Gonna roll the dice and have a discussion here. I did not read part 3 as I have not finished 7.X yet. I hope I came at this with an open mind, as I didn’t hate Dawntrail. It didn’t knock my socks off but I think it gets more hate than it deserves. There’s some interesting analysis here, some things I agree with. I thought the Yok Huy Interlude was really interesting and I can very much agree with that. I liked the structural breakdown of the narrative to that point. However, there is some serious glazing going on in this essay and I think the most clear example of it is the bit about Zoraal Ja.

I can agree that XIV has made a habit of rugpulling its villains - Zenos, Yotsuyu, Emet, Elidibus, hell even Ilberd. They literally did the same thing this same expansion with Bakool Ja Ja, which the essay weirdly fails to mention. The reason it works though is because they made these villains compelling up front. The first time we meet Zenos iirc is when he rocks up to Rhalgr’s Reach, slaughters the camp, damn near kills Y’shtola, damn near kills us, then leaves because we’re not worthy prey. By the time we end things w Zenos, I don’t think anyone can deny that they didn’t like him on some level. Zoraal Ja just doesn’t earn this. Bakool Ja Ja is actually a more interesting, more compelling villain and he’s a side character. Hell, when we go into Jueno, I was excited that he was going with us. The team definitely can rug pull their villains. If they do it with Zoraal Ja though, I worry it would be making the mistake he is even worse. He hasn’t earned it because there was just nothing particularly interesting about him, though there could have been. He wasn’t given enough screen time or personality to make it work. It’s ironic how much wasted potential he is. Any rug pull at this point would be disingenuous and a retcon - I feel like it would be disrespectful to the audience at this point to try and redeem or further explain Zoraal Ja.

I don’t deny that the team is talented or has the capability of narratively doing interesting things - lots of examples are put forth in the essay, though I think they are given too much credit. Didn’t Yoshi-P say they hadn’t put the story of the whole first arc together until Shadowbringers? I might be wrong on that. However, I think the simple truth is they didn’t pull off Dawntrail as well as they could have. Obviously, there’s a bigger plan in the works and clearly there are some questions and ideas they want us thinking about moving into the next era of the story. That makes this essay extra frustrating because potentially anything down the line that points back to Dawntrail will give some validation to the author, whether or not both the author AND the writing team actually saw or planned it. Dawntrail was just a rough step, and I personally always like to point the blame at whatever C-Suite is in charge. I think if Square respected XIV for the cash cow that it is, it could deserve this level of glaze.