Quote Originally Posted by Cleretic View Post
So, I think your problem here is that you're writing for 'the WoL as played by a player with absolutely no respect for the writing around them'. But if anything, the WoL is just as weak to 'listening to heartfelt/informative monologues' as anyone else in this universe; the moment Sphene starts talking about her ultimate plan, they're glaring along and unwilling to do anything. (Not that it's easy to stop Sphene, given that she's every single sentry.) In fact I'd argue that the WoL is below average in this field; at least Y'shtola took some shots. Not that I even think this is a viable angle in this context anyway, because we weren't 'paralyzed by speeches' in that scene; there's literally one line between when Zoraal Ja drops the key and when Sphene turns up to take it, and she takes it via telepathy.

But it's not like the road is clear if you do get to Living Memory, I actually think there's an insurmountible barrier that I just didn't bring up because my hypothetical didn't even get to that point: Cahciua's not there, so we have no plan of attack. Sphene's plan is going to be much the same as it was in the game itself, but without Cahciua to give us any direction at all--especially not the way to get into the Meso Terminal--we just can't actually stop Sphene once we're there. Your best hope is that maybe Robor and Alayla have an idea, but because this hypothetical actually means we never learn Krile's backstory, we don't know who they are either, and they're probably not opening up to us without a Krile to pour her heart out.
Once we decide to respect that characters are poorly/unnaturally written when it serves the writer's whims — such as just standing still as the big bad slowly walks past you and picks up the McGuffin of Power — we have started interacting with the story on a meta level where another aspect of the writing is inescapable: the Warrior of Light will triumph.

In other words, if we incorporate into our arguments the fact that the writers often arbitrarily have our entire team depart from common sense behavior when it serves to prolong the narrative, then to remain even-handed we should also be incorporating the fact that the writers will not write a story where our WoL does not eventually succeed, because ultimately the story is written in service to the player. They may not win every individual battle, as folks like Ranjit and Zenos have demonstrated, but we will never truly be defeated in a way that matters, nor will we ever end up in a situation where we are unable to go on to enact positive change in the world.

To be clear, I don't think there's a right or wrong path to take in regards to whether or not we should incorporate "the writer" into our hypothetical alternative narratives. But once we choose a path, we should stay consistent.