The Negative Impact of Poor Character Writing on the Quality of Dawntrail's MSQ

[koko-on-da-forumz]

I still firmly believe the characters have a lot to offer in the hands of a competent writer.

The scions have never had anything to offer, not since 2.0.

Ask anyone about Y'shtola's personality, and nine times out of ten you'll get a reference to something that happened in the story six or seven years ago in Stormblood's patches.

G'raha joined the scions and immediately turned into a cardboard cutout of a wet cat (in more ways than one).

Part of that is just that FFXIV's structure is fundamentally not good for telling stories about protagonists because they have to rely on the main character being a silent demi-god with no actual control over themself. Wuk Lamat was their attempt at changing that dynamic, and they flubbed it immediately. The closest thing we have to proper 'good guy' development is Zenos, acting as our anti-hero deuteragonist in Endwalker,

[Voidmage]

The scions have never had anything to offer, not since 2.0.

Ask anyone about Y'shtola's personality, and nine times out of ten you'll get a reference to something that happened in the story six or seven years ago in Stormblood's patches.

G'raha joined the scions and immediately turned into a cardboard cutout of a wet cat (in more ways than one).

Part of that is just that FFXIV's structure is fundamentally not good for telling stories about protagonists because they have to rely on the main character being a silent demi-god with no actual control over themself. Wuk Lamat was their attempt at changing that dynamic, and they flubbed it immediately. The closest thing we have to proper 'good guy' development is Zenos, acting as our anti-hero deuteragonist in Endwalker,

I think a whole new team of Wuk Lamat, Koana, Krile, Bakool JaJa (after some time), Otis and Sphene would have been interesting. Throw in G'raha too and Estinien if we need some scions.
That could have been a good dynamic. some kind of "new scions" if only just for Dawntrail and would have captured really nice the sense of "new adventure".
They could have had a good dynamic and the finale would have been far more deep if Sphene and Otis were with us for a longer time.
Instead we got the Wuk show season 1 to 100.
just imagine each character having their own spotlight and us as the veteran adventure.

Dawntrail might as well be evidence that they don't know what to do with the Scions anymore. Especially those with their personal arcs resolved (Thancred, Urianger, Alphinaud, arguably Estinien)

Even disregarding the poor characterization direction in Dawntrail as a whole Urianger, for example, is completely off-character taking some mercenary job just because Thancred invited him. Nothing in how he was written as a character since his introduction in 1.X made him come across as someone who'd take the job as someone's bodyguard just for sake of it.

Thancred could still work in my opinion if they used his personality more. You know, the charmer like we saw in the TRAILER.
Urianger needs a break. he had great character development but he is at a dead end right now.
Y'sthola is as deep as a puddle like always.
The twins didn't have a story since Garlemald and even that is a reach to call it a story because they do absolutely nothing.

I can't agree with this video when the person says she likes Bakool Ja Ja's character development and argues that the Scions shouldn't be in the story anymore.
Bakool Ja Ja's "development" was his personality completely changing from one scene to the other suddenly without any buildup, and never being punished or seeing consequences of his actions.

And the Scions being part of the story isn't the problem - the problem is that the current writer just can't write them in there in a meaningful way. It makes me sad that some people will keep arguing against the scions using Dawntrail as "evidence", while I still firmly believe the characters have a lot to offer in the hands of a competent writer.

It's fine to not agree with those points I understand that but what about the others?

[koko-on-da-forumz]

I think a whole new team of Wuk Lamat, Koana, Krile, Bakool JaJa (after some time), Otis and Sphene would have been interesting. Throw in G'raha too and Estinien if we need some scions.
That could have been a good dynamic. some kind of "new scions" if only just for Dawntrail and would have captured really nice the sense of "new adventure".

I'm going to go out on a limb and sayu that this would have been terrible too. The writer can not handle writing one character well for significant screentime, much less six. Otis and Sphene are some of the worst, laziest characters to enter our presence. Bakool Jaja started as a Speed Racer tier villain and heelturned after one chitchat. Koana is more of a symbol to communicate a theme than a character. Wuk, obviously, everyone hates.

I don't understand the fan commitment to Krile. She's fine. She was always fine. She's no more interesting or less interesting than the other Scions--at least until Dawntrail where her entire backstory was rewritten to be bad tearjerk fodder rather than a suitable catharsis.

They're all bad, they've always been bad.