Do you view the Warrior of Light as a blood knight like Zenos?

[Enkidoh]

No, I disagreed with Zenos (and wanted to smack him for his smug, dehumanizing tone), as his sociopathy was so obvious, it was also extremely effective. My character does not live to "be in the moment of the fight", despite being a trained gladiator (she took up arms on the Bloodsands after all to learn swordplay and shieldwork not to fight for spectacle). She is a free knight, a protector of the people and especially Hydaelyn and everyone who dwells on Her, and Zenos's existence threatens all of Hydaelyn.

Unfortunately, Zenos's baiting of her, calling her a "beast" and to "get stronger" simply so that he can continue to fight her is a catch-22. Enki knows she can't ignore him and walk away, she's on this Path and needs to follow it to it's conclusion with Zenos's death. She knows that and hates it, but has no choice but to accept it, and it eats away at her.

But what keeps her going is her reasons for becoming an adventurer, becoming a free knight.... to protect her loved ones (her wife especially), and to not only liberate her homeland but to see to it that no more children are left orphaned by the Empire's jingoism, no more innocents suffer under the Garlean jackboot or Ascian machination, no more lives and souls destroyed by Primals.

Is she idealistic? Yes (perhaps stubbornly so). Foolish? Hardly. But she knows and accepts that she can't simply protect and save everyone, she will do everything in her power to save and protect those she can. Sour lemon armour never really fitted her.

[Lambdafish]

One line that always stuck with me is at the end of Heavensward when you beat the archbishop, he looks upon you with his fearful eyes and says "What are you??" And as a player I paused for a moment on that line and thought "What the hell am I??"

[Alleo]

Have you done the DRK Job Quests, 30-50, per chance? You might want to.

The DRK quests are doing a good job at showing more sides of the WoL, thus making them a bit more grey, but they also show how far away we are from someone like Zenos. The job itself is all about protecting those that are not able to protect themselves by using our darkness and we get it done even if this means that we have blood on our hand.

Spoilers about the quests:

In the first part we are dealing with our anger but I believe that everyone has this kind of anger in them. Also Fray was the sole personification of it so it was way more harsh then its probably is. This was shown in the way that the WoL fought against it at the end because we understood that even though it annoys us and even though its a burden, we do it to protect the innocent. Thus we were able to confront and control the anger and this was a great way of giving the people that dislike doing all the stuff and that are feeling way more used, a way to show it with their character but at the same time they showed that we in the end accept it. (And who would not be annoyed if you have people being not thankful for you risking your life.)

The recent dark knight quests deal with our regrets and yet at the end we accept this part of us too and still continue on with our ways because we know that its still better that way.

In the end the dark knight quests are a great way to show the more human side of the WoL and a human is not always perfect and does not always react the best way and sometimes even feels hate/anger/remorse and more. Yet this also shows that we are in cannon still far away from being someone like Zenos. IMO I did find the possibility to answer with yes a bit much. Yes we get more and more aggressive options but I get the feeling like they are not truly showing the development of the WoL but are only there to give people a way to create their own character but its not that much shown in the game itself. (And it also depends on the language because in Germany its way less aggressive at some points than in the English version)

I mean we still go around and help innocent people, beast tribes and do other nice stuff yet somehow we are able to say yes to Zenos. Thats probably the negative side of being able to choose different kind of sentences even though it does not change anything ingame. I am not saying that its not great that they give us more options but I feel that they should still be in tact with what the game itself shows us. (Sorry bad at describing it)
For example: You get the chance to say that its not our fight which is a nice way to show that maybe the WoL does not want to go there which is understandable since this is a war between humans and not something that we need to be part of. But in the end, even if you say no you are still forced in it so it feels off. It might have been better to chose something more like: "I dont want to be in a war but I fear that I have no other chance than to go with you." I know that this might not sound that much different but at least it gives people the option to say that they dont feel like doing it but that they are going to do it for "insert reason". So we say yes but in a more negative way.

But thats just my opinion on this.

In the end I found it a bit sad that if you play a WoL that loves to have a good fight, is kinda thrown into the same pot as someone like Zenos. I see nothing bad in wanting to get better and fight against worthy opponents because that does not include that you have to kill them. I mean the older monk job quest showed us that you dont need a fight to the death to unlock your true power.

So short answer: No my WoL is far away from someone like Zenos. They do not kill for excitement and would love to talk more and kill less and even if they are annoyed at some NPCs they still want to help innocent people and make a better future for many. Its never easy to be the hero and have all the burdens on her shoulder and sometimes she wonders if she cant just run away and do other things but in the end she could never live with the thought of letting innocent people die for something. Also this is a good way to get better at her job and she is still able to see lots of new countries and people.

[Daralii]

One line that always stuck with me is at the end of Heavensward when you beat the archbishop, he looks upon you with his fearful eyes and says "What are you??" And as a player I paused for a moment on that line and thought "What the hell am I??"

He empowered himself and his knights with the collective prayers of Ishgard and the aether of Nidhogg's eye, and as far as canon is concerned, we killed him and the Ward on our own. He blinded himself with his own sense of righteousness, couldn't comprehend that we survived Knights of the Round, and panicked.

[Grayve]

*spoilers ahead*





No. To be honest, my first thought when Stormblood started, was "This isn't my fight." And it felt that way throughout. I have no ties to Doma or Ala Migho, my WoL is not from those areas. The whole thing felt forced, as I feel the WoL should be dealing with threats to the world, not what is a regional conflict between regional powers. "Oh, yeah, Ascians trying to end the world, but I'll just help Lyse out because... Um...Lyse is cute? And I'm totally cool with her lying to me for the past X time. And all the other scions lying to me." I guess the idea is we are doing it for our friends, but they have failed to develop personal relationships to the remaining Scions (though some are getting close to becoming friends) . The ones I felt I did have a relationship with are all dead, or in Minfillia's case, left the plane we are on.

That said, I don't feel we seek fights for their own sake, which is one of the issues I have with the DRK storyline. It heavily implies drives and motivations, and yes personal relations the developers seem to think I would have, even if they actually failed to deliver. Which is one of the reasons I am glad Myste was also a bit of Iceheart, as I never connected with Haurchefaunt, despite the game constantly shoving the fact he was my BFF down my throat. *I can tell you exactly why I never connected with him, but that's not the topic*

I could type a lot more, but that would get into more roleplay stuff then answering the question, so short answer, No. I don't see the WoL, or my WoL, as a blood knight going about seeking fights for the sake of combat. Moengohta would be perfectly happy to travel the world and see fascinating sights and cultures, if that was an option. But she has a gift, and she isn't selfish enough to ignore that gift, even if part of her (*cough* Fray *cough*) makes excellent sense.

[Clethoria]

I'm not big on fantasy roles outside of a small pool of classics, so I can't call my WoL a blood knight.

But to add my personal WoL, I saw mine as kind of like a bored god thing. Came to Eorzea out of nowhere, wandered around, realized how over powered I was- and just followed the MSQ because it kept my interest the longest.

The thought of just being able to kill gods with my bare hands and see legendary tales play out is amusing. I don't do it because I care about these people.

Zenos seeing us as kin- I feel, is a yes and no answer. Would I have done the same things he's done? Nope. (as I type this, it's more of a probably since I will watch a FATE play out just to see who holds out and dies fastest) But would I embrace violence for its own sake? Yes.

[Draginhikari]

Frankly the whole thing is left so incredibly vague that we can basically implant as little or as much as Zeno suggests as we want.

To be honest I think Zenos words describe more of us as players then it does about our characters. Though motivations can diverse when it comes to our individual WOL to the players we are kind of the one who constantly demand the next challenge and even if we were given more diplomatic choices or dialogue I wonder how many people would take that route compared to those that would take the more violent approach. I have a feeling as gamers we're likely to gravitate towards the later more often then not. Nothing wrong with that as it is just a game at the end of the day but the interesting thing about these kind of stories is what it might say about how we see and view violence as a whole.

[Xerxus___]

My Warrior of Light has hes own Journey. But I feel myself as a puppet for the Scions, I felt more bonded to Hien and Gosestu having a drink laughing showing eachothers fears. Zenos had sure had an affect on my WoL, the urge for more power, finding the lust for fight and blood, things our char could be but is always pure. I wished my char could chose hes own road, but had to make up my own story for him.

I hope we see a bad side of the WoL, wich is human we cannot always be constantly Pure. As i still remember ARR epilogue, the Dark Hydalin Crystal. The are warrior of Darkness out there somewhere.

[thegreatonemal]

Fighting is a means to an end for me but why not enjoy the means.

[Theodric]

Well, neither of my two characters are 'Warriors of Light' even in personal headcanon. One of my characters is a scatterbrained, naive young man living in Kugane and the other is a Garlean with his own agenda who seeks to cut out the rot in both Eorzea and Garlemald so that there can be peace and stability for both. So, no - even if somehow they became powerful enough to put an end to Hydaelyn's major threats they would not seek to enjoy such a solemn duty and they most certainly would not appreciate the lack of nuance that the protagonists frequently display.

So, to answer the question from the perspective of the canon Warrior of Light? There are similarities between him and Zenos. The Warrior of Light is a broken man and also a very dangerous man for acting like the judge, jury and executioner on a whim - and at times they display immense enjoyment at the idea of jumping into a fight or engaging in revenge...despite frequently calling out others for doing just that.

Plus this is a man who will happily end lives for the sake of a little extra gil or literally rip our their souls to empower a weapon. Hardly an untarnished pillar of shining morality no matter how good they may do elsewhere.

One man's hero is another man's terror, after all.