I Hate Charibert Even More Now (Tales From the Dragonsong War Update) (SPOILER)

[PArcher]

Is there a real timeline when this happened?

If not, it seems like it would take place around the time we were dealing with Shiva, maybe even before.

But...even if we were in Ishgard when this took place, or in Dragonhead after Shiva, I doubt he would have come to us. We are outsiders, no matter how close to one of the High Houses, he is the leader of the Heavensward; he will not come to us before trying to reason with the Archbishop. To do so would be akin to heresy and abandonment of duty to him...

[MilesSaintboroguh]

It's a shame that the 'well intentioned extremist' angle wasn't played up more for both the Archbishop and his followers. The story was an excellent opportunity to paint them both in a more sympathetic light and let us see their side of things. As it stands the masses are just going to read into it as the antagonists being comically evil. Whilst that's technically true in Charibert's case it isn't so much the case with the Archbishop.

I guess it's too much to hope for one of the future stories to paint Aymeric in a negative light for a change, eh?

Considering the history of the war and possible shady things from the church, the church and its people would never be seen in a sympathetic view.

[Ametrine]

It's a shame that the 'well intentioned extremist' angle wasn't played up more for both the Archbishop and his followers. The story was an excellent opportunity to paint them both in a more sympathetic light and let us see their side of things. As it stands the masses are just going to read into it as the antagonists being comically evil. Whilst that's technically true in Charibert's case it isn't so much the case with the Archbishop.

I guess it's too much to hope for one of the future stories to paint Aymeric in a negative light for a change, eh?

From the little profiles we got on each member in the Duty Commenced specials, it seems that quite a chunk of the Heavensward were genuinely good men, but all were drafted via battle prowess alone.

[FJerome]

From the little profiles we got on each member in the Duty Commenced specials, it seems that quite a chunk of the Heavensward were genuinely good men, but all were drafted via battle prowess alone.

That seems to be where the "blessing" kicked-in, tempering took care of all those pesky morals.

I do also suspect that the Heavens' Ward wasn't entirely picked for their battle prowess, given Ishgard's military is pretty integrated and yet every single one of them was a Male Elezen. Maybe Thordan wanted to replicate the composition of the original Heavens' Ward as close as possible for the purposes of harnessing the belief in them and/or maybe he was just kind of a sexist racist jerk.

[Theodric]

From the little profiles we got on each member in the Duty Commenced specials, it seems that quite a chunk of the Heavensward were genuinely good men, but all were drafted via battle prowess alone.

Yeah. I'd have liked to have seen more from them - maybe with Ser Zephirin initially being friendly with the Warrior of Light and helping us out once or twice before the 'big reveal' kicked in later on during the MSQ. As it stands the only indication that some of them were good - if misguided - individuals was the short biographies we were given after a lot of people had come to believe that they were all rotten to the core and twisted.

As a rule, though, many people need to be shown stuff explicitly right off the bat otherwise they'll just default to pinning most characters as either 'good' or 'evil'.

[Cilia]

For the Heavens' Ward, I don't think it's about racism and sexism so much as it is tradition, and we all know how Ishgard is all about "muh tradishunz" until we come as a harbinger of change.

All of the Heavens' Ward are implicitly from the High Houses. It's noted early in 3.0 that Ser Grinnaux is from House Dzmael, and I don't read the web stories (deal with that enough with Magic) but based on Charibert's skintone I'm inclined to believe he is as well. They're high positions - just below the Archbishop himself - so it's highly probable the nobles kept such positions to themselves.

Now, if the intent of the Heavens' Ward was to keep the tradition of King Thordan and his Knights Twelve alive, even before Pope Thordan turned them into the Knights of the Round it's likely they were all men. We don't have record of a female knight in the original Knights Twelve, after all...

... and Ishgard has no problems with women serving in their military, as evidenced by the many female knights (Lucia, Heustinne, Laniatte) in service. It's just "muh tradishunz" took precedence.

[FJerome]

All of the Heavens' Ward are implicitly from the High Houses. It's noted early in 3.0 that Ser Grinnaux is from House Dzmael, and I don't read the web stories (deal with that enough with Magic) but based on Charibert's skintone I'm inclined to believe he is as well. They're high positions - just below the Archbishop himself - so it's highly probable the nobles kept such positions to themselves.

I can sympathise with not wanting to read the out-of-game material, personally it annoys me when you need to go outside a core work to get the complete canon, and unfortunately that's kind of the case here; it was explained in magazine interviews and a Duty Commenced stream that the Temple Knights will take anyone worthy regardless of rank. Some do make it in via recommendations from powerful nobles but others prove their worth by winning Tourneys and Ser Paulecrain is explicitly stated to be from humble origins.

[Yuyuka3]

All of the Heavens' Ward are implicitly from the High Houses. It's noted early in 3.0 that Ser Grinnaux is from House Dzmael, and I don't read the web stories (deal with that enough with Magic) but based on Charibert's skintone I'm inclined to believe he is as well. They're high positions - just below the Archbishop himself - so it's highly probable the nobles kept such positions to themselves.

They are not. Paulecrain's profile, for example, reads

A man of humble origins, Ser Paulecrain rose from poverty by his skill with the lance alone.

He did serve the High Houses, yes, first Fortemps and then Dzemael, but he is not even a nobleman. Ser Charibert's family name, as we now know from the new short story, is

de Courcillan

, which is a noble name, but not one of the four high families. Right now, it looks like they all come from all societal classes and that nobility didn't matter in their election for the position. It was also stated that, yes, Thordan explicitely asked Zephirin to gather strong fighters as it says in Grinnaux' description:

However, in accordance with the archbishop’s desire to recruit knights solely for their combat prowess, Ser Grinnaux was welcomed into the Heavens’ Ward.

Personally, I just LOVE the sidestories since they expand the universe in a way that is impossible inside the game due to many factors, and I love when more than just one medium is used to tell a story or explore a universe.

[Cilia]

I stand corrected!

... er... I don't mind reading out-of-game content, but only if it's a supplemental curiosity. When you need it to make sense of the whole story, it becomes a bit annoying. Biographies for the Heavens' Ward are interesting because there's precious little information available on them in-game. On the other hand, this is a game - the advantage to the medium is that it's interactive, so using pure text out-of-game kind of... I dunno... defeats the purpose?

/shrug I'm getting pedantic and off-topic.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

I stand corrected!

... er... I don't mind reading out-of-game content, but only if it's a supplemental curiosity. When you need it to make sense of the whole story, it becomes a bit annoying. Biographies for the Heavens' Ward are interesting because there's precious little information available on them in-game. On the other hand, this is a game - the advantage to the medium is that it's interactive, so using pure text out-of-game kind of... I dunno... defeats the purpose?

/shrug I'm getting pedantic and off-topic.

This isn't the first of its kind. Whether it's supplemental material or simply straight from the dev team's mouth, extra information and details are always going to be found outside of the game simply because it's easier to explain than to confine everything in whatever limits the game has.