Dawntrail's MSQ story is a disaster and waste of potential. [full spoilers]

[SwadTheFrog]

It's mindboggling that they kinda tried to make him "Vergil", despite him having all the things that Vergil lost at a young age. Vergil is a walking bundle of unresolved childhood traum. Losing his family, thinking his mother abandoned him, with his father nowhere around, lacking the strength to protect what is dear to him. It's no wonder he walks around as an adult constantly saying "I need more power."

People had high expectations of Zoraal Ja, but he seemingly grew up in a stable environment, with an amazing dad and two great siblings. He buckled under the weight of responsibilty and people died because of it.

Mm. I know some people actually like the whole thing, but during the trial, I just couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculously overly dramatic it all was, with him killiing his phantom parents, siblings and child as he went "I NEED MORE POWER!" It was like an even *more* melodramatic version of Tsukoyomi, and god that trial was a bit excessively dramatic.

Man's a joke of a character for me, literally someone that wanted to commit genocide *purely* because "daddy issues". I'm all for unsympathetic villains, but this is just hilariously silly. Seriously, dude loses *once* and becomes insane.

EDIT : I just realized why I find him so hilarious. He's literally Crimson 1 from Project Wingman, if anyone's played that. It's amazing.

[CuteBucket]

An easy fix for Bakool Ja Ja IMO is if he released Valigarmanda with the intent of defeating it himself, thereby proving he's stronger than the current Dawnservant in his mind. But then he gets his ass handed to him by Vali-G and is forced to eat some humble pie, then comes crawling back to the other contestants and reluctantly has to ask for their help defeating it. I feel that could have been a much better character moment and made his arc in Yak'Tel more believable and sympathetic.

[Aulainn]

An easy fix for Bakool Ja Ja IMO is if he released Valigarmanda with the intent of defeated it himself, thereby proving he's stronger than the current Dawnservant in his mind. But then he gets his ass handed to him by Vali-G and is forced to eat some humble pie, then comes crawling back to the other contestants and reluctantly has to ask for their help defeating it. I feel that could have been a much better character moment and made his arc in Yak'Tel more believable and sympathetic.

Releasing Vali is single-handedly the sole reason he is irredeemable, yet it's completely brushed aside and never mentioned once they are off the mountain. It was obviously instant grounds for disqualification and goes completely against his sudden character motivation of wanting to save his siblings/people from the forest... this thing is essentially said to pretty much be strong enough and ready to kill everything alive on the nation, like what the fuck are you doing when your supposed purpose is the become the leader of the nation and save your kinds?

[Turtledeluxe]

Bakool ja ja was changed mid development. There is no doubt. He initially states he is trying to bring his tribe to city because they don't deserve the forest as a home. He mentions wanting to make his parents proud. He specifically tells another NPC he has no plans as Dawnservant and basically doesn't care what it takes to get there. He releases a deadly beast. Then we go to his home and find out its stunning. We find out that actually, he wants to stop the horrible practice starting there. And he's just, you know, sorry.

Sphene does this as well btw. Sphenes ending is so stupid. Sphene should have held onto her anger until the very end and dissipated into AI rage particles. Instead she becomes discount Meteion and just apologizes for everything?? It's so strange. Based on her character I was expecting her to take her mission to the bitter end, especially with all the terminals gone. Instead they try to redeem her. Meteion didn't even do that-- she just tells you straight up that her actions are unforgivable. I didn't want to excuse Sphene, whether by pointing out she had a good heart at some point or telling her she is just a machine.

[Mnemy]

Mm. I know some people actually like the whole thing, but during the trial, I just couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculously overly dramatic it all was, with him killiing his phantom parents, siblings and child as he went "I NEED MORE POWER!" It was like an even *more* melodramatic version of Tsukoyomi, and god that trial was a bit excessively dramatic.

Man's a joke of a character for me, literally someone that wanted to commit genocide *purely* because "daddy issues". I'm all for unsympathetic villains, but this is just hilariously silly. Seriously, dude loses *once* and becomes insane.

EDIT : I just realized why I find him so hilarious. He's literally Crimson 1 from Project Wingman, if anyone's played that. It's amazing.

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks he's a joke. I literally forgot the guy existed for the 1st 5 lvls. He was never menacing to me and the entire time, even after the whole Xak Tural thing, I didnt feel intimidated by him AT ALL. I didnt feel his prescence, I didnt feel his gravity in the story or anything at all. When I beat him, I felt nothing. I was actually relieved I'm getting closer to the final part of that story now. The only redeeming quality the man has is that his Trial Theme song slapped so hard I felt it physically goddamn.

[Kaecilius]

An easy fix for Bakool Ja Ja IMO is if he released Valigarmanda with the intent of defeated it himself, thereby proving he's stronger than the current Dawnservant in his mind. But then he gets his ass handed to him by Vali-G and is forced to eat some humble pie, then comes crawling back to the other contestants and reluctantly has to ask for their help defeating it. I feel that could have been a much better character moment and made his arc in Yak'Tel more believable and sympathetic.

God, this would have worked so well instead of what we got. Especially because the other trial was going to be reinforcing the ice; He could have considered that beneath him and done something stupid out of overconfidence.

[MoofiaBossVal]

I think another reason why there is so little tension in the plot (namely in the first half), is that we never get the feeling that the succession tournament could have a bad outcome. In the Pelupelu village, the saddlemaker says he wants Zoraal Ja to win because he will make money equipping the cavalry as they invade other countries, but it becomes quickly apparent that North and South America are united under the Dawnservant and there is no other power on the continent to wage war against. When Wuk Lamat approaches you at the end of the Endwalker patches, she makes the succession tournament out as if it could result in Tural invading Eorzea, but when we go to Tural we see that they have no navy and only a few rudimentary hot air balloon baskets. There is no way they could move a large enough force past Limsa's navy to conquer anything in Eorzea. What's the worst thing that could happen if Bakool Ja Ja were to become king in Tuliyollal? The other races don't seem to hate each other or have any ambitions, so people just probably stop visiting the so-called capital and tend to their own lands and carry on as usual? And then you get the quest where the Dawnservant says that he won't give up his own throne to the unworthy, which further evaporates the stakes. So what you're doing doesn't feel very important beyond just being a bodyguard.

Bakool ja ja was changed mid development. There is no doubt. He initially states he is trying to bring his tribe to city because they don't deserve the forest as a home. He mentions wanting to make his parents proud. He specifically tells another NPC he has no plans as Dawnservant and basically doesn't care what it takes to get there. He releases a deadly beast. Then we go to his home and find out its stunning. We find out that actually, he wants to stop the horrible practice starting there. And he's just, you know, sorry.

Sphene does this as well btw. Sphenes ending is so stupid. Sphene should have held onto her anger until the very end and dissipated into AI rage particles. Instead she becomes discount Meteion and just apologizes for everything?? It's so strange. Based on her character I was expecting her to take her mission to the bitter end, especially with all the terminals gone. Instead they try to redeem her. Meteion didn't even do that-- she just tells you straight up that her actions are unforgivable. I didn't want to excuse Sphene, whether by pointing out she had a good heart at some point or telling her she is just a machine.

Another issue with the writing after Stormblood is how the narrative insists that no one is evil, everyone is just misunderstood and if only their circumstances were different, they would be nice to you! It was pretty frustrating to see Wuk Lamat bending over for BANDITS aka cold blooded robbers and murderers, as if every single one of them would be upstanding citizens if their "circumstances" were different. Bakool Ja Ja was better when he was a dirty schemer and brute. And I didn't need to see Zoraal Ja's story end with the Scions standing around his corpse and sad piano music playing while the little lizard cried "why father?". He should have just died.

[Turtledeluxe]

I think another reason why there is so little tension in the plot (namely in the first half), is that we never get the feeling that the succession tournament could have a bad outcome. In the Pelupelu village, the saddlemaker says he wants Zoraal Ja to win because he will make money equipping the cavalry as they invade other countries, but it becomes quickly apparent that North and South America are united under the Dawnservant and there is no other power on the continent to wage war against. When Wuk Lamat approaches you at the end of the Endwalker patches, she makes the succession tournament out as if it could result in Tural invading Eorzea, but when we go to Tural we see that they have no navy and only a few rudimentary hot air balloon baskets. There is no way they could move a large enough force past Limsa's navy to conquer anything in Eorzea. What's the worst thing that could happen if Bakool Ja Ja were to become king in Tuliyollal? The other races don't seem to hate each other or have any ambitions, so people just probably stop visiting the so-called capital and tend to their own lands and carry on as usual? And then you get the quest where the Dawnservant says that he won't give up his own throne to the unworthy, which further evaporates the stakes. So what you're doing doesn't feel very important beyond just being a bodyguard.




Another issue with the writing after Stormblood is how the narrative insists that no one is evil, everyone is just misunderstood and if only their circumstances were different, they would be nice to you! It was pretty frustrating to see Wuk Lamat bending over for BANDITS aka cold blooded robbers and murderers, as if every single one of them would be upstanding citizens if their "circumstances" were different. Bakool Ja Ja was better when he was a dirty schemer and brute. And I didn't need to see Zoraal Ja's story end with the Scions standing around his corpse and sad piano music playing while the little lizard cried "why father?". He should have just died.

That's the thing is I don't think everyone is misunderstood. Zenos is given a chance to explain himself, but he never apologizes and is never redeemed. You are never given the chance to forgive Meteion either-- you can only mildly comfort her before her impending death. Emet Selch is never redeemed and never apologizes. What makes all those villains better than Sphene is that they don't say sorry for what they did. They recognize they are either unforgivable or don't want forgiveness to begin with. Sphene rushes to apologize and it's comical given the circumstances.

The way Sphene is handled is exactly what you're talking about though. It feels like someone wanted to emulate the Meteion ending but fell flat because they did not get into that character's mind. She isn't sorry. The only thing she's sorry about is misleading us. The rest of it is her existential mission.

[Lium]

MSQ is soo diappointing. Its like it was written to teach 12 year olds the power of friendship and working together. Im so tired of the lets all hug each other and tell everyone I love you too.
The plot was so predictable. Wuk Lamot was horrible. My opinion is this is a total failure in writing compared to Shadowbringers and even endwalker.

This was actually one of my criticisms of the expansion as well. I called it saccharine. It was really over the top in DT. Everything was "HAPPINESS! PEACE! FRIENDSHIP!" It took me out of the story quite a bit.

But then, once I got to Living Memory I understood why. The last zone and the themes it touched on were exceedingly dark and bleak. I feel like all that happiness talk was counterprogramming to the bleakness of the second half of the expansion.

[Zaniel]

I knew me liking Zoraal Ja would be controversial, but I'm always interested in knowing why others found Zoraal Ja lacking, if you're interested in expanding on that. I genuinely liked Zoraal Ja as a villain.

Zoraal Ja was ridiculous because his motivation made no sense plus all his development (if I can even call it that) happened off screen. When you first start his motivation is quite literally "I want to start a war so all these people who have peace will get so sick of war they won't do war anymore and will appreciate the peace they have". That is such an illogical piece of dumbassery I don't even know how to unpack it, it's just pure "I fell on my head and made up this story while I was concussed". Later on his motivation suddenly becomes "step out from under my father's shadow and prove myself" which is perfectly legit and should have been his core identity from the start, then his actions would actually make sense. This flip flop of motivations essentially takes place off screen during his emo brooding in Solution 9 so we see nothing.

If he had of started off with daddy issues and played to that theme during the whole xpac then he would have been fine and they could have shown his hate for his father/standing growing over the MSQ. Instead we got crazy man and his passive/aggressive murder spree.