts. And I can actually even accept that uneven outcome, were it given more thoughtfulness - just like some people die for no good reason and it's arbitrary, the same applies sometimes to people who survive. (This is one of the elements that I loved about Zenos's story.) But it's when coupled with the judgmental factor the Ancients were on the receiving end of, and the opportunities to help them not being taken as aggressively, for Some Reason, it starts to grate.

G'raha's writing in terms of his personality, meanwhile, makes sense to me. Is it the most compelling personality for me in a vacuum? Nah, I like G'raha, but I wouldn't count him as one of my absolute favorites. But in terms of "does it make sense," I think it does. I actually liked the sort of insecure, manic quality to him after the union of his two different selves, and the clumsiness of him trying to navigate the rush of actually getting to do what he wants to do for the first time in over a hundred years. I liked that resuming his Exarch persona in Thavnair was a powerful moment, not just for his actions, but for the weight of him having to resort to acting in that role again as being painful and difficult for him - to the point I wished it had actually been elaborated on further.

The third issue is the uneven tone, pace, and placement and emphasis of the "light-hearted" scenes throughout Endwalker. Again, I think this speaks to probably a larger problem through the whole, but G'raha somehow became an easy target to lash out about something that applies to most of the protagonist group. (I would rather seethe about the Loporrits, personally, as far as that goes. <_<)

[Lunaxia]

Yeah, like, nonstop tension isn't good for a story and that's clearly what EW was verging on were there any actual tension felt. The slice of life scenes hit a lot different for people who actually felt that tension.

I take issue with your implication that those of us for whom the scenes fell flat were "immune" to the tension in the story. Previous expansion packs have had similar moments of downtime, and handled them much better. The camping scene in the Mists, the scenes with Ardbert in the inn, the drinking scene with the twins sleeping in Stormblood. They were meaningful, poignant and suitably downtempo, without feeling contrived or wildly out of place in the context of the story.

[Midareyukki]

Yeah, like, nonstop tension isn't good for a story and that's clearly what EW was verging on were there any actual tension felt. The slice of life scenes hit a lot different for people who actually felt that tension.

Sis, I've felt the tension. I was fully engrossed in the tension. Even my sister told me to close my mouth when we went to the Moon or a fly would get in because I was feeling the tension.

You know what I felt once we killed Zodiark? Confusion. Followed by the only time I ever skipped Endwalker cutscenes: dealing with annoying rabbits. And no, Viera players, I'm not talking about you, you're not annoying and thank god for that.

I felt the tension and got nothing for it. I tried enjoying the story and getting emotionally involved in it, suspend my disbelief for one week and just love the game's story. But throughout all of it I just kept thinking "...this is kind of daft, but okay".

Endwalker was fine for the most part, but it does have flaws. So keep your Strawmanning to yourself. Because we don't strawman the story just because we acknowledge it has flaws.