Building a better Alphinaud

[Raven2014]

I don't think wringing his hands, eating a burger, and fan service are his personality, he's much more than that imo.

And they did show all that too, his knowledge of Allagan, his foresight of using his bloodline, the way he rallied the people of Tharvinar during the crisis like a true leader .etc. In fact, most of his dialogue whenever the Scion have a serious discussion carried a tin of wisdom befitting someone who had lead for 100 years. Are you sure you are not just focusing on what you DON'T like?

At the end of the day it's an MMO, people tend to forget the character get VERY little screentime to portray themselves so most of the time it's necessary for their personality traits to be amped up during the little screentime they got. The amount of screen time an NPC have to themselves in an expansion would fit in one single chapter of a story centric RPG. For Tia he's meant to be a characters with TWO distinct personalities because he's two soul merged into one. The old men who lead half a surviving civilization for 100 year, and the flamboyant scholar (if a bit immature). It's easy to forget the latter is also part of his personality who had never went through the same experience of the former and is also actually the main host of his current body. His character has to show both sides to stay in character, and not severe the connection it has with other NPC like Krile or Tataru, who only know the younger Tia.