Warrior of Light: A Mindless Killer

[Theodric]

At no point have I suggested that Garlemald is perfect, fully justified or without a need for at least some reform. I - and certain other posters - have merely stepped in to ensure that these debates do not become a circle jerk that involve bashing Garlemald at every possible turn and bending over backwards to excuse the darker elements of both the Warrior of Light and the rest of the protagonists where applicable.

I've also repeatedly expressed a willingness to agree to disagree - so please stop trying to paint me as unreasonable. Thankfully I've identified the issue as specific to this particular sub-forum - because I have no problem engaging in thorough debates regarding the game's lore on the FF14 sub-reddit, the official site's general discussion board, the FF14 gamefaq's board and - surprisingly - even Youtube comment sections. More often than not, many debates here are doomed to fail simply because it's the same handful of posters discussing points they've brought up countless times already.

So either we agree to disagree or we continue in an endless cycle that is quite clearly ticking a lot of people off and pushing them away.

[Keever]

Hey Theodoric, I hope I don't start a fight here, but I believe this bears saying....

More often than not, many debates here are doomed to fail simply because it's the same handful of posters discussing points they've brought up countless times already.

Many people are guilty of this, but I believe you are certainly one of the most guilty. You redirect criticism and sit on your high horse rather than self-reflecting. Sometimes I agree with your actual arguments about the nature of Garlemald, sometimes I do not, but your manner of delivering them can often be passive-combative and far more likely to provoke annoyance than reasonable discussion. In threads only tangentially related to Garlean issues and morality you bring up this topic again, and then go out of your way to lambast "some people" for holding different viewpoints, and for using arguing techniques which you yourself use. It's hypocritical.
The fact that you (because more often than not you are the instigator of the discussion) repeatedly do this is one of the things which has really soured my enjoyment of reading this subforum, which I used to count as the best community discussion board for this game, official or otherwise. Now I don't want to just target and abuse you, because there are others who also contribute to the unpleasantness, but as you catalyse so much, I beg you to self-reflect a little on the way you approach this.

I do not bear you any personal ill-will, and I hope you don't bear me any, but these feelings have stirred in me for awhile as I've browsed these Lore forums.




I have no horse in this Garlean race. Obviously the Garlean people aren't an evil blight, they're people and have a right to dignity, self-determination, cultural tradition et cetera. Obviously the present Garlean policy is extremely problematic, and reasonable and thoughtful reform taking into consideration the well-being of all parties would be the ideal end goal. Obviously the Warrior of Light has much blood on his/her hands, but obviously they're also not a "mindless killer" - I mean, one can roleplay one's character as such, but it's not something that's supported by the vague guidelines of characterisation presented by the game.

As for killing birds defending their nests, well that's not pleasant, but aren't you the one who says we shouldn't always judge this fantasy world by our modern real-world values? Now each of us is entitled to our personal opinion on these things, but I do not find this utterly despicable - not enough to warrant such a thoroughly harsh condemnation of character.

The Zodiac Weapon soul-absorption is... well, it's ****ed up if taken at face value and not a game mechanic. It's always bugged me. I mean, I took the whole "collecting souls" thing to denote more the absorption of life energy, rather than the entrapment of some part of what we normally perceive the "soul" as - that is, a person's actual self or consciousness. So I saw it as more like just harvesting magic blood, but that's still remarkably dark, and the fact that we just go kill the beseiged Garleans to power up is pretty darn reprehensible. I don't ignore the fact that this was in the game. However I question it's level of "hard canonicity".

I'm not totally behind the whole "one hard, defined canon" thing. When something's made by collaboration of multiple creators, adjusted to suit gameplay considerations, patch release pacing and even different localisation tastes, and then also has ambiguity left in it to allow for future decisions and changes to fit a director's long-term game vision, not to mention player choice and agency, the result product's "canon" is not nearly as concrete and identifiable as that of a novel, a film, or even a linear single-player video game story.

Yoshida & co. have been careful never to refer to our boy Derplander as the "canon" Warrior of Light. He "could be anyone" - he could be any adventurer you meet in your travels. What you see happen to him is what happens in his game, but he's a poster boy, an advertisement, his canon needn't supersede player experience. The events of Heavensward didn't unfold exactly as in the cinematic trailer, nor must the Warrior of Light canonically play as the "featured job" during that expansion. The Warrior of Light isn't canonically in one certain Grand Company, nor did they start in one certain city or meet with a certain Scion first. The Warrior of Light didn't canonically make one particular dialogue choice in a given cutscene. The Warrior of Light needn't canonically be a crafter or gatherer. Dialogue exists in the game to reflect if the player has leveled a certain job or done a certain sidequest, but dialogue also exists if you haven't done these things. Is that dialogue "non-canon"? I most strongly think not.

So what I'm trying to say is that canon in FFXIV isn't hard like a metal girder, it's soft like a sofa cushion - it's a solid object with defined edges, but everyone makes a different imprint when they sit on it. (OK that's sort of a gross metaphor, but I kinda like it.) The canon we discuss is amalgamated from various sources in and out of game, and viewed through a variety of lenses for comparison - depending on what degree gameplay necessities have affected the product, etc. - until we can reach some kind of collective community consensus, which still leaves room for variety, player experience, and personal extrapolation based on knowable facts but also a certain degree of speculation and interpretation. Everyone here makes their own extrapolations and assumptions influenced by their own individual thought impulses. No exceptions. Not you, or you, or even you! And that's not a bad thing!

Just don't ignore each other's good points either! Don't just put up a wall of deflection.



Uh... what was I saying? Oh yeah, I think we should weigh the fact that Garlean enemies were part of the Animus soul collection books to... a certain degree, but not to "immutable, hard canon" levels. Hold it alongside FATE droprates, the fact that we're fighting already-defeated bosses to farm dungeon light, light window bonuses, level syncs, having to do a certain levequest and only that particular levequest will serve to emulate the heroic deeds of this ancient hero of the East, even though you already did it for the previous book... it's a video game interface with a numbers checklist on it. Does the Warrior of Light really canonically go and kill five hundred quickly-respawning dhalmels in the Sea of Clouds for their skins in one day? 'Cause I had a friend doing that for awhile during Heavensward. I think that's not that far off from the Animus books thing - how much "canon" weight do you give to the game mechanic? There's room for interpretation and discussion beyond just "this is the single hard canon, because I think it is."

This got long and a little tangential, sorry. I just kinda roll my eyes at the idea of the sacred importance of hard canon. It's probably because of my TES3: Morrowind lore background, lol.

[Mysterysword]

More often than not, many debates here are doomed to fail simply because it's the same handful of posters discussing points they've brought up countless times already.

That is just... kind of rich, coming from you, seeing as how most, if not all, the posts I've read from you seem to be about one of a few things:

- How this game needs to be a thousand times darker and grittier, because clearly we cannot have murder and moogles in the same game and Eorzea should be a dystopia. Because dark and gritty = good storytelling, and never, ever leads to Darkness Induced Audience Apathy.
- How the Garlean Empire is never as bad as they seem.
- How the Ascians are not as bad as they seem.
- How our protagonists are even worse than the previous two.

I have yet to see anyone claim the Garlean Empire is pure evil, as you seem to believe we think. I have also yet to see anyone claim our protagonists are squeaky-clean in their actions, even the characters themselves. And while you're certainly entitled to your opinion of what kind of game we should be playing, there's things about glass houses you should know and keep in mind, as you accuse us of cherry-picking our facts.

[Alleo]

At no point have I suggested that Garlemald is perfect, fully justified or without a need for at least some reform. I - and certain other posters - have merely stepped in to ensure that these debates do not become a circle jerk that involve bashing Garlemald at every possible turn and bending over backwards to excuse the darker elements of both the Warrior of Light and the rest of the protagonists where applicable.

Last bit of topic: And I never said that you see them as perfect..only that you defend them and say that we will see how wrong we are in the future because they would change. It was just a bit of a hint that everyone of us has their own bit of canon ideas and that itself is not wrong.

Anyway would have liked if you have reacted to the rest of my more on topic post where I pointed out that even the Derplander himself is far away from a mindless killer, even if we take everything as canon. I would even dare to say that next to some poor decisions and some morally ambitious actions (relic quest), he is way more good than a lot of NPCs. Look at the scions who concentrate on things like primal fights (and never really getting near a long time solution of stopping it) but are never shown to do more than that. Yet even though Derplander has so much on his plate, he still goes out of the way to help Zhloe and the kids and more. Heck if we see everything as canon then he even played part in an act to replay the calamity to make people happy. He is far from feeling to good to do simple tasks for the common people and even if he is not perfect good, he is far away from being a true killer and far away from being a mindless one. So yes even without taking our character perspective into this, I simply cant agree with the OP.

If it isnt flat out stated that we murdered someone, I always assume I just incapacitated the opponent. That bird woke up later.

Haha that its how I see it too for a lot of fights, especially since we go against friendly NPCs in a sparing match and they often have the same dieing animation as our real enemies. I am quite sure that we did not go around in Sohr Khai and slaughter the little dragon children and the same with that one sparing dungeon. I mean we are powerful fighters, so we should know how to defeat an enemy without killing them.

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.

Because we were not even only talking about side quests but also about every single fate and things like that, which I found hard to believe. And if we go around and say that every single bit in the game is canon (which was not my view) then we would have to accept that even those events are canon. As long as Yoshida and his team dont go around and explain to us what it truly canon, we simply cant say what is 100% factual canon and what not. So I am not saying that I am right, but I agree more with the view that only the MSQ and side quests are canon, if the player did them. But heck even if we say everything is canon, its still makes the derplander not look that bad. He did way more good than bad things.

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The last pages really got a bit heated but to be honest as someone that was a long time lurker and only started to post recently I am not surprised. :/ Saying something is only humor after using personal attacks in some topics is really not that effective. I cant go around and attack someone personally (and no there are more people that do it not just one) and then say that its just some kind of humor..especially since a bit later there is a nice post that says that a lot of forum posters are sheep/part of a echo chamber. I can agree to disagree on topics, I already did it with others because I can see when everyone said their points. Heck I was even trying to steer that one topic back towards being more about the OP yet it was completely ignored..but since this is a discussion forum one does not always have to agree to disagree (or we would have no discussion at all), sometimes you just see certain points that you strongly disagree with, or that just gives you more content to discuss about it. Why should one stop to discuss it? When the other part has no interest anymore they can simply stop posting about this and everyone else should be able to post how much they want and as long as its without any personal attacks then no harm should come out of it. (Nobody is forced to read every thread if they are bored of it)

In this topic alone most even said that everyone has a different WoL thus it depends on their view how they will see it but that mostly we are not mindless killers because of certain reasons..only you Theodric started that all of our views are wrong because there is only derplander as canon and that everything is completely canon. So this sounds to me more like we should conform to your view. Anyway I am lurking a lot on reddit and the echo chamber is really strong there too. If you dont have the view of a certain crowd, you will be downvoted into oblivion. But I still enjoy both.

As for myself... I do apologize if my sarcasm comes across as scathing, but my intention is never to provoke ill will or come across as condescending. If ever I am being sarcastic, I'm trying to provoke thought (or otherwise have simply lost my patience - I'm only human).

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*