What is with the constant mistreatment of the Garlean story?(6.1 Patch spoilers)

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Originally Posted by tokinokanatae

Matsuno said it was deliberately cut short (and at the time had no chance of being revisited) specifically because the story proved to be so unpopular. Matsuno himself was also on record as saying he wanted the zones to look prettier (which was another common complaint) but I don't think that would have been enough if the Japanese fanbase had such a strong negative reaction to the plot and the NA and EU fanbase didn't have a correspondingly incredibly positive response to the plot.

EDIT, found his tweet:

https://i.redd.it/og5j2013mi771.png

There is a language barrier, so it's possible that the response was more mixed, but using "the worst" seems to indicate people that hated it absolutely hated it.

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Thanks. I'd like to know what it was they disliked about it specifically but I imagine that level of detail isn't available. Personally I do find myself wondering where they get feedback from and what exactly is being said.

My only argument with this, characters can have their lighter moments. I welcome them as if the characters are still fun then I'm having fun. My only thing is that its still within the realm of plausibility and the situation makes sense. Some folk seeing that G'raha being a fanboy or Gaius or Aymeric dressing up for the festivities as character assassination and nonsensical I find that in of itself nonsensical. Theres reasons why they do the things they do and it fits well within their characters.

It's about gravitas. Gaius is supposed to be a man who was once a great leader who believed in a glorious empire, only to see it perverted and ruined. His men slain, his comrades gone. There is a tragedy here. It is undermined when he is seen walking around for cheap gag comedy.

But consider this: if there was a whole expansion based on Garlemald, we'd have spent the whole time with Zenos. Eugh.

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Originally Posted by MoofiaBossVal

It's about gravitas. Gaius is supposed to be a man who was once a great leader who believed in a glorious empire, only to see it perverted and ruined. His men slain, his comrades gone. There is a tragedy here. It is undermined when he is seen walking around for cheap gag comedy.

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I think as well, a part of it again, is the timing. If this occurred in day 7.0, i don’t think it would be that big of a deal at all. But right now his home is destroyed, his people trying their best to survive in horrible conditions and could use all the help they need, so even if it’s not-canon, it just looks a bit…weird that he’s hanging out with his daughter at some light hearted easter event when his people are suffering and they need him the most. We’re told in EW i believe the only reason he hasn’t gone there is due to him not knowing how his people will treat him knowing he defected(which is horrible reasoning but i digress), but now he should know what’s happening, he should be there.

I was never a fan of Garlemald/Garleans, but I sympathize with their fans. They went from not having an expansion, to not being on the preferred list of people to save during the Final Days, to unceremoniously being either killed off screen or sent to the moon in a role quest. It's almost like the writers themselves had disdain for them and just wanted to be done with everything about them.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

I think as well, a part of it again, is the timing. If this occurred in day 7.0, i don’t think it would be that big of a deal at all. But right now his home is destroyed, his people trying their best to survive in horrible conditions and could use all the help they need, so even if it’s not-canon, it just looks a bit…weird that he’s hanging out with his daughter at some light hearted easter event when his people are suffering and they need him the most. We’re told in EW i believe the only reason he hasn’t gone there is due to him not knowing how his people will treat him knowing he defected(which is horrible reasoning but i digress), but now he should know what’s happening, he should be there.

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I think his exact reasoning was that one half of Garlean society believed he had murdered Varis, so to enter at the head of an Eorzean army would be terrible for peace talks. And he feared that the other half would try to make him a figurehead for beginning a new war. If anyone else remembers differently, please feel free to correct me. But yes, I agree that now that the crisis has been averted that there is no reason why Gaius should not be able to return to his people and help to rebuild Garlean society. From what I've heard that idea gets thrown out the window in favor of the Garleans joining the rabbits on the moon though, so so much for the not-stupid approach.

I kind of get the feeling that the writers just never had a plan for resolving the Garlemald conflict in the first place. They were supposed to be a monolithic empire with nigh-unstoppable technology, who hadn't conquered Eorzea entirely yet only because they were too busy putting out fires elsewhere to bother. Unfortunately, the resolution for the entire war is.....Zenos and Fandaniel.

It's a shame, because the Empire was always interesting....when it wasn't the main focus. Post-ARR, I liked getting glimpses of it. Things like Varis taking the crown, Regula's appearances in the Warring Triad story, the small stuff that built up the weight and threat of Garlemald. But then Stormblood happened, and thanks to Zenos's apathy, the Empire started to look like a joke. All the nuance of the Empire goes out the window so we can follow a dead-eyed sociopath.

Maybe if we'd had more interesting Imperial characters in the spotlight, it might've gone differently. For every Zenos or Valens, we've had a Gaius or Regula. (And Eorzea's hardly without its own slimeballs. Teledji Adeledji, Thordan and the Heavens' Ward, Ilberd.....the list continues.) But the writers just didn't seem to have enough interest to do much with it, so we got a rushed and rather unsatisfactory conclusion to one of the story's big conflicts.

As far as the question of "Is Garlemald unpopular?" is concerned, one data point of interest might be that NHK poll that really put Emet-Selch on the map:

https://www.nhk.or.jp/anime/ff/ranking/?cat=series

Among the FFXIV characters, the only Garleans who ranked at all were Zenos and Asahi, who is a meme character in Japan. Keep in mind Minfilia, generally acknowledged as a very unpopular character, managed to rank near the very bottom.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

I kind of get the feeling that the writers just never had a plan for resolving the Garlemald conflict in the first place.

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Perhaps this was done to wash their hands of their last major remaining link to 1.0 and all the baggage that came with it. Linking their origins to the Ascians already seemed like a not so subtle attempt to kill two birds with one stone.

Mistreatment is a strong word...

Sadly the game can not cater to everyones tastes. I am happy for example that the game focused more on the Ancients and the mainplot and not on Garlemald.

I understand that some players would have loved to see more of Garlemald or Garlean NPCs from sidecontent like Bozja. Yet other players would have loved to see more of other characters or areas as well and never got their wish. Think about Hingashi. We only really were able to visit Kugane and never got to see the rest of the nation. Or Dalmasca, which we only ever visit in a raid.

The game has limited resources each expansion and can only implement so much. Therefore it is not surprising that we were not able to travel through a lot of Garlean areas or provinces. Or inlcude all the NPcs and give them their finale onscreen. What we got is already more than I had hoped for, considering that this expansion wanted to wrap up all loose plotthreads.

The rolequest conclusion was in my opinion well done and gave Garlemald's story at least closure. It also showed that the effort of the WoL and scions to bring all nations together and overcome their differences finally played out. I was very happy to see them work and fight together. Nero was also a nice addition, since I have always liked him a lot. It was only disappointing that Gaius stayed away.

Something that is mentionded here and in other threads that I do not understand is, however, why some people think that this will be the last we see of Garlemald. The rolequest left all options for Garlemald's future open. There were NPCs that decided to rebuild their society and establish a new government. Only 3 young people + Nero decided to go to the moon in order to learn more about it.

Maybe we will be able to help rebuild Garlemald in a similar questline like Doma someday in the future or get a delivery questline on the moon that includes Nero and the others. I would really like to see more sidecontent like that that shows us how Garlemald's future develops.

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Originally Posted by Schwarzwind

Mistreatment is a strong word...

Sadly the game can not cater to everyones tastes. I am happy for example that the game focused more on the Ancients and the mainplot and not on Garlemald.

I understand that some players would have loved to see more of Garlemald or Garlean NPCs from sidecontent like Bozja. Yet other players would have loved to see more of other characters or areas as well and never got their wish. Think about Hingashi. We only really were able to visit Kugane and never got to see the rest of the nation. Or Dalmasca, which we only ever visit in a raid.

The game has limited resources each expansion and can only implement so much. Therefore it is not surprising that we were not able to travel through a lot of Garlean areas or provinces. Or inlcude all the NPcs and give them their finale onscreen. What we got is already more than I had hoped for, considering that this expansion wanted to wrap up all loose plotthreads.

The rolequest conclusion was in my opinion well done and gave Garlemald's story at least closure. It also showed that the effort of the WoL and scions to bring all nations together and overcome their differences finally played out. I was very happy to see them work and fight together. Nero was also a nice addition, since I have always liked him a lot. It was only disappointing that Gaius stayed away.

Something that is mentionded here and in other threads that I do not understand is, however, why some people think that this will be the last we see of Garlemald. The rolequest left all options for Garlemald's future open. There were NPCs that decided to rebuild their society and establish a new government. Only 3 young people + Nero decided to go to the moon in order to learn more about it.

Maybe we will be able to help rebuild Garlemald in a similar questline like Doma someday in the future or get a delivery questline on the moon that includes Nero and the others. I would really like to see more sidecontent like that that shows us how Garlemald's future develops.

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I understand limited resources etc. However i’m questioning, why then build up certain characters throughout an entire expansion, like Nerva for example, only for them to be used as random fodder? Or another example being Gabranth who was built up through the Ivalice raid series and bozja. We know a garlemald expansion was cut, so that most likely would have something to do with it, but when they constantly mention things like Nerva, or foreshadow things like the 2nd legion in Corvos, but then kill them off offscreen, it just screams either bad writing, last minute changes, or both.

I'm a pretty close reader with a love of lore and political fantasy, but when my friend was giving me a play-by-play as they went through the job capstone quests and mentioned "Nerva", my response was--and I mean this literally--"who?" One person's "carefully built up" is another person's "I have no recollection of this character at all."

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

I understand limited resources etc. However i’m questioning, why then build up certain characters throughout an entire expansion, like Nerva for example, only for them to be used as random fodder? Or another example being Gabranth who was built up through the Ivalice raid series and bozja. We know a garlemald expansion was cut, so that most likely would have something to do with it, but when they constantly mention things like Nerva, or foreshadow things like the 2nd legion in Corvos, but then kill them off offscreen, it just screams either bad writing, last minute changes, or both.

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I think you gave yourself your answer right there. A cut expansion means that they have to resolve all those character stories and loose plot points while setting up a new plot. Something has to give. And I do not think that Garlemald is the only victim in this. The MSQ suffert from this as well in my opinion and was rushed at some points and had lots of pacing issues. This is exactly why I love this patch so much. 6.1 felt much more relaxed in terms of pacing and gave the story and characters time to breath.

i mean... they wanted to end it in 7.0... but they decides it would be too stretched out. so they ended it in 6.0. the result? 30% more story with a lot of things happening but also missing out of a lot of things. i assume zodiarc would have been the final boss in 6.0 and several maps for garlemald would have been on the table.

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Originally Posted by Asari5

i mean... they wanted to end it in 7.0... but they decides it would be too stretched out. so they ended it in 6.0. the result? 30% more story with a lot of things happening but also missing out of a lot of things. i assume zodiarc would have been the final boss in 6.0 and several maps for garlemald would have been on the table.

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They confirmed if 6.0 had been the garlemald expansion, Anima would have been the final boss, not Zodiark.

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Originally Posted by tokinokanatae

I'm a pretty close reader with a love of lore and political fantasy, but when my friend was giving me a play-by-play as they went through the job capstone quests and mentioned "Nerva", my response was--and I mean this literally--"who?" One person's "carefully built up" is another person's "I have no recollection of this character at all."

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I think its just a matter of how much people pay attention. If im not mistaken Nerva was mentioned in almost every single patch 6.1+. Personally i was extremely interested in him mainly because we hadnt seen too much of people outside of the same faces of zenos,gaius,varis etc, so hearing a new name brought to the table was extremely interesting.

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Originally Posted by Schwarzwind

I think you gave yourself your answer right there. A cut expansion means that they have to resolve all those character stories and loose plot points while setting up a new plot. Something has to give. And I do not think that Garlemald is the only victim in this. The MSQ suffert from this as well in my opinion and was rushed at some points and had lots of pacing issues. This is exactly why I love this patch so much. 6.1 felt much more relaxed in terms of pacing and gave the story and characters time to breath.

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It did feel rushed, but Garlemald really got the short end of the stick. A lot of players seem to have this sort of phobia or hatred of the Garleans in general, especially in areas like twitter, so they were probably the easiest to just cut and get rid of.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

It did feel rushed, but Garlemald really got the short end of the stick. A lot of players seem to have this sort of phobia or hatred of the Garleans in general, especially in areas like twitter, so they were probably the easiest to just cut and get rid of.

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I am not disagreeing with you.
But if Garlemald really was so unpopular I understand why SE cut them short. In addition to the ressource problem. A shame, yes, but understandable to a degree because a story that focusses on unpopular characters or, in that case nations, is not adding anything to the longevity of the game. Let's just hope they do not cut short more plots in the future because that would hurt the game in the long run as well.

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Originally Posted by Schwarzwind

I am not disagreeing with you.
But if Garlemald really was so unpopular I understand why SE cut them short. In addition to the ressource problem. A shame, yes, but understandable to a degree because a story that focusses on unpopular characters or, in that case nations, is not adding anything to the longevity of the game. Let's just hope they do not cut short more plots in the future because that would hurt the game in the long run as well.

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Tbf, whether it is popular or unpopular, i’d argue against it not adding anything to the longevity of the game. It’s a nation in the world. It’s a nation that has been a pretty big factor since the start of the game in 1.0, with many plot points and story elements of not only itself, but other nations attached to it as well.

Honestly, when it comes to nations being mistreated or neglected by the narrative, I think it's the Gridanian fans that have far more a case than anyone else, lmao. (I would like to note that I am not, in fact, a Gridanian fan. But yikes!)

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

Tbf, whether it is popular or unpopular, i’d argue against it not adding anything to the longevity of the game. It’s a nation in the world. It’s a nation that has been a pretty big factor since the start of the game in 1.0, with many plot points and story elements of not only itself, but other nations attached to it as well.

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Again I have to say that tastes are different. There are more than enough players that are fed up with Garlemald and want to explore other regions or shards instead of dragging on with the Garlemald plot for another year or two.

The only thing I can agree on is that the story overall would have been better, had they gone through with a Garlemald expansion. But I can at least understand the points that led to what we have now.

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Originally Posted by Brinne

Honestly, when it comes to nations being mistreated or neglected by the narrative, I think it's the Gridanian fans that have far more a case than anyone else, lmao. (I would like to note that I am not, in fact, a Gridanian fan. But yikes!)

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Gridania never really had much for problems set up in the first place. The Ixal were resolved with the other beast tribes (and even when they were a problem, it was mostly in Coerthas), and the elementals only really came up in the white mage story. And while they mention being xenophobic and prejudiced against Duskwights and Keepers of the Moon, it never really mattered outside of the lancer story and one or two quests around Buscaron's Druthers.

Gridania not being touched after 2.0 is probably a blessing at this point. Seeing as how the pirate nation was stripped of its piracy, the thing that made it interesting, a Gridania story written today would probably strip it of the elementals too.

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Originally Posted by Asari5

i mean... they wanted to end it in 7.0... but they decides it would be too stretched out. so they ended it in 6.0. the result? 30% more story with a lot of things happening but also missing out of a lot of things. i assume zodiarc would have been the final boss in 6.0 and several maps for garlemald would have been on the table.

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I can understand a Garlemald expansion being a tough sell after ShB.
In much the same ways as SB being a tough sell after HW. While SB obviously had its own issues (I still liked it overall), the Dragonsong War was just so much cooler than the 'evil empire'. Much as the ShB storyline, and its expansion of the ascians, is also so much cooler than the 'evil empire'.

I dont doubt that they could have told a really good story and I would have preferred they try, but I can see why the decision was made

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Originally Posted by Broken_Wind

I can understand a Garlemald expansion being a tough sell after ShB.
In much the same ways as SB being a tough sell after HW. While SB obviously had its own issues (I still liked it overall), the Dragonsong War was just so much cooler than the 'evil empire'. Much as the ShB storyline, and its expansion of the ascians, is also so much cooler than the 'evil empire'.

I dont doubt that they could have told a really good story and I would have preferred they try, but I can see why the decision was made

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This is dangerous thinking on SE's part. You risk going down the WoW route of "The next expac has to be bigger! More bigger threat! More BIG!".

I'm mostly curious what they intend to do with the rest of Ilsabard given their seeming disinterest in continuing anything Garlean-related.

The remaining legions are very much capable of being an issue still as less then half of them have been either wiped out or decided to cooperate with the Eorzean Alliance, and while they could serve as an easy reason to have us get involved with matters over there (Like they were intending in the original draft of the story), at this point I'm feeling like they'd rather send us to Meracydia instead.

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Originally Posted by Kyrj

This is dangerous thinking on SE's part. You risk going down the WoW route of "The next expac has to be bigger! More bigger threat! More BIG!".

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They specifically mentioned that they don't want to do that and that people should expect the story going forward to be more grounded.

Man I was wondering when this topic was going to be brought up. I said in the beginning of 6.0 that Garlemald got the short stick. But I can see why, I honestly never thought going there was a thing and thought people were just screaming to go for reasons. I say this because everyone complained about them in stormblood being one note villains when they were always one note villains. It's just funny seeing that SE finally cave and said " Fine, here's your Garlemald But we killed it and made it ruins!!!" It really does feel like they did it out of spite and nothing is going to change my mind about that.

Yes I'm saying they did it out of spite. I don't agree with that but it REALLY feels like they did.

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Originally Posted by MoofiaBossVal

Gridania not being touched after 2.0 is probably a blessing at this point. Seeing as how the pirate nation was stripped of its piracy, the thing that made it interesting, a Gridania story written today would probably strip it of the elementals too.

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Funnily enough, all that has already happened a decade ago.

Limsa Lominsa was stripped of its piracy in 1.0 when Yoshi-P took over the story and the Grand Companies were created. As a Lominsan, there was even a quest where you get chastised for trying to steal junk from the Ul'Dahns and Merlwyb declares piracy over. Then ARR came along and got rid of the original Marauder's Guild, where you are a pirate and do pirate things and the guild spot was a pirate ship with a bad-guy bar and a woman playing Answers on a harp.

Gridania lost its elementals in between 1.0 and ARR. In 1.0, if you broke the Hedge (the barrier of the forest) without permission, you would begin accruing woodsin and the elementals would start sicking the whole forest on you from wolves to treants. ARR quests mention how the Calamity greatly weakened the elementals to the point where they can't do all of that anymore like they used to. On a side note, ARR seemed to also stop mentioning that the rest of the world has elementals too and they live in EVERYTHING. There was a quest once in 1.0 where you take a letter to some conjurers to ask them to ask the elementals about the writer and the elementals of the ink talk about the mood the writer was in when they were being put to paper.


Back on topic, it feels like part of the reason Garlemald was done dirty is because the devs admitted that they had revealed too much in Shadowbringers and hastened the end of the main story. As well as that, it feels like a Garlean-themed expansion would have been Stormblood all over again and personally I don't think it's interesting to continue to do the same war and liberation thing over and over for both the audience and the writers. Then on top of that, we kept having crazed Imperials thrown at us over and over with Nael, Varis, Zenos, Varro, Asahi, Livia, Aulus, and Yotsuyu and at least for me, I'm tired of the character archetype and especially tired of Zenos as a character. A Regulus-type Imperial who was moderate, but loyal and understanding would've been good but also would have cheapened Regulus since he existed for such a short time and that was the only characterization he ever got.

Then there's also the fact that the story has been getting LONG and unlike FFXI, there's no way to just jump into things in new expansions without having to do everything else first. I think they really needed to end things so that we can have a secondary starting point, especially with how many new players are coming.

I think it could've been done better, but ultimately when you have the original emperor of Garlemald himself admitting that the whole thing was purposefully designed to create as much destruction as possible while at the same time being so politically fragile that when he "died" it falls apart with violence and chaos, it wasn't going to end pretty for the Garleans.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I'm mostly curious what they intend to do with the rest of Ilsabard given their seeming disinterest in continuing anything Garlean-related.

The remaining legions are very much capable of being an issue still as less then half of them have been either wiped out or decided to cooperate with the Eorzean Alliance, and while they could serve as an easy reason to have us get involved with matters over there (Like they were intending in the original draft of the story), at this point I'm feeling like they'd rather send us to Meracydia instead.



They specifically mentioned that they don't want to do that and that people should expect the story going forward to be more grounded.

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Tbf they say a lot of things….like when they said we’d be taking the fight to garlemald before 5.0… :p

I'm curious about what more people could want done with Garlemald that hasn't been done already. They've been the focus of several story arcs, we've had loyal Garleans, idealistic Garleans, power-hungry Garleans, Garlean defectors and Garlean collaborators. They're among the most plentiful and developed set of characters in the story, and it's more than likely we'll be seeing more of them in the future.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

I'm curious about what more people could want done with Garlemald that hasn't been done already. They've been the focus of several story arcs, we've had loyal Garleans, idealistic Garleans, power-hungry Garleans, Garlean defectors and Garlean collaborators.

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Honestly I want to know about the rank and file Garleans, the civilians. The Garleans are a people beaten then elevated from the ashes only to be beaten again by design. The reaper questline and the 6.1 role quest gave us a little bit of insight into the lives of the normal Garleans and there's easily enough to add another dimension to them and there interaction with the enemy of there leaders, the WoL.

How would they react to the Hero of the Savages, are we the ultimate evil to a people who were bullied and discriminated for years by magic users? How many of the people are like Fordola and just doing enough to up there role in life, or how many people are like Rhitahtyn and have fully converted to the Garlean's side, or how many people are like the Domans who are complicit and beaten into submission, or finally how many people are like the people from Bozja and are ready to fight to the end.

They didn't live like any of the city-states of Eorzea and with there path of conquest, any of the non Garlean main areas could of been anything and shown different legions doing different things. Like how different the empire's soiders in Eorzea were from the ones in Doma. It just feels like a missed opportunity.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

I'm curious about what more people could want done with Garlemald that hasn't been done already. They've been the focus of several story arcs, we've had loyal Garleans, idealistic Garleans, power-hungry Garleans, Garlean defectors and Garlean collaborators. They're among the most plentiful and developed set of characters in the story, and it's more than likely we'll be seeing more of them in the future.

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I mean…i would say what they were doing in Corvos,reclaiming their homeland? But that was dealt with off screen. There’s a lot they could do tbh. They have all those legions after all. I don’t see how this can’t be asked the same to the scions. They’ve been the focus of almost all the story arcs and they’re still at the front and center.

The remaining legions are such a huge loose thread it's something I'd want to be addressed next in 7.0 before we go galivanting off to Meracydia or the New World.

I suppose that just because the second legion got wiped out, it by no means indicates that the others won't attempt to reclaim Corvos and that could actually be what ends up causing us to get involved.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

Nerva being built up all throughout ShB

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Huh? He was mentioned like twice as the rival of Varis who lost the civil war.
If you can call that a setup, then Fufulupa from Horizon certainly deserves a whole expansion for himself, because we know like 10 times more about him than we ever did about Nerva.

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

Huh? He was mentioned like twice as the rival of Varis who lost the civil war.
If you can call that a setup, then Fufulupa from Horizon certainly deserves a whole expansion for himself, because we know like 10 times more about him than we ever did about Nerva.

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He was a critical element in Fandaniel's whole scheme to cause the Final Days as he was being strung along and given the resources to put down the unrest in the provinces quickly and get the civil war focused mostly in the capital.

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

Huh? He was mentioned like twice as the rival of Varis who lost the civil war.
If you can call that a setup, then Fufulupa from Horizon certainly deserves a whole expansion for himself, because we know like 10 times more about him than we ever did about Nerva.

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He was mentioned in almost every patch in 6.1+ with Fandaniel constantly mentioning him. I believe he kept stating that he was funding Nerva’s operation.

If you want to develop the Garlean civil war story more, I'd be a lot more interested in the actual ideological differences between the two factions fighting. If it's just "well this group of dudes is loyal to one guy, and this group of dudes is loyal to the other guy" that's not exactly compelling, and giving more information about the guy that the faction is loyal to will not make it any more interesting to me.

But you don't even need Nerva at all to develop that story. You could easily have two political factions emerge out of a post-civil war Garlemald, with one tracing themselves back to Varis loyalists and another to Nerva loyalists. The important thing is to actually give those two factions some ideas other than 'we liked this guy more'. Which is all the civil war ever looked like to me.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

If you want to develop the Garlean civil war story more, I'd be a lot more interested in the actual ideological differences between the two factions fighting. If it's just "well this group of dudes is loyal to one guy, and this group of dudes is loyal to the other guy" that's not exactly compelling, and giving more information about the guy that the faction is loyal to will not make it any more interesting to me.

But you don't even need Nerva at all to develop that story. You could easily have two political factions emerge out of a post-civil war Garlemald, with one tracing themselves back to Varis loyalists and another to Nerva loyalists. The important thing is to actually give those two factions some ideas other than 'we liked this guy more'. Which is all the civil war ever looked like to me.

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It’s not specifically about Nerva i have a problem with but the fact they just completely wrote him off as nothing but fodder along with the 2nd legion. Combine that with the way Bozja was and garlemald is just constantly getting the short end of the stick. It’s ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

He was a critical element in Fandaniel's whole scheme to cause the Final Days as he was being strung along and given the resources to put down the unrest in the provinces quickly and get the civil war focused mostly in the capital.

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Critical is stretching it. Another faction leader would’ve worked just as well as he in that role.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

He was a critical element in Fandaniel's whole scheme to cause the Final Days as he was being strung along and given the resources to put down the unrest in the provinces quickly and get the civil war focused mostly in the capital.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

He was mentioned in almost every patch in 6.1+ with Fandaniel constantly mentioning him. I believe he kept stating that he was funding Nerva’s operation.

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At best, he was a pawn for Fandaniel's "chess" game. Maybe a Rook or a Knight? Still just a disposable piece. I sincerely don't care too much for Nerva, nor do I understand why would anyone care too much about him. A lot can be said about the Garlemald stories. I personally really enjoyed them all, but pretending Nerva was this "big" character on par with Varis or Gaius seems a bit silly to me.
I guess we can agree to disagree on this.