What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

I don't see this much wrong with the Steppes situation personally. Admittedly I haven't gone through SB in a long time, but it just seemed to me like all of them were cool with letting foreigners with an obvious agenda participate in their Stupid Game™, in which said foreigners won the Stupid Prize™, and then the whole three tribes (unless the Buduga also fought in the war? I can't remember) that Hien actually got to participate in his war fully consented to it. Basically all of it seems based on the Proud Warrior Race Guy trope, which... when applied to an obvious fictional version of Mongols is certainly something. But within the context of the story I'm not sure what is wrong. We played their game according to their rules, they lost, gg. I don't see it as very different from recruiting mercenaries – only they would have probably refused money, so we paid them in Blood and Honor and Warrior's Pride.

I feel like mentioning that, as far as I can recall, none of the Naadam stuff was in the Xaela's original lore as it was presented during HW. What little we had of it, at least. It did weird me out in SB that suddenly they had this yearly competition that would result in the tribes having a leader of sorts.

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

You murdered the archbishop of Ishgard.
In the steppe you participated in a ritual that you were explicitly allowed in.

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The archbishop was a nutcase that was planning on becoming a god and ruling over the entire world forever. We didn’t kill him because he stood in the way of adding Ishgard to the alliance against Garlemald.

We’re also allowed to meet privately with many heads of State. That doesn’t make it okay for us to beat up Kan-E-Senna, insert a padjal puppet government that’s willing to declare war on the Elementals, and then moonwalk completely out of the area when we’ve gotten what we wanted.

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Originally Posted by CrownySuccubus

Yeah, but even then, every single plot involving the Elementals and the Padjals treats the Elementals as gracious, benevolent benefactors who have kindly allowed the people of the shroud to NOT be genocided. While the story does make it clear that the Elementals are temperamental and have an almost childlike cognitive level of discourse and coping, it still wants to portray them as truly magnanimous beings who have done the Gridanians a solid by allowing them to continue breathing oxygen.

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I think that very much is the idea, the Gridanians very much get to live there as long as the elementals permit and when provoked there wrath is horrendous so the Grindanians treat them with a lot of reverence and I guess as they can recall what they had to do before the elementals let them live there they regard it as a well made deal if a dangerous one. (would be nice to have explored it more)

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Originally Posted by tokinokanatae

We’re also allowed to meet privately with many heads of State. That doesn’t make it okay for us to beat up Kan-E-Senna, insert a padjal puppet government that’s willing to declare war on the Elementals, and then moonwalk completely out of the area when we’ve gotten what we wanted.

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But that scenario would constitute a breach of trust. With the Naadam everyone agreed to the rules.

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Originally Posted by Teraq

I don't see this much wrong with the Steppes situation personally. Admittedly I haven't gone through SB in a long time, but it just seemed to me like all of them were cool with letting foreigners with an obvious agenda participate in their Stupid Game™, in which said foreigners won the Stupid Prize™, and then the whole three tribes (unless the Buduga also fought in the war? I can't remember) that Hien actually got to participate in his war fully consented to it. Basically all of it seems based on the Proud Warrior Race Guy trope, which... when applied to an obvious fictional version of Mongols is certainly something. But within the context of the story I'm not sure what is wrong. We played their game according to their rules, they lost, gg. I don't see it as very different from recruiting mercenaries – only they would have probably refused money, so we paid them in Blood and Honor and Warrior's Pride.

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Much like the situation with Venat, the plot contorting itself to make it so Hien's actions are actually "okay" with everyone (including an incredibly conveniently-timed attack by the Imperials to turn the Steppe sentiment against them just in time for Hien to march them to his war) makes me feel more negatively toward it, not less. It's along the same lines of the writing having Emet "show his respect" toward Venat and her plan in Ultima Thule.

If Hien had, as a diplomat, approached the Steppe leadership openly and proposed they join forces for mutual benefit against the Empire, that would be one thing. But instead he resorted to what amounts to a sneaky power play to force the issue, and no amount of hand-waving about "well actually the fantasy Mongols are conveniently totally cool with it because they love violence anyway and hey there's the Empire on their doorstep after us to piss them off" is going to mitigate that, for me.

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But that scenario would constitute a breach of trust. With the Naadam everyone agreed to the rules.

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Yeah, Hien found a great loophole in their cultural ritual and he exploited the hell out of it. Look, he's not participating in the Naadam as an agent of Doma, he's fighting on behalf of the Mol, who after their victory have agreed to let him call all the shots because of their superstitions and because Cirina has a crush on him! What Is The Point With That Quite Lackluster Story In Stormblood

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Originally Posted by Teraq

But that scenario would constitute a breach of trust. With the Naadam everyone agreed to the rules.

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So we told the other participants outside the Mol they would be expected to fight and die for another country if we won? I must have missed that scene.

My issues with Ishgard predate Garlemald. The exiled WoL essentially does everything for them, but then Aymeric consistently acts like he owes a debt to the Eorzean Alliance. I miss isolationist Ishgard. I actually hate seeing them on every warfront, especially because Aymeric will probably remind me somehow that he feels perpetually indebted to the other city-states for what I did. I love how we ended the Dragonsong War for them only to drag them into literally every other possible conflict.

As for the Steppe, it may have been allowable but it wasn't honorable. We gamed the Nadaam with the WoL trump card (reminder the person who Thancred credits as single-handedly winning the Grand Melee for Ishgard) so Hien could recruit the Xaela into a war that didn't concern them and near as I can tell didn't benefit them in any way. Unfortunately, this was just one more in a series of traveling around the world pressuring people into joining the fight and, worse, because the aforementioned Eorzean Alliance decided to grant Ilberd's dying wish. I still don't understand how we won against Garlemald. It should've been an absolute slaughter with Ala Mhigo and Doma being crushed under magitek foot.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

It should've been an absolute slaughter with Ala Mhigo and Doma being crushed under magitek foot.

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Simple. They had an army. We had a WOL.

That said, Ishgard abandoning its isolationism made sense. That was imposed by a tyrannical theocracy to keep people ignorant and secure said religious dictator's power hold.

But now that you mention it, I can't help but notice that most cases of the WOL ending an isolationist society results from "They have X and we need X to save the world. Therefore, we have to force them to give us X", which basically comes across as a 15th-Century "How to Justify Colonial Expansion" manual. I mean, yeah, the fact that the player usually needs to upturn some society to get what they need to save the world is both true and not exactly new to RPGs, but it IS noticeable how often it happens to the Scions.

This current topic legit makes me wonder how much like dynasty warriors the WoL vs soldiers would actually look like.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

Unfortunately, this was just one more in a series of traveling around the world pressuring people into joining the fight and, worse, because the aforementioned Eorzean Alliance decided to grant Ilberd's dying wish. I still don't understand how we won against Garlemald. It should've been an absolute slaughter with Ala Mhigo and Doma being crushed under magitek foot.

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There's a dark joke in here somewhere about how Venat and Ilberd, with their ideologies and methods, secured victory and achieved everything they wanted, whereas Emet-Selch's point of failure and his downfall is stated to be his "kindness," but I probably don't have the heart or the brainpower to properly formulate it at this moment.