King Theodoric

Was he a dropped plot point? I felt like he was the only character to never directly appear considering his circumstances, and yet he had such a giant impact.

Shame we can't fight some kind of shade of himself.

Dropped how? He was never a plot point in the first place. He had a major impact on Ala Mhigan history but almost none on the MSQ. His only importance to the story is as a historical figure.

It's really hard to get an idea of whether some points were 'dropped' or just never actually intended to be more than a background element in the first place. Especially with stuff like Ala Mhigo, where we know that 1.0's developers had plans for it that got aborted; we know they wanted to add more starting zones as the plot progressed, and Ala Mhigo was going to be one of them, but we don't really know anything beyond that.

That said, I don't think Theodoric is anything more than what he appears, just by virtue of the fact that what little we know of him doesn't suggest any lingering mysteries, nor would his story be elevated by there being more to it. He was a terrible, insane king who got overthrown, we don't really need more than that, some leaders just suck. Just because he's got a name, doesn't mean he's any bigger a deal than that.

I'd actually be more interested in king Manfred, who ruled during the Autumn War. We know even less about him, despite him doing even more.

EDIT: In fact, to elaborate, learning more about Theodoric would at best do very little, and at worst damage Ala Mhigo's story. If they just elaborate on the 'mad, garbage king' part... I mean, what's new there, we already had Skalla showing the wounds of that. If they go 'actually he WASN'T mad, he had entirely legitimate concerns that Ala Mhigo just wasn't privvy to', then it takes away the legitimacy of Ala Mhigo's rebellion by declaring it wrong.

Theodoric was dead for 20 years before A Realm Reborn even began. His role in Ala Mhigan history is noted, but it has little and less to do with the story arc that ended in 6.0.

We don't know a lot about Manfred, but we do know that he didn't start the Autumn War out of malice or belligerence - he did so because the popularization of sea travel meant trade caravans going between Aldenard and Ilsabard became much fewer in number, cutting off one of Ala Mhigo's main sources of income. With few options due to Ala Mhigo's limited natural resources, he elected to invade Gridania... which spooked the rest of Eorzea's city-states into allying against Ala Mhigo. It's unclear how Ala Mhigo's economy sustained itself post-Autum War and pre-Imperial conquest, but I can say I seriously hope they don't expect salt mining to prop up the entire city-state.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

We don't know a lot about Manfred, but we do know that he didn't start the Autumn War out of malice or belligerence - he did so because the popularization of sea travel meant trade caravans going between Aldenard and Ilsabard became much fewer in number, cutting off one of Ala Mhigo's main sources of income. With few options due to Ala Mhigo's limited natural resources, he elected to invade Gridania... which spooked the rest of Eorzea's city-states into allying against Ala Mhigo. It's unclear how Ala Mhigo's economy sustained itself post-Autum War and pre-Imperial conquest, but I can say I seriously hope they don't expect salt mining to prop up the entire city-state.

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Yeah, they don't need to do a Manfred Story, but if they ever wanted to it would be interesting and additive to the world around it. We know from Bard's story that the Autumn War was to some degree actually agitated by Gridanians, which opens a lot of possibilities in how exactly Manfred took it; was he ambitious, retaliatory, making a heavy-hearted gamble? Far as we know Manfred survived the Autumn War, and his royal line probably continued down to Theodoric, so how did he take losing?