Political Ideology and Storytelling Within FFXIV

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Originally Posted by BaconBits

In an expansion that was all about revolution and liberation, the 60-70 Samurai job quests were pretty anti-revolutionary lmao.

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A lot of the politics in SB fell really counter-intuitive or just really.. poor taste coming from outside optics looking in with historical context.

Overall ffxiv is very soft when it comes to making any statement. Evil guy is bad and good guy is good, with these two things swinging far into the extremes to not offer challenge. It's safe and satisfying for the most part.

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Originally Posted by MoofiaBossVal

The political storylines were only really handled somewhat well in the ARR patches with the Ul'dah situation. The audience might be inclined to want to help the Ala Mhigan refugees but Nanamo is confronted with the fact that Ul'dahn citizens who were made refugees due to the calamity have to come first. Further tensions arise when she favors the newly arrived Domans over the Ala Mhigans. Also the Syndicate stuff. Sadly those storylines were thrown in the garbage come Heavensward. The politics after that have been very childish, with dragons and Ishgardians just magically forgetting their thousand year war with each just like that. The other resistance groups that had different visions for a new government were never brought up again. We don't get to see post-occupation resentment towards those perceived to have been collaborators. Hien is never called out for flooding Doma castle. Centuries of war with the beast tribes are magically forgotten overnight. Limsa was stripped of the culture that made it interesting in the first place. Gaius became American Shogun of Werlyt and was forgiven just like that, with zero people hating him. Also Garlemald was thrown away offscreen.


If you mean "political messaging in FFXIV" then, I guess I'm not a fan of the democracy wank. Out of the 5 nations the WoL helps establish a new government in, 4 of them became democracies (Ishgard gets a House of Commons. Ala Mhigo, Eulmore, and Bozja become democratic republics), and the story bent over backwards to demonize monarchy and glorify democracy. And we also have Charlemand's custom delievery questline, where he is a high ranking stogy noble who - within just a few quests - leaps to wanting every Ishgardian citizen to be equal? What? Going by this pattern, Lord Nerva (if he survived) won't become Emperor of Garlemald and it will just become yet another democratic republic (though in lore it started out as a republic, but I digress). Out of the other 2 nations that had alternative governments, Limsa was stripped of its unique political system of pirates and racing, leaving just Gridania and their prophets who interpret the will of the Elementals.

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To be fair, republics are the norm and well understood in the modern era. Where as monarchy and empire are seen as both archaic and tend toward the authoritarian. Furthermore, with Gaius and his place in Werlyt its sort of reminiscent of how post-World War II reconstruction was handled. That being, as long as you were not a war criminal, instead of being held prisoner former soldiers and officers were reconstituted in their units and rebuilt their nations. Gaius, while a high ranking Garlean, is not shown to be a war criminal such as Zenos, Valiens, or Varis. This is combined with him being a good strategist and governor making him a logical pick for assisting the reconstruction of Werlyt.

Political intrigue is hard to do in a game built primarily around killing giant monsters. Not to say it can't be done, but it is hard. I could see a CRPG set in FFXIV being fun if you like lengthy, branching dialogue trees dealing with politics and economics and ideology.

That said, I think the one recurring theme that ties into a lot of different story lines, including the political ones, is people and nations picking up the pieces and moving on in life after a calamity, war, or smaller tragedy. ARR is largely about Eorzea recovering from the Calamity, HW is about Ishgard ending its long war and coming to peace with their hated foes, SB is about liberating two ravaged nations and rebuilding them, and ShB is about bringing the First back from the brink. ShB also shows us the story of a society that failed to move on from its own calamity with Amaurot.

Many of the side stories are built around this theme, often featuring refugees and the downtrodden looking for a new life and better opportunities. All of the rebuilt areas (Revenant's Toll, Idyllshire, the Doman Enclave, and the Firmament) have this idea of being built up to provide a new home for people who lost theirs. Many of the job quests are centered around reviving or preserving a dead or dying tradition, often opening it up to new people as the stories progressed. Several of the beast tribe quests are centered on this idea of either restoring something, rebuilding something, or forging ahead. There are also a number of stories about reconciliation between two groups. There are quite a few smaller "where are they now?" quests that also touch on this.

If you are asking SE to dabble in Real world Western political commentary, yeah they can stay way the frick away from that. Hopefully Yoshi-P is paying close enough attention to the crap storm that is Blizzard right now, to know that messing with that crap is more likely to cost subs than gain any brownie points with anyone.

Most of the politics in game are dealt with in an idealized view. It's almost always all the positives and none of the negatives. It makes for interesting story, while stepping on the least amount of toes.

1.0's weird unfinished introduction story arcs handled politics in a far more interesting way than everything since 3.0.
The lack of gray area in Yoshida's XIV is really bleh to say the least. He wants to give deep comments about good and bad guys in interviews but the narrative in his product has the same level of black and white a Disney movie has. For a game aimed at 14 and above that's a pretty uninteresting way of designing fictional nations and conflicts.

The political scenes in this game I find to be one of it's weakest points. I've come to dread seeing the leaders in the same room cause it's always the same "togetherness" bullshit that they talk about, but don't really see much of besides Ishgard helping Gridania.

The MSQ doesn't really give us the chance to see the city states improve their relations with the beast tribes. When we do beast tribe quests I guess you could call that improving relations but I don't recall any of them including politics in their stories. I get why the MSQ doesn't show that stuff though; it would easily come off as boring and we likely wouldn't have a dungeon or trial to make with it.

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Originally Posted by ChocoPuni

So, you play a female character and you support mistreatment of women? And you think Blizzard was doing a bad job with its story which had been welcoming to LGBT people, is that what you're saying?

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That's not what they're saying, and you know it. Stop going in every thread calling people out based on their character's gender.

I feel like SHB had the most to say, really. Even if it's not what people would traditionally consider political, it did lean incredibly heavily towards philosophy. And, whether intentional or not, it took a figure that's essentially considered a God and presented the case he's been making throughout the story wherein he claims to be the rightful and only possible owner of the mantle of caretaker of the star (projected from the people he is and all) and very much feels like a spiteful God who fails to comprehend the fact that he's just as, if not more, human than the ones he's criticizing for mortal shortcomings.

The argument Emet poses is already flawed, since the entire root of his statements stems from how the sundered masses could never protect the Star, yet, his own people already failed to do that. He kind of uses this false rationale to mask over the much more human reasons behind what he wants back: his friends, the people he loved, the world he knew, the home he had. All of the grief, the misery, the pain and loss he goes through are all intensely human emotions. And, I'm sure, based on some of his statements, that he suffers from alienation in this world of people who are nothing like him. Rationalizing over the emotional impulses to justify his actions borne from those impulses (unless you want to just say "Zodiark made him do it" which I kind of find boring), is something that people IRL do all the time -- for better, or worse.

And there's the whole naming convention for the 14 after ancient Greek Gods who, in our world history, were largely turned to demons when Christianity rolled in (amongst a slew of other old Gods -- even Nabriales reminds me of Naberius, which is supposedly pulled from Cerberus), which mirrors how the 14, once caretakers of their world -- essentially the Gods who lorded over it -- fell after their world was sundered and they became the black robed demons under Zodiark's will. Which, is also another interesting thematic angle that can probably be pretty easily explored. Since like, I just said this as a surface level mention as something that probably goes a bit deeper.

If I had the energy to really go into it, I could probably write more about both of those things and how the (admittedly Very On The Nose) reference to the allegory of Plato's cave plays into the moral justification Emet mentions about why he even opposes you to begin with. But I'm tired. And I only want to point out that SHB has a lot more in it than I feel people tend to give it credit for.

I mean, technically, Emet's position is a political position. There's a political outcome he does want, even if it's the utter destruction of what's in the present to revert back to a traditional comfort he's familiar with.

I don't really care, I don't expect any sort of "moral" from a fiction in any way. I'm here for entertainment exclusively.

Generic and uninspired. I think I'd rather it keep it that way, too. There are other things I'd rather see in a JRPG than an attempt at political commentary.

I'm just glad there's nothing grievously irresponsible.