Patch 3.4 - Soul Surrender

[Theodric]

It's not Livia...

I mean, for starters the figure is quite clearly male and heavily tanned at that. Garleans are also pale skinned and given that we've seen what Lucia looks like we know that her sister was also a Pureblood Garlean...and she's also been repeatedly referred to as deceased.

Bringing her back would be pointless. It would just cheapen death in this setting further and obliterate her established personality.

Wildargelt is also a few shades paler than the figure in the mask. So it's more likely to be Ilberd or a completely new character. I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be a surviving member of the royal family. FFXIV has a habit of drawing heavy inspiration from previous FF titles and a character such as Ashe from FFXII would be plausible.

I just hope we don't have to stomach a one sided story where the Garleans are turned into one-dimensional bad guys. The situation surrounding Ala Mhigo is very complex and with Garleans now having lived alongside the Ala Mhigans for over two decades it makes sense that many people would not wish for the status quo to change.

Rabanastre was occupied for less time in FFXII and there was a particularly memorable quest where an Imperial handed out a contract to eliminate a monster to protect the people of Rabanastre. I'm hoping we get to see stuff like that for a change - especially since the lore has already established that Garlemald values order and seeks to learn from the culture of the nations that they occupy. Oddly enough we haven't seen much of that - because for whatever reason the developers have seen fit to focus on having Garlemald be overly aggressive and destructive.

I don't even think it's meant to be intentional. They're just being far too vague - how did the Emperor know of the Archbishop's plan, for example? There's a lot of mysteries and plot points surrounding Garlemald that have yet to be addressed and hopefully 3.4 will be the start of more moral complexity.

It's odd, though - Garlemald has been fairly 'quiet' during 3.0's patch cycle. Which means that Regula's side story may tie into the MSQ in the future. Yet we're now moving to focus on the Ala Mhigan Resistance and the Warriors of Darkness...with the latter not being affiliated with Garlemald other than a brief phrase used by Elidibus who states that the Garleans will 'play their part'. Which suggests manipulation...

There's also the patch title to consider: we know that the titles tend to refer to multiple meanings - so it could be that the Ascians and Warriors of Darkness have surrendered their souls - but then it could also refer to the Au Ra sealed away within Alexander. Yet what about Regula? Perhaps Sophia encourages him to surrender his soul? It's clear that they're building him up for something...but we'll be dealing with Zurvan during 3.5 and then...what will become of Regula? I still think he could end up becoming a major antagonist for 4.0.