It doesn’t help that a lot of her emotional beats were based off characterization I never got to see. The big reveal of her identity fell flat because I didn’t know who Ida was.
You learn a lot more about Yda, and really all of the Scions, in 1.0. A lot of information about them in locked behind that. It unfortunate, because Yda and Papalymo were far more interesting in 1.0
The biggest problem I have with Stormblood is I feel like cutscenes are missing. Scenes like Lyse explaining why she took on Yda's mask, clarification from Conrad why he picked Lyse and, probably just as important, the current status of the Ala Mhigan resistance, both before Stormblood and during Doma's liberation. One of the reason Conrad picked Lyse was because she would serve as a banner to unite the people. This is only mentioned in the short story and is such a crutial point, it feels like it was left out because of time constraint. The reason she was ACTUALLY picked at the time of Conrad's death was because no one was left to pick, something Ilberd makes clear in 3.5: "How long have I struggled to reach this point! My countrymen so inured to the taste of defeat, they no longer balk at its bitterness. Shouting my throat raw with rallying cries, only to be greeted with dull eyes and blank faces! My “brothers” and “sisters” in Ul'dah have surrendered to their apathy and their appetites. Were it not for the glint of Lolorito's coin, I doubt even those here now would have answered my call! "Take back our homeland! Free Ala Mhigo!“ Hah! They'll happily mouth the words, but they won't spill the blood!" So when the question is who to pick out of M'naago, who at the point in time still is just a soildier, or Lyse, who has been with the Scions since near inception and has achievements under the belt, while serving as a banner for the resistance, the choice is clear. This is not mentioned anywhere in Stormblood. The closest you get from Conrad is from the quest Rhalgr's Beacon where ONE of the dialog options (Good thing they've got you.) leads to the response: "For now, aye, but not forever. And, to be frank, I don't always know what to say to the ones who left, not to mention the youths. Nay, the Resistance needs a leader with a wider view. Someone who's not lived their whole life in Gyr Abania; who's known death and hardship but not been ground down by them." A lot of this could have been in a cutscene and the story would have flown better. As for the castle scene in 4.1, I never really saw that as a problem, mainly because the crystals to summon the primals was smuggled in by tempered soildiers. I have always thought they were temprered beforehand, since the time seems rather short from inception to meeting. I had hoped that this scene would have lead to her being less naive, which I think it did. Unfortunetly, from thereon out she was "just another side character".
They bit off more than they could chew trying to tell the story of two nations at once for Stormblood. Especially while a bunch of the veteran writing staff was busy working on FFXV instead. The Ala Mhigan side definitely suffered the worst for it. But it also seems like she was supposed to be learning to become a real leader from Hien while we fight to liberate Doma, but despite that being the better half of the story and some scenes kinda working towards that goal, it doesn't really come through either. It often felt like she just shared Alisaie's role of being short-tempered and trying to rush into battle. It would probably actually have been better if she stayed in Ala Mhigo and learned to be a leader off-screen, as lazy as that sounds. The resistance recovers off-screen anyway.
This! I agree more with this! I didn't think ppl thought the Lakshmi palace instance was that egregious until I heard this video :') If anything, I feel like Lyse doing this as a leader is fully in-character of her, and like you stated, is almost a cornerstone of her current character as part of her character development journey.
The main problem I had with Lyse was right after Stormblood, you start Shadowbringer. In ShB, once you rectify the situation in Eulmore, they elect Chai-Nuzz as mayor. Going through that quest line, all I could think was this is what they were trying to do with Lyse. The key differences being the execution. Chai was elected by his peers versus being given the position from its previous head. We see Chai taking stock of the situation and thinking like a leader versus we never see Lyse do any actual Leadership on camera. We also see that Chai admits he can't effectively lead by himself, so he seeks out Wrenden, a previous official who is more versed in the ways of money versus Lyse never saying she lack certain capabilities a leader should have and the moment she starts to gfail at public speaking, Raubahn takes over and this time is never brought up again. I am not saying there is nothing redeemable about Lyse, but she is a example of "Show, don't Tell".
To me, Lyse turned into the lightning rod that takes in all of criticism of Stormblood's flaws, primarily the mistakes it made with the Ala Mhigo storyline.
You expressed precisely why I roll my eyes every time Lyse is onscreen. Also, as I watched more and more of the video, it solidified my thoughts that M'Naago should have been Conrad's successor, NOT Lyse. She already has experience leading people, she has the NATIONAL ANIMAL as her signature mount, she's been under Conrad all this time, she proves herself later on to be excellent at managing resources, does leadership work by relegating reparations to affected families.... Le sigh. Alas....... 💔
I was baffled seeing Lyse in her dress like dainty pricess come up to middle aged, starving ala mhigan farmers whose sons just got slaughtered like cattle by biggus dickus the imperial and asking them HEEEY WHY NOT FIGHT THO She was so out of touch it was insane lol, M'Naago being named leader would have been perfect, and even if she did Lyse could still have acted as le symbol of hope as Hext's daughter.
I agree, M'Naago is a great leader and is actually one of the critical leaders in the Ala Mighan republic. But she's not a Public Face. She's someone who actually gets the paperwork and leading done. Lyse Hext has several key traits that make her a perfect Public Face for Ala Mhigo. A former Scion of the 7th Dawn and all the prestige that organization brought with her. The daughter of Curtis and sister of Yda Hext, both of whom sacrificed everything for Ala Mhigo as true Heroes. She's also a very recognizable conventionally attractive Hyur woman with global connections. She's exactly what Ala Mhigo needs in foreign relationships. I forsee a future where Lyse is slowly moved into being a foreign diplomat rather than a public leader with M'Naago perhaps being the first elected Prime Minster of Ala Mhigo. She's certainly well adored by everyone in Ala Mhigo, Resistance groups or not and did a LOT to help rebuild several factions in the Tribal Questlines. Yes, Lyse being a diplomat and M'Naago being a world leader makes more sense in the long run. But until the government is solidified, Lyse is a Public Face. Someone all Ala Mhigans can claim to know and appreciate and someone whose connections Ala Mhigo's fledgeling government can lean on for critical support in the early years.
That is exactly how Lyse reads to me in her current role, she is the face, but she is absolutely not the one doing the work or being given any critical or meaningful work outside of appearing as the forward-facing agent of the republic. They very mildly try to make Raubahn decision to stay and help run Ala Migho as him just wanting to return home, but it was clear to me that everyone Lyse included NEEDED him to stay, but wouldn't say it aloud that stuff would have gone to shite if he hadn't, he is literally the one keeping the country in line and not descending into a brain dead civil war. Spoiler but not really, her appearance just before EW starts drives home her downfall as a character. She was given a report, an important one, and admits that she "skimmed it" in what qualifies as a blonde moment of stupidity that they quickly move past...despite my personal desire that they call her out for proving herself once more to be a dunce...who to top it off "pretended" to be an Archon for a while. Seriously if Sharlyan learned that she had been wearing a fake Archon mark with the IQ she has, I can see them breaking their neutrality just to take her to task
@@plebmcpleb5761 She doesn't even wear the dress when she does that so wtf are you even talking about? She wears that towards the end because it was her sisters and she was trying to honor her. It honestly makes sense she'd be kinda out of touch, she had spent her whole life around people who basically solved all of the problems they ran into by beating people up ( like the WoL and the Scions ). I mean I don't see this level of hate towards Alphinaud and I'd argue he was even more naive and out of touch in ARR, both Alphinaud and Lyse had character arcs and became better characters but that also hinged on them being naive at the start. But only Lyse gets shit for it. Lyse also wasn't just showing up and telling them '' why don't YOU just beat them up? '', she was showing up saying '' why don't WE beat them up ''. The whole point was that you were there to help and were bringing an army with you to free them. It's not really that strange that she'd expect them to fight and get hyped up, it's like if Ukraine had lost the war to Russia at the start of the current ongoing war and then the US showed up and were all like '' okay lets beat the shit out of the Russians ''. You'd expect the Ukranian people to be happy about it and get hyped up and join the US forces and help them defeat Russia.
@@benjaminbierley2074 You're reading way too much into a joke in EW... She has clearly showed that she's a capable leader in the post MSQ of SB. I really hate this stereotype about blonde people too rofl, the idea that being blonde makes you more prone to being stupid is.... A very stupid idea ( and probably statistically very NOT true at all ). But it really feels like people just stopped paying any attention to her character after the SB MSQ, she takes a very active part in leading her people forward in the post MSQ and makes a lot of good decisions while at the same time also listening to good advice and recognizing when to listen.
Just a minor thing: you said at the beginning this video have spoilers for Stormblood, but then you mentioned the cure for tempering wich is a Post Shadowbringers thing I already finished Endwalker but i wanted to point it out nonetheless
@@RemnentsPasts I just do not understand watching lore video about a game with endless interconnecting elements and narratives then bitching about spoilers. That’s like not wanting to be spoiled on a show so you look up the synopsis then think omg wtf bro spoilers omg. Omg ABC season 2 is out I don’t want to be spoiled omg wat it’s trending on twitter I better click it omg bro spoilers bro wtf
@@neitherlink6612 normally when watching/reading said information about a character, you check if if you will get spoiled things about the story you still didn't see. And when they explicitly tell you "we will discuss things up to chapter 5" but end up discussing things on chapter 10, it's not the readers fault if they get spoiled. Just common sense.
I've heard a theory that Stormblood was supposed to be about Minfilia rather than Lyse. We do go into the Lifestream and see Minfilia again shortly before Stormblood, followed by returning safely from there, so... maybe that could have happened? And then Minfilia could've had a character arc about being a better leader and wanting to liberate Ala Mhigo because of her father, Warburton. That's kind of a bummer if so, because not only does Lyse suddenly become a leader-type character out of nowhere after spending most of her previous screentime as the comic relief punch-girl, but it means that Minfilia is basically thrown away after ARR despite the fact that all of the Scions were rather dull in that section of the plot!
If this is true, I am very sad. I didn't like minfilia as much back in arr, didn't hate her either, but when I began reading all the 1.0 story of her, how she was ascilla (can't remember how to spell it) u can even see her dad dying there. She was very important, and she felt like a big leader, I am sad bc she suddenly got stripped of her individuality right before stormblood
I agree. I LOVE ffxiv to death. But the writers have made strange or bad choices now and then. Doesn't mean I love it any less, but also doesn't mean I forget about their errors either.
I'd say that Moenbryda's character was great; the only flaw was that she wasn't in the story for as long as she should have been. Minfillia became a far better character once handled properly in Shadowbringers. Papalymo was a good character, but he was hardly in the story until shortly before his death. Lyse, on the other hand, is a central focus in Stormblood, but she doesn't really grow much at all as a character until AFTER 4.0, which is absurdly late. And when she finally does come into her own, she's immediately cast aside and only rarely comes back into the story at all, and even then, only briefly, making you wonder what the point was in the first place.
I do think we need another character like Lyse with the Scions. One thing I did appreciate was her earnest and emotional characteristics. Alisaie sort of fits that, but she's more level headed. I just want someone to bring that wild energy to the group, but not obnoxious.
This might be the one thing that really drags down my enjoyment with FFXIV, even in ShB or EW; I can never not think of how Yda, Papalymo, Moenbryda and Ascilia deserved much better even if they were meant to die or leave; how things would be had they stayed around and got redesigns, job changes and chances to develop. Shtola, on the other hand, obliterates herself twice and comes back to tell the tale. These are retcons or echo gimmicks I could get behind, more so than the returning villains.
I always thought it was retconned because of what happened with Minfilla. Yda looks as though she was intended to be just a Scion and Minfilla should have led the Resistance because she was the Maiden of Light and Leader of the Scions. But since she got scraped, the story changed.
I'll always have a bit of a sore spot with lyse and stormblood for ignoring the fists of rhalgr except for that one line lyse mentions, And they never bring widargelt like they did with estinien for heavensward. It feel like a natural character to being in, especially with the reveal in the latter half of the monk storyline. Feels like a missed opportunity
I think Estinien worked out because we didn't really get a conclusion with him during the lvl50 jobquest - he just up and vanished with nidhoggs eye iirc and they later told you he did the right thing so all was cool with the holy see and dragoon order again After the lvl50 Widargelt fight he on the other hand completely gave up on his idea of bringing the (not existing) monk order in to fight for ala mhigos liberation. His HW quests had nothing to do with ala mhigo per se, only the rival order, and during SB quest his story was about the religious aspects of the order, again not liberation. I think Widargelts motivations had changed too much by the time SB dropped for him to work like Estinien. The lvl70 monk set is called 'pacifist' for that religious reason too I think. At least in the german translation it is called that.
I unconditionally loved Lyse because I liked her concept as a hot blooded if quick to act but slow to catch up character as we were supposed to see her growth having to live up to the expectations people had of her carrying the legacy of not maybe four people: Yda, Papalymo, Her father and Conrad. I just wished they leaned more into how she actually is learning, and they did try this with the aforementioned scene of Lakshmi in the palace by doing a security check, but there were crystals planted into the pools of the hall. But yeah, they fell on the carrying on the legacy part or trying to be a good leader like Hien but in her own way.
I personally think the issue with Lyse is that she was better as Yda. Not identity wise or anything, but as the foil to Papalimo. The two made for an enjoyable, if often forgettable, pair of the Scions. I always smiled or groaned when I saw the two in ARR, because I knew the comic relief had shown up. And that's not a bad thing. They were like the Scions own Bigs and Wedge in a way. But after the Wall and revelation of Lyse, it felt like all the joy the characters used to have just... left. Again, not a bad thing, but it felt like we were given a knockoff copy of a cheap but beloved joy to enjoy for the whole of Stromblood.
Another issue I have that didn't get brought up was her constant complaining when people in Doma and Ala Migo wouldn't join to fight the empire. She's essentially telling farmers and others who aren't in best health to go fight an entire militia when everything would be stacked against them, like of course they're not going to join there's nothing much they can do.
You have to understand that she never experienced their life. That is why she acts like that, and it is good! why? imagine the opposite, Lyse has experienced a life under imperial rule and is always treated bad, She KNOWS the consequences of her action but then she ignores that, tells everyone to rise up and fight, don't think about the consequences after that, fuck your families, let's just mindlessly kill Garleans How bad can she be? She is a good character because the way she acts is IN Character with her story, the life she experienced in Sharlayan and as Scions in Eorzea makes her think that as long as you fight bravely everything will end in happy ending. I don't get why people don't like Lyse for acting like that at the start of stromblood, I don't know why people hate a character acts like they should be
@@altairscauldron9776 Not to mention, she's a highly trained martial artist who can confidently hold her own against multiple of your average soldiers - and she's trying to encourage people to fight whose entire fighting experience has been watching their comrades be beat from a distance. Sure they *could* probably swing a sword at a soldier if they wanted to, then get gunned down almost immediately.
@@ayanhart and that is good beacause she is acting like how she should be. A naive and shortsighted character acting Naive and Shortsighted is good. A naive and shortsighted character suddenly acting like a wise man is bad I've read a few chinese novels which characters suddenly act out of their character and it is awkward and bad. Lyse acting like herself isn't bad at all. Teledji Adeleji Acting like a prick that makes you want to kill him isn't bad at all In the end, the writer's intention is to show a story of about how a muscleheaded girl do when she leads a revolution for the home she almost never visited in most of her childhood. If that is what the writer intended then Lyse is not a bad character and shouldn't be hated. Instead hate the overall story.
@@altairscauldron9776 Honestly, no, the fact that Teledji suddenly goes full expositional dumbass and getting cut down instantly was absolutely dumb. As for Lyse, no, she knows the threat a tempered person poses, for one. She's naive, not an idiot. Tempered individuals, by nature, cannot be reasoned with. She should know that. Do we ever see her lament about "Oh but why can't we just talk it out?" With any previous tempered individuals? No. Not that I can remember, anyways. The crux of my issue with her is that if she's supposed to be a short-sighted dumbass who tells beaten, oppressed and starved peoples to die for *her war,* she's a terrible, terrible person. She gets angry at people for not striking at their oppressors, when she has no experience herself. That's not naive or short-sighted, it's downright blind and depending on interpretation, cruel, even. "Oh, you won't literally fight and die for *my cause?* how dare you!" And she repeats this pattern, several times.
@@altairscauldron9776 I liked how she acted that way at first because of the same reason, but it also kinda set expectation toward her characterization and growth further on. Which did not resolve very well at all. She didn't feel like going beyond that point. Started naive, stayed naive throughout the expansion, and then somehow bearing the flag like the spearhead of the whole liberation that happened. Her writing felt trying hard, yet too lacking, compared to other faction heads in the game. Even Chai-Nuzz was risen to his position smoother than Ryse, and she had half the expansion to do that job while he had like, a few quests.
I have told my FC a lot that Lyse is good but her treatment after the Gyr Abania liberation was bad. I never could pin point what about it I disliked, but your video made me realize why. Great vid.
In my head canon, Conrad chose Lyse to be the resistance leader was a symbol of hope. Some NPC, I think it was Meffrid, said that it would inspire other people to join the cause since she is the daugter of the resistance hero. Also, she being in the Scions and her connection with the Eozean Alliance as well as the liberation of Doma may also played a part. She did not want it and did not know how to handle all those responsibilities but try her best to go along. It's been a while since I play SB so there maybe some other details I miss. I do agree that SE really mishandled her character big time. I hope she'll come back in the future expansion with more of the character development.
For me the problem with Lyse isn't the character but the lack of background exposition. Everything about Lyse is hidden behind text that isn't obvious, here is how I see Lyse, a kid that lost her parents to war very young, was raised by her older sister, the actual Archon and Scion, becomes an orphan once again when her sister dies, being completely alone in the world decides to join the Scions and pretends to be her sister as a coping mechanism, no one around her really cares and are just happy to have her punching things for them. Then in Stormblood she becomes an orphan once again as the one guy that was close to be her new family dies, she decides to finally drop the act and hang on to the last thing she has, her sister's desire to free Ala Mhigo, a land she doesn't really know. Then she fumbles around it obviously, but does her best. I just can't hate her, she is uneducated and immature, yes. But why wouldn't she? I don't understand why people expected anything else from her. When Conrad nominated her I wasn't mad at her I was mad at him, he uses her as a figure head because of her parents. Once again this damaged human becomes someone else's punching machine.
Yes this is exactly how I see her!! Especally when you remember each of her family members died trying to save/protect someone or something and thats pretty much the only memories she has of those people so when she thinks of things to aspire to all she can think of is…protecting something or saving someone. So when she meets these people who are in positions to do exactly that and they aren’t it frustrates her because that’s the only thing she would do if she were in their position because thats the memory, the ideal her family left her with
Sort of like Legend of Korra, basically last season is a case study in which the "good guys" who hold political office aren't above trying to plug a puppet into a position despite how clearly bad that sort of play is especially when it is super obvious, and done with a person vastly unqualified for the office. It is grating cause in LoK it isn't called out or addressed either (with the writers visibly having to go out of their way to make Kuvira the bad guy in the situation).
Well that's quite an interpretation. Never mind the explicit textual fact that the Scions did care, they just allowed her to pretend to be Yda while she was grieving and unsure of herself. They knew all along Yda was dead, and didn't show it because they cared enough not to add to Lyse's grief, that her pretense was hurting her friends.
Yes!! One major theme in this game that becomes very apparent starting in SB and moreso in SHB and EW is that no one's perfect and will mess up- and *yes* that includes the main characters, the good guys. There are a plethora of characters who do and/or say things that wound up messing things up for others around them. Lyse never got to have her own identity: she was ripped from her homeland at a young age (5 iirc), which is right around the time that kids start developing their own personality and such. She's thrown into a new world and culture and then her sister dies. I also saw her taking her sister's identity as a coping mechanism too. One thing that I feel is VERY important to note is that the other scions do say they knew all along- *and they still accepted her*. In SB she's trying to find herself while also being in/helping a country that is, very unfortunately, foreign to her yet also a big part of her‐ diaspora basically. I related to this A LOT as a child of immigrants myself. Immigrants who are from a war torn country, no less. The thing I loved THE most about SB was how very relatable and very human the characters felt. Lyse isn't the only character that messes up: Hien has his moments (that're further explored in the EW role quests), Gosetsu does too. Even the 3 main villains are some levels of sympathetic as well.
Look. I gotta be honest. I liked Yda/Lyse. I started out in Gridania and so she was one of the first scions I interacted with. It was clear she was mostly used as an excuse for exposition but I enjoyed her attitude and looked forward to seeing her grow and how she dealt with all the things to come. But Lyse? Lyse is a character they pulled out of thin air because they had no plan for Yda, and slapped it onTOP of Yda, told us that was her all along, and called it a day. The character we see on screen is Yda. Lyse is a facade they never finished. I'm sorry, I hate that I feel the need to put it that way. But I feel like they really dropped the ball with her. And I was really rooting for her too.
Yeah. Papalymo especially. We barely spent time with him. I hated him as the story goes, but I grew to like him at the same time. Reason why I didn't like him, is that the way he was written was just that he was a throwaway character. Like bro.
I felt like Lyse was very static for a large portion Stormblood and just struggled at every chance we saw her. But during the meeting with leadership I thought she was really turning a corner in her struggling with at least trying to get everyone to talk and then extending empathy to what's her name with the angy voice. And then later there's a brief moment where she is seen giving orders to troops and she appears ~very competent~. What that says to me is she is tactically sound but gets emotionally enflamed too easily. And her emotions get the better of her because she cares so goddamned much that she trips over her own tongue and says some dumb stuff. Which honestly... personally relatable. My biggest problem is that any small steps forward with her character feel totally accidental and not purposefully crafted. And everything else with her is just "ah Lyse being a plot device". Edit: and yes allowing a tempered to join the meeting was idiocy. Maybe she had hope because of Ga Bu. But even Ga Bu is probably a liability, I'm not far enough along to know how his story resolves.
I enjoy Lyse because she is by and far the most "normal" of the Scions. I mean, look at who she has to contend with. Apart from the WoL, the rest of the main Scions are all Sharlayan super scholars, even Thancred. Yes she makes mistakes, but she owns them. She laments them. But she also tries to do better by them... And she never tries to claim the credit, others claim it for her, hell as soon as Raubahn was available she tried to make him the leader since she knew she couldn't do it herself to the level that was needed. Could the writers have handled her better, oh a hundred times yes most definitely. But what everybody forgets for the most part is who they're comparing her with...
Correct. My suspicion about people with regards to Lyse these past few years is that she was ruining the upper crust Scions by being boorish. She’s treated like you or I would be walking into a rich country club and trying to mingle. The Scions are all elites and she didn’t fit the mold. Part of the issue here is that she was brought in with a very obvious comparisons to another character, Yda. Whatever image people constructed of Yda, Lyse is compared to it. “Yda” is a stereotypical Scion elite and people feel robbed when she gets switched for a commoner.
Ehh even the WOL is a scholar in a lot of ways, being a master botanist, geologist, ichtologist, a master of not only modern magic but also several lost magic schools (scholar and summoner being standouts considering that they are both revived by the wol and you can count on one hand the number of people that can become either). That's not even considering that by lvl 60 the WOL is a renowned artisan and the fact that having a strong grasp on aetherology is basically a requirement to be any of the job casters except *maybe* red mage. The WOL might not have the privileged formal education of the other scions, but if you level all of your classes the WOL is easily an intellectual match for the other scions, which the poster boy WOL seems to confirm to be the case, (the side stories confirm that the summoner team that is made due to the WOL's mentorship and revival of the art are actively operating while the WOL is on the first) One last note is that only a portion of this mastery of magic can be attributed to the soul crystals since canonically the WOL is developing their own techniques past lvl 70, the only exception being the shb and endwalker jobs
I have no doubt she'll become someone who can stand toe to toe with the rest of the scions eventually, she was practically the kid of the group and was definitely misplaced but she was there for reasons that we know, she just needs time to grow into herself, but alot of people and her haters just write her off etc...
@@Christopher-eq1rnits actually pretty cool when you realize just how much the WoL outclasses everyone, even in scholarship, we may not be official Sharlayan scholars, but we excel at damn near everything.
When I first saw the reveal, I thought that it's just another callback to the 1.0 and that the people would've been pissed about a character getting killed off screen... except as I later have learned, at that point Yda was already dead and Lyse was already impersonating her. And as a result it made me realise that the whole deception was absolutely pointless and unnecessary. Lyse is a character that gained nothing from acting as someone else, and in fact, lost a whole lot due to the players from that point on being uncertain if it's still the same character or someone else entirely. How much of the Yda we knew was how Lyse actually is? Hell if I know, because we didn't spend that much time with her to begin with. As for after the reveal... I don't much care for the character, because Lyse simply does not have one. She's a very reactionary, boisterous person who is proud of her homeland and wishes it freed from the imperial yoke... which is the personality template for literally every single citizen of Ala Mhigo that we meet, barring Conrad, who is level-headed on top of that. After initially getting our arse handed to us by Zenos, we go on a massive journey with Lyse, who meets all sorts of people she's impressed by and encounters situations that change her worldview... but nothing ever comes of it. It's a journey that falls flat and amounts to nothing, because ultimately, nothing in Lyse actually changes from it. She never becomes a better leader, she never does anything significant (Estinien achieves more and he's barely even in the expansion at all) and reaps all the rewards afterwards. Lyse never earns the praise she gets, and that is infuriating given we, as players, have worked hard for all the credit that is now given to this character we've only just met. It feels like a terrible self-insert of a character, which is impressive considering she isn't one.
Technically we do see the real Yda in 1.0 long before we meet Lyse "Yda" as the first questlines are the player being unknowingly trapped in an Echo flashback. But yes we never actually "met" the real Yda in the real world, though we did talk to her in the Echo (it worked differently back then)
@@Lichelf Issue with this is that people that played the 1.0 of FFXIV are few and far between. Those of us who haven't, never did meet Yda and never will, not even through the Echo. It may have been a good story at some point, but it is now obsolete, unreachable. It does not exist.
I’m not going to try and defend the problems Lyse has, I myself hated how jumpy and “cmon let’s go to war” she was at the start But where I found interest in her character was that because she was so flawed, the characters around her forced her to reevaluate herself Her own hometown rejects her, saying there’s nobody left to go fight and that she doesn’t deserve to talk about rising to fight garlemald because she wasn’t there to see what happened in her absence M’naago at one point when you talk to her even says she doesn’t think Lyse is qualified to lead whatsoever, but Conrad chose her and he died with that as his final wish (not to mention he himself said ala mhigo needs someone with a wider view than just a land of beaten warmongers) Then she goes to the Far East and asks herself what the hell she’s doing there now that she’s seen the beaten lives of the Domans Then she meets Hien, a man destined to lead from birth, who gives her some lessons while they’re caged on the steppe Then there’s fordola, who now that we know was the child Yda saved at the cost of her life, fordola is a perfect foil to Lyse in who she could’ve become and who she can’t allow herself to be, all the while sparing fordola’s life to show her that Ala mhigo can rise again and move on I’m not denying that Lyse was absolutely shafted by the writers and didn’t earn any of her achievements or titles, but what little she got thanks to those around her I don’t think should be cast aside just because “Lyse bad Stormblood bad”
The '' lets go to war '' attitude makes perfect sense, that was the whole fucking point of why they were there... She brought the Eorzean Alliance with her and the WoL who she knows has been running around solving every problem by beating up every bad guy they come into contact with. The entire point was to fight the empire, it makes sense she'd think that the people would rise up. It's like if Ukraine lost the current ongoing war against Russia on the first day and became conquered, then the US and EU showed up and were all like '' okay Ukraine, lets beat the shit out of Russia ''. I think most would expect Ukrainians to get hyped up and join the US and EU forces and remove Russia from their country.
Also, let's face it, the Eorzean Alliance didn't mind being led into a war. Their only real fear was if they could stand up to the Garleans...and when it turned out they could, well, they didn't beat around the bush with pretense as they went full steam ahead...granted they were able to both in Ala Mhigo and Doma cause Zenos more or less handicapped his forces on purpose cause he wanted to play on hard mode, aaaaand because the Garleans didn't bother with reinforcements cause upper echelons thought they could deploy black rose and deal with it no matter how far such an attack got. Overall, the Alliance got pretty lucky at several points, and shifting circumstances paved the way for them to advance.
Here's one video where it's discussed. ruclips.net/video/Fd8f8veYg40/видео.htmlsi=Y42w26-gS2vjj1sH. Ishikawa wrote the Doman half of the expansion and another writer wrote the Ala Mhigan side of it.@@FlameWish
I am also indifferent, and neither like or dislike Lyse. It's more accurate to say I like who she is, but dislike what she is. You can't force a square peg into a round hole, and that basically describes Lyse in a nutshell.
8:53 to be fair to Lyse. The tempered in question actively ASKED (well demanded really) to be part of the meeting which is ALMOST UNHEARD OF for tempered. They normally round up who ever they want tempered the present them to the primal for enthrallment. She had basically no way of knowing that they had snuck crystals into the heavily guarded palace to preform an on the spot summoning in order temper everyone. We see four tempered total act in direct subterfuge for their primal I think? Cid's dad(revealed after this in the Shadow Bringers relic weapon quest line), louisoix(revealed in the Coils),Qalyana(revealed as discussed in the video), and Nael Van Darnus(also revealed in coils). Three were rather exceptionally intelligent prior to being enthralled (tho Nael was also CRAZY so take that with a grain of salt???). Prior to lakshmi the two we had seen were notably under Bahamuts influence and if I remember we were told to (basically) never speak of the coils again out side of closed door because Saviors=Louisoix=hero worship=worship=phoenix=summoning=primal??? I don't think we can say it was reasonable for Lyse to look at the ananta woman before her demanding to be allowed to attend the meeting of all the leaders of the land to decide the future of the nation the ananta live in when she was basically acting nothing like the enthralled normally act.
@@scorpiowarrior7841 For sure! There were options. how ever I don't know if that would have prevented Lakshmi given that the crystals were already in place??? I just. I don't know. ya know?
@@scorpiowarrior7841 to her credit, they did take away what would normally be their avenue for summoning before the meeting. It just didn’t work out because crystals had already been hidden in the pools prior.
That would have required they actually focus on Gyr Abania in the Stormblood story... and they didn't seem to invested in doing so. I'm glad that at least the level 80 monk quest brings him into it more.
I’m actually leveling MNK right now and I love this take. Ala mhigo got shafted in the story department. It’s a shame because it’s easily my favorite nation and culture in the game.
@@anthonydelfino6171 It's like they got most of the way through SB and they were like 'Oh, right, this is meant to be about Ala Mhigo...' It should have just been two expansions really, to let them really develop on both the Eastern and Western fronts of the resistance movement - instead they crammed them into one and left a poorly-paced and jumbled mess.
@@ayanhart I mean they could have told both, but they really seemed to have very little interest in telling the Gyr Abania half. We leave the western front by level 61 and don't come back until near the very end of the story, then in patch 4.1 they wrap up everything happening in Ala Mhigo and have us in Othard for the next two patches, dragging out the Yotsuyu redemption story. If they'd spent time in the post expansion in Gyr Abania, I might have felt more balanced.
When I started Stormblood I had such high expectations from the writing team because they had made Alphinaud from my most hated character in ARR for his overbearing pompous attitude to someone that I would be proud to call a friend. Lyse, I feel was never given her time to grow as a character. While Alphinaud's growth was natural and phenomenal throughout Heavensward, Lyse was completely static despite being with us for almost all of Stormblood. It did not help that I lacked context on who her older sister was or why her taking off her disguise as Yda was such a big deal. Papalymo's sacrifice also fell flat for me as I felt we never got to really know him in ARR and he was completely absent during Heavensward. So in part it was due to some of us lacking the knowledge of her before, but also the fact that she went on the same journey as we did, but seemed to have learned nothing from it. To me, Lyse is just one of those people that you're tangentially friends with because she is a close friend with some of your friends. As a character concept, she is great, but in execution, they missed the mark here.
I like Lyse but I do feel that she has not been handled well at all since a big part of when she was Yda was bouncing of Papa Lime-o but with him dead she ends up feeling like half a character, theres more when I think about it but I don’t wanna ramble too much
I agree, their characters functioned as a duo. She becomes half a character after his death, then about a quarter of one once she reveals herself. Too much missing context to make it impactful.
Lyse is basically a well-intentioned but extremely out of touch and of common sense person that happens to know kung-fu and be around at the right moment at the right time. She comes off as someone from twitter with super powers.
This video is probably the best discussion on the problems people have with Lyse. From what I have seen, everyone who dislikes Lyse has the same general opinion: she's likable at first, but hard to stomach later. The "why" of the matter is what tends to bring up argument. Once more, the general idea seemed to always stem from the increase of attention she got in Stormblood, but it never seemed to be the whole answer. In the end, the whole problem is somewhat simple; Lyse has a very abrupt character arc. The idea that she would be involved so deeply with Ala Mhigo to the point where she would shirk or abandon the Scions over it is a very solid trait to start with, and especially to build an arc off of. The problem that comes after is that the story never took it's time to involve her in as many scenes as possible in order to make the most of it. Additionally, the story enjoyed continuously showing her inexperience in everything important, despite also saying that he has the potential to be an excellent leader. A better option would have been to have her be distant at first, more involved during the Azim Steppe and Doma, and then become fully engaged during the final raid on Ala Mhigo. The fact that she barely has much to do during the expansion which paints her as the hero - to the point where Stormblood's cover art hommaging "Liberty Leading the People" puts Lyse in the role of Marianne - is at best frustrating, and at worst, a waste of time.
Yes, she's is an opportunistic! She's always saying it was the ala migo's (wich is another way of saying that it was her) but actually it was the Warrior of Light!
@@BranBal Im not gonna go so far as to say she's opportunistic. Lyse was always a patriot and a solution-oriented person. Glory probably didn't mean much to her, otherwise she likely wouldn't have worked well alongside the long-covert Scions. What I did dislike was how the STORY kept hefting a lot of focus and gravitas onto her, despite the fat that she never really went on an arc or personal journey.
@@GambeTama I agree with you that she isn't after fame or glory, I see her as an opportunistic person on the hero spot. She lied her about identity for YEARS. Remember that between 1.0 and 2.0 it has been 5 years already. So, she's been lying for that long. Just so she could be a member of the hero organization, the Scions
@@BranBal The Scions were all well aware she wasn't Yda, though. I am very much against the Lyse twist and think it was terribly executed, but as convoluted as it was, Lyse didn't lie her way to Yda's spot so much as the Scions kind of took her in as a sucessor, in a similar vein to how the twins want to carry out their grandfather's legacy.
I never really thought of her as a great leader more someone who was still learning tbh. I hope she comes back in a future expansion and shows growth because I like her and want her to be better 😁
Like many said before, Lyse and Yda really needed more screentime for us to get attached to them. But the thing is... Being Yda didn't really change anything about Lyse. If anything, she's just a plotpoint we could omit and there wouldn't be a difference beyond age. What I mezn is that since we don't actually know about the differences between Yda and her sister, the idea of Yda being dead and Lyse impersonating her just doesn't need to be, and Yda could have just stayed herself(in a meta sense) and just be like Lyse the whole SB expansion, and none would know the difference. It could've actually been better if it was Yda staying herself, since we already "know" her enough that Lyse's "character development" (if you could ever call it that, she barely changed) would benefit Yda more, as she would be getting enough screentime to shine because she already has a headstart to go off of. More people would like her and most of the story's developments would flow better too, as Lyse said that Yda did fight for Ala Mhigo and was determined to free it, meaning she would have a drive rekindled after being forced to from Papalymo's sacrifice to work with, that would develop better during the Doma period of the story since she _knows_ she will have to lead her people and would be more likely to get that "character development" than Lyse, even if pretty meh.
There is nothing wrong with Lyse from a characterization standpoint. In fact, of the Scions, I was happy she went against the grain. She’s not some scholar, or big deal within an organization, but just a regular citizen who stepped up. She’s young, impetuous, and shortsighted. I get the feeling that people dislike her because they don’t want their heroes dirty. Alphinaud can fail, because he was betrayed, and is therefore not his fault. But Lyse doesn’t get that break, because she is at fault. There is also the tendency of FF14’s community to celebrate competent bad people and hate incompetent good people.
The castle scene with the tempered individuals to me is probably the dumbest writing ffxiv has ever had. It was modern WoW tier levels of writing. Absolutely awful. What makes it especially egregious was not just what was pointed out here. She knows about tempering. She's seen it first hand. She's been involved with cleaning up after tempered individuals and primals were stopped. It's the fact that after letting them in, dealing with the summoning, etc. She gets upset and mad about how they couldn't just talk down the ananta tribe that are tempered. It was honestly like a small child or someone with severe brain damage being unable to accept reality in a very fundamental way. It was infuriating.
What pissed me off even more looking back is that she faced zero conquenses for it. Rauban should've told her to just go back to the Scions and let that be the end of it.
I'm not certain of this but hear me out: could all members of a given tribe not be tempered to the Eikon of the religion? Perhaps it was her idealism that selected one of their leaders in hope that she wasn't tempered. Who knows for certain.
@@LordDrail No the tempered tried to muscle their way into the talks by force and instead of killing them like all other tempered we've faced Lyse was like "sure why not." They may have taken precautions but they forgot just how CRAZY the tempered are for the sake of the plot.
Lyse is less a victim of bad writers and more a victim of the sacrifices made in MMO storytelling especially early in an MMO. Simmilar to Illidan and Kael just randomly being made mustache twirling villians for the BC expansion often a character needs to be sacrificed as fuel for the expansion. In strombloods case Lyse they needed a character with enough of a tie to Ala Mhigo to justify getting involved,a high enough position they could make a difference and someone the player had a connection to so we would care. At the same time they also didn't want to just cut out one of the scions so easier to just retcon her into not actually being a scion. It doesn't make her character better but it does make sense of the story decisions.
while they really dropped the ball while writing for lyse, she's definitely not the worst character i've ever seen. And parts of the downfall can be attributed to certain persistent problems the game overall has. small cracks that started in ARR that carried over into later expansions, but i like to think that many of them were resolved pretty gracefully all things considered. As a result, Lyse ends up being pretty inconsistent and lackluster through no true fault of her own, because you can tell what the writers wanted to do but couldn't, seemingly because they forgot to show instead of tell. However, the overall writing for Stormblood in general is solid enough that you can see what the intended path for her and the rest of the storyline was meant to be, just beneath the surface of what it ended up actually being.
Yeah. Unfortunately the role they wanted Lyse to fill was that of a complex character, but she was already established as a side/simple character. So it just didn't fit and everyone could feel it.
It is weird to talk about how Lyse doesn't have leadership skills while also acknowledging her actual role IN a leadership position over her people in large battles and her willingness to publicly bolster the people of Ala Mhigo by crediting them with their liberation rather than the warrior of light, a common real world act to give people the pride and morale to continue on, it isn't even something the WoL would disagree with or be annoyed over,but something they would humbly grant and likely even agree with (the WoL doesn't succeed in SB without the resistance groups and their work). Lyse was made an important figure in their society, not because she is wise in choosing non-impulsive acts. She is made an important governmental figure because she fought and led people there long enough to win hearts and minds, which is all that is required for someone to be appointed a position in that situation, the people wanting it. Plus it is kind of implied that she is a good leader in battle, but you don't really get to see that as you are often leading when you are with her. Anyway, it is portrayed from the start NOT as a position she was perfectly suited for, but one that NOBODY Was suited for and that she would work hard to fit into. Leading her people towards being a republic, I don't think we can call her job here a failure either. She's simply someone who is forced to grow a little quickly in tasks she isn't experienced in.
This. It's obvious that she's not as articulate as her Archon companions, but no matter the odds, she takes up the responsibility of leading the resistance and doesn't fail that at all. She's just lucky, you say? Well then, I'd sure hope there aren't other characters that made major fuck-ups but got lucky 😉 (that includes the WoL). A hero moves and finds ways forward, despite how grim things look, and sees things to the end. Lyse, like all the other great characters in ffxiv, does so.
I have wondered if Lyse’s hamfisting into a figurehead was an intentional commentary about how these historical figures are created. It is true that she takes a lot of credit for these things, but at the same time it was not like she was intentionally stealing all that credit too. We think of our history idols in an often gilded aspect, with too much decoration, barely allowing others to think critically of them as doing that is painted as treacherous to patriotic feelings. I am doing mere speculation, but i feel like that was part of the intention all along, history merely chose Lyse as the figure of resistance despite of the truth on her actions.
Tbf to Lyse on the whole "tempered snake lady" thing, it seemed like everyone forgot what tempering meant during that bit (which is a meta narrative issue). Cause if they hadn't, they'd have killed the queen right there after beating Sri Laksmi.
My _feeling_ is that Yda; originally intended to be just another Scion, wasn't well favored. So they chose to write a somewhat-clever copout by making her a literal masquerade; giving them the opportunity to swap her character traits for "fresh" ones. How well that worked is up to opinion.
I feel bad for Lyse. She has a lot of potential for pathos if she's brought back. Her dad, Curtis, led the resistance along with her sister while Lyse was taken care of, then he was killed. Then her sister studied and became an Archon and helped found the Circle of Knowing while Lyse was taken care of, then she was killed. Louisoix took care of her and was killed. Then Minfilia. Then Paplymo. Then Conrad. And now Raubahn is stepping up as a leader while she's again being taken care of. At every step Lyse has been the baggage, perpetually behind everyone else. She was too young to help with the resistance, then too young to study in Sharlayan, then too inexperienced to help the Scions without Paplymo's constant guidance, then too inexperienced as a military leader to help the Resistance when they needed her, and now too inexperienced as a political actor to help with the rebuilding. And she knows this. She desperately wants to help but keeps failing while she's surrounded by the most incredible people in the world who seem to succeed in everything they try. So she tries her hardest to do her best, always giving 110%, and denying any kind of weakness in herself because she has to be strong and do what Yda would have done. But she's not really Yda, that mask wasn't hers. She's not really a Scion, the tattoo was fake. Not really an Ala Mhigan, she hasn't worn a dress like that since she was a child. But she's trapped by an identity she felt forced into. In that way, she has more in common with Fordola than anyone else.
Pretty well said, I like Lyse alot too. And she has plenty of potential to be great as those as well. Thr writers just need to do something about it and imo bring her back to the main cast.
I actually think this is a problem other characters in Stormblood have. Thancred is a good example. Preacher's analysis of him preShadowbringers brings it to mind. Sometimes, ff14 can be guilty of telling us things about characters rather than showing. They tell us he's a great super spy, but then, on his infultration, he doesn't notice the giant dragon in the back of the palace. I think sometimes 14 wants to do cool things, but it is accidentally at the expense of the cast. They also want us to be main hero, so other characters often are the casualty.
Lyse's promotion felt like nepotism to me because of her father's legacy. She was like the incompetent middle manager who got promoted for being a nice person and being related to he right people. I also noticed that she did not look like she was from Ala Mhigo nor have an Ala Mhigan accent despite being from there? She looked really misplaced as their leader, it really bothered me.
It felt like that because that is exactly what happened. The only thing mitigating how disgusting the circumstances are is that Lyse, despite being a fuck up, is genuinely a good person. Nepotism usually ends up with tyrants, but at least we know she's too nice and incompetent to become one.
She was a bland character with good development. The problem comes up when you have to spend 10 levels with lyse, after spending the past 10 with Estinien
I just dont understand how theres any resistance left? The causalities at the wall to summon Shinryu, 20 years of occupation, and that last beat down by Zenos only for this wet behind the ears outsider be the new leader??? How?!
People : "Lyse has no character development" Literally Lyse : *abandons the life she knows and love to take care of a nation when she didn't want to do that in the first place* Character development isn't just a change in attitude or emotionality. Just because she stays brash and feisty doesn't mean she didn't evolve.
I started in Gridania so I really wanted to like Lyse. I loved her dynamic with Papalymo too and I like girls that are go getters like Alisaie and not ARR Minfillias who do nothing but get kidnapped. I really wanted to like her. But I feel lile they didn't even portray her go getter fist first side well that we got with Yda. So I'm sad. I do tolerate her though. Perhaps bc she always shared the screen w a chara I actually liked (Hien, Alisaie).
I think Lyse falls flat because she's more of a metaphor for some players' attitudes toward this war instead of being a nuanced character in her own right. Especially after Heavensward where we ended a war with like a dozen people, maybe, players needed the reality check that war sucks and you can't just charge in, win a pointless skirmish, and leave. Especially younger players or those less familiar with the complexities of a real rebellion. Stormblood's themes revolve around rejecting (as best they can) the traditional media's portrayal of war as this thing where you can just go in, win one big battle, then it's all over. It forces you to face the innocent civilians caught in the cross fire and explains why people don't do as Lyse (and often Yugiri and the WoL!) would want and just fight the baddies. Every time Lyse makes one of those dumb decisions, it's because she's being used to reflect the simpler mindset of war and justice. My favorite example is early in Stormblood where you save this guy from some beastmen so he can deliver some money to Fordola's goons. When the guy gets beaten up unfairly, Lyse wants to jump into action. This is that simpler mindset that demands immediate justice. Someone has to actually explain to Lyse that no, that's a bad idea because that will directly affect the village he's from and the people who live in it. It's not just an explanation for Lyse - it's an explanation for why the WoL can't just run up to them all and slaughter them in like 2 seconds. The scene with the tempered snake ladies is also explained by this style of characterization. If the primary goal of Lyse's character was for her to be a nuanced, well-rounded character, there would be no way she would host that meeting. But the writers needed to explain why tempered leaders could be so dangerous and why the idea of inviting every single person to the table just isn't feasible. They needed to show that the perfect happy ending of "everyone sits down and invents democracy" isn't possible with some people who are just hell-bent on war or zealotry. Lyse's missteps do a lot of "showing" for why the WoL can't punch their way through every problem, and it also shows why we can't do that in real life either. Could she have been written better? Oh yeah. But I think discussing her flawed characterization without understanding her role in the narrative is missing half the point of her existence.
Not to mention they sacrificed Papalymo for literally nothing (as his sacrifice was ultimately pretty much gratuitous and useless) instead of developing the relation between her and Papalymo as she becomes Lyse and see their relationship evolve from being comedic relief to 2 friends with layered personalities and Papalymo COULD have sacrificed himself to save ala mhigo in front of Lyse and make his sacrifice that much more significant and meaningful. Instead I feel like they were 2 characters the devs kinda didn't know how to develop and tossed them to the side for that very reason.
Precisely! Had they made Papalymo and Ascilia the foci of the expansions they sacrificed themselves in - maybe showcasing how keeping Shinryu sealed was taxing him and, as his master, he was accounting for his own sacrifice at some point, but he still strove to see Lyse grow out of Yda's shadow / how Minfilia could take over Ascila and be a dancer mirroring her mother, and talk about Ala Mhigo events etc but aware all along that she was on a last journey and would eventually help Ryne grow into her owj person and ease Thancred's mourning, these characters would have been as meaningful in their parting as Hauchefant,if not more. Not to say anything of Moenbryda.
to be fair about inviting the tempered - She DID think about it, it wasn't impulsive like usual. She planned for it. Lyse says herself "what could I do, just NOT invite this ONE group?" Which like, yeah, that would've looked pretty bad. She acknowledges it's risky and dangerous- but she didn't expect some of the ala mhigan guards to be tempered as well, who then stored crystals within the chamber for an impromptu summoning. And honestly who could have expected that. She made up for it by grabbing Fordola to protect everyone. I thought she handled that well in the end.
I wish they would have focused on her brash and impulsiveness. Had her question herself. Look at her decisions and make her question her leadership and whether or not Conrad misplaced his faith in her. Her biggest and best moment was when she shed her disguise like Papalymo has said to do. That she pushed forward in his name. Lyse has this fire in her, one that burns when she's fighting for her friends. I felt like they didn't focus enough on the moments like that. Lyse's weakness may be her impulsive brashness but her greatest strength is when she digs her heels in she can't be moved. She's this stubborn, impenetrable wall. I wanted them to show some vulnerability in her and show that trademark Lyse invulnerability. That grit her teeth and fight back fire she had but they spent so much time using her as a vehicle to push the plot they didn't give her enough time TO BE LYSE.
I want to like Lyse, because who doesn't want to love the freedom fighting Monk girl who punches everything like you smooshed Sabin and Tifa togther with a dash of Char, but I just wind up not caring very much in the latter half of the content. They don't really let her do anything, including not letting her make important mistakes before becoming a leader to show her how to be a better one. She gets talked down to for trying to help because she'll only cause more trouble at the wrong time, which is important to learn but not something she learned by doing and growing. And then we get told she accomplished things that she didn't do on screen, just like with Yda. Add insult to injury in not even being considered one of your close companions to be brought over into Shadowbringers, especially if you're a player who's been with her since Gridania. The Crystal Exarch sadly winds up being written better as a close friend than Lyse in less time.
Lyse as a character is fine, even if the reveal was a bit.. unnecessary and didnt lead anywhere. The problem was that too much was put on her characters shoulders to carry the entire Ala Mhigan story. In Doma the burden of the story was shared between many different central characters but in Ala Mhigo it was all put on her so her characterization, growth and story progress suffered for it. Plus, the writing team for Ala Mhigo just wasnt as good as the one which wrote Doma. They should have created a dynamic with Raubhan as the leader with Mnaago and Arenvald alongside Lyse in a trio. That would have shared the burden of the various elements between them. Ruabhan, the old warrior returning home with the weight of leadership, Mnaago the local rebel soldier who grew up in the occupation, Lyse the refugee returning back home to a land she barely remembers as a child and Arenvald, the half-breed ala mhigan fighting for his homeland despite his status in their eyes. That would have enriched the story.
I didn't care Lyse/Yda in ARR she was like a "Oh yeah your here." Thing but in Stormblood she quickly became one of my favorites and most cared for characters for me I personally did like her traits I think they fit her pretty well
Lyse invited a tempered to the meeting because Fordola had to have her moment to shine and ultimately brought to the alliance's side. It 100% could've been written better and it sucks that it makes Lyse look downright incompetent.
I will give lyse a slight pass for that Lakshmi thing because she doesn't want to assume that they are all tempered I mean ananta beast tribe quest even some of them defecting meaning they still are themselves, even late shadowbringers shows that there are plenty members of the tribes that aren't tempered also they do take measures in case they do try to pull something like putting guards outside the chamber(that may have been Raubahn's idea) its to bad they didn't know that some of them have been tempered she does do something smart to try to fix the problem by getting Fordola to help you can make the argument it was a problem that she created or that they could have checked if they were tempered beforehand (something we found out that Y'stola can do after the fact) the other points about Lyse I do agree with her being naive and not doing anything to be worthy of leadership role I think that incident was the devs trying to address those issues and I think they did a pretty good job
Something about tempering individuals not being able to reasoned with. I may be totally wrong in my assumption of Lyse in the particular instance of inviting such a threatening individual but no one else (outside of the Scions of the 7th Dawn) knew of the threats of the tempering. If a person wishes to create a republic and doesn't invite a single group that has been part of the country for many years, it may seem a bit dishonest. Now Lyse could explain "tempered people can not be reasoned with" bit it may seem a bit off putting. Inviting once enemies or even just outright enemies can show that one is truly willing to change for the better. At leat that's my opinion. However, I don't know if Lyse had the same thought at the time.
Great analysis. Personally, I love Lyse and seeing your analysis describing all the potential she could have been from the writing makes me wish it was executed properly. I would agree that her writing has flaws and agree with your take on her inconsistences. If they pushed a little more and added a little more of conflict and change, she could have been more awesome to me. I still like her. Maybe it is my bias towards a war-based (revolution) story but seeing how much they had to fit in for every place, person, and thing, I think the writers did their best in balancing everything that matters.
My biggest problem w/ Lyse all comes from the questline in Shirogane, where we were gathering information, I think looking for Gosetsu and Yugiri. The woman in the Hostelry says straight up "If I tell you about whom you're looking for, I'll have to tell others you were here, too" to which Lyse agrees. I get we need any potential avenue we can get for gathering info, but knowing that Garleans also come through Shirogane, Lyse not exercising due caution kinda bothered me there, since she also knows the threat they possess
I think the things I don’t like about Lyse are: 1. I didn’t care for Yda that much to begin with-- she seemed dim and unhelpful (getting leg cramps so she can’t dance for the sylphs, for example. 2. It was revealed that the real Yda died years before, presumably before our character was involved with the scions, thus we never really knew her and don’t really need to mourn her. 3. Despite the fact it was Lyse all along, her character seemed to change abruptly from being ditzy and silly to being outspoken and grumpy. Maybe it was her being sad about Papalymo, but I don’t think we ever delve into that. He pretty much just gets forgotten for the most part.
I understand the criticism of her actions at the summit, but what choice did she have? If she turned the tempered ananta away, it gives them cause to go to war and invalidate her claims of a united gyr abania. The best option she had was to trust the castle guard to ensure nobody brought in aethereal crystals. She could not have known they were tempered and commanded to sneak some in.
They could have just said no. As proven, the tempered wanted a fight even under peaceful terms. They'd have went to war no matter what and everyone knew that, but they shrugged and went with it anyways to feel good about themselves.
@@SynodicScribe I think you’re forgetting that writers like to make their characters mess up, which then creates a consequence that is usually met with, in this stories case, defensive action which involved squeezing in some gameplay for us, rather than just a cutscene. The whole scenario of that was of an INEVITABLE mistake born out of hope to see a united country. Just as other commenters have said, that I might add you completely left out of the video, she had know way of knowing they had crystals on them. However, she could have big brained and thought maybe they might just send someone who is already tempered and faithful to Laki, but she let her heart cloud her judgment, ultimately deciding to have faith that they will hopefully come to a peaceful agreement. Checking them before they entered like they are the TSA would have also clearly showed their distrust so they didn’t do that. She definitely took a huge risk letting them in, but she wanted to fight that inevitability which ultimately, was the mistake that the writer had INTENDED.
Allot of her involvement was milktoast from the beginning until I think the writing team tried to do more for her in the first patch quests. A important aspect that keeps her from being completely boring to me is that she manages to use her naïve idealism and stubbornness to convince the butcher of all people to aid them full well knowing the pain her powers and choices weight upon her. She's meant to be the glue, not the substance of anything in the future of Ala Mihgo. She connects the people that are needed for their respective expertise. That's at least the impression I think the story could have gone with if they executed it better - maybe include some Echo scenes with her time as a child with the real Yda and her father. Give the impression she lacked for many things from the very start but she could bring people together somehow (She can't be a leader like Hein, Rauhban, Nanamo etc.).
How I saw Lyse's ark playing out: Absolutely hates Garleans, wants them all dead. Is put in a situation where she sees them as people, not the boogeyman. Gets a more nuanced understanding of the world and how/why she fights. That didn't happen, instead she does not change at any point.
'' That didn't happen, instead she does not change at any point. '' Uum. She literally goes with you to Garlemald in EW specifically to help free the Garleans. Lyse at the end of Stormblood is a totally different a much more mature person to than at the start I dunno how you can say this.
@@yfir1463 She’s just not tho. She still has a very immature black and white outlook. Hell, she tried to stop Zenos from himself. What was her plan if she succeeded? He’s far too powerful, insane and dangerous to be left alive, yet she still tried to have him stay alive. Yes, same result probably in the end, but that’s not the point. Please explain what mature things she has done, cause I’m drawing a blank. Also she’s fucking brain dead. Sees people that live in and are used to the cold dress even more prepared for the cold, and someone who exudes a constant aura of heat also dress and stay dress for the climate appropriately, but nah, she’ll be fine in her extremely light outfit, she just needs to fight to warmup. 🤦🏼♀️
@@yfir1463 Yeah in EW she changed but did we see any of that change ourselves during stormblood? Its what the OP is trying to say that she didn't grow DURING Stormblood so we can like her character and feel related to it. Not after it off-screen.
@@MayHugger Okay the warm cloth thing, you mean the one in EW where we take to fight to the castle right? First I dont think she's wrong, moving around and fighting dose make you warmer. Second, she's not the only one wearing there usual outfits (0 0;;; all the Scion or wearing their outfits (you have Urianger freezing to death in his "light clothes") and they decline Cirina's warm clothes cause they want to fight in their own. I just confuse with this one you pointed out that's all, but I understand that we can blinded by hatred and rage sometimes. Or maybe I'm bias who knows. Hope I clarify it :)
I like Lyse. Shes the only Scion who isnt at least mostly characterized from jump. She struggles with more relatable issues than just big scary stuff like primal and ascians.
I feel like there was a missed opportunity for Lyse’s character growth when Conrad thrust the leader role upon Lyse. I would infer that he did this because of who her father was, and this could have been another opportunity to explore how Lyse is still living under the shadow of long-deceased family members, this time being her father instead of her sister. There was an opportunity to explore that part of her and for her to grow beyond that.
Indeed. I'd go as far as saying her arc could have taken much more interesting turns towards leadership, from not wanting to involve herself with Ala Mhigo (and hiding her face so as not to be recognized/confused with her relatives) given her father was manipulated by Garleans and her sister died trying to help without support from the Alliance - to eventually trying to further their efforts her own way. Maybe even in support of Minfilia, who was also Ala Mhigan; only to have to step up in her place, were she to get Word-of-Mother'ed at the end of STB. We could've seen a more authentic and organic character ark withouth the Yda/Lyse twist, and I feel it would work much better with the public.
Maybe its cause i started in gridania but i actually like lyse… even if that reveal was eh. Like that hold zero weight but i never saw her any different after the reveal tho i do miss her silly banter with papalymo.
I've always felt that Minfillia should of been the main character of Stormblood (or at least the Ala migo part) as she's the one with the biggest connection to it. But I think when they wrote out Minfilla they realised they didn't have a suitable replacement and haphazardly inserted Yda/Lyse into her role
If you look at a lot of Lyse's backstory, it seems oddly similar to Minfillia's. From the start, she doesn't have the Ala Mhigan connection/goal until the end of HW, something that has always been on Minfillia's mind. They both have fathers that were related to the resistance in some form, and they both have different names(though for different reasons). The even worse part of it all? They didn't even need to do the Yda/Lyse shenanigans because it doesn't do much except to establish a flimsy backstory for her. The scions knowing adds insult and really puts into mind "we trained her wrongly as a joke".
I agree with what many others have pointed out here: much of what should have been shown in Lyse's story is instead just told. It's just too bad that her "screen time" was instead taken up by other characters in Stormblood like Fordola and Yotsuyu instead (though I'm really glad we got to spend as much time with those two as we did!), I don't feel like we spent enough time in post-Stormblood on the rebuilding of Ala Mhigo and Lyse's role in it. (We helped rebuild Doma, so it feels like rebuilding Ala Mhigo should've been the next step.) Fortunately in this case, I think there's still a lot more opportunities for them to do Lyse's story right in future content.
Indeed, it does feel as if Ala Mhigo was put aside (and wasn't even given an alternate version, Norvrandt's Gyr Abania being Ronkan ruins in their version of the Shroud) and never really that much beloved by the writers and designers; I wonder if one day we'll ever get a restoration and a revamp of the map areas that makes the whole setting more appealing to players so we can care more about it.
Thank you so much for this video!☺️ I've been struggling to find the right words to express my frustration with Lyse's character. I know I am supposed to like her but something about her just didn't feel right. I liked her in separate individual moments, but as you say, she was inconsistent and even reckless at times, so I just wouldn't trust her to make the right decisions (even though she has good intentions) and to lead! There were far more qualified people around. I was glad that at least Raubahn lent a hand (pun intended) to support her leadership. 😊
Honestly it’s not accurate to say that Lyse is so accomplished on paper. From what we see of her from 2.0 on she is almost exclusively Papalymo’s sidekick. When he died she had nothing tethering her to her Yda persona and all the characteristics that afforded-she was not an archon, she was not strong with aether manipulation, she had not been a disciple of Loiusoix or a member of the Circle of Knowing-she was a young woman from Ala Mhigo who had lost all her family but found the power to fight for causes. I think her character was never this deep and people kept assigning all this meaning to her that was never there.
The part that people skip over in discussing what Lyse did as "Yda" was the fact that she did so much good and didn't get/take credit for it. It was all in her sister's name, her sister's legacy. "Lyse" doesn't get credit in the minds of those she saved/helped, Yda did. The normal person doesn't know who Lyse is, they know Yda was their hero.
I will defend the collection scene because even though she brought in a tempered individual, they say multiple times that it should be impossible to summon a primal in the throne room. She and everyone else took precautions to make sure having the tempered one in their midst wouldn't go south. The summoning was an unexpected event to everyone and I don't think it's fair to blame her for being wrong about something that everyone else was also wrong about.
I’m indifferent to Lyse, but I really don’t understand the point of making her Lyse the younger sister impersonating Yda. In fact if she’d remained Yda as the older sister then she wouldn’t have fled at the age of five and thus have no real connection with Ala Mhigo. Being older would have given her memories and more ties to Ala Mhigo than just blood alone. I think the quests in the village where she was born were interesting in that the cynical youth and the elder were right. She has no right to call it home. Sure she was born there but she wasn’t raised there. She stayed away for twenty years and didn’t suffer with the Ala Mighans oppressed by the Garleans. For me the issue is that until the Flow spell in Ul’dah and winds up appearing amongst the rebels then working with them to pay off the debt incurred by being saved by the rebels, she doesn’t seem to care for Ala Mhigo. All of that time before the game starts and during ARR, she does nothing for her people. She seemed content to work with the Scions with very little thought to Ala Mhigo. It’s not until she’s pretty much forced to repay the rebels that she does anything for her homeland. Heck it’s not until the WoL and the Alliance arrive that she voluntarily works for the rebels. Only when the odds shift in favour of the rebels thanks to the Alliance and WoL does she voluntarily work for the rebels. That seems a bit two faced to me. When there isn’t a realistic chance of liberating Ala Mhigo she stays in the Scions and forgets about her people. But when the presence of the WoL and the Eorzean alliance boosts the chances of freeing Ala Mhigo, that’s when she goes full rebel. So she only cares when there’s a decent chance of victory and doesn’t bother to even try being part of the resistance when the odds of victory aren’t so high. Fair weather friend?
To be fair about the last part with her overstating the Resistance in the freeing of Ala Migho .. should be seen as what the Other Leaders did at the commemoration of the Calamity back in ARR overstating their own peoples contribution and focusing on that to reawaken the national spirit and direct it ... so that one thing I dont take a s a negative for her. The whole letting a tempered in is worse by the fact that it was not just Lyse who acts ridiculously, in that instance, but the WoL was there with plenty of experience with Tempered, Yshtola was there, and Raubhan as well whose spent multiple years dealing with the Amalja and them tempering people ... but we all just didnt even shrug at letting them in. Although just letting them in would not be that much of a issue, is that knowing what we know of tempering none of these characters even voiced a suspicion of something being wrong there ...
True, a lot of people did really stupid things in this scene just to make Fordola look cool. But unfortunately the entire scene has Lyse taking center stage, so ultimately the bulk of the travesty rests on her.
@@SynodicScribe The thing is inviting a tempered into the meeting while not the smartest, to prove that you are open to listen to everyone like you claim, is not without merit, as without the crystal she would just babble about her goddess and end up being ignored, an that would be the end of it, even if she tried to get physical, Lyse on her own could handle her .. and you an Raubhan were there as well, so on that point you could call it an calculated risk to prove your point. One sweep with the Scions Aether googles / Ystholas eyes and the whole plan would have been averted, that is the real stupid in here ... at least as I see it. but opinions on it will differ
lyse feels like a person's DND character who in the middle of a campaign decided he wanted to play a different character so came up with a whole background how she was this character the whole time
This analysis hit pretty much every thought I have about this character, and it feels presented fairly as well! This makes me curious about your thoughts on the other leaders in the context of resistance, like Lord Hien and Raubahn.
@@SynodicScribe While I know you are not one to dabble in speculation much, is there any place of debate ( a server, perhaps ) where you would be willing to foster exchanges of views as to how people would rather plot points such as these went?
I think Lyse is a fine character but the problems come because the story focuses to much on her with out other characters getting much screen time. I think what makes the doma parts of the story better is it has a more focus on more characters not just hien we also get gosetsu and yugiri. What makes shadowbringers good is it focuses on not just Thancred and ryne plenty of characters get their moments. Well that what I think sorry about any names I butchered.
I always felt like Lyse outing herself was a step one in resigning from the Scions. Her true identity wasn't as important as the fact that we were saying goodbye to another member.
i am pretty sure the tempered ananta mother was assumed by Lyse and others that she may not have been tempered i dont think anybody knew nor i remember it being said before that moment that the ananta mother was tempered
What also bothers me about Lyse's characterization is that she spends so much time in the story of stormblood trying not to be in her sister's shadow. She's done pretending to be Yda. She's trying to grow and be her own person now. She's Lyse. And then you get the scene where she puts on her sister's old dress. Yes, it's a sweet sentiment to have her sister present for Ala Mhigo's liberation. And if she wore it for a portion of the story and then went back to her old gear i would love it. It would give this impulsive hothead of a character a moment of such care and sentimentality in honoring the dead to show her maturing. But then... she never changes back out of it? She just wears her sister's dress until the end of time. Instead of showing growth the dress is now a symbol of how the story just backpeddled on all the character growth they tried to do. She's hiding behind her sister's identity again. Even if that's not the writer's intention, that's how it reads. So her character just ends up frustrating me. To me Lyse is a good character in theory, but falls short on execution. And that’s almost worse than her just being bad.
I think they shouldn't have went with the whole she's not actually Yda, Yda was a character who died before you even met the person. I threw off my perception of Lyse and made me study her actions far more closely than I normally should have, and then when she started doing anything in Stormblood it honestly made me wish she started acting like Yda again because her character writing seemed to stay a lot more grounded and consistent for her back in AAR.
Lets see... after listening to most of Lyse's story... I have this to present as an idea: Lyse was NEVER supposed to be a real leader of Ala Mhigo. M'Naago was. But Lyse makes a near perfect figurehead and public face of the Resistance. She's Lyse Hext, daughter of Curtus Hext, sister of Yda. People recognize her and her lineage of people who sacrificed their all for Ala Mhigo. Lyse has also had just enough political training from Lord Hien to be capable of at least holding her own in a Republic style debate forum. She's a well known easily recognized public figure tied to genuine heroes of Ala Mhigo. She's personable, conventionally attractive and competent. She's everything Ala Mhigo needs in a public face. The real leaders are the ones behind her who she trusts to actually get shit done on a daily basis. Raubahn especially. Lyse KNOWS she's a Public Face and tends to act accordingly. I did see that in her writing at least.
Never understood why people hated lyse until this video. I never really liked or disliked Lyse as a character. I always felt like she was a background character even as they tried to hype her up. Her "big reveal" that she was pretending to be her bigger sister was lost on me cause I didn't even know/remember she had a sister in the first place so when she goes "sorry for faking to be her" I'm like... "where was this develpment even hinted at". My issue with Lyse isn't that she's the same character she was from start to finish, it's that I feel like she's still trying to be two people at once. I feel like she's trying to be Yda while also being Lyse. She hasn't fully thrown away her mask yet, so to speak and that's why she's not leaning into any characteristics and why there's no development. IT's a huge problem narratively and also why she's simply a neutral character for me. They took no risks with her. Side note: If I remember right, she was kinda roped into bringing the tempered snake lady to the meting cause she still "owns" part of the land and she explcitly tried to take every precaution she could in the event of a summoning, though the method was the most unexpected
It doesn’t help that a lot of her emotional beats were based off characterization I never got to see. The big reveal of her identity fell flat because I didn’t know who Ida was.
wasnt nearly as bad as the yugri face reveal
@@Michael-oc7bt
Yeah, that was full blown..."WTF Moment".
@@Michael-oc7bt if i remember corectly, yugiri face was only hidden because she appeared before the Au Ra race release
You learn a lot more about Yda, and really all of the Scions, in 1.0. A lot of information about them in locked behind that. It unfortunate, because Yda and Papalymo were far more interesting in 1.0
@@notrealsaga In a meta sense, yes. The models weren't ready yet.
even the game kicks her to the side after stormblood w/ the whole "yea the Call only affected those tied to the WoL's fate" thing
thank fuck for that
It’s nice to know that Yda and Papalymo are officially tangential to both the Scions and the Warrior of Light.
The biggest problem I have with Stormblood is I feel like cutscenes are missing. Scenes like Lyse explaining why she took on Yda's mask, clarification from Conrad why he picked Lyse and, probably just as important, the current status of the Ala Mhigan resistance, both before Stormblood and during Doma's liberation.
One of the reason Conrad picked Lyse was because she would serve as a banner to unite the people. This is only mentioned in the short story and is such a crutial point, it feels like it was left out because of time constraint.
The reason she was ACTUALLY picked at the time of Conrad's death was because no one was left to pick, something Ilberd makes clear in 3.5:
"How long have I struggled to reach this point! My countrymen so inured to the taste of defeat, they no longer balk at its bitterness. Shouting my throat raw with rallying cries, only to be greeted with dull eyes and blank faces! My “brothers” and “sisters” in Ul'dah have surrendered to their apathy and their appetites. Were it not for the glint of Lolorito's coin, I doubt even those here now would have answered my call! "Take back our homeland! Free Ala Mhigo!“ Hah! They'll happily mouth the words, but they won't spill the blood!"
So when the question is who to pick out of M'naago, who at the point in time still is just a soildier, or Lyse, who has been with the Scions since near inception and has achievements under the belt, while serving as a banner for the resistance, the choice is clear.
This is not mentioned anywhere in Stormblood. The closest you get from Conrad is from the quest Rhalgr's Beacon where ONE of the dialog options (Good thing they've got you.) leads to the response:
"For now, aye, but not forever. And, to be frank, I don't always know what to say to the ones who left, not to mention the youths. Nay, the Resistance needs a leader with a wider view. Someone who's not lived their whole life in Gyr Abania; who's known death and hardship but not been ground down by them."
A lot of this could have been in a cutscene and the story would have flown better.
As for the castle scene in 4.1, I never really saw that as a problem, mainly because the crystals to summon the primals was smuggled in by tempered soildiers. I have always thought they were temprered beforehand, since the time seems rather short from inception to meeting.
I had hoped that this scene would have lead to her being less naive, which I think it did. Unfortunetly, from thereon out she was "just another side character".
They bit off more than they could chew trying to tell the story of two nations at once for Stormblood. Especially while a bunch of the veteran writing staff was busy working on FFXV instead. The Ala Mhigan side definitely suffered the worst for it. But it also seems like she was supposed to be learning to become a real leader from Hien while we fight to liberate Doma, but despite that being the better half of the story and some scenes kinda working towards that goal, it doesn't really come through either. It often felt like she just shared Alisaie's role of being short-tempered and trying to rush into battle.
It would probably actually have been better if she stayed in Ala Mhigo and learned to be a leader off-screen, as lazy as that sounds. The resistance recovers off-screen anyway.
This! I agree more with this! I didn't think ppl thought the Lakshmi palace instance was that egregious until I heard this video :') If anything, I feel like Lyse doing this as a leader is fully in-character of her, and like you stated, is almost a cornerstone of her current character as part of her character development journey.
The main problem I had with Lyse was right after Stormblood, you start Shadowbringer. In ShB, once you rectify the situation in Eulmore, they elect Chai-Nuzz as mayor. Going through that quest line, all I could think was this is what they were trying to do with Lyse. The key differences being the execution. Chai was elected by his peers versus being given the position from its previous head. We see Chai taking stock of the situation and thinking like a leader versus we never see Lyse do any actual Leadership on camera. We also see that Chai admits he can't effectively lead by himself, so he seeks out Wrenden, a previous official who is more versed in the ways of money versus Lyse never saying she lack certain capabilities a leader should have and the moment she starts to gfail at public speaking, Raubahn takes over and this time is never brought up again. I am not saying there is nothing redeemable about Lyse, but she is a example of "Show, don't Tell".
Also unlike Lyse, he had a background as a leader being the former head of Daedalus Stoneworks. So he knew what he was doing despite the long years.
To me, Lyse turned into the lightning rod that takes in all of criticism of Stormblood's flaws, primarily the mistakes it made with the Ala Mhigo storyline.
You expressed precisely why I roll my eyes every time Lyse is onscreen. Also, as I watched more and more of the video, it solidified my thoughts that M'Naago should have been Conrad's successor, NOT Lyse. She already has experience leading people, she has the NATIONAL ANIMAL as her signature mount, she's been under Conrad all this time, she proves herself later on to be excellent at managing resources, does leadership work by relegating reparations to affected families.... Le sigh. Alas....... 💔
I was baffled seeing Lyse in her dress like dainty pricess come up to middle aged, starving ala mhigan farmers whose sons just got slaughtered like cattle by biggus dickus the imperial and asking them HEEEY WHY NOT FIGHT THO
She was so out of touch it was insane lol, M'Naago being named leader would have been perfect, and even if she did Lyse could still have acted as le symbol of hope as Hext's daughter.
I agree, M'Naago is a great leader and is actually one of the critical leaders in the Ala Mighan republic. But she's not a Public Face. She's someone who actually gets the paperwork and leading done. Lyse Hext has several key traits that make her a perfect Public Face for Ala Mhigo. A former Scion of the 7th Dawn and all the prestige that organization brought with her. The daughter of Curtis and sister of Yda Hext, both of whom sacrificed everything for Ala Mhigo as true Heroes. She's also a very recognizable conventionally attractive Hyur woman with global connections. She's exactly what Ala Mhigo needs in foreign relationships.
I forsee a future where Lyse is slowly moved into being a foreign diplomat rather than a public leader with M'Naago perhaps being the first elected Prime Minster of Ala Mhigo. She's certainly well adored by everyone in Ala Mhigo, Resistance groups or not and did a LOT to help rebuild several factions in the Tribal Questlines. Yes, Lyse being a diplomat and M'Naago being a world leader makes more sense in the long run. But until the government is solidified, Lyse is a Public Face. Someone all Ala Mhigans can claim to know and appreciate and someone whose connections Ala Mhigo's fledgeling government can lean on for critical support in the early years.
That is exactly how Lyse reads to me in her current role, she is the face, but she is absolutely not the one doing the work or being given any critical or meaningful work outside of appearing as the forward-facing agent of the republic. They very mildly try to make Raubahn decision to stay and help run Ala Migho as him just wanting to return home, but it was clear to me that everyone Lyse included NEEDED him to stay, but wouldn't say it aloud that stuff would have gone to shite if he hadn't, he is literally the one keeping the country in line and not descending into a brain dead civil war.
Spoiler but not really, her appearance just before EW starts drives home her downfall as a character. She was given a report, an important one, and admits that she "skimmed it" in what qualifies as a blonde moment of stupidity that they quickly move past...despite my personal desire that they call her out for proving herself once more to be a dunce...who to top it off "pretended" to be an Archon for a while. Seriously if Sharlyan learned that she had been wearing a fake Archon mark with the IQ she has, I can see them breaking their neutrality just to take her to task
@@plebmcpleb5761 She doesn't even wear the dress when she does that so wtf are you even talking about? She wears that towards the end because it was her sisters and she was trying to honor her.
It honestly makes sense she'd be kinda out of touch, she had spent her whole life around people who basically solved all of the problems they ran into by beating people up ( like the WoL and the Scions ).
I mean I don't see this level of hate towards Alphinaud and I'd argue he was even more naive and out of touch in ARR, both Alphinaud and Lyse had character arcs and became better characters but that also hinged on them being naive at the start.
But only Lyse gets shit for it.
Lyse also wasn't just showing up and telling them '' why don't YOU just beat them up? '', she was showing up saying '' why don't WE beat them up ''.
The whole point was that you were there to help and were bringing an army with you to free them.
It's not really that strange that she'd expect them to fight and get hyped up, it's like if Ukraine had lost the war to Russia at the start of the current ongoing war and then the US showed up and were all like '' okay lets beat the shit out of the Russians ''.
You'd expect the Ukranian people to be happy about it and get hyped up and join the US forces and help them defeat Russia.
@@benjaminbierley2074 You're reading way too much into a joke in EW... She has clearly showed that she's a capable leader in the post MSQ of SB.
I really hate this stereotype about blonde people too rofl, the idea that being blonde makes you more prone to being stupid is.... A very stupid idea ( and probably statistically very NOT true at all ).
But it really feels like people just stopped paying any attention to her character after the SB MSQ, she takes a very active part in leading her people forward in the post MSQ and makes a lot of good decisions while at the same time also listening to good advice and recognizing when to listen.
Just a minor thing: you said at the beginning this video have spoilers for Stormblood, but then you mentioned the cure for tempering wich is a Post Shadowbringers thing
I already finished Endwalker but i wanted to point it out nonetheless
As someone whos only just finished SHB msq and not got into the patch stuff learning this bummed me out :|
wish i read this comment sooner.
@@RemnentsPasts I just do not understand watching lore video about a game with endless interconnecting elements and narratives then bitching about spoilers. That’s like not wanting to be spoiled on a show so you look up the synopsis then think omg wtf bro spoilers omg. Omg ABC season 2 is out I don’t want to be spoiled omg wat it’s trending on twitter I better click it omg bro spoilers bro wtf
Normally, when I’m going through a story, I don’t look for character information or analysis on the internet, it’s just common sense…
@@neitherlink6612 normally when watching/reading said information about a character, you check if if you will get spoiled things about the story you still didn't see. And when they explicitly tell you "we will discuss things up to chapter 5" but end up discussing things on chapter 10, it's not the readers fault if they get spoiled. Just common sense.
I've heard a theory that Stormblood was supposed to be about Minfilia rather than Lyse. We do go into the Lifestream and see Minfilia again shortly before Stormblood, followed by returning safely from there, so... maybe that could have happened? And then Minfilia could've had a character arc about being a better leader and wanting to liberate Ala Mhigo because of her father, Warburton.
That's kind of a bummer if so, because not only does Lyse suddenly become a leader-type character out of nowhere after spending most of her previous screentime as the comic relief punch-girl, but it means that Minfilia is basically thrown away after ARR despite the fact that all of the Scions were rather dull in that section of the plot!
If this is true, I am very sad.
I didn't like minfilia as much back in arr, didn't hate her either, but when I began reading all the 1.0 story of her, how she was ascilla (can't remember how to spell it) u can even see her dad dying there.
She was very important, and she felt like a big leader, I am sad bc she suddenly got stripped of her individuality right before stormblood
The devs mishandled her char and tossed her to the side. The same way they did with minfillia, papalymo, moenbryda.
Devs aint infallible...
I agree. I LOVE ffxiv to death. But the writers have made strange or bad choices now and then. Doesn't mean I love it any less, but also doesn't mean I forget about their errors either.
I'd say that Moenbryda's character was great; the only flaw was that she wasn't in the story for as long as she should have been. Minfillia became a far better character once handled properly in Shadowbringers. Papalymo was a good character, but he was hardly in the story until shortly before his death. Lyse, on the other hand, is a central focus in Stormblood, but she doesn't really grow much at all as a character until AFTER 4.0, which is absurdly late. And when she finally does come into her own, she's immediately cast aside and only rarely comes back into the story at all, and even then, only briefly, making you wonder what the point was in the first place.
@@Raptor747 especially with how much they reference her I definitely think moenbryda should've been in longer.
I do think we need another character like Lyse with the Scions. One thing I did appreciate was her earnest and emotional characteristics. Alisaie sort of fits that, but she's more level headed. I just want someone to bring that wild energy to the group, but not obnoxious.
This might be the one thing that really drags down my enjoyment with FFXIV, even in ShB or EW; I can never not think of how Yda, Papalymo, Moenbryda and Ascilia deserved much better even if they were meant to die or leave; how things would be had they stayed around and got redesigns, job changes and chances to develop. Shtola, on the other hand, obliterates herself twice and comes back to tell the tale. These are retcons or echo gimmicks I could get behind, more so than the returning villains.
The arc would have been much better received as-is if she had just stayed Yda and it was Lyse who was the sister who died.
I always thought it was retconned because of what happened with Minfilla. Yda looks as though she was intended to be just a Scion and Minfilla should have led the Resistance because she was the Maiden of Light and Leader of the Scions. But since she got scraped, the story changed.
I just went on my break so this is a nice little video to watch.
Hey same!
Same here
I'll always have a bit of a sore spot with lyse and stormblood for ignoring the fists of rhalgr except for that one line lyse mentions,
And they never bring widargelt like they did with estinien for heavensward. It feel like a natural character to being in, especially with the reveal in the latter half of the monk storyline. Feels like a missed opportunity
I think Estinien worked out because we didn't really get a conclusion with him during the lvl50 jobquest - he just up and vanished with nidhoggs eye iirc and they later told you he did the right thing so all was cool with the holy see and dragoon order again
After the lvl50 Widargelt fight he on the other hand completely gave up on his idea of bringing the (not existing) monk order in to fight for ala mhigos liberation.
His HW quests had nothing to do with ala mhigo per se, only the rival order, and during SB quest his story was about the religious aspects of the order, again not liberation.
I think Widargelts motivations had changed too much by the time SB dropped for him to work like Estinien. The lvl70 monk set is called 'pacifist' for that religious reason too I think. At least in the german translation it is called that.
I unconditionally loved Lyse because I liked her concept as a hot blooded if quick to act but slow to catch up character as we were supposed to see her growth having to live up to the expectations people had of her carrying the legacy of not maybe four people: Yda, Papalymo, Her father and Conrad. I just wished they leaned more into how she actually is learning, and they did try this with the aforementioned scene of Lakshmi in the palace by doing a security check, but there were crystals planted into the pools of the hall. But yeah, they fell on the carrying on the legacy part or trying to be a good leader like Hien but in her own way.
I personally think the issue with Lyse is that she was better as Yda. Not identity wise or anything, but as the foil to Papalimo. The two made for an enjoyable, if often forgettable, pair of the Scions. I always smiled or groaned when I saw the two in ARR, because I knew the comic relief had shown up. And that's not a bad thing. They were like the Scions own Bigs and Wedge in a way. But after the Wall and revelation of Lyse, it felt like all the joy the characters used to have just... left. Again, not a bad thing, but it felt like we were given a knockoff copy of a cheap but beloved joy to enjoy for the whole of Stromblood.
Poor lyse got shafted hard
Another issue I have that didn't get brought up was her constant complaining when people in Doma and Ala Migo wouldn't join to fight the empire. She's essentially telling farmers and others who aren't in best health to go fight an entire militia when everything would be stacked against them, like of course they're not going to join there's nothing much they can do.
You have to understand that she never experienced their life. That is why she acts like that, and it is good!
why? imagine the opposite, Lyse has experienced a life under imperial rule and is always treated bad, She KNOWS the consequences of her action but then she ignores that, tells everyone to rise up and fight, don't think about the consequences after that, fuck your families, let's just mindlessly kill Garleans
How bad can she be?
She is a good character because the way she acts is IN Character with her story, the life she experienced in Sharlayan and as Scions in Eorzea makes her think that as long as you fight bravely everything will end in happy ending.
I don't get why people don't like Lyse for acting like that at the start of stromblood, I don't know why people hate a character acts like they should be
@@altairscauldron9776 Not to mention, she's a highly trained martial artist who can confidently hold her own against multiple of your average soldiers - and she's trying to encourage people to fight whose entire fighting experience has been watching their comrades be beat from a distance. Sure they *could* probably swing a sword at a soldier if they wanted to, then get gunned down almost immediately.
@@ayanhart and that is good beacause she is acting like how she should be.
A naive and shortsighted character acting Naive and Shortsighted is good.
A naive and shortsighted character suddenly acting like a wise man is bad
I've read a few chinese novels which characters suddenly act out of their character and it is awkward and bad.
Lyse acting like herself isn't bad at all.
Teledji Adeleji Acting like a prick that makes you want to kill him isn't bad at all
In the end, the writer's intention is to show a story of about how a muscleheaded girl do when she leads a revolution for the home she almost never visited in most of her childhood.
If that is what the writer intended then Lyse is not a bad character and shouldn't be hated. Instead hate the overall story.
@@altairscauldron9776 Honestly, no, the fact that Teledji suddenly goes full expositional dumbass and getting cut down instantly was absolutely dumb.
As for Lyse, no, she knows the threat a tempered person poses, for one. She's naive, not an idiot. Tempered individuals, by nature, cannot be reasoned with. She should know that. Do we ever see her lament about "Oh but why can't we just talk it out?" With any previous tempered individuals? No. Not that I can remember, anyways.
The crux of my issue with her is that if she's supposed to be a short-sighted dumbass who tells beaten, oppressed and starved peoples to die for *her war,* she's a terrible, terrible person. She gets angry at people for not striking at their oppressors, when she has no experience herself. That's not naive or short-sighted, it's downright blind and depending on interpretation, cruel, even.
"Oh, you won't literally fight and die for *my cause?* how dare you!" And she repeats this pattern, several times.
@@altairscauldron9776 I liked how she acted that way at first because of the same reason, but it also kinda set expectation toward her characterization and growth further on.
Which did not resolve very well at all. She didn't feel like going beyond that point. Started naive, stayed naive throughout the expansion, and then somehow bearing the flag like the spearhead of the whole liberation that happened.
Her writing felt trying hard, yet too lacking, compared to other faction heads in the game. Even Chai-Nuzz was risen to his position smoother than Ryse, and she had half the expansion to do that job while he had like, a few quests.
I have told my FC a lot that Lyse is good but her treatment after the Gyr Abania liberation was bad. I never could pin point what about it I disliked, but your video made me realize why. Great vid.
Her treatment from HW into and throughout was piss poor as well. I'm sorry =/
In my head canon, Conrad chose Lyse to be the resistance leader was a symbol of hope. Some NPC, I think it was Meffrid, said that it would inspire other people to join the cause since she is the daugter of the resistance hero. Also, she being in the Scions and her connection with the Eozean Alliance as well as the liberation of Doma may also played a part. She did not want it and did not know how to handle all those responsibilities but try her best to go along. It's been a while since I play SB so there maybe some other details I miss.
I do agree that SE really mishandled her character big time. I hope she'll come back in the future expansion with more of the character development.
For me the problem with Lyse isn't the character but the lack of background exposition. Everything about Lyse is hidden behind text that isn't obvious, here is how I see Lyse, a kid that lost her parents to war very young, was raised by her older sister, the actual Archon and Scion, becomes an orphan once again when her sister dies, being completely alone in the world decides to join the Scions and pretends to be her sister as a coping mechanism, no one around her really cares and are just happy to have her punching things for them. Then in Stormblood she becomes an orphan once again as the one guy that was close to be her new family dies, she decides to finally drop the act and hang on to the last thing she has, her sister's desire to free Ala Mhigo, a land she doesn't really know. Then she fumbles around it obviously, but does her best.
I just can't hate her, she is uneducated and immature, yes. But why wouldn't she? I don't understand why people expected anything else from her. When Conrad nominated her I wasn't mad at her I was mad at him, he uses her as a figure head because of her parents. Once again this damaged human becomes someone else's punching machine.
Yes this is exactly how I see her!! Especally when you remember each of her family members died trying to save/protect someone or something and thats pretty much the only memories she has of those people so when she thinks of things to aspire to all she can think of is…protecting something or saving someone. So when she meets these people who are in positions to do exactly that and they aren’t it frustrates her because that’s the only thing she would do if she were in their position because thats the memory, the ideal her family left her with
Sort of like Legend of Korra, basically last season is a case study in which the "good guys" who hold political office aren't above trying to plug a puppet into a position despite how clearly bad that sort of play is especially when it is super obvious, and done with a person vastly unqualified for the office. It is grating cause in LoK it isn't called out or addressed either (with the writers visibly having to go out of their way to make Kuvira the bad guy in the situation).
That's a nice way of putting it. I can actually appreciate her if I knew all this (or considered this angle).
Well that's quite an interpretation. Never mind the explicit textual fact that the Scions did care, they just allowed her to pretend to be Yda while she was grieving and unsure of herself. They knew all along Yda was dead, and didn't show it because they cared enough not to add to Lyse's grief, that her pretense was hurting her friends.
Yes!! One major theme in this game that becomes very apparent starting in SB and moreso in SHB and EW is that no one's perfect and will mess up- and *yes* that includes the main characters, the good guys. There are a plethora of characters who do and/or say things that wound up messing things up for others around them.
Lyse never got to have her own identity: she was ripped from her homeland at a young age (5 iirc), which is right around the time that kids start developing their own personality and such. She's thrown into a new world and culture and then her sister dies. I also saw her taking her sister's identity as a coping mechanism too. One thing that I feel is VERY important to note is that the other scions do say they knew all along- *and they still accepted her*. In SB she's trying to find herself while also being in/helping a country that is, very unfortunately, foreign to her yet also a big part of her‐ diaspora basically. I related to this A LOT as a child of immigrants myself. Immigrants who are from a war torn country, no less.
The thing I loved THE most about SB was how very relatable and very human the characters felt. Lyse isn't the only character that messes up: Hien has his moments (that're further explored in the EW role quests), Gosetsu does too. Even the 3 main villains are some levels of sympathetic as well.
Look. I gotta be honest. I liked Yda/Lyse. I started out in Gridania and so she was one of the first scions I interacted with. It was clear she was mostly used as an excuse for exposition but I enjoyed her attitude and looked forward to seeing her grow and how she dealt with all the things to come.
But Lyse? Lyse is a character they pulled out of thin air because they had no plan for Yda, and slapped it onTOP of Yda, told us that was her all along, and called it a day. The character we see on screen is Yda. Lyse is a facade they never finished.
I'm sorry, I hate that I feel the need to put it that way. But I feel like they really dropped the ball with her. And I was really rooting for her too.
Lyse as a character (And Yda and Papalymo)
Was horribly mishandled.
Poggers
Yeah. Papalymo especially. We barely spent time with him. I hated him as the story goes, but I grew to like him at the same time. Reason why I didn't like him, is that the way he was written was just that he was a throwaway character. Like bro.
I felt like Lyse was very static for a large portion Stormblood and just struggled at every chance we saw her. But during the meeting with leadership I thought she was really turning a corner in her struggling with at least trying to get everyone to talk and then extending empathy to what's her name with the angy voice. And then later there's a brief moment where she is seen giving orders to troops and she appears ~very competent~. What that says to me is she is tactically sound but gets emotionally enflamed too easily. And her emotions get the better of her because she cares so goddamned much that she trips over her own tongue and says some dumb stuff. Which honestly... personally relatable.
My biggest problem is that any small steps forward with her character feel totally accidental and not purposefully crafted. And everything else with her is just "ah Lyse being a plot device".
Edit: and yes allowing a tempered to join the meeting was idiocy. Maybe she had hope because of Ga Bu. But even Ga Bu is probably a liability, I'm not far enough along to know how his story resolves.
I enjoy Lyse because she is by and far the most "normal" of the Scions. I mean, look at who she has to contend with. Apart from the WoL, the rest of the main Scions are all Sharlayan super scholars, even Thancred. Yes she makes mistakes, but she owns them. She laments them. But she also tries to do better by them... And she never tries to claim the credit, others claim it for her, hell as soon as Raubahn was available she tried to make him the leader since she knew she couldn't do it herself to the level that was needed. Could the writers have handled her better, oh a hundred times yes most definitely. But what everybody forgets for the most part is who they're comparing her with...
Correct. My suspicion about people with regards to Lyse these past few years is that she was ruining the upper crust Scions by being boorish. She’s treated like you or I would be walking into a rich country club and trying to mingle. The Scions are all elites and she didn’t fit the mold.
Part of the issue here is that she was brought in with a very obvious comparisons to another character, Yda. Whatever image people constructed of Yda, Lyse is compared to it. “Yda” is a stereotypical Scion elite and people feel robbed when she gets switched for a commoner.
Ehh even the WOL is a scholar in a lot of ways, being a master botanist, geologist, ichtologist, a master of not only modern magic but also several lost magic schools (scholar and summoner being standouts considering that they are both revived by the wol and you can count on one hand the number of people that can become either).
That's not even considering that by lvl 60 the WOL is a renowned artisan and the fact that having a strong grasp on aetherology is basically a requirement to be any of the job casters except *maybe* red mage.
The WOL might not have the privileged formal education of the other scions, but if you level all of your classes the WOL is easily an intellectual match for the other scions, which the poster boy WOL seems to confirm to be the case, (the side stories confirm that the summoner team that is made due to the WOL's mentorship and revival of the art are actively operating while the WOL is on the first)
One last note is that only a portion of this mastery of magic can be attributed to the soul crystals since canonically the WOL is developing their own techniques past lvl 70, the only exception being the shb and endwalker jobs
I have no doubt she'll become someone who can stand toe to toe with the rest of the scions eventually, she was practically the kid of the group and was definitely misplaced but she was there for reasons that we know, she just needs time to grow into herself, but alot of people and her haters just write her off etc...
@@Christopher-eq1rnits actually pretty cool when you realize just how much the WoL outclasses everyone, even in scholarship, we may not be official Sharlayan scholars, but we excel at damn near everything.
When I first saw the reveal, I thought that it's just another callback to the 1.0 and that the people would've been pissed about a character getting killed off screen... except as I later have learned, at that point Yda was already dead and Lyse was already impersonating her. And as a result it made me realise that the whole deception was absolutely pointless and unnecessary. Lyse is a character that gained nothing from acting as someone else, and in fact, lost a whole lot due to the players from that point on being uncertain if it's still the same character or someone else entirely. How much of the Yda we knew was how Lyse actually is? Hell if I know, because we didn't spend that much time with her to begin with.
As for after the reveal... I don't much care for the character, because Lyse simply does not have one. She's a very reactionary, boisterous person who is proud of her homeland and wishes it freed from the imperial yoke... which is the personality template for literally every single citizen of Ala Mhigo that we meet, barring Conrad, who is level-headed on top of that. After initially getting our arse handed to us by Zenos, we go on a massive journey with Lyse, who meets all sorts of people she's impressed by and encounters situations that change her worldview... but nothing ever comes of it. It's a journey that falls flat and amounts to nothing, because ultimately, nothing in Lyse actually changes from it. She never becomes a better leader, she never does anything significant (Estinien achieves more and he's barely even in the expansion at all) and reaps all the rewards afterwards. Lyse never earns the praise she gets, and that is infuriating given we, as players, have worked hard for all the credit that is now given to this character we've only just met.
It feels like a terrible self-insert of a character, which is impressive considering she isn't one.
Technically we do see the real Yda in 1.0 long before we meet Lyse "Yda" as the first questlines are the player being unknowingly trapped in an Echo flashback.
But yes we never actually "met" the real Yda in the real world, though we did talk to her in the Echo (it worked differently back then)
@@Lichelf Issue with this is that people that played the 1.0 of FFXIV are few and far between. Those of us who haven't, never did meet Yda and never will, not even through the Echo. It may have been a good story at some point, but it is now obsolete, unreachable. It does not exist.
@@alphadron4073 I was replying to the first part of your comment where you said Yda was already dead in 1.0 and we never met.
I’m not going to try and defend the problems Lyse has, I myself hated how jumpy and “cmon let’s go to war” she was at the start
But where I found interest in her character was that because she was so flawed, the characters around her forced her to reevaluate herself
Her own hometown rejects her, saying there’s nobody left to go fight and that she doesn’t deserve to talk about rising to fight garlemald because she wasn’t there to see what happened in her absence
M’naago at one point when you talk to her even says she doesn’t think Lyse is qualified to lead whatsoever, but Conrad chose her and he died with that as his final wish (not to mention he himself said ala mhigo needs someone with a wider view than just a land of beaten warmongers)
Then she goes to the Far East and asks herself what the hell she’s doing there now that she’s seen the beaten lives of the Domans
Then she meets Hien, a man destined to lead from birth, who gives her some lessons while they’re caged on the steppe
Then there’s fordola, who now that we know was the child Yda saved at the cost of her life, fordola is a perfect foil to Lyse in who she could’ve become and who she can’t allow herself to be, all the while sparing fordola’s life to show her that Ala mhigo can rise again and move on
I’m not denying that Lyse was absolutely shafted by the writers and didn’t earn any of her achievements or titles, but what little she got thanks to those around her I don’t think should be cast aside just because “Lyse bad Stormblood bad”
Exactly
My thoughts EXACTLY
The '' lets go to war '' attitude makes perfect sense, that was the whole fucking point of why they were there...
She brought the Eorzean Alliance with her and the WoL who she knows has been running around solving every problem by beating up every bad guy they come into contact with.
The entire point was to fight the empire, it makes sense she'd think that the people would rise up.
It's like if Ukraine lost the current ongoing war against Russia on the first day and became conquered, then the US and EU showed up and were all like '' okay Ukraine, lets beat the shit out of Russia ''.
I think most would expect Ukrainians to get hyped up and join the US and EU forces and remove Russia from their country.
Also, let's face it, the Eorzean Alliance didn't mind being led into a war. Their only real fear was if they could stand up to the Garleans...and when it turned out they could, well, they didn't beat around the bush with pretense as they went full steam ahead...granted they were able to both in Ala Mhigo and Doma cause Zenos more or less handicapped his forces on purpose cause he wanted to play on hard mode, aaaaand because the Garleans didn't bother with reinforcements cause upper echelons thought they could deploy black rose and deal with it no matter how far such an attack got. Overall, the Alliance got pretty lucky at several points, and shifting circumstances paved the way for them to advance.
based
It probably didn't help that the Doma and Ala Mhigo portions of Stormblood were written by two different people/teams.
Are there interviews where this is touched upon?
Here's one video where it's discussed. ruclips.net/video/Fd8f8veYg40/видео.htmlsi=Y42w26-gS2vjj1sH. Ishikawa wrote the Doman half of the expansion and another writer wrote the Ala Mhigan side of it.@@FlameWish
I am also indifferent, and neither like or dislike Lyse. It's more accurate to say I like who she is, but dislike what she is.
You can't force a square peg into a round hole, and that basically describes Lyse in a nutshell.
8:53 to be fair to Lyse. The tempered in question actively ASKED (well demanded really) to be part of the meeting which is ALMOST UNHEARD OF for tempered. They normally round up who ever they want tempered the present them to the primal for enthrallment. She had basically no way of knowing that they had snuck crystals into the heavily guarded palace to preform an on the spot summoning in order temper everyone. We see four tempered total act in direct subterfuge for their primal I think? Cid's dad(revealed after this in the Shadow Bringers relic weapon quest line), louisoix(revealed in the Coils),Qalyana(revealed as discussed in the video), and Nael Van Darnus(also revealed in coils). Three were rather exceptionally intelligent prior to being enthralled (tho Nael was also CRAZY so take that with a grain of salt???). Prior to lakshmi the two we had seen were notably under Bahamuts influence and if I remember we were told to (basically) never speak of the coils again out side of closed door because Saviors=Louisoix=hero worship=worship=phoenix=summoning=primal??? I don't think we can say it was reasonable for Lyse to look at the ananta woman before her demanding to be allowed to attend the meeting of all the leaders of the land to decide the future of the nation the ananta live in when she was basically acting nothing like the enthralled normally act.
Yes but at the same time....she could've at least "okay sure, but we're gonna restrain your asses just in case"
@@scorpiowarrior7841 For sure! There were options. how ever I don't know if that would have prevented Lakshmi given that the crystals were already in place??? I just. I don't know. ya know?
@@scorpiowarrior7841 to her credit, they did take away what would normally be their avenue for summoning before the meeting. It just didn’t work out because crystals had already been hidden in the pools prior.
Thank you
Replace Lyse with Widargelt and STB instantly improves. Lyse just wasn’t the right character for the story they were trying to tell.
That would have required they actually focus on Gyr Abania in the Stormblood story... and they didn't seem to invested in doing so. I'm glad that at least the level 80 monk quest brings him into it more.
I’m actually leveling MNK right now and I love this take. Ala mhigo got shafted in the story department. It’s a shame because it’s easily my favorite nation and culture in the game.
@@anthonydelfino6171 It's like they got most of the way through SB and they were like 'Oh, right, this is meant to be about Ala Mhigo...'
It should have just been two expansions really, to let them really develop on both the Eastern and Western fronts of the resistance movement - instead they crammed them into one and left a poorly-paced and jumbled mess.
@@ayanhart I mean they could have told both, but they really seemed to have very little interest in telling the Gyr Abania half. We leave the western front by level 61 and don't come back until near the very end of the story, then in patch 4.1 they wrap up everything happening in Ala Mhigo and have us in Othard for the next two patches, dragging out the Yotsuyu redemption story. If they'd spent time in the post expansion in Gyr Abania, I might have felt more balanced.
When I started Stormblood I had such high expectations from the writing team because they had made Alphinaud from my most hated character in ARR for his overbearing pompous attitude to someone that I would be proud to call a friend. Lyse, I feel was never given her time to grow as a character. While Alphinaud's growth was natural and phenomenal throughout Heavensward, Lyse was completely static despite being with us for almost all of Stormblood. It did not help that I lacked context on who her older sister was or why her taking off her disguise as Yda was such a big deal. Papalymo's sacrifice also fell flat for me as I felt we never got to really know him in ARR and he was completely absent during Heavensward.
So in part it was due to some of us lacking the knowledge of her before, but also the fact that she went on the same journey as we did, but seemed to have learned nothing from it. To me, Lyse is just one of those people that you're tangentially friends with because she is a close friend with some of your friends. As a character concept, she is great, but in execution, they missed the mark here.
I like Lyse but I do feel that she has not been handled well at all since a big part of when she was Yda was bouncing of Papa Lime-o but with him dead she ends up feeling like half a character, theres more when I think about it but I don’t wanna ramble too much
I agree, their characters functioned as a duo. She becomes half a character after his death, then about a quarter of one once she reveals herself. Too much missing context to make it impactful.
Lyse is basically a well-intentioned but extremely out of touch and of common sense person that happens to know kung-fu and be around at the right moment at the right time.
She comes off as someone from twitter with super powers.
"Great men do not seek power. They have power thrust upon them." - Kahless, Emperor of the Klingon Empire.
This video is probably the best discussion on the problems people have with Lyse. From what I have seen, everyone who dislikes Lyse has the same general opinion: she's likable at first, but hard to stomach later. The "why" of the matter is what tends to bring up argument. Once more, the general idea seemed to always stem from the increase of attention she got in Stormblood, but it never seemed to be the whole answer.
In the end, the whole problem is somewhat simple; Lyse has a very abrupt character arc. The idea that she would be involved so deeply with Ala Mhigo to the point where she would shirk or abandon the Scions over it is a very solid trait to start with, and especially to build an arc off of. The problem that comes after is that the story never took it's time to involve her in as many scenes as possible in order to make the most of it. Additionally, the story enjoyed continuously showing her inexperience in everything important, despite also saying that he has the potential to be an excellent leader. A better option would have been to have her be distant at first, more involved during the Azim Steppe and Doma, and then become fully engaged during the final raid on Ala Mhigo. The fact that she barely has much to do during the expansion which paints her as the hero - to the point where Stormblood's cover art hommaging "Liberty Leading the People" puts Lyse in the role of Marianne - is at best frustrating, and at worst, a waste of time.
Yes, she's is an opportunistic! She's always saying it was the ala migo's (wich is another way of saying that it was her) but actually it was the Warrior of Light!
@@BranBal Im not gonna go so far as to say she's opportunistic. Lyse was always a patriot and a solution-oriented person. Glory probably didn't mean much to her, otherwise she likely wouldn't have worked well alongside the long-covert Scions.
What I did dislike was how the STORY kept hefting a lot of focus and gravitas onto her, despite the fat that she never really went on an arc or personal journey.
@@GambeTama
I agree with you that she isn't after fame or glory, I see her as an opportunistic person on the hero spot.
She lied her about identity for YEARS. Remember that between 1.0 and 2.0 it has been 5 years already. So, she's been lying for that long.
Just so she could be a member of the hero organization, the Scions
@@BranBal The Scions were all well aware she wasn't Yda, though. I am very much against the Lyse twist and think it was terribly executed, but as convoluted as it was, Lyse didn't lie her way to Yda's spot so much as the Scions kind of took her in as a sucessor, in a similar vein to how the twins want to carry out their grandfather's legacy.
imma say Lyse just that forth person in the group project. she's there, she helped but most if not all the work was everyone else.
I never really thought of her as a great leader more someone who was still learning tbh. I hope she comes back in a future expansion and shows growth because I like her and want her to be better 😁
I dunno I still like her, especially more so the expansions after Stormblood.
Like many said before, Lyse and Yda really needed more screentime for us to get attached to them. But the thing is... Being Yda didn't really change anything about Lyse. If anything, she's just a plotpoint we could omit and there wouldn't be a difference beyond age. What I mezn is that since we don't actually know about the differences between Yda and her sister, the idea of Yda being dead and Lyse impersonating her just doesn't need to be, and Yda could have just stayed herself(in a meta sense) and just be like Lyse the whole SB expansion, and none would know the difference. It could've actually been better if it was Yda staying herself, since we already "know" her enough that Lyse's "character development" (if you could ever call it that, she barely changed) would benefit Yda more, as she would be getting enough screentime to shine because she already has a headstart to go off of. More people would like her and most of the story's developments would flow better too, as Lyse said that Yda did fight for Ala Mhigo and was determined to free it, meaning she would have a drive rekindled after being forced to from Papalymo's sacrifice to work with, that would develop better during the Doma period of the story since she _knows_ she will have to lead her people and would be more likely to get that "character development" than Lyse, even if pretty meh.
Lyse was fine but I feel like we got too much of her during Stormblood.
There is nothing wrong with Lyse from a characterization standpoint. In fact, of the Scions, I was happy she went against the grain. She’s not some scholar, or big deal within an organization, but just a regular citizen who stepped up. She’s young, impetuous, and shortsighted.
I get the feeling that people dislike her because they don’t want their heroes dirty. Alphinaud can fail, because he was betrayed, and is therefore not his fault. But Lyse doesn’t get that break, because she is at fault. There is also the tendency of FF14’s community to celebrate competent bad people and hate incompetent good people.
The castle scene with the tempered individuals to me is probably the dumbest writing ffxiv has ever had. It was modern WoW tier levels of writing. Absolutely awful.
What makes it especially egregious was not just what was pointed out here. She knows about tempering. She's seen it first hand. She's been involved with cleaning up after tempered individuals and primals were stopped.
It's the fact that after letting them in, dealing with the summoning, etc. She gets upset and mad about how they couldn't just talk down the ananta tribe that are tempered. It was honestly like a small child or someone with severe brain damage being unable to accept reality in a very fundamental way. It was infuriating.
Yeah it didn't make any sense.
What pissed me off even more looking back is that she faced zero conquenses for it. Rauban should've told her to just go back to the Scions and let that be the end of it.
I'm not certain of this but hear me out: could all members of a given tribe not be tempered to the Eikon of the religion? Perhaps it was her idealism that selected one of their leaders in hope that she wasn't tempered. Who knows for certain.
@@LordDrail No the tempered tried to muscle their way into the talks by force and instead of killing them like all other tempered we've faced Lyse was like "sure why not." They may have taken precautions but they forgot just how CRAZY the tempered are for the sake of the plot.
@@SynodicScribe True, yeah.
Lyse is less a victim of bad writers and more a victim of the sacrifices made in MMO storytelling especially early in an MMO. Simmilar to Illidan and Kael just randomly being made mustache twirling villians for the BC expansion often a character needs to be sacrificed as fuel for the expansion. In strombloods case Lyse they needed a character with enough of a tie to Ala Mhigo to justify getting involved,a high enough position they could make a difference and someone the player had a connection to so we would care. At the same time they also didn't want to just cut out one of the scions so easier to just retcon her into not actually being a scion. It doesn't make her character better but it does make sense of the story decisions.
while they really dropped the ball while writing for lyse, she's definitely not the worst character i've ever seen. And parts of the downfall can be attributed to certain persistent problems the game overall has. small cracks that started in ARR that carried over into later expansions, but i like to think that many of them were resolved pretty gracefully all things considered.
As a result, Lyse ends up being pretty inconsistent and lackluster through no true fault of her own, because you can tell what the writers wanted to do but couldn't, seemingly because they forgot to show instead of tell. However, the overall writing for Stormblood in general is solid enough that you can see what the intended path for her and the rest of the storyline was meant to be, just beneath the surface of what it ended up actually being.
Yeah. Unfortunately the role they wanted Lyse to fill was that of a complex character, but she was already established as a side/simple character. So it just didn't fit and everyone could feel it.
It is weird to talk about how Lyse doesn't have leadership skills while also acknowledging her actual role IN a leadership position over her people in large battles and her willingness to publicly bolster the people of Ala Mhigo by crediting them with their liberation rather than the warrior of light, a common real world act to give people the pride and morale to continue on, it isn't even something the WoL would disagree with or be annoyed over,but something they would humbly grant and likely even agree with (the WoL doesn't succeed in SB without the resistance groups and their work). Lyse was made an important figure in their society, not because she is wise in choosing non-impulsive acts. She is made an important governmental figure because she fought and led people there long enough to win hearts and minds, which is all that is required for someone to be appointed a position in that situation, the people wanting it. Plus it is kind of implied that she is a good leader in battle, but you don't really get to see that as you are often leading when you are with her. Anyway, it is portrayed from the start NOT as a position she was perfectly suited for, but one that NOBODY Was suited for and that she would work hard to fit into. Leading her people towards being a republic, I don't think we can call her job here a failure either. She's simply someone who is forced to grow a little quickly in tasks she isn't experienced in.
This. It's obvious that she's not as articulate as her Archon companions, but no matter the odds, she takes up the responsibility of leading the resistance and doesn't fail that at all. She's just lucky, you say? Well then, I'd sure hope there aren't other characters that made major fuck-ups but got lucky 😉 (that includes the WoL). A hero moves and finds ways forward, despite how grim things look, and sees things to the end. Lyse, like all the other great characters in ffxiv, does so.
@@wamken619 thank you
God bless you
I have wondered if Lyse’s hamfisting into a figurehead was an intentional commentary about how these historical figures are created. It is true that she takes a lot of credit for these things, but at the same time it was not like she was intentionally stealing all that credit too. We think of our history idols in an often gilded aspect, with too much decoration, barely allowing others to think critically of them as doing that is painted as treacherous to patriotic feelings. I am doing mere speculation, but i feel like that was part of the intention all along, history merely chose Lyse as the figure of resistance despite of the truth on her actions.
Tbf to Lyse on the whole "tempered snake lady" thing, it seemed like everyone forgot what tempering meant during that bit (which is a meta narrative issue). Cause if they hadn't, they'd have killed the queen right there after beating Sri Laksmi.
My _feeling_ is that Yda; originally intended to be just another Scion, wasn't well favored. So they chose to write a somewhat-clever copout by making her a literal masquerade; giving them the opportunity to swap her character traits for "fresh" ones. How well that worked is up to opinion.
I would love to see a "What it means to be Viera". Great videos!
And I would love to make one, but Square hasn't released any publications covering them or the Hrothgar yet so I aint got nothin!
@@SynodicScribe oh, I see ! Thank you for explaining it ! I'm just happy I got the "What it means to be a Bard", though 😁
Thank you for your videos!
@@ProfBrunoClemente You're very welcome! *bows*
I feel bad for Lyse. She has a lot of potential for pathos if she's brought back.
Her dad, Curtis, led the resistance along with her sister while Lyse was taken care of, then he was killed. Then her sister studied and became an Archon and helped found the Circle of Knowing while Lyse was taken care of, then she was killed. Louisoix took care of her and was killed. Then Minfilia. Then Paplymo. Then Conrad. And now Raubahn is stepping up as a leader while she's again being taken care of.
At every step Lyse has been the baggage, perpetually behind everyone else. She was too young to help with the resistance, then too young to study in Sharlayan, then too inexperienced to help the Scions without Paplymo's constant guidance, then too inexperienced as a military leader to help the Resistance when they needed her, and now too inexperienced as a political actor to help with the rebuilding. And she knows this. She desperately wants to help but keeps failing while she's surrounded by the most incredible people in the world who seem to succeed in everything they try. So she tries her hardest to do her best, always giving 110%, and denying any kind of weakness in herself because she has to be strong and do what Yda would have done.
But she's not really Yda, that mask wasn't hers. She's not really a Scion, the tattoo was fake. Not really an Ala Mhigan, she hasn't worn a dress like that since she was a child. But she's trapped by an identity she felt forced into. In that way, she has more in common with Fordola than anyone else.
Pretty well said, I like Lyse alot too. And she has plenty of potential to be great as those as well. Thr writers just need to do something about it and imo bring her back to the main cast.
I actually think this is a problem other characters in Stormblood have. Thancred is a good example. Preacher's analysis of him preShadowbringers brings it to mind. Sometimes, ff14 can be guilty of telling us things about characters rather than showing.
They tell us he's a great super spy, but then, on his infultration, he doesn't notice the giant dragon in the back of the palace.
I think sometimes 14 wants to do cool things, but it is accidentally at the expense of the cast. They also want us to be main hero, so other characters often are the casualty.
Lyse's promotion felt like nepotism to me because of her father's legacy. She was like the incompetent middle manager who got promoted for being a nice person and being related to he right people. I also noticed that she did not look like she was from Ala Mhigo nor have an Ala Mhigan accent despite being from there? She looked really misplaced as their leader, it really bothered me.
It felt like that because that is exactly what happened. The only thing mitigating how disgusting the circumstances are is that Lyse, despite being a fuck up, is genuinely a good person. Nepotism usually ends up with tyrants, but at least we know she's too nice and incompetent to become one.
@@HCSR2 Ehhhhhhh... actually, very good but incompetent people are the births of tyrants. Easy to manipulate into "doing the right thing".
Well, Ala Mhigo has a long history of political corruption so it’s nice to see the revolutionaries upholding tradition right off the bat.
She was a bland character with good development.
The problem comes up when you have to spend 10 levels with lyse, after spending the past 10 with Estinien
Estinien and Ysayle tbh, Estinien alone is honestly quite bad
If she isn't brought up, I forget she exists.
I just dont understand how theres any resistance left? The causalities at the wall to summon Shinryu, 20 years of occupation, and that last beat down by Zenos only for this wet behind the ears outsider be the new leader??? How?!
*MAGIC*
People : "Lyse has no character development"
Literally Lyse : *abandons the life she knows and love to take care of a nation when she didn't want to do that in the first place*
Character development isn't just a change in attitude or emotionality. Just because she stays brash and feisty doesn't mean she didn't evolve.
I started in Gridania so I really wanted to like Lyse. I loved her dynamic with Papalymo too and I like girls that are go getters like Alisaie and not ARR Minfillias who do nothing but get kidnapped. I really wanted to like her. But I feel lile they didn't even portray her go getter fist first side well that we got with Yda. So I'm sad.
I do tolerate her though. Perhaps bc she always shared the screen w a chara I actually liked (Hien, Alisaie).
I think Lyse falls flat because she's more of a metaphor for some players' attitudes toward this war instead of being a nuanced character in her own right. Especially after Heavensward where we ended a war with like a dozen people, maybe, players needed the reality check that war sucks and you can't just charge in, win a pointless skirmish, and leave. Especially younger players or those less familiar with the complexities of a real rebellion.
Stormblood's themes revolve around rejecting (as best they can) the traditional media's portrayal of war as this thing where you can just go in, win one big battle, then it's all over. It forces you to face the innocent civilians caught in the cross fire and explains why people don't do as Lyse (and often Yugiri and the WoL!) would want and just fight the baddies.
Every time Lyse makes one of those dumb decisions, it's because she's being used to reflect the simpler mindset of war and justice. My favorite example is early in Stormblood where you save this guy from some beastmen so he can deliver some money to Fordola's goons. When the guy gets beaten up unfairly, Lyse wants to jump into action. This is that simpler mindset that demands immediate justice. Someone has to actually explain to Lyse that no, that's a bad idea because that will directly affect the village he's from and the people who live in it. It's not just an explanation for Lyse - it's an explanation for why the WoL can't just run up to them all and slaughter them in like 2 seconds.
The scene with the tempered snake ladies is also explained by this style of characterization. If the primary goal of Lyse's character was for her to be a nuanced, well-rounded character, there would be no way she would host that meeting. But the writers needed to explain why tempered leaders could be so dangerous and why the idea of inviting every single person to the table just isn't feasible. They needed to show that the perfect happy ending of "everyone sits down and invents democracy" isn't possible with some people who are just hell-bent on war or zealotry.
Lyse's missteps do a lot of "showing" for why the WoL can't punch their way through every problem, and it also shows why we can't do that in real life either. Could she have been written better? Oh yeah. But I think discussing her flawed characterization without understanding her role in the narrative is missing half the point of her existence.
Not to mention they sacrificed Papalymo for literally nothing (as his sacrifice was ultimately pretty much gratuitous and useless) instead of developing the relation between her and Papalymo as she becomes Lyse and see their relationship evolve from being comedic relief to 2 friends with layered personalities and Papalymo COULD have sacrificed himself to save ala mhigo in front of Lyse and make his sacrifice that much more significant and meaningful. Instead I feel like they were 2 characters the devs kinda didn't know how to develop and tossed them to the side for that very reason.
Yeah it's a shame. Papalymo's lore is deeper than anyone will ever know.
Precisely! Had they made Papalymo and Ascilia the foci of the expansions they sacrificed themselves in - maybe showcasing how keeping Shinryu sealed was taxing him and, as his master, he was accounting for his own sacrifice at some point, but he still strove to see Lyse grow out of Yda's shadow / how Minfilia could take over Ascila and be a dancer mirroring her mother, and talk about Ala Mhigo events etc but aware all along that she was on a last journey and would eventually help Ryne grow into her owj person and ease Thancred's mourning, these characters would have been as meaningful in their parting as Hauchefant,if not more. Not to say anything of Moenbryda.
to be fair about inviting the tempered - She DID think about it, it wasn't impulsive like usual. She planned for it. Lyse says herself "what could I do, just NOT invite this ONE group?" Which like, yeah, that would've looked pretty bad. She acknowledges it's risky and dangerous- but she didn't expect some of the ala mhigan guards to be tempered as well, who then stored crystals within the chamber for an impromptu summoning. And honestly who could have expected that. She made up for it by grabbing Fordola to protect everyone. I thought she handled that well in the end.
I wish they would have focused on her brash and impulsiveness. Had her question herself. Look at her decisions and make her question her leadership and whether or not Conrad misplaced his faith in her.
Her biggest and best moment was when she shed her disguise like Papalymo has said to do. That she pushed forward in his name. Lyse has this fire in her, one that burns when she's fighting for her friends. I felt like they didn't focus enough on the moments like that. Lyse's weakness may be her impulsive brashness but her greatest strength is when she digs her heels in she can't be moved. She's this stubborn, impenetrable wall.
I wanted them to show some vulnerability in her and show that trademark Lyse invulnerability. That grit her teeth and fight back fire she had but they spent so much time using her as a vehicle to push the plot they didn't give her enough time TO BE LYSE.
I want to like Lyse, because who doesn't want to love the freedom fighting Monk girl who punches everything like you smooshed Sabin and Tifa togther with a dash of Char, but I just wind up not caring very much in the latter half of the content. They don't really let her do anything, including not letting her make important mistakes before becoming a leader to show her how to be a better one. She gets talked down to for trying to help because she'll only cause more trouble at the wrong time, which is important to learn but not something she learned by doing and growing. And then we get told she accomplished things that she didn't do on screen, just like with Yda. Add insult to injury in not even being considered one of your close companions to be brought over into Shadowbringers, especially if you're a player who's been with her since Gridania. The Crystal Exarch sadly winds up being written better as a close friend than Lyse in less time.
Lyse as a character is fine, even if the reveal was a bit.. unnecessary and didnt lead anywhere. The problem was that too much was put on her characters shoulders to carry the entire Ala Mhigan story. In Doma the burden of the story was shared between many different central characters but in Ala Mhigo it was all put on her so her characterization, growth and story progress suffered for it. Plus, the writing team for Ala Mhigo just wasnt as good as the one which wrote Doma.
They should have created a dynamic with Raubhan as the leader with Mnaago and Arenvald alongside Lyse in a trio. That would have shared the burden of the various elements between them. Ruabhan, the old warrior returning home with the weight of leadership, Mnaago the local rebel soldier who grew up in the occupation, Lyse the refugee returning back home to a land she barely remembers as a child and Arenvald, the half-breed ala mhigan fighting for his homeland despite his status in their eyes. That would have enriched the story.
I didn't care Lyse/Yda in ARR she was like a "Oh yeah your here." Thing but in Stormblood she quickly became one of my favorites and most cared for characters for me I personally did like her traits I think they fit her pretty well
Lyse invited a tempered to the meeting because Fordola had to have her moment to shine and ultimately brought to the alliance's side. It 100% could've been written better and it sucks that it makes Lyse look downright incompetent.
I will give lyse a slight pass for that Lakshmi thing because she doesn't want to assume that they are all tempered
I mean ananta beast tribe quest even some of them defecting meaning they still are themselves, even late shadowbringers shows that there are plenty members of the tribes that aren't tempered
also they do take measures in case they do try to pull something like putting guards outside the chamber(that may have been Raubahn's idea) its to bad they didn't know that some of them have been tempered
she does do something smart to try to fix the problem by getting Fordola to help
you can make the argument it was a problem that she created or that they could have checked if they were tempered beforehand (something we found out that Y'stola can do after the fact)
the other points about Lyse I do agree with her being naive and not doing anything to be worthy of leadership role
I think that incident was the devs trying to address those issues and I think they did a pretty good job
Something about tempering individuals not being able to reasoned with. I may be totally wrong in my assumption of Lyse in the particular instance of inviting such a threatening individual but no one else (outside of the Scions of the 7th Dawn) knew of the threats of the tempering.
If a person wishes to create a republic and doesn't invite a single group that has been part of the country for many years, it may seem a bit dishonest. Now Lyse could explain "tempered people can not be reasoned with" bit it may seem a bit off putting.
Inviting once enemies or even just outright enemies can show that one is truly willing to change for the better. At leat that's my opinion. However, I don't know if Lyse had the same thought at the time.
Great analysis. Personally, I love Lyse and seeing your analysis describing all the potential she could have been from the writing makes me wish it was executed properly.
I would agree that her writing has flaws and agree with your take on her inconsistences. If they pushed a little more and added a little more of conflict and change, she could have been more awesome to me.
I still like her. Maybe it is my bias towards a war-based (revolution) story but seeing how much they had to fit in for every place, person, and thing, I think the writers did their best in balancing everything that matters.
My biggest problem w/ Lyse all comes from the questline in Shirogane, where we were gathering information, I think looking for Gosetsu and Yugiri. The woman in the Hostelry says straight up "If I tell you about whom you're looking for, I'll have to tell others you were here, too" to which Lyse agrees. I get we need any potential avenue we can get for gathering info, but knowing that Garleans also come through Shirogane, Lyse not exercising due caution kinda bothered me there, since she also knows the threat they possess
I think the things I don’t like about Lyse are: 1. I didn’t care for Yda that much to begin with-- she seemed dim and unhelpful (getting leg cramps so she can’t dance for the sylphs, for example. 2. It was revealed that the real Yda died years before, presumably before our character was involved with the scions, thus we never really knew her and don’t really need to mourn her. 3. Despite the fact it was Lyse all along, her character seemed to change abruptly from being ditzy and silly to being outspoken and grumpy. Maybe it was her being sad about Papalymo, but I don’t think we ever delve into that. He pretty much just gets forgotten for the most part.
I understand the criticism of her actions at the summit, but what choice did she have? If she turned the tempered ananta away, it gives them cause to go to war and invalidate her claims of a united gyr abania.
The best option she had was to trust the castle guard to ensure nobody brought in aethereal crystals. She could not have known they were tempered and commanded to sneak some in.
They could have just said no. As proven, the tempered wanted a fight even under peaceful terms. They'd have went to war no matter what and everyone knew that, but they shrugged and went with it anyways to feel good about themselves.
@@SynodicScribe I think you’re forgetting that writers like to make their characters mess up, which then creates a consequence that is usually met with, in this stories case, defensive action which involved squeezing in some gameplay for us, rather than just a cutscene. The whole scenario of that was of an INEVITABLE mistake born out of hope to see a united country. Just as other commenters have said, that I might add you completely left out of the video, she had know way of knowing they had crystals on them. However, she could have big brained and thought maybe they might just send someone who is already tempered and faithful to Laki, but she let her heart cloud her judgment, ultimately deciding to have faith that they will hopefully come to a peaceful agreement. Checking them before they entered like they are the TSA would have also clearly showed their distrust so they didn’t do that. She definitely took a huge risk letting them in, but she wanted to fight that inevitability which ultimately, was the mistake that the writer had INTENDED.
Allot of her involvement was milktoast from the beginning until I think the writing team tried to do more for her in the first patch quests. A important aspect that keeps her from being completely boring to me is that she manages to use her naïve idealism and stubbornness to convince the butcher of all people to aid them full well knowing the pain her powers and choices weight upon her. She's meant to be the glue, not the substance of anything in the future of Ala Mihgo. She connects the people that are needed for their respective expertise. That's at least the impression I think the story could have gone with if they executed it better - maybe include some Echo scenes with her time as a child with the real Yda and her father. Give the impression she lacked for many things from the very start but she could bring people together somehow (She can't be a leader like Hein, Rauhban, Nanamo etc.).
How I saw Lyse's ark playing out: Absolutely hates Garleans, wants them all dead. Is put in a situation where she sees them as people, not the boogeyman. Gets a more nuanced understanding of the world and how/why she fights. That didn't happen, instead she does not change at any point.
'' That didn't happen, instead she does not change at any point. ''
Uum.
She literally goes with you to Garlemald in EW specifically to help free the Garleans.
Lyse at the end of Stormblood is a totally different a much more mature person to than at the start I dunno how you can say this.
@@yfir1463 maybe he just want to keep the hateboner on Lyse going
@@yfir1463 She’s just not tho. She still has a very immature black and white outlook. Hell, she tried to stop Zenos from himself. What was her plan if she succeeded? He’s far too powerful, insane and dangerous to be left alive, yet she still tried to have him stay alive. Yes, same result probably in the end, but that’s not the point.
Please explain what mature things she has done, cause I’m drawing a blank.
Also she’s fucking brain dead. Sees people that live in and are used to the cold dress even more prepared for the cold, and someone who exudes a constant aura of heat also dress and stay dress for the climate appropriately, but nah, she’ll be fine in her extremely light outfit, she just needs to fight to warmup. 🤦🏼♀️
@@yfir1463 Yeah in EW she changed but did we see any of that change ourselves during stormblood? Its what the OP is trying to say that she didn't grow DURING Stormblood so we can like her character and feel related to it. Not after it off-screen.
@@MayHugger Okay the warm cloth thing, you mean the one in EW where we take to fight to the castle right? First I dont think she's wrong, moving around and fighting dose make you warmer. Second, she's not the only one wearing there usual outfits (0 0;;; all the Scion or wearing their outfits (you have Urianger freezing to death in his "light clothes") and they decline Cirina's warm clothes cause they want to fight in their own. I just confuse with this one you pointed out that's all, but I understand that we can blinded by hatred and rage sometimes. Or maybe I'm bias who knows. Hope I clarify it :)
I like Lyse. Shes the only Scion who isnt at least mostly characterized from jump. She struggles with more relatable issues than just big scary stuff like primal and ascians.
Insecurity is one of the most stereotypical characterizations you'd get in Shonen Jump.
I feel like there was a missed opportunity for Lyse’s character growth when Conrad thrust the leader role upon Lyse. I would infer that he did this because of who her father was, and this could have been another opportunity to explore how Lyse is still living under the shadow of long-deceased family members, this time being her father instead of her sister. There was an opportunity to explore that part of her and for her to grow beyond that.
Indeed. I'd go as far as saying her arc could have taken much more interesting turns towards leadership, from not wanting to involve herself with Ala Mhigo (and hiding her face so as not to be recognized/confused with her relatives) given her father was manipulated by Garleans and her sister died trying to help without support from the Alliance - to eventually trying to further their efforts her own way. Maybe even in support of Minfilia, who was also Ala Mhigan; only to have to step up in her place, were she to get Word-of-Mother'ed at the end of STB. We could've seen a more authentic and organic character ark withouth the Yda/Lyse twist, and I feel it would work much better with the public.
Maybe its cause i started in gridania but i actually like lyse… even if that reveal was eh. Like that hold zero weight but i never saw her any different after the reveal tho i do miss her silly banter with papalymo.
This. So much this!
I've always felt that Minfillia should of been the main character of Stormblood (or at least the Ala migo part) as she's the one with the biggest connection to it. But I think when they wrote out Minfilla they realised they didn't have a suitable replacement and haphazardly inserted Yda/Lyse into her role
If you look at a lot of Lyse's backstory, it seems oddly similar to Minfillia's. From the start, she doesn't have the Ala Mhigan connection/goal until the end of HW, something that has always been on Minfillia's mind. They both have fathers that were related to the resistance in some form, and they both have different names(though for different reasons). The even worse part of it all? They didn't even need to do the Yda/Lyse shenanigans because it doesn't do much except to establish a flimsy backstory for her. The scions knowing adds insult and really puts into mind "we trained her wrongly as a joke".
Lyse was being worked up to be part of the Ala mhigan story since 2.0
I agree with what many others have pointed out here: much of what should have been shown in Lyse's story is instead just told. It's just too bad that her "screen time" was instead taken up by other characters in Stormblood like Fordola and Yotsuyu instead (though I'm really glad we got to spend as much time with those two as we did!), I don't feel like we spent enough time in post-Stormblood on the rebuilding of Ala Mhigo and Lyse's role in it. (We helped rebuild Doma, so it feels like rebuilding Ala Mhigo should've been the next step.) Fortunately in this case, I think there's still a lot more opportunities for them to do Lyse's story right in future content.
Indeed, it does feel as if Ala Mhigo was put aside (and wasn't even given an alternate version, Norvrandt's Gyr Abania being Ronkan ruins in their version of the Shroud) and never really that much beloved by the writers and designers; I wonder if one day we'll ever get a restoration and a revamp of the map areas that makes the whole setting more appealing to players so we can care more about it.
Truly wouldn't mind a rewrite of Post-ARR and STB via Alexander Timelining Retcons, despite Venat's EW lessons.
Ilberd did more to free Ala Mhigo than Lyse did, a true saviour. Rest in Peace
Thank you so much for this video!☺️ I've been struggling to find the right words to express my frustration with Lyse's character. I know I am supposed to like her but something about her just didn't feel right. I liked her in separate individual moments, but as you say, she was inconsistent and even reckless at times, so I just wouldn't trust her to make the right decisions (even though she has good intentions) and to lead! There were far more qualified people around. I was glad that at least Raubahn lent a hand (pun intended) to support her leadership. 😊
Honestly it’s not accurate to say that Lyse is so accomplished on paper. From what we see of her from 2.0 on she is almost exclusively Papalymo’s sidekick. When he died she had nothing tethering her to her Yda persona and all the characteristics that afforded-she was not an archon, she was not strong with aether manipulation, she had not been a disciple of Loiusoix or a member of the Circle of Knowing-she was a young woman from Ala Mhigo who had lost all her family but found the power to fight for causes. I think her character was never this deep and people kept assigning all this meaning to her that was never there.
The part that people skip over in discussing what Lyse did as "Yda" was the fact that she did so much good and didn't get/take credit for it. It was all in her sister's name, her sister's legacy. "Lyse" doesn't get credit in the minds of those she saved/helped, Yda did.
The normal person doesn't know who Lyse is, they know Yda was their hero.
And we don't really now who the hell Yda really was. They told us, they didn't show us DESPITE THE FACT THAT THE ECHO EXISTS!
excellent analysis of her character and why i never truly fell in love with her character like i did with many others in ffxiv.
I will defend the collection scene because even though she brought in a tempered individual, they say multiple times that it should be impossible to summon a primal in the throne room. She and everyone else took precautions to make sure having the tempered one in their midst wouldn't go south. The summoning was an unexpected event to everyone and I don't think it's fair to blame her for being wrong about something that everyone else was also wrong about.
I’m indifferent to Lyse, but I really don’t understand the point of making her Lyse the younger sister impersonating Yda.
In fact if she’d remained Yda as the older sister then she wouldn’t have fled at the age of five and thus have no real connection with Ala Mhigo. Being older would have given her memories and more ties to Ala Mhigo than just blood alone.
I think the quests in the village where she was born were interesting in that the cynical youth and the elder were right. She has no right to call it home. Sure she was born there but she wasn’t raised there. She stayed away for twenty years and didn’t suffer with the Ala Mighans oppressed by the Garleans.
For me the issue is that until the Flow spell in Ul’dah and winds up appearing amongst the rebels then working with them to pay off the debt incurred by being saved by the rebels, she doesn’t seem to care for Ala Mhigo. All of that time before the game starts and during ARR, she does nothing for her people. She seemed content to work with the Scions with very little thought to Ala Mhigo.
It’s not until she’s pretty much forced to repay the rebels that she does anything for her homeland. Heck it’s not until the WoL and the Alliance arrive that she voluntarily works for the rebels. Only when the odds shift in favour of the rebels thanks to the Alliance and WoL does she voluntarily work for the rebels.
That seems a bit two faced to me. When there isn’t a realistic chance of liberating Ala Mhigo she stays in the Scions and forgets about her people. But when the presence of the WoL and the Eorzean alliance boosts the chances of freeing Ala Mhigo, that’s when she goes full rebel.
So she only cares when there’s a decent chance of victory and doesn’t bother to even try being part of the resistance when the odds of victory aren’t so high.
Fair weather friend?
To be fair about the last part with her overstating the Resistance in the freeing of Ala Migho .. should be seen as what the Other Leaders did at the commemoration of the Calamity back in ARR overstating their own peoples contribution and focusing on that to reawaken the national spirit and direct it ... so that one thing I dont take a s a negative for her.
The whole letting a tempered in is worse by the fact that it was not just Lyse who acts ridiculously, in that instance, but the WoL was there with plenty of experience with Tempered, Yshtola was there, and Raubhan as well whose spent multiple years dealing with the Amalja and them tempering people ... but we all just didnt even shrug at letting them in.
Although just letting them in would not be that much of a issue, is that knowing what we know of tempering none of these characters even voiced a suspicion of something being wrong there ...
True, a lot of people did really stupid things in this scene just to make Fordola look cool. But unfortunately the entire scene has Lyse taking center stage, so ultimately the bulk of the travesty rests on her.
@@SynodicScribe The thing is inviting a tempered into the meeting while not the smartest, to prove that you are open to listen to everyone like you claim, is not without merit, as without the crystal she would just babble about her goddess and end up being ignored, an that would be the end of it, even if she tried to get physical, Lyse on her own could handle her .. and you an Raubhan were there as well, so on that point you could call it an calculated risk to prove your point.
One sweep with the Scions Aether googles / Ystholas eyes and the whole plan would have been averted, that is the real stupid in here ... at least as I see it. but opinions on it will differ
lyse feels like a person's DND character who in the middle of a campaign decided he wanted to play a different character so came up with a whole background how she was this character the whole time
This analysis hit pretty much every thought I have about this character, and it feels presented fairly as well! This makes me curious about your thoughts on the other leaders in the context of resistance, like Lord Hien and Raubahn.
I could cover them! Might try another character analysis later some time.
@@SynodicScribe While I know you are not one to dabble in speculation much, is there any place of debate ( a server, perhaps ) where you would be willing to foster exchanges of views as to how people would rather plot points such as these went?
Lyse was the DAGGER that hamstringed alot of storm blood.
I think Lyse is a fine character but the problems come because the story focuses to much on her with out other characters getting much screen time. I think what makes the doma parts of the story better is it has a more focus on more characters not just hien we also get gosetsu and yugiri. What makes shadowbringers good is it focuses on not just Thancred and ryne plenty of characters get their moments. Well that what I think sorry about any names I butchered.
I always felt like Lyse outing herself was a step one in resigning from the Scions. Her true identity wasn't as important as the fact that we were saying goodbye to another member.
I’m passionately neutral about Lyse. I like her well enough but I didn’t click with her story like I did with the other Scions.
I liked lyse but yeah I preferred when she was Yda
i am pretty sure the tempered ananta mother was assumed by Lyse and others that she may not have been tempered
i dont think anybody knew nor i remember it being said before that moment that the ananta mother was tempered
What also bothers me about Lyse's characterization is that she spends so much time in the story of stormblood trying not to be in her sister's shadow. She's done pretending to be Yda. She's trying to grow and be her own person now. She's Lyse. And then you get the scene where she puts on her sister's old dress. Yes, it's a sweet sentiment to have her sister present for Ala Mhigo's liberation. And if she wore it for a portion of the story and then went back to her old gear i would love it. It would give this impulsive hothead of a character a moment of such care and sentimentality in honoring the dead to show her maturing. But then... she never changes back out of it? She just wears her sister's dress until the end of time. Instead of showing growth the dress is now a symbol of how the story just backpeddled on all the character growth they tried to do. She's hiding behind her sister's identity again. Even if that's not the writer's intention, that's how it reads. So her character just ends up frustrating me.
To me Lyse is a good character in theory, but falls short on execution. And that’s almost worse than her just being bad.
I think they shouldn't have went with the whole she's not actually Yda, Yda was a character who died before you even met the person. I threw off my perception of Lyse and made me study her actions far more closely than I normally should have, and then when she started doing anything in Stormblood it honestly made me wish she started acting like Yda again because her character writing seemed to stay a lot more grounded and consistent for her back in AAR.
Lets see... after listening to most of Lyse's story... I have this to present as an idea: Lyse was NEVER supposed to be a real leader of Ala Mhigo. M'Naago was. But Lyse makes a near perfect figurehead and public face of the Resistance. She's Lyse Hext, daughter of Curtus Hext, sister of Yda. People recognize her and her lineage of people who sacrificed their all for Ala Mhigo. Lyse has also had just enough political training from Lord Hien to be capable of at least holding her own in a Republic style debate forum.
She's a well known easily recognized public figure tied to genuine heroes of Ala Mhigo. She's personable, conventionally attractive and competent. She's everything Ala Mhigo needs in a public face. The real leaders are the ones behind her who she trusts to actually get shit done on a daily basis. Raubahn especially. Lyse KNOWS she's a Public Face and tends to act accordingly. I did see that in her writing at least.
And she's getting the experience first hand by being there now so for later she'll be well rounded...
Never understood why people hated lyse until this video. I never really liked or disliked Lyse as a character. I always felt like she was a background character even as they tried to hype her up. Her "big reveal" that she was pretending to be her bigger sister was lost on me cause I didn't even know/remember she had a sister in the first place so when she goes "sorry for faking to be her" I'm like... "where was this develpment even hinted at". My issue with Lyse isn't that she's the same character she was from start to finish, it's that I feel like she's still trying to be two people at once. I feel like she's trying to be Yda while also being Lyse. She hasn't fully thrown away her mask yet, so to speak and that's why she's not leaning into any characteristics and why there's no development. IT's a huge problem narratively and also why she's simply a neutral character for me. They took no risks with her. Side note: If I remember right, she was kinda roped into bringing the tempered snake lady to the meting cause she still "owns" part of the land and she explcitly tried to take every precaution she could in the event of a summoning, though the method was the most unexpected