I don't fault the man for being reasonable, obviously, but he was being SO reasonable it was really at odds with his incredibly raw emotional pain about the topic in base MSQ
insert me loudly expressing wtf at a friend over a play where the male and female leads hated each other, then suddenly after a 2m road trip montage loved each other
it would have made the final reveal about his parents hit harder, too, if he was gritting his teeth through the whole learning-the-traditions part and forcing himself to keep an open mind despite his prejudice
it almost felt like they didn't want him to be too much of an asshole, but this story structure would have kind of benefited from him being a little bit of an asshole
the other beat I really wanted a little more time spent on was him grazing the rroneek and initially being frustrated and tempted to hurry it along but feeling that that would be inappropriate, and gaining a little bit more understanding through just letting it take its time
it could easily have been an extra quest step of like, "hey Vow Koana's been a while, can you go check on him?" and have you go hang out with him and nod approvingly as he talks his way through his emotional journey
I think I can buy him immediately falling in love with the rroneek just because he IS the sort to be like “I’ve only had this for five minutes but if anything ever happened to it etc etc etc”
I don't even mind the heroic parent sacrifice, like sure it's a cliche but it's the kind of cliche I largely expect from ff14, and I can't really think of an alternative I'd prefer
"I'm going to do this seriously and properly because I am your Dawnservant and I take that responsibility seriously but I AM going to be a little bit pissy the whole time" would have been much more interesting
AAAAAAAAAAAAA