The sad thing is he could have been good
Jan. 25th, 2026 05:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
requiemsShadowbringers is so perfectly crafted to my tastes and this playthrough repeatedly highlights to me how much I really do not jive with the latter half of Dawntrail, because forgetting is the antithesis to remembrance and you all, all the Scions, lived in a world where the love of the people you lost and what you felt for them was at times all that kept you going. It's almost an insult that a zone is called Living Memory, ripped straight from Cylva's conclusion of her questline. Norvrandt did not persevere for a brighter tomorrow to see everything they stand for in horrific parody. It's worse because Tural is right there and seems to be the approximated geographical equivalent to Norvrandt, so I'm doubly mad. But that's a rant for another day.
What's really striking to me is... how poorly Ran'jit fits. He just drags and weighs on the narrative, and not in a meaningful way. His proposed nature is, he got worn down by watching every Minfilia die in his arms - that's fine. I like this. That intrigues me. He accepts Vauthry's proposition towards idleness instead of fighting a seemingly pointless war - somewhat fine. He enforces this through violence, the opposite of the coveted stasis, odd for a character whose whole point is that he has given up - he says the words but the grief that is so well baked into the rest of the entire narrative just doesn't land, for him - and doesn't seem to want Ryne to be... anything. Not in a gilded cage as Thancred and the others state, just.. there. Frankly he isn't obsessed enough about her safety, he was previously already detached and hands off with her, the rift is so vast the original Minfilia does not acknowledge him, there should have been a fleeting moment of clarity where he considered what the Scions were doing and that maybe there was a way forward, that he should honour those Minfilia's he fought with and failed to die beside... nope, by that point it's too late, he has to be the foil to Thancred, who spends the vast majority of Lakeland through the start of Raktika being an arse towards Ryne until Y'shtola calls him out on his bullshit. Neither of them want to give her any agency but at least Thancred's turmoil is somewhat complicated, in that he loves Ryne for who she is but he would have Minfilia back in a heartbeat and he feels intense guilt for that: Minfilia's is a long, drawn out death. It's hard to mourn and move on until the possibility is gone, when Ryne becomes her own person.
Back to Ran'jit. He doggedly follows you after Lakeland. To Il Mheg - fine. He saw you all flee, this should be an easy retrieval. There is absolutely zero reason for him to show up in Rak'tika. None whatsoever. Creating a sense of urgency by making the Blessed a target of Eulmore feels shallow and unimpactful when it's resolved and fought off screen and his presence only serves for Y'shtola to do her fake-out heroic sacrifice (that should have stuck, personally). There is, as I say, no reason to create urgency when you then have enough time to detour to get a seal to prove you are the ally of ronka (what you were going to do anyway) and then proceed to explore enough ruins until you can get into the Ravel. He should just not be there!! I also don't really like his appearance in Amh Araeng either, because I feel like... he should have died there...?? There is no reason to have a fifteen minute boss fight as Thancred to repeat the same fucking thing inside Eulmore as the wol. His fighting style is interesting because it's a reaper without the voidsent, as it were, but he's just... there. Which is incredible when the players in this expac are so well written - even Vauthry who I don't like in the slightest is an exaggeration of tropes for a reason, how he's placed and the way he acts is intentional. Ran'jit simply struggles to find a place under Vauthry's rule, or do anything particularly meaningful. You know fairly early that there's a time limit, that you have to keep going, for a whole slew of reasons, not just Eulmore ones. I'd say the looming, dormant threat of the light inside you that Y'shtola feels compelled enough to call you aside and forewarn you over is enough. Hell, Black Rose and a doomed timeline is enough! You are preventing a calamity and saving two worlds in the process and you have so little time to do it in! This man is not necessary! The backstory from his short story is interesting with he and Minfilia felling a lightwarden but where is this rift from when they used to be so close given weight in game! I could fix it and make it interesting, but I simply have no desire to do so!
It's also like, I spend most of the second half of Amh Araeng in tears and then there's the part in the middle where I'm just "ugh I have to spend twenty minutes on Ranj'it". Major mood whiplash tbh.
What's really striking to me is... how poorly Ran'jit fits. He just drags and weighs on the narrative, and not in a meaningful way. His proposed nature is, he got worn down by watching every Minfilia die in his arms - that's fine. I like this. That intrigues me. He accepts Vauthry's proposition towards idleness instead of fighting a seemingly pointless war - somewhat fine. He enforces this through violence, the opposite of the coveted stasis, odd for a character whose whole point is that he has given up - he says the words but the grief that is so well baked into the rest of the entire narrative just doesn't land, for him - and doesn't seem to want Ryne to be... anything. Not in a gilded cage as Thancred and the others state, just.. there. Frankly he isn't obsessed enough about her safety, he was previously already detached and hands off with her, the rift is so vast the original Minfilia does not acknowledge him, there should have been a fleeting moment of clarity where he considered what the Scions were doing and that maybe there was a way forward, that he should honour those Minfilia's he fought with and failed to die beside... nope, by that point it's too late, he has to be the foil to Thancred, who spends the vast majority of Lakeland through the start of Raktika being an arse towards Ryne until Y'shtola calls him out on his bullshit. Neither of them want to give her any agency but at least Thancred's turmoil is somewhat complicated, in that he loves Ryne for who she is but he would have Minfilia back in a heartbeat and he feels intense guilt for that: Minfilia's is a long, drawn out death. It's hard to mourn and move on until the possibility is gone, when Ryne becomes her own person.
Back to Ran'jit. He doggedly follows you after Lakeland. To Il Mheg - fine. He saw you all flee, this should be an easy retrieval. There is absolutely zero reason for him to show up in Rak'tika. None whatsoever. Creating a sense of urgency by making the Blessed a target of Eulmore feels shallow and unimpactful when it's resolved and fought off screen and his presence only serves for Y'shtola to do her fake-out heroic sacrifice (that should have stuck, personally). There is, as I say, no reason to create urgency when you then have enough time to detour to get a seal to prove you are the ally of ronka (what you were going to do anyway) and then proceed to explore enough ruins until you can get into the Ravel. He should just not be there!! I also don't really like his appearance in Amh Araeng either, because I feel like... he should have died there...?? There is no reason to have a fifteen minute boss fight as Thancred to repeat the same fucking thing inside Eulmore as the wol. His fighting style is interesting because it's a reaper without the voidsent, as it were, but he's just... there. Which is incredible when the players in this expac are so well written - even Vauthry who I don't like in the slightest is an exaggeration of tropes for a reason, how he's placed and the way he acts is intentional. Ran'jit simply struggles to find a place under Vauthry's rule, or do anything particularly meaningful. You know fairly early that there's a time limit, that you have to keep going, for a whole slew of reasons, not just Eulmore ones. I'd say the looming, dormant threat of the light inside you that Y'shtola feels compelled enough to call you aside and forewarn you over is enough. Hell, Black Rose and a doomed timeline is enough! You are preventing a calamity and saving two worlds in the process and you have so little time to do it in! This man is not necessary! The backstory from his short story is interesting with he and Minfilia felling a lightwarden but where is this rift from when they used to be so close given weight in game! I could fix it and make it interesting, but I simply have no desire to do so!
It's also like, I spend most of the second half of Amh Araeng in tears and then there's the part in the middle where I'm just "ugh I have to spend twenty minutes on Ranj'it". Major mood whiplash tbh.
no subject
Date: 2026-01-25 01:49 pm (UTC)When I wrote my version of ShB for Cálei, I just cut Ran'jit entirely. That's how optional he is to the plot. It's weird, because aside from Ran'jit the rest of the expansion is very good, he's just this weird Thing that doesn't really fit. The most egregious parts imo are the forced defeats (we JUST did this with Zenos, guys) and the fact that Thancred doesn't kill him. Both of these feel like executive meddling to me because they're so not cohesive with the rest of the expansion.