Heaven's Ward Knights

[Atoli]

If anything, I'd say Final Fantasy has a tradition of VERY black and white characters, more so than any other big RPG series (except for a few bad rip-offs, maybe). A fleshed out, obvious bad guy is still an obvious bad guy, even if you may share his love for [insert interest here] or think you understand how his love for [insert other character]/[certain moral view] drove him to what he did.

I find all these constant "Devil's Advocate" stories popping up in recent years to be tiring and annoying and am very glad SE isn't shoving them down our thoats as well.
Sometimes people are just a**holes. Sometimes they are just greedy for power, or convinced they are better by birth, or too loyal to someone who holds such beliefs. A Nazi wife who reported many jews so they got killed back in Nazi Germany is still absolutely horrible, even if you find out she my not have held the same beliefs herself and only did it out of love and devotion to her husband.

So some of the Heaven's Ward were not complete a**holes. Doesn't change the fact they had no problem 1. fighting for someone who was and 2. Silencing any doubt they may have had about the terrible things they did to their people on a fairly regular basis as well as knowing the truth about the lie their entire society was built upon and not doing jack about it.
Trying to force us to like such a character would at best have felt hypocritical, at worst just completely jarring because it makes no sense based on the morals the WoL has shown so far to befriend such a character in the first place, even pre-tempering.

I absolutely don't mind those characters HAVING a background that extends beyond "booo bad guy, must kill!", but not in the way you appearently wish to have seen them.

[Cilia]

I thought Haurchefant's death was to show us how senseless Thordan's actions were, as well as galvanize us (both the Warrior of Light and us the player) into stopping Thordan's ambitions.

But that's just me...

As for the Heavens' Ward, please remember that they were all "blessed" by Thordan and thus not in full control of their facilities. To what extent remains unknown, but it can be safely assumed that, like all thralls of a Primal, they were just as subservient to Thordan as any tempered follower is to Ifrit (for instance). Like any tempered follower, killing them was a tragic but necessary action.

As for morality, Final Fantasy does generally stay rather black and white. There's no real grey until VIII, and the villainess of that game is an extremely dark shade (rebelling against fate by trying to destroy time itself, with no greater hope of success than Quickthinx). There are often lesser antagonists who aren't, strictly speaking, as evil as the main antagonists (Shinra vs. Sephiroth), but the main antagonist is almost always pitch-black despite whatever relateable motives s/he may or may not have. No matter how much he suffered, nothing justifies Nidhogg's eternal vengeance on Ishgard. No matter how efficient the solution may be, nothing justifies Garlemald's intended genocide of the beast tribes.

Even the Ivalice games, despite being lauded for their greater moral complexity, don't fully stray from this; while there is political intrigue and the setting has sympathetic villains, both have greater evils lurking in the background that are the instigators of the conflict and must be dealt with (freeing humanity from Occurian control in XII, stopping Ultima/Altima in Tactics). This is often the case even if a story is based around political intrigue; the Star Wars prequels have Palpatine as the ever-present antagonist, though he remains in the background until the second act of Episode III (and the writing isn't exactly subtle before then).

Only one game comes to mind where there was no central antagonist whose plot(s) had to be foiled - Dragon Age II - and fan reception to that was rather mixed as a result.

[Enur]

When i wrote "friend" i didnt mean that i'd want us to become best buddies with one of them. Just that i would've liked to meet one that wasnt an jerk.

[Theodric]

There's usually two sides to every story, especially where conflicts are concerned. Yes, some people are just outright bad apples with few, if any, redeeming qualities but generally those sort of individuals are exceedingly rare. When it comes to satisfying storytelling having more than one 'side' being fleshed out in regards to their motivations and relationships is just more efficient and satisfying for various reasons - including being sound from a business perspective. Vaan may technically be the main character of FFXII but that doesn't mean there aren't a load of people who care more for Gabranth - an antagonist - and understand and sympathise with that particular character's point of view and actions.

In the same vein having protagonists that have flawed motivations is pretty refreshing when a lot of the time their drive is as bland as wanting to 'do the right thing because it's the right thing to do'. Variety is the spice of life, after all - and it's also why the likes of Final Fantasy Tactics and the A Song of Ice and Fire novels are held in such high regard.

[Lauront]

One sided (in terms of story telling) Manichaean battles between good and evil are boring in a fantasy game. Over-done and trite.

[Theodric]

One sided (in terms of story telling) Manichaean battles between good and evil are boring in a fantasy game. Over-done and trite.

Mm. They do have their charm under circumstances but in an MMO format? Not so much. MMO's by their very nature are meant to appeal to a broad range of players - thus it makes sense to avoid focusing too much on flawless protagonists and rotten antagonists. FFXIV has never really presented itself as being a setting where everything is black and white - even the Ascians and Warriors of Darkness ended up having shades of grey to them and the same is being done with Garlemald and the Ala Mhigan Resistance. With that said, however, we do need more blatant examples of those shades of grey to show up in-game rather than being hidden away.

[Shurrikhan]

They supported a maniac set on world domination. They deserved no less than the sweet embrace of death.

No man thinks they does evil. Everyone is good by their own perspective. The Heavens Ward is no exception.

In all fairness, world domination was rarely seen as a crime in itself (only whatever crimes are done to bring about that end), save in certain republics that would demand the exile or death of certain individuals for so much as gaining worrisome popularity. If no man believes they are doing wrong, I don't see how our duty to put them down would be any different than theirs to claim the world under a more powerful collective who would in turn have more power by which to improve it. (We've since come to know that's rarely the case and far too many ways that path can go awry, but in these times the idea that the powerful collective is the most able to bring about positive change was common thought.) Slaughtered – sure. Deserved it – maybe. But if so, do we now as well – maybe that too.

@Cilia
Further, "tempering" has been known to vary from anywhere anxious and fearful control (e.g. that of a severe addict, or one brain-washed) to a sense of absolute purpose and commitment (what we'd almost find positive in another regard). If one were to say we did them a mercy blow, it would seem a bit of an over-simplification. That said, in this case, I believe they were wholly loyal to their collective unit of power well before "tempering" even occurred.

One sided (in terms of story telling) Manichaean battles between good and evil are boring in a fantasy game. Over-done and trite.

This one at least slipped in a bit of that Merchant of Venice undertone of "wait... was that really okay?" (though of course to a far lesser extent). In the end, we wanted to take out Thordan, the Knights stood with him, and I honestly blame the High Commander in part, thematics equally, and traditional MMO design above all, for why there could be nothing in between. We fought, they died. Done. There was a bad guy presence to a few of them, but for the rest we just saw a vested brotherhood that we otherwise knew nothing about, exact that they make good light shows. Just felt more like casualties than any Manichean victory/defeat.

[Belhi]

To be honest most 'bad guys' aren't going to be 100% 'bad'. Most conflicts aren't so clear cut. I'm sure plenty of Garlean soldiers we killed weren't particularly bad people. Quite a few were probably there just because they were conscripted or even because they hoped their military service would earn their family a better life back home. We have killed a lot of Beastmen and a good portion of those would be individuals only seeking to protect their people and their people's future.

We get window's into this occationally but honestly we are never going to get it for all our enemies. It would simply take too long to go through.

[Cilia]

"[T]empering" has been known to vary from anywhere anxious and fearful control (e.g. that of a severe addict, or one brain-washed) to a sense of absolute purpose and commitment (what we'd almost find positive in another regard). If one were to say we did them a mercy blow, it would seem a bit of an over-simplification. That said, in this case, I believe they were wholly loyal to their collective unit of power well before "tempering" even occurred.

For my part, I'd like to believe it's dependent on the individual. Some may have been entirely complicit with Thordan's ambitions, but given the displeasure literally everyone shows at learning Thordan's ambitions, I don't think even the highest knights would agree with his plan. Nobody except for the Heavens' Ward and the Archbishop were privy to the truth behind the War, meaning they had to have been told upon being given their station - whether they agreed or disagreed with Thordan's ambition beforehand makes no difference in light of the fact they were all "blessed" and made subservient to him, likely at the same time they were given said station. (Grinnaux in particular is known to have been belligerent, but outside of falsely accusing Alphinaud and Tataru of heresy we don't see anything suggesting that. Maybe it's because we spent very little time in Ishgard prior to the Vault, but... ehh.)

Either way, the only instance we have of tempered followers not being slavishly obedient to their master is the pirates in Sastasha HM. Even they are still subservient, albeit out of fear rather than reverence as per usual.