There’s one furry face that’s been unmissable if you’ve at least a tiny bit active in the Final Fantasy XIV community this week, and that’s the one belonging to Wuk Lamat. The new flagship character of female Hrothgar landed in FFXIV as part of the 6.55 patch, introducing one of the primary companions for the upcoming Dawntrail expansion.
Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, /shout chat in Limsa Lominsa, really any place online where people discuss FFXIV, have instantly fallen in love with Wuk Lamat. There’s fan art, there are theories. There are declarations of love, of wife-hood. And so it was a struggle for me when I didn’t instantly get that connection from this character. Instead, a lot of Wuk Lamat’s presentation in 6.55 left me cold, unengaged, and hoping for more. So what’s wrong with me?
(It should go without saying, big spoilers for the patch 6.55 Main Story Quest below)
What put me off certainly isn't the visual design. Wuk Lamat’s look is appealing, interesting and new, without just feeling like a big axe lady. As a visual exemplar of the new female hrothgar race, she’s perfect, in the same way that Yugiri was perfect for Au Ra. But once the character appeared in-game I started to struggle.
The Wuk Lamat we met in 6.55 is energetic, excitable, and almost instantly got under my skin.
The thing is, I was instantly aware of all the efforts to make me like the character. She’s bubbly, pleasant, polite, flattering, a bit ditzy, and making quips. She couldn't handle spicy food but loved meat and hunting. She was cool and had a big axe, wanted to fight, had a noble quest, and I wasn’t having any of it.
Perhaps I’m too jaded. I have a really bad non-conformist streak that actively self-sabotages me. If I’m told a game is good, or a movie is amazing, or a book is a must-read, I actively avoid it. It’s not a good character trait, and it’s one I’m embarrassed to admit. In fact I’ve found myself missing out on things I would like, just because I’ve been told I’d like it. After all, Naoki “Yoshi-P” Yoshida stood on stage in Tokyo Dome and pleaded with us to like this character, and I couldn’t bring myself to.
But it’s also a good defense mechanism. If someone is really trying hard to get you to like them, there’s probably something off. Perhaps they’re selling something. That’s what this overly earnest attempt to make me like someone, felt like. A sales pitch. I just couldn’t immediately get on with this character. Bad vibes. Gave me the ick.
What didn’t help was some janky dialog. The talented Sena Bryer seemed forced to rush through her lines, especially her opening introduction. There were some grammatical things that just didn’t sit right in a game where almost every main character is erudite and eloquent. Little things like dialog not flowing well added to my initial discomfort. Maybe this was due to live service game crunch. There perhaps just wasn't time enough to write more fluid and compelling dialog or get the best recording take.
But overall it felt like when a friend introduces a significant other, a romantic partner to you for the first time. And they’re overly nice, cracking bad jokes, and trying too hard, and you just want to grab them and shake them and yell “be yourself! I trust my friend’s judgment! Just be yourself!”
The character was strongest when situations showed off her flaws: a gung-ho arrogance, with both underestimation and overestimation of her abilities. Those are character traits you can chew on. The sequence with the Colibri is wonderful, and Wuk breaking out some incredible feats of strength definitely was a highlight (using Holmgang chains to drag you out of an attack! Just amazing). This was the Wuk Lamat I could connect with. Naïve, flawed, and likable. Filled with fear and uncertainty, but steeling herself for the battle anyway. But after the scene, we were back to her more artificial, and as a result, unlikable self at the dinner table. A brief insight into what could be a great character in the future.
For me the biggest potential for this character comes from the fact she and her brother (and possibly other siblings) are adopted. Why is a giant two-headed Mamool Ja adopting all these cat people? That’s a mystery we’ll solve later. But I think there's a lot of room for narrative surrounding ‘found family’ analogues. Stories about choosing your family and friends and how your birth and birth-right doesn't define you. All this on the backdrop where we might find ourselves forced to choose which sibling to back in this battle of succession. Or which friends to partner with against the other. I think these could be the most interesting elements of the Wuk Lamat character. But this wasn't really touched on. Yet.
Overall, this feels like the character could go one of two ways. She could be nuanced and interesting. A platform to tell a story about youthful naivety, and growing to find your place in the world, even if that place isn’t what you expected. Or she could get flanderized instantly, make anime eyes at meat for half the story, and then they use a sad leitmotif to make her story have emotional weight.
There’s also a worrying feeling I have anytime a powerful and capable new character appears in the FFXIV story. I worry Wuk Lamat might fall into the same traps that Lyse did in Stormblood, where a subset of fans grew to resent the character for stealing the thunder of the Warrior of Light. There too was a character who I was supposed to like. But, in the sequence of the story, having just found out that Lyse had lied to me the entire time I’d known her, and dealing with the loss of Yda (a character I’d liked immensely more than Lyse, despite notionally now being the same person), it was almost impossible to find common ground. Which made much of the expansion really jarring, because I was supposed to be on good terms with this character I really didn’t vibe with.
Hopefully, this is a big brained ploy. That the character is grating and meme-y and slightly inauthentic on first impressions deliberately, so when the character embraces her flaws, and grows, I’ll love her. There’s some precedent for this. We’d been primed by Yoshi-P to expect someone who is a developing character, someone who’d see “growth.” To quote the man directly: “[Wuk Lamat] is deliberately made to be a character that is not perfect from the beginning. I think “growth” will be one of the keywords, so I'd be happy if you could pay attention to her.”
So maybe I’m the only sane one. I don’t instantly love Wuk Lamat. She’s flawed and frustrating and I need her to do more to convince me of her cause. And perhaps that means I’ll enjoy it all the more when Wuk Lamat does grow on me.
Want more Final Fantasy XIV news? Try our new Discord webhook, delivering the latest news straight to your Discord servers. Learn more about how to link it here, or go straight to the signup page here.
