Bring Lyse back into the fold

[Kesey]

Having played through the latest set of Duty Support dungeons, I really enjoyed having Lyse in the group. She's fantastic.

Considering where we are in the story, Ala Mhigo has stabilized, the Scions disbanded, I feel like it's a good time for her to step back to the fore with the WoL and friends. She's a fighter not a diplomat.

Monk is underrepresented. Can never have too many female characters. Bring her back.

Tangentially, Arenvald is awful. He is absolutely terrible. Raubahn should be the tank in Ala Mhigo.

I agree. She would be the easiest character to bring back too. Have Ala Mhigo elect a new leader, surprise it's Raubahn, and now Lyse is free from responsibilities. And for good measure, let's have her and Fordola do something together as well.

[Cleretic]

I have no problem with having more Lyse, because I genuinely do think she's an interesting character that brings new things to the table, and part of me still wishes she was around for Shadowbringers so that the whole 'Emet-Selch literally founded the Garlean Empire solely to cause damage and destruction' plot point actually mattered to a single character that heard it. (But that's a bigger and more complex conversation because doing so would require restructuring both some amount of 4.x and most of Shadowbringers, and wouldn't necessarily improve either.)

But I don't think we need to drag her into 'you're in the main cast now to go be an adventurer again', because she's actually got a significant role in the world that works for her; she's a senator of a representative government. She's not 'the leader' (far as I can tell Ala Mhigo doesn't have one singular leader), but she's our most constant contact point on the political side because she's our friend and therefore the main way she already knows other political figures in Eorzea. And honestly, I think that's a far more interesting place for her to be, not to mention a culmination of her story in a way that really works.

...now if only they found a way to use her. Because the struggle there is that it paints her into the corner of only appearing in the political scenes, which don't give her a massive amount of stuff to do. And unlike someone like Merlwyb, Lyse also isn't the default contact point for 'stuff's going down in Ala Mhigo', because that role would more naturally go to Raubahn as the head of Ala Mhigo's military whenever we're fighting something (which is always). The solution to that problem isn't 'take Lyse out of the place her story naturally worked to put her in', it's to somehow write a meaty Ala Mhigan story that centers on her, instead of Raubahn or Fordola.

[Alleluia]

I've always liked Lyse. And she's already had several scenes reminding us she exists after being almost entirely uninvolved in ShB. So, her inclusion wouldn't be out of left field entirely.

I agree, bring her back into the spotlight. (Preferably with a revamp/expansion on Ala Mhigo city that makes it a real city. >_>)

[Theodric]

I'm indifferent to Lyse as a character overall. Having her 'retired' from the main spotlight but weighing in every now and then whenever the story takes us back to Ala Mhigo is far better treatment than many other side characters have received. The bulk of the main cast is already still made up entirely of Scions, so as I see it things would be more interesting to use her spot to introduce another non-Scion.

The game also doesn't really have 'leader figures' travel with the player character on a permanent basis which is why - despite his popularity - Aymeric isn't constantly at our side.

[Lyth]

I think part of the difficulty with Lyse's character was that she stopped being Yda.

The Ultimate Fight FFXIV video that Square Enix released as a joke during one of the ARR live letters captures the fun of the original Scion group quite nicely. Yda occupied the space where Estinien is right now, as our punch first, ask questions later melee dps. And that served as a good counterpoint to an otherwise overly cerebral Scion group.

Lyse doesn't really have a connection with the Scions, outside of her sister's history. You could argue that, were Yda alive, her sister would be a side character in her story. If you really wanted to bring that dynamic back, then you'd need Yda, not Lyse. The place to look is Yda's implied offscreen/offpage death in Tales from the Twilight - Set with the Sun (as narrated by Fordola):

More and more soldiers were coming to join the fray. She even saw a hulking magitek monstrosity approaching, the grating screech of metal on metal adding to the clamor which now resounded around the ruins.

Fleet of foot as she was, Yda surely could have escaped alone. Yet there she stayed, fighting this impossible battle. She was going to die, and why? For the sake of one child? For her?

Why me?

If she went for help, they might make it in time. But who could she ask? Who would help an enemy of the Empire? No one she knew. She cursed her own uselessness.

Still, she kept moving. One step at a time, though her legs trembled to take them, and repeated Yda's final words to herself until they were a part of her. She would live.

If the Black Wolf came back from the destruction of Praetorium, then you pretty much have to see it to believe it. The question is, if the original Yda was captured and not killed, what could you do with that idea? More of the Resonant plotline with Fordola in Southern Ilsabard perhaps? Bring Yda back as an antagonist? Hard to say, really.

[Kesey]

I think part of the difficulty with Lyse's character was that she stopped being Yda.

But no one really knows Yda--at all. The Yda you know was Lyse the whole time.

And if you want to point to changes in personality, Lyse just stopped pretending to be Yda.

Yda is just the offscreen back story of Lyse (and somewhat Fordola).

I get the community had mixed reviews about the Lyse reveal, but frankly, none of you know Yda. Stop using Yda to diminish Lyse.

[SannaR]

To me there were signs of Lyse while she was pretending to be Yda. Even though Krile (I think?) jokes about Lyse getting her Archon mark in punching we can probably safely assume that was what Yda got her marks for as a thesis on the merit of pugilistic fighting techniques. Thus to me Yda at least knew how to write a good enough paper/report for Sharlyean scholars to turn their noses up on. Where to me Lyse even while pretending to be Yda had many an instance of being the ditzy blonde. Also, maybe their eye color was different thus part of the reason why she refused to take off her mask or get a new one. They focus on her eye when her mask gets split during the Bloody Banquet escape. In the pre EW story focused on Fordola Yda doesn't come off as a ditzy blonde.

[Lyth]

...

I agree with this. As much as the title has evolved from Nyunkrepf's time, being awarded an appellation in honor of the original founders of Sharlayan isn't an achievement simply offered to every scholar. I'm not sure if you're still restricted to twelve Archons at a time, but at the very least this is an achievement on par with receiving a doctorate in a field.

...

I don't think that the Lyse reveal 'undermines' her character, but it feels like this, in conjunction with Papalymo's death, was used to break her connection to the Scions and to sideline her. Like Moenbryda, I feel that this was a character who was written out too early.

...

While it's correct to point out that we never really knew the original Yda, she still had untapped story potential, prior to Stormblood. The Ala Mhigan backstory around the revolution and subsequent Garlean invasion leaves us with the question of 'so what?' And I think it's only when you reconnect that past to the present with the friendships she forged over many years in Sharlayan that you have a fully formed character.

The only way to really change this is to reverse the process. At a minimum, it would be helpful to see Lyse's feelings towards the characters we've recently encountered within Sharlayan, after having spent so many years there alongside her sister. This is one way to expand her story outside of Ala Mhigo. As an Archon, Yda would have allowed for a much more natural development of this approach, and it would have been relatively simple to tie in new plot threads to her mission history.

I can't say for certain that reintroducing Yda at a later point in the story would have a significant impact, but I can say that exploring the relationship between the siblings in more depth would have been of benefit to both their respective characters. It's a bit like how Edgar and Sabin were a lot more interesting (and fun!) together than they would have been as disconnected individuals.

[MikkoAkure]

If you played 1.0, then you met real Yda during the Echo parts and she’s no different than fake Yda and was a ditzy blonde.

Whether or not her personality in 1.0 flashbacks is canon is up in the air but it’s all we have and back then and probably even in ARR I don’t think Yda=Lyse was written anyway.

[Katish]

I think the issue with Lyse is her character's premise, the premise of "all-about-me" (That kind of storytelling works for villains not so much side heroes), which makes her a bit annoying to be quite frank. Having Stormblood basically "Lyse's life" solidified that image imo. And returning her and changing her character too dynamically would result in a whole new character, and that would be quite glaring when playing to whenever that would be introduced. Personally, I like how they removed her and gave her a purpose...I just wish they did it with other Scions as well. (The whole Scion thing is getting old)