3.5/4.0 Speculation & Discussion (Spoilers)

[Balipu]

But we know from DRK/WHM/NIN quests that life in Othard isn't/hasn't been pretty okay.

But we never saw it for ourselves, did we? That's my point. We never actually saw Garlean rule for ourselves. I don't want to drag IRL stuff into it as politics is messy but it can totally happen that a whole nation wan'ts foreign rule to end, only to realize later that it was a lot better than what came after.

Of course once the Domans rebelled (we don't exactly know what they did beside trying to take over) the city was destroyed, but we really don't know what it was like before.

[Belhi]

But we never saw it for ourselves, did we? That's my point. We never actually saw Garlean rule for ourselves. I don't want to drag IRL stuff into it as politics is messy but it can totally happen that a whole nation wan'ts foreign rule to end, only to realize later that it was a lot better than what came after.

Of course once the Domans rebelled (we don't exactly know what they did beside trying to take over) the city was destroyed, but we really don't know what it was like before.

We do know something off it. People in occupied lands aren't necessarily citizens and as such have very few rights. We know this from Biggs and Wedges bios in the Lore book as well as general information on Garlean's caste structure. We know that conscription is commonplace. We know that people can end up basically forced working hard labor or even kept as 'comfort women' for Garlean soldiers.

Now it likely depends a lot on the governor in charge. I am sure there are more benevolent governors out there. However we do have a lot of information to suggest that garlean rule is often oppressive for many. In the Doman case every Doman we have run into save one was pretty any Garlean and all seem to suggest the Garleans took a rather indiscriminate scorched earth approach to pacifying Doma. I mean we could be wrong about Yugiri and the Domans we helped but they didn't strike me as quite so fanatical as the Griffin.