[SPOILERS] Stormblood Ending

[Cilia]

Gosetsu was also a retainer to the king of Doma, so he was in a fairly privileged position as far as information was concerned. The death of a noble would have undoubtedly made its way to the castle.

Couple problems with this.

1. Yotsuyu's deceased husband is only identified as "Sashihai." His social status is never commented upon. While it is stated that Yotsuyu was more or less sold to him as a bride... that she had to take up work in a brothel following his death to settle his debts suggests he wasn't of particularly high standing, at least when he died.

2. Gosetsu was imprisoned following Doma's fall to the Empire, and was released only so he may go fight the Empire's wars for it. I do not think he was imprisoned the whole time, but he was likely often away for war; even if Sashihai was a nobleman high enough for his death to reach the castle, Gosetsu may not have heard of it from there simply because he was off fighting elsewhere.

... there's just too many open questions to discern where, exactly, Gosetsu learned about Yotsuyu from. Given that, it's very unfair to incriminate him as complicit in Yotsuyu's abuse.

[Belhi]

Cilia, your not looking at it from the viewpoint of someone who has survived extreme trauma. Perhaps I am reading too much into it since I have dealt with the mental health implications of people like that before but the writing fits the mold very well.

Lets consider the world from Yotsuyu's eyes. She looses her family when she is young and end up with her aunt that doesn't want her and treats her badly. She is then sold to an old man who abuses her. After years of abuse he dies but she is saddled with her debts and sold off like a slave again. Only after she becomes a spy for the imperials is she able to escape that life. Years of her life with constant abuse and dehumanisation, coupled with no support. People who go through that much trauma develop methods to cope to survive. One of the most common ones is to become detached, burying away the pan and suffering because dealing with those emotions is impossible. Those wounds don't heal. They are just sidelined. Eventually they usually resurface, particularly if the individuals start to feel safer, and will often lead to behaviour that to those who don't know the source or nature of those buried emotions makes little sense.

When Yotsuyu saw that Doman writhing in pain and suffering that wall cracked and for the first time in her life her anger and pain found a true outlet, only reinforced by the reality of the world as it has been forced on her. Satisfying that sense became a need for her. The wall was cracked. Those emotions wouldn't be denied. Doma became the target of her vengeance because projected on to it as the cause of the suffering she went through. Just look at what she is doing when we first met her. She is basically making them do horrible things and suffer for the chance to live. I imagine she would despise the resistance too. Anyone talking about Justice or Honor who existed in the culture that allowed what happened to her to happen would seem extremely hypocritical. She didn't just enjoy causing pain. She hated Domans with every fiber of her being.

At the end we see Hein's final words to her being 'I will remember your words' and her crying. For me that seem to me to suggest Hein realised that while Doma did not deserve what Yotsuyu did, in allowing a society where such treatment could happen, Doma had enabled the creation of who Yotsuyu became. I saw her tears also at the end as her walls finally collapsing and her mentally breaking down. That is hard to be sure. We will have a better idea when we see Yotsuyu next.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't say she was justified. I find if very interesting she directed her hatred at Doma rather than the Empire and you could argue that there is underlying conditioning there. What I am saying is that there is more to her than her just being a simple sadist and that there is a reason behind her 'being the hero of her own story'.

As to details of who the husband was and who knew, I doubt the Garleans would have arranged such a marriage unless it was to someone of note. Anyone less than that would probably have been beneath their notice. Assuming he had any rank at all I see it as very unlikely no one was aware of the conditions she lived with. Servants talk and gossip and if Gosetsu knew it was likely that news had spread far enough for him to become aware of it.

As for who knew and who turned a blind eye, we see many cases of the people under occupation looking way from injustices for the sake of the safety of themselves and their families. In Ala Mhigo we have the story of a woman who went collecting herbs with a spear to protect herself from wild animals and when she came across a Garlean patrol the accused her of being an insurgent for being armed. Its strongly implied they gang raped her or at the very least badly beat her and when she finally got back to town wounded everyone avoided her and was unwilling to help her for fear of being marked as a trouble maker. If Yotsuyu's situation was know I doubt anyone would have raised a stink anyway.

Again, this isn't about justifying or defending her actions. She was wrong and frankly I am arguing she is seriously mentally disturbed. What she did was horrific and her past doesn't excuse that. What I am talking about is understanding her and how she came to be because she shows both the price of allowing injustice for the sake of survival and if she is to return to the story it's worth understanding her. People get Fordola even though she wasn't exactly a nice person either but Fordola is a lot more simple to understand.

[Daralii]

I'd hesitate to say it was Doma's fault that Yotsuyu turned out like she did considering she was born under Imperial rule. Her account also contradicts parts of what we saw in the Echo flashback, which potentially means she was making everything up to buy time.

[Theodric]

Kugane is largely unchanged by Garlemald's presence and boasts very similar problems and cultural trends to what those that are implied to be the case in Doma before and despite Garlemald's presence. Kugane has brothels, child labour, a decadent and corrupt leadership. Brothels rarely function without men and women being pressured into working within them against their will, either through outright force or simply due to having nowhere else to turn to in order to make coin. Child labour is bad for obvious reasons - and Yotsuyu herself stated that her family worked her like a beast of burden so that's another similarity.

The game's lore pulls few punches in regards to highlighting the shades of grey that exist in each nation's society. It varies in regards to the extent of problems that exist but putting aside Garlemald's presence there are numerous problems shown to exist within Limsa Lominsa, Gridania, Ul'dah, Kugane and Ishgard. Ala Mhigo is depicted as being far from perfect even before its occupation - so I doubt very much that Doma was somehow a perfect, flawless place.

[Daralii]

Kugane is largely unchanged by Garlemald's presence and boasts very similar problems and cultural trends to what those that are implied to be the case in Doma before and despite Garlemald's presence. Kugane has brothels, child labour, a decadent and corrupt leadership. Brothels rarely function without men and women being pressured into working within them against their will, either through outright force or simply due to having nowhere else to turn to in order to make coin. Child labour is bad for obvious reasons - and Yotsuyu herself stated that her family worked her like a beast of burden so that's another similarity.

The game's lore pulls few punches in regards to highlighting the shades of grey that exist in each nation's society. It varies in regards to the extent of problems that exist but putting aside Garlemald's presence there are numerous problems shown to exist within Limsa Lominsa, Gridania, Ul'dah, Kugane and Ishgard. Ala Mhigo is depicted as being far from perfect even before its occupation - so I doubt very much that Doma was somehow a perfect, flawless place.

But Kugane isn't Doma, and Hingashi doesn't even have the same form of government that Doma does.

[Alleo]

In English at least, he says something like "Does it truly protect you from a primal's tempering? Or does it mean your influence is greater than theirs?" I'd have to rewatch the cutscene for the exact dialogue.

Thanks for the info.

Well I am just not sure if we should trust Zenos on this, since we dont know how many good information they have about the echo. They do not believe in any kind of gods so technically Hydaelyn does not exit for them so maybe its their interpretation of it. (And it does sound a bit grander that one is immune because they have the stronger will. So maybe they like that explanation better)

But the question remains: when did he learn? Until we know that, it's not fair to blame anyone but her family, who definitely knew.

Exactly. And I just cant believe that the whole of Doma was in this. At the same time this was quite some years ago thus most of the adult ones from that time are elderly people right now..so all the younger people she killed had nothing to do with that. So yes even if some more people knew about this, it does not change the fact that she enjoyed it and took it out on people that were nothing more than children when it happened to her.

Maybe there was a spy in Yotsuyus army that learned about her history or maybe she herself made it known in one of her speeches.

@Belhi: I am quite sure that we do understand her past but this does not change the fact that she did commit horrible things and liked it. And even if she herself sees whole Doma at fault for this, it does not mean that we have to see the world through her eyes and agree with that. (Not that I am saying that you are saying that) And lets be honest, a society where things like that are not happening anymore is more like an utopia because in the end you will never be able to truly stop such things if they are happening behind closed doors. Hien might try to change things but as long as each human being has their free will, things like that will still happen.

@Theodric: Were exactly did we state that Doma is a flawless state? We just want to point out that its not good to say that the whole people in Doma are responsible for Yotsuyu thus should not suffer under it. And since we dont know how many even knew about this, its even worse to say that anyone might be at fault and that the old Doma was just bad. We simply dont know this.

[Belhi]

I'd hesitate to say it was Doma's fault that Yotsuyu turned out like she did considering she was born under Imperial rule. Her account also contradicts parts of what we saw in the Echo flashback, which potentially means she was making everything up to buy time.

What part in the Echo flashback contradicted anything? All we saw was her as a child being treated poorly before being sold off.

I am not saying Doma or its peoples actively abused her. Frankly we have few too details on what Doma was like prior to the Imperials and all of those sources are bias. They could be true or they could be glossing over the ugly parts. Its probably somewhere in the middle. Further Doman's may have not had much power to do anything anyway. However it doesn't change the fact that they accepted a culture that lead to Yotsuyu being systematically abused, particularly now that they are willing to rise up when its their own who are suffering brutality. It was Domans who told her to grin and bare it and I doubt it was her aunt since her aunt likely wanted nothing to do with her once she was sold off. The Doman's acceptance created her. She was abused and her pleas for help were ignored.

Lets face it. Her hatred was irrational, but she is a seriously disturbed individual. People as messed up as her are often irrational about their responses and perceptions. The people she took her hatred out on would often be powerless anyway to stop what happened to her. However that is the point. She has been twisted into what she is by the cruelty she suffered and the isolation and abandonment she felt. Its easy to dismiss her accusations as lies because it makes disliking her easier. However there is little to indicate she is lying about any of her claims.

In a way she is Doma's 'sin'. A monster born over putting personal wellbeing over standing up for what is right. Even if the commoners are exempt from this Hein wouldn't be. For me this is why his final words to her are 'I will remember your words.' He realises that if a culture allows a person to be treated so cruely to the point were they break and become a monster then the fault of that in the end will lie with its rulers and while Garlemald held power his family holds some responsibility too and responsibility for if it is ever allowed to happen again in Doma.

It might have been under imperial rule but Doma failed completely one of its daughters and those who rule hold responsibility for that in the end.

[Theodric]

But Kugane isn't Doma, and Hingashi doesn't even have the same form of government that Doma does.

...they're similar, though - which was my core point. They both draw from the same sphere of influence in terms of the real world cultures that they're inspired by.

[Remedi]

Gaius? I guess we didn't sympathize with him too much or feel guilty about his death. I mean, everything that happened with the Imperials in 2.0 - the Waking Sands incident, Ultima Weapon, Operation Archon - all of it is on his shoulders... if he had just stood down, none of it would have happened. Instead Gaius refused to let go of his obsessive desire to conquer Eorzea, leading to... well. We also didn't even kill him - he was stuck in the Praetorium as it exploded all around him, and we had no time to save him.

I'd also like to point out that while the phantoms summoned by Myste were all of dead people, theoretically they don't have to be dead. They're based on memories, which is why Ser Ignasse is the kind and gentle Ser that Millie remembered but a fierce enemy when summoned by our own memories. Theoretically the person doesn't have to be dead. Theoretically.

We should, our actions not only made the primals threat worse, but also led to Zenos becoming the new ala mhigan vice-roy in a sense we are responsible for the worsening conditions of ala mhigo, also I'm not sure they are simple shades, Sid's mentor did show some extent of sense of self, also no I'm not buiyng that we felt bad for Rhitatyn, we only met once and had few words to spare, nor I think we felt guilt for Livia or Ilberd

[Belhi]

I am going to be honest. I am not personally someone who was particularly sympathetic to Giaus. For all the talk about dealing with the primal threats and extablishing rule many of the worst problems we have had to deal with including the summoning of primals is due to the Garleans. In the end we didn't even kill him. He died from his castrum blowing up, something he caused by messing with a destructive technology he didn't fully understand.

Considering Giaus started that fight I am even less willing to feel sorry for stopping him. He made his own fate.