Quote Originally Posted by myahele View Post
Gridanian's do have a symbiotic relationship with the Elementals.

When you think of it, with Gridanians as representatives of the Elementals the forest has it's own defence and diplomacy with other nations. If it weren't for Gridanians the forest will slowly lose ground as more and more people start hunting and logging. While strong, they aren't all-powerful.

Whose to say that Ul'dahs thaumaturge and alchemist can find a way to greatly weaken/poison the forest and thus elementals. With airships they can do air raids.

Without gridanians the forest is unclaimed territory, albeit with dangerous creatures inhabiting it.
Always seemed like a master-slave thing to me more than symbiotic. What I wanna know is what good the elementals do. I see almost nothing but harm from their influence. The worst being the demand that innocents die and Gridanians saying "Sorry, will of the elementals lol" (or lying and abusing the elementals as an excuse; I'm honestly not sure which disgusts me more). There's that ala mhigan guy and iirc there was mention of a child in Gridania proper in some npc bubble text with a similar deal. And they say the elementals were severely weakened but the Black Shroud looks just fine to me. Aside from the apparently burnt/exploded pretty bad West Shroud, the land is lush with plant and animal life still, and nowhere else in Eorzea is dependent on some insane appeasement policy to nature and La Noscea is absolutely thriving (as far as nature is concerned).

That's not to say the other city-states don't have their problems, but the average Ul'Dahn wouldn't dress up political corruption as a good thing.