Warrior of Light: A Mindless Killer

[Cilia]

Spec Ops: The Line is a horrible example. Buy a game. Then be made to feel bad for doing an action you have no choice but to do, or to stop playing. Yeah, that's a deep moral crisis right there.

You do not have "no choice." You always have a choice. That's the entire point. You might not know what you're getting into, but if you find the story that morally objectionable, you will stop playing the game, or at least stop following the story / doing the sidequest. You had a choice. You. Made. Your. Choice. Live with the consequences.

Spec Ops: The Line doesn't get the point across for you? How about Undertale?

Spec Ops the Line is a terrible example. We are not a character in the story, and even if we were, the story stops until we choose the choice or fight the fight that is in line with the devs' idea of the character.

At the end of the day, it is other people that pay of the consequences of the WoL, not the WoL themselves. It will continue to be like this because the devs cannot truly punish the character, they still have to be able to go to gold saucer and pull their sword out in all the cities at the end of that cutscene.

That we are a puppet that does what its told is kind of a failure in their storytelling. There is not enough buy in to the character's decisions, and thus it seems like they are "your character" going with what the script says.

See above.

It's a limitation of MMORPG gameplay. We were able to freely walk the streets of Ul'dah just days after Nanamo's supposed assassination at our hands. That confuses me more than anything, but I know that we need access to the facilities in Ul'dah for various reasons... so I let it slide. The only thing we lost access to was the Rising Stones.

The Warrior of Light is your puppet. Whatever s/he does is a direct consequence of your influence over him/her. If you have that much of an issue with a request someone makes of your character... don't accept it. That's all there is to it. But the consequences are on your shoulders either way.

In the case of the bird nests and killing the birds? You didn't have to talk to the guy. You didn't have to go out to the bird nests. You didn't have to pick through the bird nests. You didn't have to kill the birds (running away is an option). You didn't have to take the stuff back to the guy. You. Chose. To. The same goes for literally every quest in the game, side or no. Accept responsibility for your actions. All video games are Skinner boxes; just as lab rats aren't forced to press the lever for their cheese, you aren't forced to do anything in the game. You. Choose. To.

[Grayve]

Spec Ops: The Line doesn't get the point across for you? How about Undertale?

[/b]

No. A choice would have been a) Use White Phosorphos, or b) Turn Around and leave the city. Not turn of the game. Because turning of the game is a very violation of the entire point. If we are the protagonist, and thus it is our choice, it is not a game with can turn off. We are leaving the story. If we are not the protagonist, then we have no choice, because the developers didn't give us one.

As for Undertale, I have no idea what that is about. I've heard the name, and some critics say its great, but I have no idea why it is 'great'.

[YianKutku]

I see it as a limitation of the medium. Possibly not inherent to the medium, but more of what most players expect the medium to provide.

As I've mentioned before in other threads, our interaction with the world is limited to four options: collecting, crafting, moving, and fighting. ("Collecting" is a catch-all for "click on something to see an interaction bar fill up".) And since this is a level-based game, progression is gated around XP, and the game is designed around combat classes being the primary gatekeeper.

So as it ends up, everything looks like a nail to be hammered down by the mallet of combat. We assume this combat is mostly lethal, because it's difficult to depict knocking someone out non-lethally every time, and it gets weird when we're blasting them with fire or slicing them with blades.

I mean, if this game were designed differently, we could be asking why the WoL is a mindless crafter, rapaciously consuming materials to create ever more ostentatious yet pointless artifacts. At some point, deep analysis of our actions has to acknowledge that violence is our primary response to many situations, because violence is all the game allows us.

The entire discussion is based around headcanon and a personal interpretation of the Warrior of Light as Hydaelyn's mindless killer. Spare everyone the sanctimony.

You, too, can do your part in that regard. It's most definitely something that requires a group effort around these parts.

This Magnai/Sadu interplay is significantly less entertaining on the forums than in-game.

[Cilia]

No. A choice would have been a) Use White Phosorphos, or b) Turn Around and leave the city. Not turn of the game. Because turning of the game is a very violation of the entire point. If we are the protagonist, and thus it is our choice, it is not a game with can turn off. We are leaving the story. If we are not the protagonist, then we have no choice, because the developers didn't give us one.

As for Undertale, I have no idea what that is about. I've heard the name, and some critics say its great, but I have no idea why it is 'great'.

Spec Ops: The Line (SO:tL) is meant as meta commentary on the part of the developers, trying to force players to ask themselves uncomfortable questions like "Is this really what war is like?", "Is this what happens to real people in all those shooters I play?", "Am I really being heroic, doing all this?", etc. The big one, though, is "Is virtual violence harmless?"

Despite possessing a personality and history of his own Cpt. Walker is, like all video game player characters, an extension of the player's will. Given the somewhat meta nature of SO:tL's narrative, turning the game off and letting it end there symbolically represents Cpt. Walker turning around - deciding that what he's doing is too extreme, too immoral to carry on with. Yet players force him to continue onward, leading to mental degredation and eventual insanity as he tries to rationalize what he's doing... just like the player.

None of it would happen if you'd just stop. All you have to do is say "I won't do this" and leave the open-ended Skinner box. You, the player, have a choice to turn back. To deny the player character from engaging in violence, should you so wish. But you press on... why, exactly?

(Aside from the cash you shelled out for it, I mean. That part is obvious.)

This question goes for most any game, violent or no, and especially ones with player-defined characters such as FF XIV. And for the record, I did play Spec Ops: The Line, all the way to the end, and I did so knowing full well what I was getting myself into. So yeah, I may love stealthy pacifist runs and try not to kill anyone when I can but... I'm the worst of anyone here.

... being totally honest, I haven't played Undertale either. Don't have the time right now anyway; 5 12s and an 8 every week eat up my time like nobody's business. Still, I have watched and read a bit about it, and to my knowledge it, like SO:tL, places the blame for what happens on the player as much as if not more than the player character. Unlike SO:tL, though, it's a retro indie game, so there is a route you can take that doesn't involve killing anyone and still reach an ending proper.

This Magnai/Sadu interplay is significantly less entertaining on the forums than in-game.

But Moooooooooom...

[Theodric]

Back in WoW, it was common for some of the more vocal residents of the lore forum to pick and choose what they accepted as canon because it suited whatever agenda they sought to push at the time. Mostly that revolved around painting their favoured faction or playable race in the best possible light whilst doing everything possible to paint their least favoured faction and playable race in the worst possible light. Eventually most of the regular posters ended up being terribly bored by it all and either stopped posting altogether or simply resorted to lurking instead.

It's a very slippery slope to pick and choose what is considered to be canon. If it's in-game then it's reasonable and safe to assume that it's canon and relevant until stated otherwise. Let's not pretend as if the game doesn't bend over backwards to try and make as much stuff as possible make sense in the context of the lore, including certain game mechanics such as dungeon timers being attributed to how long adventurers can delve into a particular ruin before succumbing to aether sickness.

[Alleo]

Back in WoW, it was common for some of the more vocal residents of the lore forum to pick and choose what they accepted as canon because it suited whatever agenda they sought to push at the time.

I am sorry but every time I saw a discussion about Garlemald you came into it and defended them and even told us that in the future this would change, even though none of us know what will happen. :/ So its kinda bad that you go around and say that people here are the worst just because we see some lore points differently, even though you yourself are doing it too. None of us are objectively.

I took my time and wrote down that even if we take everything as canon, that Derplander is still mostly a very good guy with some bad decisions along the way. Please tell me where it makes him a mindless killer, which was the point of the original topic. Because otherwise you are posting way off topic with all the accusing, while we just want to show that no they are not mindless killers.

And again if everything is canon then that means that Derplander knows that he is just a character of a game, the events are taking place over years even though the years dont change, Godbert and his wife are as strong as the Wol and much more.

There isn't an easy way to justify things in any violent setting in a moral way. We end up killing a lot of peoples only because they held a different viewpoint or goal to us and were unwilling or unable to see an alternative option. The Garlean soldiers are a perfect example. A lot of them are conscripts who never wanted to be there in the first place but there is no way around freeing Ala Mhigo than fighting them. Even is some were open to turning on Garlemald, the Garlean policy of taking retribution on family members of traitors would stop that from happening. So what does the WoL do? Just give up?

Well Garlemald is kinda the aggressor since they tried to conquer Eorzea thus they are our enemy. (Right now) If we go somewhere and we are attacked and they try to kill us, its kinda difficult to see an alternative option, yet we still choose them sometimes. But in the end before we get killed we sadly have to kill them. And lets not forget that we only go against Garlean soldiers after they merciless attacked the base of the scion and killed lots of our comrades. They never tried a peaceful solution and if we had not intervened the rest of the scions would have lost their lives too.

It is the sad truth that we have to kill in war and that maybe the opponent is not always bad but like you said we cant just simply give up. Anyway that still does not make the WoL a mindless killer.

(Just for the info, I am not really disagreeing with you, but most of the time its not really the WoLs fault)

[Lauront]

And again if everything is canon then that means that Derplander knows that he is just a character of a game, the events are taking place over years even though the years dont change, Godbert and his wife are as strong as the Wol and much more.

I'm struggling to understand how this makes any logical sense. Other than things specifically branded as non-canon by SE, why would side quests etc. NOT be canon? Particularly since a good chunk of the lorebook is compiled from such sources. One does not need to commit to the extreme of "everything is canon" to allow for the majority of in-game quest material - particularly job quest material - to be canon.

This...



And this are the reasons why I don't even read when i see a post reply with his name on it...

His posts are better than the majority of tripe posted on this forum, I'll say that much.

[Grayve]

(Aside from the cash you shelled out for it, I mean. That part is obvious.)

Which is the reason. Maybe for you, 60$ isn't a lot of money. But it is for me, and most of my friends. To made to feel bad about choices we have no control over, or to quit playing our means of entertainment, after a not insignificant financial outlay, is not a choice.

And is this thread devolving into another 'Garleans are Good' thread? *sigh* Dont people ever get tired of this?

[Cilia]

I stopped posting because I was sick of arguing with you. It didn't make me suddenly like the msq more, or make its characters more bearable, only the msq can do that. I cannot force SE to make the Garleans not single note drones that practically scream "we're the empire race, kill us en masse!". Or at least make them more lively and not fall for every trick in the book. I can only decide if such a thing no longer makes it worth paying and playing.

Until then, I can just enjoy roleplaying my character the way I want to.

I'm sorry if I aggravated you into quitting; I can be stubborn and combative at times. I wasn't trying to force any particular canon explanation for the Warrior of Light's actions on you; just trying to explain how we could possibly think fighting the Empire is the right thing to do. It's not up to me to tell you how to play your character, but if there are differences between the very loosely canon portrayal of the Warrior of Light and how you think they should be, it's up to you to reconcile those differences.

Or just say that's not what my character did. That's an entirely valid way of roleplaying.

Again, I apologize if I offended or aggravated you. I know it's not much, but it's all I can offer over the internet.

Nooooo now I cant get that song out of my head again....damn you Cilia damn you *shakes fist angrily and stares in a WoL way*

Ehh? What song? (I'm not being sarcastic.)

Which is the reason. Maybe for you, 60$ isn't a lot of money. But it is for me, and most of my friends. To made to feel bad about choices we have no control over, or to quit playing our means of entertainment, after a not insignificant financial outlay, is not a choice.

It is, but I bought it a while after it came out, and I knew full well what it was about going in. (Which probably makes me worse than anyone else, despite my love of nonlethal / stealth runs in games that allow it.) The choice may have been unpleasant, but it was still there.

[Theodric]

And is this thread devolving into another 'Garleans are Good' thread? *sigh* Dont people ever get tired of this?

Yeah - multiple posters have expressed their weariness where the debates in question are concerned, myself included. Some have done it on this very sub-forum whilst others have done so in-game or elsewhere. At the end of the day attempts to lessen their presence have been made but that requires a group effort and no horrific attempts to try and pin the blame on a single poster for an issue that is perpetuated by multiple individuals across numerous threads. There's a major difference between discussing the game's lore and discussing one's personal interpretation of morality and nuances.

So, in short, I'll continue to stare at my screen with the following expression whenever the same tiresome points are brought up and regurgitated:



For the record, I'm not saying that these debates shouldn't happen at all. Just that it's pretty clear that in circumstances where it's the same handful of stubborn posters interacting with one another the most efficient and logical route is to agree to disagree. Especially when the subject matter being discussed is completely subjective. Like I said, I saw the exact same problem plague the lore forum back when I played WoW. I spent a lot of time there pointing out that from the perspective of the blood elves - a race driven close to extinction through no fault of their own - they were justified in doing whatever it took for the sake of the survival of their homeland and people. Perhaps the name I posted as there - Solbranthius - will ring a bell for some here. Perhaps not.

It isn't my intention to change anybody's mind. It's simply my intention to highlight that nuances exist and that one's own world view is not necessarily the only interpretation that matters. Sure, we can rant and rave about how stuff 'should' play out in an idealistic manner but people are far, far more complicated than that. Especially when they live in a world such as Hydaelyn that isn't a particularly pleasant or safe place to begin with. So, if that can be acknowledged? Great! If not, then nothing will change and the cycle will continue.