Is Fordola the monster Lyse says she is?

[CaesarCV]

I could see them showing up eventually! Although probably not yet. Right now they still want to establish Varis as a primary antagonist, and those sorts of divisions wouldn't work well for that. Not to mention that lorewise, what YianKutku said is very telling. Right now the anti-imperialist faction is destroyed and suppressed. It will probably be a long while before they have the sort of political capital or military resources to do anything of note. They might be biding their time for a better chance to strike though. I could definitely see them as allies for the inevitable Garlemald expansion however, especially if they support a Larsa figure or serve as a counterpoint to Varis.

[Rocl]

Varis's father should have been the third-born (or more) son, assuming male inheritance. Solus's first-born died of illness "when the boy was still young" (according to the lorebook), which implies not having been old enough to bear a son like Varis.

More recently printed editions (I think this one is from Japan?) confirms that this is a typo and has been changed:

I'm personally of the belief that Varis is of the first-born son's issue, but I don't think we have any confirmation. Furthermore given the singular "son" mentioned in Varis' entry, I don't personally believe there exist any more sons of Solus. (At least not any "yae," maybe there's some bastards out there, or something.)

[Cilia]

There are, but they lost the civil war, so I don't know how many of them are left, between casualties from the war (both during the war and after the inevitable purges) and former peace faction members who decided to join the expansionist faction out of self-interest (whether to join the winning team, or just to avoid the purges).

Duly noted, but I would argue that the movement remains in the background. Hope and ideas are both notoriously difficult to kill.

Forgot to address this:

I've always wondered what happened to the rest of Varis's family. Obviously he should have a father and mother, but we hear nothing of them. And Zenos should also have a mother, but again, we hear nothing of her.

I've pondered the same things, but most likely... unless they come up, I will consider them victims of Garlean power politics. Garlemald does have Roman influence in it, and that empire was (in)famous for its power politics, something that likely translated over to Garlemald - Solus' bio even notes that he was betrayed by a great many friends during his reign, and it wouldn't be surprising if his family (to include Varis' mother and father as well as Zenos' mother, assuming that Varis is not the son of Solus' firstborn before he died) was caught in the crossfire. A great many Roman emperors were assassinated or killed, though more did die of natural causes than not - unless one looks into those who were deposed, mutilated, and/or later killed, in which case the number who died of natural causes is lower than not.

So... yeah.

[YianKutku]

More recently printed editions (I think this one is from Japan?) confirms that this is a typo and has been changed:

Ah, okay. It does explode several speculations I had about why Varis's father had not bothered to contest the throne.

(Such as he was the former legatus of the Xth Legion, and after retirement he moved to Thavnair to spend his days playing underwater football.)

Duly noted, but I would argue that the movement remains in the background. Hope and ideas are both notoriously difficult to kill.

Definitely. The non-expansionist movement is probably alive in some form, although I should note that "non-expansionist" covers a lot of ideological ground, ranging from pacifism to various degrees of isolationism.

It's just that they'd probably be restricted to secret societies and hushed backroom meetings, rather than proposals in the Senate. I don't actually know how much protection for speech a member of the Imperial Senate gets, but the Empire did just go through a civil war, which tends to be the environment where rights get curtailed through victor's justice.

I mention this because we've already had an expansion storyline with the whole underground resistance and leaders in hiding thing, so I doubt we're going to see a repeat if we go into Garlemald. So I'm curious how the story will deal with all these factors.

I've pondered the same things, but most likely... unless they come up, I will consider them victims of Garlean power politics.

That's the most likely explanation, yes.

It's just that it's either so obvious that the lorebook doesn't see fit to mention it, or it's a plot point that's going to come up and the lorebook doesn't want to spoil. At this point, I'm not sure which is the case.

[Raqrie_Tohka]

I sometimes wonder ... well what if Fordola is the monster Lyse says she is? Forget about all the debates, for a moment just pretend she has some neuro-disorder making her unfeeling, unpitying, sadistic, and very sociopathic. This was worsened with her little scientific experiment. Done. So now she is a "monster" through and through. Just like Zenos.

Ok, we killed Zenos, but we still have a "Fordola". And we now know (pretend we do) she is a monster, she acts like one, refuses to stop acting like one, and the only reason she is somewhat manageable is because of a considerable amount of resources dedicated to restraining her powers. She has also (just pretend) openly expressed support, even desire, for Zenos. She also salutes with one hand in a weird way (ok this part is joking but you get the idea by now).

So the question is: what do we do with her now? Lock her up forever? Still attempt to reason with her? Execute her? Send her back to Garlemald with trackers? Perform dissecting experiments on her without moral guilt now, in an attempt to extract the technology in her for our own use? What will the other characters think and react to this? What would the WoL do?

Now obviously the devs won't write the story into an epic labyrinth like this, but if we want serious discussion, this is about as serious as it gets, and I am very interested, and looking forward to your answers.

[Alleo]

Well in real life someone like that would probably never be a part of the normal society again, because they would have no chance to recover from it thus would probably be seen as too dangerous. I dare to say that in Eorzea this would either lead to her execution or life time imprisonment. The latter is something I could see as a way for her to end. Lyse might be the one that still attempts to reason with her but I cant truly see the other leaders do that, because in their eyes she probably did too much bad stuff. If they get to hear how she and her team threated the common people and that she was the one attacking with the canon..well it would be quite surprising if they would simply allow her to be free. Lyse in that way is still a bit idealistic in her thinking and wants a place even for someone like her but all the other leaders have way more experience in that and probably would not take the risk of letting her go. (She was raised in Garlemald so there could be a big chance that she would end up spying on them for Garlemald for example)

If she is truly redeemed at the end and runs around free..well I really hope that there is a good reason for that because she still did some bad things and people land in prison for less stuff..

I cant see Eorzea doing any kind of experiments with her. One of the few that have some sort of technological knowledge is Cid and his company and he would never do something like that. Also Eorzea had the chance to own a horrible poison that was made by Garlemald which would give them some kind of advantage but they were horrified by that and destroyed any kind of evidence, so I just cant see them doing something like that to her.

[Ametrine]

Snip

We, as Scions, have to perform regular mercy killings on the tempered followers of Primals as they are both driven to madness by the primal's influence, and by their very existence, empower and embolden said primal.

The framing you put on Fordola here skirts uncomfortably close that the same put around the innocent people tempered.

Being tempered is more deeply entrenched than brainwashing (much like a major neurological disorder as you suggested), so I think if THAT were the direction the story went, the Scions and WoL may feel a mercy killing was the only solution.

Lyse, however, isn't technically a Scion anymore, so you may be on to something there.

[CaesarCV]

To be fair, I don't think that Fordola is brainwashed to the point of Tempering. While they did put her through the resonant process, it doesn't seem to have given her increased loyalty or anything like that. I certainly think that Lyse, at the very least, it far too idealistic and compassionate to simply murder Fordola or jail her for life. Managing to redeem Fordola, or make her a productive member of society, would be a huge victory on a personal level for her. Like it or not, there are probably many citizens of Ala Migho like her, ones who are still loyal to the Empire. If Lyse can bring over one of their leaders, there might be hope for the rest too.

[Rosenoire]

My feeling is that her relative unfamiliarity with the Echo will be key. I'm guessing that while the Resonance grants her great combat ability she probably has no idea of the other side effects, and these side effects will prove too much for her. Maybe she'll think she's going crazy, seeing visions of the past and not knowing what they are, and this will provide an inroad to working with her. I'm hoping that, as a "veteran" Echo user, the WoL, and possibly Arenvald as well, will become something like mentors to her, to teach her to control her power so she's not overwhelmed.

Having played through the 4.1 MSQ:

May I congratulate you on being totally right. You called it!

[Quor]

Having played through the 4.1 MSQ:

May I congratulate you on being totally right. You called it!

Thank you sir! I admit it felt good seeing that, and not just cause it was a great scene. Alleo gets some credit too I think, for calling out what Fordola would experience.

More on topic though, having seen the 4.1 MSQ now, I can say that I don't believe Fordola is a monster anymore. She was well on her way to becoming one under Zenos' less-than-tender care, but thanks to her experiences, both with Lyse/the WoL/Arenvald and the Echo, it seems like that influence is being purged. And you can quite clearly see she had a great deal of respect and admiration for Gaius, to the previous theories on how Zenos took the harsh-but-fair attitude Gaius had and twisted it into something monstrous (exemplified in Fordola) ring true.