Thread: Revelations from Patch 6.5: "Growing Light", Part 1

Originally Posted by SannaR

My first part of that reply was more...

Oh! My bad, you were referring to the first part of my other post. You only quoted the Scion portion with your response and I forgot about the other after falling asleep, lol. I was a bit confused.

But I stand by my original point in terms of Hydaelyn still being a viably suspicious figure, and when I referred to that trope I was including pre-3.2 as well. Some people disagree, but ultimately this is the FF franchise; twists and turns are kind of Their Thing, we have a vague, benevolent deity figure appear to us in a dream at the start of the game who beseeches us to act in her name without revealing much in the way of anything about why or who our foes are, and even in the absence of any overt evidence I think it's only natural that all sorts of theories and speculations start to form on the back of it. We're all different, we all perceive things differently, some people saw and liked Hydaelyn as a kind, motherly goddess figure, and others didn't - no one is wrong, and no one is wrong for holding on to those theories as the game progresses, or for just fundamentally enjoying or disliking a character. The problem is that people around here need to really, really, really stop treating positive perceptions as being of intrinsically more value than negative ones, and using those opinions against others to constantly make light of and undermine what they're saying, when it's such a deeply flawed, underhand and ugly tactic that I will never stop pointing it out when it happens. You're even doing it here, by building on Cleretic's assumption and trying to put the basis for Endwalker's criticism down to "well some people have always really HATED Hydaelyn." Setting aside that's flat out incorrect, and there is [checks briefly] an 880 page thread detailing both why that isn't the case and the problems players actually had with the story that some people are still choosing to be wilfully obtuse over because they can't make a handy strawman out of it - so? Is there anything inherently wrong with that? If having strong feelings on a character somehow renders their point of view incorrect or unreliable, then doesn't everyone here who adores Venat or thought the Ascians were the worst thing ever also also not have a leg to stand on? We're all going to be somewhat biased in some respects because of who we are, our personal preferences and our attitudes towards the world, and pretending you're free of that because you like something is very misguided.

But truthfully I don't think I've even come across one person who took issue with Endwalker who actually had a problem with Hydaelyn prior to the Ancient storyline - most were pretty much ambivalent towards her, so it's a pretty pointless argument to be having anyway.

And I disagree, I think a prolonged break from the Scions would have made a difference. Would it have cured all the problems people have with the characters? No, and I'm sure their return might have elicited some eyerolls, but that comes down to their writing, and the same goes for Lyse and Minfilia. Distance was never going to help them especially, because their core issues were how blandly they were written and the lack of depth or substance they had, and the same goes for the Scions these days. It could help them, if the break brought some new facets of their characters to the table, but the presumption is their character arcs are done, so most people are/ were settling simply for a break to find their return to their roles as plot devices a little more bearable.

But again, we have a return to "some people just hate them!" and ignoring both why people have frustrations with the characters, and the fact that many actually used to have a considerable degree of affection for at least some of them before Endwalker - they just "hate" them, and quite obviously for no reason, so anything they have to say is therefore invalid.