Wow, Wuk Lamat is really single-handedly ruining the DT story...

[ForteNightshade]

1. "She stole he spotlight!" Well why the hell would we be more important to the people of the land than the literal royalty of the nation? What's more, the people who matter realize we're insanely strong at every turn. Zoraal Ja's advisor Sareel Ja notes that we're a genuine threat, Bakool Ja Ja concocts a whole hostage scheme to fight Wuk Lamat without us smashing their face in, Gulool Ja Ja recognizes that we're the only person to have matched them, and we later defeat his shade when he was at his prime. We were a mentor, the veteran, the explorer who was hired on in exchange for our free invitation to a foreign land. Wuk Lamat is the character experiencing development, but we're the reason any of it happens.

At what point in the entirety of Dawntrail do we ever mentor her? There are no quiet scenes like the one Koana had with Thancred nor moments where we step in because she's overwhelmed. In fact, the narrative actively and constantly forces us to the sideline even when our interference should be warranted. Characters like Sareel Ja and Bakool Ja Ja may acknowledge us but that rings hollow when we're never allowed to actually do anything. Those moments exist to try excusing what is otherwise poor writing. Our character isn't taking a backseat in this story, we're completely useless in a story that would prefer we weren't there in the first place. Seriously, you could replace the WoL with a random NPC, and so long as they praised Wuk Lamat ever couple of scenes, nothing would change in the narrative.

Like I've said countless times already. We aren't Hien, Yugiri or even Asahi. We're the guard delivering one of them a missive. That's what frustrates people.

2. "Her voice acting is so bad!" If you've actually bothered to look up Sena Bryer's other works you'd see she actually has QUITE the range. Her voice was specifically requested and paid for by the dev team of FF14. I personally find it quite fitting. If you have a problem with it, you should probably list your credentials and provide an argument as to why, otherwise you just sound petty.

I have. Her voice still has zero emotional range whatsoever, and she clearly struggles maintaining any degree of consistency when scenes call for quick tonal changes. Now I'll grant you, it's more tolerable in other games but that also may be due to her scenes being relatively short. As for my credentials? I suppose you've never criticised an actor's performance, didn't like the writing in a book or any activity in the world that doesn't squarely lineup with your career path? Put bluntly, if you work at McDonalds, you better like every movie every made, enjoyed ever book ever written and never spoken ill of any video game. After all, your opinion is limited to fast food. How dare you say the acting in x film wasn't good or the writing in y book wasn't good.

If it wasn't blatantly obvious, implying someone has to be in a respective industry to offer criticism is complete nonsense. Frankly, it makes your entire argument come across bias.

3. "She's so annoying!" Yes, she's a character undergoing significant development from a sheltered naive royal to a genuine warrior and ruler. That's what character development tends to look like. A good example to compare to this would be Luke Fon Fabre from Tales of the Abyss.

What development? She is nearly the exact same character from start to finish. She never once struggles nor sees any real adversity. Case in point, the narrative went out of its way to establish both Bakool Ja Ja and Zarool ja are leagues above her physically. When she first crosses swords (axe in her case) with the former, he effortlessly deflects her blow, and it's her weapon that ends up damaged. And yet after making a some tacos, she's suddenly able to defeat not only him on her own but his entire entourage while we stand in the corner smiling and nodding at how amazing she is. Remember that "mentoring" you claim we were doing? Yeah, we didn't train with her once. Not even a silly Rocky montage or something to illustrate any sort of character growth. She defeats Bakool Ja Ja because the writer needed her to--in a scene comically contrived where her real father is revealed, all to set up a poor kidnapping plot that is resolved in a single quest only to never be mentioned again.

Contrast this to us confronting Zenos in Stormblood. Even Thancred fighting Ran'jit in Shadowbringers, which has its own issues, at least depicted him seriously struggling to the point of nearly killing himself. And he still more or less only slowed Ran'jit down. We had to actually defeat him later. Wuk Lamat though? Nah, she's got the power of peace, harmony and FRIENDSHIP.

By the way, for giggles, take a shot every time she mentions one of those three words (pick your favourite!) and see if you can make it to the next level without passing out.

Her character "development" was finally reaching a zone where they didn't repeat the seasick joke for the 1000th time.

4. "Wuk Lamat shouldn't have been in the second half of the story!" You mean the fighter of the two rulers, the one who has a foil in Sphene shouldn't be confronting said foil, even though they have a tactical ruler already handling the defense of their capital? This is just daft.

How about the character who is an otherworldly being whose power level and scoop far outpaces anything Wuk Lamat has ever confronted or dealt with in her entire life? Whose existence is exactly the type of thing the Scions are supposed to deal with. Nope! She can just break through said being's barrier teleporting her out of space--something G'raha Tia didn't even think to do despite being the literal sage whose plot revolved around doing precisely that two expansions ago then parrying it's attack without any real difficulty and completely stealing the show.

Fun fact. If you have a certain meter, you'll see Wuk Lamat deals more damage than you do even as a DPS. She is actually made stronger than the god slaying Warrior of Light in that moment. But yes, tell me again how she doesn't steal the spotlight.

I'd argue that Wuk Lamat is a Mary Sue because while she has negative traits, she doesn't suffer consequences as a result of them nor do they actually impact the story in any meaningful way. If you write a super OP character but then give them clumsiness as their only negative character trait, then they're still a Mary Sue if the clumsiness is only used for comedic gags and never in the heat of an important battle or during a crucial moment.

I said the same but someone else linked "Black Hole Sue" and I have to admit, it fits Wuk Lamat to an absolute tee.

The Black Hole Sue: Her gravity is so great, she draws all the attention and causes other characters (and, often, reality itself) to bend and contort in order to accommodate her. Characters don't act naturally around her. They instead serve as plot enablers for her, with dialogue that only acts as set-ups for her response. She dominates every scene she is in, with most scenes without her serving only to give the characters a chance to "talk freely" about her. Most people don't oppose her and anybody who does will either realize their fault in doing so or just prove easy to overcome.

[Cynric]

How about the character who is an otherworldly being whose power level and scoop far outpaces anything Wuk Lamat has ever confronted or dealt with in her entire life? Whose existence is exactly the type of thing the Scions are supposed to deal with. Nope! She can just break through said being's barrier teleporting her out of space--something G'raha Tia didn't even think to do despite being the literal sage whose plot revolved around doing precisely that two expansions ago then parrying it's attack without any real difficulty and completely stealing the show.

This last bit was honestly the icing on the cake for me. I was getting one cool moment in an entire story of nothing, and they ruined it for me. Which really capped off the entire expansion with a very obvious theme, which was the character ruined what could've been a fun experience.

If they hadn't have done that final part I might've at least had something I did in the expansion that made me go "Well at least that was cool".

But nope, she had to steal the show, our other friends couldn't even come and help. She did it all by herself. Why did I even bother coming on this adventure at all? Any random mercenary could've done what I did.

[ForteNightshade]

This last bit was honestly the icing on the cake for me. I was getting one cool moment in an entire story of nothing, and they ruined it for me. Which really capped off the entire expansion with a very obvious theme, which was the character ruined what could've been a fun experience.

If they hadn't have done that final part I might've at least had something I did in the expansion that made me go "Well at least that was cool".

But nope, she had to steal the show, our other friends couldn't even come and help. She did it all by herself. Why did I even bother coming on this adventure at all? Any random mercenary could've done what I did.

I'll concede everything, be it praise or criticism, is mostly subjective. We all have our opinions. I wish I could like Dawntrail and even Wuk Lamat but I simply don't for a myriad of reasons. The hill I'll die on though, is our character being completely and utterly useless. Even if you liked Dawntrail, I don't know how you can argue we were anything more than window dressing. We did nothing, and somehow accomplished even less. I suppose if you like the idea of just being a random NPC along for the ride but even back in ARR we weren't that. We've never been out of focus to the point of irrelevancy.

And that's the biggest issue I suspect most people have. I'd posit most were okay taking a backseat role this expansion. Heck, if the entire expansion had been like Shaaloani, I'd have been pretty satisfied. They could have gone the nine yards and made zones referencing various time periods or motifs. Do a 50-60s knock off or something else silly and fun while we get into misadventures like Estinien seems to. Instead, we're a nameless NPC taking an obnoxious sue on a pokemon gym journey. Except we didn't even get to capture any pokemon.