I just realised... are we L'cie? [Possible 3.2 spoilers]

[Fenral]

People tend to forget (or overlook, or deliberately erase the memory) that Fabula Nova Crystallis is a deconstruction of the I/III/V trifecta of: ragtag band stumbles on crystal, ragtag band gets assigned impossibly convoluted task by said crystal, ragtag band accepts and executes said assigned task with little to no hesitation, ragtag band saves world. Go destiny!

Me, I'm over here in the post-FNC fanbase wondering why we're merrily plodding along according to some giant rock's whims and questioning the validity of my own free will.

[Morningstar1337]

People tend to forget (or overlook, or deliberately erase the memory) that Fabula Nova Crystallis is a deconstruction of the I/III/V trifecta of: ragtag band stumbles on crystal, ragtag band gets assigned impossibly convoluted task by said crystal, ragtag band accepts and executes said assigned task with little to no hesitation, ragtag band saves world. Go destiny!

Me, I'm over here in the post-FNC fanbase wondering why we're merrily plodding along according to some giant rock's whims and questioning the validity of my own free will.

It's ether a back-to-basics kinda thing, an attempt at reconstruction or just Square trying just as hard as the players to forget that XIII was a thing and never attempt deconstructing their plots again

[Nalien]

People tend to forget (or overlook, or deliberately erase the memory) that Fabula Nova Crystallis is a deconstruction of the I/III/V trifecta of: ragtag band stumbles on crystal, ragtag band gets assigned impossibly convoluted task by said crystal, ragtag band accepts and executes said assigned task with little to no hesitation, ragtag band saves world. Go destiny!

To be fair, that isn't a I/III/V trifecta, that is pretty much all the Final Fantasy games.

Just replace "Crystal" with "Cause" and you're done. II/IV/VI/VII/VIII/IX all effectively have you joining the Rebel Alliance to stop the Empire (IV even had you playing the first black stormtroo I mean Dark Knight!). Heck, even X now that I think about it... And I always forget about XII, release the HD version already so I can remind myself SE!

Bravely Default is probably the only game to successfully break this down, even if the writing was so-so (the puns! Mrgrgr!) and the second half makes my soul weep. Maybe XIII had a valiant attempt at it, but I'll be honest, I never got far into it and everything to come after has given me no reason to look back at it. Still, if we bump into a friendly fairy at the end of Ispen Castl Antitower who gives us a task to save Minfilia and Hydaelyn... If you're now imagining Elidibus cosplaying Airy, you're welcome.

[Fenral]

To be fair, that isn't a I/III/V trifecta, that is pretty much all the Final Fantasy games.

Well, what distinguishes those three in particular (and Bravely Default, boy howdy) is the decidedly otherworldly nature of their task-giver. The only one where the conflict is both entirely human and your party are the chosen ones is VIII. VII and IX put the spin on it where the PC is the un-chosen one, and X had a number of similar parties going through an elimination process. XII sort of teased the possibility of divine manipulation on top of the human conflict, but never really went anywhere with it. XIII was about the illusion of free will when divine will has an agenda, but it mostly failed in its attempts to redirect player frustration at the linearity onto the in-universe architect of that linearity. Should have kept Nabaat.

XIV will end up somewhere, eventually, but right now surrendering yourself to a higher will is shown as always the correct "choice", so it hasn't actually chosen anything yet. I tell myself "soon" every patch. Also, thanks for that mental image.

[Atoli]

XIV will end up somewhere, eventually, but right now surrendering yourself to a higher will is shown as always the correct "choice", so it hasn't actually chosen anything yet. I tell myself "soon" every patch.

Are we really, though?
All we know so far about what Hydaelyn wants from us is to stop "the darkness", aka Zodiark and his followers. But we haven't been in contact with Zodiark himself yet nor have we done much for her cause except for defeating some of the Ascians, and even that happened more for worldly reasons than for Hydaelyn's cause.
If the one who possessed Thancred, or the ones who manipulated others against us, or the one who talked Thordan into doing stupid things were just normal human bad guys or some unrelated Voidsent, we would have fought and killed them all the same.

For all the talk about actively seeking out and destroying Ascians when Moenbryda came to visit, we haven't really done anything. We just tend to stumble over them most of the time...x)

[Februs]

XIV will end up somewhere, eventually, but right now surrendering yourself to a higher will is shown as always the correct "choice", so it hasn't actually chosen anything yet. I tell myself "soon" every patch.

Actually, some of those games do actually have direct lore links to these themes (man vs god. Chosen on a divine quest. Following divine will etc). Those links are just not fully explored by their MSQ's.

FFVIII is definitely an exception, because the quest is most certainly human-given, even if you follow the deep lore. The conflict follows the same theme (man vs god, where "god" has a stand-in via sorceresses), because the fight against the sorceresses is a continuation of the human war against the god, Hyne. That conflict was initiated by Hyne (he started it by burning human children), however the quest to continue hunting for the pieces of Hyne (sorceresses) was human given.

IX, however, is kind of a middle ground between a divine quest and a man made quest in that it is extremely thematic. It's definitely one of my favorite spins on the theme. As you say, Zidane is un-chosen, in that he begins as a chosen one of Tera, is cast out by Kuja into Gaia, and returns as the unlikely hero of Gaia against Tera (keep in mind that Tera and Gaia are both Mother Crystals in the lore of FFIX). However, the story is ultimately about the triumph of life over death, and it ends with the heroes facing Necron, who seeks to destroy life.

Though the crystal never explicitly chooses Zidane and crew to defend it (via a divine voice speaking to you or some other such nonsense), it's thematically implied that you are the unlikely chosen hero in the final scenes before the fight in which your fallen party members pass on their life source to you so that you can defeat Necron. It's also implied by the final dialogue between Necron and Zidane, in which Zidane references immortal memory as a reason for overcoming death. In FFIX the mother crystal isn't really a character so much as it is an amalgamation of life and the memories of past lives. At the end of the game, Zidane and party are the representation of that life's desire to keep on living. So, in a sense, they are given their quest by life itself, which is the mother crystal. It's extremely thematic writing, and was a nice change from the blatant "I am thou god. Do my bidding!" kind of quests we're used to.

XII, as well, has a fairly interesting twist in that you're not playing the chosen at all, in that game. You're basically playing the bystander or even the villain.

The story is still about a conflict between man and. god. Not only is there the massive backstory behind the Espers having a rebellion against the gods that formed them, but Vayne's and Cid's ambitions were tied to the goal of freeing mankind from having a fate guided by the hands of the Occuria (Aka "The Undying"). Their goal was to cut off Ivalice's connection to the Occuria, basically continuing the rebellion of the espers. They were actually given this goal by one of The Undying (the rebellious one who speaks to Cid and makes him look insane) in the first place. As such, they were following divine will. Vayne, however, had plans of his own and sought to realize both his goal and the god's at the same time.

In that regard, we are actually playing the "villains" in that game, which is very interesting. Only, by the end, we become the "alternative" instead. This is all a little difficult to gather from the plot, though, because the main characters are almost singularly focused on their human war and saving the kingdom. They tend to overlook the involvement of the divine, and our hand in the divine quest is one of unknowing opposition.

The problem with FFXIV, so far, is that Hydaelyn does not seem to really have an agenda of her own. As of yet, she has primarily been shown as a reactionary character. She never takes initiative (other than to guide us a little through echo vision). Instead, she simply shows up to give a helping hand when we are in dire need. In that regard, the war between Hydaelyn and Zodiark seems awfully one-sided. Zodiark has absolutely no presence whatsoever, but his followers are constantly on the assault. Hydaelyn, on the other hand, seems to do nothing until she is forced to defend. It's hard to say that she's really given us a "quest" so to speak, because a quest requires pro-active action. We do have a goal, kind of (defend against the dark!), but that goal is extremely ambiguous and most of our actions are guided by humans rather than the divine. More often than not, we tend to just stumble into the divine part of it. So, I, like you, am still waiting for this to go somewhere...

[Fenral]

Erm. Back on point. I've argued about it before but there are similarities; we're shackled to a fate we might not want or have asked for, much like l'Cie, but similarities end pretty much there.

This. It's only a regular topic for discussion because themes of destiny and free will are dancing around and we don't actually know which side of the fence we've been on the entire time. Obviously, when someone says "help me, oh warrior of light" you aren't just going to ignore them (unless you're at Moghome), but that title has kind of thrown everything into question. Are we following a specific plan, or was Hydaelyn's plan simply empowering one individual, who was already compulsively incapable of refusing to help anyone, and letting them guarantee her "ideal" world one Q-shaped bubble at a time.

snip

All valid points, but for most of them (especially IX), what matters most to me is that the characters are doing what they would be doing anyway. Zidane wanted to stop/save Kuja, and by the time Necron showed up, like hell he was going to just lay down and die. It's funny to see modern Japanese writers try and deconstruct the "will to live" as some dangerous evil, because I really think Sakaguchi had the right of it.

[Februs]

All valid points, but for most of them (especially IX), what matters most to me is that the characters are doing what they would be doing anyway. Zidane wanted to stop/save Kuja, and by the time Necron showed up, like hell he was going to just lay down and die. It's funny to see modern Japanese writers try and deconstruct the "will to live" as some dangerous evil, because I really think Sakaguchi had the right of it.

I definitely agree. Sakaguchi is a talented writer/director. One of the reasons I appreciated the plot of FFIX (besides the thematic undertones, subtext, and overall aesthetic) was that it celebrated the most basic facet of life, which was actually wanting to live.