Revelations from Patch 4.2

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Originally Posted by Ametrine

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^Diseased.

And I agree....I smell a major civil war coming in.

I can't help but wonder if Asahi even registered on Zenos' radar at all or if he's just a fanboy like most of us seem to be thinking.

I'm especially curious as to how the heck a guy who (As far as we know) only cares about himself and tries to breed strife and conflict just so he can have more "games" to entertain himself with could earn anyone's long-term admiration.

If anything, I'm thinking he might've just put in a good word for Asahi on a whim after he led him to some amusement and being the crown prince, that would naturally carry a lot of weight and may very well be the only reason he's in the position of power he's in right now.

On the "Showing Garlemald's Good Side" argument, believe it or not I think the story is slowly moving in that direction. While we can't trust everything Asahi says, the presence of a significant positive faction within Garlemald's government, the Populares, can (hypothetically) give us a group of characters in Garlemald to ally with in the future. They're presumably a major faction within the Senate, although they probably don't have much power in Varis' current regime. In the Ivalice storyline, we get further evidence for these "good" Garleans. Several characters talk about how they used their plays to speak out against the current "Foreign Policy" and other goals, and presumably they had a somewhat open audience. The NPCs talk about how many people share a different vision of Garlemald, however they simply don't have any power to change Garlemald's policies right now. I don't see the Eorzean Alliance "invading" Garlemald in the future, but I can see the Scions sneaking into Garlemald proper to handle some sort of threat, and then later allying with a faction in Garlemald to reform it. Plus, we even now have a name for an "evil" faction within the Senate to oppose. We'll have to wait and see if this is something they'll explore in the near future.

However, I don't think the character we'll end up allying with is Varis. Varis' visual design basically screams "I'm a Villain", with pale skin, sunken in eyes, long white hair, and huge, black, spiky armor. Even his crown resembles demonic horns. We know from the lorebook that his opponent in the civil war opposed their policies of aggressive expansion. From the Ivalice storyline, we learned citizens of Garlemald fear to speak out against their government's policies, and he's even destroying Arts programs. Varis is a picture perfect villain to be defeated. What we lack currently is a heroic character or group of characters that we'll put into power after he's taken care of.

In order to sell Garlemald's (eventual) turn around, SE needs to sell them as villains first. Just saying they are villains and having all their villainy happen off-screen doesn't work as well as showing on a consistent basis that there is something seriously messed up with how their government functions. Garlemald would feel cheap otherwise.

And we really didn't get to see first-hand how bad it could get under Garlemald until SB. For all that Giaus and Regulus were our enemies, they both ended up respecting us (or at least our power) and agreed with us that destroying Ultima Wpeaon/the Warring Triad was the right thing to do. Neither of them were monsters in and of themselves so much as they worked for a society that was really messed up.

Zenos though... we haven't had someone that monstrous since Nael in 1.0 (who arguably doesn't count since she was tempered by Bahamut the entire time). SB is where instead of just hearing about all the stuff Garlemald gets up to, we see it for ourselves. And if anything, it's worse then what we were told about. Finding out all the stuff going on in the Garlean homeland from the people on the Prima Vista isn't even shocking at that point.

Varis seems to be a more extreme solus, we don't know much about him other than the fact he kickstarted the expansionist movement and changed garlemalds societal structure but i would say he would be like varis in beliefs but not as harsh based on the fact he held the arts in high respect whereas varis likely sees them as a decadent waste of time and censors them heavily to prevent anything other than imperial propaganda reaching the populous.

Well, Solus was all but asked to become emperor, while Varis inherited the title. I would not be surprised if Solus was far more aware then Varis is of how things could have gone differently if he didn't have the support of Garlemald's people and made sure he kept that level of support. Varis seems to be taking that support for granted and it sounds like people know that.

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

Well, Solus was all but asked to become emperor, while Varis inherited the title. I would not be surprised if Solus was far more aware then Varis is of how things could have gone differently if he didn't have the support of Garlemald's people and made sure he kept that level of support. Varis seems to be taking that support for granted and it sounds like people know that.

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Varis actually fought very hard for the throne and deposed his uncle the expected heir because he wasn't a figure in the military, so it does paint a picture but rather that Varis is the uncompromising and militaristic type to rule with an iron fist since he clawed his way onto the throne.

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Originally Posted by Claymore65

However, I don't think the character we'll end up allying with is Varis. Varis' visual design basically screams "I'm a Villain", with pale skin, sunken in eyes, long white hair, and huge, black, spiky armor. Even his crown resembles demonic horns. We know from the lorebook that his opponent in the civil war opposed their policies of aggressive expansion. From the Ivalice storyline, we learned citizens of Garlemald fear to speak out against their government's policies, and he's even destroying Arts programs. Varis is a picture perfect villain to be defeated. What we lack currently is a heroic character or group of characters that we'll put into power after he's taken care of.

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I agree with that. The raid has shown us that unlike Solus, Varis does not allow free art. Solus who still started all the wars with different countries was still quite fine with art that was against the empire but with Varis everything has to be accepted by him thus no form of critisism is allowed. (How will someone like that truly want an allicance with other countries.) Also he did just call beast tribes creatures (thus seeing them bellow him) and he is the leader of the empire so he could change some rules but people that are not purebloods are still seen as less than them. We also know that nobody is born truly evil so something in his upbringing made Zenos that way he is and seeing how he did not even care that his only heir is death..yeah no I dont think that Varis is a good guy at all. You might live a fine life if you are on his good side..but he probably does not have any problems with taking out anyone that openly goes against his words.

Anyway on the patch itself to not derail the thread to much about Garlemald again:

Omega:

I am honestly a bit sad that Omega has no real connection to the MSQ. Since we did learn quite some stuff about Middy. The triad was the same. We have important informations there and an character that stays with the scions but has no meaning to them outside of the triad story even though his informations could be important for them..also killing of someone like Regula in a side story is imo just bad, especially when he was part of the MSQ before that. So theoretically they cant really kill of any of the characters in the last omega raid (other than maybe Alpha...please dont SE T_T) because they would be suddenly missing from the MSQ and if someone does not do the raid they will not even know why.

With Middy now sleeping we also lost our chance to learn more from his origin. I am just not sure that Omega suddenly will tell us much more so I am a bit sad.

MSQ:

I really hope that future expansion wont have two other big conflicts happening at the same time again..at least not with two different countries. I already felt that the wars went over quite fast and we somehow liberated two countries that were under Garlemald for years way too fast. With Ishgard it was also quite fast but at least it felt more like we had much more to work towards peace and it took a whole expansion with all patches to have Isghard truly be at peace.

Ala Mhigo and Doma went way too fast and since we will still deal with Doma in the next patch I am honestly not really sure if we see much more conflict in Ala Mhigo. I mean 4.3 will be Doma and 4.5 is normally there to send us on the way to 5.0. So either they make a sudden conflict in Ala Mhigo in 4.4 which needs to be kinda solved in that patch too because otherwise this will just be brought over to the next expansion and we know with Uldah that this can also end badly..Also if we switch back to Ala Mhigo in 4.4 (which is just pure speculation on my part) then they kinda have to "solve" Doma in the next one or they will just carry over two conflicts into 5.0 because imo it would be bad to cover both of them in .x patches since they already feel quite short for one country.

So I am kinda curious how they will deal with both countries. We still have the exchange in Doma, Asashis plan, Zenos being alive again, Varis and Elidibus, Yotsuyu and her memories...all of that should at least take two patches or more imo and with Ala Mhigo we still have to see at least some kind of government and we have the situation with Fordola. At the same time we need something for the next expansion but that is hopefully something new too otherwise we would drag these two city states over to the next one and I am not sure if that would be great for the story conclusions.

How is Zenos anything BUT a lame anime villain to people? I want to understand what about him is drawing people to be all -bro bro- for him? I don't see it. All I see is a lame shonen villain who failed to make an impact on me. He was covered in nothing but level plot armor until we reached 70. SE could've made him a good baddie but instead went full anime instead. He was only so strong cause he was level 70 and plot armor. I bring up his level cause from the first fight they show us his level. WHY DO THAT? If you want to make an impact don't show me his level. And then when we get to 70 he rolls over faster then the first primal we fight. SERIOUSLY?

I dunno, I might be missing something so if anyone has any reason why he is so loved by the fandom I would love to know. Cause from what I seen he didn't do anything worth anything. He only beat us twice cause - level 70- when we were not. He dies just as fast as anything else we've killed and to be honest.. he couldn't even fight us on his own. He had to go and pull shinryu out his butthole. So really? You pull THAT on us and still lost and expect me to believe you're some badass villian I'm posed to respect? PLEASE. Eggman has better feats then him. And yes I mean that. Eggman at least has blew up the planet ... TWICE.

Well Zenos does compare the WoL to himself so maybe some see their character more as someone like Zenos? I mean theoretically you can say that the WoL does like fights but imo we are still far away from someone like Zenos because most of the fights are done to help other people and another part is for adventure. But I am quite sure that some would just like to be more like him. What I do find strange is the option to tell him that we are his friend..if he meant to be someone that is truly hated why give our character the chance to say that? So yeah Zenos was fine enough towards the end (I disliked having to lose towards him for plot reasons..) but I really dont want him back either.

Zenos is attractive and has a sexy voice - that's enough for many people, sadly. I dislike him simply because he is a walking contradiction - he doesn't benefit Garlemald in any way and even denounces it entirely yet is written to be tied to it directly so that the protagonists never have to deal with the deeper shades of grey that exist. Imagine if Zenos' forces hadn't been unhinged psychopaths? If some Garleans living in Gyr Abania and Yanxia had befriended some of the 'savages' living there and vice versa? That could have made things more difficult. How do you figure out which Garleans can be trusted and which can't? How do you handle Garleans that are loyal to their homeland and people but do not want to betray them and are essentially non combatants...who also do not want to be displaced from the provinces they have come to live in? That'd make for some tough decisions for the protagonists and make them question what sort of 'liberation' they want to achieve.

Sorry to be a bit more off topic than the base topic of discussion here (I'll probably make a proper revelations post afterwards since I've been missing from the forum for a while). But I think we need to give Zenos a bit more credit than simply being a 'lame anime villain'. The interesting parts of Zenos have to deal with the almost meta aspects of his character. Namely how they recognize a sort of 'gaming mindset' of simply seeking greater and greater challenges. The fact that your character can, thanks to a lot of the new dialogue options, basically agree with his views is part of his appeal. While he's a villain through and through, he takes an interesting sociopath angle where he can really only understand the world in one way. That's why in the end, he calls the player character his only friend, since he believes they are the only ones equally separate from humanity. Whether he's right or not is ultimately up to the player however. And I looked through his statements a while back, and he never exactly denounced Garlemald. Indeed, he seems to agree with their quest for strength, but finds their justifications for it lacking and hypocritical. I understand the idea that it would have been nicer to have some more grey in the conflict, and there was a little between Baut and a few other factors.

Zenos being an unapologetic uncomplicated brute is fine, we've had a lot of colourful antagonists with complex motivations so its not bad to have one out of a dozen or so major villains who revels on being pitch black on the morality scale.

Baut.

I don't think anyone assumes all of the Garleans are psychopaths; It's just that the psychpathic actions of a few go unpunished.

And Zenos is royalty. That heavily complicates things.

I don't think the Emperor ultimately took issue with his brutality as such, since he was given control over remote, difficult, recalcitrant provinces, both of which were in the process of or had in recent memory rebelled, and both of which evoked eikon in the process. What's more ambiguous is whether he knew about all the other aspects of Zenos's rule whilst it was all under way - not after the fact, e.g. through Elidibus or other agents. At the end of it, he calls Zenos a monster, presumably because he merged (?) with an eikon, I guess. So it's a question of what would he be punishing the more psychopathic agents for? If the aim was maintaining stability, and that's what he saw mostly coming out of them, then so much the better from his perspective. There's no doubt a lot of psychopaths in both sides, who are kept due to their efficiency, until they overstep their bounds too overtly. Personally, seeing as Varis killed his father, I doubt he'd have any issue killing his son if the need called for it, so being royalty alone is probably not a huge obstacle to removing him if needed. Resistance from troops, politicians, nobles etc. (perhaps the sum of these comprising the Optimates if, as I suspect, they are real) who have personal loyalty to Zenos might be, though.

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Originally Posted by CaesarCV

Sorry to be a bit more off topic than the base topic of discussion here (I'll probably make a proper revelations post afterwards since I've been missing from the forum for a while). But I think we need to give Zenos a bit more credit than simply being a 'lame anime villain'. The interesting parts of Zenos have to deal with the almost meta aspects of his character. Namely how they recognize a sort of 'gaming mindset' of simply seeking greater and greater challenges. The fact that your character can, thanks to a lot of the new dialogue options, basically agree with his views is part of his appeal. While he's a villain through and through, he takes an interesting sociopath angle where he can really only understand the world in one way. That's why in the end, he calls the player character his only friend, since he believes they are the only ones equally separate from humanity. Whether he's right or not is ultimately up to the player however. And I looked through his statements a while back, and he never exactly denounced Garlemald. Indeed, he seems to agree with their quest for strength, but finds their justifications for it lacking and hypocritical. I understand the idea that it would have been nicer to have some more grey in the conflict, and there was a little between Baut and a few other factors.

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They're not justifications to mask some ulterior motive, though. They are in actual fact the Emperor's motives, and Zenos is quite clear in disagreeing with them, because he seems to be animated by some "higher purpose", namely this hunt of his. I think you're right insofar as he doesn't renounce the Empire, but he certainly thinks its anti-eikon crusade is a waste of time and misguided.

They're only sort of the Emperor's motives, and even then they were probably only Solus's. They began their quest to conquer the continent long before they were even aware of Eikons. Even then, they seem to hate Eikons less out of principle and more because they were the first thing that could match them in massed combat. Solus was reportedly horrified the first time his troops encountered one in battle, and saw how their magitek had finally met its match. This did however, galvanize the Empire and give them a reason for invading and conquering other nations other than simple conquest. That being said, many of their actions are meant more to serve the goal of war than anything else. They have a more or less fascistic government, including the idea that they need an 'other' to fight, and a reason to fight them. The 'savages who summon eikons' is a convenient reason for them to continue their battles. I'd get my quotes, but I'm currently away from my lorebook.

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Originally Posted by CaesarCV

Zenos

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If thats what they were going for I missed it completely. for many reasons, one being that I couldn't take him seriously when right over his head I see "70". I can kindof see it but only cause the only thing of note he did was take other's weapons. But what is that 'posed to say? Yeah we both take loot but other than that what is that posed to say about him? Loot is bad? I kid. I just wished he actually did something on screen instead of us being told how bad he was. Like how badass would it had been if we SEEN him take down shinryu? That happens off screen. Or if he actually killed us. Leading us into the lifestream - solo dungeon- where we have to fight our way out. Making him a true threat and the ONLY person to have killed us. That would leave a much better impact then just being a boss fight we can't win. Like Mega man X did that better - mainly cause we don't see his HP bar so it's leading us the player into a true sense of fear- Yes it'll only work once.. but it only needs to work once. I also understand I'm coming at this purely from a gameplay standard and not an RP one so my bad, so this might be all my own doing for expecting something more then whats here.

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Originally Posted by ko_

Like how badass would it had been if we SEEN him take down shinryu? That happens off screen.

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I think that the field Shinryu's trapped in is from Omega when they Double KO'd each other, all the Garleans had to do was pick up the package and transport it. I think we hear Zenos getting the news over linkpearl while he's in Doma, but I'll check when I'm not in work.

For the record, I don't like Zenos, but neither do I hate him. I pity him more than anything, because he too is a victim of the Imperial system. This mostly stems from the view that Zenos represents how far the Warrior of Light could fall if they gave in to battle lust, and recognizing that is a two way street; if Zenos represents how far the Warrior of Light could fall, the Warrior of Light represents how high Zenos could have risen in a better environment. Instead he was born into a culture that glorifies violence and killing for personal gain and glory, which mixed with his nature to produce, as Krile aptly puts it, a monster. I can't help but find that a little sad in context.

... but I know when compassion and mercy must end, and Zenos crossed that line long ago. Even if you want to chalk it all up to his nature, that still doesn't account for how he became the leader of a major military unit despite being a textbook sociopath. Garlemald, and the Imperial system, bears no small responsibility for what Zenos was... as does his father, one should think.

Ultimately, to me Zenos comes across as closer to Kefka than Vayne in terms of characterization, just replacing "destruction" with "battle," and while Kefka is still an awful person through and through his final scene in Dissidia evoked some small measure of pity from me. Just like Kefka can't find joy in anything but destruction (specifically senseless destruction), Zenos is happy only when engaging in violence (specifically challenging violence). Whether it was due to an experiment gone wrong, a bad upbringing, or because it was just in their natures... I dunno, but it's still sad. Just a little.

Still don't like Zenos. Just making that clear.

i admit im curious where or whats become of zenos's mother is there any information about her anywhere?

phone double post, see below please.

Very happy to see Zenos back, killing him so early was a waste. We need a real rival like him. Hopefully it's not just a lame ascian body surfing in him.

As far as his appeal I can outline a few things that make him very interesting as he's a much more nuanced character then people think. For starters he is your equal in every sense of the word, his ability being an artificial version of the echo. Other then the entirely misused "Warriors of Darkness" our only other equals are Frdola and Zenos. We've always been superior to our opponents until we hit the brick wall of Zenos. He is the only one who truly understands the echo and thus by extension he understands the WoL. The power and burden that the WoL has to shoulder. Also the level 70 above his head is a wake up call to the WoL, it tells them that the peak they thought they had hit was just a plateau and that mount 70 was looming over them. It's like the part in an anime or manga when the hero realizes that Super Saiyen isn't gonna cut it anymore, it's time to train and power up to attain a new level of power. It's supposed to annoy you, it's intentional. It's their to knock you off your high horse.

That leads to my next point, a major part of his appeal is how genre savvy he is. He is very meta in the sense that he knows he is a designated villian on the world stage and he's just acting out his part. When he spoke of man having the wisdom to embrace violence for its own sake he reveals much of his character. He knows that violence is terrible but it's inevitable and natural. Unlike others who justify their killings with flowery sentiments, he embraces violence and makes no exscuse for it. Unlike Lyse who kills others in the name of "Freedom" or the Garleans who kill in the name of "peace and stability." The differance is that Zenos and the WoL know its just that, violence, brutal and terrible. The DRK quest shows that the WoL is filled with regret over the lives they must take. Zenos however chooses to joyfully embrace the violence as part of human nature, in that regard he is very similar to the Comedian from Watchmen. Zenos revels in the violence, openly embracing strife and chaos; actively stoking the fires of war.

Theirs also has an interesting moment where he has a conversation with the WoL while addressing the player directly. When he says you live for these moments when everything is at stake, it's an interesting meta commentary on you the player finding all the action thrilling. When he said that line I found myself nodding in agreement, he spoke to my inner blood knight. To hell with Ala Mhigo, I didn't care wether it was saved or not. All I wanted was a glorious battle and got one in the Menagrie.

Ehh.... that makes a lot of assumptions about the WoL's motivations that are left up to the player. Some of us didn't want Zenos dead. Some of us really did want him dead, just not like how he went out. Some of us agreed with him on certain things. Some of us never understood how he could make those assumptions about us. Some of us are having mental breakdowns over what he said to us. Some of us aren't taking any of what he says seriously because we think he's crazy. I could go on...

Given that SE actually gave us an option on how we wanted to respond to Zenos in-game, I have to imagine that they're going to give us at least those two options when we meet up with him again. There's a lot of ways I can see Zenos coming back being done well, but also a lot of ways SE could screw it up. Not letting the WoL pick a broad-strokes reaction to the whole thing would really screw it up.

When stating that I didn't care about Ala Mhigo I was referring to myself as the player. As far as my inclusion of the DRK quest line it was simply an example of how the WoL might feel. Your welcome to use as little or as much of the job quests to fill in the blanks of the WoLs character and motivation. However the MSQ which is "canon" for us shows the WoL repeatedly through out the story attempting (and failing often) to find nonviolent solutions to the problems around them. This implies atleast an unwillingness to use violence unless nesscacry. He/she is a hero and that's all that matters in context with Zenos. If you try to accept him he says no, that he's the villian and you know how this ends. Regardless of the WoLs motivations, Zenos' character revolves in large part around his thirst for violence and his meta narrative of knowing he is a villian to be defeated. Which is why I suspect he's so furious at the end of 4.2. He has been denied his glorious grandstanding death.

Your right, many players had differant reactions to Zenos. I for one didn't want him to die, as he is truly the only equal of the WoL. I was distraught when Zenos took his own life. I didn't want to fight him but knew it had to be done. I felt like superman when he was forced to kill Zod. Losing one of the only people who could truly understand you was a terrible feeling but he had to be stopped. I was attempting to explain to others why some find him a compelling character that they like and were glad to see return. I simply explained why I found him appealing. The main thrust of my point is that he is your peer, the only villian who could truly be our rival, our nemesis. So I'm glad he's back and can't wait for more glorious battles with my friend.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Much of their conquest is likely driven by a preemptive desire to never suffer such persecution again.

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A goal they achieved decades ago when they conquered Ilsabard.

Everything since has been solely driven by the ambition of the individual that is currently ruling the nation. They haven't had more than a fragile claim to the "we don't want to be persecuted again" motivation for years now.

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Originally Posted by Berethos

A goal they achieved decades ago when they conquered Ilsabard.

Everything since has been solely driven by the ambition of the individual that is currently ruling the nation. They haven't had more than a fragile claim to the "we don't want to be persecuted again" motivation for years now.

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Well yes they had finally achieved parity with the other aether wielding races using their magitek. Until they encountered the primals which magitek has no answer for. So they are right back to facing the threat of subjugation by a powerful enough primal. I think the risk of having your entire race and culture enslaved as souless thralls would drive anyone to desperation. The fact that politicians and rulers would take advantage of this fear is unsurprising. As powerful as Garlemald may appear they have no answer to the primal problem. Primals can appear anywhere, anytime. Just look at susanoo and Lakshmi who were either unintentionally or suddenly summoned. These things are monsters of the id, eldritch abominations that devour the souls of the living. I don't think the Garleans are wrong to fear their subjugation and perhaps eventual extinction at the hands of these nightmarish entities. Until they have an answer to the primal question their will continue to be people who manipulate the populace's fear of primals for their own benifit.

Yes they were conquering other nations before they ever encountered primals, but they do make a convenient rallying cry don't they? Oh and before you say that their conquests of other nations makes them evil, remember this setting is not the modern world. Conflict in medieval times was common, and part of politics and nation building. Besides before the alliance, all the nations of Eorzea were trying to conquer each other. That doesn't make them evil either.

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Originally Posted by Xie_Belvoule

Yes [the Empire was] conquering other nations before they ever encountered primals, but they do make a convenient rallying cry don't they? ... Besides before the alliance, all the nations of Eorzea were trying to conquer each other.

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You... just admitted that the Empire's rationale for its conquest outside Ilsabard is nothing but a convenient excuse. How refreshing!

The Empire's actions are not going to solve the primal threat; if anything it makes the threat worse, as I've been arguing for some time and Hien pointed out during 4.2. Prior to its attempted invasions, primals were an occasional nuisance to Eorzea rather than the plague they've become, just to give an example.

All spoken races (and indeed, no small number of the beastmen) fear primals. It's not exclusive to Garleans. A concerted, well-thought out plan for dealing with them would be more effective than arrogantly deciding that your way (genocide, subjugation, and outlawing religious observation) is best, and that anyone who disagrees with you is simply too primitive to understand and therefore needs to be subjugated or killed.

Other than the Autumn War and the War of the Sisters, there are no known instances of an Eorzean nation starting war to subjugate other nations. Even those weren't about conquest for its own sake; the Autumn War was intended to spur economic activity in Ala Mhigo which had fallen into a slump with the rise of naval trade routes, and the War of the Sisters broke out because Sil'dih was diverting water from Ul'dah during a time of drought.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

(genocide, subjugation, and outlawing religious observation)

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You mean the stated policies of the Eorzean nations, until the WoL showed up.

The only reason the Eorzean Alliance gets to play the good guys is because they have the biggest beat stick around, the WoL.

Hell Ashai demanded that Hien police the religion of the red Kojin.

Let's see if your logic holds on the nations and their war mongering. War of the sisters was fought for the security and prosperity of the two cities inhabitants, check. Autumn War was fought for the security and prosperity of Ala Mhigos people, check. The wars of Garlean conquest were fought for the security and prosperity of the Garleans, check. Nah these wars are nothing alike.....

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Originally Posted by Xie_Belvoule

You mean the stated policies of the Eorzean nations, until the WoL showed up.

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The last one is blatantly false given that plenty of Eorzeans worship the Twelve, including the leaders.

Eorzea is largely protected from getting its hands dirty as various plot conveniences such as the Warrior of Light and Midgardsormr's timely intervention prevent its people from resorting to extremes in order to protect themselves either directly or indirectly. Now, if the Warrior of Light was not a thing and Primals were not defeated in a timely manner? Increasingly harsh measures would have to be taken against Eorzea's various Beast Tribes. Up to and included genocide, most likely.

This, of course, will no doubt be brushed off as mere speculation and a hypothesis. Still, there's a rather major elephant in the room that needs to be addressed by the plot moving forward. That major elephant in the room is that those who do not have the Warrior of Light to rely upon (either in the past or the present) have some tough decisions to make. Cold, hard logic proves effective in those scenarios - and whilst it may not necessarily be the right or ideal move to make, it's at least understandable to see why such decisions are made.

If only because most nations in Hydaelyn do not have the luxury of having their leaders foolishly invite Tempered into the heart of their cities and then emerge completely unscathed when a Primal is conjured forth as a consequence. :rolleyes:

No, those nations who do not have the Warrior of Light to lean upon would have their leadership Tempered and/or slaughtered. Then the Primal would run amok until being put down...though not without an immense loss of life.

How this plays out in the future remains to be seen, though. As it stands, I feel like the story pushes a false, dangerous narrative that everything would work out for the better if only people relied on idealists. That's all well and good in theory, but in practice these idealists only succeed because...they have the Warrior of Light to lean upon. If they did not? What then? At some point, diplomacy and idealism twists into darker territory and a sense of putting one's people before all else. Garlemald and Ishgard (up until recently) are prime examples of this...and understandably so. In Ishgard's case, things only worked out the way that they did due to the Warrior of Light's intervention.

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Originally Posted by Dualblade

The last one is blatantly false given that plenty of Eorzeans worship the Twelve, including the leaders.

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No it's not. The Erozeans are against religious observations, those of the beast tribes.

Plus, it's only a matter of time until one of the twelve is summoned......

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Originally Posted by Theodric

SNIP

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Exactly my point Theo. The Alliance gets to play hero cause they got handed the best tool for the job. Everyone else gets to live defenseless in a hellish world where thoughtforms can manifest as God-like tulpas that can mind rape everything around them and can be brought into reality by everyday emotions like grief over losing a child or parent.

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Originally Posted by Xie_Belvoule

You mean the stated policies of the Eorzean nations, until the WoL showed up.

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Why do people keep using "whataboutism" as a valid line of logic whenever people have the audacity to point out how god-awful the Empire is? I've said before that I'm all for three dimensional depictions ofGarlemald's people, not its empire-building, racist, brutally oppressive policies. Equating the negatives of Eorzea's city-states with the Empire's is just silly.

But since you really wanted to:

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War of the sisters was fought for the security and prosperity of the two cities inhabitants, check.

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A conflict that happened over four centuries ago.

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Autumn War was fought for the security and prosperity of Ala Mhigos people, check.

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The Autumn war, which also happened a century ago, began an age of peace and unparalleled cooperation throughout Eorzea.

Whatever skeletons the Eorzean city-states have in their closet, however much they feud and fight and bicker and scheme against each other (namely over Omega), simply does not compare to the amount of misery, violence and brutality Garlemald has visited upon three entire continents.

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No it's not. The Erozeans are against religious observations, those of the beast tribes.

Plus, it's only a matter of time until one of the twelve is summon

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Yes, it is false. As we've seen in sidequests and with the beast tribe quests, the people of Eorzea are actively trying to work with and help the beastmen that aren't tempered, which is approached with a balance of sensitivity and balancing that with more practical concerns.

If the city-states were anything like the Empire, they'd instead refuse any sort of negotiation or cooperation whatsoever, and try wiping them out instead, since Varis has gone on record to say he makes no distinction between tempered and untempered beastmen.

Definitely a man I want to see ~nuance~ in.

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Originally Posted by Xie_Belvoule

Exactly my point Theo. The Alliance gets to play hero cause they got handed the best tool for the job. Everyone else gets to live defenseless in a hellish world where thoughtforms can manifest as God-like tulpas that can mind rape everything around them and can be brought into reality by everyday emotions like grief over losing a child or parent.

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This is implying that the city-states are not actively trying to stop the primal threat. It was mentioned that whenever the GCs go up against primals the first wave goes in known full well every single one of them is going to be tempered. So rather than try agitating the beastmen like the Empire loves to, they've gone to make good relations with the untempered ones instead. Naturally that'll be rife with tension, conflicts and so on (I remember that Limsa Lominsa's treatment of the Sahuagian was never fully addressed but it was pretty bad if I recall).

Mind you, this is a threat that only came about when the Empire's wonderfully conceived first invasion was stopped by the Dravanian hordes and allowed beastmen the ability to summon their primals. Which, sure, is something that they're struggling with, due to the Calamnity. Which, surprise, is another event whose fault lies squarely with the Empire. Along with a third conquest attempt where the person in charge went against orders to try holding an entire continent hostage with a weapon of mass destruction.

Also, I'm really not sure where you're getting the "defenseless in a hellish world" thing from. Eorzea's far and away from being some primal-infested apocalypytic landscape, though I'm sure Imperial censors love painting it that way.

We've seen both leaders getting Tempered by Primals and the Twelve being summoned. Nael is what happened when Bahamut tempered a Legatus (and Bahamut has the most terrifying version of tempering we've seen yet). The Twelve were what Loiusoix essentially summoned to try to keep Bahamut back... and they failed! And then all of Eorzea summoned the Phoenix which got tempered by Bahamut... So whatever Eorzeans think of their gods... their manifestations are weaker then Bahamut. Which isn't saying much. That's probably true of all the primals we've met except maybe the Warring Triad.

As far as I can tell, the Eorzeans are not against religious observations by the beats tribes. Just the various religious sects which summon primals which often times are the people in power over the majority of the beast tribe. Both the Vanu Vanu, the Sylphs and the Ananta (and probably the Kojin) worship the same deities no matter if they summon them or not. It's just that one faction of the tribe thinks that the primal version of their diety is a false or wrong version of the god(dess) and refuse to think their gods would not let them chose to worship them. Heck, Rahmu flat out refuses to temper slyphs unless they actually want him to temper them or not. And for that matter, we've actually seen about as many primals who haven't tempered people on-screen as those that have. And the degrees of tempering varies a lot between primals; Ifrit's and Leviathon's are super obvious, Bahamut's tempering of Nael was never noticed.

As for dealing with summoned primals without the WoL... this is what people did from the time Midgaurdsormr downed the Agrius until 1.0 started (and even a little after that, so... 15 years or so?). It's not that it can't be done, it's that the casualty rate is crazy high.

Nuances don't simply cease to exist just because a handful of vocal posters want to flock to this board to bash Garlemald at every single turn. I know some people do not actually come here to actually discuss the lore, though. They seem much more interested in trying to push political biases above all else.

Yes, Garlemald is 'bad' by modern day real world standards. So, too would the Roman Empire be considered 'bad' by modern day real world standards. Thankfully, though, it's perfectly possible to discuss both of them in such a way as to outline the reasons why they did what they did.

It's not an unreasonable angle to push, either. Eorzea has an immense luxury in the form of the Warrior of Light. It is a luxury that many other nations do not have, thus they resort to increasing extremes to solve their own problems.

Garlemald's harsh policies are a direct result of years of persecution and being forced to live in a complete wasteland. Such a lifestyle served to harden its people, so it is hardly any surprise that they resorted to the aggression that they have displayed as a consequence. Not being able to manipulate aether is a huge disadvantage in a setting such as this. One that is, unfortunately often downplayed.

Does this mean that Garlemald is justified in everything that it does? No, not at all - and I would very much like the expansionist policy to cease. As would my character, in fact, given that I role-play a Pureblood Garlean in-game.

As for Pureblood Garleans being racist? Can you blame them, given that they've been persecuted for much of their history and have only been able to claw their way to relevance as a direct result of increasing their power and influence? Why wouldn't they see outsiders as 'savages' when 'savages' are responsible for pushing them out of fertile lands, looking upon them with disdain and disgust?

Racism and xenophobia is a huge part of the setting, anyway. The Duskwight are treated like dirt within Eorzea. Interracial relationships are frowned upon. Adventurers may be more open minded (as well as the protagonists in general, conveniently) though the 'every-man' of the setting isn't necessarily.

Hingashi and Sharlayan also have strict isolationist policies.

The Warrior(s) of Light didn't arise in Eorzea until after Silvertear, which provided the beast tribes with both the means and the motive to amp up summonings. They were known to happen beforehand, though no records exist of any specific instance. Again... while primals were known to be summoned on occasion, Silvertear turned a nuisance into a plague. As Hien rightly notes, the Empire indirectly creates the very beings it claims to want stamped out. And again... the Warrior(s) of Light rose in response to that plague.

Meanwhile, back in Ilsabard, the Garlean Republic is not known to have seen or dealt with a primal for eight centuries or during its conquest of Ilsabard. They are also seemingly uncommon in Othard, as only two (the one summoned during the Imperial conquest and Susano'o) are known to be extant, and Susano'o's summoning was more or less a freak accident. Primals are mostly an Eorzean issue, and had the Empire not decided to kick that hornet's nest they would have remained an occasional nuisance.

But... "We have to invade to stop them from summoning!" leads to summonings, which leads to "See? We had to!" A self-fulfilling prophecy can only be defeated by not believing the premise upon which it rests (in this case, "We have to invade to stop them from summoning!") to be true. And that's not even getting into how the whole thing is a convenient excuse, given the Empire didn't see or deal with a primal until it went after Othard six years after conquering all Ilsabard...

Here's the BGM for this. I'm goin' ta bed.

I like Zenos because it had been a while since we had a badass comic book villain who we were unable to beat on the first attempt and who got enough screen time to develop a bit. I noticed he follows the same formula as the most popular villains in the series: Kefka and Sephiroth. All 3 were experimented on or augmented in some way, blessing them with unnaturally strong powers in battle but having a negative effect on them mentally. All 3 were associated with the enemy team (Gestahl, Shinra, Garlean) and killed people on their own side indiscriminately. All 3 sought some kind of greater power and ascended to a new form (with wings).

I like that we were put into battles against Zenos early into SB that we are meant to lose, so we could feel his strength and make us feel weak at least for a moment. I think he has been the biggest threat to us since Nael/Bahamut, not counting the ascians who keep disappearing from the story and is taking many years of Earth time until we see the resolution of their story (2023 maybe?). Thordan and his knights were ok and they took a dear friend from us but I never felt like they were a threat to WoL; the immense power of Zenos has been expressed a lot better. So I just like having a force who keeps us on our toes and makes us feel that maybe there are threats even we can't shut down so easily. Maybe we underestimated the Garlean's technological / scientific capabilities and maybe Zenos is only the beginning of what they are able to do.

Ultimately, though, if Pureblood Garleans had not been persecuted as 'easy targets' based on their inability to manipulate aether, driven out of fertile lands and forced to carve out a living for themselves in a complete and utter wasteland then they very likely would never have felt the need to forge The Garlean Empire in the first place.

When a particular people are pushed and persecuted they resort to increasingly desperate measures to defend themselves, their loved ones and their interests. Sometimes in a misguided manner. Other times through preemptive preventative measures - though, again, they do not have the various 'plot conveniences' afforded to the protagonists of this setting to swoop in and save them right before they have to make any tough, morally dubious decisions. They couldn't rely on aether. They couldn't hide behind religion. They were not about to roll over and die...and their distaste for 'savages' is understandable when you consider that it was 'savages' who almost wiped them out to begin with.

As for my debate theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEzzn_q5wP4

https://78.media.tumblr.com/b0d92df6...ub5do1_400.gif

I don't like Zenos as a character, mainly because I feel that if there needed to be some antagonist to put up a strong enough resistance to the WoL to defeat us multiple times, it really should have been the Warriors of Darkness.

The Warriors of Darkness get plenty of reasons why they would be able to overpower us, and there would not be word one of complaint from me about that plot point. (Which does still let me continue to complain about how the "hopeless battles" were implemented, encounter-design-wise. But that's game mechanics, not story.)

Zenos just isn't interesting enough. I was actually kind of optimistic after seeing him return, because now we can figure out if there is any more depth to his character in situations not tailor-made for him to be all pointlessly and petty evil. What does he think about being brought back to life (or surviving his apparent suicide)? Was it part of his plan, or was it against his wishes? The end of 4.0 would imply the latter, but Zenos hasn't immediately tried to leap out of a max-skybox-height airship yet, so I assume he's either resigned to his new life, or he didn't really mean to kill himself in the first place.

Zenos does illustrate a lot of the issues with the usual back-and-forth about Garlemald: the Garlemald we think should be the case, with the oppressed people deciding to take revenge against the whole world and built and Empire to do so in the last century or so, is simply not the Garlemald we actually see in-game, with its incredibly stupid strategic decisions and rogue Legatus warlords and throwing away vast amounts of men and materiel for no apparent reason. We can talk all about how Garleans feel persecuted, but that still doesn't explain why Zenos acts the way he does without consequences.

So there's the arguments based on what the arguer wants Garlemald to be, and the arguments based on what the arguer sees Garlemald as it is actually portrayed. The former works on extrapolation based on RL human nature, but is not represented in-game. The latter works on in-game evidence, but makes very little sense.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Nuances don't simply cease to exist just because a handful of vocal posters want to flock to this board to bash Garlemald at every single turn. I know some people do not actually come here to actually discuss the lore, though. They seem much more interested in trying to push political biases above all else.

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People "bashing" Garlemald are not just here to push politicial biases. I'm not sure what's so biased about opposing a country built upon imperialist foundations.

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Garlemald's harsh policies are a direct result of years of persecution and being forced to live in a complete wasteland. Such a lifestyle served to harden its people, so it is hardly any surprise that they resorted to the aggression that they have displayed as a consequence. Not being able to manipulate aether is a huge disadvantage in a setting such as this. One that is, unfortunately often downplayed.

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The victim card Garlemald plays does not apply the second they decided to try taking over the entire planet, outside of the landmass full of people that treated them poorly. For a people that keep playing that card, their leaders sure as hell seem awfully devoted to making everyone in the world keen on destroying them in turn.

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As for Pureblood Garleans being racist? Can you blame them, given that they've been persecuted for much of their history and have only been able to claw their way to relevance as a direct result of increasing their power and influence? Why wouldn't they see outsiders as 'savages' when 'savages' are responsible for pushing them out of fertile lands, looking upon them with disdain and disgust?

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Yes, I can blame them. I can blame the one that perpetuate that racism and institutionalize it in their society, namely the Optimates faction and whatever other individuals faciliate it. I don't care how much they like to play the victim. I'm not going to try to "understand" where their racism is coming from. And I applaud the ones that don't try justifying their nation's current warlike, authoritarian tendancies, that aren't arrogant wankers towards everyone that isn't them.

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Racism and xenophobia is a huge part of the setting, anyway. The Duskwight are treated like dirt within Eorzea. Interracial relationships are frowned upon. Adventurers may be more open minded (as well as the protagonists in general, conveniently) though the 'every-man' of the setting isn't necessarily.
Hingashi and Sharlayan also have strict isolationist policies.

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Here we go again, with the whataboutism logic.

We're not talking about any of those other things. We're talking about Garlemald, and nothing else. People have discussed those other topics in-depth and acknowledge them as bad things. I can give you more ammunition and say that Ishgard still struggles to accept outsiders and resentment towards the Dravanians isn't going away after centuries of war.

I'm not sure why you think that people that "bash" Garlemald don't want a more three dimensional depiction of them as a faction. It's entirely possible to call out the Empire on their cruel, hawkish, xenophobic tendancies and also want more characters like Regula or the characters from the Prima Vista. I for one am quite eager for an Illsabard expansion and looking at the society that's been at odds with Eorzea for so long.

You can say all you want the reasons why the Empire thinks what its doing is right, or why it has a collective chip on its shoulder. People understand and acknowledge those reasons. It still does not, at any point, justify what they are doing, and that's the point people are trying to make. There is nothing nuanced about any of those policies.