The WOL and Mass Murder

[Krotoan]

but that doesn't mean we can't flush through the ideas and see if we could find a good way to do it without being some lame dc/marvel cop out.

like people keep bring up major powers going against us and the question is WHO? we literally know all the people in charge and their next top twos

Each leader has their own reason for liking us and considers us a friend and hero. However if the perception of us were changed , They'd would definitely turn against us to protect their cities. Say the seedseers received visions of us unbalancing nature or destroying the world around gridania. Lolorito also isn't our friend no matter how much he's helped us, and he's not only powerful but he's shown again and again if something benefits him greatly he doesn't care who loses out or even dies. Every bit of "help" we've gotten from him or his associates has been paid for in one way or another.

All it really takes to sway public opinion is one "credible" major figure pointing a finger at us. We're a hero sure, but the people in power we've been interacting with have been around far longer than we have. In actual game time I think less than a year has passed.

All that said, I don't think I know enough about the lore to write out something that would turn the world against us and leave us fighting our former allies, but I do think it would be interesting. I've always wondered how we match up against these other "heroes" we hang around.

It would be EXTREMELY difficult from a gameplay point of view though, would be we cut off from all formerly friendly NPC's until we could resolve the storyline? It would be weird to be fighting an epic battle against Limsa's forces but checking on your Maelstrom Squadron in between. I think if any sort of "we're the badguys now" line was implemented it would have to be a new area, as losing access to old areas , even temporarily , wouldn't be worth the story.

That's a very poor analogy - it's like saying if a cure for cancer was found and then demanding all the doctors of the world be charged with murder because "they didn't implement it until now!" Cures are not retroactive. Yes we lament that "if only that was available to us back then!", but we don't then blame them for "not having it then to save them!"

I find people to make unreasonable claims like that all the time. Hindsight is 2020 and people who are already being swayed to dislike us wouldn't need a whole lot to push them over the edge into hate.

And I really , REALLY don't want to get into a "mechanics of the fantasy world" argument when we have people being dissolved into life force and then reconstituted or turned into gods. Not that what you've said doesn't make sense, but writing in something about how the tempereds soul COULD be rescued through a call into the aether and blah blabbity bloop, untempered. It's not a matter of if current known mechanics allow in a fantasy setting, it's if it can be wormed in with new facts.

[SendohJin]

but writing in something about how the tempereds soul COULD be rescued through a call into the aether and blah blabbity bloop, untempered.

who is doing this research? the WoL isn't an aether scholar/scientist. who is going to build and fund this tempered Gitmo in the mean time while this research is happening?

like why are we individually responsible for everything in this society.

[Krotoan]

who is doing this research? the WoL isn't an aether scholar/scientist. who is going to build and fund this tempered Gitmo in the mean time while this research is happening?

like why are we individually responsible for everything in this society.

I dunno? I didn't say it had to be US? Just that something got invented. I'm pretty sure that in a world where tempering can happen that somebody would always been trying to think of a way to reverse it. Try not to get stuck on only that though, like I said I'm no writer nor a lorehound. Other reasons for public opinion turning could be found.

[Dualblade]

I dunno? I didn't say it had to be US? Just that something got invented. I'm pretty sure that in a world where tempering can happen that somebody would always been trying to think of a way to reverse it. Try not to get stuck on only that though, like I said I'm no writer nor a lorehound. Other reasons for public opinion turning could be found.

I haven't done every quest out there, still ave plenty of job quests to do. You know what I HAVE done? The Amal'jaa beast tribe quests. You know what one of those repeat quests was about? Testing possible cures for the tempered. The WoL is COMPELTELY willing to try and cure tempering, even if they themselves can't come up with a true cure.

If you want people to not get "stuck on it", you should also give other possible reasons for public opinion to change. Just prepare to be challenged on it and try to defend the various ways.

[Krotoan]

I haven't done every quest out there, still ave plenty of job quests to do. You know what I HAVE done? The Amal'jaa beast tribe quests. You know what one of those repeat quests was about? Testing possible cures for the tempered. The WoL is COMPELTELY willing to try and cure tempering, even if they themselves can't come up with a true cure.

If you want people to not get "stuck on it", you should also give other possible reasons for public opinion to change. Just prepare to be challenged on it and try to defend the various ways.

I'm not in here to write the story though, I'm suggesting that there ARE reasons for people to turn against us. I'm sure people can think of a thousand reasons we could be disgraced and a thousand more why that wouldn't work. I used an example and people started to try and worm out all the problems with it. Ok , that's fine. When someone says "wouldn't it be cool if.. " I like that and am thinking along that thread.

When did I ever say we WEREN'T for it? I said it didn't have to come from us. It doesn't even have to be about tempering. There's all the families of soldiers we have killed (and we've killed a lot), theres the friends and families of the people who died before we could stop big enemies. There are many people in this world who likely don't like us for particular reasons. Good or bad it's there. I don't think the OP's proposition is that outlandish and is an idea that would be fun to expound upon.

Yeesh.

[SenorPatty]

I'm not in here to write the story though, I'm suggesting that there ARE reasons for people to turn against us. I'm sure people can think of a thousand reasons we could be disgraced and a thousand more why that wouldn't work. I used an example and people started to try and worm out all the problems with it. Ok , that's fine. When someone says "wouldn't it be cool if.. " I like that and am thinking along that thread.

When did I ever say we WEREN'T for it? I said it didn't have to come from us. It doesn't even have to be about tempering. There's all the families of soldiers we have killed (and we've killed a lot), theres the friends and families of the people who died before we could stop big enemies. There are many people in this world who likely don't like us for particular reasons. Good or bad it's there. I don't think the OP's proposition is that outlandish and is an idea that would be fun to expound upon.

Yeesh.

Can I just ask why people with your similar thinking keeps hanging onto "the families of soldiers" the WoL has killed as one of the best motives to have Eorzea turn against the WoL? I see this repeated a lot in this thread.

Especially when we've been killing Garlean soldiers (whom last I checked, they were Eorzea's enemies), corrupt soldiers (boy does SE loooove to go a full mile with those ones) and at the very bottom, soldiers who attacked the WoL first and were not gonna back down until someone died. Tempered? Dead to begin with.

Nowhere in the story is WoL accidentally killing innocents. None. SE has made sure that when it comes to the WoL at the very least, he/she is killing and only gonna be killing people who are either enemies of Eorzea, harms defenseless people or both.

It could just me but I feel like some people in this thread are looking real hard to either spice up the narrative cuz its too linear in its morality or they're trying their best to paint the WoL as some sinister figure. Either way, it just screams boredom to me.

[Krotoan]

Can I just ask why people with your similar thinking keeps hanging onto "the families of soldiers" the WoL has killed as one of the best motives to have Eorzea turn against the WoL? I see this repeated a lot in this thread.
Especially when we've been killing Garlean soldiers (whom last I checked, they were Eorzea's enemies), corrupt soldiers (boy does SE loooove to go a full mile with those ones) and at the very bottom, soldiers who attacked the WoL first and were not gonna back down until someone died. Tempered? Dead to begin with.


Nowhere in the story is WoL accidentally killing innocents. None. SE has made sure that when it comes to the WoL at the very least, he/she is killing and only gonna be killing people who are either enemies of Eorzea, harms defenseless people or both.

It could just me but I feel like some people in this thread are looking real hard to either spice up the narrative cuz its too linear in its morality or they're trying their best to paint the WoL as some sinister figure. Either way, it just screams boredom to me.

I use it as an example because I've experienced that narrative in many stories I've read or watched and it easily comes to mind. Generally your family , whether you're a "good" person or not, values your life over nearly anyone elses. It's a very easy link and a super common trope to invoke revenge or "justice" by those left behind as a reason for conflict. There is generally no reason that could be given that would satisfy the equation without the death of the person who killed the family member. It creates a very easily relatable and compelling empathetic situation. That's why I use that. It's not definitive though, just an example.

We don't KNOW that everyone we kill is evil or even misguided though. We get set down and pointed at a group and told : "Solve this.". And most of the time we solve it by eliminating anything in our way. Garleans have shown they conscript people all the time and for all we know the garlean soldiers we've been happily killing are doing so because they'll die if they disobey. We don't ask every soldier we mow down if they'd like a chance to surrender and we've even been shown recently in the story that when we give them a chance they're willing to lay down arms, surrender and even integrate.

Now I'll let go of the families narrative though , just to broaden the possibilities.


We are very powerful. By story and by demonstration we can overcome everything we've been put against. Even gods and forces of nature. We are currently battling against a designed superweapon and winning (I hope that's not a spoiler) . We're also very charismatic. We easily get people to join our cause and somehow have gathered a party of other adventurers who are comparable in power to ourselves (unless canonically our party doesn't exist) to complete our given tasks. I believe this has been covered already but the fear of what we can do if we decided we had an agenda or if someone influenced us against someone else would be great enough to inspire any large power in our universe to attempt to threaten (through threats to friends or other values) us into compliance or even to try and destroy us.


What's wrong with wanting to add something to the narrative though? I enjoy the story, I have my own headcannon as to my characters motivation and actions . Exploring the "what ifs" and "wouldn't it be neat .." moments is a great exercise creatively.

However in all likelyhood SE will not and cannot lift story elements from the forums for copyright and IP reasons. If any of this shows up in the game I'll be absolutely shocked.

And I'll outright admit, hell yes I'm bored right now. I'm at work. I can't play!

[Rokke]

The WoL is “feared” in the same way mooks are afraid of Batman- ie, the bad guys are afraid of the good guy. The average citizen sees us as a war hero that also rescue kittens out of trees, feeds orphans, helps people with menial chores, etc.

All it really takes to sway public opinion is one "credible" major figure pointing a finger at us. We're a hero sure, but the people in power we've been interacting with have been around far longer than we have.

I think we've long passed that point. Even if the original 3 cities + ala mhigo + doma would -for whatever reason- turn on us, we know that Ishgard and it's people would bend over backwards for the WoL. We'll never fully get a WoL vs. the world situation anymore.