Well, I think the biggest issue is that the developers are going to struggle to show Garlemald as an actual threat. Technically Garlemald should be able to throw it's full might behind a campaign to take over and occupy Eorzea..but with a lot of losses on both sides. For obvious reasons that isn't going to happen - so there needs to be a plausible reason for them to hold back. Thus having a conflict of interests within Garlemald itself would work brilliantly. In the same vein we don't really need a situation where every prominent Garlean that seeks to be reasonable throws away all their loyalty and love for their homeland away in a drive to help Eorzea because that is rather boring.


I favour the approach of there being a bunch of influential Garleans who are fiercely loyal to their homeland and seek to protect it at all costs and they would prefer not to waste resources or spread their forces thin by attempting to aggressively expand. I feel like something like that would be the best compromise. If Varys gets the FF6 treatment in Azyz Lla and ends up dead then there's another opportunity to build up someone new to lead Garlemald into a brighter, more reasonable age. Given that Varys has had very little in the way of focus so far, however, I feel like he is going to be a sacrificial lamb to move the plot forward. Unless he surprises us by being in it for the long term.

As an aside, does anyone else believe that 3.3 might end on a cliffhanger that somehow involves Garlemald?