Is Fordola the monster Lyse says she is?

[YianKutku]

And beyond that, that's an entire side questline in Ala Ghirri dedicated to the townspeople running cover for an imperial Centurion (I think) who they had grown fond of because he had treated them well, with one of the local J tribe members even pledging to wait for him until he gets out of prison, saying that he will always have a home among the people of Ala Ghirri. How was it that an imperial of such status was able to do that much for the people in occupied territory, yet a native Ala Mhigan like Fordola couldn't? Both were just as subject to the whims of Zenos as the other. Yes, Fordola had more face time with Zenos, but it's safe to say that if word got back to Zenos that an imperial officer was being soft on the locals, he would have introduced that officer to one of his three good friends.

Baut is a very interesting case for me. (He is, or was, indeed a Centurion, to confirm your supposition.)

Certainly to Zenos, Baut would have been seen as being soft on the locals. But Zenos's aim was to make the populace hate him, yet not be broken; there were reports (I forget if it was in the Ala Mhigo or Doma part of Stormblood) that he literally flayed officers who went too far in their oppression. So we'll just put Zenos's bizarre standards aside.

The citizens of Ala Ghiri sing Baut's praises during that questline. He took time out to play with the children. He took care of problems the townspeople brought to him. He ordered his troops to stand down when the Alliance rode in, in order to avoid bloodshed.

Most intriguingly, he was described as "hard but fair". Not "soft", or "lenient". Yet also "kind" and "gentle" (or at least "gentle soul").

Even Baut himself notes that all he did (at least in his eyes) was to stop the brutality. He also says he did so because he was just tired of seeing his men beating people, when it doesn't serve any purpose. So just that acknowledgement led Baut to become a beloved man in the town he supposedly occupied.

That Fordola did not see fit to do the is certainly a point against her. I don't suppose we'll ever know why, since there are too many possible reasons, and just because one of them happens to be the case doesn't mean another may be just as likely.

For those wondering about ranks, as Centurion, Baut would have been in charge of a hundred men or so. Fordola would probably be one command tier above him, as (probably) Tribunus Militum. (Lorebook page 179, for reference.) It's highly likely that Baut's immediate superior is one of those unnamed helmeted Garleans seen in Zenos's court. Since nothing has actually happened to Baut until the Alliance liberated Ala Ghiri, we can assume that Baut's superior favoured discretion over attracting Zenos's potentially lethal attention.

Source that, if you would. I don't recall anything about the Corpse Brigade being remotely mentioned in SB content.

Anonymoose has covered it pretty well. The quote I was actually thinking of when I posted that was the second one. I thought I already uploaded it (to point it out on a different forum), but I can't find it anywhere, so here's a re-upload.

We may quibble over the "necessity" of his evil, but I don't think any of us are in disagreement over his actual evilness.

And that is the key difference at the heart of our apparent disagreement.

I should probably lay out where I stand in this whole discussion, to prevent misunderstandings.

If you were to ask me, as a person, what I think should happen to Fordola, my answer would be an immediate "I don't know". If you were to press the issue, I'd probably hedge my way to an answer very, very similar to the one you already give.

The reason I keep poking at it anyway is that while I don't know what I want to happen to Fordola for it to feel like justice is served, I do believe that the actions should be taken with full consideration of what it actually means, in terms of results both intended and otherwise. If we are going to condemn Fordola, we should condemn her with eyes wide open, so to speak.

So I'm pushing back against the strict categorical interpretation, that certain actions like firing upon her own people or becoming the commander of the Skulls is an automatic qualification for being a monster. And the term "kinslayer" is one of those that's kind of strict liability: it is trivially easy to prove, and does not require mens rea. The issue then becomes a question of "so what". Fordola is a kinslayer; does that action of kinslaying, divested of all context and intent, make her a monster? That is not a rhetorical question, incidentally; I think that it, and questions like it, are a major part of the original question posted in the thread title.

Similarly, I'm pushing back against the strict consequentialist interpretation. I suspect strongly that Fordola does believe the ends justifies the means, but that doesn't mean I believe that. (If anything, my belief is that the ends must justify the means: if the means are evil, the ends had damn well better be worth both it and all the consequences they bring.)

I also believe that what judgment Fordola receives should set a standard and precedent, and all actions, in both directions of the temporal arrow, should be judged by that standard. Which does mean ancient history might be subject to the same moral stance, but I'll cover that in a bit.

This has nothing to do with the punishment Fordola should or should not receive. That is an entirely different situation, which I think bears next to no relation to how Fordola is judged. After all, it has to satisfy not only in-universe justice, but also out-of-game justice (as we perceive it as players), and narrative justice (ie what feels "satisfying" to the story).

So with this judgment divorced from punishment, the obvious question would be "so what". So what if Fordola is judged to be a monster? In which case I fall back upon my usual "I don't know". This, again, ties into my belief that all actions must be judged on the same standard. We can judge those long-dead all we want, but, outside of Allagan cloning or Lifestream shenanigans, they are beyond caring. So it's entirely valid to just shrug and move on.

[Xie_Belvoule]

In reply to TinyRedLeaf

1. Their is in fact a moment after Frodola fires the cannon where off behind a building two alliance soldiers are going to kill a Garlean soldier who has already dropped his weapon and surrendered. They only don't kill him beacause the WoL steps in.

2. Here's a hypothetical: Raubahn is forced to order a bombardment of alliance lines to slow the Garleans advance toward castrum orienis. He refuses to let them retake baelsers wall so he orders the deliberate shelling of his own men to buy time for renforcments. How would FFXIV treat this hypothetical moment. It wouuld be treated as a tragic but nesscacry heroic sacrifice to halt the Garleans. Raubahn would be hailed as a commander willing to make the calls others can't. This is literally no differant from what Frodola did.

Let's be real for a minute, Frodola had no way of knowing any of her men were even left alive, they might be slaughtered by the resistance for being traitors to Ala Mhigo. She had no way of knowing that Conrad would try to talk them down and spare them. Your using your meta knowledge of events to pass judgement on her. As far as she knew they were as good as dead, being trapped in a forification being over run by the enemy. The alliance aren't saints either, as I told you theirs a moment right after she fires where two alliance soldiers are going to kill a Garlean soldier who had already surrendered.

P.S. Soldiers who fought in the Civil War were kinslayers (sometimes literally slaying their next of kin) and yet they aren't monsters. Unless you want to label all Union soldiers monsters for slaying Confederate soldiers, literally their fellow countrymen. Being a kinslayer does not make one a "monster" nor does firing on your own troops.

Also Victors Justice is real, or do you think the brutal treatment of post war Germany and Japan was fair and reasonable. If the US had lost they would have charged the US with war crimes like the hellish fire bombing campaign of Tokyo by allied forces which killed a hundred thousand civilians or the allied bombings of Germany that killed over 100,000 German civilians. Speaking of war crimes how about the US's hienious use of nuclear weapons on civilian population centers Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Make no mistake, history is written by the victors, it's a fact of life.

[VargasVermillion]

Fordola was a pilus prior, the tribunus militum's were the dudes with the red tabards that hanged near their feet and the red crosses on their helms. The skulls were more or less a individual cohort so her rank meant little to the other officers.

[Cilia]

Let's be real for a minute, Frodola had no way of knowing any of her men were even left alive, they might be slaughtered by the resistance for being traitors to Ala Mhigo. She had no way of knowing that Conrad would try to talk them down and spare them. Your using your meta knowledge of events to pass judgement on her. As far as she knew they were as good as dead, being trapped in a forification being over run by the enemy. The alliance aren't saints either, as I told you theirs a moment right after she fires where two alliance soldiers are going to kill a Garlean soldier who had already surrendered.

P.S. Soldiers who fought in the Civil War were kinslayers (sometimes literally slaying their next of kin) and yet they aren't monsters. Unless you want to label all Union soldiers monsters for slaying Confederate soldiers, literally their fellow countrymen. Being a kinslayer does not make one a "monster" nor does firing on your own troops.

If there were even the possibility of her comrades still being alive, firing on Specula Imperatoris as Fordola did is extremely ruthless at best. I don't know about anyone else, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to be fighting on the front lines knowing my comrades might turn artillery fire on my position because it's an efficient tactic. Note that even the Garleans agree - we helped a Garlean soldier in the wake of that strike, and when doing so he decries the decision and states he'd rather be home in Ilsabard than fighting this stupid war in which he could be killed by his comrades.

The Union and Confederate soldiers placed their ideals above kinship; Fordola did the same. Firing on her own soldiers doesn't make her a monster, but it's hard to construe the action itself as anything other than monstrous.

[Xie_Belvoule]

Firing on her own soldiers doesn't make her a monster, but it's hard to construe the action itself as anything other than monstrous.

Yep, firing on your own soldiers is always monstrous...guess the Russians shouldn't have fired on this hero eh?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...s-HIMSELF.html

Funny you mention that Garlean as he is the very one I mentioned. If you talk to the two alliance soldiers next to to him first, they say they should just kill him. After talking to him and then talking to them again they are frustrated they can't just kill him.

P.S. Besides it must not be too hard to construe it in another light because I certainly can and do.

[Belhi]

The Corpse Brigade are pretty much dealt with in the MNK quests. They did kind of have a plan to make a play at power but I am not really sure how successful it would be. Fun fact though. The Corpse Brigade were trained in techniques specifically designed to counter Monk techniques which is why they were so successful at beating the Fist of Rhalgr. Regardless, while they might make an appearance, I don't think the Corpse Brigade has enough influence or legitimacy to make an attempt at power, particularly after their failures in the MNK quests.

[Cilia]

---

There is a colossal difference in making a sacrifice play (ordering airstrikes on your position knowing you could be killed) and your CO knowingly sacrificing you without your consent (said CO ordering artillery fire on your position because it's an efficient tactic despite knowing you're in the line of fire). Soldiers go into war knowing they may die; they should be able to trust their own comrades not to kill them, though.

If those Alliance soldiers (actually one Ala Mhigan Resistance member) actually had killed the wounded Imperial, they should have been court-martialed for it and / or imprisoned. As far as we know they did not - they asked us to give the order, and we never did, so to the best of our knowledge that Imperial is still alive. Tensions run high, but you condemn any such actions.

... the only way to interpret firing on your own soldiers as "not monstrous" is to believe in amorality. That the ends justify the means. While this seems to be the Garlean standard, I cannot abide that.

[Grayve]

There is a difference between calling a strike in on your own position ( Ibeleive it's called Danger Close is the US military) and ordering a strike on others.

[Alleo]

I am not really sure if we should talk about things that could theoretically happen and look more at the facts and true happenings. The alliance could order such an attack and I would feel anger at them but they did not do anything like that. Heck in that one side quests they could have saved that poison to experiment on it and use it against Garlemald somewhere in the future but they were shocked about this and immediately destroyed it and any research about it. I mean if we go around and assume things then we could say that Aymeric is one step away from murdering everyone in the council to lead Ishgard alone but something like that should not be part of a discussion.

Fact is, that Fordola was the only one in that war (until now) to shot against her own comrades (and not only Garlean soldiers but also her own underlings). It depends on everyones view on how harsh of an action this is but in the end this situation and the one where she let someone be beaten near death where kinda points that made me lose some respect that I had towards her character and that she is quite near at being a monster. I mean how far would she go?

Also there is a difference between being at war and having to kill the enemy and being at war, torturing the enemy, using horrible items to make them suffer even more or even shooting at your own people even though there is no imminent threat of losing the whole war.

In the end there is a reason why people are punished after wars if they did horrible things to the people..they cant just say that they did it under order if its something horrible and this is how it should be.

[YianKutku]

Fact is, that Fordola was the only one in that war (until now) to shot against her own comrades (and not only Garlean soldiers but also her own underlings).

Depending on how strictly you want to define "shoot" and "comrades", there's also Zenos (definitely own comrades, but did not shoot) and that unfortunate villager in the Ruby Sea (shot, may or may not be own comrade, but certainly fellow villager).