Dawntrail would have hit better for me if it revolved around Gulool Ja Ja's journey

[Tilandros]

Spoilers Incoming

So I have recently completed the X'bral's rite in support of Wuk Lamat and I finally came to a realization on why I'm just not feeling any part of the journey. We are constantly reminded on the lengths the Dawnservant went to unite the various people of the country through flashbacks and through the Succession contest itself. And I thought to myself, it would have been far better thematically to support his quest to unite and build a new nation rather than support the weak candidate in Wuk Lamat.

Had the story instead shifted to Gulool Ja Ja's journey we could have still seen the various cultures but not through stagnant peacetime. Defeating the supremacy of the Yok Huy, ending the war between X'bral and Mamool, and laying low a fully empowered Valigarmanda at his side would be far more entertaining to me than what I have experienced currently.

This would have had the added benefit of introducing characters to assist in the journey rather than shoehorning in the Scions unnecessarily (sans Krile of course). The only reason they are even here is for trust support and their participation, and lack of added conflict in their presence is just a wasted opportunity to introduce much needed new blood into the story.

We see many images of Gulool Ja Ja's party and I find myself wishing to learn about their experiences, their wants, their desires, and their inner conflicts far more than I do following around Wuk Lamat and that's a shame because I think there could have been value in her presence in another scenario where she was an eager supplicant and guiding light for her father to build a better future in a united Tural. Instead, I just meander through the story we got at present and wonder what the hell went wrong.

[hydralus]

It is a little weird that their idea of an "adventure" is to follow in someone else's footsteps in a paint-by-numbers approach to sight-seeing. Yeah it often felt like we were just learning about the aftermath of someone else's adventure rather than having one ourself.

[Oizen]

Someone on the dev team really liked Frieren.

[lolnotacat]

Someone on the dev team really liked Frieren.

Too bad Frieren is practically a character study and Dawntrail was a Shounen aimed at 8 year olds.

[Astronema]

Too bad Frieren is practically a character study and Dawntrail was a Shounen aimed at 8 year olds.

its more like being a passenger here.
https://youtu.be/S4AmLcBLZWY

[Iscah]

And I thought to myself, it would have been far better thematically to support his quest to unite and build a new nation rather than support the weak candidate in Wuk Lamat.

Regardless of what works story-wise or not, we aren't just "supporting a weak candidate" who isn't deserving of a win, we're helping her to grow into a candidate who does deserve to be selected as successor – which we are told early on is not actually about "coming first" but a judgement of character that still may be withdrawn at any point.

[SeriousPan]

I wanna know the story behind that Pelupelu party member of Gulool Ja Ja. Does anyone know if any side quests elaborate on who that is? There's a flashback scene that shows the crew fighting Valigarmanda and I wanna know them!

[ThaCa]

Second part of the story should have had Koana with us instead of Wuk and give him space to grow as character.

There's so many options where they could have done something, even slightly, other way and it would probably have been less exhausting.