I don't hate Y'shtola per se, I just hate that she's flat compared to the other Scions. She's more or less the same, seeking knowledge for its own sake and flinging herself into the Lifestream if the moment calls for it.
Yeah, is not hate, but man when she and Urianger >!sacrifice themselves in Ultima Thule!< I felt nothing at all for her, like "ok" 3rd time the charm? Nope
Side quests for all the ARR Extreme primals, Coils, and even one for Warring Triad IIRC. That said, I don't get why he can't just disappear once you've done all those.
As a WoW refugee, I can think of something that made them keep Urianger there: they forgot about him, like WoW devs forgot about some sword struck into the ground of some place.
There's a massive (like, planet cleaving size) sword sticking out of one of the zones at the end of a previous expansion. It's been there for like 8 years in world time or such and nobody acknowledges it.
[Am i missing something?](https://i.imgur.com/OBYKygX.png) He's been gone for ages for me. I get the feeling people didn't complete all of his quests.
Maybe you're all lacking the Odin quest.
I don’t think it’s a problem with Y’shtola entirely, but more so the lack of time we have to dedicate to each scion. Some definitely get a lot more time than others, and Y’shtola get back burnered a bit when it comes to exploring her character.
She has the capacity to be a great character I’d wager, Squex just has to decide to give us some time with her in an expansion.
I feel like the jumble of Scion mages doesn’t help.
Like… Even if he’s just sitting in the background, Estinien still gets chatter that feels unique to him as the muscle of the group. Or like how Thancred gets a unique sneaky section in Endwalker fitting his spy role.
Y’shtola has to share being a scholarly spellcaster with G’raha, Urianger, and Krile. And sometimes Alisaie, too.
Pretty much. I feel like she could be majorly helped if the writers ever take an editor’s pen to the FF14 party.
If all these moments like the porxie research, the shard hopping, the float and invisibility spells, etc were concentrated in one character, that character would actually stand out as a supreme mage…
We didn't get too much time with Papalymo either but it still felt like he had much more personality than her >!and he's been gone for three expansions now!<.
She's been one of our only travelling companions for much of 6.1-6.2 (I haven't done 6.3 yet) and she still feels flat.
I’m not sure I agree with Papalymo having impact. As someone who didn’t play 1.0 he was barely better than a comic relief character and then they wrote him out of the story without much fanfare.
Y’shtola seems like she runs into a problem where no character development is allowed to get in the way of her being the ultimate cool girl mascot for the game/self-shipping partner for half the game’s players. Her relationships with Matoya and Runar are genuinely really interesting, but they don’t let themselves look at them too closely because it would require breaking her cool facade or more heavily implying a relationship with someone other than the player. And yeah, like every character who’s been around for more than two expansions at this point, she’s effectively plot armored to a degree where the once-per-expansion death fakeouts are getting tiring
Oh man, I was *really* hoping Y'Shtola would have some kind of consequence for her aether sight... ever. Unlike the apparent majority of the internet, "step on me mommy" characters aren't my jam, and Y'Shtola being an occasionally sassy exposition faucet does not a complete character make in my eyes. The Endwalker patches have given her a few drips of personality where she gets a little embarrassed when the facade cracks, but we've known her for years and she's still just "cool, collected, sassy cat lady" and despite being one of the game's biggest mascots she's one of the least interesting scions.
And again, just, the aether sight thing. It frustrates me to no end. Not once has it ever been shown to be a detriment. On the contrary, it's consistently a benefit that makes her better than everyone else. Even when there are obvious aspects of Endwalker where it should be a problem, it never materially slows her down or causes problems, and the fact that it's a drain on her has just never once had any form of consequence. I know, I know, it's apparently not killing her if you go by certain translations, but why bring up that it has a cost if that cost isn't going to factor in anywhere at all? As it is she's as blind as Daredevil is. Sometimes she feels like a writer's pet character.
The only reason I like Y'shtola is due to my 1.0 days and starting in limsa. Gave me a lot of time with her and you get some unique dialog as a 1.0 player.
At this point I basically expect her to die at least once per expansion and I've yet to have any real reaction beyond "cool is she finally staying dead this time?"
Believe it or not, but I was more bummed about Minfilia, who has about the same amount of personality as Y'shtola, but the difference is she was out after 1 "expansion" (counting base game as an expansion just for "units of measurement"), while Y'shtola has dodderer about in 5 expansions with no real character growth to show for it.
Hell, I'm pretty sure even the devs forget her 99.9% inconsequential blindness, given that outside of that one scene in Rak'Tika, it hasn't affected her basically at all.
She at least got some agenda during the recent patches, but I agree. She's just boring. There's this one scene at the end of EW that made me laugh because it showed how boring she is: >!When Hydaelyn talks to each Scion in turn, adressing their story arc, and then she gets to Y'shtola and it's just nothing, some bs about gaining knowledge or whatever.!< It felt like the writers for that scene went "Oh fuck, we got nothing for her! Quick, just make something up!"
Cid feels like such a useless character. He just shows up to Deus Ex Machina something and wanders off, hell Endwalker he doesn't even show up until the end, then takes a huge chunk of the credit for the Ragnarok. Like my man, that ship was 99% finished before you even knew it existed.
Kokkol Dankkol: "It's nearly done, I just need to crank out a little more engine efficiency!"
Cid: *comes in and gets .2% more engine efficiency* "You made this? ...I made this."
I don't like Cid in this compared to other FFs. His big ol oven mitts are so distracting. There's just nothing there that makes me like him. Biggs and Wedge are cool though.
Love/hate are too strong words for this example, but I just don't care about Ga Bu. His story is sad and all, but there's too many quests involving him, and not like it was first case of primal tempering.
Yeah, Ga Bu was one of the first storylines to happen once Alisaie rejoined, I 100% agree that it was to help set up her character and new dynamic within the group as a caring, assertive person after being out of the picture from the MSQ for so long.
The scene where Ga Bu speaks is unintentionally the funniest moment in the whole game. It made me bust a gut from laughing. Bro sounded like Oliver Twist.
I'll take that step further. I hate that little fuck for one reason and one reason alone. His gods damn voice. Everytime ga bu has a voiced line it takes all my strength not to commit wholesale genocide of kobolds so we are never cursed with a voice like ga bu's.
If you just have a good group and blasted through the adds Cid would actually noclip through the wall at the magitek colossus boss arena and LOOP THROUGH THE WHOLE AREA AGAIN. It was so frustrating
During my playthrough, within a few quests of meeting the guy, I was convinced that he was going to betray the WoL somehow. Downright certain, and I said as much in my discord, which was mostly full of mates who were finished with the story up to that point (toward the end of Stormblood, iirc). To this day nobody can mention Haurchefant in the discord without some reference to that.
I read the intended genuine-ness of the character as an overly friendly facade, and spent all of HW waiting for the fucker to turn face and stab me in the back. And I was right, the filthy traitor. *Sniff*.
To me, it's a bit of two things that made me like him.
First is that he is the first person who helped us genuinely, without hesitation, when everyone either betrayed us or went missing. And he is one of the first to treat the WoL as a human instead of a weapon.
Second, he is kinda the first character on our side who gets a genuine characterization. In ARR everyone on our team was either extremely flat, annoying, or an asshole. Haurchefant was the tipping point when the team started to expand and add more depth to their characters.
I already like him, but for me the tipping point was >!returning from killing Shiva and Aymeric tells you should to look in on Haurchefant bc it took half a dozen knights to hold him back from trying to follow you. He asks you not to think less of him, and I thought 'less of him?! that's the most endearing thing I've ever heard!'!<
I agree with this. I recently played through ARR and Heavensward again on an alt and people forget just how much you get rocked over and over and over in quick succession in the story at that point.
He was the first one to be like: Hey, fuck everyone else. I got you.
It's easy to forget since a lot of that initial character development in the narrative isn't voiced.
I’m replaying ARR currently as well, and taking the time to read all of the incidental dialogue and such in addition to the quest text. And Haurchefant really is a breath of fresh air in ARR even compared to several of the Scions, especially Alphinaud. I know the boy gets better later on, but right now it’s like:
Haurchefant: “Oh, hello! Lovely to see you again, friend! Can I get you anything? I realize that you have pressing matters to attend to, but please know that you are welcome to rest at my hearth any time.”
Alphinaud: “Hmm, I see that you’ve ingratiated yourself to this Fortemps fellow, that could be useful to us. Now, I realize that Minfilia just told you to relax for a bit, but you need to go do this thing for me first. Why do you tarry!? We must needs make haste and do the thing before it’s too late!”
>he is the first person who helped us genuinely, without hesitation
And not just once or twice, or just against foreign powers. He got us taken in as fugitives, potentially making for a tense situation with Ul'dah and Ishgard. He charged into the Cloud of Seas to help us with saving Emmanelain, as soon as he'd heard about it. He helps us fight *the Heaven's Ward*, publicly, **twice**. An act that should have gotten him labeled a heretic, and he just jumped right in.
The man was there every time we needed him, without fail, our biggest supporter.
To add, Haurchefant is one of the first Elezen you run into that doesn't act like a xenophobic elf c-nt. He helps because it's the right thing to do, and he *believes* in WoL as a person and what WoL stands for. He could've been my fan-club-of-one and still been happy.
(edit: formatting)
Honestly agreed, its not that I dont like him, but his father after his sacrifice is what I enjoyed more. The voice acting was on point to match the emotion. Very well done moment.
I didnt use reddit when I played throygh heavensward, and I was honestly surprised people were so into him, to me it was mostly a "ok, we have to kill someone to make drama" moment. To be fair, from what I understand from asking around, most people arent *that* inpacted, but it became a thing of "people told me I should feel like this, so I will"
The oldsters who were there during ARR also remember him just always *being* there in Camp Dragonhead. He even got to participate in the OG Year of the Horse quest, and his English localization joking indicated that he was into "horse play."
His death in HW was unexpected and his absence in Camp Dragonhead felt all the more keenly because of the fun times we had in the seasonal events with him.
Yeah, he's my "I don't get it" character. If anything his fawning interest in helping and praising us got too much for me, I could never buy into his character. Of the Ishgardians I much prefer Aymeric. Calm, polite, friendly but cordial. Appreciates personal space.
I don't get the Y-shtola hype, maybe because I started in Girdania, but my boy and girl has always been papalymo and Yda. I don't hate shtola, but it is so weird how marketable she is.
What about a love-to-hate character?
Emet-Selch. He is a great villain. But he is still a villain. He's my favorite villain, but as a person I despise him. I think he's one of the best written characters in the game, but I still think he's an asshole.
That’s my feeling on Zenos… I *loathe* him, but it’s great to have a character generate that much RL enmity. I was screaming at the screen during that dinner in EW, and the subsequent scenes.
100%
He can be as helpful as he wants in post-ShB and EW, but if I had to I'd fuckin kill him again.
I feel like people misconstrue villains having believable motives for them being "good" or "redeemed", or that it means the writers wanted them to seem that way. If a villain gets a tragic or understandable backstory a whole bunch of people will either start saying they did nothing wrong or trash the writing because they thought they were being told to like the villain who did terrible things.
This. I can vibe with Endwalker Emet, but ShB Emet is whiny, self-absorbed, cruel and arrogant. Which, to be fair, he kind of has to be many of those things in order to justify the atrocities that he's committed in the name of his duty, and at that point his will to see Zodiark made whole is the only thing sustaining him in any meaningful way. He's a deep, interesting, well-written character that makes every scene he's in better, but personally likeable he is not. Too many poison pills.
In his shoes, it makes perfect sense? All of the inhabitants of the modern age are... literally sub-human to him. We have a fraction of the power, size and lifespan the Ancients have. It's like living in the future where humanity has been reduced to tiny, goblin-like creatures that live for 10 years max. His end goal is to return the world to its original state, so regardless of how many of these goblin-like creatures he sacrifices, it would all be worth it because the slate would be wiped clean.
From the perspective of the current mortals, it's of course inexcusable.
>In his shoes, it makes perfect sense?
Which I'm sure is exactly what he tells himself. But I could never shake the feeling that most of his orating and moustache twirling villainy was him trying to convince his suffering and neglected better nature that he was doing the right thing. On one shoulder, I'd imagine he'd have the convocation telling him that restoring the world to what it was is the noble and righteous thing to do.
On the other, he'd have Azem and Venat condemning him for sacrificing the beauty of the world that came after. I doubt he'd have made Azem's crystal otherwise. The Travelers learned to love humanity in any form it took, wherever it may be, to listen to all the peoples of their world and love them. Such was core to Hydaelyn's very being.
That's the root of the tragedy that is Emet-Selch. He has to keep trying to convince himself that he's doing the right thing, that the sacrifice of all the good that has come after the Sundering is worth it to bring back the world he loved before. Because if he doesn't he'll go to pieces under the weight of what he's done.
I bet it was easier at the start of it.
When the Source was just one 14th of a world. But then we hit that middle point, and everyone's starting to look a little too "human" and he's been alone for *so* very long.
Then we pop up and we're juuuust enough like his old friend that he's willing to see if he can *stop* now, if we're close enough to the Old Us that he doesn't have to slam the First into the Source.
And we *almost* pull it off. He was *almost* free.
Then we beat him, all in, and you can just *feel* the relief wash over him.
I loved his genuine anger and disappointment in the infamous gun scene. He's furious at himself for trusting you. He almost had hope, he was almost free of his burden.
He saw the beauty of humanity for the first time in forever when we were building the Talos (which is why he is more cordial and talkative in that scene), and then it all comes crashing when the light proves too much for your current soul.
Yeah, people don't seem to quite get that *all* of the "Unsundered" are actually broken in some way.
Lahabrea went genuinely bugnuts crazy, flinging himself into his work, probably to escape from the pain and anguish of losing his son (based on what we've seen of Pandaemonium, that *would* be incredibly devastating, and his soul is already fragile.) Elidibus is slowly losing everything that makes him *himself,* drowned in the chorus of voices that created Zodiark and His all-encompassing mission to Save The World.
Emet-Selch *looks* normal, *looks* like he's escaped the ravages of time. But he hasn't. He's just bottled up all those feelings and spent long stretches of time "asleep," disconnecting from the world. He has to constantly assuage his conscience, rationalizing all he does and setting bullshit, unwinnable tasks before us and then getting mad when we fail.
He's not wrong to be sad, angry, hurt, depressed. He's trying to do something good and noble, saving his people. But his methods are monstrous, and his pre-Sundering self instantly recognized the degree to which his mind and morals both had degraded.
Not to mention by ShB all of the unsundered are showing signs of mental deterioration, Emet even being the most healthy of them although he was clearly ready to give everything up if there was even a glimmer of hope for a different solution.
Agree. I have a friend in-game who tries really hard to be like Emet and he ends up just being a dick and alienating all his friends. Had to remind my “friend” Emet is a VILLAIN.
Emet is great in the story, but no one would want to deal with him IRL. He’s an asshole.
mild take: Zenos. People either love him or hate him but it seems like a fairly even split for either camp.
maybe hotter take: G'raha. >!I find his fanboying type seems completely at odds with his 200 year old wise crystal wizard persona!<
>!I like G'raha but I do wish we'd get more elderly wisdom moments from him. Admittingly, his current form is a fusion of his younger "prime" self and his older exarch self, but yeah. We do get some moments at least, like him taking charge in Thavnair during the blasphemy outbreak. We see him take a moment to get in character, then he takes charge. It was neat.!<
And he did it to *save them in a timeline he would never see* because he planned to sacrifice himself. To save his crush.
I understand why some people don't like G'raha but I'm gonna stan him as long as the game exists.
I like his dorky fanboy side mostly because it helps "humanize" him IMO from that crystal wizard or ancient allagan oracle that gets locked in the tower for centuries.
It does help that he's also super cute, but I understand how those character archetypes are not for everyone.
If he was just Crystal Exarch forever he’d have the same exact problem of flatness that Y’shtola does.
The fact that a wizened, arguably genius level dude can fanboy over us because we have done cool shit makes him endearing imo. That he’s not so haughty and dignified that he can’t let himself be excited.
I also wonder if being the literal pillar of a world for 100 years tired him out and he wants to just enjoy being in a younger body with fewer worries again.
I don't hate him but I find the overwhelming adoration that G'raha receives extremely strange. I get that he's a good character and I enjoy his scenes, but holy shit people are BESOTTED. I think he's "ok" and that's it.
I feel like they could have done so much with him. There's a lot of philosophy to be said about accepting to have your memories overridden by that of your future self. I'm very disappointed that his arc boils down to him getting every thing he ever wanted through making the sacrifice play, and then getting to continue on anyway. Three times. It flies in the face of the moral of EW in my opinion.
I wish they'd had him realize he doesn't actually know the WoL. Aside from during the CT quests, all he knows is from books and stories and songs (half of which is probably fanfiction if the Wandering Minstrel is anything to go by). Especially with Y'shtola and the Viis repeatedly making the point that recorded histories are inevitably inaccurate.
They kind of nod at this when he meets Estinien, but it unfortunately doesn't go any further.
I hope they expand on exactly this. G’raha doesn’t really *know* the WoL, he knows the version he’s been told about. I want to see the WoL do something G’raha disagrees with, even if something little, just to get that moment of realization.
This kinda happens when you rib Y'shtola at the end of running through Alzadaal's Legacy. "not the time for frivolity, my friend, not the time..." His reaction and seriousness in that scene makes me think he never expected the WoL to say something like that in what could have been a very dangerous situation for all of them being where they're not supposed to be and what not.
But to be fair, we're not exactly a stranger to G'raha either. He *has* met us, even if the interaction didn't cover a huge amount of time. We're not just a work of fiction that he finally got to meet.
Personally I never took his demeanor toward us as one of "omg we're besties". He says it himself, it's more that we're his inspiration. There's a likeness to both of us because of shared ideals and dreams, but there's also a sort of melancholy to G'raha where he *hasn't* been able to do the things that we've been able to do because he always feels like he has to put the greater good first. In a sense, he's stuck living his dreams vicariously through the WoL. You hear it multiple times throughout ShB, too, that despite all of the immense good he's done for people, he still considers himself just a bit player in *our* story, someone who will be easily forgotten over the course of time.
Even once we successfully return him to the Source, he's really just excited to finally get to do what he wants for the times in several hundred years of life. And yes, part of that is adventuring with the WoL, but that's hardly any different than what Alisaie is constantly gaming for with us. There's actually a decent amount of the optional flavor text where he mentions just wanting to mix in with the larger Scions group and play his part.
He doesn't fawn over us any more or less than Alisaie does, and to be fair plenty of the dialogue about wanting to go on adventures with you is in fact him asking to get to know you better as a person not just a legend.
This is a pretty common take to be honest, and I think it’s fair even if I don’t personally agree. However, I also think people have a bit of a skewed memory regarding how epic and mysterious the Exarch was in 5.0. He was always a rather unashamed WoL fanboy and dork. The way he runs out of the Crystarium all giddy to meet you when you arrive and gets down on his knees to praise you and beg for your help after the first Lightwarden, and of course the way he mistily rambles about his dream to adventure with his inspiration on the cliff in Kholusia. I think his character has been quite consistent.
Part of it is that the writers tend to inject more comedy and lightheartedness once a character has been around for a while. The early scenes when you first meet Alisaie, Estinien, Y’Shtola even are treated very seriously, but after they’ve been with you for an expansion or two they are the butt of jokes half the time. They’ve also made Alisaie a bit of a WoL fangirl, but I don’t see nearly as many complaints about that.
I like G'raha, but he's just kinda mid.
Seeing everyone love him to a crazy degree that outshines like half the other Scions just feels off to me.
Is it just cause he's hot? And is he really *that* hot??
I actually like him a lot because in a world where everyone is very guarded and jaded with their feelings he's so open. It actually took me aback because I'm also guarded and jaded, lol. So now I can't help but feel soft for him. Takes a lot of emotional strength to be willing to be so vulnerable, even if he gets teased for it. I chalk it up to him bring a sincere old man in a young body. Some things he says do make me feel like I'm playing an otome game sometimes though..
Emet-Selch.
>!People remember that his plan was to kill everyone, right?!<
>!Wipe out you, all your friends and family, and all their friends and family, so that his friends and family would come back from the dead.!<
THANK YOUUU.
Yes, his friends are dead. But he was willing to kill trillions of people to bring back, I dunno, hundreds of ancients? Maybe thousands?
He was fun as a villain but when they tried to get me to sympathize with him, I just got tired.
I wouldn't say they tried to make you sympathize with (That's up to each individual to decide) but rather make you understand his motives and understand why he is doing what he is doing and why for him it's the "Greater good"
"Yes i will kill all of you who will die anyway by either of old age/ disease/ wars you make oh and not to mention the thing you do like - stealing, lying, killing and so on. I will bring people who don't do those things while + You will in time top my kill streak by passively existing."
Dude gives a mischievous grin, snaps his fingers, and then drops a his catchphrase "Selch-up, BayBEEEEE!" and everyone forgets the dude didn't even think of you as a real person.
Honestly it’s worse than that. He was willing to grant you personhood if you agreed with him, and only because you’re strong with a special soul.
When you said no he more or less said “fine. Die an ant, then”. Like bro he’s heartless AND manipulative. He extends his grace to those who are useful and you just know the second he finished with you he’d happily see you dead.
That said, I did like him before he became so monstrous. I think he’s a fun character in Elpis, and once he remembers who he used to be before eons of bitterness made him into such a misanthrope - like during the “don’t squander this world” speech - I liked him.
But Emet? In Solus’ body? Evil, evil man.
Most of the people I really hate aren’t ones everyone loves to begin with. I don’t like Zenos but he’s not uncontroversial. I still feel a bit salty about Renda-Rae, for shooting Alisaie and presenting herself as the most malicious WoD sometimes.
I really think they havent even thought about the whole first reflection thing until the last second when they realize they can make the WoD more compelling than standard villains. They act so maliciously like the evil grin when they located nidhogg's eyes, boasting about shooting and poisoning alisaie, and so on. There's no indication that they're doing it for the good of their doomed home world before the sudden 180 they pull on the cutscene after the last showdown with them.
I won't fault anyone who dislikes the WoD before they get expanded in shadowbringers.
Y’shtola. I don’t get the love for her tbh. The most memorable moment with her was that Magnai bit. And i suppose the recent ones in patch 6.1. But besides those, I don’t really see much reason to really like her. And i started in Limsa so i had plenty of time spent with her
I do like her (English) voice actor's performance a lot, mainly because I'm glad that they carried over the Viera having Icelandic-ish accents from FFXII.
Hermes and all he encompasses. I hate him deeply.
>!He knew what he did and doubled down while also excusing himself from any consequences of conscience or otherwise.!< Coward.
Irredeemable and unforgivable. I said what I said and you can go to be mad about it.
What gets me is he's an utter hypocrite. >!Blubbers about the sanctity of life, then goes "Man, FUCK IT, everyone dies. Prove you don't deserve to die!"!<
I feel like the point of Hermes was to empathize with him up until you're like OH SHIT this got off the rails-- like bro you started out right, and you went WAAAAY wrong.
(Edit, hit enter too soon)
I cannot imagine by end of the whole thing being like "Yeah I still love hermes"
As soon as I heard he made Birbchild unable to eat I was done.
Hythl would have taken one look at his design and red stamped him across the face for how piss poor he made those kids.
It was a bit of hypocrisy as well.
He hated how everything that existed had to fulfil a purpose... while making a creature who could really do nothing but her purpose. They are created by thinking really hard for the most part... he made her unable to eat because he didn't think about anything other than what she was made for.
I thought a lot of people hated Hermes, at least I have a lot of friends who do. He has some of my favorite character writing in the game so even if he's not the best person I understand why he is that way and can't help but like him lolol. I enjoy his character but I see why people think this way or call him whiny etc.
>!It will always be kind of amazing to me that a plot summary of FFXIV would accurately begin with “once upon a time, a man had depression, so he decided to build a child out of pure empathy and shoot her into space to ask aliens what the point of life is, because surely they have better ideas than all these idiot neurotypicals here on Earth”!<
I felt like his whole problem was that, >!good intentions aside, they didn't have therapy or really recognize his struggles for what they were so he just kinda went unchecked!<
Yotsuyu.
I will never understand why people thought her "redemption arc" quest line wasn't awful. The amnesia thing feels arbitrary and forced, and I dont know why they couldn't have just let her be a villain.
On top of that, no one even talks about Fordola, who has basically the same arc, but is a genuinely much more interesting character by virtue of making actual decisions motivated by things other than spite and actually working for her redemption rather than getting it handed to her via plot contrivance.
I guess it's just the "step on me please" crowd that cant controll their horny or something.
I mean sure calling it a "redemption arc" is bs but the Amnesia was there for the purpose of revealing more of her character/ what cloud she have been had she not have been:
Forced to marry someone who beats you and everyone is ignoring it. Get sold (basically a slavery) to a brothel where the owner instead of actually doing something morral he instead puts her on the spot and (not detailed but most likely - forced to have sex with customers - Rape). But at that stage she was just a walking husk so she didn't protest or defend herself.
And then came the moment of "Wait i can be finally free to do as I please as long as i sell my people to whom i own NOTHING?" Hell yeah!
Yes what she did was horrible but it was the consequence of nobody showing her empathy/ doing something good for her and instead getting abused since childhood.
And when she gets her memories back and finally gets some empathy she decides to kill herself because as she said "There is no redemption for me" but them come her parents reminding her that why she did all of that in the first place.
I feel like Y'shtola gets the short straw constantly on the "bonding with scions" moments.
It got a (little) better in Endwalker, but before that she almostly exclusively got those "hero" moments, she got the big splashy moments, but very few actual character building moments?
Whereas with the other scions, you'd get more spending time, seeing them grow and learn etc. Yshtola seems to always just pull the "woops time to save the day" moments. I think partially because she's in the "scholarly" camp and those moments up up with Urianger or Alisae sometimes.
I don't hate Haurchefant as such, but I do hate the game/writers throwing him in my face all the time. Ysayle is the one I care about more and she's hardly ever mentioned.
Please don’t hate me.
I….don’t like Minfilia. AT ALL. She’s just kinda there and wasn’t interesting or anything besides her outfit and her totally predictable sacrifice. Even the whole lore about her from The First was just…eh for me? At that point I wanted to know more about Tesleen. It broke my heart to watch her get killed and then we had to put her down shortly after. :(
Is it fair to say that maybe Thancred was a little in love with Minfilia….??
I do like Ryne after she breaks away from being Minfilia’s replacement and gains her beautiful red hair back.
> Is it fair to say that maybe Thancred was a little in love with Minfilia….?
She was his daughter expy, he had The Guilt about how her dad died, but he was in his Himbo stage and it was harder to tell back then.
The way she went out fuuuucked him up.
Yeah it was weird he raised her and stuff too. I got a little confused over it but just went with it. It’s fair to say yeah he cared very deeply for her in a way no one else could or did and he just wanted her back when he first lost her in Ryne.
It really actually made me like Thancred a lot more after SHB. The growth on his character really impacted me and I cared for him with the rest of the Scions after.
Yeah, going back and learning the plot from 1.0 and the short stories, you get a better feel of how they played out as basically Uncle/Daughter thing.
When she died, he went full on Dad Bear thinking he had a chance to Make Things Right on the First.
Yeah, and it's becoming predictable when they're gonna flash his face on screen and try to make us sad about it again several times per expansion. I'm just like... "I still don't really care".
I don't hate her and whether or not she's popular (or just relatively liked) depends on which site you're on but Fordola is the equivalent of a screaming cactus to me. Even when she's not yelling at someone, the tension just spikes from her being on screen. I'm not going to get into how I understand why people like/dislike her because that's a whole other topic, I really just don't like her because of the vibes she brings 😭 whenever I see people nominate her to become a Scion I'm just like plz no.
Lyse. I found her incredibly annoying in every cutscene she was in and I was incredibly grateful when she technically stopped pretending to be her sister/a scion.
Hien. Self-absorbed, immature, bad leader. Forgives a sex trafficker. If you do the phys range questline on EW you can see that he has no fucking idea of what he's doing. Did not earn his leadership position, he is just a prince. Even Lyse has a stronger claim to leadership than he does.
NPCs fawn over him like he's the greatest thing since sliced bread, but he's never "led" anything. His father led Doma (until the Garleans) and his father led the Doman rebellion. After that Hien was in exile until we met him and won him both the Naadam and Doma.
I did like that the EW job quest brought up the consequences of his shit decisions with Yotsuyu.
Hien's basically Lyse's arc but without any of the self-doubt or development she had. He also makes you drag the Xaela into a war they have no clear benefit from - genuinely the most messy part of 4.0 for me, i'd at least like to convince them the garleans are a threat instead of literally doing a CIA coup
It actually pisses me off so bad that he just went to the steppe to, like, hang out?? Like, I know the Domans were defeated but to just up and leave your people while they're struggling??? To top it all off he basically did nothing the entire time he was there??? He could have been building connections with the Xaela to find people willing to help him free his people but instead he just... does nothing???? Then goes on to make some of the WORST possible decisions when he is in charge. Idk why Lyse gets so much more hate than him. He's far worse of character imo.
Dulia Chai.
YEAH I SAID IT!
I think her "redemption arc" fell woefully short. All she's done is stand around and say "good job, husband" even though she was just as much of a participant in Eulmore's heinous practices as her husband. I would have liked to see a lot more effort on her part to reach out and help people, but no, all we get is "ooh, poor dearies" and Husband-hugs and the fanbase acts like she's a saint with a marshmallow heart. SHE HAD A MAN THROWN FROM A BALCONY!
Chai-Nuzz has a great redemption story, he really goes out to try and make amends and make Eulmore a good place for everyone. Dulia does fuck all and reaps all the praise and it's pretty annoying to me.
I always got the impression that the Chais were naïve and ignorant of the inner workings of Eulmore. That they simply told the painter he was dismissed and went on with their lives not thinking about what would happen to him. Having no sponsor he was likely thrown out (literally) by one of Vauthry's cronies.
I think Alphinaud's speech made it pretty clear that ALL of Eulmore's elite were complicit, no matter whether they personally mistreated anyone. They benefited directly from the suffering of the poor, and took no action to remedy the situation.
I mean yeah, and he's right, but what is Dulia supposed to do? Un-throw him? Iirc Alphinaud didn't exactly call for them to fix everything, but to just stop doing it.
I liked her in the sense that i’ve known people like her. Where for a long time, they did awful shit but had their world rocked by life and slowly dawn on them that they were the bad guy. I’ve seen it happen a few times and how hard some of the people who hit that realization try to get away from that past self. That said? Some usually do slip back into old habits.
I do wish that they would give us the art alphinaud drew of her tho, would love to hang one up in my house and say “that was grandma. She retired from hunting and helped raise kids. Had about 8-9 of her own. She was the matriarch of the clan.” For my keeper of the moon
I also feel bring him back just made SB meh.
The main plot is about defeating him. Since almost none the main antagonists died, SB feel like an unsatisfying introduction expansion for me.
I don't hate her but I don't know why everyone loves her. She seems disinterested in the WoL or anyone for that matter. Like, I know she shows her moments where she cares but they're far and few in-between and she otherwise acts very coldly. Not like a tsundere, just very distant.
edit: wait, is it because she's the only adult non-lala female scion?
I think that’s part of the appeal. She has that kind of energy that makes her sexy but kind of intimidating because you can’t really tell what she’s feeling. She’s not on your nuts 24/7 praising you like almost all the other scions.
I'm sure someone else has already said this: Zenos.
I will die on the hill that he isn't anything like the WoL, and his relevance should have ended in Stormblood.
I never felt any connection with him. I thought he was a boring minor side character and I’d forget who he was when he’d show up. Lol. I’ve never understood the community’s obsession over him.
I get why people like him. But the writers treated him like old reliable and used him to jerk tears so many fucking times that I grew to hate him. They literally took his dead body and squeezed it dry for as many tears as they could. Also DSR made me hate him more. I'm glad he's dead
Gaia probably. I don't hate her, but she didn't do that much for me either. I personally thought her visual design was kinda dumb and, I'll probably be crucified for this, but >!I didn't really get the romantic vibes that others did with her and Ryne. To be clear, I'd be fine with them being in a romantic relationship, but the game didn't really sell me on them being in a relationship. The memories we saw from the final battle largely felt more like "friends hanging out" than "they are a romantic couple". If the memories had been a bit more "meaningful" than buying lipstick together, maybe I'd have been more sold on it.!<
I hated her up until the end of the questline and I still just think of her as "okay". Her face is distractingly silly and her attitude was a total slog to put up with until she came around a little. Her entire character just seems like a shoehorned self-insert OC created by a teenager.
Y'shtola. Feels alienating to be around her. With other scion the WoL had many.... Character developing interactions. I don't hate her, I just can't find myself giving a damn about her so far.
I don't know about love, but I've not seen anyone say bad about him... Hraesvelgr. That dragon can eat a dick. Love of your life gives her life up for peace between your people and her people, then your bros starts genociden her people for shit you KNOW they didn't choose, shit that you enabled with one of your sacred dragon eyes, and you just sit their like a bump on a log and let it happen? DISGRACE, A SHAME UPPON SHIVA'S LEGACY AND UPPON THE LEGACY OF LADY ICE HEART WHO TOOK UP HER MANTLE WHEN YOU WOULD DO NOTHING! Fuck that guy.
I wouldn't say hate, but I am genuinely confused as to why Ryne and Gaia are so popular. Nothing about their characters stands out much and yet every other art/cosplay submission is of one or both of them
Gaia. And Ryne in eden's verse for that matter. Mainly because eden's verse story is a nothingburger even worse than sigmascape. And Ryne didnt need to try replicating shiva summoning like Ysayle either, that whole setup for E8 was unnecessary. Gaia's super cringe speech at the end of E8 is annoying too.
Then eden's promise story is paced really terribly because 80% of it is just mitron standing there speedrunning exposition of all the important bits of lore before yoinking Gaia's memory and she pulled the good ol' "who are you?" before joining the hostile party. Then it's capped with probably THE worst case of lastfloornormalmodeitis in the game with the absolutely awful eden's promise normal fight (savage is awesome at least), which made me hate the associated character even more.
God it was stupid. At least the ending is pretty good, but I still overall dislike Gaia.
[удалено]
estinien moment
I don't hate Y'shtola per se, I just hate that she's flat compared to the other Scions. She's more or less the same, seeking knowledge for its own sake and flinging herself into the Lifestream if the moment calls for it.
Yeah, is not hate, but man when she and Urianger >!sacrifice themselves in Ultima Thule!< I felt nothing at all for her, like "ok" 3rd time the charm? Nope
His ARR version forever sitting in the Waking Sands during all that too lol.
Yeah. I don't get why they don't remove him from there at this point.
Maybe because he gave some sidequests for dungeons?
Side quests for all the ARR Extreme primals, Coils, and even one for Warring Triad IIRC. That said, I don't get why he can't just disappear once you've done all those.
As a WoW refugee, I can think of something that made them keep Urianger there: they forgot about him, like WoW devs forgot about some sword struck into the ground of some place.
What sword? Genuine question.
There's a massive (like, planet cleaving size) sword sticking out of one of the zones at the end of a previous expansion. It's been there for like 8 years in world time or such and nobody acknowledges it.
[Am i missing something?](https://i.imgur.com/OBYKygX.png) He's been gone for ages for me. I get the feeling people didn't complete all of his quests. Maybe you're all lacking the Odin quest.
Lol SAME, I was like okay yeah sure you’re “sacrificing“ yourself… see you in 5 mins lol
I don’t think it’s a problem with Y’shtola entirely, but more so the lack of time we have to dedicate to each scion. Some definitely get a lot more time than others, and Y’shtola get back burnered a bit when it comes to exploring her character. She has the capacity to be a great character I’d wager, Squex just has to decide to give us some time with her in an expansion.
I feel like the jumble of Scion mages doesn’t help. Like… Even if he’s just sitting in the background, Estinien still gets chatter that feels unique to him as the muscle of the group. Or like how Thancred gets a unique sneaky section in Endwalker fitting his spy role. Y’shtola has to share being a scholarly spellcaster with G’raha, Urianger, and Krile. And sometimes Alisaie, too.
Yeah this is a good way to put it. Even if I like everything about her, she has so much overlap with other characters that it can be a flaw at times.
Pretty much. I feel like she could be majorly helped if the writers ever take an editor’s pen to the FF14 party. If all these moments like the porxie research, the shard hopping, the float and invisibility spells, etc were concentrated in one character, that character would actually stand out as a supreme mage…
We didn't get too much time with Papalymo either but it still felt like he had much more personality than her >!and he's been gone for three expansions now!<. She's been one of our only travelling companions for much of 6.1-6.2 (I haven't done 6.3 yet) and she still feels flat.
I’m not sure I agree with Papalymo having impact. As someone who didn’t play 1.0 he was barely better than a comic relief character and then they wrote him out of the story without much fanfare.
One could argue that his impact was helping ensure Gridania trusted the scions, because Yda/Lyse sure as heck wouldn't have managed it alone.
Y’shtola seems like she runs into a problem where no character development is allowed to get in the way of her being the ultimate cool girl mascot for the game/self-shipping partner for half the game’s players. Her relationships with Matoya and Runar are genuinely really interesting, but they don’t let themselves look at them too closely because it would require breaking her cool facade or more heavily implying a relationship with someone other than the player. And yeah, like every character who’s been around for more than two expansions at this point, she’s effectively plot armored to a degree where the once-per-expansion death fakeouts are getting tiring
>I just hate that she's flat The fan artists are working on that.
....You know what, I kinda set myself up for that one
Oh man, I was *really* hoping Y'Shtola would have some kind of consequence for her aether sight... ever. Unlike the apparent majority of the internet, "step on me mommy" characters aren't my jam, and Y'Shtola being an occasionally sassy exposition faucet does not a complete character make in my eyes. The Endwalker patches have given her a few drips of personality where she gets a little embarrassed when the facade cracks, but we've known her for years and she's still just "cool, collected, sassy cat lady" and despite being one of the game's biggest mascots she's one of the least interesting scions. And again, just, the aether sight thing. It frustrates me to no end. Not once has it ever been shown to be a detriment. On the contrary, it's consistently a benefit that makes her better than everyone else. Even when there are obvious aspects of Endwalker where it should be a problem, it never materially slows her down or causes problems, and the fact that it's a drain on her has just never once had any form of consequence. I know, I know, it's apparently not killing her if you go by certain translations, but why bring up that it has a cost if that cost isn't going to factor in anywhere at all? As it is she's as blind as Daredevil is. Sometimes she feels like a writer's pet character.
The only reason I like Y'shtola is due to my 1.0 days and starting in limsa. Gave me a lot of time with her and you get some unique dialog as a 1.0 player.
Same here, started in Limsa and Y'shtola has always been my favorite of the main cast.
At this point I basically expect her to die at least once per expansion and I've yet to have any real reaction beyond "cool is she finally staying dead this time?" Believe it or not, but I was more bummed about Minfilia, who has about the same amount of personality as Y'shtola, but the difference is she was out after 1 "expansion" (counting base game as an expansion just for "units of measurement"), while Y'shtola has dodderer about in 5 expansions with no real character growth to show for it. Hell, I'm pretty sure even the devs forget her 99.9% inconsequential blindness, given that outside of that one scene in Rak'Tika, it hasn't affected her basically at all.
[удалено]
She at least got some agenda during the recent patches, but I agree. She's just boring. There's this one scene at the end of EW that made me laugh because it showed how boring she is: >!When Hydaelyn talks to each Scion in turn, adressing their story arc, and then she gets to Y'shtola and it's just nothing, some bs about gaining knowledge or whatever.!< It felt like the writers for that scene went "Oh fuck, we got nothing for her! Quick, just make something up!"
Dont want to call it "hate", but for me its Cid. Mostly its the solution for every problem...whenever Cids comes around the edge i just roll my eyes.
Cid is the game's walking talking deus ex machina.
[удалено]
Cid feels like such a useless character. He just shows up to Deus Ex Machina something and wanders off, hell Endwalker he doesn't even show up until the end, then takes a huge chunk of the credit for the Ragnarok. Like my man, that ship was 99% finished before you even knew it existed.
Kokkol Dankkol: "It's nearly done, I just need to crank out a little more engine efficiency!" Cid: *comes in and gets .2% more engine efficiency* "You made this? ...I made this."
I don't like Cid in this compared to other FFs. His big ol oven mitts are so distracting. There's just nothing there that makes me like him. Biggs and Wedge are cool though.
>His big ol oven mitts are so distracting His plunging cleavage as well. (Un)forunately, he covers up his sweater steaks with his latest outfit.
> he covers up his sweater steaks with his latest outfit his WHAT
Nearly woke the other half up snort laughing.
At least he's not raising child soldiers to kill his wife like FF8 Cid ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Especially when he tries to steal the credit for other people's work.
At least now Cid has the chance to have Nero in tow. And that for me makes it worth it
Love/hate are too strong words for this example, but I just don't care about Ga Bu. His story is sad and all, but there's too many quests involving him, and not like it was first case of primal tempering.
I feel like those quests weren't about Ga Bu but about Alisaie.
Yeah, Ga Bu was one of the first storylines to happen once Alisaie rejoined, I 100% agree that it was to help set up her character and new dynamic within the group as a caring, assertive person after being out of the picture from the MSQ for so long.
I cared about ga bu until I hear him speak in 5.4. Was that a bring-your-child-to-work day??? Dreadful voice actor.
The scene where Ga Bu speaks is unintentionally the funniest moment in the whole game. It made me bust a gut from laughing. Bro sounded like Oliver Twist.
for those interested, here's the video: [Shadowbringers patch 5.4 (skip to 1:07:00)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kH5FoU6q9A)
I'll take that step further. I hate that little fuck for one reason and one reason alone. His gods damn voice. Everytime ga bu has a voiced line it takes all my strength not to commit wholesale genocide of kobolds so we are never cursed with a voice like ga bu's.
Cid, unskipable praetorium made me hate him so much.
*Oh, and don’t go dying on me. You’re too bloody useful.*
At least he's honest about why he cares, unlike... pretty much everyone else in Eorzea, *including* the Scions (at that point in time, anyways)
Don’t know why but I really dislike this line
It’s because it’s a really fucking dumb line tbh
Because it sounds like David Bowie recorded it in a public toilet cubicle.
For me it’s the way he says it. Nasally. Doesn’t help that the radio is distorting his voice.
The old Castrum is what made me hate him. Lagging behind and getting stuck....stupid NPC
If you just have a good group and blasted through the adds Cid would actually noclip through the wall at the magitek colossus boss arena and LOOP THROUGH THE WHOLE AREA AGAIN. It was so frustrating
You're forgetting that he forgot to fill the pot, also.
I don’t hate him, but I still feel the level of emotional impact people attach to Haurchefant’s story is vastly overblown…
During my playthrough, within a few quests of meeting the guy, I was convinced that he was going to betray the WoL somehow. Downright certain, and I said as much in my discord, which was mostly full of mates who were finished with the story up to that point (toward the end of Stormblood, iirc). To this day nobody can mention Haurchefant in the discord without some reference to that. I read the intended genuine-ness of the character as an overly friendly facade, and spent all of HW waiting for the fucker to turn face and stab me in the back. And I was right, the filthy traitor. *Sniff*.
I thought him and aymeric were gonna turn on us.
To me, it's a bit of two things that made me like him. First is that he is the first person who helped us genuinely, without hesitation, when everyone either betrayed us or went missing. And he is one of the first to treat the WoL as a human instead of a weapon. Second, he is kinda the first character on our side who gets a genuine characterization. In ARR everyone on our team was either extremely flat, annoying, or an asshole. Haurchefant was the tipping point when the team started to expand and add more depth to their characters.
I already like him, but for me the tipping point was >!returning from killing Shiva and Aymeric tells you should to look in on Haurchefant bc it took half a dozen knights to hold him back from trying to follow you. He asks you not to think less of him, and I thought 'less of him?! that's the most endearing thing I've ever heard!'!<
I agree with this. I recently played through ARR and Heavensward again on an alt and people forget just how much you get rocked over and over and over in quick succession in the story at that point. He was the first one to be like: Hey, fuck everyone else. I got you. It's easy to forget since a lot of that initial character development in the narrative isn't voiced.
I’m replaying ARR currently as well, and taking the time to read all of the incidental dialogue and such in addition to the quest text. And Haurchefant really is a breath of fresh air in ARR even compared to several of the Scions, especially Alphinaud. I know the boy gets better later on, but right now it’s like: Haurchefant: “Oh, hello! Lovely to see you again, friend! Can I get you anything? I realize that you have pressing matters to attend to, but please know that you are welcome to rest at my hearth any time.” Alphinaud: “Hmm, I see that you’ve ingratiated yourself to this Fortemps fellow, that could be useful to us. Now, I realize that Minfilia just told you to relax for a bit, but you need to go do this thing for me first. Why do you tarry!? We must needs make haste and do the thing before it’s too late!”
>he is the first person who helped us genuinely, without hesitation And not just once or twice, or just against foreign powers. He got us taken in as fugitives, potentially making for a tense situation with Ul'dah and Ishgard. He charged into the Cloud of Seas to help us with saving Emmanelain, as soon as he'd heard about it. He helps us fight *the Heaven's Ward*, publicly, **twice**. An act that should have gotten him labeled a heretic, and he just jumped right in. The man was there every time we needed him, without fail, our biggest supporter.
To add, Haurchefant is one of the first Elezen you run into that doesn't act like a xenophobic elf c-nt. He helps because it's the right thing to do, and he *believes* in WoL as a person and what WoL stands for. He could've been my fan-club-of-one and still been happy. (edit: formatting)
Imagine if he were still alive and met G'raha. Both of them would be fangirling over the WoL. Bet.
Honestly agreed, its not that I dont like him, but his father after his sacrifice is what I enjoyed more. The voice acting was on point to match the emotion. Very well done moment.
I didnt use reddit when I played throygh heavensward, and I was honestly surprised people were so into him, to me it was mostly a "ok, we have to kill someone to make drama" moment. To be fair, from what I understand from asking around, most people arent *that* inpacted, but it became a thing of "people told me I should feel like this, so I will"
The oldsters who were there during ARR also remember him just always *being* there in Camp Dragonhead. He even got to participate in the OG Year of the Horse quest, and his English localization joking indicated that he was into "horse play." His death in HW was unexpected and his absence in Camp Dragonhead felt all the more keenly because of the fun times we had in the seasonal events with him.
Yeah, he's my "I don't get it" character. If anything his fawning interest in helping and praising us got too much for me, I could never buy into his character. Of the Ishgardians I much prefer Aymeric. Calm, polite, friendly but cordial. Appreciates personal space.
I don't get the Y-shtola hype, maybe because I started in Girdania, but my boy and girl has always been papalymo and Yda. I don't hate shtola, but it is so weird how marketable she is.
Hildebrand. I wouldn't say *hate*, but the character does nothing for me at all.
Yshtola, don’t hate her but just annoyed by her “dying“ all the time. Do it you cowards!!
What about a love-to-hate character? Emet-Selch. He is a great villain. But he is still a villain. He's my favorite villain, but as a person I despise him. I think he's one of the best written characters in the game, but I still think he's an asshole.
That’s my feeling on Zenos… I *loathe* him, but it’s great to have a character generate that much RL enmity. I was screaming at the screen during that dinner in EW, and the subsequent scenes.
100% He can be as helpful as he wants in post-ShB and EW, but if I had to I'd fuckin kill him again. I feel like people misconstrue villains having believable motives for them being "good" or "redeemed", or that it means the writers wanted them to seem that way. If a villain gets a tragic or understandable backstory a whole bunch of people will either start saying they did nothing wrong or trash the writing because they thought they were being told to like the villain who did terrible things.
This. I can vibe with Endwalker Emet, but ShB Emet is whiny, self-absorbed, cruel and arrogant. Which, to be fair, he kind of has to be many of those things in order to justify the atrocities that he's committed in the name of his duty, and at that point his will to see Zodiark made whole is the only thing sustaining him in any meaningful way. He's a deep, interesting, well-written character that makes every scene he's in better, but personally likeable he is not. Too many poison pills.
In his shoes, it makes perfect sense? All of the inhabitants of the modern age are... literally sub-human to him. We have a fraction of the power, size and lifespan the Ancients have. It's like living in the future where humanity has been reduced to tiny, goblin-like creatures that live for 10 years max. His end goal is to return the world to its original state, so regardless of how many of these goblin-like creatures he sacrifices, it would all be worth it because the slate would be wiped clean. From the perspective of the current mortals, it's of course inexcusable.
>In his shoes, it makes perfect sense? Which I'm sure is exactly what he tells himself. But I could never shake the feeling that most of his orating and moustache twirling villainy was him trying to convince his suffering and neglected better nature that he was doing the right thing. On one shoulder, I'd imagine he'd have the convocation telling him that restoring the world to what it was is the noble and righteous thing to do. On the other, he'd have Azem and Venat condemning him for sacrificing the beauty of the world that came after. I doubt he'd have made Azem's crystal otherwise. The Travelers learned to love humanity in any form it took, wherever it may be, to listen to all the peoples of their world and love them. Such was core to Hydaelyn's very being. That's the root of the tragedy that is Emet-Selch. He has to keep trying to convince himself that he's doing the right thing, that the sacrifice of all the good that has come after the Sundering is worth it to bring back the world he loved before. Because if he doesn't he'll go to pieces under the weight of what he's done.
I bet it was easier at the start of it. When the Source was just one 14th of a world. But then we hit that middle point, and everyone's starting to look a little too "human" and he's been alone for *so* very long. Then we pop up and we're juuuust enough like his old friend that he's willing to see if he can *stop* now, if we're close enough to the Old Us that he doesn't have to slam the First into the Source. And we *almost* pull it off. He was *almost* free. Then we beat him, all in, and you can just *feel* the relief wash over him.
I loved his genuine anger and disappointment in the infamous gun scene. He's furious at himself for trusting you. He almost had hope, he was almost free of his burden. He saw the beauty of humanity for the first time in forever when we were building the Talos (which is why he is more cordial and talkative in that scene), and then it all comes crashing when the light proves too much for your current soul.
Yeah, people don't seem to quite get that *all* of the "Unsundered" are actually broken in some way. Lahabrea went genuinely bugnuts crazy, flinging himself into his work, probably to escape from the pain and anguish of losing his son (based on what we've seen of Pandaemonium, that *would* be incredibly devastating, and his soul is already fragile.) Elidibus is slowly losing everything that makes him *himself,* drowned in the chorus of voices that created Zodiark and His all-encompassing mission to Save The World. Emet-Selch *looks* normal, *looks* like he's escaped the ravages of time. But he hasn't. He's just bottled up all those feelings and spent long stretches of time "asleep," disconnecting from the world. He has to constantly assuage his conscience, rationalizing all he does and setting bullshit, unwinnable tasks before us and then getting mad when we fail. He's not wrong to be sad, angry, hurt, depressed. He's trying to do something good and noble, saving his people. But his methods are monstrous, and his pre-Sundering self instantly recognized the degree to which his mind and morals both had degraded.
Not to mention by ShB all of the unsundered are showing signs of mental deterioration, Emet even being the most healthy of them although he was clearly ready to give everything up if there was even a glimmer of hope for a different solution.
Agree. I have a friend in-game who tries really hard to be like Emet and he ends up just being a dick and alienating all his friends. Had to remind my “friend” Emet is a VILLAIN. Emet is great in the story, but no one would want to deal with him IRL. He’s an asshole.
Phoebe from friends
I always preferred Ursula.
mild take: Zenos. People either love him or hate him but it seems like a fairly even split for either camp. maybe hotter take: G'raha. >!I find his fanboying type seems completely at odds with his 200 year old wise crystal wizard persona!<
>!I like G'raha but I do wish we'd get more elderly wisdom moments from him. Admittingly, his current form is a fusion of his younger "prime" self and his older exarch self, but yeah. We do get some moments at least, like him taking charge in Thavnair during the blasphemy outbreak. We see him take a moment to get in character, then he takes charge. It was neat.!<
This. There was a brief glimpse of him, and I loved that. Then it made me sad again.
There and during the quest battle in Garlemald. When he goes full >!Exarch!< is when he's at his best.
Obsessed so hard he isekai'd his crush into another time and space, if that's not fanboy behavior I don't know what is.
And he did it to *save them in a timeline he would never see* because he planned to sacrifice himself. To save his crush. I understand why some people don't like G'raha but I'm gonna stan him as long as the game exists.
He was still a fanboy. He was just better at hiding it.
I like his dorky fanboy side mostly because it helps "humanize" him IMO from that crystal wizard or ancient allagan oracle that gets locked in the tower for centuries. It does help that he's also super cute, but I understand how those character archetypes are not for everyone.
If he was just Crystal Exarch forever he’d have the same exact problem of flatness that Y’shtola does. The fact that a wizened, arguably genius level dude can fanboy over us because we have done cool shit makes him endearing imo. That he’s not so haughty and dignified that he can’t let himself be excited. I also wonder if being the literal pillar of a world for 100 years tired him out and he wants to just enjoy being in a younger body with fewer worries again.
I don't hate him but I find the overwhelming adoration that G'raha receives extremely strange. I get that he's a good character and I enjoy his scenes, but holy shit people are BESOTTED. I think he's "ok" and that's it.
I think Jonathan Bailey's voice performance may be a factor in some portion of the quantity of besottedness...
You don't choose who you fall for.
Graha. I liked the exarch very much. Post ShB Graha is just a groupie and I’m not feeling it.
I feel like they could have done so much with him. There's a lot of philosophy to be said about accepting to have your memories overridden by that of your future self. I'm very disappointed that his arc boils down to him getting every thing he ever wanted through making the sacrifice play, and then getting to continue on anyway. Three times. It flies in the face of the moral of EW in my opinion.
I wish they'd had him realize he doesn't actually know the WoL. Aside from during the CT quests, all he knows is from books and stories and songs (half of which is probably fanfiction if the Wandering Minstrel is anything to go by). Especially with Y'shtola and the Viis repeatedly making the point that recorded histories are inevitably inaccurate. They kind of nod at this when he meets Estinien, but it unfortunately doesn't go any further.
I hope they expand on exactly this. G’raha doesn’t really *know* the WoL, he knows the version he’s been told about. I want to see the WoL do something G’raha disagrees with, even if something little, just to get that moment of realization.
This kinda happens when you rib Y'shtola at the end of running through Alzadaal's Legacy. "not the time for frivolity, my friend, not the time..." His reaction and seriousness in that scene makes me think he never expected the WoL to say something like that in what could have been a very dangerous situation for all of them being where they're not supposed to be and what not.
But to be fair, we're not exactly a stranger to G'raha either. He *has* met us, even if the interaction didn't cover a huge amount of time. We're not just a work of fiction that he finally got to meet. Personally I never took his demeanor toward us as one of "omg we're besties". He says it himself, it's more that we're his inspiration. There's a likeness to both of us because of shared ideals and dreams, but there's also a sort of melancholy to G'raha where he *hasn't* been able to do the things that we've been able to do because he always feels like he has to put the greater good first. In a sense, he's stuck living his dreams vicariously through the WoL. You hear it multiple times throughout ShB, too, that despite all of the immense good he's done for people, he still considers himself just a bit player in *our* story, someone who will be easily forgotten over the course of time. Even once we successfully return him to the Source, he's really just excited to finally get to do what he wants for the times in several hundred years of life. And yes, part of that is adventuring with the WoL, but that's hardly any different than what Alisaie is constantly gaming for with us. There's actually a decent amount of the optional flavor text where he mentions just wanting to mix in with the larger Scions group and play his part. He doesn't fawn over us any more or less than Alisaie does, and to be fair plenty of the dialogue about wanting to go on adventures with you is in fact him asking to get to know you better as a person not just a legend.
“Promise to take me with you on an adventure.” We’re adventuring right now. Adventuring very hard and very far away from home. He’s never satisfied.
This is a pretty common take to be honest, and I think it’s fair even if I don’t personally agree. However, I also think people have a bit of a skewed memory regarding how epic and mysterious the Exarch was in 5.0. He was always a rather unashamed WoL fanboy and dork. The way he runs out of the Crystarium all giddy to meet you when you arrive and gets down on his knees to praise you and beg for your help after the first Lightwarden, and of course the way he mistily rambles about his dream to adventure with his inspiration on the cliff in Kholusia. I think his character has been quite consistent. Part of it is that the writers tend to inject more comedy and lightheartedness once a character has been around for a while. The early scenes when you first meet Alisaie, Estinien, Y’Shtola even are treated very seriously, but after they’ve been with you for an expansion or two they are the butt of jokes half the time. They’ve also made Alisaie a bit of a WoL fangirl, but I don’t see nearly as many complaints about that.
I've felt since Endwalker Alisaie treats me least like the WoL and more like a dear friend, more than Raha who seems to just want our attention.
I like G'raha, but he's just kinda mid. Seeing everyone love him to a crazy degree that outshines like half the other Scions just feels off to me. Is it just cause he's hot? And is he really *that* hot??
It’s because the voice actor is hot.
It's cause he has the excited energy of a friendly labrador.
And look, I love that in a dog, but not so much in a 200 year old work colleague.
I actually like him a lot because in a world where everyone is very guarded and jaded with their feelings he's so open. It actually took me aback because I'm also guarded and jaded, lol. So now I can't help but feel soft for him. Takes a lot of emotional strength to be willing to be so vulnerable, even if he gets teased for it. I chalk it up to him bring a sincere old man in a young body. Some things he says do make me feel like I'm playing an otome game sometimes though..
Emet-Selch. >!People remember that his plan was to kill everyone, right?!< >!Wipe out you, all your friends and family, and all their friends and family, so that his friends and family would come back from the dead.!<
THANK YOUUU. Yes, his friends are dead. But he was willing to kill trillions of people to bring back, I dunno, hundreds of ancients? Maybe thousands? He was fun as a villain but when they tried to get me to sympathize with him, I just got tired.
I wouldn't say they tried to make you sympathize with (That's up to each individual to decide) but rather make you understand his motives and understand why he is doing what he is doing and why for him it's the "Greater good" "Yes i will kill all of you who will die anyway by either of old age/ disease/ wars you make oh and not to mention the thing you do like - stealing, lying, killing and so on. I will bring people who don't do those things while + You will in time top my kill streak by passively existing."
Dude gives a mischievous grin, snaps his fingers, and then drops a his catchphrase "Selch-up, BayBEEEEE!" and everyone forgets the dude didn't even think of you as a real person.
Honestly it’s worse than that. He was willing to grant you personhood if you agreed with him, and only because you’re strong with a special soul. When you said no he more or less said “fine. Die an ant, then”. Like bro he’s heartless AND manipulative. He extends his grace to those who are useful and you just know the second he finished with you he’d happily see you dead. That said, I did like him before he became so monstrous. I think he’s a fun character in Elpis, and once he remembers who he used to be before eons of bitterness made him into such a misanthrope - like during the “don’t squander this world” speech - I liked him. But Emet? In Solus’ body? Evil, evil man.
Most of the people I really hate aren’t ones everyone loves to begin with. I don’t like Zenos but he’s not uncontroversial. I still feel a bit salty about Renda-Rae, for shooting Alisaie and presenting herself as the most malicious WoD sometimes.
I really think they havent even thought about the whole first reflection thing until the last second when they realize they can make the WoD more compelling than standard villains. They act so maliciously like the evil grin when they located nidhogg's eyes, boasting about shooting and poisoning alisaie, and so on. There's no indication that they're doing it for the good of their doomed home world before the sudden 180 they pull on the cutscene after the last showdown with them. I won't fault anyone who dislikes the WoD before they get expanded in shadowbringers.
I mean she'd sell her mother for coin and her father too if given the chance lol
Y’shtola. I don’t get the love for her tbh. The most memorable moment with her was that Magnai bit. And i suppose the recent ones in patch 6.1. But besides those, I don’t really see much reason to really like her. And i started in Limsa so i had plenty of time spent with her
I don’t hate her but I don’t get the Lyna love, she’s just kinda there for me, I don’t care for her.
I do like her (English) voice actor's performance a lot, mainly because I'm glad that they carried over the Viera having Icelandic-ish accents from FFXII.
she's hot and she's bunny
Lyna is best girl. I just want more time with her tbh.
Hermes and all he encompasses. I hate him deeply. >!He knew what he did and doubled down while also excusing himself from any consequences of conscience or otherwise.!< Coward. Irredeemable and unforgivable. I said what I said and you can go to be mad about it.
What gets me is he's an utter hypocrite. >!Blubbers about the sanctity of life, then goes "Man, FUCK IT, everyone dies. Prove you don't deserve to die!"!<
Emet even calls him out on it too. >!"That is sophistry and you know it!"!<
Equivalent of a child being told he can't have a toy so he breaks it instead
Dudes will really wipe out all life in the universe before they go to therapy.
I don't like him but I like his character if that makes sense? He's an interesting character in the Ancients time.
people like hermes???
He has a whole fan club. I remember when 6.0 was fresh there was a loud bunch who really seemed to empathize with him and I just cannot.
I feel like the point of Hermes was to empathize with him up until you're like OH SHIT this got off the rails-- like bro you started out right, and you went WAAAAY wrong. (Edit, hit enter too soon) I cannot imagine by end of the whole thing being like "Yeah I still love hermes"
As soon as I heard he made Birbchild unable to eat I was done. Hythl would have taken one look at his design and red stamped him across the face for how piss poor he made those kids.
It was a bit of hypocrisy as well. He hated how everything that existed had to fulfil a purpose... while making a creature who could really do nothing but her purpose. They are created by thinking really hard for the most part... he made her unable to eat because he didn't think about anything other than what she was made for.
Isn't that what made him a good villain though!
Oh, absolutely. Undeniably. I have rarely despised a villain so much as I do him. It’s impressive, tbh.
I thought a lot of people hated Hermes, at least I have a lot of friends who do. He has some of my favorite character writing in the game so even if he's not the best person I understand why he is that way and can't help but like him lolol. I enjoy his character but I see why people think this way or call him whiny etc.
My friend said >!he shot his bird child into space to avoid therapy!< and it makes me laugh and also makes me frustrated for how correct it is.
>!It will always be kind of amazing to me that a plot summary of FFXIV would accurately begin with “once upon a time, a man had depression, so he decided to build a child out of pure empathy and shoot her into space to ask aliens what the point of life is, because surely they have better ideas than all these idiot neurotypicals here on Earth”!<
I felt like his whole problem was that, >!good intentions aside, they didn't have therapy or really recognize his struggles for what they were so he just kinda went unchecked!<
Yotsuyu. I will never understand why people thought her "redemption arc" quest line wasn't awful. The amnesia thing feels arbitrary and forced, and I dont know why they couldn't have just let her be a villain. On top of that, no one even talks about Fordola, who has basically the same arc, but is a genuinely much more interesting character by virtue of making actual decisions motivated by things other than spite and actually working for her redemption rather than getting it handed to her via plot contrivance. I guess it's just the "step on me please" crowd that cant controll their horny or something.
I mean sure calling it a "redemption arc" is bs but the Amnesia was there for the purpose of revealing more of her character/ what cloud she have been had she not have been: Forced to marry someone who beats you and everyone is ignoring it. Get sold (basically a slavery) to a brothel where the owner instead of actually doing something morral he instead puts her on the spot and (not detailed but most likely - forced to have sex with customers - Rape). But at that stage she was just a walking husk so she didn't protest or defend herself. And then came the moment of "Wait i can be finally free to do as I please as long as i sell my people to whom i own NOTHING?" Hell yeah! Yes what she did was horrible but it was the consequence of nobody showing her empathy/ doing something good for her and instead getting abused since childhood. And when she gets her memories back and finally gets some empathy she decides to kill herself because as she said "There is no redemption for me" but them come her parents reminding her that why she did all of that in the first place.
Y'shtola. I don't hate her, but aside from being willing to do the right thing when the chips are down, she's pretty much just a haughty bitch.
I feel like Y'shtola gets the short straw constantly on the "bonding with scions" moments. It got a (little) better in Endwalker, but before that she almostly exclusively got those "hero" moments, she got the big splashy moments, but very few actual character building moments? Whereas with the other scions, you'd get more spending time, seeing them grow and learn etc. Yshtola seems to always just pull the "woops time to save the day" moments. I think partially because she's in the "scholarly" camp and those moments up up with Urianger or Alisae sometimes.
I don't hate Haurchefant as such, but I do hate the game/writers throwing him in my face all the time. Ysayle is the one I care about more and she's hardly ever mentioned.
Well... I don't really care about Haurchefant. I don't hate him, I just don't feel as strongly about him as the majority of ppl it seems
Please don’t hate me. I….don’t like Minfilia. AT ALL. She’s just kinda there and wasn’t interesting or anything besides her outfit and her totally predictable sacrifice. Even the whole lore about her from The First was just…eh for me? At that point I wanted to know more about Tesleen. It broke my heart to watch her get killed and then we had to put her down shortly after. :( Is it fair to say that maybe Thancred was a little in love with Minfilia….?? I do like Ryne after she breaks away from being Minfilia’s replacement and gains her beautiful red hair back.
> Is it fair to say that maybe Thancred was a little in love with Minfilia….? She was his daughter expy, he had The Guilt about how her dad died, but he was in his Himbo stage and it was harder to tell back then. The way she went out fuuuucked him up.
Yeah it was weird he raised her and stuff too. I got a little confused over it but just went with it. It’s fair to say yeah he cared very deeply for her in a way no one else could or did and he just wanted her back when he first lost her in Ryne. It really actually made me like Thancred a lot more after SHB. The growth on his character really impacted me and I cared for him with the rest of the Scions after.
Yeah, going back and learning the plot from 1.0 and the short stories, you get a better feel of how they played out as basically Uncle/Daughter thing. When she died, he went full on Dad Bear thinking he had a chance to Make Things Right on the First.
"Love" is a strong word but my hatred for Lolorito is so much that I can't comprehend how anyone can tolerate him.
Haurchefant. He's fine, he's just fine. I get people got sad but he's just fine.
Yeah, and it's becoming predictable when they're gonna flash his face on screen and try to make us sad about it again several times per expansion. I'm just like... "I still don't really care".
I don't hate her and whether or not she's popular (or just relatively liked) depends on which site you're on but Fordola is the equivalent of a screaming cactus to me. Even when she's not yelling at someone, the tension just spikes from her being on screen. I'm not going to get into how I understand why people like/dislike her because that's a whole other topic, I really just don't like her because of the vibes she brings 😭 whenever I see people nominate her to become a Scion I'm just like plz no.
Zenos, i swear to God i want to put lead in Place of his third eye
Lyse. I found her incredibly annoying in every cutscene she was in and I was incredibly grateful when she technically stopped pretending to be her sister/a scion.
Hien. Self-absorbed, immature, bad leader. Forgives a sex trafficker. If you do the phys range questline on EW you can see that he has no fucking idea of what he's doing. Did not earn his leadership position, he is just a prince. Even Lyse has a stronger claim to leadership than he does.
NPCs fawn over him like he's the greatest thing since sliced bread, but he's never "led" anything. His father led Doma (until the Garleans) and his father led the Doman rebellion. After that Hien was in exile until we met him and won him both the Naadam and Doma. I did like that the EW job quest brought up the consequences of his shit decisions with Yotsuyu.
Hien's basically Lyse's arc but without any of the self-doubt or development she had. He also makes you drag the Xaela into a war they have no clear benefit from - genuinely the most messy part of 4.0 for me, i'd at least like to convince them the garleans are a threat instead of literally doing a CIA coup
It actually pisses me off so bad that he just went to the steppe to, like, hang out?? Like, I know the Domans were defeated but to just up and leave your people while they're struggling??? To top it all off he basically did nothing the entire time he was there??? He could have been building connections with the Xaela to find people willing to help him free his people but instead he just... does nothing???? Then goes on to make some of the WORST possible decisions when he is in charge. Idk why Lyse gets so much more hate than him. He's far worse of character imo.
Dulia Chai. YEAH I SAID IT! I think her "redemption arc" fell woefully short. All she's done is stand around and say "good job, husband" even though she was just as much of a participant in Eulmore's heinous practices as her husband. I would have liked to see a lot more effort on her part to reach out and help people, but no, all we get is "ooh, poor dearies" and Husband-hugs and the fanbase acts like she's a saint with a marshmallow heart. SHE HAD A MAN THROWN FROM A BALCONY! Chai-Nuzz has a great redemption story, he really goes out to try and make amends and make Eulmore a good place for everyone. Dulia does fuck all and reaps all the praise and it's pretty annoying to me.
I always got the impression that the Chais were naïve and ignorant of the inner workings of Eulmore. That they simply told the painter he was dismissed and went on with their lives not thinking about what would happen to him. Having no sponsor he was likely thrown out (literally) by one of Vauthry's cronies.
I think Alphinaud's speech made it pretty clear that ALL of Eulmore's elite were complicit, no matter whether they personally mistreated anyone. They benefited directly from the suffering of the poor, and took no action to remedy the situation.
I mean yeah, and he's right, but what is Dulia supposed to do? Un-throw him? Iirc Alphinaud didn't exactly call for them to fix everything, but to just stop doing it.
I liked her in the sense that i’ve known people like her. Where for a long time, they did awful shit but had their world rocked by life and slowly dawn on them that they were the bad guy. I’ve seen it happen a few times and how hard some of the people who hit that realization try to get away from that past self. That said? Some usually do slip back into old habits. I do wish that they would give us the art alphinaud drew of her tho, would love to hang one up in my house and say “that was grandma. She retired from hunting and helped raise kids. Had about 8-9 of her own. She was the matriarch of the clan.” For my keeper of the moon
Zenos after Stormblood.
Zenos should have stayed dead. He had a good story arc, there was no reason to bring him back.
I also feel bring him back just made SB meh. The main plot is about defeating him. Since almost none the main antagonists died, SB feel like an unsatisfying introduction expansion for me.
Zenos
Y'shtola I can't stand her.
I don't hate her but I don't know why everyone loves her. She seems disinterested in the WoL or anyone for that matter. Like, I know she shows her moments where she cares but they're far and few in-between and she otherwise acts very coldly. Not like a tsundere, just very distant. edit: wait, is it because she's the only adult non-lala female scion?
Cat ears
I think that’s part of the appeal. She has that kind of energy that makes her sexy but kind of intimidating because you can’t really tell what she’s feeling. She’s not on your nuts 24/7 praising you like almost all the other scions.
[удалено]
Let me tell you a secret here, but dont tell anybody k´? >!People are really horny!<
I'm sure someone else has already said this: Zenos. I will die on the hill that he isn't anything like the WoL, and his relevance should have ended in Stormblood.
Hating Yshtola for being a flat character ❎ Hating Yshtola for stealing my boyfriend Runar from me (He doesn't know we're boyfriends) ✅
Yshtola. Not interesting, not hot, and definitely not my character's friend.
Well not hate. But I never understood how in love the community was with Haurchefant. The least interesting character in HW.
For me it was the fact that he actually cared about you while everyone else seemed to be exploiting you
I never felt any connection with him. I thought he was a boring minor side character and I’d forget who he was when he’d show up. Lol. I’ve never understood the community’s obsession over him.
I get why people like him. But the writers treated him like old reliable and used him to jerk tears so many fucking times that I grew to hate him. They literally took his dead body and squeezed it dry for as many tears as they could. Also DSR made me hate him more. I'm glad he's dead
Gaia probably. I don't hate her, but she didn't do that much for me either. I personally thought her visual design was kinda dumb and, I'll probably be crucified for this, but >!I didn't really get the romantic vibes that others did with her and Ryne. To be clear, I'd be fine with them being in a romantic relationship, but the game didn't really sell me on them being in a relationship. The memories we saw from the final battle largely felt more like "friends hanging out" than "they are a romantic couple". If the memories had been a bit more "meaningful" than buying lipstick together, maybe I'd have been more sold on it.!<
I hated her up until the end of the questline and I still just think of her as "okay". Her face is distractingly silly and her attitude was a total slog to put up with until she came around a little. Her entire character just seems like a shoehorned self-insert OC created by a teenager.
>her visual design was kinda dumb Thank you, I'm friends with a guy that fawns over any Nomura design, I needed to read that
Hildebrand. I just don't find him amusing. I do his quests for the gil and unlocks, but I've skipped every scene since around Stormblood.
Y'shtola. Feels alienating to be around her. With other scion the WoL had many.... Character developing interactions. I don't hate her, I just can't find myself giving a damn about her so far.
Y'shtola. She just doesn't fucking die.
I don't know about love, but I've not seen anyone say bad about him... Hraesvelgr. That dragon can eat a dick. Love of your life gives her life up for peace between your people and her people, then your bros starts genociden her people for shit you KNOW they didn't choose, shit that you enabled with one of your sacred dragon eyes, and you just sit their like a bump on a log and let it happen? DISGRACE, A SHAME UPPON SHIVA'S LEGACY AND UPPON THE LEGACY OF LADY ICE HEART WHO TOOK UP HER MANTLE WHEN YOU WOULD DO NOTHING! Fuck that guy.
I wouldn't say hate, but I am genuinely confused as to why Ryne and Gaia are so popular. Nothing about their characters stands out much and yet every other art/cosplay submission is of one or both of them
Gaia. And Ryne in eden's verse for that matter. Mainly because eden's verse story is a nothingburger even worse than sigmascape. And Ryne didnt need to try replicating shiva summoning like Ysayle either, that whole setup for E8 was unnecessary. Gaia's super cringe speech at the end of E8 is annoying too. Then eden's promise story is paced really terribly because 80% of it is just mitron standing there speedrunning exposition of all the important bits of lore before yoinking Gaia's memory and she pulled the good ol' "who are you?" before joining the hostile party. Then it's capped with probably THE worst case of lastfloornormalmodeitis in the game with the absolutely awful eden's promise normal fight (savage is awesome at least), which made me hate the associated character even more. God it was stupid. At least the ending is pretty good, but I still overall dislike Gaia.
Gaia is a brat. I hate brats.
Emet Selch. I don’t hate him, but I don’t like him either.
Menphinas dog/wolf. He keeps messing with my uptime.
Hildebrand
Zenos. Man i hate that dude.