Critique of Endwalker Characters

[RedaAlert]

I feel like people downplay G'raha's role more often just cause of his hero-worship or fanboyism attitude, which some may find annoying but this is something that is more tolerable and looked at as 'cute' in Eastern culture.

Whether you think he is annoying or not, him having photogenic memory helped him learn the levitation spell which he used to uncover the secrets within the noumenon, which then proceed to use that spell to save dozen of people including ourselves in the Tower of Zot, then what he did in Thavanir which particularly one of his highlight moments in EW, without his stance things would have turned out far worst, and his existence alone helped us travel back to Elpis, it was him who kept Elidibus stored within the tower and it is him alone who is able to control the tower, and with his help we went back to Elpis and uncovered all we needed to know.

I am sorry, you may find him annoying or insufferable or whatever really, but that will never downplay his role within the Scions, he did same if not even more than what others did as well, so in general, choosing to ignore all that is just a person being willingly blind.

Also while some people think that him as the Exarch was really cool and awesome, I hate when people keep secrets to themselves thinking it is for the greater good, and that is something Urangier was doing alot, so I never was happy with the whole Exarch "I know what's best for us" thing.

That is my opinion.

[Kolsykol]

I feel like people downplay G'raha's role more often just cause of his hero-worship or fanboyism attitude, which some may find annoying but this is something that is more tolerable and looked at as 'cute' in Eastern culture.

Whether you think he is annoying or not, him having photogenic memory helped him learn the levitation spell which he used to uncover the secrets within the noumenon, which then proceed to use that spell to save dozen of people including ourselves in the Tower of Zot, then what he did in Thavanir which particularly one of his highlight moments in EW, without his stance things would have turned out far worst, and his existence alone helped us travel back to Elpis, it was him who kept Elidibus stored within the tower and it is him alone who is able to control the tower, and with his help we went back to Elpis and uncovered all we needed to know.

I am sorry, you may find him annoying or insufferable or whatever really, but that will never downplay his role within the Scions, he did same if not even more than what others did as well, so in general, choosing to ignore all that is just a person being willingly blind.

Also while some people think that him as the Exarch was really cool and awesome, I hate when people keep secrets to themselves thinking it is for the greater good, and that is something Urangier was doing alot, so I never was happy with the whole Exarch "I know what's best for us" thing.

That is my opinion.

Imo I don't mind Gra'ha so much.
But I also didn't like how the game treated him as if I as the player thought he was the best thing ever.
I didn't view him as the Exarch really I viewed him as a new guy and that's how he came across to me, he was basically Gra'ha with the Exarch's memories if I remember and understand it correctly.
Which is fine, I consider the Exarch dead tho because that's actually what did happen regardless of the soul transference he still did die in the Crystal Tower in Shadowbringers.
So the writers treating Gra'ha like my best friend and giving him so much attention over the other Scions felt strange to me.
He really did feel like he got a disproportionate amount of it when there were other Scions I think should've been fleshed out more instead ( like Y'shtola ).

And his fanboy:ism just felt overbearing I wanted my character to just tell him to stop and cool it down a little but instead my character always acted like he was my favorite friend or something.

[kpxmanifesto]

•Hermes was a character who would have benefitted from a significantly larger amount of time fleshing out and showing us more meaningful or traumatic events happening to him the little we saw in game. He is a villain who I had very little patience or interest for.

•Meteion was great to interact with but like Hermes suffered from too little time spent with her prior to her transformation, though I ultimately had sympathy for her as an individual when she was overtaken by the hive mind of her sisters, who I read as overpowering and suppressing her until we finally broke through to her again in Ultima Thule.

Couldn't agree more. The orchestrators of the Final Days got way too little screen time. These two characters and dynamis were what started the whole plot behind FFXIV, yet they feel like they were just shoehorned in. Furthermore, they didn't even seem like proper villains which led to, what I personally felt was, an overall unsatisfying and corny ending. Was the entire story of FFXIV really just started by a science experiment that couldn't control their "emotions?"

[Kolsykol]

Couldn't agree more. The orchestrators of the Final Days got way too little screen time. These two characters and dynamis were what started the whole plot behind FFXIV, yet they feel like they were just shoehorned in. Furthermore, they didn't even seem like proper villains which led to, what I personally felt was, an overall unsatisfying and corny ending. Was the entire story of FFXIV really just started by a science experiment that couldn't control their "emotions?"

Wasn't it that Meteion was actually created through the use of Dynamis and to be especially sensitive to emotions?
One of the first things she says to you is to ask you to share your thoughts and emotions with her which makes sense with the purpose of her creation.
So I don't think it's just that she couldn't control it it's that she was overwhelmed by it and was especially sensitive to it.
She was also connected to her sisters and was basically bombarded with all they had gathered at once.
I think your framing is perhaps downplaying it a bit much.

I kinda wanted more screen time of them tho but I think they got enough for what their purpose was.
I wonder if they had gotten more if people would've felt the opposite way and that it was too dragged out.
Ultimately I feel like the final days and all that isn't necessarily '' the plot ''.
It was '' a plot '', the other expansions still stood on their own legs and still do.
Obviously this was a more grand plot that affected the universe basically but I still think that FFXIV has always been about more than just the Ascians and all that.

Don’t forget how they completely retconned the whole, her life is slowly sapping away plotline.It’s literally never even mentioned after Hw. Guess can’t have the cat lady who has to shill money for the game die.

Have they actually retconned it tho?
Or is it just that not all that much time has actually passed?
Remember that in Shadowbringers she wasn't actually using her real body, they were basically spirits manifesting physical form.

It might come up again later but I think it's more of a background thing that is just always there that she won't live to see a really old age.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Wasn't it that Meteion was actually created through the use of Dynamis and to be especially sensitive to emotions?
One of the first things she says to you is to ask you to share your thoughts and emotions with her which makes sense with the purpose of her creation.
So I don't think it's just that she couldn't control it it's that she was overwhelmed by it and was especially sensitive to it.
She was also connected to her sisters and was basically bombarded with all they had gathered at once.
I think your framing is perhaps downplaying it a bit much.

I kinda wanted more screen time of them tho but I think they got enough for what their purpose was.
I wonder if they had gotten more if people would've felt the opposite way and that it was too dragged out.
Ultimately I feel like the final days and all that isn't necessarily '' the plot ''.
It was '' a plot '', the other expansions still stood on their own legs and still do.
Obviously this was a more grand plot that affected the universe basically but I still think that FFXIV has always been about more than just the Ascians and all that.



Have they actually retconned it tho?
Or is it just that not all that much time has actually passed?
Remember that in Shadowbringers she wasn't actually using her real body, they were basically spirits manifesting physical form.

It might come up again later but I think it's more of a background thing that is just always there that she won't live to see a really old age.

We know at the very least 6 months have passed. It’s moreso the fact she has continued to do more daring and dangerous feats, requiring vast amounts of aether and she’s shown 0 signs of degradation. The opposite in fact that she’s actually gotten stronger despite her life supposedly sapping away. Pretty sure it’s a retconned since it hasn’t been mentioned for literally 3 expansions now.

[Jin-]

Good post OP. Imo Scions are completely irrelevant in EW. I really hope 6.1 won't start again with the infamous line, speak with Alphinaud /"shivers"

Edit. And we don't need Alphinaud much anymore since our character has learned to speak. Alphinaud originally was just a voice for us and way to move the story onwards. But now we have better writers on board and we can move on instead of being shackled to the old.

[Nav_Fae]

Good post OP. Imo Scions are completely irrelevant in EW. I really hope 6.1 won't start again with the infamous line, speak with Alphinaud /"shivers"

It's most definitely going to be "Speak with Taturu" for the very first quest and she'll probably tell you to go visit somebody else that wishes to talk to us.

[kpxmanifesto]

It's most definitely going to be "Speak with Taturu" for the very first quest and she'll probably tell you to go visit somebody else that wishes to talk to us.

Talk to this person, go talk to that person, and then cutscene.

[van_arn]

I’d say a lot of these complaints stem from a lack of conflict between scions. I’d think a misfit band of adventures who stick together out of necessity would be more interesting than another group of super best friends.

I’d say there’s potential in inverting some scions as well, namely Graha, Urianger, a twin (not both), or even the cat girl.

I don’t think the completion status of a particular arc should be the first concern, however.