Aaaand someone took the bait
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Aaaand someone took the bait
I agree, they should have dedicated Alexandria for 8.0 and add political intrigue to the Rite of Succession including one claimant being assassinated.
I don't know, I guess I got that vibe a thousand fold more with Dawntrail actually, when not one but two heirs to the throne feel the need to hire foreign white saviors that know literally nothing of their culture, because their own homeland is totally devoid of talents somehow...
And hey, it worked right? The two others that didn't were the assholes of the story.
At this point I don't know if you both are trolling or not, but I'll bite.
Ehem. You do realize that Hydaelyn has no skincolor based racism right? It's mostly actual different races or nations going at each other, alá Ishgardians vs Au Ra for looking like dragons. Gridania being racist against Duskwights and Keepers of the Moon ( as much as SE is trying to pretend thats not a thing they wrote )
You do realize Lyse is Ala Mhigan right? You do realize that if you fly through Gyr Abania, even by your twisted logic of trying to troll / insert real world problems into a fantasy game that there are ton of "white people" who are also Ala Mhigan right? This is the Tural colonialism conversation all over again
It's pretty funny to read honestly, as if Lyse isn't a refugee who escaped Gyr Abania in the first place when she was a child, and the entire point of her taking the identity of Yda
You are right though, I don't recall there ever being an instance where one's skin color is the source of any discrimination
It's mostly one's race
You see it a few times, with one notable example to me is a fate in the ruby sea where a kid calls one of the red kojin a "red fish-back"
or the other words meant to demean which we've seen since ARR
If you want to argue DT being a "white savior" story, I would point out that wuk comes to Sharlayan to find people to help her... And the closest Stormblood gets to it is the Doma part of the story. Though even there we don't go in just purely to save the locals.
SloppehIlberd kinda drags the other nations to the war at the end of HW, and after getting smashed by Zenos the WoL and crew went to Doma to help the resistance there to get them to team up against the Garleans.
If you want to do real life comparisons, since this is a Japanese game, understand this. Japan knows that wars and conflicts are pointless and only cause more suffering with no side ever prospering. For the current Dawntrail story, the story and lore writers know this. Since the conflicts and slavery had happened in the past, the people of Tural have put that part of history behind them. They know they have suffered from it and do not want to go back to how it was in the past. Gulool Ja Ja had fixed every one of the race/tribes plights and sufferings and had united them as a people of Tural so that everyone would know peace and cooperation.
I mean, doesn’t it make sense to have a person who is strong and wise speak to the people and tell them look past differences and just work together to establish peace and prosperity? Japan did this after WWII and they would not dare repeat it because they know something like a world war is catastrophic and pointless; they are allies to the US now. Some Japanese could show resentment for WWII’s outcome, but they don’t want to lose their community and country like they almost did.
The problem there is that the BLU quests established that Ul'dahn ceruleum barons in what we now know is Xak Tural were effectively enslaving the local tribes, obviously based on what happened in the Old West with oil barons. Come DT, this ranges from heavily minimized to nonexistent. Overthrowing them could have been a decent story for a zone, and could have political ripples back across the ocean, but Shaaloani is instead Disney cowboy land and the rest of Xak Tural got eaten by awfully done FF9 references.
Don't forget Red dead redemption references because popular game
Don't forget Cyberpunk references because popular game
Don't forget the 7.1 dungeon resident evil reference, because popular game
We lost the Whalaqee - Ceruleum storyline to "Muricans love cowboys right? Lets have cowboys with american accents"
Lyse was like 5 years old when she fled Ala Mhigo, then lived for 20 years in Sharlayan and Eorzea. At the start of and throughout Ala Mhigo she's Ala Mhigan in word only. She's "European". Her role and characterisation are beat for beat a white savior narrative.
Even if you set aside the fact that half of StB takes place in the far east, where Lyse is once again coming in as an outsider, everyone knows that CBU3 historically uses tan skin colours as signifiers of racial politics while skirting the topic of race. Ala Mhigans, like Dhalmekians in FF16, are analoges of the Middle East without the devs actually committing to having POC prevalantly in their game as a collective people. They do this intentionally because they want to talk about topics related to racial politics in the real world, without actually discussing race. Whether they are wise to try it or whether they succeed, that's a topic for another day.
Yes. To both questions. Yes, they hate politics. Also, yes I miss the politics. Or rather, I don't think Daichi Hiroi is savvy enough to competently handle such gravitas. I was originally going to make it a one-word reply, but might as well just go all in.
It was literally stated in a recent interview that Dawntrail was aimed at a younger audience. Despite the fact that MMO audiences tend to skew much older, ESPECIALLY despite the fact that FFXIV requires so much damn reading. (The lack of voice acting in the MSQ also looks, as LuLu put it, fucking cheap, when even f2P games have full voice acting in every scene.)
Certain people whined about politics in FFXIV. The same kind of people that whined about politics in the Star Wars prequels. Disney removed the politics, even when it rendered the situation of the galaxy in The Force Awakens into nonsensical garbage, and rendered it simplistic and silly. FFXIV has done the very same thing. This game is for kids now.
The massacre of the worldbuilding frankly has started under Ishikawa, but back then it was considered in poor taste to call the writing out because everyone was just beguiled by the touching, emotional moments.
Now that we have none of that it's become ever clearer how the world of FF14 has become completely nonsensical and self-contradictory.
Fact of the matter is I don't think anyone would be calling Lyse a white savior if her character was dark skinned. There is nothing in the character herself that makes her a white savior nor does her white skin ever play any role in the story. I guess someone could argue that she is then a "foreign" savior, but that's also bellied by the fact that she is literally Ala Mhigan by birth and was a child refugee. So just because she didn't grow up under imperial rule, her care for her homeland is de facto problematic or suspect?
Its not like the Ala Mhigans treated her like Paul Atriedes or something. Now that's a literal white savior, though I understand intentionally so.
Do anyone even call her savior? If anything, it feels like the character was forced into that role, and it's one of the writing choice that felt the most weird with me. She never gained the status she was given.
Someone once told me that the whole "family duty/inheriting something because of your family and not your abilities" was a trope heavily used in japanese fiction, which could in some way explain things, but Lyse never showed any leadership skills, and the whole Doma part that should have taught her that never really achieved to convey that she learned to be a leader there. I always felt it was one of the reason Lyse was disliked : the scenario wanted to push her in a position she never really earned.
So it feels really weird to me that people discuss about her being a white savoir, when she never saved anything. Someone just went "I knew your father, so you should lead the resistance" and everyone rolled with it.
I guess that would make her a savoir faire.
The whole story is riddled with ancestral privilege, with Lyse's elevation to leader being less credible than most.
The bastard son of a mad pope ends up leading the house of lords, even after political realignment.
Gridania? Only those with a rare mutation make top dog. Apparently because they hear voices in their head. That sounds like a scam.
Ul'Dah and Tural both monarchies.
Doma. Garlemald.
Oh well, I guess it's the nature of fantasy.
“Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony... You can't expect to wield supreme power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!”
I don't know about her accent in other languages, sorry.
i think Merlwyb is the only major exception. Otherwise, all other state leaders are rulers by virtue of their birthright. Even the Crystal Exarch is descended from ancient kings. When they revealed in DT that Wuk Lamat would have ruled her village had she remained there instead of being moved to Tural, my eyes rolled out of my skull.
"White savior" is a term referring to American imperialism and the systemic erasure of indigenous culture, which had been deemed as savage and sinful by the American people. There is a faction in Final Fantasy XIV that engaged in this behavior all throughout the game's story—it's Garlemald. Hell, Gaius's signature scene is one long "Kill the Indian, Save the Man" speech.
Lyse is not a "white savior". She is white-skinned and heroic. That is not the same thing.
Stormblood ends with Lyse standing in front of all her western nation state allies (plus Hien and Yugiri) on a balcony looking down at resistance fighters while a flag waves proudly in the wind. The Ala Mhigan anthem plays. Meanwhile the only actual Ala Mhigan there is Raubhan, the general of a western state. There are no other major characters from Ala Mhigo (a parallel the ending has with the expansion as a whole). Lyse becomes the de facto leader of a country she hasn't lived in for the vast majority of her life.
Okay, so first off: None of that is remotely relevant to what I said. Second, Raubahn being the general of the Eorzean Alliance does not negate the fact that he, like Lyse, is a native Ala Mhigan, born and raised in the nation he is trying to liberate. Third, and most importantly, the legitimate governing body of Ala Mhigo was ground to dust over two consecutive wars—first by the people of Ala Mhigo in order to oust a tyrant king, then by the invading Garleans to subjugate the victors. The establishment of a new government began in patch 4.1, with Lyse representing the Ala Mhigan resistance alongside various leaders and elders from other factions in Gyr Abania. And by the end of that patch, despite the actions of the Qalyana Broodmother, there is no indication that this new government was disbanded. Also, Raubahn was swiftly selected—by that same government—to be the commander of the Ala Mhigan military, making Lyse subordinate to him.
So even if you were correct about Ala Mhigo having a "de facto ruler", it'd be Raubahn. Raubahn, who was 25 years old when he fled Gyr Abania as a refugee, and is now 44. Meaning that by the very metric you seem to believe is important in separating "real" Ala Mhigans from... Lyse I suppose, Raubahn is indeed an Ala Mhigan man.
But again, none of this is relevant to the fact that Lyse isn't a white savior. And frankly, I would ask you to stop appropriating the real suffering of Native Americans to complain about a fictional woman you don't like, but somehow I get the feeling there was never any sincerity behind your arguing to begin with.
This argument has never stood for the simple reason that those stories are consumed and experienced by people not part of their universe but living in ours, and written by people also living in ours, often touching on real subjects and themes that are found in ours. Thinking that there is an impenetrable barrier between both is wishful thinking in my opinion.
I said Raubhan was Ala Mhigan. I don't know why you think otherwise.
I didn't say him being a western general negates him being Ala Mhigan. He is Ala Mhigan, and notably, a western general. It would be foolish to gloss over that fact.
Contrary to your phrasing, Lyse was not raised in Ala Mhigo.
Lyse is a de facto leader of Ala Mhigo by the end of StB.
You're free to interpret things differently but that's just your opinion.
You didn't address the fact that there is not a single major Ala Mhigan character who is present in the scene I described.
It sounds like you have hatred for the fact that white savior narratives are present in fiction. I suggest brushing up on the history of the trope - it isn't specific to Native Americans at all, but has been used in the context of non-white people all across the globe (south east Asia, Africa, the Middle East, etc).Quote:
But again, none of this is relevant to the fact that Lyse isn't a white savior. And frankly, I would ask you to stop appropriating the real suffering of Native Americans to complain about a fictional woman you don't like, but somehow I get the feeling there was never any sincerity behind your arguing to begin with.
I don't like your tone or aggression. Given how quickly you've flown off the handle and started throwing accusations around, I think you're just trying to shut down a conversation you don't really understand. I'm going to stop taking to you now.
No joke, I watch that cutscene at least once every two weeks because I love it and there are tons of Ala Mhigans on the balcony. What are you even talking about? You can see them singing and their mouths moving. Compare that to the non-Ala Mhigans like Aymeric and you'll see the non-Ala Mhigans aren't singing. Hell, Arenvald is waving the Ala Mhigan flag right next to Lyse.
Isn't actually kinda a little racist to assume Lyse is a "White Savior" just because she's white? Nobody would even be saying the phrase "white savior" or "White imperialist" if she were as dark as Raubahn. It's less about Lyse being white, and more about her not being fit for the role, other than "Was a character in the Scions that we know". Hell, M'Naago was more deserving of the role, tbh.
That's not even getting into the fact that any plotline involving Ala Mhigo should have actually involved Minfilia, considering how her father was a Garlean traitor who was allied with the Resistance...
But the fanbase hated Minfillia, so, well... we all know how that ended. So we get Yda being awkwardly bootstrapped into Lyse, to have a Scion with a personal investment in the Ala Mhigan Resistance.
Okay, some of them are nameless, but Arnevald isn't. He's Ala Mhigan. Actually, how many named Ala Mhigan combatants are there? That might be an issue itself, but it doesn't give any weight to your claim that Lyse is a white savior. Idk why you're being so critical about the main character of the expansion having a main character moment. Seriously, would you be calling Lyse a white savior if she wasn't white skinned?
There are tons of "white Ala Mhigans" your logic doesnt hold water even by your own twisted real world inserting of a square into a triangle hole yet you keep trying to ram it in.
Google white savior narrative. Its got nothing to do with what happens in Stormblood and literally nothing you say can twist it into that category of a story because its real world logic and doesnt slot into a fantasy world like this. Try again.
Is Lyses leadership role unearned nepotism? Sure. Is she a white savior? No. Again. Its a war between nations. Eorzea does NOT have skincolor based racism nor does the world in the game at large. Actual RACE based racism does exist in the game.