Future leader of Apa Mhigo

[Morningstar1337]

snip

Not to mention Ysayle's farewell performance at Azys Lla all but ensure that Garlemald would actually want to kill the Civilians, lest they summon primals. In the Othard sacking, They likely saw the casualties as collateral damage, a "necessary" sacrifice for their crusade. Now? The casualties would become the goal. In Garlemald, I'd expect propaganda popping up portraying Nael as the perfect commander instead of a rouge agent in light of this, as well as them planning ways that will succeed where Project Meteor failed.

[RomildaRayne]

snip

As early as 1.0, they were willing to murder Echo users just for being capable of communicating with beast tribes, as being able to communicate with beast tribes is tantamount to being a beastman to them.

[Morningstar1337]

As early as 1.0, they were willing to murder Echo users just for being capable of communicating with beast tribes, as being able to communicate with beast tribes is tantamount to being a beastman to them.

Mayhap I should had been clearer *ahem*, I meant to say they the spoken races were not the focus of their plans to Purge the realms of Primals up until this point.

[RomildaRayne]

I know, I was just adding some additional information to it.

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

A few other musings about Garlemald and its defectors:

Theo, I have no idea where your reading of Cid and Lucia comes from, because neither have done anything even close to what you're holding against them (other than defect, I suppose). And I can't believe that you, who are constantly championing muddied morality, would begrudge Eorzea the chance to defend itself, or a man and woman for choosing what they perceive (and the game actively and obviously portrays) as a lesser evil.* Let's look at this, shall we?

Cid has helped us infiltrate Garlean strongholds and taught us how to use their tech against them, yes, but it's not like he handed us a nuke and we proceeded to wipe Garlean cities off the map - literally all he's done is allowed Eorzea to stave off Dalamud and hold its own against an encroaching power that very decidedly does not have local interests at heart. And it's not like he's expressed any particular hatred for or bloodlust against his own people, he just found their zealous military-industrial complex and lust for conquest disagreeable and left it behind, seeking to atone by saving its next target from nothing less than a local apcalypse (!!).

Lucia, meanwhile, is even less deserving of your scorn. Until Heavensward, she was completely uninvolved in the operations against Garlemald, living in an isolationist city-state that went out of its way to stay out of things. Even when the story brings the Empire to her, she does little more than relate anecdotes. She's really more of person who left her home behind because she didn't like the direction it was headed and went to a place with a more agreeable government and culture.**

But even ignoring all that - we haven't actually encountered any Garlean civilians. We've literally only fought against the invading army! Civilians haven't even been a factor! If we break into Ala Mhigo and there are a bunch of civilian casualties and the game doesn't call anybody out on it, we can then have this conversation, but until then it's a completely moot point.

This game and its situations are plenty interesting without all this hyperbolic whitewashing of Garlemald's actions and hyperbolic vilification of Eorzea's.
_____________________________________________
*If they're an evil at all. I don't like throwing around terms like evil, even with Garlemald, but it certainly falls much closer on the spectrum than any place in Eorzea does.
** Yes, yes, I know, Ishgard. But she does chill with the significantly more temperate Aymeric.

[Theodric]

It's a matter of filling in the gaps. Look at what Eorzeans do whenever they're betrayed by one of their own. Look at the reasons as to why they react in such a way when dealing with traitors and defectors. Then apply the same reasoning from Garlemald's perspective.

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

It's a matter of filling in the gaps. Look at what Eorzeans do whenever they're betrayed by one of their own. Look at the reasons as to why they react in such a way when dealing with traitors and defectors. Then apply the same reasoning from Garlemald's perspective.

Fine, but the question still remains: what, exactly, causes your abhorrence of these two characters?You make an appeal to morality (potential civilian deaths), but that morality isn't even a narrative factor at this point. Again, Cid could maybe, hypothetically be the indirect result of civilian casualties (when/if we get close enough to a non-military Garlean settlement to encounter some, anyways) but hasn't been yet, and he doesn't seem especially interested in waging war against his homeland; Lucia, meanwhile, hasn't done anything but shack up in Ishgard. And yet, these characters are lower than dirt to you, and I'm forced to assume it's simply because they chose to leave Garlemald - their aggressive, expansionist, warmongering dictatorship of a home - behind them.

Which, fine if you hold up blind loyalty to the land of one's birth as a morally upright virtue, but the game would seem to disagree with you. Unless you can point out somewhere in the game where it's ever even implied that them leaving is presented as disgusting as you make it out to be, purely as a matter of course (because, again, there have yet to be any serious moral consequences to them leaving). You talk about filling in the gaps, but you're "filling in the gaps" with stuff that's either completely at odds with how the game presents things, or a serious distortion of the same.

(And now that I think about it, even our assaults on Garlean military strongholds have been entirely reactionary - even with an asset like Cid, Eorzea isn't exactly throwing soldiers at Castrums hoping they'll fall. It's all been in the face of impending doom of some kind).

[Theodric]

We're better off just agreeing to disagree. There's literally nothing of value to be had in regurgitating the same old back and forth arguments surrounding Garlemald. We don't know a whole lot about the place, most of what is posted is pure speculation or outright misinformation. Something that readily applies to both sides of the 'debate'.

At least when 3.3 is upon us this board will - hopefully - perk up when some of the regulars return and there's fresh lore developments to discuss.

[Frederick22]

Why we dont compare this situation with the Nazi Germany, sure there were a lot of Germans who did not agree with Hitlers ideals. Most of them had to flee beacuse of this. Are you going is the same? Being a traitor just beacuse you dont agree with the "awfull politics" that your current country is suffering?

[Theodric]

It's probably best to avoid making those sort of comparisons altogether considering that we haven't actually seen Garlemald for ourselves yet. Comparing it to something as controversial as Nazi Germany feels rather unfair.