What was the purpose of the Yda twist?

[Lady_Silvermoon]

I never understood why Yda became Lyse from a story perspective. Couldn't Yda have just taken off her mask and done the things Lyse did without the twist? Given our player never met the original Yda and the other Scions were just pretending, what did the twist change/add?

[Cleretic]

This basically comes down to vibe, but here's my feeling:

By nature of being 'the Ala Mhigan Scion' (well, that's still alive), Yda was basically contractually obligated to get a starring role in Stormblood. However, there was a problem with that: Yda's a joke. She was born onto the screen as the clown to Papalymo's straight man, that was both her intention and her entire character purpose up to that point. But Stormblood was very much not a joke: the Ala Mhigan side especially was dead serious. So Yda was gonna need some pretty serious character renovations, pretty fast.

Was 'I'm actually Yda's sister' the only option? Probably not, but I would argue that anything less major wouldn't work.

[MikkoAkure]

It meant that Lyse wasn't actually a member of the original Circle of Knowing or an archon since the tattoo wasn't real so the writers could have a valid reason to have her leave the main cast as of 4.0 since she and Papalymo were sidelined after 2.5 and it seemed like they were trying to thin the cast anyway.

"Yda" only worked as a character against Papalymo and they were very reliant on each other as a duo. With Papalymo gone and Yda actually being Lyse, they also had more opportunity to expand her character when she was a part of the main party in 4.0.

Also, 1.0 characters did meet the original Yda.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

The thing I don't get is I don't feel the character's personality changed between being Yda and admitting she was Lyse. What you're saying would make more sense if she was a serious leader who'd been pretending to be ditzy because she was impersonating her sister, but I read it in reverse that the Sharlyan scholar was acting ditzy because she was really her younger sister the whole time. I think that lack of change in her personality was why so many objected to her becoming a world leader at the time.

Was 1.0 Yda less ditzy?

[Anonymoose]

They were dropping hints that Yda would be involved in the Ala Mhigo arc from the first cutscene of 1.0, so my theory was that they "missed their window" on the story they wanted to tell and the character they wanted her to be. Lyse is played like a young, passionate firebrand who wants to do what's right but has no plan because she still has to find out who she is, but if you look at where Yda was at after the 1.0 Echo jump, 2.0 Calamity jump, and 2 expansions of content, she'd had very little character development since 1562 and was pushing 40 besides. My theory was that the swap was an attempt to respect Yda's accomplishments but still get to tell a specific kind of story.

Was 1.0 Yda less ditzy?

Absolutely not, lol.

Also, 1.0 characters did meet the original Yda.

Quasi-Important Caveat: Met her in Echoes. The swap was placed preciously 1 year before the present-day content, but 9 years after the introductory Echoes.
(i.e. We got talk to talk to Yda at the Gridanian rite but Lyse is the one who just barely landed that punch on Gaius at Silvertear Lake, not that the developers knew or intended this at the time.)

[Theodric]

I imagine it's something that hit harder if you played 1.0, which many did not. Personally I preferred Yda's initial happy-go-lucky and somewhat ditzy personality. She worked nicely as a both an in-universe excuse to ask questions so that information could be explained to the player and the more serious nature of Papalymo brought some subtle comic relief to the table.

I also started the game with a character in Gridania, so naturally I spent the most time early on with those two in particular. Lyse didn't really click with me the way 'Yda' did though she was fairly inoffensive. Though now she's basically only ever around for the occasional cameo since much like Aymeric she's now much too busy to go on any adventures.

[Cleretic]

The thing I don't get is I don't feel the character's personality changed between being Yda and admitting she was Lyse. What you're saying would make more sense if she was a serious leader who'd been pretending to be ditzy because she was impersonating her sister, but I read it in reverse that the Sharlyan scholar was acting ditzy because she was really her younger sister the whole time. I think that lack of change in her personality was why so many objected to her becoming a world leader at the time.

I think the important part is less that the character changed (although she did), but that every element of the presentation did.

Doing Stormblood with Yda would be like trying to make a serious drama about organized crime and corruption in Ul'dah with Godbert Manderville as your central character. You're going to need to do some serius work to make sure that the presence of the character alone doesn't destroy the entire tone and ideal of the story. If you put Godbert into a scene straight out of the most tense moments of Yakuza, it just wouldn't work, because we'd all be spending the entire scene waiting for the jokes to start; Yda there without a full overhaul and review would have the same problem, it'd feel like putting Mr. Bean in Saving Private Ryan.

Overhauling to the point where she's not even Yda by name creates other problems, but at least the tone holds.

Also, Moose is right: if Papalymo was dead but Yda was still Yda, she'd be the oldest Scion by a long way, and that'd feel extremely wrong for the character journey ahead of her. She'd be older than every non-Gosetsu major character in Stormblood! She'd be learning from Hien while Hien was like ten years her junior.

[JepMZ]

It's very wholly unnecessary but probably to also have her have a new look instead of her canon hairstyle shown in echo flashback of 1.0 (the short hair with headband). I mean yeah, she had 15 years to grow out her hair but all the other scions have very minor changes

[Brightamethyst]

I'm guessing that the twist was about letting Lyse be a new person going into SB, rather than trying to fit the existing Yda character into that same role. It didn't work out, but I'm guessing that was the original intent.

[Cilia]

From a Doylist perspective, my read on it is that they just didn't know what to do with Yda (or Papalymo) so they effectively killed both in the lead-up to Stormblood. Furthermore that story needed an Ala Mhigan national (expatriate / refugee) to serve as the main protagonist, so they reworked Yda into a "new" character (Lyse) to fill that role.

From a Watsonian perspective it doesn't make as much sense as I'd like, though there was some subtle foreshadowing back during 2.x's finale.