I Hate Charibert Even More Now (Tales From the Dragonsong War Update) (SPOILER)

So, SE have finally gone back and updated Tales From the Dragonsong War, and... the first new story is surprising... (spoiler alert for those who haven't played through Heavensward yet). I can't help but feel though that story might have had a different outcome...

That if Vaindreau had sought out the Scions once he discovered Archbishop Thordan's complicity with Lahabrea and plans to summon Knights of the Round instead of foolishly charging in and trying to confront Thordan with that information... the Warrior of Light might have gained a very valuable ally in Ishgard early on (assuming that incident occurred around the time the player, Tataru and Alphinaud were granted asylum into Ishgard). But alas... Charibert, that bastard, made sure that wouldn't happen.

So yeah, SE gave me even more reason to hate him, that smug snake.

Also, it turns out Cyr was Charibert's apprentice in inquisition and was frequently abused by him. No wonder he turned out to be so pig-headed dealing with Hildibrand. :p

Either way, I can't wait for the rest of these new stories to be released. Thank you so much Ferne and the rest of the lore/writing teams for this! :D

Yeah, Charibert is a real hate sink. Almost caricaturishly so! It's like they distilled the essence of the smarmiest Shonen Jump villains into a sickly draught and mixed it into the guy's coffee.

Anyone else really feel like running the Vault again?

I always thought that Cyr may have been the apprentice of Charibert due saying many of his quotes, so this is a nice confirmation.

It does seem that not all of the Heavensward were really in on Thordan's plan, so I can see Thordan tempering them should they prove to be too much of a liability.

We know how he got that scar too
http://67.media.tumblr.com/0c3e24439...slskg2_250.png

It really is a shame that there aren't that much dialogue/ interaction when it comes to the antagonists.

This was a rather pleasant surprise this morning. I scanned the photo of Inquisitor Charibert to see if he had the cheek scar, but the shadows left me with no clear answer.

Cyr's apprenticeship under Charibert was definitely heavily hinted "The unmistakable scent of heresy;" "Sickness must be purged;" etc. I guess confirmation is nice, we still haven't gotten concrete information on the lost heir of Durendaire (though we all know who it is!)--perhaps we'll get his side of the Dragonsong War!?

RE: Ser Vaindreau asking for the Scion's aid: the incident recounted in the Tales entry would've had to been weeks or months before the Warrior of Light was granted asylum. While I doubt this documents Thordan VII's first encounter with Ascians, I highly doubt 2.3's ending teaser was the first encounter as well. It makes you appreciate Lahabrea's planning a little more, to spur Shiva on while fanning the flames of Thordan.

All this story did was make me sad we didn't get to meet the old knight before his demise. I didn't pay much attention to Charibert other than as "that *expletive*" but this definitely made me genuinely despise him as a power-mad sadist.

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Originally Posted by Rocl

Cyr's apprenticeship under Charibert was definitely heavily hinted "The unmistakable scent of heresy;" "Sickness must be purged;" etc.

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Even moreso since he says he picked up those quirks from his former mentor when we first met him.

I liked this story and especially Ser Vaindreau. However, instead of increasing my hatred for Charibert, it increased my hatred for Thordan, because he was the one who ordered an inquisitor there to get his first in command(!) out of the way. This also proves how ruthless Thordan was. Still sad the poor guy 'only' managed to give Charibert that scar and nothing more...
Oh, and I feel a bit sad for poor Cyr, hihi. He really grew on me. But, yeah, it was pretty clear from him citing Charibert, and the reaction of your character to it, that his mentor was most likely Charibert.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

[url=http://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/special/2016/short_stories/#sidestory_05]
That if Vaindreau had sought out the Scions once he discovered Archbishop Thordan's complicity with Lahabrea and plans to summon Knights of the Round instead of foolishly charging in and trying to confront Thordan with that information... the Warrior of Light might have gained a very valuable ally in Ishgard early on (assuming that incident occurred around the time the player, Tataru and Alphinaud were granted asylum into Ishgard). But alas... Charibert, that bastard, made sure that wouldn't happen.

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I think you are mixing up the timeline here... for me, it looks more like the order of events is more "What remains of a knight" =/-> end of 2.X -> Heavensward than end of 2.X -> "What remains of a knight" = Heavensward.
So, the poor guy had no chance to even talk to us because we have not yet been to Ishgard. A shame, really.

It's a shame that the 'well intentioned extremist' angle wasn't played up more for both the Archbishop and his followers. The story was an excellent opportunity to paint them both in a more sympathetic light and let us see their side of things. As it stands the masses are just going to read into it as the antagonists being comically evil. Whilst that's technically true in Charibert's case it isn't so much the case with the Archbishop.

I guess it's too much to hope for one of the future stories to paint Aymeric in a negative light for a change, eh? :p

SICKNESS MUST BE PURGED

Is there a real timeline when this happened?

If not, it seems like it would take place around the time we were dealing with Shiva, maybe even before.

But...even if we were in Ishgard when this took place, or in Dragonhead after Shiva, I doubt he would have come to us. We are outsiders, no matter how close to one of the High Houses, he is the leader of the Heavensward; he will not come to us before trying to reason with the Archbishop. To do so would be akin to heresy and abandonment of duty to him...

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Originally Posted by Theodric

It's a shame that the 'well intentioned extremist' angle wasn't played up more for both the Archbishop and his followers. The story was an excellent opportunity to paint them both in a more sympathetic light and let us see their side of things. As it stands the masses are just going to read into it as the antagonists being comically evil. Whilst that's technically true in Charibert's case it isn't so much the case with the Archbishop.

I guess it's too much to hope for one of the future stories to paint Aymeric in a negative light for a change, eh? :p

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Considering the history of the war and possible shady things from the church, the church and its people would never be seen in a sympathetic view.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

It's a shame that the 'well intentioned extremist' angle wasn't played up more for both the Archbishop and his followers. The story was an excellent opportunity to paint them both in a more sympathetic light and let us see their side of things. As it stands the masses are just going to read into it as the antagonists being comically evil. Whilst that's technically true in Charibert's case it isn't so much the case with the Archbishop.

I guess it's too much to hope for one of the future stories to paint Aymeric in a negative light for a change, eh? :p

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From the little profiles we got on each member in the Duty Commenced specials, it seems that quite a chunk of the Heavensward were genuinely good men, but all were drafted via battle prowess alone.

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Originally Posted by Ametrine

From the little profiles we got on each member in the Duty Commenced specials, it seems that quite a chunk of the Heavensward were genuinely good men, but all were drafted via battle prowess alone.

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That seems to be where the "blessing" kicked-in, tempering took care of all those pesky morals.

I do also suspect that the Heavens' Ward wasn't entirely picked for their battle prowess, given Ishgard's military is pretty integrated and yet every single one of them was a Male Elezen. Maybe Thordan wanted to replicate the composition of the original Heavens' Ward as close as possible for the purposes of harnessing the belief in them and/or maybe he was just kind of a sexist racist jerk.

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Originally Posted by Ametrine

From the little profiles we got on each member in the Duty Commenced specials, it seems that quite a chunk of the Heavensward were genuinely good men, but all were drafted via battle prowess alone.

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Yeah. I'd have liked to have seen more from them - maybe with Ser Zephirin initially being friendly with the Warrior of Light and helping us out once or twice before the 'big reveal' kicked in later on during the MSQ. As it stands the only indication that some of them were good - if misguided - individuals was the short biographies we were given after a lot of people had come to believe that they were all rotten to the core and twisted.

As a rule, though, many people need to be shown stuff explicitly right off the bat otherwise they'll just default to pinning most characters as either 'good' or 'evil'. :p

For the Heavens' Ward, I don't think it's about racism and sexism so much as it is tradition, and we all know how Ishgard is all about "muh tradishunz" until we come as a harbinger of change.

All of the Heavens' Ward are implicitly from the High Houses. It's noted early in 3.0 that Ser Grinnaux is from House Dzmael, and I don't read the web stories (deal with that enough with Magic) but based on Charibert's skintone I'm inclined to believe he is as well. They're high positions - just below the Archbishop himself - so it's highly probable the nobles kept such positions to themselves.

Now, if the intent of the Heavens' Ward was to keep the tradition of King Thordan and his Knights Twelve alive, even before Pope Thordan turned them into the Knights of the Round it's likely they were all men. We don't have record of a female knight in the original Knights Twelve, after all...

... and Ishgard has no problems with women serving in their military, as evidenced by the many female knights (Lucia, Heustinne, Laniatte) in service. It's just "muh tradishunz" took precedence.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

All of the Heavens' Ward are implicitly from the High Houses. It's noted early in 3.0 that Ser Grinnaux is from House Dzmael, and I don't read the web stories (deal with that enough with Magic) but based on Charibert's skintone I'm inclined to believe he is as well. They're high positions - just below the Archbishop himself - so it's highly probable the nobles kept such positions to themselves.

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I can sympathise with not wanting to read the out-of-game material, personally it annoys me when you need to go outside a core work to get the complete canon, and unfortunately that's kind of the case here; it was explained in magazine interviews and a Duty Commenced stream that the Temple Knights will take anyone worthy regardless of rank. Some do make it in via recommendations from powerful nobles but others prove their worth by winning Tourneys and Ser Paulecrain is explicitly stated to be from humble origins.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

All of the Heavens' Ward are implicitly from the High Houses. It's noted early in 3.0 that Ser Grinnaux is from House Dzmael, and I don't read the web stories (deal with that enough with Magic) but based on Charibert's skintone I'm inclined to believe he is as well. They're high positions - just below the Archbishop himself - so it's highly probable the nobles kept such positions to themselves.

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They are not. Paulecrain's profile, for example, reads

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A man of humble origins, Ser Paulecrain rose from poverty by his skill with the lance alone.

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He did serve the High Houses, yes, first Fortemps and then Dzemael, but he is not even a nobleman. Ser Charibert's family name, as we now know from the new short story, is

de Courcillan

, which is a noble name, but not one of the four high families. Right now, it looks like they all come from all societal classes and that nobility didn't matter in their election for the position. It was also stated that, yes, Thordan explicitely asked Zephirin to gather strong fighters as it says in Grinnaux' description:

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However, in accordance with the archbishop’s desire to recruit knights solely for their combat prowess, Ser Grinnaux was welcomed into the Heavens’ Ward.

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Personally, I just LOVE the sidestories since they expand the universe in a way that is impossible inside the game due to many factors, and I love when more than just one medium is used to tell a story or explore a universe.

I stand corrected!

... er... I don't mind reading out-of-game content, but only if it's a supplemental curiosity. When you need it to make sense of the whole story, it becomes a bit annoying. Biographies for the Heavens' Ward are interesting because there's precious little information available on them in-game. On the other hand, this is a game - the advantage to the medium is that it's interactive, so using pure text out-of-game kind of... I dunno... defeats the purpose?

/shrug I'm getting pedantic and off-topic.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

I stand corrected!

... er... I don't mind reading out-of-game content, but only if it's a supplemental curiosity. When you need it to make sense of the whole story, it becomes a bit annoying. Biographies for the Heavens' Ward are interesting because there's precious little information available on them in-game. On the other hand, this is a game - the advantage to the medium is that it's interactive, so using pure text out-of-game kind of... I dunno... defeats the purpose?

/shrug I'm getting pedantic and off-topic.

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This isn't the first of its kind. Whether it's supplemental material or simply straight from the dev team's mouth, extra information and details are always going to be found outside of the game simply because it's easier to explain than to confine everything in whatever limits the game has.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

This isn't the first of its kind. Whether it's supplemental material or simply straight from the dev team's mouth, extra information and details are always going to be found outside of the game simply because it's easier to explain than to confine everything in whatever limits the game has.

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I'm well aware, thank you.

https://66.media.tumblr.com/19b9b6e3...7o47o1_500.png

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

Considering the history of the war and possible shady things from the church, the church and its people would never be seen in a sympathetic view.

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Don't forget that all these shady dealings are not common knowledge in the church. The sordid origins of Ishgard are a story known to the Archbishop and maybe a handful of other high-ranking individuals. The majority of the clergy, and certainly the majority of the followers of Halone are guilty only of believing what they've been taught for generations upon generations. When the truth was revealed, there were a few holdouts to the old dogma in the church, to be sure, but game dialog indicates that the church is now going through a period of revisioning. The majority of Ishgardians very likely DO believe in and worship Halone, after all. That hasn't changed. Once the church cleans itself up, they'll be fine with it.

Thordan and his ilk, on the other hand, will likely be branded as villains in the consciousness of the people of Ishgard - but that doesn't mean they can't be presented to the PLAYERS as sympathetic in their motivations. This has already been done, honestly; from the mouth of Thordan himself, he explained that while he knew that perpetuating the lie was wrong, the everpresent threat of Nidhogg meant that anything short of a unified front would lead to the deaths of everyone in Ishgard - and to reveal the horrible truth WOULD throw Ishgard into chaos, just as it is doing now. And so he kept the secret, all while scheming and dealing to acquire enough power to end Nidhogg's threat for good.

Of course, it's true that Nidhogg wouldn't necessarily have destroyed Ishgard once it was thrown into chaos. Niddy intended to torture them all for as long as possible, after all, so he might have reined things in a bit until Ishgard's civil war played itself out, and then gotten back to tormenting them in earnest. However, Thordan did not know this; this was a revelation that the Warrior of Light discovered during the main scenario - the fact that for all the horrors Ishgard had endured over the centuries, Nidhogg was only PLAYING with them and could have at any time swooped in and wiped them all out.

At any rate the hooks are there to present Thordan as a well-intentioned extremist. He was honest with the Warrior of Light about his dealings with the Ascians, and was frank about the fact that he knew they were bad news and intended to betray them when he got the chance - which he DID. The anguish of knowing the truth about Ishgard's shady origins and making the hard decision to continue the lie, he shared with his son, who then relayed it to us. The question is whether you, as a player, believe in his underlying good intentions or not. Was he a man in a hard position who made some ruthless decisions to bring about what he thought was the only way to secure Ishgard's future? Or was he a power-hungry mad tyrant who cared not a whit about anything but ruling over all with an iron fist, and told whatever lies he needed to to achieve that goal?

Personally, I go for the man-in-a-hard-position theory. Honestly, he had no reason to lie to Aymeric. He could have just locked the guy up without an audience - or even killed him outright. Why bother trying to justify himself to Aymeric? He wanted at least one person to know the painful position he was in, someone to know that he had reasons beyond personal power for doing the awful things he was doing.

Certainly, he crossed the threshold into megalomaniacal supervillainy when he actually became a Primal and declared his intent to rule the world, but that could simply have been a side effect of becoming a Primal in the first place. The only other individual we've known to transform into a Primal was Ysayle, and she had the benefit of having the Echo to protect her.

Veering back to the subject of this thread, Thordan's cleaning out the old guard as illustrated in the "What Remains of a Knight" story could also be seen as an example of this ruthless pragmatism. While, to be fair, Thordan's hand was not shown to be directly involved in Ser Vaindreau's "retirement", as it was a black-robed man (Ascian, is what we're likely being lead to assume) that provided the "intelligence" Charibert used as an excuse to do away with him, it's likely that he tacitly approved of the treachery. Vaindreau's suspicions and snooping had made him a liability - not to mention the fact that he was getting on in years and was probably not the martial powerhouse he used to be (and martial skill seemed to be a requirement for Thordan's Knights of the Round). That doesn't mean he had to like it, however.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

Thordan did not know this; this was a revelation that the Warrior of Light discovered during the main scenario - the fact that for all the horrors Ishgard had endured over the centuries, Nidhogg was only PLAYING with them and could have at any time swooped in and wiped them all out.

Vaindreau's suspicions and snooping had made him a liability - not to mention the fact that he was getting on in years and was probably not the martial powerhouse he used to be (and martial skill seemed to be a requirement for Thordan's Knights of the Round). That doesn't mean he had to like it, however.

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Thordan knew this, he knew he hole truth. About Nidhogg's vengance and how he was torturin Ishgard. Aymeric say it, he was not willing to make such a change on Ishgard and trusting on its people. He prefer to rule the world.

Thordan was not inoccent of this matter, he got warned that was being seeing. So he acted, and lied after it. It has nothing to do with Ishgard's old rules of who and who not is a heretic.

The problem with sympathizing with Thordan is... well, his actions were completely unnecessary at the time, showing that past the surface he was just a power-hungry megalomaniac.

The truth behind the war wasn't known to Ishgard at large. The populace didn't know. The clergy didn't know. The High Houses didn't know. The Lord Commander of the Temple Knights didn't know. Implicitly, only thirteen people in all Ishgard were aware of the truth - the Archbishop and his Heavens' Ward.

As for sympathizing with Thordan... well, it's possible. However, the problem with his motive is that by the time he springs into action, it's completely unnecessary - we've dealt with Nidhogg and ended the war (or so we believed). That he should continue with his plan, even though it's not necessary in the slightest, betrays his hunger for power that lies beneath his sympathetic motive. I can agree that Ishgard didn't need to suffer eternally for Thordan I's sin, but continuing with the "Knights of the Round" plan after it was no longer necessary shows he just wanted to rule the world as a God-King.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

That he should continue with his plan, even though it's not necessary in the slightest, betrays his hunger for power that lies beneath his sympathetic motive.

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Well... His plan was to gain power to defend Ishgard... Nidhogg wasn't the only threat facing Ishgard; There's still Garlemald, who'd actually begun pushing close to Ishgard, given their presence in Abalathia's Spine, seemingly with the Eorzean Alliance being none the wiser (was it just ol' one arm who didn't know about the Gration, or was it the whole Alliance?)... Then there's the bringers of chaos themselves, motives aside, his methodology beats what we've been doing to combat them... There was still plenty of use for his God-King after Nidhogg was out of the picture...

After the Triad story though, I wonder if he was entirely himself by the time we met him... He may have gone into this with the best of intentions, but after becoming a Primal some degree of corruption isn't out of the question... Ysayle didn't display any signs of such corruption though, having seemingly summoned more often too... I imagine Crystals of Light are some desu ex machina for that, though...

I'm not even sure if he was in the wrong for wanting to perpetuate Ishgards lie at that point... If he had the best of intentions by becoming God-King (which I doubt), then he kind of needs that lie to remain in place... Primals are partly faith-fueled, and King Thordan reaps his faith harvest from Ishgards fabricated history... If its populace suddenly (and rightly) vilified Thordan because the truth got out, how exactly would that impact King Thordan? From his perspective, he had good reason to stop Aymeric revealing the truth...

I would love a Minstrel's Ballad where we have to fight the Heaven's Ward and Nidhogg simultaneously.

SICKNESS MUST BE DIVE BOMBED

Thordan VII's purported reason for becoming a Primal was "to free [Ishgard] from the sins of antiquity;" to decisively defeat Nidhogg and free the country from his eternal torment in response to Thordan I's sin. By the time he is confronted with the truth, however, Nidhogg has been slain (for the time being) and Ishgard has no evident threats. Thordan doesn't even try to justify his actions to Aymeric in the Echo flashback, simply explaining the lie behind the War in greater detail, and when confronted after the Vault simply tells Aymeric (and the rest of the group) that he won't expose the lie because it'll tear apart the foundations on which Ishgard was built. When encountered in the Neurolink Nacelle and confronted in the Singularity Reactor, he states that he intends to rule the world as a God-King and end conflict in so doing.

These are his given explanations for his actions. Anything else is just trying to paint him in a positive light without evidence to back it up. It's entirely possible he could have turned his power against more of the Ascians and the Garleans (the latter pretty likely given their proclivity towards overt military campaigns of conquest - the latter much less likely given their tendency towards covert operations as manipulators) but he doesn't cite that as a reason for his actions. He is sympathetic on the surface, and his pained expressions show frequent doubt, but ultimately his reason for going forward with the "Knights of the Round" plan was a lust for power. To believe otherwise is to sweep the evidence pointing to this conclusion under the rug.

Whether or not Thordan had the Echo is up for debate; however I am inclined to believe he did. It's the only way he could have maintained his human (Spoken) psyche as King Thordan, and the Ascians are known to be able to gift it to others somehow.

Sure, everything Thordan VII does is justified from his perspective because he benefits from those actions. Nobody else does - they'll either die fighting him or die as one of his thralls, unwillingly fighting for a cause they may not believe in. We're able to stop it before it goes that far, but that's all he really would have accomplished: more senseless death.

Even men with the greatest intentions start believing their own lies.

First of all, 3.3 ENDING SPOILER warnings for those of you thinking of clicking this cause woo, dev tracker.

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Originally Posted by Yuyuka3

Ser Charibert's family name, as we now know from the new short story, is

de Courcillan

, which is a noble name, but not one of the four high families.

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Hate to say it, but typos resulting in bad lore must be purged, mhm mhm. That particular name should not have a "de" in it, and it will be deleted with prejudice, hopefully sooner than later. Sorry about that!

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Originally Posted by Corvinoobus

First of all, 3.3 ENDING SPOILER warnings for those of you thinking of clicking this cause woo, dev tracker.



Hate to say it, but typos resulting in bad lore must be purged, mhm mhm. That particular name should not have a "de" in it, and it will be deleted with prejudice, hopefully sooner than later. Sorry about that!

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I'm surprised you're still on the Dev Tracker. IIRC, Fernehawles was pulled off from ever appearing on it ever again.

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Originally Posted by Jacien

I'm surprised you're still on the Dev Tracker. IIRC, Fernehawles was pulled off from ever appearing on it ever again.

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Mr. Pudding frequently answers queries about localization issues for in game text, so I don't think Corvinoobus could or wants to be removed from the dev tracker since people would want to see if their thread got answered for text fixes.

Anyone else notice the heavy inspirations of Final Fantasy Tactics (insidious church, evil Templar Knights that change forms, heretics), and Legend of Dragoon (drawing strength from a Dragon's Eye, transforming into a flying Dragon/Knight hybrid)?

I'm seeing heavy inspirations of FFVI instead.

I thought the Tactics paralells were on purpose.

Why was Fernhalwes pulled from the dev tracker?

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Originally Posted by Stormfur

Why was Fernhalwes pulled from the dev tracker?

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Probably because he exclusively deals with the game's lore, which is spoilers in every which way. Since a dev post shows up in the dev tracker, anything Fern says would have spoilers shown on the main page. Ergo, they took him off the dev tracker to avoid spoiling anything by mistake.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

Mr. Pudding frequently answers queries about localization issues for in game text, so I don't think Corvinoobus could or wants to be removed from the dev tracker since people would want to see if their thread got answered for text fixes.

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Thing is localization members were taken off the dev tracker because it cluttered and hid any info about the game not related to minor text fixes.

At least that was during a time when new info was more openly shared.

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Originally Posted by Jacien

Thing is localization members were taken off the dev tracker because it cluttered and hid any info about the game not related to minor text fixes.

At least that was during a time when new info was more openly shared.

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It could be both then.