Reflecting on the story themes of Heavensward (obvious spoilers)

I finished the 3.0 set of quests of Heavensward last night. I liked Ishgard ever since the tail end of ARR because of how dedicated and loyal Ishgardians are, but with Heavensward over, I think it will be quite exceptionally challenging for Stormblood to field a more likeable city. Perhaps we were supposed to dislike them before for not helping in the fight against Garlemand but that's poor justification in the light of the fact that they had been fighting their own war for centuries, in a land that had been recently rendered even more inhospitable by the Calamity-induced winter. Certainly, if the alliance wanted Ishgard's aid, I'd have thought it only fair they help Ishgard against the threat of Nidhogg's Hoard.

Anyways, since I liked the story enough, it helping there were fewer stupidly inane fetch quests (not Tataru's), I have decided to attempt to interpret what themes I can out of the main story.

So far, FFXIV in general has been about moving past tragic circumstances, like the Calamity and now the Dragonsong War, but Heavensward in particular to me, is about having one's beliefs challenged.

You can see this as early as the quests with Artoriel. He sends you off alone to deal with some heretics and partially hopes that's the last time he'll ever see you, a somewhat typical Ishgardian view of strangers. After you make it through though, he says what he had done and intended, explains that he was wrong, and then he apologizes and from then on was as far as I could tell, supportive. Actually, none of House Fortemps begrudges you for being the one Hauchefaunt died protecting, which actually hurt me inside somewhat.

Most of the good guys have a point in the story where they realize "Wow, I've/We've been doing something that seemed completely correct at the time, but is actually not so justified according to this new information." The big one is, of course, the origins of the Dragonsong War for Ishgard, but I love the choice of people who go to Dravinia because the three that accompanied you each had/have their own beliefs challenged.

Alphinaud and Ysayle are easy to explain. Alphinaud had his core shaken even before Heavensward, with his good intentions to make the Crystal Braves resulting in many perfectly good adventurers getting killed or injured. Ysayle gets a deeper grasp of the consequences of her fight against Ishgard, and learns that the dragons she fights on behalf of are not as noble as she determined. Estinien is an Ishgardian citizen and subject to learning about the truth of the war, but beyond that he managed to go from spitefully taking shots at Ysayle and threatening to kill dragons to respecting Ysayle and Hraesvelgr's brood (I think). Your comrades have what they thought to be true broken, and manage to adapt properly, and in the end affect good. (cont.)

The villains in this story are primarily Nidhogg, and then Thordan. These two are unwilling to move forward in spite of knowing things have changed, and are both responsible for wanton loss of life for dragons and Ishgardians.

To be fair with Nidhogg, apparently the loss of his sister is as fresh as the day she was killed, but his is not an appropriate reaction. There is a difference between killing her murderers and then forever mistrusting Spoken, and making her killer's son's son's suffer, and tossing countless dragons that are his children and grandchildren at Ishgard, getting them killed. Even Midgardsomr thinks what he is doing is excessive.

Thordan has been privy to the truth for a long time, but instead of seeking some degree of reconciliation, he is afraid of what might happen to Ishgard and in this fear, he ensures the power system of Ishgard, which is built upon centuries of lies, remains. This power system is routinely abused by the upper classes, and gets countless people killed on charges of "heresy". It is fair that he seeks the Knights of the Round to end the Dragonsong War, but to perpetuate the idea that only the four great houses are truly important because they are the descendants of the heroes whom fought against Nidhogg, with whom they were actually the aggressors, is incorrect. The issue he presents is more passive than the threat of Nidhogg, but it is still an improper state of affairs.

So, in short, I think the nature of the conflict is because the good guys are able to learn and redetermine what they think is the most proper course, and the villains are unable to change their previous convictions.

I would like to know if anyone disagrees, or took something else out of the story.

Heavensward is still the best expansion for me, and I think that it will be hard to Shadowbringers overcome it. It's hard to beat a good, linear, consistent tale of vengeance and hatred, dealing with the political corruption of an entire city, traveling with the best squad (god, I love that scene by the fire so much), all while exiled in a unknown place, so different from the rest of Eorzea but still very beautiful in a classic medieval fantasy setting.

I never cared so much for MMO characters as I did while reading those quests. I still remember the first time running The Vault, the goosebumps of facing Nidhogg and seeing that final cutscene with Ysayle and Haurchefant melting my heart. And yes I agree with your post! Oh boy, Thordan and Nidhogg are such good villains. One of the bests in the history of Square Enix writing in my honest opinion.

HW was the best the story has been, aside from the few quests where it quickly rushes to put the Ul'dah status quo back in the bottle. But when dealing with its own story and not the fallout of ARR it's great. A shame SB isn't as good but here's hoping ShB can rival or surpass it.

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Originally Posted by Melorie

Heavensward is still the best expansion for me, and I think that it will be hard to Shadowbringers overcome it. It's hard to beat a good, linear, consistent tale of vengeance and hatred, dealing with the political corruption of an entire city, traveling with the best squad (god, I love that scene by the fire so much), all while exiled in a unknown place, so different from the rest of Eorzea but still very beautiful in a classic medieval fantasy setting.

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It does sound like something straight out of a fairy tale, now doesn't it? "To save the city of Ishgard, four travelers of very different backgrounds band together on a distant journey to plead for peace with the dragons." It just goes to show that the wheel doesn't need to be constantly reinvented to make a compelling story. I think the campfire, like actually being around three other people long enough in a single stretch of time to the extent that you all need to set up camp highlights the fact that it was better to have a consistent group of friends rather than what I recall ARR was like, hopping from one ally to the next.

I feel SE have struggled to match the story levels of HW despite trying to mimic various aspects of it with key character demises. Somehow all these just didn’t have the impact of one in HW.
Hopefully they can raise the bar to the top level again.

HW is absolutely my favorite of the expacs for it's story alone. I came into the game only paying attention to the ARR story right around 2.5 as I took so much time off in between. I kept hearing people say "Hw is amazing" so I decided to pay attention leading into it from where I was.

I wanna say it was by the time I saw myself Tataru and Alphinaud walking into the gates of Ishgard that it got me way more interested. There was something about that whole scene that really made it for me. From there it just played out and I've been as story devout follower since, and I'm glad to be one.

SB had some very good highs (4.3 being my utmost recommendation) but as other people here said it's a tough act to follow HW's story. That story was mainly focused on a single one, so it made following it much more impact then being taken out to follow this other thing that's going on.

I think HW succeeded with its story because it was made to be, not only more character driven, but more personal too. At the end of ARR, it's pretty much the WoL, Alphinaud, and Tataru against the world. Despite this, House Fortemps still took them in on Haurchefant's urging. We not only saw all these characters we work together with change over the course of the story, but by the end we've been almost practically adopted into House Fortemps, and Ishgard becomes like home to us. It gives players more personal stakes in that regard. With Stormblood, we don't really have that. Instead, we're basically hurled into a mission to save two nations we don't have particular ties to, and by the end we're still not really made to feel any personal investment into these nations. As for character development, it's there but the story doesn't put nearly as much focus on it. I think the most actual development we see is with Gosestu and Yotsuyu, as well as the Leveilleur twins to a lesser extent. The story appears to try to develop Lyse, Hien, Raubahn, and Nanamo, but this gets heavily overshadowed by the political nature of the story and kind of falls flat.