Future leader of Apa Mhigo

[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).