side from that though I never understood why people hated it. The geopolitical stuff, and going back between Doma and Ala Mhigo I never thought was an issue. They were clearly segmented into different acts so you weren't juggling them. You can give me all the trash cans you want but I actually like Lyse as a character. I think it's interesting to have a character who is trying to deal with grief and her own feelings of inadequacy by trying to take on an alternate persona. When faced with overwhelming pressure she has to learn to grow past those feelings and rediscover what it means to be herself. She's uncertain, and clearly struggling but she is clearly more capabale than she believes and learns that she doesn't have to carry her burdens alone. If that's not good characterization I don't know what the fuck you people want.
There's some interesting shit with Lyse and Hien and how they're sort of mirror images of each other -- Lyse is the leader who 'wants' to do the right thing but feels that she lacks whatever quality it is, whereas Hien doesn't think that he's worthy of the role and wants nothing to do with it. There's lots of mirrored relationships throughout Stormblood (the most notable being WoL/Zenos) and it's an interesting look at duality and I think has some really strong-for-a-video-game writing.
That said, Lyse is just boring and she was the goofy comedic sidekick who did very little up until the grand reveal that, gasp, she isn't Yda, but Yda's sister (that everyone knew about except the WoL, I guess.)
There's no real attachment or caring about her shit. Compared to Hien, who we get quite a bit of exposition and buildup for him before we actually see him, and who is, you know, competent. Lyse may as well have just been a brand new character airdropped in at the start of the expansion and literally nothing would've changed aside from "This one's for you, Papa Shango."
It's why I feel Raubahn would've been a better overall choice for the Ala Mhigo NPC protagonist, because there is that attachment and connection there that isn't really there with Lyse.
Lyse prolly would've worked if Ala Mhigo was a full fledged expansion (and Doma was a full fledged expansion vs jamming that story into one expansion) and had Raubahn as someone to bounce off of. I just don't think she works particularly well in the story as-is because it's such a weird tonal shift for her character.
Imagine if it was revealed in Endwalker that the Ishgard dandy character was meant to be the savior of everything and we had to go through the entire expansion having him pontificate on how he's not cut out for this, you guys. Same shit.
Shadowbringer does not deserve the praise it gets. Character motivations are all over the fucking place and totally nonsenseical. It's so heavy on plot armor to make things happen, or poorly retconning the story to try and force this new plot to fit. The flood of light is such a poorly explained concept and doesn't really answer wtf happened to the world. No one explains why all the races have different names, they just expect you to already know how the world and it's culture work before the story even starts. They don't even mention that the world is in perpetual daytime until everyone freaks out over seeing stars again. Rather than feeling lost in a new world it was like reading a story with every other page ripped out. And yet that's what the community holds as the gold standard for story telling. If the community thinks that literal trash is good story telling I can see why they hated Stormblood.
I agree that a lot of Shadowbringers is shit but many of the details you say aren't explained actually are (as many people have pointed out ualready.)
And some of the stuff you say is bad is actually pretty good storytelling -- the things like race names being different is meant to give that feeling you're in a strange fucking place where things are different and it gives that alien feel. You're (the generic 'you', not you specifically) either a special kind of retard if you need someone to hold your hand and explain that the catgirls are the same, but, frankly, that is the XIV general audience.
But yeah, there's a lot of problems, a lot of the 'twists' you could see coming a mile away. There are some really strong moments in there, though, and it does a good job of tackling the question of 'what makes a hero?' or 'what does it mean to do the right thing?' It's nothing revolutionary, but it's fucking groundbreaking for a JRPG or MMO to even really be addressing that stuff (although, yes, it does get bogged down with genre cliches.)
There's some fun/interesting stuff in all the expansions, IMO, but it's as someone else said earlier in the thread, people hold this game's narrative up like it's the second coming of Lord of the Rings or something and it's....really not.
