Quote Originally Posted by Yuyuka3 View Post
I can't, because he's essentially torturing generation after generation of people who where fed lies from infancy and living under a government that brutally kills anyone who digresses from their 'true belief'. (Seeing this typed out, it sounds awfully familiar...). Then again, I don't really like many of the Ishardians, either, since many we meet are utter jerks. Still, I feel with the lower classes and hope Aymeric will be able to acutally improve their lifes.
If you think about it from the dragons' perspective though, just about every Ishgardian is descended from those knights and therefore have Ratatoskr's blood in them, therefore their very existence is a reminder of that betrayal. When you look at it that way, Nidhogg's inability to get over it is much more understandable.

Quote Originally Posted by Anonymoose View Post
My personal preference at this given moment would be that our involvement just completely tears that nation apart. Cities at landbridges between realms usually have a long history of conflict. Driving out the core Imperial structure would create a power vacuum into which would be drawn Garlean loyalists, Kingdom loyalists, reformists, Fists of Rhalgr, upstarts... I'd love it to be a city like Whitegate - full of interesting characters and factions and perpetually in conflict for the rest of the game.

We've seen as much Garlean military as we have Allagan remnants, though, so unless we're in for more than cermet and magitek and bleak black fortresses, I don't really care to see the homeland, lol. The throne room didn't look much different than a castrum. Unless we forge some truce and have an excuse to see a unique culture going back farther than their military industrial revolution, I'd rather they just collapsed off screen like the previous Emperor and let us go about our business somewhere like Thavnair or Othard or, hells, even the New World.
Likely any involvement with Ala Mhigo *will* cause conflict because it's pretty much under Garlean rule, but like you, that is exactly what I want to see out of that place. I'm also not interested in seeing more Garlean-style fortresses and other dark and imposing buildings, and I would like for Ala Mhigo to have a culture if it should be visited. However, as I mentioned before, I'm more interested in us going to the Sharlayan country. Don't know whether it would be in the cards, but it seems inevitable to eventually address their issues of non-interference.

Quote Originally Posted by Cilia View Post
It clearly is, but to play Devil's Advocate...

... while Gaius had sympathetic motives on the surface, deep down he was little more than an ambitious, power-hungry conquerer like the rest of the Garleans. He had standards, and a point that Eorzeans likely turn to gods because they're not strong enough to accept hardship, but ultimately the reason he wanted to conquer Eorzea was to prove that he could do so. (It's also why he opposed Project Meteor, as using a cataclysmic weapon of mass destruction to lay waste to the land would leave nothing worth conquering.)
Yup, that's exactly what I've been saying: Gaius is ultimately just another Garlean with motives that don't much differ from his comrades'. He doesn't conquer for the good of others, but it's what he pretends to justify his actions. He makes several good points about Eorzea and its Primals but goes about dealing with them the wrong way.