That Garlean guy, what was his name? Gaius Van Baelsar

[ChazNatlo]

The Kobolds are on the Limsans but they aren't trying to wipe out the Kobolds. In both cases, at least the Limsans are open to a peaceful solution.

The fundamental different is the policy of the city's rulers and overarching policy of the population's doesn't involve harming, oppressing or abusing others. Garlemald's issues are government endorsed and frankly enforced. They are Garlean policy. The issues of the city states are things they are at least trying to mitigate or are open to change with.

*wibble wobble hand motion* Limsa is certainly open to a peaceful solution. Now that they've gotten what they wanted from the Kobolds having broken the peace they already had to get more land and such. If they got peace with the kobolds, I'd keep waiting till they needed more.

Amusingly, my favourite City State and Grand company. 'Til Sea Swallows All.

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

The thing is, all of those conflicts are in a sort of wary holding pattern. The Limsans aren't actively trying to retake the lands the Sahagin (or the Kobolds) are on, they're just preventing them from pushing further. You can argue whether or not the balance is fair - the stalemate certainly favors Limsa - but they are playing live-and-let-live until a direct threat arises.

As for the Elementals...well, the Calamity kinda made them a non-issue, didn't it? But even in 1.x, they were restricted to the Shroud - something you had to deal with if you lived there, sure, but at least you could conceivably choose to live somewhere else.

Neither of those hold true for Garlemald. Their expansion is both unprovoked and indiscriminate. The other city-states' issues are their own; Garlemald's are everybody's.

[CyrilLucifer]

Neither of those hold true for Garlemald. Their expansion is both unprovoked and indiscriminate. The other city-states' issues are their own; Garlemald's are everybody's.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not trying to argue in favor of Garlemald. I'm arguing that due to the way the narrative is structured, we haven't had an opportunity to see Garlemald in general as anything more than villains, because the game doesn't allow us to. The narrative is highly favorable to the Eorzean city-states and even sometimes sort of hand-waves the more negative traits or barely even mentions them at all in the 2.0 MSQ, the information being relegated to side quests. The Elemental example is a perfect one; it seems normal to us, since we play in Eorzea, but I imagine to an outsider, that **** is probably seen as crazy.

I'm on the side of "it would be really nice if things stopped being black and white with Garlemald sooner rather than later," though.

[Frederick22]

snip

I'm sure than on a future expansion. Once we finaly go to the deeps of the Empire ( I hope ), I'm sure we will see more about garlean culture. An empire is a dictatorship, and NO one likes as dictatorship.

[Belhi]

This. This right here is basically proving my point that the MSQ at least intends for you to view the city-states in a more positive light, regardless of their issues.

The Elementals have shown, without a doubt, that what they believe is best for the forest does not always mean what is best for the people living within it - or the mortals, or the world in general. They caused an Umbral Era - something that influences a much larger world, because of their forest and Eorzea. That's terrifying.

The Elementals are not nice. The Elementals do not care. And yet you're willing to defend the choice of Elemental worship and accept their occasional cruel apathy because you're (a general 'you,' not specific) conditioned to by the game, because "it's the price of living in the forest."

Looking out from Eorzea and in, I can see how one might view this as complete madness, to subject yourself to essentially the whims of fickle creatures that don't care about you just so you can live on their lands. And if they don't like you? Tough luck.

Again, the Elementals aren't good or evil. They are nature spirits. They are tied to the very health of the natural world. Yes they caused a Umbral calamity but it was due to the War of the Magi sucking the land dry of Aether (ie. lifeforce) due to their escalating conflict. That's the risk of WHM and BLM. It can literally leech the very life out of the world around you to fuel your magic. The Elementals also exist outside the Twelveswood, they only enforce their polices in the Twelveswood (sacred grounds I guess). A-Towa-Cant travelled partially to commune with Elementals from other lands.

Consider this. What other options exist for dealing with the likes of the Elementals? If they are as tied to nature as they seem to be any act harming or inhibiting them might easily have rather negative effects on the natural world. You could avoid them but then again that would mean not living in their forest at all. Mortals screwed over the Elementals in a huge way in the War of the Magi. The Allag didn't seem to have the same issues we currently do with them. There are huge trust issues there. Think of it like the dragons except the Elementals seem to be willing to give the Mortal races a second chance if with conditions.

Gridanian elemental worship at its worse means people coming to the Twelveswood will be driven out or abandoned, even if they are in need. Yeah that's bad. It still doesn't match the things the Garleans do and in the case of the Elementals its confined to Gridania. My argument isn't that the City States are without fault or flaw but that Garlemald is much worse and its issues are much more entrenched government policy which the Garleans hold no regret or recognise as an issue.

While I agree the narrative naturally places us in situation to see Garlemald as worse than the city states, I would strongly argue that if we look at the factual information we have in the lore subjectively, from a ethical and moral stand point Garlemald is still worse.

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

I'm arguing that due to the way the narrative is structured, we haven't had an opportunity to see Garlemald in general as anything more than villains, because the game doesn't allow us to. The narrative is highly favorable to the Eorzean city-states and even sometimes sort of hand-waves the more negative traits or barely even mentions them at all in the 2.0 MSQ, the information being relegated to side quests. The Elemental example is a perfect one; it seems normal to us, since we play in Eorzea, but I imagine to an outsider, that **** is probably seen as crazy.

I'm on the side of "it would be really nice if things stopped being black and white with Garlemald sooner rather than later," though.

This is all mostly in response to Theodric's desire to see them get the same "heroic gaze" cast on them that the Eorzean Alliance gets without somehow compromising what's defined them to this point. And frankly, I think that's impossible.

But also, there's more to the City-States being likable than just the whims of the storytellers. While it's true they others all have their darker sides (glossed over or not), they also value peaceful co-existence with neighbouring states. Garlemald is basically the opposite - even if we saw some beneficial side, what could it be that would balance out its aggressive campaigns of persecution and subjugation? The EA is likable by default with some darker undertone; Garlemald is antagonistic and unsympathetic by nature, which makes it a bit difficult to see what could be revealed to put them on an even playing field with the others. It'd take more than just some revelations.

So while I'm all for Garlemald getting presented as a little less black and white too, I doubt that will happen while their leadership still harbors imperial ambitions, and that seems like it would fall under "toning them down" that Theodric's opposed to.

(Although, I guess what they COULD do is have Garlemald make a pact with Eorzea that would halt their attempts on Aldenard but, say, allows them to retain their presence in Othard and on their home turf - so they're still a self-important Empire, just not in a way that affects *us*, and the hypocrisy of the Eorzean Alliance being generally cool with that then generates tension with the Domans. I don't think it's an especially likely twist, but it's not entirely out there, if things against the Ascians got bad enough).

[Kaiser-Ace]

....

Personally, I don't like the Elementals and I think them STAYING on their death bed is a good thing. They had millineas to revel in unlimited power and it seems abused is to maintain their power. If their power wasn't directly linked to the Forest's "Wildness" that. Bahamut burning half of it down and dammaging the other half beyond recognition wouldn't have made them weaker.

Garlemauld I want to know more about their past than present. Before Emperor Soluz formed The Empire and integrated the newly discovered/invented magitec, Garlemauld was said to be a small nation. I bet they were likly poor and martially weak too. This why them turning into an empire "seemingly overnight" was so shocking.

So what actually triggered this "We need to get strong fast" mentality? And why do they hate beast tribes and "Eikons" so bad?

I'm starting to wonder if Garlemauld Proper wasn't wreaked by an Othardian Beast Tribe's "God" a few decades ago.

[Cilia]

I'm sure than on a future expansion. Once we finaly go to the deeps of the Empire ( I hope ), I'm sure we will see more about garlean culture. An empire is a dictatorship, and NO one likes as dictatorship.

Empires aren't necessarily dictatorships. An empire is defined as a collection of territories ruled by a central government, typically with a single individual in charge. Considering the term comes from Rome, where the head of such a government was the imperator (a military leader), that's an easy mistake to make... but an empire is, by definition, a collection of territories controlled by a central government, typically with an expansionist policy. (It's why empires are typically seen as evil in fiction, and also why while the US was never officially an empire it did have some imperial policies and tendencies in the early 20th century.)

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

Garlemauld I want to know more about their past than present. Before Emperor Soluz formed The Empire and integrated the newly discovered/invented magitec, Garlemauld was said to be a small nation. I bet they were likly poor and martially weak too. This why them turning into an empire "seemingly overnight" was so shocking.

So what actually triggered this "We need to get strong fast" mentality? And why do they hate beast tribes and "Eikons" so bad?

This could easily all get retconned, but the current understanding we have is that Garlemald got onto the Magitek-industrial train, realized how strong it made them, then up and started conquering. Nothing in the backstory presented so far even suggests otherwise, and a small nation coming into power and its leader deciding to not be small anymore is frankly pretty likely. Even if it was to strike back at some now-conquered nation or was the response to some past injustice keeping them down, it's a bit hard to see how that would make their current actions more sympathetic. At best, they're tragic.

I'm starting to wonder if Garlemauld Proper wasn't wreaked by an Othardian Beast Tribe's "God" a few decades ago.

This we actually know. They weren't. Garlemald encountered Primals for the first time after they finished conquering their home continent and decided to expand into Othard. The Primals were summoned in response to their invasion, not the other way around.

[Fenral]

So what actually triggered this "We need to get strong fast" mentality? And why do they hate beast tribes and "Eikons" so bad?

I'm guessing the entire place is run from behind the scenes by some leftover Allagan will or other bent on building a global empire the "right" way, and with just enough knowledge to avoid the "problems" that ended it the first time. We know the royal blood could pass memories down over generations, and that Archmagus Noah had the means to literally live on beyond death in the body of another, but isn't that all just a little too creepy to be an isolated occurrence?