Ardbert's Party vs the Scions Analysis

[VelKallor]

AST quests where a faction literally sent assassins?

One faction. A few small malcontents. Not the entire bloody NATION.

Or the countless times Matoya and Louisoix (both mentor characters and moral compasses) were said to disagree with their policies on major subjects?

Exactly how does two people disagreeing segue into an entire nations antagonism? it doesnt.

"Endless are the arguments of mages" - Lord of the Rings.

I actually think there was a fair bit of foreshadowing potential for Sharlayan to be antagonistic, and I do think it all got resolved a bit too... nicely? Un-dramatically? for how it had been set up. You had Fourchenault clearly keeping secrets, the Forum voting unanimously and suggesting some kind of cover-up or even mind control, which would suggest tempering. For all we knew in the lead-up, there could have been a primal in the heart of the city, or Hydaelyn's influence deliberately or accidentally influencing them to do "something" that would have been a hypothetical plot point.

and

It's incredibly disingenuous to claim they never have been antagonistic towards anyone.

Explained by Sharlayan emphasis on neutrality. They were isolationists by design. They were NOT tempered either, they were bound by a spell that forbade them from discussing certain topics..a spell they consented to.

There was even a cutscene to explain it. Sharlayan was NEVER antagonistic to anyone, they were isolationists dedicated to a specific ideal, and simply did not want to interact with outsiders.

"The problems of others are not our concern" - Minbari Grey Council, just before the Shadow War - Babylon 5

NOT the same thing.

[Iscah]

Explained by Sharlayan emphasis on neutrality. They were isolationists by design. They were NOT tempered either, they were bound by a spell that forbade them from discussing certain topics..a spell they consented to.

There was even a cutscene to explain it. Sharlayan was NEVER antagonistic to anyone, they were isolationists dedicated to a specific ideal, and simply did not want to interact with outsiders.

NOT the same thing.

I'm not saying it was the same thing. I'm talking about the difference between what we knew before Endwalker and the speculation extracted from those fragments of knowledge, compared to the truth behind them that we now know after playing it.

In our earlier stage of knowledge, there was a lot of potential for the truth to be something quite different to what it ultimately was, and I don't think what they did was the best story choice. (Much the same sentiment as I hold towards their final explanation of the Sundering, really.)

The thing I find most frustrating about these endless arguments over whether we should like the protagonists or not, is that I actually would like to have a conversation that starts from the angle "we're here because we like (or at least tolerate) the ongoing characters of this ongoing story; what do we think of the events that happened to them here?" – that's what I want to talk about when a new chapter of the story is released. Not have to debate (yet again with the same naysayers) whether the cast is acceptable in the first place.

(Edit to be clear: I enjoyed Endwalker as a whole but there are specific plot elements that I think were badly handled.)

[Iscah]

One faction. A few small malcontents. Not the entire bloody NATION.

Adding on this, it's been a while since I played the AST quests but I definitely got the impression that they were more than "a few malcontents". Sevestre held a lot of influence and was a key player in the decision for the New Sharlayan colony to withdraw, and his faction's stance is to hoard up Sharlayan's knowledge because other civilisations can't be trusted to use it properly.

Whether it was his influence or an existing general sentiment already, Sharlayan's current attitude to other nations is his attitude.