Building a better Alphinaud

[KariTheFox]

In Stormblood we see his ridiculous grand plan to get into Eulmore by convincing them his can turn produce into pearls by trading with the relatively hostile Ondo, expecting to never again have to do this more than once. In the end he decides to let Kai-Shirr use this plan to get into Eulmore which eventually backfires, getting the poor kid wounded and nearly killed. Alphinaud then immediately breaks character and rushes to Kai's aid in front of Vaughtry, the sin eaters, Eulmore's guards, and its people, assuming that we would not be attacked and all killed on the spot. He then has the audacity to insult / disrespect Vaughtry to his face before we have any real information or recourse of fighting back.

Can't say I agree with this analysis, Alphinaud's goal was to get into Eulmore to learn what he can about it, and see what aid they can offer regarding the sin eater threat. Both of his plans (his painting, and the Ondo trade deal) succesfully got someone into the city. And he had no way of knowing that the city was run by a sadist who likes to throw people off the balcony.

He establishes a good relationship with the Chais and Kai-Shirr, who end up being influential people in thier own right. His decision to confront Varuthy's cruelty and sadism directly is also a quick thinking political move - it's clear that this man won't be reasoned with, and he rules through fear and bullying; a powerful thing you can do in a situation like that is directly confront them. That's why the scene kept cutting back to the citizens of Eulmore as they watched, they had likely been afraid of Varuthy and his power for so long that seeing someone stand up to him and get away with it would be shocking.

So really, Alphinaud succesfully infiltrated the city, learned about the state of its leadership and the nature of the society, made inroads with the Chais, and stood up to a despot in front of his citizens and got away with it. I'd call that pretty successful.

As for the other stuff, Alphinaud tends to assume good faith of other people, and is often shocked or thrown when someone turns out to be acting in bad faith, or just trying to mislead him. Like with Asahi or Illbred. I'm just not sure that I would consider "has faith in people and thinks everyone else is acting in good faith" is necessarily a character flaw that needs to be overcome. You have other characters to provide the more cynical perspective about other people's intentions - like his sister.

[CrownySuccubus]

As for the other stuff, Alphinaud tends to assume good faith of other people, and is often shocked or thrown when someone turns out to be acting in bad faith, or just trying to mislead him.

Honestly, every single heroic character in FFXIV tends to be suicidally optimistic and naive when it comes to walking into villains' traps. Often, it's because of that assumption of good faith you mentioned, as with Ilbred...but sometimes it's because there's a presumption that not falling for the trap would be "unfair" or something. For instance, nobody trusted Asahi as far as they could throw him even before he went Mask Off in front of the WOL, but everybody, including Hien, just walked into his trap. Likewise with Shanti in 4.1, whom they KNEW was Tempered and literally could NOT be acting on good faith as a result of said Tempering, but still let her into the conference at the palace and thus almost got the conference leaders turned into slaves.

[Avidria]

I feel like things like Alphinaud's optimism blinding him to obvious traps isn't just a him thing. One of the few consistent things that's bothered me through the MSQ in general is plot convenient stupidity for... All of the characters, including the WoL. It's part of why I disliked the Bozja story as a whole so much, and lost interest in it entirely less than halfway through. It felt like my character just woke up without a brain in the morning for half of it.

So yeah that's not a fault of any one character, it's just 'convenient' for the plot.