Modern Morality vs Game Setting

I like bad guys. I love villains. I enjoy watching evil people do evil things. But part of what makes good villains is having good heroes. If both sides are the same, it means it doesn't matter which side wins.

I bring this up because replaying MSQ, the good guys are very casual and accepting about how they torture prisoners for information. Sure they call it interrogation, but very often it is paired with 'they will break eventually'. And this isn't just the city states. Thancred seems proud of his ability to extract information from people.

Anyone we capture tends to slump down into a broken state knowing what awaits them.

Is this my modern morality of torture=bad or are we supposed to recognize that everyone is evil? Or is there a culture thing here where the writers think torturing a prisoner for info is okay?

Refresh my memory, when in the msq did the scions take prisoners or torture them for information? Thancred in particular.

Yeah, I don't recall us ever torturing captives. Definitely gonna need a quest name for when that happens.

Thancred on the merchant that was selling people to the Amaljaa


Thancred
At this stage, I'm rather disinclined to believe aught that leaves your mouth. But no matter. There'll be time enough to learn the truth.
Ungust
<sob>
Thancred
Forename. Be a good man and take word of these developments to Minfilia, would you?

I shall prise everything I can out of this filth.


Also Lucia on the guy starting fires that we captured and turned over to her.

Lucia
On behalf of the Holy See of Ishgard, I thank you all. The man you apprehended is being interrogated as we speak. Though he fell silent upon realizing that we had not turned his master, he will soon tell us what he knows, one way or another.

and the Crystal Braves
Ilberd
He knew the precise route the caravan would take. And he sold that information to a merchant.
Alphinaud
I think I can guess which one...
Ilberd
None other. With a little encouragement, he soon confessed to knowingly aiding and abetting the heretics.

Suspicious Coerthan (For the Greater Good)
N-No! I have done no wrong!
Ilberd
None but meet in secret with heretics. Deny it all you will. We shall have the truth from you yet. Inquisitors are not the only ones skilled in the art of interrogation.

Eh, the one with Thancred is a bit of a stretch, prying information from someone doesn't have to mean torture. Though I'm sure that Ishgard's inquistors employ those methods.

Oh, and Illberd absolutely tortured people when he was part of the Crystal Braves if that dialogue is any indication, but well - he wasn't really a good guy at all.

its a little bit of both I think. Do remember that interrogations are a legitimate thing regardless of morality

torture is different, and what might be an acceptable interrogation technique to one person would not be to another.

Alphinaud was right there when Ilberd said that. And was okay with it. At no point did he speak up and say "The Scions don't stoop to such levels"

And we openly help governments that employ PROFESSIONAL torturers to get information from prisoners. We will say a particular inquisitor is corrupt and expose him as a fraud, but never address that such a position exists and that those methods are allowed and viewed as just.

I can fully appreciate the shades of gray, no nation is without flaws etc. But when the Scions want to portray themselves as this righteous group fighting to save the world, it would go down better if they at least mentioned that they disapprove of these practices.

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Originally Posted by Necrotica

But when the Scions want to portray themselves as this righteous group fighting to save the world

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No they don't.

The Scions portray themselves as a group fighting to save the world, specifically from the threat of the Ascians, and by extension the Primals, since the Primals are what the Ascians were using to destabilize the world. More broadly, the Scions work "for the betterment of the realm".

Righteousness was never a core mission statement. Individual Scions are more comfortable with "righteous" methods, and they act based on their own personal morality, but even back in ARR the Scions know that everyone's definition of righteousness was different. (Hence Alphinaud going "fine, we'll make our own" with the Crystal Braves.)

Individual Scions usually go "I want to do what is right, by my own ideals and opinions", and the other Scions with them go "we agree, and we will help you". But that's not the same as being codified as official Scion rules.

I mean, trusting and listening to Illberd was a mistake on Alphinaud's part for sure. And he later acknowledged that his time with the Crystal Braves involved a lot of poor judgement and mistakes on his part.

As for Ishgard, while the scions initially start by helping Ishgard and the Holy See against the heretics, they do eventually turn against the Holy See. So there's that.

Early on the scions do seem to be misled by the corrupt governments they are helping, but at least they seem willing to hear out both sides of a given conflict and investigate what is actually going on.

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

No they don't.

The Scions portray themselves as a group fighting to save the world, specifically from the threat of the Ascians, and by extension the Primals, since the Primals are what the Ascians were using to destabilize the world. More broadly, the Scions work "for the betterment of the realm".

Righteousness was never a core mission statement. Individual Scions are more comfortable with "righteous" methods, and they act based on their own personal morality, but even back in ARR the Scions know that everyone's definition of righteousness was different. (Hence Alphinaud going "fine, we'll make our own" with the Crystal Braves.)

Individual Scions usually go "I want to do what is right, by my own ideals and opinions", and the other Scions with them go "we agree, and we will help you". But that's not the same as being codified as official Scion rules.

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To paraphrase: Goody two-shoes save the day. Nothing and nobody gets sacrificed, and only the bad guys get any comeuppance for their stupid decisions no matter how dumb the decisions of the childishly naive heroes were, like letting Yotsuyu live (Heh, until she kicked the bucket anyway).

Good thing "my own ideals and opinions" are exactly the same for each and every one of the egregiously heroic NPCs.

Personally, i freaking WISH they'd torture people for information. You know, that they'd actually were willing to go to any length to achieve their goal, instead of leaving it all to be resolved by the WoL after they fuck up stopping yet another summoning, because their bleeding heart just couldn't take it if they did anything less than heroic.

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Originally Posted by Misplaced_Marbles

like letting Yotsuyu live (Heh, until she kicked the bucket anyway).

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Eh? The scions assumed she was dead after the attack on Doma castle, until she showed up with amnesia. After she got her memories back and became a primal, we very much did kill her.

Unless you're saying we should have just murdered a defenseless and amnesic woman in cold blood?

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

Eh? The scions assumed she was dead after the attack on Doma castle, until she showed up with amnesia. After she got her memories back and became a primal, we very much did kill her.

Unless you're saying we should have just murdered a defenseless and amnesic woman in cold blood?

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Technically we weakened her, and then Asahi shot her. Which one of those contributed more to her death is a little fuzzy.

Compare with Shiva, where we defeated her (twice if you did EX), and she was still healthy enough to run away while scolding us regarding the Dragonsong War. And then there's Thordan, where we defeated him and then he dies in sparklies. So who even knows.

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Originally Posted by Misplaced_Marbles

To paraphrase: Goody two-shoes save the day. Nothing and nobody gets sacrificed, and only the bad guys get any comeuppance for their stupid decisions no matter how dumb the decisions of the childishly naive heroes were, like letting Yotsuyu live (Heh, until she kicked the bucket anyway).

Good thing "my own ideals and opinions" are exactly the same for each and every one of the egregiously heroic NPCs.

Personally, i freaking WISH they'd torture people for information. You know, that they'd actually were willing to go to any length to achieve their goal, instead of leaving it all to be resolved by the WoL after they fuck up stopping yet another summoning, because their bleeding heart just couldn't take it if they did anything less than heroic.

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If you want game of thrones type grey morality, you are gonna need to play another game. The main characters are the type of heroes who don't stoop to such dark measures. So "goody two shoes" yes. Not story needs to have "grey" main characters who commit warcrimes.

See, when I saw this thread topic, I thought we were gonna be talking about slavery. You know, the thing that confirmably exists in multiple nations we've visited (I've counted at least four, more if you count 'Garlemald' and 'Garlemald-occupied nations' separately).

Something we have to remember is that the game setting is not 21st century Earth, and does not share its morality. It's very nebulous exactly what level of comparative development the game world is in, since over the course of the game we see nations based on things ranging from 19th century Japan, Crusades-era Vatican City, to a 17th century mythical city, to a mashup of the Roman Empire, Nazi Germany and Cold War Eastern Europe. But all that can really be confirmed is that FFXIV's world hasn't caught up to us. That's just fine for a story, but it does mean that they haven't gotten to modern cultural mores like 'completely outlawing outright slave trading' and 'completely understanding that torture is bad'.

They're getting there, though. Limsa is several centuries ahead of the curve in recognition of the sins of colonialism.

What does 'modern morality' entail? Perhaps it means temporarily adopting whatever system of morality best suits your argument in the moment. Before we even get to the subject of interrogation, most societies have a moral objection to killing others. How did you level your character and complete the MSQ? Why did you agree to let yourself be used as a tool of war?

There's no point in offering up a moral take that you have no intention nor capability of living up to.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

See, when I saw this thread topic, I thought we were gonna be talking about slavery. You know, the thing that confirmably exists in multiple nations we've visited (I've counted at least four, more if you count 'Garlemald' and 'Garlemald-occupied nations' separately).

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Slavery is a weird one in the setting because we see it referenced a lot, but rarely see it in practice. Ul'dah seems to practice some kind of debt-based slavery as punishment for crimes, and you can become a gladiatorial slave as a way to pay off you debts too. Limsa regards slavery as illegal and Yellowjackets root it out when they can, but pirates do participate in some kind of black market slave trade (where are the slaves being taken is unclear).

Garlemald seems to have slaves, though it is interesting that the practice appears to be kept away from people in the ordinary core. Provincial Governors appear to employ slaves, but in Garlemald proper the only slaves were tucked away in Cerulea Ingens and put to work there.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

Slavery is a weird one in the setting because we see it referenced a lot, but rarely see it in practice. Ul'dah seems to practice some kind of debt-based slavery as punishment for crimes, and you can become a gladiatorial slave as a way to pay off you debts too. Limsa regards slavery as illegal and Yellowjackets root it out when they can, but pirates do participate in some kind of black market slave trade (where are the slaves being taken is unclear).

Garlemald seems to have slaves, though it is interesting that the practice appears to be kept away from people in the ordinary core. Provincial Governors appear to employ slaves, but in Garlemald proper the only slaves were tucked away in Cerulea Ingens and put to work there.

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There's also evidence of it in Kugane, and most overtly, Yotsuyu was sold into it (after Garlean occupation of Doma, so it's hard to say if that's 'Garlean slavery' or 'Doman slavery'). That last one I see people struggle with every so often, as Hien's reaction to the whole situation... well, it has a lot less anger towards the actual slave-owner than a fair few modern people are comfortable with. To a degree, rightly so, but it's indicative of the people in the story having a markedly different cultural perspective than the people consuming that story.

It is worth noting that while such things are depicted and maybe brushed aside a little too quickly, FFXIV never devolves into apologia. Yotsuyu's time as a sex slave had very clear and dire repercussions for Doma itself, so even if we're not putting down roots for three books to liberate Meereen, it's not like anyone in-universe is arguing that it's somehow a good or even okay thing. Nobody's turning to the camera and saying, "You don't like it? Tough. That's their culture, you intolerant monster." (That's left for the forums!)

But yeah, come to think of it, A Song of Ice and Fire (and even Game of Thones) had no problem whatsoever injecting modern morality into its medieval setting, so I'm not sure if there's any solid argument that an edgier setting would require setting it aside.

Also I'd like to point out that a lot of the time when the Warrior of Light and Co specifically need information from someone, it often just comes to blows anyways and the "good guys" rarely have any qualms about bringing their ungodly power against often regular people over slight misunderstandings. What we should be talking about in another thread is how it seems possible to scale down one's own powers despite using the same abilities. The Warrior of Light can strike with a sword hard enough to pierce a Dragon's hide but also soft enough not to cleave a man in two. That makes some sense on a physical level, but is it really so easy to stop a giant Black Mage fiery inferno from being hot enough to consume a God to just hot enough to hurt a person without turning them to ash?

Just random thoughts I had.

The Shisui of the Violet Tides quest ends with an acknowledgement that not a single life was lost, so it is safe to assume that, however improbable, not all acts of player-controlled violence (at least from Stormblood on) carry the intent of lethal force.

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Originally Posted by Kurenai

You may be happy to hear that the palace guards are all slowly beginning to return to their senses. It seems peace has finally been restored to the palace.

You have saved everyone, including Shiosai, from an untimely death. If only the Ruby Princess would open her eyes, Sui–no–Sato will be exactly as it was before.

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But if you mean the literal mechanics of how mineuchi is supposed to work with giant deicidal fireballs... I might invoke the MST3k Mantra on that one.

So this isn't even a case of modern vs setting ideas of right and wrong. The different cultures within that setting have different ideas. Which then asks the question, for a group like the scions what is their value system and how do they apply it. Based off their actions it looks like...

Killing prisoners bad. Interrogation okay.
Killing non-combatants bad. Killing combatants okay. Killing combatants after they yell "time out I want to talk" unthinkable. A sin most foul that can never be committed in a cut scene ever.
Slavery they just turn a blind eye too. Forced combat for prisoners they turn a blind eye too. They will not do these things themselves, but they will not fight against them.

It seems like the Scions just want to save everyone, pass no judgement on any society, except if you summon a primal we will stop you. But not permanently stop you. Just kill the god and give surprised pikachu face when you summon it again 10 minutes later.

Since it doesn't seem like it's been brought up so far (I think?), there's also a part in the EW Melee Role Quests that has this issue; where it basically feels like you as the WoL/leader of the melee role squad are specifically being tasked with.. prying information out of someone and are directly made to choose which specific method to use. Given the tone of the quest/moment, it was certainly intended to be taken as comedy but it still felt weird to me personally.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

Slavery is a weird one in the setting because we see it referenced a lot, but rarely see it in practice. Ul'dah seems to practice some kind of debt-based slavery as punishment for crimes, and you can become a gladiatorial slave as a way to pay off you debts too. Limsa regards slavery as illegal and Yellowjackets root it out when they can, but pirates do participate in some kind of black market slave trade (where are the slaves being taken is unclear).

Garlemald seems to have slaves, though it is interesting that the practice appears to be kept away from people in the ordinary core. Provincial Governors appear to employ slaves, but in Garlemald proper the only slaves were tucked away in Cerulea Ingens and put to work there.

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The pirates in Sastasha keep at least some of them for themselves. If you poke around the dungeon a bit, you'll notice that the random NPCs in there are all women, are kept in a cell when not needed, and some have... let's say interesting speech bubbles: https://i.imgur.com/3NP8qxc.png. The enemies in there also have a line of aggro dialogue to take the women alive. As a side note, they seem to have very specific tastes because all the women are either Mi'qote or Lalafells.

There's also a FATE chain in, I want to say South Shroud, about a Coeurl King who basically has a harem of slaves he keeps in check with blackmail. I think the postmoogle quests had one dedicated to that as well.

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Originally Posted by Waliel

The pirates in Sastasha keep at least some of them for themselves. If you poke around the dungeon a bit, you'll notice that the random NPCs in there are all women, are kept in a cell when not needed, and some have... let's say interesting speech bubbles: https://i.imgur.com/3NP8qxc.png. The enemies in there also have a line of aggro dialogue to take the women alive. As a side note, they seem to have very specific tastes because all the women are either Mi'qote or Lalafells.

There's also a FATE chain in, I want to say South Shroud, about a Coeurl King who basically has a harem of slaves he keeps in check with blackmail. I think the postmoogle quests had one dedicated to that as well.

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the moogle quest did and it even shows he emotionally and mentally manipulates them to keep them in his harem but making them feel he is the only one who will accept them.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

See, when I saw this thread topic, I thought we were gonna be talking about slavery. You know, the thing that confirmably exists in multiple nations we've visited (I've counted at least four, more if you count 'Garlemald' and 'Garlemald-occupied nations' separately).

Something we have to remember is that the game setting is not 21st century Earth, and does not share its morality. It's very nebulous exactly what level of comparative development the game world is in, since over the course of the game we see nations based on things ranging from 19th century Japan, Crusades-era Vatican City, to a 17th century mythical city, to a mashup of the Roman Empire, Nazi Germany and Cold War Eastern Europe. But all that can really be confirmed is that FFXIV's world hasn't caught up to us. That's just fine for a story, but it does mean that they haven't gotten to modern cultural mores like 'completely outlawing outright slave trading' and 'completely understanding that torture is bad'.

They're getting there, though. Limsa is several centuries ahead of the curve in recognition of the sins of colonialism.

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I think a lot of people miss this point alot because it is common for people to place the morality of our world over the morality of a alternate world to a point it is almost expect by certain people that a game world follows the same morality laws as our own world.

However, we should never place our world's morality laws into another world because standards of that world maybe far different from our own.

It is actually part of FF14 story itself that different cultures have different morality laws which often leads to the conflict WoL gets involves in. Where one culture may see something as wrong, another may see it as right. We face this alot in the storyline and of course it does trigger certain people when the culture of a specific group clash with our world's belief of right and wrong. However, that is part of the reason why we should never place our own world's standards of right and wrong too much into this game since the culture of that civilization maybe have clashing beliefs with our own world's beliefs.

At the sametime it is important to be aware of our own world's beliefs because the different beliefs of right and wrong in each civilization is a reflection of our world's past cultures. It shows how different things were back then compared to what the standard of right and wrong is now. Not to mention learn to understand why the culture was like that is also important since what they define as right and wrong may have been the result of who was in power, religion, social norms of that time, and acts of self survival during a harsher times.

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Originally Posted by EdwinLi

I think a lot of people miss this point alot because it is common for people to place the morality of our world over the morality of a alternate world to a point it is almost expect by certain people that a game world follows the same morality laws as our own world.

However, we should never place our world's morality laws into another world because standards of that world maybe far different from our own.

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Personally my basic rule of interpretation is such: if the characters themselves express opinions that match our present day morality, then it should be safe to assume that in that situation, their morality matches ours.

Hence the debates back in Stormblood-era about whether something counted as a "war crime" was, to me, rather irrelevant, because the characters treated the incidents as atrocities beyond the "normal" conduct of war by their reckoning. In certain cases (eg the attack on Specula Imperatoris), even the "enemy soldiers" consider the attack to be unconscionable, so it's not just the Eorzean Alliance being unused to war.

The same applies to outright piracy (already considered a major nuisance by the other city-states, and recently outlawed by Limsa Lominsa themselves), banditry (dealing with them is a routine matter for adventurers in general, not just us), slavery (every slaver is depicted as either having to skirt the law via loopholes, or ignoring the law entirely, which means it's considered a bad thing by society), and unsanctioned/unprovoked murder (as seen in the ALC questlines).

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

Personally my basic rule of interpretation is such: if the characters themselves express opinions that match our present day morality, then it should be safe to assume that in that situation, their morality matches ours.

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Is this my chance to shill Star Trek again? No? Pretty please?

From a spec-fic perspective, nobody really writes cultures wildly divergent from modern moralities unless there is some desire to explore that divergence. POV characters will generally stick pretty closely to a modern perspective by virtue of being, say, spacefarers from Earth, a "modern" human" displaced in time, or even just uncommonly well-read. In FFXIV, we have enlightened scholars form Sharlayan (there's an obvious "yikes" there but I'll ignore it). Even back in ARR, Y'shtola was serving really modern takes on colonialism, to a colonial pirate queen.

So yes, it is rather silly to try and defend cultural attitudes that aren't even defended in the setting. Eorzea (and now Etheirys) may be a weird moral mashup of 18th-, 19th-, and early 20th-century quandaries, but the setting has only ever been used as a way to reflect on how we got where we are today.