Story Question -- SPOILER*** Potentially

[Marianno]

I have watched all of the cutscenes over from ARR, HW, and SB and I am a little confused. Are the garleans the good guys and we are actually the bad guys? I reviewed it again in a certain cutscene where a certain person explains the plight of the garleans and why they truly do what they do, if that makes sense. I just do not want to give away the story for anyone who has not reached that certain point. In my opinion going by the story, this is what I conclude...having a certain piece of the story put together to explain things with more details. Just want to know what others think.

[Musashidon]

no, but it does bring up the point of view argument.

what is good a righteous to one person is horrible and evil to another, but in the end the biggest thing said is one wrong doesn't make another right just because of your past doesn't make it ok to be horrible in the future.

[Pinkie_Pie]

Just like fallout, nobody is good, nobody is bad cause war, war never changes.

[Rymm]

The Garleans have to have compelling reasons for doing what they are doing, just like any other villain in any other story. A cardboard-cutout, mustache-twirling villain who pure evil just for evil's sake gets boring extremely fast. Even with Yoshi wanting more traditionally evil antagonists for SB (he mentioned somewhere that the Empire was starting to get a little too sympathetic,) Zenos and Yotsuyu might both be sadistic monsters, but they have their reasons for being so and it gives them more depth and meaning.

Short version:
Moral ambiguity and controversial characters make for better story telling than flat, black-and-white heroes and villains.

[EdwinLi]

(he mentioned somewhere that the Empire was starting to get a little too sympathetic,)

Ya as much as we have only see mostly the bad part of the Garlean Empire, we have yet to see much of the good part of the Garlean Empire.

From what we seen the Garlean Empire has only sent out their most cruel people outside of Garlemald to keep control of the area while it seems majority of the Good Garleans are sheltered in Garlemald ignorant of the cruel crimes commited by their Empire outside of Garlemald.

Cid and the members of Ironworks, be one example, grew aware of these crimes and eventually left because the Garlean Empire has been a bunch of hypocrites with their "civilizing the lands outside of Garlemald" being their slogan for their invasions and conquerests of lands outside of Garlemald but has done nothing of that except for abusing people from outside of Garlemald like "savages" enjoying the misery of other people they consdier "lesser" than them because that are not born in Garlemald or are of Garlean descent.

If you look at Cid's means to help Eorzea by providing Magitek to the people and advancing their knowledge of technology, he has probably been the most successful in actually "Civilizing" Eorzea as the knowledge he has provided has reduced some of the old ways in Eorzea and they become more knowledgable with technology, medicine, and etc.

[Marianno]

So one other question, do the Garleans fear the Eorzeans because they can use magic and harness the aether? Or is this just because the Garleans just view all others as being lesser? A certain person mentioned, "our race was once enslaved due to our inability to wield magic and harness the aether" (I think I quoted that right but need to check the story-line again). A certain enemy was obsessed with harnessing the aether via the e*** (felt that way to me) and we witnessed the fruits of his labor. He tried to destroy us and the world. Sorry, I am just really curious as I have been keeping up with the story but still feel like I am missing some pieces.

[Rymm]

I only have a fairly loose grasp of game lore, though like you it's something that really interests me. If you are really that curious about it, I would strongly suggest heading over to the Lore subforum here- http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/forums/646-Lore and asking whatever questions you have. I'm sure that Moose or one of the other lore nerds who hang out there would be more than happy explain in incredible detail for you. ^_^

[Nezia]

Varis kinda explains it to us during HW, where he talks to alphinaud saying that they agree on what the problem is, they but disagree on the solution of it.

In short: the war exists because both sides are too cocky to open hand of something, the garleans believe that anyone who mess or has ever messed with primals deserves to be purged, and they also believe they are the only ones capable of dealing with the primals problem, the scions believe that opressing the tribes in this manner will only make them desperate which will force them to turn to the primals even more, creatting more and more powerfull primals, and the countries of eorzea only want to get rid of the primals problems, while also preserving their supremacy and way of life and I believe that they would turn to the garleans if they were not such authoritarian cocky bastards.

The easy solution would be: Eorzea accepts garlean intervention with primals, garleans accept other countries supremacy, restricting their works in their territories to dealing with primals and not using excessive force with tribes who have a history with primals, and the scions accept that the ones who mess with primals deserve some punishment.