[SPOILERS] Minfillia' Fate in 3.2

[Nalien]

Eh...I think the Dragonsong War is a much closer analogy to Final Fantasy X.

Oh sure, never said it wasn't. Thing is, there are parallels between the Dragonsong War and Zodiarks little war as well; That's likely why we have an expansion dealing with both... I just skipped the FFX/Dragonsong War parallels and went straight to the parallels with the topic at hand. The Dragonsong War parallels are fairly obvious;

Ishgard is Bevelle, Dravania is Zanarkand (right down to the ruins of an ancient civilization). Nidhogg is Sin (previously not interested in complete destruction, just exacting punishment in a 1,000 year cycle). The Church of Halone share some similarities with the Teachings of Yevon. We're the whiny superstar that comes into town and starts questioning this absurd state of affairs, while complaining about our absent father friends.

Key difference when taking that to Hydaelyn and Zodiark is that there isn't a solid Teachings of Yevon in place. Hydaelyn doesn't have us abide a strict teachings that facilitate the cycle of Umbral and Astral. Instead we have the Ascians facilitating that cycle and keeping us ignorant, although we could bring Sharlayan into this. There's no solid Sin analogy, but we have Calamities and Primals, caused by Ascians. This is why I said they're sort of an amalgamation of FFXs various plot points (this whole story is sort of an amalgamation of FF plot points...). It's not a perfect comparison, but the similarities are there. We've got an undying organization that keeps man in the dark about everything, so they can better be used to facilitate the cycle (Sin and the Calm, Umbral and Astral Eras). Remember how the whole point of Yunas journey was for her to obtain the Final Summon and sacrifice it and herself to stop Sin? Well, the whole point of our 1-50 journey was to build the Blessing of Light, so Lahabrea could bring down the Hammer of Darkness upon Hydaelyn. He facilitated our journey in the beginning, while still remaining antagonistic of course, but there is a clear change in his behavior towards us before and after Hydaelyn spent Her power shielding us from Ultima. It was a JustAsPlanned.jpg moment, obtaining the Blessing and fighting Gaius was his plan, and after that he had no more use for us, so he attempts to kill us. We were a force for good that was ultimately playing into the hands of evil, we played into Lahabreas hand the same way Summoners and their Final Summon played into Yu Yevons.

Except we weren't the Final Summon. The analogy isn't perfect, because FFXIV is not a carbon copy of FFX. We essentially beat Sin our own way, but Sin keeps coming back. We stopped Nabriales. We stopped Lahabrea. We don't need to find out the truth to go "Oh, so they Ascians were kinda right!", we need to find out the truth so we can find a better solution than just curb stomping them when they show up... Not curb stomping them when they show up isn't really an option, because (with the sole exception of Elidibus) when they show up it's to ruin peoples day... When an Ascian shows up in La Noscea, has the the Sahagin summon Leviathan (Savage), we're not going to sit there and go "I'm sure they've got their reasons, lets figure that out instead", we're going to stop what is essentially a plot to destroy Limsa Lominsa. That's not to say we shouldn't figure out their reasoning, just that their reasoning isn't going to stop us from protecting Limsa. If the big bad truth was something that convincing, they wouldn't be hiding it. Elidibus is still hiding it...

much as I disagree with your notion that we don't need to learn the whole truth

Sigh... This is getting worse than;

>>Nidhogg might have told Garlemald about Thordan to ensure a new conflict.
<<Why would Nidhogg ally with Garlemald?
>>How is that allying?

I really don't get how I can be any clearer at this point... I think I'm just going to stop... There's a difference between talking and allying... There's a difference between not needing/wanting/caring to know, and knowing not mattering... I have clarified this plenty of times and I am getting absolutely sick of it...

I... don't really trust the lyrics to Sephirot's theme to provide exposition.

It's not just Fiend that provides this... Answers and Dragonsong (both sung by Hydaelyn) do a fairly good job of it too, as I pointed out earlier (either in this thread or another). We've basically been told Dragonsong refers to past and coming events, like I pointed out, the trailer shows Minfilia along with the line "Sacrifice, a final plea to her kin". Not very subtle, I saw Minfilia being sacrificed coming because of that alone, though I'd rather the plot have taken her somewhere else... Still, Minfilia was sacrificed, Word of the Mother gave us her final plea... Go check the next lines in the song...

Well, that said, eliminating death would eliminate life as well. Certainly a good reason to go against Zodiark.

While we certainly don't know it's the truth, I'm leaning towards it being that... Elidibus claimed that if we were to master the Echo, we'd be of one mind... The Sahagin Elder, while perhaps not a master of the Echo, did display an as yet unknown property of it; Immortality. This is why I think Derplander is walking a different path; He has the Echo. He can be an immortal. If life is "undone", I suspect Echo users would be unaffected. If we were to master the Echo, there would be no conflict with the Ascians because we'd see the world as they see it; Flawed. We'd be immortal, we'd watch everyone die and fight over silly things... Then we'd come to their way of thinking...

Instead, we're going to FFVI this sh*t.

I really don't see anything that could suggest that the Ascians are doing the wrong things for the right reasons... Perhaps I'm wrong, but that's going to feel incredibly forced if it is the case... Worse than Bravely Default, even... That at least had foreshadowing, it hammered the point home for far too long, and just left me asking "Are these characters retarded?", but it had foreshadowing. I hope we don't have some convenient truth that Elidibus could have just shared with us in 2.1 but didn't, because plot? It seems we've got a truth that we have to experience for ourselves (Hear, Feel, Think...) to understand, and that has me leaning heavily towards a FFVI conclusion.