What was the point of Lyse?

[Cleretic]

That said, when it comes to Stormblood itself I did like what with Lyse and showing her grow into a leader over the story. Its one of the reasons why I like the expansion so much really, and despite it being her swan-song from the Scions I hope she does not disappear for good. It was nice seeing her in Endwalker, but that just felt like a cameo.

I like that she becomes a very different type of leader to everyone around her. I think something huge she learns in the Doma stretch isn't just how Hien manages to command leadership, but also that she can't and shouldn't be Hien. Even if she had the commanding presence and intelligence to be the sort of unquestioned kingly leader Hien is... Ala Mhigo doesn't want a king. The last king sucked, and the Imperial rulers afterwards weren't exactly improvements. She becomes the sort of leader that Ala Mhigo actually needs, and sure it's not as grand a role as a lot of the other leaders we've met, but that doesn't mean it's less legitimate.

Hell, I'd be happier living in a country with a Senator Lyse than I would in a country with a Lord Hien any day.

[TheMightyMollusk]

I have fans!!

Thank you all! I appreciate your love and support and will do everything I can to continue bringing enjoyable topics for interesting group discussions.

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[Kesey]

It did feel rather strange and overly sudden what they did with Yda becoming Lyse so quick. Would have been different had we teh WoL actually known the OG Yda, or even had a build up to her and who she was to everyone in the Scions, but it just seemed to come from nowhere. Feels like the writers felt like they wanted us to have a main travelling character who had a connection with Ala Mhigo, but felt Yda was not serious enough a character and so had to do a quick switch-a-roo to try and make her more ‘serious’. Its a strange way they handled all that…

Yda was a serious character. I remember her specifically being endearing and mournful when Moenbryda died. Her greatest character failing was Papalymo and every refuses to acknowledge that.

Yda lived in Papalymo's shadow (the same Papalymo, who to be frank, at times was endearing but also had the hot streak of being the jerk know-it-all). Imagine a Stromblood where Papalymo is there to influence Lyse's decisions. The rebellion wants Lyse to be the leader but says no because Papalymo reminds her they executed her father for doing that. Lyse wants to spare Fordola, but Papalymo says it's unwise to keep a loyal enemy alive. Lyse wants to travel to Doma to free everyone from the Empire's oppression and Papalymo says don't fight a war on two fronts. Liberated Ala Mhigo needs Lyse to lead it post-liberation, but Papalymo says what about their oath to the Scions and their partnership.

The only thing that was sudden about this change was Papalymo's death and the "sudden" inability to influence Lyse's decisions.

And this whole OG Yda concept is frankly insulting to the writers, because no one says the same thing about Louisoix and the twin's living via his legacy, even though anyone who started in ARR will have never met Louisoix. So how can it be reasonable for Lyse and not the twins?

[Brightamethyst]

And this whole OG Yda concept is frankly insulting to the writers, because no one says the same thing about Louisoix and the twin's living via his legacy, even though anyone who started in ARR will have never met Louisoix. So how can it be reasonable for Lyse and not the twins?

Those are two very different scenarios.

With the twins, we watched them grow and evolve as characters in real time. The stark difference between 2.0 Alphinaud and 4.0 Aphinaud doesn't feel jarring because we watched him climb out from under Louisoix's shadow slowly and naturally. With Lyse we were given a brand new character rather than watching an existing one grow. Lyse did come into her own as the SB story progressed (especially in the patches) but that doesn't magically make 3.5 feel any less like a bait and switch.

[Hayden]

Lyse gets too much hate, the character was fine.

[Jaquan]

Those are two very different scenarios.

With the twins, we watched them grow and evolve as characters in real time. The stark difference between 2.0 Alphinaud and 4.0 Aphinaud doesn't feel jarring because we watched him climb out from under Louisoix's shadow slowly and naturally. With Lyse we were given a brand new character rather than watching an existing one grow. Lyse did come into her own as the SB story progressed (especially in the patches) but that doesn't magically make 3.5 feel any less like a bait and switch.

This. The real issue with Lyse is that the game prior to 3.5 did not let us spend too much time with neither her nor Papalymo which is hurtful for the overall impact. We spent time with the duo during a single quest chain and then with Yda after Moenbryda's death where. We get the least time and development with the two out of all scions and that's include Urianger whose whole shtick is that he prefers to keep his thoughts obscured. And yet the game expects me to care about Lyse the same way I'd think about Alphinaud (who was at our side the entire expansion) or at least Y'shtola and Thancred who still spent more time around us than the duo.

[Cleretic]

For whatever it's worth, if anyone's feeling about Lyse is some variety of 'I'm sad we didn't get enough time with her', she's one of the highlights of Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia. Roughly ARR-era Yda upgrades to roughly SB-era Lyse, including memories, while most of the other FFXIV characters remain somewhat circa-ARR, and she remains one of the 'core' cast members from FFXIV. So there's a lot of scenes of her interacting with the people who don't know how far further she's gone than them, and especially around Papalymo, finally getting to say things she wasn't able to when he was alive.

The only other FFXIV character with similar treatment is Alisaie, who also turns up roughly from Stormblood. Her stuff's all optional and more of a comedic bent, but there's also a dynamic wrung there from the ARR-era crew not knowing what an utter badass she's become.

[Solarra]

Looking at the recent treatment of Venat, I came to the conclusion that the writing team just can't pull off a main female character. They all get beautiful character models, lovely costumes and that's it.
When it comes to female side characters, we get less beauty but far more personality and more interesting people (Moenbryda, Fordola etc).

With major female characters the writers seem to make the same mistake over and over, they tell us how wonderful these women are but they don't bother to show it in the game.
Apparently, the Scions really needed Minfillia, no evidence in-game for this whatsoever. She is just an annoying damsel in distress we have to keep saving because.... reasons.
Similarly, M'naago tells us what a great leader Lyse is going to be, yet there is no evidence of her budding leadership prior to Stormblood and the main reason for having her lead the resistance is her dad was important.

The whole 'Yda was really Lyse' thing seemed totally pointless to me. I never knew Lyse and didn't care about her and all, but the deception did affect how I felt about her. All the other scions were apparently in on the whole deception, but they didn't bother to tell the WoL, that rankled, and it did make me wonder about Lyse's mental state. What it didn't do was make me feel she'd make a great leader in a crisis or want to have half the expansion revolving around her.

[EdwinLi]

For whatever it's worth, if anyone's feeling about Lyse is some variety of 'I'm sad we didn't get enough time with her', she's one of the highlights of Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia. Roughly ARR-era Yda upgrades to roughly SB-era Lyse, including memories, while most of the other FFXIV characters remain somewhat circa-ARR, and she remains one of the 'core' cast members from FFXIV. So there's a lot of scenes of her interacting with the people who don't know how far further she's gone than them, and especially around Papalymo, finally getting to say things she wasn't able to when he was alive.

The only other FFXIV character with similar treatment is Alisaie, who also turns up roughly from Stormblood. Her stuff's all optional and more of a comedic bent, but there's also a dynamic wrung there from the ARR-era crew not knowing what an utter badass she's become.

Ya it is one of the aspect of Dissidia opera omnia I enjoy being the story allowing characters to grow beyond their games along with how characters are dealing with Post events after the game and certain ones with their own deaths.

Lyse has had a very large character growth in Dissidia Opera Omnia thanks to being able to speak what she wanted to tell Papalymo. With Papalymo remember how he will die and seeing how much Lyse grown after his death adds more to her character development while remove the doubts Papalymo may had when he died about what may become of Lyse when he is gone.

It is ashame SE has decided to never introduce Gunbreaker Thancred into Opera Omnia since they don't want to introduce a double character again. They only introduce Jack as a separate character from Garland (FF1) only because of a very important lore related to FF1 and FF1 Origins about what happens after FF1 ending revealed in Opera Omnia that they are focusing on now as part of Season 4 storyline for Opera Omnia.

Looking at the recent treatment of Venat, I came to the conclusion that the writing team just can't pull off a main female character. They all get beautiful character models, lovely costumes and that's it.
When it comes to female side characters, we get less beauty but far more personality and more interesting people (Moenbryda, Fordola etc).

With major female characters the writers seem to make the same mistake over and over, they tell us how wonderful these women are but they don't bother to show it in the game.
Apparently, the Scions really needed Minfillia, no evidence in-game for this whatsoever. She is just an annoying damsel in distress we have to keep saving because.... reasons.
Similarly, M'naago tells us what a great leader Lyse is going to be, yet there is no evidence of her budding leadership prior to Stormblood and the main reason for having her lead the resistance is her dad was important.

The whole 'Yda was really Lyse' thing seemed totally pointless to me. I never knew Lyse and didn't care about her and all, but the deception did affect how I felt about her. All the other scions were apparently in on the whole deception, but they didn't bother to tell the WoL, that rankled, and it did make me wonder about Lyse's mental state. What it didn't do was make me feel she'd make a great leader in a crisis or want to have half the expansion revolving around her.

It feels the Dissidia Opera Omnia story team may have to step in and filling in the developments with Venat as they did with Lyse if they consider to bring Venat into Opera Omnia.

FF14 team are good story writers but the limited amount of time they give for the characters to develop as a individual just is not enough time. However, with Opera Omnia basically being the "After life" for the characters that died or Post-FF game events that lived, they get time to develop and expand Post-FF game while covering things that had hardly no time to cover during their FF game.

[Brightamethyst]

With major female characters the writers seem to make the same mistake over and over, they tell us how wonderful these women are but they don't bother to show it in the game.
Apparently, the Scions really needed Minfillia, no evidence in-game for this whatsoever. She is just an annoying damsel in distress we have to keep saving because.... reasons.
Similarly, M'naago tells us what a great leader Lyse is going to be, yet there is no evidence of her budding leadership prior to Stormblood and the main reason for having her lead the resistance is her dad was important.

That's a matter of perception and the game at that time being bad at showing us all the background stuff.

What we see: "The sahagin are trying to summon a primal. Stop them.", and then we go fight Leviathan.

What we don't see: Minfilia dispatching scouts, reading and writing reports, meeting with leaders and diplomats, hiring new scions, and the million other things the lead to getting that information in the first place. We only get called in after the office work is done and it's time to fight something. Minfilia is a great leader and diplomat. We just don't see it very often because most of what she does is boring to watch.


Lyse is similar. Since so much of SB was about losing and having to play catch up, most of Lyse's victories happen off screen while her failures are front and center. That leads to to people thinking she's a worthless character.