"Who...what are you?"

[MilesSaintboroguh]

I don't see what is lawful neutral from fighting primals and ascians that want to suck the world's life force dry.

[CyrilLucifer]

I was more arguing against the point that we're going Chaotic Good.

We're definitely Lawful, since we're following Hydaelyn's greater will and command. Whether we want to follow the orders or not isn't even in the equation, we simply are, even if, as the DRK quest states, we don't always like it. That's entirely what Lawful characters do.

The Neutral is more from the idea that's being spread through the thread (whether or not you agree with it) that the Warrior is taking a bit of a darker turn. I'd say, if we are going "darker," rather than going from Lawful Good to Chaotic Good, we slipped from Lawful Good to Lawful Neutral. It's more the matter of us possibly having to go through with actions we don't necessarily agree with in the future at Hydaelyn's command. So far, she's been (seemingly) benevolent. In the future, we might not always agree with her will and decisions or they may conflict with something else that needs to be done. However, if we wish to retain her Blessing, we would need to follow the orders through. That is how we may end up as Lawful Neutral.

[Enkidoh]

Chances are it'd be Anonymoose, Enkidoh, or maybe the equivalent loremasters in the German, French and Japanese boards

Haha, it definitely would not be me, given the fact I can only speak and read in English! Any info I post taken from another language is always translated by someone else that I just repost (with full credit of course). I think Catapult and Moose are the ones to talk to about getting info from the other language versions of the game, as my understanding of German, French and Japanese is next to nil I'm afraid.

[Atoli]

One thing that I always had a problem with is that most of us assume that we have to/do follow Hydealyn's command. I mean, our characters get blessed by her, but at that point we can just say "Fuck it, I'll become an insanely perfect crafter like no one ever was" and never bother following her words again (although that does lock us out of Ishgard and lots of other content, but that's just the natural course of things because that way we never meet and befriend the people necessary for it).

I have a lot of trouble placing the WoL in Lawful, because we don't give a damn about the rules or orders we get in general. Some random dude comes up to us and is like "I give you Gil and Exp if you steal stuff from my business rival / make him have an "accident" / poison those people / etc." and we go ahead and do it, because it gives us what we want at the time, or we don't, if we don't feel like doing it. We ignore authority all the time, and even when we couldn't hear Hydealyn, who is considered the ultimate greater will, we kept on doing whatever we wanted to do, even if it may had been completely contrary to what she wants from us. Chaotic wouldn't be fitting either because the one thing that's really obvious is how much our character cares about his bonds, always ready to do whatever they ask of him (if we go by a "you must do the story"-approach and ignore that you can choose to not do anything with your blessing). We don't value freedom THAT much.
So, all in all, I'd probably go with..Neutral Good? (Or True Neutral, if we consider that our characters are totally ready to do some pretty evil stuff if it gives them those sweet sweet Gil to buy that new dress they want..).

Oh but whatever, this has been talked about in bigger threads by many people already. I don't wanna go full-on alignment talk again and just stick to a discussion about what Thordan's last words mean xD

[Kaiser-Ace]

As a blank sleight via the Sent Hero Cliché, I'd say we're truely Nutral Nutral with no real will of our own but simply an avatar of an otherworldly being's will.

.........I'll just let you guys make the puns and connections.on that one. Lol

[ArcaviusGreyashe]

I agree with Lawful Neutral... But I fail to see why most of you hate Thordan.


He didn't summon Thordan to gain power, not to reign eternally... He summoned Thordan to destroy the Ascians. To protect his people. It's true, he wanted to protect the theocracy, because the theocracy was a mean to empower Thordan, and thus, having more power to destroy the Ascians, protecting the city. Yes, he ****ed the dragons but he wasn't That bad of a guy, his will to protect Ishgard was pure. I think we definitely did a mistake killing it. He was a Lawful Good (loyal neutral at least) character, and that implies that sometimes, you gotta sacrifice something, even really important to you, for the greater good, the good of the people you're loyal to... Ishgard, for the archbishop.

I recognize that he let a part of his people suffer, but... They were alive. Without him, without a leader as pure of heart as him, the Ascians would have dominated Ishgard, and the dragons would have destroyed the city.

What he saw in us was the vassal of Hydaelyn, as Ascians were the vassals of Zodiark... But it's not because we serve light than we are better for the city than Ascians. In his opinion, we weren't different from the Ascians. Empowered beings toying with the fate of a world we aren't really part of.

I know what you may think... "Well, Arca, we established democracy and killes the bad guys, the ascians, we protected the city from Ravana and Bismarck !". Well, first of all, I'm not truly sure democracy is good for Ishgard (not a political debate, I'm Just saying it isn't that good for Ishgard), and second... Yeah, we're Ascians' ennemies. But we're still the same thing, basically. And to be honest... We didn't helped Much. We strengthened Niddhog, we killed the Celestial Dragoon (not sure of his title...) we dragged Ishgard in the Alliance (because yeah, everybody knows others Alliance's cities are perfectly fine, dragging Ishgard in That mess will definitely help) and crushed beast tribes That were a mere nuisance before we joined in.

We're good as long as we don't think about what we're doing, and just look superficially at things. Actually, we're just doing what we're told to, and good has nothing to do with it. The only thing That matters is crushing Zodiark. Yup. Warrior of Light, people. Warrior. Not Emissary or anything. We're born to kill and destroy. That's why Thordan was afraid of us, wondered what we are and said we were fools.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

snip

I don't agree with any of this. Yes, Thordon wanted to end the chaos and anguish that the Dragonsong War brought, but he was willing to to become a primal in order to do so and we (as in we the players and characters in game) already know why primals are bad news. He also displayed extremist traits since he believed what he was doing was the only way to truly solve the problem and not joining his side paints you as his enemy that needs to be put down. Thordon's greater good was, at best, a short term solution that would not benefit people in the long run. To me he wasn't "bad", but just wrong in his approach.

You say Thordon was "pure of heart", but I say he was delusional and desperate. His actions in becoming a primal, along with his knights twelve, would have quickly gained the attention of the Garlean Empire since they want to get rid of primals by any means. Now you traded one war for another war by swapping dragons with humanity. You also forget that Nidhogg had no intention of destroying Ishgard; he wanted to make the people suffer forever until they either gave up in despair or became dragons. As Alphinaud had said, "Nidhogg could have easily destroyed Ishgard by himself many times over."

You say the WOL and the Ascians are basically one and the same, but they are barely close other than the power they exhibit. We learn through Tiamat that the Ascians caused shenanigans many eons ago and were responsible for the Allagans learning how to summon and control primals and the Ascians also had a hand in making Bahamut a primal, which caused the Calamity many years later that Eorzea is still recovering from to this day. What has the WOL done so far? Slay a bunch of primals, stopped the Empire from taking over, and managed to get dragon and man to rebuild their relationship with one another. From the eyes of the common folk, who do you think they are going to side with (assuming they know who the Asians are for argument's sake)?

You also believe Ishgard was dragged" into the Alliance, but seem to conveniently forget that Ishgard returning was sorely needed if Eorzea as a whole wants to repel the Empire and help each other out. That's how national relationships build and flourish. A house divided, etc etc. Ishgard tried to stay out of everyone else's problems, but they couldn't ignore the fact that if the other city-states had fallen, Ishgard would be the Empire's next target. You also say we crushed the beast tribes, but I don't see any of that. Repel seems to be the better term since there's really no resolution with the beast tribes in the main scenario in terms of closure. You claim that the beastmen were just a nuisance, but also seem to forget said beastmen (the fanatic ones at least) summon primals and I don't think I need to be reminding you time and time again why having a primal out in the world is bad for everyone. (There's also the beast tribe quests whose overall purpose is to try and get people and beastmen working together again (kinda like the dragons, eh?), even if it's just a few baby steps at a time)

You say a democracy in Ishgard is bad, but why? How is it worse than what they had previously? Are you just saying it's bad for the sake of it?


I think you're either looking too deep into this or are trying to make a HUGE claim that the WOL is actually a villain that doesn't see what their actions is causing just to say that "we're the real bad guys". Final Fantasy is always going to have the player be the heroes in one form or another that eventually works out in the end.

[Belhi]

Yeah, Thordan might not have been out right evil but he was seriously misguided. Its worth noting that we don't specifically kill him either. When they lose the primal form he and all the knights dissipate into Aether suggesting its more likely the result of the summoning failing. Side effect of turning into a primal maybe?

Regardless the very fact he was in Ahys Lla indicates he was after more power. He was already a primal and already had the Eye. Ahys Lla offered him imprisoned Eikons to syphon off. I cant see why else he would have been there. That's crazy dangerous.

We are also very different from the Ascians. The Ascians goal is to return Zodiark and everything can be sacrificed to reach that goal. Further they seem to generally have contempt for the mortals of Eorzea. The WoL on the other hand constantly struggles and sacrifices to help the people of Eorzea, even when it forces is into crazy dangerous situation and situation which some would consider demeaning considering our strength. We had no obligation to Ishgard and further many of them have been unhelpful and outright insulting to the WoL. Never the less the WoL has gone out of their way to protect Ishgard and its people even when the blessing of Light was stripped from them.

As for the Beasttribes, the very fact we oppose the Garleans is in a large part due to their desire to genocide the Beasttribes. Further we have generally been pretty selective in out attacks on Beasttribe holdings. The most serious campaigns the WoL wages against the Beasttribes are for factions within the beast tribes and they are generally to oppose oppressive, cruel and corrupt factions and/or to try and break the cycle of violence between the Beasttribes and the city states. (On that note, its one of the reasons I liked the Sahagin story the best. Novv is a legend.) When members of the Beasttribes are being abused by people from the city states we even intervene to protect them.

Finally, I don't think Ishgard is now a democracy. Its still ruled by the High Houses and Aymeric is simply standing in for the Archbishop, a role it seems his father hoped he would take up eventually. I actually suspect we will eventually see Aymeric become king. There are too many 'throne lies empty' and 'Until a true king arises' comments in songs and cutscenes of the past to make me think that's not a thing. We haven't even truly dealt with the social equality beyond baby steps.

Further while Nidhogg has returned, the Azure Dragoon isn't dead and I suspect we will be able to pull him out of the new Nidhogg (ie. enter the soul of Estinien using the echo and drive Nidhogg out. Bonus points to SE if the combat scene is a memory of Estinien's destroyed home.) Further the Alliance is beneficial to Ishgard as it give Ishgard support from the other member states. If Ishgard is threatened the other city states are now obliged to take action and lend resources. Ishgard wasn't immune to the Eorzean political scene. 2.55 showed that. They weren't force into it either. Their reason for avoiding it before was one of pride and arrogance. Most ironically the Ishgardians established the first Eorzean Alliance.

Even the issue of growing too powerful has been raised before in the story. The original EX primals showed that effectively the Ascians forced us into an arms race with the Beasttribes because we couldn't just leave primals alone. Doing so would be devastating to both the beasttribes and the land itself.

[Morningstar1337]

Yeah, Thordan might not have been out right evil but he was seriously misguided. Its worth noting that we don't specifically kill him either. When they lose the primal form he and all the knights dissipate into Aether suggesting its more likely the result of the summoning failing. Side effect of turning into a primal maybe?

It is worth noting tht Ysale and I think Louisoux also dissipated into aether after their deaths, so I think this is a side effect of becoming primals

[ArcaviusGreyashe]

I don't really have the time to answer properly, so I'll be concise, but I'm fully open to arguing !

On Thordan : Yes, he was misguided, but well... The WoL didn't try to discuss with him once he knew the truth, he just went and fight, like Thordan himself... And the only solution we viewed to that problem was killing him. So he may have been an extremist, but we were as well... Additionnally, Thordan was in direct contact with Ascians all along but wasn't corrupted, meanwhile Thancred was possessed really easily... So Thordan's will and heart were most pure than Thancred's, than a Scion's and that's not nothing...

On Niddhog : Yes, Niddhog was a really bad guy. That's why Thordan wanted to kill him. Because the true villain was Niddhog (and his crew). So yeah, of course Thordan wanted power, I never said he didn't... I said he didn't want the power for himself, but to protect Ishgard.

On the wars : As far as we know, Thordan was the strongest primal (Bahamut may be stronger, we Just don't really know... In terms of figures, Thordan was more powerful than proto-Bahamut, but Bahamut himself...) so he may have wiped the agressive dragons. The others being too tired to fight back, it would have solved the problem. And the garleans would have been wiped as well, for all we know... Short term solution ? I don't think so. It would have been a long term solution for Ishgard, and Ishgard alone.

On the alliance : Ishgard will mostly not benefit from the alliance. They are stronger than the other city states, so they will help more than they'll be helped, lose men and resources in the process, and end up weaker. Alliances are great, but not for everyone. That's egoism if you want, but Ishgard was better off alone. And yeah, Aymeric wanted to be part of the Alliance since 2.55, that doesn't mean Aymeric was right. And Aymeric had little to no pretention to do so, he was a general, not a king...

On Ascians : Yeah, Ascians have been here for centuries and centuries and we've been here for two years maximum. That doesn't mean we're not the same, Just That we're younger. Still, we have an amount of power impossible for a human and we have Much more impact on the world than humans. We are closer to Ascians than to humans...

On beasttribes : They have been here for centuries and summoned primals for centuries, yet... Well, we weren't there. And the city states survived... They didn't need the WoL. True, primals are stronger than before... When we arrive. We know the Ascians are the origin of That strengthening, but people don't, and You can't expect them to believe you when you say That you're the Nice guy... Maybe you are the one Who gives them strength ?
And yeah, we helped the peace by doing beast tribe quests... After killing the beastmen That didn't agree with us. Look at kobolds. They were a call nation That simply wanted to mine and be alone, the Maelstrom broke their agreement and invaded them, so they summoned Titan, the Maelstrom asked you to kill Titan... So you kill Titan and many kobolds. Because they opposed the ones Who broke the agreement, Who betrayed them. That's an example, there are others saying the opposite, but you can't deny That.

And on democracy : A softer and slower decision process is better when you're at peace, but Ishgard was and is at war. A tyrant is often more useful in these times, because his decisions are quick and more "logical", more capable of achieving victory...

Finally, you are truly the ones That take the argument too seriously x) I'm talking from Thordan's Point of View, to try to understand what he meant. There's no truth, there's only interpretation. What's best from the WoL's point of view was wordt from Thordan's and vice-versa. I try to answer the original question of the thread, that's all x)