Warrior of Light: A Mindless Killer

[Zetsumei_Tsunarashi]

The game's narrative would have us believe that we fight on the side of righteousness and justice in the name of Hydaelyn. However, we all know the story of the warriors of darkness, and how they came to realize that their mindless obedience of Hydaelyn on their world eventually led to it's destruction.

Through doing the various sidequests in Stormblood, I find myself questioning more and more the morality of what it is that we're doing as the Warrior of Light.

To name a couple examples, a quest in ruby sea would have us collect gold trinkets that have been placed in bird nests and deliver them to our client. When we approach the nest to search for the trinkets, a mother bird appears to defend her eggs. Without question we slay the mother bird despite finding nothing in the nest, and leave the eggs defenseless. We repeat this multiple times on different nests until we collect the trinkets the client is looking for.

Another quest in the peaks describes how the children of the village were all forced to join the Garlean army against their will. It occurred to me how often we just mindlessly kill Garlean soldiers and I wondered how many of those soldiers were forced into service against their will. How many innocents have we slain in pursuit of our cause ?

If you really think about it, there are countless examples in-game where we are forced to perform acts of questionable morality. Can we really honestly say that the warrior of light fights on the side of good ? Are we just Hydaelyn's mindless assassin without any sense of morality of our own ? Do the things we do really help to better the people's lives ? Are we really worthy of so much praise ?

Are we just repeating the mistakes of the warriors of darkness ?

As a side note, I wonder if the game's writers are aware of these discrepancies in our character's moral compass. Is it intentional that they make us do these things, or are they just writing these questlines without realizing the implications. Is there a larger narrative at work here ? Personally I think the answer is yes. I've long suspected ever since the incident with minfillia that Hydaelyn might not necessarily be our friend. Her handling of the warriors of darkness also is questionable imo. Did she really restore their world and send them back to it ? Or did she simply annihilate them because they had gotten too close to the truth ?

[Cilia]

Have you run the DRK 30 - 50 and 60 - 70 lines? They explain our mindset quite well.

As an adventurer, we take odd jobs - such as searching bird nests for trinkets and killing anything that attacks us in self-defense. Those birds will kill you - are you just going to let them?

As for our role as the Warrior of Light... if you don't want to do the DRK quests, simply put we acknowledge that sometimes we have to do bad things, like killing people, for good reasons, like liberating oppressed and conquered nations. Nobody said "heroes" are in the most enjoyable or clean of professions.

In regards to Hydaelyn, there has been nothing showing or stating She is anything less than benevolent. However as a goddess She has a very different perspective from us, and likely sees no problem sacrificing a few people to save millions (if not billions). Unpleasant, but necessary.

[Zetsumei_Tsunarashi]

As an adventurer, we take odd jobs - such as searching bird nests for trinkets and killing anything that attacks us in self-defense. Those birds will kill you - are you just going to let them?

My point is, we don't have a choice. We take the tasks we are given blindly without wondering about the effects of our actions because "helping people" is the "right thing to do". What if we refused to help that person search for those trinkets ? We would have never angered the bird mother in the first place and would not have had to kill it. Were those trinkets really that important ? Would the man have been fine without them ? Did those birds really have to die ? That's the kind of thing I've been questioning myself about lately.

[Miyha]

Have you run the DRK 30 - 50 and 60 - 70 lines? They explain our mindset quite well.

This. I feel like if you're into the lore/want to really get into your character as the WoL, especially if you're having these kinds of thoughts, the DRK questline is mandatory. (If you can stomach leveling a tank to 70 and all that entails. :P )

Literally everything you're questioning is addressed in the 30-50 and 60-70 DRK quests. Also might I add that the 50 and 70 DRK quests in particular are the coolest job quests in the game? >>

[Kuroka]

In regards to Hydaelyn, there has been nothing showing or stating She is anything less than benevolent. However as a goddess She has a very different perspective from us, and likely sees no problem sacrificing a few people to save millions (if not billions). Unpleasant, but necessary.

Gotta think of FF 13's Etro... she wanted to do good, but in the end she doomed the realm and created lots of problems. Hydaelyn may have best intentions, but... we cant even imagine what she actually defines as good. She tore out a part of herself shattering the realm, in the long run it could be very well an grave mistake...

[Zetsumei_Tsunarashi]

Literally everything you're questioning is addressed in the 30-50 and 60-70 DRK quests.

I have done all the DRK quests. To me that narrative is not about justifying your actions, but merely points out the flaw in your character. The fact that you are a merciless killer who has no issue with taking action to appease your own sense of justice despite what effect it may have on others. It really just exemplifies the issue that I've brought up in the OP, but doesn't address the reasoning behind it.

We do things we believe to be right, but not always with the full knowledge of the impact our actions will have on others. When faced with the realization that our actions have in fact caused suffering to someone, our character shrugs it off as if nothing happened, or withholds damning information in order "spare" the individual of further pain. What I'm questioning is whether or not our character actually feels remorse for what they have done, or if they in fact believe they are justified in doing the things they do despite sometimes having a negative impact on people's lives.

In cases where your character might be faced with an internal moral struggle, we usually opt to kill first and ask questions later. This is what leads me to believe that our character is simply just a mindless drone with no moral compass to speak of whatsoever. After all, we are Hydaelyn's chosen warrior and our purpose is to serve her will. It could be that our character does not in fact have a will of their own, and we are merely Hydaelyn's thralls. In much the same way that Minfillia has become merely a puppet through which Hydaelyn speaks to us, we are merely a puppet through which Hydaelyn's will is done.

[Dualgunner]

The real question: is your Warrior of Light a mindless killer? Because mine isn't. I'm somewhat picky and choosy about which quests I consider canon, with MSQ being always canon, and sidequests never being canon unless its a chain that I really liked and felt would have an impact on her, like going out of her way to help cure a friend of the voidsent plague in the aftermath of the Shisui dungeon.

[Mysterysword]

The fun part is: The Warrior of Light is a mindless drone, beholden in service to someone else's will. That someone being you, the player. Every step the WoL makes, everything they do, everything they say, every fight they get into, every attack they make, it's all decided by you. You were the one who decided to take on that sidequest, to talk to that NPC, to fly up that cliff and poke around those nests and kill that mother bird.

[Zetsumei_Tsunarashi]

The fun part is: The Warrior of Light is a mindless drone, beholden in service to someone else's will. That someone being you, the player. Every step the WoL makes, everything they do, everything they say, every fight they get into, every attack they make, it's all decided by you. You were the one who decided to take on that sidequest, to talk to that NPC, to fly up that cliff and poke around those nests and kill that mother bird.

You can look at it that way, and see what you want to see. I'm looking at it from a purely narrative perspective. Assuming that the WoL is his/her own person, and that each action taken was their own doing.

You also have to assume that the WoL accepts all tasks given to them, because from a narrative stand point, you can't experience the whole story if you ignore some of the quests. It would be like skipping pages in a book because you didn't like what the character did on those pages.

[Miyha]

You can look at it that way, and see what you want to see. I'm looking at it from a purely narrative perspective. Assuming that the WoL is his/her own person, and that each action taken was their own doing.

If everything like this was fleshed out and apparent for you then there would be no point in having the WoL be your own character. If you wanted something deeper/more direct than what the DRK quests had to offer, an exact answer as to why or their reasoning or a deeper justification, then you may as well play a RPG with a fully developed, "pre-made" character as the protagonist. Your character is yours: they leave some of this vague/open to interpretation on purpose. If they layed all of this out there would be absolutely zero room to make your character your own, and I can see a lot more people upset over the fact that they can't decide for themselves what their motivations are, or how to justify what they must do.

It's a MMO, but it's also a Final Fantasy game. They're trying to strike a balance between having a set story to follow and having it progress in a certain way while also trying to allow some kind of creative agency to the players of their own unique characters. Because it's still a MMO, you really can't take everything at face value or look at everything "purely from a narrative perspective", as you put it.

I short, you decide what your character's reasoning is. You decide their motivations, how to justify their actions. If you think they're a mindless killer or drone, they are. If not? Choose another path.

Also... sidequests are... sidequests. It's a MMO. There are lots of "kill x amount of y" quests in MMOs. I never really took them as being any significant part of the story or the WoL's (or rather, my WoL's) development. There is plenty of room for you to make your character more than the "mindless killing drone" you're describing. Your questions regarding Hydaelyn and such will likely be answered as the story progresses, but expect some level of vagueness to remain.