What is worth going to war for?

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Originally Posted by ddwarbird

I was all for the Garlean Empire. The people of Ezora were pretty much dumb hicks while the Garlean Empire had all the technology. If this was the real world and magic wasn't a thing, the Garlean Empire would have steamrolled all of the world, there is such a technology gap.

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Couple of things to keep in mind. The only reason they have that technology is because they effectively cheated. Their emperor knew about the Allagans because he was there when that empire was around. And we can't just ignore magic here because a big part of the reason why Emet-Selch was even able to do what he did as Solus was because of the Garleans low status because of their lack of ability to manipulate aether.

Next, the empire is really really bad at governing their provinces. Like it's incredible even. Pretty much every province we visited under empire control had some sort of almost complete lunatic running it and the native people were starving to death and miserable. This is also by design. Emet-Selch literally set up that empire to be a hot mess so it would cause calamities.

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Originally Posted by Necrotica

Idlyshire was an embassy/off site campus. They abandoned it when their host nation was threatened by outside forces.

Seriously I do not understand why we even listened to them when they told us to do ANYTHING while we were in Sharlayan. What are you gonna do if I go read forbidden tomes and don't listen when you say to stop? Whine louder?

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throw you out of sharlayan and cut you off from everything there

Ragnarok included

No, I don't support Nazi's as some people have claimed. I support a strong centralised government and although Garlean had its problems, everyone seems to forget that it was the treatment of the Garleans as they couldn't use magic to force them to become totalitarian in the first place. Its alright to decry Imperialism as "bad", blanketing over history with a singular judgement but everyone seems to forget that Garlean was FORCED into being like that. It does not excuse their crimes but the city states are equally guilty of crimes both in the past and present but that's excused because we have to fight for them.

The Garlean Empire offered a chance at uniting the world, rather then having 3 separate city states with three different agendas, lets not forget that Limsa Lominsa is essentially a ROGUE NATION because its formed out of pirates but that is excused too as they just said they were sorry and suddenly all was forgiven. Limsa has all the legitimacy of Somali pirates.

Lets not forget their treatment of the beast tribes that forced them to turn to summoning as a way to keep pace... but the story is perfectly fine with that. All three city states deserve to burn for their crimes, equally as much as the Garlean Empire did.

While it is true that the Garleans originally fled persecution from magic users, at no point were they "forced" to become a totalitarian empire.

In fact, for several generations they existed as a relatively peaceful republic until Emet-Selch showed up and pushed thier society towards imperialism.

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Originally Posted by ddwarbird

The Garlean Empire offered a chance at uniting the world, rather then having 3 separate city states with three different agendas, lets not forget that Limsa Lominsa is essentially a ROGUE NATION because its formed out of pirates but that is excused too as they just said they were sorry and suddenly all was forgiven.

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'Uniting the world by oppressing the entirety of it' isn't exactly the best deal.

Well if you've ever experienced persecution, it turns you to some pretty hateful thinking. I am not saying Garlean didn't do things wrong, they did but I personally blame the people we work for, for why the Garleans became an oppressive power in the first place. Garlean could have been a strong empire.

You can't go "Wah... Imperialism is wrong" and then not understand the context that led to those decisions in the first place. History is important.

Also I don't know what story you were playing through, but the narrative very much was not "fine" with how the city states treated the beast tribes. It is explicitly and repeatedly condemned both by characters and narrative itself. It's like... one of the biggest aspects of the story. I don't know how you could possibly miss it.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

'Uniting the world by oppressing the entirety of it' isn't exactly the best deal.

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For Fascists, that is the ideal. :\

As a opposed to what, rampant piracy, a pacifist tree hugging society and a desert city that is basically owned by big business.

Ah... so we are on the "call the other person facist" argument... classy...

No, I am not defending Garlean's actions at all. But I think its important to understand why people make choices like that and the story very skilfully shows how persecution at the hands of others for differences can lead to a thirst for revenge. Its very relevant to our modern world today.

I mean, all the states of this game are guilty of some kind of barbarism. I think that is why its so poignant. All of them are guilty.