Future leader of Apa Mhigo

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Originally Posted by Frederick22

The elementals have a more important things to do than dealing with Ala Mhigo, to be honest I dont think they even care at all.

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On top of which, they're all pretty inactive. My understanding is that the Elementals have been at only a fraction of their power since the Calamity.

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Originally Posted by Belhi

No. More to the point, its worth remembering that the Autumn war was a hundred years prior. While there would probably be some agro pasted down, that's a long time ago. No one living in Gridania these days would have actually been around at the time it was fought. The elementals aren't that caught up in politics. They don't reject Ala Mhigans specifically. After all there are several cases of Ala Mhigans have accepted. Elementals judge people individually on wether they feel the individual will be a detriment to the twelveswood.

I don't see either the Elementals or the Gridanians interfering with any attempt to drive the Garleans out of Ala Mhigo or even set up the city state again. Removal of the Garleans, like all the city states, is in their interests and probably the primary reason the Eorzean Alliance would move against Ala Mhigo next expac. Whatever the Ala Mhigans did 100 years prior, the Garleans have a bloody big Castrum smack dab in the twelveswood right now, sending incursions into the forest and inciting the local Sylphs. The Garleans are the reason the Sylphs chose to summon Ramuh in the first place.

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not strictly true as the padjal are extremely long lived with e-sumi-yan being one of if not the oldest of them currently alive and i have no doubt he was around back then but is just to laid back about it to care.

I'm actually hoping that our reason for entering Ala Mhigo is something that forces us to set aside our grudge with Garlemald and work alongside the Garleans. Perhaps Regula pulls a Kefka, betrays Varys and then decides to test out his new powers on Ala Mhigo. We make a push into the remnants of the nation to help rebuild it and encourage Ala Mhigans and Garleans to work together and push for peace so that the greater threat can be addressed. It'd be very boring to me by comparison if the storyline is as simple as liberating Ala Mhigo and slaughtering Garleans at every turn. That wouldn't feel very 'Final Fantasy' to me. As I've pointed out many times in the past there's a long tradition of antagonists becoming allies - at least for a while - or being far more sympathetic than initially presented upon their side of the story being shown.

Honestly, the Garlean Empire is among my least favorite story elements in FFXIV. Despite multiple opportunities to do so, they are as flat-out generic an Evil Empire as you're likely to see in any media. From their arrogant superiority to their genocidal tendencies to their people's inexplicably unshakable loyalty to terrible leaders with shortsighted (if not outright disastrous) plans, SE has dug themselves in too deep for any kind of "oh, wait, they're not really ALL that bad" plot twist to be at all reasonable. They are a caricature, and the best way to handle Garleans from this point forward is to keep them out of the storylines as much as possible. (Heck, as has been pointed out in this thread, even the "good-guy" traitors are caricatures! Anything they do is treated as though it is good by definition, simply because they're no longer with the Garleans.) I had some hope with the introduction of Valis, but nope; his intro made it clear that there was no potential change in Garlean philosophy on the way. They pretty much explicitly said that Valis is, if anything, worse than his predecessor.

I feel the same way about the Ul'dah Nanamo assassination plotline, something with potential promise that was hideously mishandled to the point where I simply don't want to see the characters involved anymore.

The Ala Mihgans have some potential as a once-belligerent Evil Empire in their own right now brought low. I'll be fine if the Ala Mihgans get some grey-vs-grey development with different Ala Mihgan factions with different viewpoints - but when the Garleans get involved, they should be nothing more than mindless mooks for the WoL to plow through without a thought or a speck of remorse. It is how they've been developed up to this point, and we're far past the point where a token sympathetic Garlean or two can turn things around.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

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At the same time, SE has also dug themselves so much that only a Deus Ex Machina could keep the Garleans outta Eorzea without certain intervention, so long as they have their foot in the door, then a some confrontation with them is inevitable, The Ascians doesn't want to kill the empire that is oh so easily manipulated to spreading chaos so that's out and They are not stupid enough to summon a Primal themselves are they?

As for the Token Heroic Garlean thing, as much as Theodoric would wish otherwise, that would be Cid and Lucia so far, plus the potential exists for there to still be characters that would closely fit in Larsa's shoes, or people that want to reform Garlemald from the inside, but lack the political and martial power to effectively do so, so you're right that one alone could not turn things around (keyword being: alone).

With that said, Note the reaction people had to Ishgard prior to Heavensward. Completely irredeemable, with players rather feeding the clergy and populace to Nidhogg then help them in any way. The perceptionc an change. (Though sadly I;d find Deus Ex Machina more likely than reformation at this point, but SE could at least try to surprise us.)

I don't believe that Garlemald is a lost cause. Not yet. The developers of this game have proven that they're more than willing to take constructive feedback into account and I have faith that someone influential is reading threads such as this and passing feedback along to the development team. 3.0 was an immense improvement over 2.0 in terms of storytelling and I firmly believe that 4.0 will, in turn, be an improvement over 3.0 in that regard. We're also getting a lore book at some point in the future which may very well shed further light on Garlemald's motivations and morality.

Ultimately, though, we do need to see more complexity where antagonists are concerned. We also need to see more morally dubious stuff from the protagonists as well. Protagonists are not necessarily good after all - just like antagonists aren't necessarily evil. I feel like it'd be a shame if Garlemald ended up being written off as 'generic bad guys' because there's absolutely no reason for them to be portrayed that way permanently. I fear they suffer a lot due to being exploited in the quest to 'rebuild' 1.0 into 2.0.

I do believe that the developers claim to be heavily inspired by FFXII, though. That gives me hope that Garlemald will be as morally complex as Archades. I also have my doubts that an expansion based around liberating Ala Mhigo for a bunch of overconfident, arrogant Highlanders will be particularly interesting as far as an expansion's premise goes. There's almost certainly going to be more to it than that.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

Honestly, the Garlean Empire is among my least favorite story elements in FFXIV.Despite multiple opportunities to do so, they are as flat-out generic an Evil Empire as you're likely to see in any media. From their arrogant superiority to their genocidal tendencies to their people's inexplicably unshakable loyalty to terrible leaders with shortsighted (if not outright disastrous) plans, SE has dug themselves in too deep for any kind of "oh, wait, they're not really ALL that bad" plot twist to be at all reasonable. They are a caricature, and the best way to handle Garleans from this point forward is to keep them out of the storylines as much as possible. (Heck, as has been pointed out in this thread, even the "good-guy" traitors are caricatures! Anything they do is treated as though it is good by definition, simply because they're no longer with the Garleans.) I had some hope with the introduction of Valis, but nope; his intro made it clear that there was no potential change in Garlean philosophy on the way. They pretty much explicitly said that Valis is, if anything, worse than his predecessor.

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Eeh, I think that's selling them and their role in the story short. As much as I agree that Garlemald, at least under current administration, is pretty much shades of black and little else, I don't see why (a) that's a bad thing or (b) that it means they can't be used in an interesting way. I actually completely agree with Theodric here - there's plenty of opportunity for us to be forced to work alongside Garlemald, at least in the short term, since the major antagonists are a threat to them as well, and their status as a capital-B-Bad Guy actually makes that situation *more* interesting than if they were more sympathetic.

We also have little idea what things are like on the Garlean home front. The "blind loyalty" you talk about comes from the army of a military dictatorship; no doubt most of the civilian populace has either swallowed the kool-aid wholesale or are otherwise crushed into toeing the Imperial Line, but there are opportunists and dissidents in even the most tightly-run authoritarian state. Garlemald isn't an individual, after all; it doesn't especially matter how black-and-white the leader or state is if it's made up of individuals, and there are already some pretty fine example of this out there in other fiction.

For example! Let's take a look at Mobile Suit Gundam, something I'm more than willing to do pretty much always. If you're not familiar with the original 1979 series, it's about a war of independence being waged by a group of space colonies against the Earth, and it's known for its grey morality. Funny thing is, there isn't any grey morality in the broader factions - Zeon, the belligerent cluster of colonies, is run by a murderous despot and killed BILLIONS at the start of the war, while the Earth government is bureaucratic to a fault but generally the good guys. Where you find the grey morality is in the people. Zeon has a host of likable, sympathetic characters fighting loyally for a flimsy "cause" as part of a blatantly awful military force, and they all have their own reasons for doing so. Some are mooks; precisely none of the main characters are. It's a great case study as to how Garlemald could potentially be fleshed out and used well (and considering that original Gundam is basically Japan's Star Wars, being one of the most influential and recognizable pop culture icons of the entire nation...)

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

I feel the same way about the Ul'dah Nanamo assassination plotline, something with potential promise that was hideously mishandled to the point where I simply don't want to see the characters involved anymore.

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Point taken, but to give the writers some (minor) credit, they don't seem to be totally done with this story, just playing the (very) long game with it. I seriously doubt that one 3.0 MSQ was the last we've seen of Lolorito's scheming and Nanamo's resolve, and it's pretty much universally agreed that Ilberd is likely coming back in a big way.

Same goes with the Empire - there's a long game being played here, distended by the drip-feed nature of MMO patch-based storytelling and the number of plates the plot is currently spinning. This is inefficient and undesirable as a storytelling method, but that's it's own conversation; I'd simply argue that the story is still at a relatively early enough point that the main antagonists lacking all the depth they could have isn't really a problem. Yet.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

The Ala Mihgans have some potential as a once-belligerent Evil Empire in their own right now brought low. I'll be fine if the Ala Mihgans get some grey-vs-grey development with different Ala Mihgan factions with different viewpoints - but when the Garleans get involved, they should be nothing more than mindless mooks for the WoL to plow through without a thought or a speck of remorse. It is how they've been developed up to this point, and we're far past the point where a token sympathetic Garlean or two can turn things around.

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I agree, but I think there's potential for the story to use more than just "a token sympathetic Garlean or two". There are other ways they could be used, and other ways they could be made more sympathetic (but they don't have to be!).

(And, sidebar, but I really think both Cid and Lucia stand on their own better than you give them credit for. Neither are characters that rely especially heavily on their connection to or status as traitors of Garlemald as their primary identity in the storyline.)

As an aside Zephirin was the one to slay Haurchefant and many people brushed him off as an outright villain - which is understandable - and yet later lore (unfortunately revealed outside of the game itself) painted him as rather chivalrous and honourable. He was even highlighted as not being particularly fond of Grinnaux or Charibert for their...overzealous and aggressive natures. What we really need is stuff like that to be displayed in-game rather than tucked away in obscure locations. Ideally this would mean less of Hildibrand's nonsense and more time spent on fleshing our both the minor and major antagonists.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

As an aside Zephirin was the one to slay Haurchefant and many people brushed him off as an outright villain - which is understandable - and yet later lore (unfortunately revealed outside of the game itself) painted him as rather chivalrous and honourable. He was even highlighted as not being particularly fond of Grinnaux or Charibert for their...overzealous and aggressive natures. What we really need is stuff like that to be displayed in-game rather than tucked away in obscure locations. Ideally this would mean less of Hildibrand's nonsense and more time spent on fleshing our both the minor and major antagonists.

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Agreed - one of my biggest issues with Heavensward was how much important world-, lore-, and character-building was left to either side quests or outside sources. Mind you, I'm not sure we can blame Hildy for it, considering he's gotten a grand total of 2 small quests since 2.5; really, it's probably more the dev desire to streamline the MSQ bloat of 2.x, and while that's commendable, it does end up leaving more on the cutting room floor. Hopefully they can find a nice balance as time goes on.

Id argue that FF14's antagonists have reasonable depth to them. Nidhogg has been consumed by his rage but the source of his rage is perfectly justifiable and frankly somewhat righteous. What was done was a horrible betrayal. Likewise, as flawed as it was, Thordin's motivation for doing what he and the Heaven's Ward did made sense and you could argue that their goals were a greater good in at least how they saw it. Hell, potentially even Ascians aren't all wrong in what they are doing.

Again, I think the current problem is that the scale of the threat needed to have Garlemald as a whole become our allies just like that would be kind of overkill. It would need to be more than just one big bad. That big bad would need an army or at least a way of generating a situation where we have lesser enemies to deal with. Garlemald just doesn't have much in the way of real threats to it's power that overlooking their aggressive policies would make sense. Likewise, I'm not sure if they want to go to that scale yet. After all 4.0 isn't going to be the last expansion.

My suspicion is the next expansion will deal with the Eorzean Alliance attacking Ala Mhigo to try and counter Garlemald's invasion threats by removing their foothold in Eorzea. Liberating Ala Mhigo would be a side effect of that. However I think once we get into it things are going to get very complicated. I think your going to have a lot of factions on both sides with their own ideas of what they want and in the end the WoL is going to have to try and find middle ground between factions to try and create some type of peaceful solution while countering the more extreme factions on both sides. For that reason I don't think all Garleans will necessarily be our enemies.

I think in going into Ala Mhigo we will learn more about the inner political workings of Garlemald and the forces involved. I also think from that it will be our way into traveling to Garlemald and getting tied up in the political intrigue of the empire. Hell 5.0 could have us saving Garlemald from civil war and helping Garlemald settle on a less expansionist and perhaps somewhat more benevolent policy.