#''gaius's actions had horrible consequences but we're not gonna show you his actual actions only how fucked up he is about the consies''

[foxpunk]

hmmm okay i have to say i both agree and disagree with this post about the writer for dawntrail and the werlyt questline

like, i agree with the assessment of the original post that "ew that writer redeemed gaius" is simply untrue and not necessarily a basis for saying he'd handle dawntrail with the mindset of "colonizer sympathizing" or anything

....however i will say that OTHER stuff in the werlyt questline aside from gaius himself indicate that dawntrail--an expansion that i am ALREADY LOOKING AT WITH TREPIDATION AS A LATINO--is just...not gonna be handled well. (there's also PLENTY in the other expacs and questlines that make me feel this way but thats about different writers and is for a different post)

just to give one example, the main gripe i have about the werlyt questline is the premise itself. the story and character beats are 99% fantastic. the premise of "orphaned children get indoctrinated into joining the invading army" is a realistic and grim premise that would have served as an EXTREMELY solid foundation for the entirety of the questline to rest upon and examine. it would have fully backed up everything the post is saying...IF we were, yknow, ever actually Shown the indoctrination part. "why do you want to See that happening" some may ask and i counter with "i dont but thats how making a story is. showing has more weight than telling."

here are some things we are Told by characters in the werlyt questline: gaius adopted these kids, and his beliefs (at the time) got instilled in them, a few scenes of them in the army interacting mostly neutrally with gaius as their superior officer

here are some things we are Shown actually happening: a flashback of the kids gleefully discussing joining the army that--VERY RECENTLY, violently, and traumatically--orphaned them because it Might make gaius proud, gaius telling them to Not do that and trying to actively stop them from doing that, a ton of horrible abuse they all go through under someone else's command, and all of them dying anyways

can you see the issue here. showing does more than telling. when your premise is, allegedly, built on "orphaned children get indoctrinated into joining the invading army" proper time and weight needs to be put into establishing the indoctrination bit, or that weight has to settle into the rest of it which only leaves you with "orphaned children (gLEEFULLY?!) join the invading army" which is batshit insane without further context. regardless of what you Wanted to set up and what your Intentions for the story were, you're left with the horribly paced complete disconnect between being Told these kids were violently orphaned by an expanding imperial force and then Shown them sitting around smiling wanting to join said imperial force. and when another major point is supposed to be "gaius is reaping what he sowed" and you rush through and don't actually SHOW him sowing, then the reaping part is gonna seem more skewed on average to your audience. because the amount of weight you are putting into these narrative points is skewed.

even if they were working with constraints for how much content you can put into one side questline and what major beats needed to be in there, it's still horrible choice of focus. dark as it may be, rather than being Shown the scene of them happily discussing joining the army and Told that gaius and some other horrible shit were a factor in that decision, i would've rather just been Told that they gladly joined of their own "free will" and Shown why that is. actually Show us a scene where gaius probably doesnt even consider what he's doing as indoctrination. after all, at the time he believed he was fully in the right. that he was saving and protecting the people he was invading.

show is the sowing so the reaping hits harder. cause like. if you had literally just changed that one aspect of Where they chose to show and tell it would've really elevated the werlyt questline from "has good story beats and Potential to be good" to "has well done story and character beats and is actually good"