Religion is bad, M'kay?

[Kaiser-Ace]

Uh, I think it's as against the Church of Halone's teachings to try and become a god as it is in Christianity.

The problem wasnt that he had no moral reasoning behind his actions, the problem was he BECAME a primal knowing it would kill the planet then declared he'd commit mass genocide of everyone that disagreed with him starting with the WoL.

So he went from "Pope" to Adolf Hitler really fast and seemingly out of no where for morally justifiable reason.

So that's why we "Killed" Thordan VII is because he became a Genicidal false deity hell bent on world domination.

I think if Pope Fracise (sorry if i misspelled his name) decided "I'm gonna be a god and rule the world" that alot of Christians would have a problem with that too. (Protostant myself btw)

[IoannesBellator]

Another thing Square Enix can do is SUBVERT this trope. Because evil clergymen hasn't been in vogue since Cardinal Richelieu from The Three Musketeers in the 1800's.

Here's a test. Name me one high-ranking cleric from the Ishgardian Church that mattered in the MSQ. Now, name me thirteen "evil nasty bad guys" from the same organization. If the the Orthodox Church of Ishgard itself is not a thinly veiled criticism of religion, then there should be as much good, but they're nowhere to be seen. In fact, you have to kill a bunch of clergy in The Vault. You just killed people who were following their consciences. They deserved to die because The Warrior of Light knows about the origins of the Dragonsong War? Were I an Ishgardian and I knew the origins of the war, it would've been irrelevant, because dragons killed my family and threaten to destroy my home, I'll support the Archbishop anyway; Why would you trust one whose hobby is to destroy what communities hold so dear to their hearts?

[MilesSaintboroguh]

words

It sounds like you don't like the idea of characters trying to do things peacefully and want to get your hands dirty, consequences be damned. As much as you love Ishgard for "doing something", they were also heavily flawed (their methods in determining who was a heretic, Crucible style, should have been a clue). As Kaiser said, Thordon was EXTREMELY flawed because not only he hid a 1000 year lie for the sake of credibility on his part, he was willing to become something that would endanger everyone just for the sake of ending the war. Two wrongs don't make a right. If you really think that the WOL is "righteous" then you either don't know what it really means on a character and/or you haven't done the Dark Knight quests that deconstruct it.

[IoannesBellator]

Uh, I think it's as against the Church of Halone's teachings to try and become a god

Where did it say this?

Thordan declaring war on anyone who disagreed with him isn't so different from the WoL getting rid of anyone who stood in his way. His main motive was to kill every Dravanian, because you have to destroy everyone if you want to avoid vengeance and reprisals from happening. It means to have won the war, when there is no one left to fight. What reason would he have in taking over the world? They have their own gods and Halone doesn't stand supreme to them, since in their polytheistic pantheon, they're all related anyway.

As for Pope Francis... I am Roman Catholic, and I don't like him; there were better men suited to the office. There's no Church law that says I have to like him, but I am obliged to obey him in matters of faith; what he produced thus far in his papacy is dubious in my opinion. That's all I have to say about that matter.

[IoannesBellator]

or you haven't done the Dark Knight quests that deconstruct it.

I want to so bad, but it's such a pain to level. And, no, I don't like the idea of characters resolving things peacefully, because that's too convenient, too simple, and belies something worse that people have become too complacent to worry about until it's too late. Trial by combat was a historical Germanic law, wherein might makes right, and right makes might, that, I'll give you, as well as the notorious "Trial by shoving people off cliffs" It would have been less wasteful to use torture, because it is not the end of such a practice to kill a person but only to test the limit of what a person will go through to protect a lie. Hence, my objection to Thordan's killing.

[Belhi]

@IoannesBellator, I think your cherry picking details here. We are shown several good clerics in the Ishgardian Church in the MSQ and in side quests, ie. the one who spends most of his time in the Brume. As for Thordan, he dissipated after his defeat. My guess is his ritual screwed him over and consumed his own Aether. Note that the same happens to his Heaven's Ward and we barely touch most of them. They screwed with powers beyond what a human should and it blew up in their faces. And he literally goes on about becoming god king of the world and enforcing order on the world. For the WoL, summoning a primal is never ok. It consumes the life force of the planet. Infact the only 'evil' priests we are really shown are the archbishop and his personal guard and even they are given a justification, however misguided, for their actions. The love greys in this story.

The greatest irony is that you call Gridanians tree huggers where the spirits they worship are both real and far more dangerous to ignore. The elementals triggered the 6th calamity due to the hubris of men and their abuse of magic. Those are spirits you want to take very seriously. In FF14, you screw with nature and it can pay you back in spades.

Ishgard was a far from righteous society but it was mostly due to class imbalance rather than religion. The flaw in this lay in the individuals in power not the establishment.

I'd like to add that all the city states have notable flaws. Gridania struggles with xenophobia within its culture, Ul'dah has extreme corruption and Limsa is literally run by pirate factions. I think they did a good job of portraying both the good and bad traits of Ishgard as well. The issue with the origins of the war were born around the social imbalances which were hidden behind the lies. The reality is that the Noble houses claimed their higher status on a false premise. The fact that successive Archbishops supressed this, allowing for social injustice to become problem. The reason Aymeric went to speak to the Archbishop was to try and convince him to proactively reveal this truth as if left to spread on its own would trigger social unrest among the lower classes. While the argument that it would be a terrible cost to the public to know their fight was based of a lie, the lie itself allowed for the social issues Ishgard had to develop.

[IoannesBellator]

they were also heavily flawed (their methods in determining who was a heretic, Crucible style, should have been a clue)

Well, yes, there's always something to fight against. This is why I don't trust "peacable solutions" because if conflicts arise, one should always be ready.

I haven't been really convinced that everyone would have been endangered because of Thordan's zealotry. Zealotry is always directed against something, about something. If it would have killed the planet, then the amount of primals summoned from Odin and Behemoth, to Shiva and King Thordan, then the world should have exploded a long time ago, but it hasn't happened yet- I have not yet seen, or don't remember the effect of a primal existing for a long time having bad effects on the planet.

I also have a creeping suspicion... how do you know you're not being "dark crystalled" by Hydaelyn, and that people aren't putting faith upon the WoL to the effect that the WoL becomes a primal?

[IoannesBellator]

@IoannesBellator, As for Thordan, he dissipated after his defeat. My guess is his ritual screwed him over and consumed his own Aether. Note that the same happens to his Heaven's Ward and we barely touch most of them.

Maybe it's just bad and lazy writing because they don't know what to do with the Archbishop if he survived. It would have been awkward on the ride back to Ishgard, and it's not likely that the Archbishop would have changed his mind. "It's Euthanasia time, gramps." I would also have liked to see some resolution on Aymeric and Thordan's relationship as father and son, even if they end up brutally killing each other or something. There's something disturbing about how everything was happy and nice at the end, as if there's no sort of emotional toll or something- did Aymeric really hate his father that much that he was all smiles when Ishgard became a part of the Eorzean Alliance again?

As a side note, I rather liked Alphinaud's character development before the expansion.

[Kaiser-Ace]

Where did it say this?

Thordan declaring war on anyone who disagreed with him isn't so different from the WoL getting rid of anyone who stood in his way. His main motive was to kill every Dravanian, because you have to destroy everyone if you want to avoid vengeance and reprisals from happening. It means to have won the war, when there is no one left to fight. What reason would he have in taking over the world? They have their own gods and Halone doesn't stand supreme to them, since in their polytheistic pantheon, they're all related anyway.

Oh no, he didn't just go "I'm right, you're wrong, we fight now and I'll prove it" he went full King Herod and started yelling "I'm THE ONLY GOD any one will need, and I will slaughter all who oppose me, and rule this world with an Iron Fist!" so he didn't even become a false deity really, more like he devolved into a saturday morning cartoon villain.

Oh and trust me, as hell bent as the ishgardian faith is on purging heretics, it's clearly against the teachings to oppose Halone as Ishguard is "The Promised Land given to them by The Fury herself!" so any one who contests that ownership, <Cough Cough> Dravanian Sympathisers <Cough>, was a Halone opposing Heretic and MUST be eliminated "For the Glory of Halone".

So trust me, if they herd him going on about being "The God-King" then even the zealotous nobles would have called shenanigans and called for a riot.

Also, Halone is the Chief Goddess of Ishgard. And while her extended family is worshiped in eorzea too, Ishguard Worships Halone specifically the same way that Athens specifically worshiped Athena over the other 11 Olympians in Ancient Greece. It's not that there aren't multiple deities it's that they choose to worship one in Specific.

[IoannesBellator]

Oh no, he didn't just go "I'm right, you're wrong, we fight now and I'll prove it" he went full King Herod and started yelling "I'm THE ONLY GOD any one will need, and I will slaughter all who oppose me, and rule this world with an Iron Fist!" so he didn't even become a false deity really, more like he devolved into a saturday morning cartoon villain.

That devolution is 80% part of what frustrates me, in a meta-sense. A case in counter-point would have been Grand Kiltias Anastasis of Mt Bur-Omisace in FFXII. He's undoubtedly good, and so is his religion, apparently, BUT HE DOES NOTHING (actively, anyway). And you know what happens to him? Gets killed. SE loves their wise old religious leaders like that; after they're useful to the plot, they're conveniently disposed of.

I got to thinking about how Japan's relationship to the Emperor is a factor to how religious leaders are viewed. Before WW2, the Emperor was literally "God-King" but after WW2, through use of brute force of Nukes, the Emperor had to declare that he had no divine ancestry, and from that point on, all the Emperor did was to exist for him to be of any meaning to Japan, at least not as a figure of worship (except far right wing groups) All the replacement of Emperor-worship were doomsday/suicide cults like Aum Shinrikyo and scams that predate on vulnerable people.