A Part, and yet Apart

[FJerome]

When Livia describes Minfilia as the Scion's High Priestess she's . . . pretty accurate? Minfilia isn't the head of the Scions because of any leadership skills, she's there because she's the Antecedent, the first person known to have the Echo, which gives her a semi-holy status. Unfortunately Hydaelyn is terrible at providing any sort of practical advice so when Alphinaud rolls up to seize control she doesn't really try to stop him, she knows this isn't her strong point.

. . . My bigger issue with the Scions is why none of the other Echo holders, like Arenvald, ever help out with this Primal thing.

[Fenral]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: we aren't the real protagonist of XIV. That role shifts around and is carried by various people. We're just muscle, a tool to make sure things others want to happen comes to pass.

But aside from DRK, pretty much every story bends over backwards to tell you that you are the hero, the beacon of hope, the last light, and so forth. The entire story exists to stress upon you the importance of your role in shaping the future of Eorzea, which you accept because you are a doormat with no individual will you are the hero. Regardless of the technicalities of the writing, FFXIV is very much constructed to make you into the most important person in Eorzea.

There's prime deconstruction fuel in there, but thus far we're still plodding through the main story with alarmingly less genre awareness then is typical for a 21st century JRPG.

[Frederick22]

Really, I would like to feel I'm leading people, not just being "the hero" and primal killer

[Cilia]

. . . My bigger issue with the Scions is why none of the other Echo holders, like Arenvald, ever help out with this Primal thing.

They probably aren't skilled combatants like we are. Our sheer martial (or magical) prowess is our main asset in fights against primals; the Echo just prevents us from being tempered. Ordinary people can and have defeated primals in the past before, it just takes human wave tactics to exhaust the primal's ability to temper before the real fighters can go up against the primal.

Put bluntly, even with the Echo a primal will still murder your ass if you can't fight. *glares at Minfilia*

snip

True but protagonist != hero. This is common, but not always the case. While we do make everything better, for most intents and purposes we aren't really a character; we get almost no characterization in the MSQ and are simply treated as the standard humble doormat of a silent protagonist. In almost every single class / job quest you're just a spectator to the story of others. This is even true of most of the MSQ!

You're the hero, the unstoppable force to point at whatever is threatening Eorzean peace this week... but that's all you are. You aren't really the protagonist of anything because only one story in the game is really your story. The rest are about someone else. While RPGs do generally avoid the "paragon" archetype these days, the problem is that XIV is an MMO... and thus every PC has to be interchangeable. It's a limitation that comes with adding MMO to the RPG. You do influence events, but take one Warrior of Light out and plug another one in, and the story would continue rolling with no changes at all. Hell, if the Echo weren't a damn-near necessity for fighting primals and the soldiers were competent, you could almost take the Warrior of Light out of the story and it would spin on none the wiser.

[fm_fenrir]

Hell, if the Echo weren't a damn-near necessity for fighting primals and the soldiers were competent, you could almost take the Warrior of Light out of the story and it would spin on none the wiser.

The soldiers are competent though. The main difference is that without Hydaelyn's crystalline boost, they just can't exceed mortal limits like the WOL can. Most of the job quests are to the tune of "We're already doing this military operation, but since you're an invincible murder machine, can you help us out?".

You're right, however, that if the WOL just decided to dance a jig while fireballs rained on the field, nothing would change about the outcome of any of the quests or missions. There would just be a lot more NPC casualties than the story claims.

[Fenral]

you could almost take the Warrior of Light out of the story and it would spin on none the wiser.

But that's just it, the entire universe is constructed in such a way that our presence is a necessity for even the tiniest of fetch quests.

(spoilers for everything up through 3.0)

Even the "main characters" we meet are basically presented as one of two flavors. On one side you have your G'rahas, who have an entire character arc dedicated to discovering that they are, in fact, incapable of accomplishing anything, and accepting that and leaving everything up to the real hero is portrayed as a positive development. Because it's not about him, it's about us, and how great we are.

On the flipside, you get your Estiniens and your Ysayles. They have arcs about doing things on their own, having their own changes they want to bring about in the world, but in not relying on us, they end up punished by the very construction of the universe, ultimately leaving their tasks for us to finish for them anyway.

Alisaie is the only character in the middle of all this, but she gets a pass because while she wants to be a hero like us, she parts with us at a level that still isn't a threat to our uncontested superiority.

But in general, arguing it could spin on without us is pointless, because the universe itself is constructed to impress upon the player how meaningful their contribution is. It all comes back to the FF1 epilogue scroll: "The real hero is YOU."

[FJerome]

They probably aren't skilled combatants like we are. Our sheer martial (or magical) prowess is our main asset in fights against primals; the Echo just prevents us from being tempered. Ordinary people can and have defeated primals in the past before, it just takes human wave tactics to exhaust the primal's ability to temper before the real fighters can go up against the primal.

Put bluntly, even with the Echo a primal will still murder your ass if you can't fight. *glares at Minfilia*

The thing is we were hardly that strong when we begun. Maybe if those layabouts came out and levelled with us they'd be able to solo Ifrit too.

[Februs]

They probably aren't skilled combatants like we are. Our sheer martial (or magical) prowess is our main asset in fights against primals; the Echo just prevents us from being tempered. Ordinary people can and have defeated primals in the past before, it just takes human wave tactics to exhaust the primal's ability to temper before the real fighters can go up against the primal.

Put bluntly, even with the Echo a primal will still murder your ass if you can't fight. *glares at Minfilia*

This might not actually be the case. It is told to us that the echo shields us from Primal influences; however, we do not have the echo during every Primal Fight. The echo is at low power during both Ravana and Bismark fights, so I don't think that the echo is the sole means of defense against primal influence.
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Further proof of this is Thancred. It is never said that he has the echo; however, it is implied several times that he was immune to Tempering before the Ascions got their claws into him. There are a couple of occasions where, if you talk to him before a primal fight, he apologizes for not being useful to you in the fight, because he is no longer immune to Primal influence. Why was he immune before? He didn't have Echo to protect him, so what gives?

I think that the baseline defense against Primal Influence is a strong and indomitable will, not the echo. This could be further shown by the old fart and the Garlean he/she (nael) creature who were taken by Bahamut. They did not get tempered until after they were left weakened. If you show weakness, the Primal can get you. I think it's that simple... which means that no one else can fight Primals because they're all weak minded and weak bodied. We are the only ones who are "strong.

[Februs]

But aside from DRK, pretty much every story bends over backwards to tell you that you are the hero, the beacon of hope, the last light, and so forth.

The lvl 50 Dark Knight story line is most certainly my favorite of all the Job quests for this very reason. Avoiding spoilers for those of you who haven't done it yet, the ... more complete picture shown by the character development in that arc was fantastic, and it is the only time in the entire game where a character actually said what I had been thinking every single time someone told us to do their dirty work for them (If you recall a certain merchant asking us to retrieve his stuff then you'll know what cutscene I'm talking about).

[CyrilLucifer]

This might not actually be the case. It is told to us that the echo shields us from Primal influences; however, we do not have the echo during every Primal Fight. The echo is at low power during both Ravana and Bismark fights, so I don't think that the echo is the sole means of defense against primal influence.

The Echo and the Blessing are completely distinct. I don't remember any mention of your Echo weakening, it is your Blessing that was weakened. Hence why you (and Minfilia) can understand Nabriales when Moenbryda cannot.