Question about LV50 Dark Knight quest *Spoilers*

[Fenral]

Ironically, we were (supposedly) free-thinking human beings before we started taking orders from a sentient rock... the only difference is our sentient rock is supposedly benevolent. Given XIV runs on the binary "good vs. evil" viewpoint of classical fiction, you're more likely than not right... even though I wish that weren't true.

That is the irony, isn't it? Tease a bunch of moral complexity, but then harp on people for not seeing good and evil as binary. I'm not sure if it's the sign of a mature writer or a totally immature writer stubbornly insisting their way is right by simply saying it is rather than carefully illustrating the point.

What did I say about using waffles?!

No idea. That is how people in LS'es spell "W'fharl" though. XD

My point was, even if it's framed as "finish the game and it ends," there was necessary sacrifice in the ending, which made it kind of realistic; it wasn't the sugary, happy, fairytale "everyone lives" good ending. A price had to be paid to break the cycle.

In case you're unclear, the issue I continue to have with CT (that only gets worse as I'm forced to go back and talk to those NPCs again) is that, in spite of it leaving some poor bewildered kid sealed in a time bubble, it's actually treated as the mostly-ideal outcome. What amounts in practical terms to a symbolic suicide is treated instead as a moment of positive character growth for someone I can only assume the writers intended to be selfish and unlikable. (Also, 2.0 had a tiny "catboys are gross" problem.) Say what you will about how sacrifices are sometimes necessary, but it's not actually portrayed as that in-universe, even though it quite clearly is.

My guess is we were meant to care more about the Tower itself (and all the nostalgia it represents) from the start, and feel that by getting rid of that guy nobody cared about anyway, we've basically guaranteed a bright future for humanity, even if that isn't in the present. That loops back around to the "ignoring moral complexities" problem, though, as the Tower was rather plainly presented as a more complex issue than simply "we don't know how it works," but when the time came to wrap it up, all that was ignored.

There's no Ser Zephirin or Regula van Hydrus to be the target of your frustration should you not be okay with that outcome, everyone simply agrees with you about how wonderful it is that he finally found his destiny. The possibility that anyone could be upset by it is simply ignored. It's probably the most ham-fisted moment in the entire game simply for how much it feels it needs to dictate the emotions of a character who is supposed to be a blank self-insert. (Oh hey, did I end up back on topic?)

(The problem with G'raha's sacrifice being unavoidable is, since it's side content, people don't necessarily have to do it, so it can't be brought up in the MSQ ever or only as a side-note / optional comment that doesn't have any meaningful impact. Dick move, I know, but the game can't assume you've done any optional content. Unless they pull an Estinien on us, but... not gonna bet on that.)[/size]

I would have liked someone besides Ramnbroes in the SMN quests to at least have remembered that it happened, but since G'raha falls pretty neatly into the "Plot Destroying Superpower" category, I understand them not wanting to immediately acknowledge the existence of that in the MSQ. Still, I feel like the writers maybe shouldn't introduce that sort of character at all into a setting with no intentions of actually using them. (I never actually meant to involve him in this topic at all, since he could use a break, but you name-dropped him first.)

4.0 will allegedly have no scenario gate, and instead include some way of recapping the story so far. Feel free to pull out the Ancient Aliens gif, but I think that could be the way they fit BCoB and CT (and probably Alex and Void Arc) into continuity so that their various hanging threads can be addressed without gating or simply Spineshatter Diving continuity like Estinien did.

But I thought we were talking about Dark Knight?