cashew | Finished 2.5 patch story... (Reply)

Kinda rushed through the story because I was watching it on my phone, so wasn't listening super carefully. A few points:

Bad writing continues to be bad. Since the story clearly intends to dehumanize the Borisin, having them yap a lot is a bad move. Should've just stuck with Borisin being a one-dimensional cackling evil monster species rather than trying to write them as having some kind of weirdo warrior ethics that drives them to be vicious killing machines. One-dimensional villain > racist stereotypes.
Writers can't separate writer knowledge from character knowledge. For example, why are the Cloud Knights going under cover as reporters on 竞锋舰? Why is March 7 acting like she doesn't know the competition has been postponed? Even if we interpret that this is meant to fool potential spies that might be observing the deck, why are Yunli and March 7 still talking as though they don't know anything while in private?
Eh, Jiaoqiu surviving isn't really a bad move from a narrative standpoint. Gamers that complain clearly never heard of a red herring. On the other hand, Jiaoqiu is a horrible doctor. Ever since ancient times, doctors are not supposed to cause harm, Hippocratic oath or no. Like, it bugs me greatly that miHoyo thinks Jiaoqiu is a good guy when he so blatantly violates the doctor's oath. (Yes, combat medics are expected to save enemy soldiers in war. It's been like that since ancient times. I will fight you on this.)
Also don't give me this "do no harm" is some kind of western value BS. 本草纲目, China's oldest medical text states 夫医之为道，君子用之以卫生，而推之以济世，故称仁术。 Translation: The practice of medicine is to protect lives, and must be extended to save everyone in the world, that's why it's called the humane art.
Jiaoqiu and Hoolay give conflicting accounts of the imprisonment length. I'm going with the "Jiaoqiu failed history class" excuse.
MiHoyo writers are really dumb. The fact that they're attributing the cause of internal disunity to external influence is just such a brain dead take. No external force can "cause" internal disharmony FFS, it's always domestic policy fuck ups that cause disunity!
The problem with copying story beats from much better material is that much better material recognizes that no coalition is a monolith, but miHoyo treats each faction as a monolith. So what we get is a group of people having different opinions (not a monolith) but for some reason assumes everyone will always be united (is a monolith) and those who don't agree will be "a few bad apples". It's absolutely grating.
I take serious exception to miHoyo's ethics. It's not even that the writing is bad anymore, the story's ideology is anti-society and destructive. I guess the only points I agree with are slavery is bad and indiscriminate killing is bad. This concept is too complicated for a bullet point, I'll expand on this in the future.
Xianzhou Alliance politics, political institutions, size scale, laws, customs, etc. are a complete mess and have no internal logic. The story is a classic case of "written by engineers". The human element is nonexistent. Emotions are apparently a foreign concept.
MiHoyo don't know how to set up emotional pay off at all. Yanqing arc, Jiaoqiu arc, Lingsha arc, Feixiao arc all failed in different ways. Yanqing's set up was horrible so didn't earn his payoff. Jiaoqiu's backstory was word vomited at the audience with no time for us to really sympathize before the story tried to pull a twist. Lingsha's arc is all mystery and no resolution (plot-wise or emotional). Feixiao's "darkness before the dawn" moment was more like "slightly dimmed lights" so it just feels like narrative filler.
Despite Jing Yuan being exposition monkey, he's somehow still the most humane character. I swear Jing Yuan showed more depth than everyone else in this story when all he did was explain backstory and demonstrate he is sympathetic towards people's emotions, even the ones who hate him. Ok and he was the one that came up with the plan, nice to see him living up to his strategist reputation.
Huaiyan is getting on my nerves. They're over playing the "old sage mentor" and now he's just a frustrating foagy. He honestly contributed nothing. He doesn't even have a world view. His only characteristic is "old". Like...we never see him care about anything. He's not the cool old guy his character design suggested, he's just a boring old man who won't shut up.