I’m more so pissed about just how badly they managed to fumble the FIRST FATUI HARBINGER more than anything.

Can we all universally agree that iansan was done so dirty

Natlan was so obvious rewritten at the very last minute and you can't convince me otherwise

I haven't watched the video yet, but you realize Natlan's story fell flat when I've already forgotten about almost every single character and don't feel attached to any of them. Meanwhile I'm still hung up on Nahida, Furina and Neuvillette.

As someone who took a big break (quit after Inazuma AQ and joined before Natlan released), as I was speedrunning the content to be up to date with the new patch, doing Fontaine and then Natlan Archon Quest back to back, felt like I was watching backward evolution in storytelling in real time.

I really wish Hoyo actually treated Mavuika's flaws like actual flaws. When Capitano showed up to sacrificed himself instead and Mavuika practically vanished from the scene I couldn't hold my disappointment at how her character was treated any longer.

Seriously for someone who's stubborn and really self sacrificial to the point she left everything she loved in the past she had no problem about someone else just taking her sacrifice away? She practically stopped existing in that scene. It was an excellent opportunity to display her self sacrifice as an actual flaw by just simply having her argue with Capitano over it but no I'm guessing the writers straight up couldn't comprehend how to write her character in that scene.

Honestly feels like pure wasted potential especially since it's easy to see what they're going for. Makes me wonder coping if some executive came down and was forcing changes in the script. Same goes for the rest of Natlan.

Capitano was done so dirty. I can't believe when I see people satisfied with his fate when he was so criminally underused.

Capitano was the *First Harbinger*, yet:
- We only encountered him in one region.
- We never saw him interact with other Harbingers or any Archon aside from Mavuika.
- We never learned how he joined the Fatui. We also never heard his thoughts on the Tsaritsa or the organization's "bad guy" reputation.
- We never heard his side of Varka's story about their meeting.
- We were told of his honorable and virtuous nature but never actually saw much of it ourselves. Even him requesting to be relieved of the duty to obtain the gnosis was something we learned from Mavuika.
- His name/identity reveal was anti-climactic. You'd think a hero of Natlan who returned after 500 years would get more fanfare.
- The storyteller's narration in the epilogue was about three heroes, but the quest itself felt like it was only about two. Even in the last scene with the kids choosing characters to play pretend, only the Traveler and Mavuika were mentioned.

the biggest question i have alfer the AQ finished was why did Neuvillette say that the dragons of Natlan wouldn't be happy if he came there.. what was it all about if Natlan doesn't have dragons. It has semi-intelligent pet pokemons. What was the reason for hyping up Natlan like this?

In my personal opinion, the characters in Fontaine and Sumeru WERE the plot, while the characters in Natlan were plot convenience at best

22:25 OMG YES. that's my biggest reason for not liking Natlan. If you replace all the natlan cast with NPCs i won't even notice. Especially Kinich and Yansan, no hate. And my second biggest reason is that the "power of friendship" was never challenged. Usually this trope hits so much because you see the people getting through their arguments and differences and at the end they defeat the evil together - but despite Natlan having soo many different tribes, not once did i see some tension between them. Everyone were already besties, we didn't really witness or influence anyone's friendship getting stronger.

I, too, rolled my eyes on the whole power of friendship thing because it is hardly ever done right. They have it on Natlan's story's slogan to make it good: "Nobody fights alone." And what do we get in Act V? Mav fights the big bad practically alone while we simply help her lift up and swing the infinity+1 sword. And then got all the credit (I would pay good money to wipe off the whole celebration part from memory).

They hyped us with the chosen heroes from each tribe. Why couldn't they join in the fight instead of just cheering us from the sidelines? They could've cover each other's backs, fight together, win together, celebrate together, and actually pull off the whole power of friendship thing and follow the story's slogan. What I've got for Act V is more akin to reading fanfiction glazing over Mav to a fault instead of a proper story crafted by a multi-billion dollar company.

The closing act for Sumeru pulled off "nobody fights alone" better and got us loving the whole cast and looking forward to what's next in our journey. Fontaine's did the same and then some. And then Natlan's.. It's Inazuma all over again, but worse. At least Inazuma is mostly flat from beginning to the end. Natlan's act 4 was great, and then it crashed and burned.

Funny how I grew attached to Kinich because of his character story pages and voicelines, while they made me realize I knew absolutely nothing about the character. It's kind of amazing they stuffed so many cool things about him there and managed to somehow have not a single element of his character in the main quest.

If Mavuika's arc was about how she tends to work alone, to the point where the abyss finally gains an advantage and her people end up dying because of her, and her finally gathering the heroes and admitting she's way over her head, it would have been much more interesting. Her wanting to sacrifice herself in the end would have been a nice way to ease her guilt for causing her people to suffer.

We thought we're gonna get Kratos God of War type of story
Turns out it's all just Land of My Little Pony

You summarized very well my problem with ancient names. If they were so important why the heck weren't the six heroes with us in the final battle. Instead of the whole 'i love the traveler' flashbacks, make them join the battle, every time mc or mavuika use their Q make one of the heroes use theirs too. Imagine if the eight warriors went to the night kingdom, we see mualani fighting alongside atea, maybe iansan interacting with bona, chasca and her sister working together one last time... let mavuika and traveler get the final battle, let us think that we actually have to resist until everyone shows up, even kachina chant would've been more impactful... just by using the 'so important ancient names', act-v wouldn't have been such a disappointment... well, then there's the captain fiasco, but that's for another day

One thing i hate about Natlan, which not many discuss, is how FORCED all the connections between the characters feel.

In other regions, you had clearly defined 'friend groups':
> Xingqiu, Chongyun, Xiangling (+Hutao) as the younger friends; Ninguang, Yelan, Keqing and Ganyu (+ Beidou) as the higher-ups in Liyue
> Lisa, Jean (+ Diluc), and Kaeya (+ Rosaria) as the knight-adjacents / Albedo and Sucrose as the alchemists in Mondstadt;
> Yae Miko and Raiden as the immortals / Itto, Sara and Kuki (+Heizou) as the every-day people in Inazuma;
> Tighnari, Cyno, Alhaitham and Kaveh as the adult friend group / Candace and Dehya as those from the desert in Sumeru
> The children of the hearth / Clorinde and Navia with their past / Wriothesley and Clorinde / Neuvilette and Furina as leaders.

All of those groups had /reason/ to know one another and be close to one another. While they may have interacted with, or talked about people outside 'their group', they are still part of a defined 'set' within their nation. This makes a nation feel realistic and lived in: not everyone knows and is friends with everyone.

Meanwhile, in Natlan, all playable characters (so far) are The Most Important People of the nation. Everyone knows the other due to the fact they are all, literally, the 'heroes' of the nation. And if they're not the hero (Citlali/Kachina), then you can damn well believe they are IMPORTANT AND SPECIAL and still manage to know everyone.

It just... ruins all relations in the game for me. No relation feels special, because they're all borderline the same. It just so happens everyone we meet turns out to be pivotal for the grand plan.

Obviously, every nation has characters which play a big role in the story, but not all play a big role in the finale /at the same time/. Natlan does not have a character like Yoimiya, who i important for the beginning but then leaves - cause she is a normal girl, with a normal life. Same with Thoma, or Lisa, or Collei. All are important in their region and do something important with the traveler, but none are ALL part of THE ANSWER.

And people have told me "well, they're the heroes, the nation is at war, of course they're all gonna fight..." and like, no? it's a problem hoyo has created itself, it's not a necessary story point? We could have met Xilonen as /just/ an ancient name forger, and have Kachina be in the big battle (as would have made sense). That way Xilonen feels like a set part of the world, instead of as Support Nr X for the story. A character could have come up, who helps the traveller find stuff or understand stuff, and then leaves the story because they are /not the center/.

I just... none of the relationships or characters are truly compelling. There is no Kaeya/Diluc dynamic, no Albedo/Klee, no Xiao/Zhongli/adepti, no Chongyun/Xingqiu, no Itto/Sara/Kuki. All dynamics feel flat and boring.

Were they a nation of war? or were they a nation that just happened to be in war?

I keep thinking that this literally can NOT be the finale. Because we're missing a lot of stuff. The pyro gem is still blacked off. What Dain said in the teaser hasn't come true yet since mavuika is yet to reveal a secret. The gnosis is still with mavuika as well. It just can't end like this. Am i still holding out hope for nothing?

Mavuika maybe my most hated fictional character of all time.

I've never seen so much developer and writer bias towards a singular character, so much advertising campaigns, so much compromises within the questline to make her look essentially perfect. She has no visible flaws, she wins every conflict and everyone loves her, even convincing the the one harbinger who was willing to be antagonistic from the first two acts, downplaying all stakes within the questline. Her presence alone downplayed EVERYBODY ELSE included in the story. She never grows throughout the questline nor suffer consequences of her "flaws". She is written as just Hoyo's golden child, their perfect motorcycle goddess. I'm baffled they allowed this obvious mary sue stereotype into the final build, wether or not the Natlan rewritten theory is true. To me, one of the worst written characters in Genshin.