7.1 Role quests have left me with a bad feeling (spoilers)

so i just finished the final set of RQ for dawntrail and i have to say, for the first half i was really enjoying it, the story had some real effort.. well until the game remembered its dt and had to insert some kind of 180 on everything in the final battle

apyaphi? i think her name is... she had so much potential and even convinced me of her cause. yet i feel like she was written to be done dirty by the same people who created her.. she was fighting for true freedom and had so much charm and charisma... but the WOL, the one person who should have understood her, who fought for these things too with the blade in hand and risked his own life even turned a blind eye to her.. and it feels... forced? and OOC. in stormblood i was given the option to leave everything and go with zenos.. this is freedom.. the freedom she spoke of.. to make ones own choices in life.. when she called sugar a lapdog i begrudgingly knew.. that she was right.. and he didn't even give her a good answer either.

Yet DT syphoned it away from me, the same way it syphoned away my choice to ever come to tural.. why did they do this? why does she have to rot in a cell.. this will never change her ideals.. only embolden her.. she was not wrong... she did nothing wrong really.. she knew from the beginning who we were and how dangerous we were and yet she still trusted us.. ive betrayed her and ive betrayed others who fought for freedom like fordola and lyse..

what is happening with the writing lately.. why is every problem in this game so black and white.. morals and meshed into a single colour instead of complex and questionable.. i am loosing hope over and over for this expansion.. why do you keep throwing away good things?

Why do you keep playing

Oh this is nothing new, you see, Final Fantasy has historically adopted revolutionary language while acting in favor of the status quo, here's two key examples from my two favorite games in the series: VI and XII.

In FFVI, one of your party members is Edgar Roni Figaro, and he is the king of Figaro Castle, he stands in opposition of the Gestahlian Empire and their attempts to control his nation, in this situation, the Empire is treated by the narrative as unequivocally wrong, and they are, they are imperialist fascists, and they only aren't the biggest threat in the game because our man Kefka pulls off one of the most daring reverse cards any RPG Big Bad has ever done, meanwhile Edgar is treated, in the capacity of being the king of his nation, unequivocally right, the game never stops to question the nature of having a king at all, Edgar is a good king, therefor, his status quo is good, and so it should be followed unquestioningly.

In FFXII, one of your party members is Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca, or Ashe for short, and she is the former crown princess of the Kingdom of Dalmasca, and she is reinstated as the queen once the plot of the game is done with, she stands in opposition of the Archadian Empire, the empire is treated by the narrative as unequivocally wrong, and they are, they are a bit more complicated, due to the plot around the Occuria and Venat(not our Venat, the other Venat, our Venat is named after this Venat), but at face value, they are imperialist fascists, and they are one of the biggest threat in the game, meanwhile Ashe is treated, in the capacity of being the queen-to-be of her nation, unequivocally right, the game never stops to question the nature of having a queen at all, Ashe will be a good queen, therefor, her status quo is good, and so it should be followed unquestioningly.

(this is an oversimplification, I get it, but bear with me, also this post broke the character limit it seems so I have to split it, 3000 characters feels too short...)

Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike Edgar or Ashe in any capacity, Ashe is my favorite character from XII in fact, and Edgar... well not my favorite, my favorite would be a tie between Terra and Celes, but I still like him well enough, I like all VI party members, even Gogo, but there is still this aspect of the game of never questioning whether to assist them is the right thing, they are the status quo, they are the rightful rulers, that's all that matters to the narrative.

But then you could say, it's not like FFXIV ever fell for that trap before, right? even when Nanamo was made see that changing the status quo of Ul'dah would make things worse, the story actually gives a damn good reason why that's the case, right? well...

Enter the level 60-70 SAM questline, in that questline, you assist Makoto, a member of the Sekiseigumi, to find and apprehend a young samurai by the name of Ugetsu, Ugetsu had grown disgusted with the corruption in the nation of Hingashi, and started a string of purposeful assassination to rid the world of corrupt officials in power, with a philosophy of "cutting out the old to make way for the new", which is portrayed as completely barbaric, but when you meet him and he explains his views, well, he is right, he may have gone too far in his methods, which even then is questionable as those methods may be the only way to fix anything by that point, he is still completely right about feeling the way he does, but the game never present an alternative, the only option is to apprehend Ugetsu and put an end to his movement, we help a cop apprehend a revolutionary, and simply treat the current status quo as good, or at least worth upholding.

This is a lot of words to say, Final Fantasy has always done this, the only difference between the various examples you can find in the series how well they mask what they are doing, and considering the Capstone quest's comedic tone, it may be attempting to do so even less than previous examples, perhaps to the point it made you realize it, but at its core it is still no different.

https://i.imgur.com/1kbUSE7.png
https://i.imgur.com/E3FwcgB.png
https://i.imgur.com/tDZRzSg.png

The point about Apyaahi is they are a populist-type leader. They will only say whatever is appetizing to the listeners who are riled up into a fervor, drunk on the promises given. They, the revolutionary leader, are corrupt. And that the only thing they learned from the fight was if they could bend the laws by being in a position to do so, instead of using just violence, they can make the lives of others worse. A common trend about populist-type leaders is they are outsiders who wish to win over the people, claiming they will rip out the roots of corruption, but then when given the power to do so, they will show they are every bit as corrupt as the previous leader and potentially more dangerous than the ruling state before. That populist-type leaders tend to swing towards dictatorship, as while they are good at pleasing a crowd, they are not exactly good/healthy for the day to day of actually doing the paperwork required to run such a group of people.

Like lets play a game. Apyaahi gets out of prison, becomes the next leader of Tural. What do you think the laws would be changed under her? Well I can already guess based on what she dislikes, that she would seek to make Tural not use a currency-based system, changing it back to one of free labor. After all, that is the big grievance they have, the reason they went on their whole thing about freedom, about not wanting to earn coin just to pay for a common service, room and board, like everyone else.

If they, Apyaahi and the other members of her group had focused their efforts on one region together, such as Xak Tural, they would have caused greater damage together instead of being spread out. As Apyaahi's totem is of endless beast summoning, the ability to create an army out of essentially thin air, while she also plays the role as the voice and icon that people follow under. Virazahn's totem is of natural disasters but his aim is of being the fake hero who staged fights where they pretend to swoop in and save the day. Leophyne's totem is putting multiple people to sleep, such as with her grudge against knights who would try to stop the beasts or a riot caused by those who follow under Apyaahi's words. Samidare's totem is of perfect disguise, where they could make someone appear as anyone, and that their original job was as a spy for garlemald who obtained information. Ellerete and Kokonowa's totem is about creating various kind of toxins, aka biochemical warfare, with differing effects but can also be used to cleanse those toxins. Chalteaufite's totem can grant someone a very protective barrier that can also damages those who attack, and his whole thing was appealing to the downtrodden.

And the thing is, we see the difference in ideology of totem usage. That the yok huy and the five tribes we help, use it to make the lives of others more bearable and easier to survive in unforgiving parts of the world. While those of the unbound passage only show they will use the totem for destructive purposes and put's the average person in danger.