The Eye-Rolling Laziness of the Crystal Tower Arc Ending [SPOILERS]

Thank you all for your comments.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

Pretty much the entire Crystal Tower storyline ended up with everything returned to exactly the same state it was in before the storyline began. All characters introduced during the storyline were gone by the end of it, and all characters preexisting before the storyline were still around after it was over. No lasting changes to setting, plot, or characters. All fluff.

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This is an exceptional point, in my opinion. It feels like nothing meaningful transpired in terms of the plot and the characters. From a critical perspective: all 'new' characters were done away with, all 'old' characters were still there in pretty much the same situation. The Crystal Tower is pretty much exactly in the same state as if you'd done nothing to it at all. Thematically, it is a disappointing reversal to go from from the early eagerness to discover the secrets of a lost civilization to the ending resignation--tempered by however much bombast--that this project is beyond us, we should give up on it. G'raha Tia--whatever character he might have had, became a deus ex machina for the sake of the plot (the argument could be made that Unei and Doga were that already); and he adopts a very alienating attitude of paternalistic, holier-than-thou condescension when he seals the tower--which, even if we were to go along with SE's 'story' here, seems to contradict in its essence the fond desire that his Allagan ancestor wished to effect.

In the end, as a character, I've made no new friends, made no real 'progress' (things are only the same as they started), and I'm not sure why I went through the whole effort with the Tower at all. That's not a good way to tell a story. That's not how I felt at the end of the Praetorium. S-E can do better, and we should demand that they do their best with this game's plot, because it's very meaningful to us all.

There are two things with lasting changes that I can see.

1. The NOAH organization was set up
2. Nero's character development from villain to possible anti-hero

The ending to the CT saga was a good ending. Also G'raha had to leave everything he had behind in the current world and set himself to sleep for the hundreds of years just so that the Allag blood did not disappear. It took 400 hundred years last time, if he did not lock the Tower then the blood would be lost again.

genetic memory that talk to you? without forget allag was know for them magicotechnology....they even have create a moon, clone, robot.... who know what they was able to do too.

about the fact he don't have give acces to the knowledge of the tower, it's quite normal, if you give the fire to a kids he will burn himself, if you give it to an adult he will use it for cock stuff or such. knowledge can be dangerous in the wrong hand.

someone have said, the story have come back to the point it was before the story. actually no, it's more a to be continued. maybe later we will have the crystal tower one more time open for us. i feel we will see at one point our friend back because it's needed.

It occurred to me, like some lost ancient memory, that G'raha is based more than a little on Desch from Final Fantasy III. While the writers could still very well leave things in the vague, unfinished, and narratively convenient state that they are in, Desch ultimately found a life beyond his once-forgotten duty. Though they've obviously taken many liberties up until now, if they care for the source material at all it shouldn't be too long before we see a bit more beyond this current, highly dissatisfying "ending" they've left us with.

I for one would like him to come back, if only because we seem to be running rather short on new allies these days, and the Tower itself seems like just the tool we need for that certain issue that surely won't leave us alone in the expansion. If we must smite the souls of gods for the world itself to survive, should we really be leaving that ideally-situated giant aetherial conductor to sleep through the end of the world?

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Originally Posted by Fenral

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It was mentioned already that Eorzea does not have the technology to master the Crystal Tower.

Any attempt to use it with current technology in Eorzea will result in the same Calamity that destroyed the Allagan Empire.

He sealed it away into a Sleep state so he can awaken during a time when Eorzea has the Technology to properly control the Crystal Tower. While it is the hope for a better world left by the surviving Allagans it can only succeed in their wish if the world have the proper technology to use it.

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Originally Posted by Fatestorm

This is an exceptional point, in my opinion. It feels like nothing meaningful transpired in terms of the plot and the characters. From a critical perspective: all 'new' characters were done away with, all 'old' characters were still there in pretty much the same situation. The Crystal Tower is pretty much exactly in the same state as if you'd done nothing to it at all.

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There's a reason for this: the Crystal Tower storyline is not part of the Main Scenario. It's a side-story raid for those who want to do it, but completing it is not necessary to progress in the story. Because of this, it cannot affect the main plot in any significant way. Doing anything other than putting the Crystal Tower back to sleep would have a major impact on the storyline-- how could you explain the fact that this treasure trove of technology isn't being used in our fight against the Primals/Ascians/Empire? There's no way to explain the Crystal Tower showing up in the main story in the future without forcing people to complete the CT quests, which SE clearly does not want to do. It's meant to be optional, and they want to keep it optional.

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Originally Posted by Chiramu

The ending to the CT saga was a good ending. Also G'raha had to leave everything he had behind in the current world and set himself to sleep for the hundreds of years just so that the Allag blood did not disappear. It took 400 hundred years last time, if he did not lock the Tower then the blood would be lost again.

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I'm sorry, I have to correct this. The Allagan Empire reached it's zenith during the Third Astral Era, which passed some 1500+ years before the current storyline.

1. Our characters can see events in the past. It's magic, buddy. Just one that runs in a bloodline. Worked for Assassin's Creed.

2. I'm sure the five races in their current mindframe would -totally- use a nearly infinite power source for totally peaceful and benevolent reasons </sarcasm>. I think the thought is that "Yeah...how about we wait til the world gets its shite together and quit ripping each other apart before we let them play with technology/magic powerful enough that was used to use a frikkin sealed -Bahamut- as a power converter."

Of all the things that happened... I'm just sad that we'd gotten a nice NPC in G'raha, and he just had to be taken away at pretty much the snap of fingers. Not sure where I am with the whole personality/mindset change, but... yeah. If my character had a diary, he'd write something like "I'll keep banging on those doors until they open up and I can see him again."

I really just hope if that happens, SE won't have him corrupted/tainted/mad in yet another 'plot twist'.

Makes perfect sense to me for the many reasons already posted, although the one thing that does bother me is that as long as we are breaking out tropes, why didn't we get into the nitty gritty moral of being a clone and free-will and all that moral/social/ debate stuff that always comes up with clones.

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Originally Posted by Fatestorm

G'raha Tia--whatever character he might have had, became a deus ex machina for the sake of the plot (the argument could be made that Unei and Doga were that already); and he adopts a very alienating attitude of paternalistic, holier-than-thou condescension when he seals the tower--which, even if we were to go along with SE's 'story' here, seems to contradict in its essence the fond desire that his Allagan ancestor wished to effect.

In the end, as a character, I've made no new friends, made no real 'progress' (things are only the same as they started), and I'm not sure why I went through the whole effort with the Tower at all. That's not a good way to tell a story. That's not how I felt at the end of the Praetorium. S-E can do better, and we should demand that they do their best with this game's plot, because it's very meaningful to us all.

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G'raha Tia made it pretty clear that he had no choice but to seal the tower. Salina had wanted someone to purge the tower and make it into a beacon of hope but G'raha points out that even with his new power to control the tower NOAH and the Eorzeans do not have the technology to harness it safely and they would risk causing another earthquake like the one that wiped out Allag. G'raha also didn't have the luxury of just waiting, however, as his power to control the tower would not last for long (as Unei said, the power of their blood was only ephemeral) so instead he sealed the tower the same way Xande did. If someday someone has the technology and understanding to be able to break the seal on the tower then they would also have the technology to harness it safely.

I do agree though that the way nothing has effectively changed by the end of the story is disappointing. Having said that I can see why they were forced to handle it like this. The CT story is a side-story and thus entirely optional. Giving it a lasting impact on the game's main narrative would prove problematic for the writers unless they made CT into a requirement for future main scenario quests...

Somehow I doubt that's the last we've seen of Nero though, and I would love to think that in a few expansions we may actually return to release G'raha and use the tower as part of a future storyline.

There's a key thing here that folks are missing when they're saying, "XXX character had a GOOD REASON for doing YYY action." We KNOW that the story provided good reasons for the things that happened. That's not what the complaints are about.

These "good reasons" were CREATED BY THE WRITERS. The WRITERS decided that the technology in the Crystal Tower was too advanced for Eorzea and needed to be sealed away, and the reason that they made this decision was so that they would be able to clean up all the extra characters and plot elements and return everything to the status quo. There didn't HAVE to be the likely threat of a disaster if the technology was misused, but the writers decided it was so.

The writers wanted an easy out. If they had wanted a challenge, they could have taken a different path. For example, G'raha decided instead that Eorzea IS ready for the technology, kept the tower open, and lead teams of researchers in to study the ancient technology. It wouldn't even have to have a big impact on the game - after all, this is advanced stuff, it's going to take a while to make heads or tails of how it works.

The problem the writers want to avoid, though, is that they would be obligated to revisit this open-ended plot thread. Players will justifiably want to know how the research is coming along, and expect to see changes made to the game involving the discoveries there. The authors decided to dodge this obligation with a trite, "You are not ready." and a door slam. Now, no one expects anything to come of the Crystal Tower as it will likely be sealed for well beyond the lifespans of their characters.

What they've done here is establish, right out the gate, the precedent that nothing you do in major side-stories is allowed to matter. Not to mention it's a slap in the face to people like me, who thought we were seeing a male Miqo'te join the recurring cast, if only for contained side-story arcs like Hildibrand (NOAH season 2, anyone?).

All we knew from 2.3 was that G'raha had a lost memory. When it finally emerged, it could have taken any form the writers chose (including simply seeing the tower cleansed of darkness), and instead they chose the form that left not even the faintest possibility of any sort of continuation, and did a disservice to the source material. They story could have ended on any number of notes, but in this case the "bittersweet farewell" they chose is tainted by too much narrative convenience to be properly effective, at least for me.

meh I pretty much saw that the characters introduced in CT story would not have any role beyond the CT storyline since CT storyline began.

It is a very common thing for characters introduced to play a major role in a small part of a story to not be seen again in future storylines for different plot reasons.

Even if he did not seal himself in the CT story and the plot took a different path he most likely would have stayed in the CT area to help farther research about it thus preventing him from leaving the CT area and to appear in the future side stories.

If he had left to return to report his findings and gain more help to supply CT research he would have disappeared again where we would only get a comment about what has happen to him by talking to another NPC.

Either way he was going to disappear from the story anyways.

G'raha didn't want to preserve Crystal Tower in a deep slumber, that hoe is just gonna leave it awake and have massive parties and frolic in a huge and overly gorgeous castle for himself, the nerve! The staircases! The crystals! The awesome throne! I want it as my friggin house. The moment those gates reopen, the people who open the tower will find that darn catman sitting on the awesome throne all smug, not having to be a 3-star goldsmith. :mad:

Also, did anyone else see a massive troll face the moment Cid grabbed Nero's hand.

Nero: "Oh no, will I make it out of here? Will I be trapped here all eternity? My ambitions, my goals, lost to the void that's about to swallow me whole...!

Nero: "No I won't be undone! I won't be outdone by Cid!"

*grabs a hand*

Cid: http://cdn.scratch.mit.edu/static/si.../1224/9025.png "You owe me Nero."

Nero: Goddamit Cid!

At any rate, the argument in this thread is not so much about what they did, as the hasty and dissatisfying manner in which they did it. Nero surviving the Praetorium, reuniting, albeit temporarily, with Cid, is a pretty major event that can and will most definitely be addressed again, even if players haven't done the CT scenario. Treating the rest of the characters as simply disposable pawns towards that purpose does them a disservice, especially as all developments leading to that result happened over the course of about five minutes at the very end with very little setup, conflict, or justification from the source material.

Anger and frustration aside, turns out there are few injustices that can't be corrected with Retainer Fantasia. Somehow, I was able to snag the name of a major NPC on a major server more than a year from his introduction:
http://i.imgur.com/nps7TwW.png

I suppose it was fate.

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Originally Posted by SarcasmMisser

I sorta liked it.

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This... I sorta liked it, but the experience in going into Syrcus Tower for the first time felt better than going into that dark world. It seems like they didn't try to hard on the actual design as a lot of the boss areas, and fight areas look the same except going toward the end.

Given the "Eureka, the Forbidden Land" teaser at the end, I doubt we've seen the last of G'raha. We even have Noah cosplaying a catgirl set up ready to help us reopen the tower early in order to deal with whatever threat Eureka poses...

Wasn't anything that made me go "Oh god, that's terrible", although I was kinda bummed last time when ST came out and Doga and Unei looked nothing like their FFIII counterparts.

I enjoy the game too much to let things like bizarre character actions phase me anymore, and I think they more than made up for any shortcomings with the absurd fun in the Hildebrand storyline this time around.

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Originally Posted by Fenral

Not to mention it's a slap in the face to people like me, who thought we were seeing a male Miqo'te join the recurring cast

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^ this. They did this with the ACN guildmaster (I...swear I used to remember his name, but for whatever reason it slips my mind rn) - shows up in one quest then goes byebye. They did this with damn-fine-hot-a××-motherf××××× Nhaza'a - shows up in one quest then goes byebye. Now there's that white-haired male Miqo' in the one quest that unlocks Wanderer's Palace HM - shows up in there and goes byebye, I doubt we'll see him again.

Idk what SE has against male Miqo'te, but it's damn annoying. I mean, I suppose lore could be argued, but with the realm overrun by so many male Miqo'te PCs, I say it would be a moot point and a bad excuse at this point.

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Originally Posted by BreathlessTao

Idk what SE has against male Miqo'te, but it's damn annoying.

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I'm beginning to think this is simply part of an ongoing trend of "any time the fanbase whines about content, Yoshi-P cuts a catboy."

Vague, throwaway, AK HM "but wait!" moment aside, the journal entry and extra dialogue with Ramnbroes seem to suggest that this is indeed the end of CT in FF14, and that it is an ending we were meant to be fully happy with. The objections raised in the forums here by myself and others with regards to character consistency, free will, and our overall takeaway from the conclusion may very well have never been considered by the devs, and there is no in-game evidence at this time that we were expected to consider them either. As from someone who has been loyal to the ARR project since it's inception, it would be nice to find out if our voices are being heard on this.

Kind of a necro and a bit of a bump, but two more really aggravating and unresolved details came to light when I rewatched the storyline and reread the rest of the dialogue on XIVDB.

Firstly, the notion that the tower only poses a danger to the world at large when "misused." Going back to the Syrcus Tower quest cutscenes, it turns out that Doga and Unei mention, rather unambiguously, that it was the tower serving it's original purpose that caused the decline of Allag. Put more simply, that it was the loss of ambition, not ambition itself, that set the wheels in motion. That in turn led to the revival of Xande, the Dalamud project, and finally the fourth calamity. It's a pretty interesting philosophical point (brings to mind the "flood of light" from FF3), but ultimately it goes completely ignored in the final cutscene.


(cont'd next post)

-snip-

It was still bugging me (pathetic, I know http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/i...es/redface.png), so I did some digging and discovered that my other nagging unresolved detail was... actually lovingly introduced almost whole-cloth by the localization team. In the Japanese script, he says he feels weird the more he remembers, but there's never any loss-of-self mentioned. It's a well-meant embellishment, but it does shed a negative light on otherwise straightforward developments. This thread is totally buried now, much like the Tower storyline itself, but for archival purposes I'll admit this one was, indirectly, my bad. I'm also not bumping again.

Prior point still stands (I checked both scripts), and while I still disagree with the sudden character "development" that resulted in sealing the tower, or the necessity of ending a fluff storyline with anyone locked inside anything, (and also really miss G'raha), the emotions in the Japanese script are, as seems to be the alarming recurring pattern these days, much more straightforward. I'm now much more sure than I was that this won't be the end.