At least for the Rite of Ascension part of the MSQ.

In one of the FanFest and in other FanFests and LLs, it was advertised to us that during the competition, the Scions would have a friendly rivalry amongst themselves while helping their respective Claimants for the Throne. Not my words. Yoshi-P and the translator's words completely.

When we met up with Thancred and Urianger for the first time, Urianger boasted about how he's thrilled or excited to test himself against us finally after working with us for so long. We all exchanged some friendly trash talk on the dock. Thancred, later on, then said that if he really had to for Koana, he wouldn't hesitate to beat Alisaie if she ever gets in his way. And honestly? The Scion competition would've been PERFECT to fill the time between the long and dull parts that just made it all feel so slow and boring.

Now, everyone knows that the WoL can't be bested martially. But seeing that the Scions on the opposing team are literally a Master of Subterfuge/Former Secret Agent Thancred, Urianger, one of the brains of the Scions and the Sharlayan Weeb Koana, they 100% could've outsmarted us.

Up to this point, my expectations were "Alright we're gonna compete against two really capable people we know, love and respect after years of spending time with them as Allies. Yshtola, Estinien and Graha are in the Trailer too! I wonder which team they're on?"

And like... All of that thrown away after Gulool Ja Ja saying "Haha this isn't actually a competition! This is actually me grooming my kids to be leaders because MAN all of them are NOT ready." as a way to make us think he's this Wise leader as if the expositions didn't tell us that enough already?

So it was sold to us as this Competition between Heirs of a throne. The Scions alluding to having a friendly competition amongst themselves early on in the MSQ. Only for the game to tell us that no, the Heirs are all so blinded by their ideals and just too stupid to rule. The Scions ended up teaming up more than they actually competed against each other and Yshtola and Graha are nowhere to be found until the latter half of the MSQ while Estinien had his own spin off somewhere.

Now let's talk about Krile.

She's been with us for FOREVER. And she's really cool and super nice to us, acting almost like an aunt to the Scions. But she's had zero screentime to develop. But then in the build up to DT, I thought Krile fans were finally getting fed. She's got an entire backstory. She was chosen as the character to promote the new job in Dawntrail with Picto.

So going into DT my expectations were that she was about to get some character development like Alphinaud in HW or Thancred in ShB. But we got one really cool moment finding out that Krile wasn't actually from the Source then had to wait until a SECTION of the last zone to fully dive into the lore of her parents in which she got like an hour long spotlight out of a 30+ hour MSQ. Wow.