Quote Originally Posted by Cilia View Post
While we are down to two combatants and a secretary (one combatant of whom is prestigious but not exceptionally gifted), it's still the Scions' MO to kill primals. That is the one thing people can always count on us to do, no matter the situation - rain, shine, sleet, or snow, we will quash any primal that shows up because of how dangerous they are. Preventing summoning is a more favorable option, but we can't always succeed at that. Even with only Alphinaud and Tataru (and later Y'shtola as well as Cid, who may as well be an honorary Scion at this point), we still fulfilled our mission.
Oh, I absolutely agree that it's the Scions' MO to kill Primals, but they also don't tend to dip their fingers into others' pies without good reason. Given the fact that Primals appeared in Ishgard when we showed up, can we honestly claim that we're not in some way the cause for those Primals? Ie, doing what the Scions are very reluctant to do, which is to involve ourselves in every random cause, are we not in a way exacerbating the situation? Y'shtola said it best in 2.0: the beast tribes generally summon their Primals not for shits and giggles, but because they feel threatened, and we're often the cause of this feeling of fear. In other words, we're not always in the right in interfering.

On Nidhogg, yes, he does not see Ishgard for the people within it but only as an entity that has wronged him, and thus he carries out his eternal vengeance. It is this entire viewpoint that is fundamentally flawed - 99.9% of modern Ishgardians are lied to in regards to why they're in an eternal war with the Horde. Even if they are ignorant as to why they're fighting the war, you can't really blame them when the only options are to fight and kill or death by dragons (or the third option, become a heretic and probably a dragon yourself). If the Ishgardians don't know the real reason behind the war, how can they possibly learn from Thordan's sin?! This is the real reason Midgardsormr states he is going to "join in the chorus" - he wants Ishgard to learn and grow beyond Thordan's mistakes, and offers them the chance to do so now that they are armed with the truth.
Actually, Midgarsormr in 2.0 gives no indication of feeling that his son is in the wrong. I don't know whether this is poor writing, bad planning, or an honest-to-god complete change of heart, but his opinion of men was truly no better than Nidhogg's opinion of Ishgardians in 2.0. Also, I'm not saying that the Ishgardians should be blamed for Nidhogg's war, but rather that they've never attempted to figure out, on their own, what they could possibly do to try to end the war. Their only thought has ever been that utterly destroying their enemy would protect them, and no one until the Warrior of Light and Alphinaud come along had even made any efforts for peace since Saint Shiva. Is that really normal? It's no wonder that Thordan sees us as some kind of supernatural monster when we've been the only ones to challenge the status quo and actually *do* something.

And if you want to claim that the Echo and Blessing of Light made us so special that only we could handle it, there are two arguments that can be made against that: the first and most obvious one is that we obviously don't operate under the Blessing of Light for most of 3.0. The second would be that without said blessing, we really did nothing all that special and the ones who did most of the leg work were Alphinaud with his diplomacy, Ysayle with her understanding of dragons, and Cid with his technology that allowed us to go where we needed to be. You could even bring up a third argument based on the second: the Warrior of Light is not much without their allies, and in terms of numbers, the Ishgardians can definitely rally together all of their dragoons.

Nidhogg? Nope, he just wants them to suffer more. Forever. What he is attacking is not individuals, but Ishgard as a nation - it's the concept of the country that offends him, not any individuals or particular aspects of it. Nidhogg has no interest in peace, or getting Ishgard to learn from Thordan's mistakes, or anything beyond his vengeance. No matter how many lives, mortal and dragon alike, are consumed, he will never stop. While this is understandable, it's not quite relatable, and in no way is it justifiable. He does not want to win the war - he just wants Ishgard to suffer. Forever. Let me stress that: FOREVER. Estinien acknowledges that Nidhogg could have won the war pretty much any time he wanted to, but he has no interest in winning so that more Ishgardians might suffer his wrath. It's a war on Ishgard's spirit, the very concept of Ishgard, not any one person or anything that makes up the whole.
Yup, Nidhogg sees the whole of Ishgard as one. But again, Nidhogg has no real reason to believe in Ishgardians or even *want* to give them a chance. From his point of view, as far as he knows, Ishgard deserves to suffer a fate worse than death. Again, I don't agree that all Ishgardians deserve to die either, but that is precisely Nidhogg's point of view, and it's easy to understand if you consider both his obvious PTSD and his previous attitude that trusting the Ishgardians was a mistake to begin with. To him, he's just been proven right when they murder his sister.

Putting aside the fact Nidhogg never trusted the Ishgardians in the first place, it's not quite the same as seeing your sister's murderer thrown in jail for the rest of their life. It's like exsanguinating said murderer to the point of unconsciousness, then giving them a blood transfusion so you can do it again for as long as you like. Then doing it to said murderer's spouse and children. Then their children, and so forth. It's sadism of the highest caliber, and there is no "justice" in that.
No, it's not justice, and those Ishgardians don't deserve to die for their ancestors' sins. However, they also have never put forth any real effort to do anything about the whole situation themselves, and that is my main beef with Ishgardians. They live a culture of resignation and dependence upon authority. Actually, that's a recurrent theme in Hydaelyn from what I can see, but nowhere do I see it more strongly than in Ishgard.

Why should the dragons put their faith in men and believe there is good in them after Thordan's betrayal? What proof do they have it won't happen again? There is none - that's why it's called faith. Even without proof, you simply believe.
True, but then again believing is not easy, and it has no logical basis. It's about as logical as the beastmen's faith in their Primals, and we all know where that got us. Either way, my point is that the Ishgardians themselves have done fairly nothing to help themselves. There are those like Estinien, Haurchefant and Aymeric who've put themselves forth and aided the Warrior of Light, but otherwise, we have every reason to believe that the next time a problem comes up, we'll be called in to fix it again. So has a lesson really been learned? We'll find out in future patches, I suppose.