FFXIV's story is threading on dangerous religious grounds

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Originally Posted by Neuron

There is a god in this game called Lakshmi that we have to fight. And Lakshmi is one of the Hindu gods. Tell me how this type of storyline will not offend Hindu people. I, myself, am a Hindu person and I felt offended at that part of the storyline.

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It is a storyline for a reason.

sto·ry·line
/ˈstôrēˌlīn/
noun
the plot of a novel, play, movie, or other narrative form.

I hope you can stop trying to cherrypick a storyline off of a videogame. A videogame has nothing to do with real-world problems. You can also log off.



http://cdn.discordapp.com/attachment...88/unknown.png

Deal with it.

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Originally Posted by ApolloGenX

I liked Vauthry- I didn't see him that way... but to each their own

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Vauthry's second form is very much inspired by Christian iconography of archangels. Like he wouldn't look out of place on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

Please stop, PLEASE D:
You're clearly new to the Final Fantasy franchise but its middle name is literally "dethrone god"

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

The WoL has never solved their problems by themselves though. They’ve always had some deity or higher up entity aiding them. We also literally summon primals ourselves in both Eden and the end of EW to help us. So is it only a case of it’s only okay when the protagonists do it?

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Absolutely, you just need to ignore all context those summonings happen in and your statement is 100% true.

Kill all of the gods


Worship Daddy Thancred

But they aren't Gods.

They're Primals.

We kill Primals.

Besides, Religious deities cannot be proven and there are tons of different Religions from many eras. Either accept that they're all right or they're all wrong. There's no inbetween as it's hypocritical to say one is right but the others aren't as another Religion will say the same thing. Whose right? Whose wrong? No one will find out until they die.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

Absolutely, you just need to ignore all context those summonings happen in and your statement is 100% true.

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It doesn’t change the fact we still summon them to fix our problems, which is what the person was saying the story was advocating against, when in reality we do the same thing as everyone else. Rely on and summon higher entities to fix our problems.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

It doesn’t change the fact we still summon them to fix our problems, which is what the person was saying the story was advocating against, when in reality we do the same thing as everyone else. Rely on and summon higher entities to fix our problems.

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Okay actually, its better. The summons arent solving the problems in that context, but they support us.

The same could be said about religion.
It aids you, but only if you don't lose yourself in it and let it do EVERYTHING.

Thats my point.

god killing is a time honored ff tradition

Eh. Religion will always have corruption. When you claim to be the voice of a deity you are placing yourself above your fellow man. Too often religious groups get away with a lot of horrid things because they happen to be the dominate religion of that area at the time.

Consider that Zues was once considered a True God. Yet nowadays? You would be laughed at if you said you worshipped Zues.

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Originally Posted by van_arn

Without going into future content you may not have experienced, I'd say the message of that primal arc is closer to "Beware zealotry."

Beyond the primal arc, the Heavensward arc could boil down to "Beware zealotry."

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Or to put it even simpler, beware extremism.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

It doesn’t change the fact we still summon them to fix our problems, which is what the person was saying the story was advocating against, when in reality we do the same thing as everyone else. Rely on and summon higher entities to fix our problems.

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What's fun is that another key aspect of the story is, in fact, that the City State's hands are every bit as bloody as the "Beast" Tribes and they have historically been every bit as guilty of the same kind of blind hate and zealotry that's lead to so much death and destruction on both sides. Like, that is an entire subplot of the MSQ and not a very subtle one. Like it kinda smacks us in the face with "your gods are primals too. You aren't better than them, you never were" is a pretty key plot point.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

It doesn’t change the fact we still summon them to fix our problems, which is what the person was saying the story was advocating against, when in reality we do the same thing as everyone else. Rely on and summon higher entities to fix our problems.

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You're absolutely ignoring the context in which the summonings of the primals occur.

Every time a beast tribe has summoned a primal, they have fallen into the Ascian-created trap of Tempering to perpetuate the cycle of summoning as on going and never ending, pushing the world's aetherial balance towards whichever element they need to line up with the next calamity.

When we've summoned things, such as Eden, we aren't creating a summoned manifestation capable of tempering. We've left out that piece of the equation. Also, everyone in the story CLEARLY makes the distinction that primals are NOT the actual gods. They are manifestation's of the summoner's belief.

So by that token, yes, it is completely okay when we summon them to accomplish a task and use the summoned constructs like a tool to be used, because they are not an actual diety. They are a convalescence of aether given form with a singular drive in thought by the summoner.

TLDR: Don't summon the Temper-enabled magic creations. Bad.

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Originally Posted by Avidria

What's fun is that another key aspect of the story is, in fact, that the City State's hands are every bit as bloody as the "Beast" Tribes and they have historically been every bit as guilty of the same kind of blind hate and zealotry that's lead to so much death and destruction on both sides. Like, that is an entire subplot of the MSQ and not a very subtle one. Like it kinda smacks us in the face with "your gods are primals too. You aren't better than them, you never were" is a pretty key plot point.

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Hence why we, as the neutral party, put down even blatant attempts by the City States to summon any of the 12 in that way. Remember the part of the MSQ in ARR, where the Ala Mhigan youths want to summon Rhalgr? We stopped that.

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Originally Posted by Avidria

What's fun is that another key aspect of the story is, in fact, that the City State's hands are every bit as bloody as the "Beast" Tribes and they have historically been every bit as guilty of the same kind of blind hate and zealotry that's lead to so much death and destruction on both sides. Like, that is an entire subplot of the MSQ and not a very subtle one. Like it kinda smacks us in the face with "your gods are primals too. You aren't better than them, you never were" is a pretty key plot point.

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That roasting by a certain Garlean was so sweet, its my favourite part of the whole story. Shame what they did to him, though...

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

It doesn’t change the fact we still summon them to fix our problems, which is what the person was saying the story was advocating against, when in reality we do the same thing as everyone else. Rely on and summon higher entities to fix our problems.

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We are summoning them for extremely specific reasons and it really is not the same as the regular primals we fight. Those are summoned because the people summoning them feel extremely helpless and ask for salavation. In eden we summon them specifically to get the stagnated aether flowing again. In endwalker what we summon are arguably not primals at all as they completely lack the zealotry to convert others that makes a primal a primal.
When we summon we are not looking for an easy way out, we are solving problems. You really are ignoring the entire context of what was happening.

Someone is a baby to JRPGs. :/ First time?

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Originally Posted by Gameovers

Someone is a baby to JRPGs. :/ First time?

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And most jrpgs have poorly written and constructed stories.

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Originally Posted by Neuron

There is a god in this game called Lakshmi that we have to fight. And Lakshmi is one of the Hindu gods. Tell me how this type of storyline will not offend Hindu people. I, myself, am a Hindu person and I felt offended at that part of the storyline.

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I would have thought Shiva would have caused offense before Sri Lakshmi, but then again, you're just trolling, so....

Relgion have created many conflicts in the world, this game mirrors some of it. The Crusade is a good example, hunting of witches, ritualistic sacrificing. Not that im saying believeing is not right, you can believe in a flying spaghetti monster if you want to, aslong as its not used to hurt other people for not believing the same thing.

Anyway, religion have been portrait or spoken of in alot of media and nobody had a problem with it for years lol

The 蛮神 (banshin) are naught but fake gods conjured from aether and the prayers of the devout.

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Originally Posted by Vav2021

I didn't really get any anti religious vibes from the game. If anything, to me, the primals and older gods in the game remind me of merciless gods that were worshipped through world history (quetzalcoatl or Ares for example).

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Really even after killing the pope?

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Originally Posted by Shibi

The 蛮神 (banshin) are naught but fake gods conjured from aether and the prayers of the devout.

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I think it's pretty clear in FFXIV that even the "real" gods were created. FFXIV's opinion seems to be that all gods are manmade constructs based on what totally natural things they have raised up and mythified.

I’m stuck between trolling or is this genuine? Because.....what?

I guess you can say Minfilia is Jesus. Technically she died to save others.

I see no issue here. Religion is a disease and my warrior of light is the cure.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

I see no issue here. Religion is a disease and my warrior of light is the cure.

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I see an issue here, your warrior of light is a disease and Emet-Selch is the cure

The game isn't anti religion, but it's very much anti religious corruption. Not all religious practice is shown in a negative light throughout the game.

People still can't tell fantasy from real life and think that everything artists create is a direct message and reflection of their views?

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Originally Posted by Neuron

The main story of this game is threading on dangerous religious grounds mainly because of when a specific groups of people (beast tribes) summon their gods and we go there, kill their gods and put those people in their place after they get brainwashed (tempered) by their respective dieties. This kind of story is very dangerous in religious countries and square enix will get in legal trouble if they continue this type of storyline. This game has now gained a lot of attention and popularity. Its no longer hidden by WoW and the storyline will get a lot of attention now all over the world.

Basically the story of FFXIV is saying that "Don't worship your gods or else we will kill your gods and then put you in your place. All the gods when summoned turns evil and brainwash (tempers) their people".

I was also shocked to see that when a particularly important NPC told me all the 12 gods of the civilized races of Eorzea like Rhalgr, Halone, etc can be summoned if we lavish them with crystals and gorge them with ether. And when summoned the gods will turn evil (just like the beast tribe gods) and will fully brainwash (temper) all their worshippers. This type of storyline may have worked 15-20 years ago but nowadays in this new generation people will not tolerate it.

I won't be surprise if the storyline gets censored in the coming days in majority of the countries.

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After having played the MSQ I was wondering how long some anti-religion post was going to get put here.

Was honestly longer than I expected.

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

People still can't tell fantasy from real life and think that everything artists create is a direct message and reflection of their views?

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This 100% This whole woke your hurting my feelings crowd is insane last few years.. Its a fake video game lol

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Originally Posted by Neuron

There is a god in this game called Lakshmi that we have to fight. And Lakshmi is one of the Hindu gods. Tell me how this type of storyline will not offend Hindu people. I, myself, am a Hindu person and I felt offended at that part of the storyline.

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*SPOILER ALERT*

please look through the storyline again, the game is not saying that Lakshmi is inherently bad but that she was summoned by a Garlemald-aligned tribe with less than noble intentions and these intentions do influence the summoned variant, yet even in this scenario it was one of our party members who struck first after Lakshmi offered a truce, the developers were quite careful here. the other Ananta tribe asks you to vanquish this variant of Lakshmi because they know Lakshmi cannot be permanently vanquished and can be resummoned under better circumstances which does happen later. the moral of the story is that the concept of gods can be invoked for good or evil purposes depending on the worshippers, and history shows us this is true for many religions

also there is no singular beastmen hivemind that we "put in their place", there are often different factions some of which have been corrupted by non-beastmen actors, and other factions who are requesting our help

Just wait till you get to the Ishgardian Church :)

The best part of the troll effort is the fact their job is a level 59 Marauder. Legit comedy gold.

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Originally Posted by sorawild34

Every JRPG except Dragon Quest still ends with you killing god

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Dragon Quest 7 at least ends with you killing God.

I think OP haven't gotten far enough through the story to understand how the primals are summoned and what their true natures are.

We could give a detailed explanation, but that would be within spoiler territory.

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

People still can't tell fantasy from real life and think that everything artists create is a direct message and reflection of their views?

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Sorry, but snippy attempts at shutting down all analytical discourse really irk me.

1) All fiction is somewhat rooted in reality and our perception/understanding of it. It is impossible to totally separate fiction from reality, nor would I ever try to because escapism is lazy and parasitic to the greater social organism.

2) The FF series is no stranger to incorporating real-world issues into its writing, and FF XIV is probably the installment to date that does it the most. Any argument that FF XIV does *not* encourage players to think about such things as institutions, tribalism, colonialism, class-inequity, exceptionalism, authoritarianism and *especially* religion would necessarily have to be founded on profound ignorance and evasiveness.

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Originally Posted by Neuron

There is a god in this game called Lakshmi that we have to fight. And Lakshmi is one of the Hindu gods. Tell me how this type of storyline will not offend Hindu people. I, myself, am a Hindu person and I felt offended at that part of the storyline.

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You haven't even done the Lakshmi story line your highest class is 59.... Please lock this troll thread~~~~~

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Originally Posted by SeverianLyonesse

Sorry, but snippy attempts at shutting down all analytical discourse really irk me.

1) All fiction is somewhat rooted in reality and our perception/understanding of it. It is impossible to totally separate fiction from reality, nor would I ever try to because escapism is lazy and parasitic to the greater social organism.

2) The FF series is no stranger to incorporating real-world issues into its writing, and FF XIV is probably the installment to date that does it the most. Any argument that FF XIV does *not* encourage players to think about such things as institutions, tribalism, colonialism, class-inequity, exceptionalism, authoritarianism and *especially* religion would necessarily have to be founded on profound ignorance and evasiveness.

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Or, you know, you could just play the game and enjoy yourself.

Not everyone has to look so deep as to find some super secret hidden meaning and agenda in things.

Chill out.

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Originally Posted by ArkenaeuxBelmont

Or, you know, you could just play the game and enjoy yourself.

Not everyone has to look so deep as to find some super secret hidden meaning and agenda in things.

Chill out.

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I agree.

But I also don't need to suffer people insisting that entertainment media cannot or should not have real-world meaning. It's a fiercely self-absorbed and anti-intellectual stance to take, not to mention just factually inaccurate.

People crap their two-second ideas onto these forums to defend their lazy, consumerist lifestyles. And the lifestyle itself is fine, totally their prerogative. But spreading misinformation and atrociously underthought, counterproductive heuristics to justify it doesn't help anyone other than to create the sort of toxic, no-thought "spout quippy soundbytes" discourse that produces BS threads like this in the first place.