The Next Set of "Relic Weapons" in Heavensward

[Allyrion]

There is no moral complexity to the game. The bad guys and good guys are cut and dry, clear as night and day. The PC is the good guy, "Eorzea's hope" as Minfilia so succinctly puts it. Anything you do is justified or excused by the narrative because it's for the "greater good"... even if that's mindlessly slaughtering sentient beings for a glowing stick because a musty book told you to do it.


Is that justified because those same sentient beings are the thralls malicious, planet-killing gods and goddesses? Maybe. I'd wager most players just do it for fun and profit, though.

Black and white duality can be complex.
FF's more like a mix of Marcus Aurelius's Stoicism and Immanuel Kant's Transcendental Idealism.
There is depth to that, it's just a beneath the surface of the reasoning.
FF has a history of being aware of any questionability, but rebukes it with a stoic response. Fully aware of its stance.

With players, I'm pretty sure CoD or other games that don't narrative for their main game focus is actually a better argument for Nihilism.
Or most other MMO's where you kill massive amounts of sentient beings without any backstory justification.

Morally grey stories can be done well.
But they're usually surface level deep for psudeo-philosophers to think their thoughts are provoked, but usually over the same tried issues.
It's a cop-out because like more simple black and white stories, it doesn't acknowledge the difference between a priori and posteriori heritage of morality.

See, that kind of blind sheep mentality is exactly what you need to stop following. Kind of part of the reason for the Dragonsong War, or so Ysayle says. Still, I'm glad you're able to grasp the fundamentals.

The silent protagonist should not be taken as a person with choices.
They are more of an agent of the world.
It's precisely because these games still use a silent protagonist, without choice, that it emphasizes a deterministic but non-nihilistic(usually brought up, such as with the Gaius Baelsar) narrative.
In these cases, there was never any real choice anyway. It's an illusion.