Ahh, sorry folks... I have been busy... fighting another morally grey war back on my old stomping grounds of Azeroth.

Well, it's morally grey if you consider unprovoked aggression, killing civilians to the point of near genocide by razing a presently demilitarized capital city, use of chemical weapons on friend and foe alike, and the desecration of said remains... ostensibly for the sake of a lasting peace... to be morally grey acts.


A-anyway, I hopped on and did the Rising event for the year... doesn't really bode well. It doesn't sound like things are going to work out for us, or perhaps the "hero of rebirth transcending" refers to Zenos? I'm going to go with the latter.

... and you guys had a whole Garlemald debate without me! I'm almost disappointed. Well, a lot of points I tend to iterate have already been brought up, but here's my fresh take.

When Garlemald is described as "evil," so to speak, it depends on the context in which you look at it. As a country on Hydaelyn, it seeks to preserve the world - a good end - but uses what most would classify as Lawful Evil methods to achieve that end. Lawful Evil is best summed up as "peace through tyranny," and that is something that fits Garlemald very well.

Garlemald's background as a struggling republic may have shaped its ruthless foreign policy, but it - and its proponents - need to recognize that it's no longer that struggling republic. It hasn't been for, if memory serves, 50 years. There's no longer a need for Garlemald to continue expanding its borders, let alone oppressing the people of territories it conquers. The common counterargument to this is that it does so in order to help prevent primal summons; however Garlemald (or more specifically Solus zos Galvus) chose to continue a campaign of conquest into Othard after conquering Ilsabard and before the Garleans were aware of the existence (or at least effects) of primals, so this is a retroactive justification at best and in practice serves as little more than a veneer to excuse Solus' wanton greed.

Furthermore Imperial activity has not diminished primal activity; on the contrary, it has spurred it on and is indirectly responsible for Eorzea presently being a hotspot for such activity.

Another common argument in favor of Garlemald's ruthlessness is that they must be this way due to lacking divine aid in the form of something akin to the Warrior of Light; however Eorzea did not have such aid either until after the initial Imperial attack on Silvertear, so this is very shaky. Neither Garlemald nor Eorzea were given the assistance of a Warrior of Light for over 1500 years, and at some point Eorzea even proved it does not need the Warrior of Light to take on primals either (high though the cost may be).

Were the Garleans persecuted, or were they simply not favored by nature? Persecution implies they were deliberately targeted and systematically mistreated based on racial factors. Unless something says, verbatim, that persecution was what happened, I simply believe they could not win large scale battles against other nations / tribes and were causally unable to hold more fertile lands, leading to them being pushed to less hospitable territory. That's not persecution, it's simply nature running its course - for better or worse. The Garleans developed magitek to adapt, later using it to fuel warmachina and retake their ancestral homelands - then did not stop there until Eorzea showed, time and again, that the Empire is not invincible and that even by Garlemald's "might makes right" paradigm it deserves its liberty regardless of what the Empire wants or believes. Hell, both the Eorzeans and Domans have even reclaimed lost territory from Imperial occupation.

I'm getting off track... right, "morally grey." The context in which this term is used is of vital importance. In terms of foreign policy, Garlemald is not morally grey. It launches unprovoked assaults on benign nations for the sake of conquest, enslaves the population, conscripts any able-bodied civilians into military service, is known to take women from said territories for use as "comfort women" (re: sex slaves), and reduces the rest of the populace to near-destitution from what we've seen. "Not all provinces are like this, some prosper under Imperial rule" - no province should be like that (anyone treated as such is fully within their rights to rise up), and there is presently no record of a province embracing Imperial rule [b]or[/i] doing better under Garlemald's banner (the best we have is them remaining "relatively unchanged," if I'm quoting Baut correctly).

"Eorzea's not perfect either!" ... but we're not talking about Eorzea, we're talking about Garlemald, its warmongering, and its oppressive foreign policy. Bringing up [X thing Y Eorzean nation did Z years ago] is nothing more than a red herring in context and should be disregarded.

Is this to say that all Garleans are "evil?" No, not at all; the Populares (populists) are proof. But as a nation - a unified political entity - Garlemald's aggressive and oppressive policies are [b]not/i] things to abide... regardless of whether or not one finds their past sympathetic or their excuse valid. The only way to deal with such a country is to hit it back twice as hard, without advancing beyond one's own borders (i.e. defending one's turf)... and at present that's all Eorzea and Doma have done.

To construe self-defense as a morally grey act requires jumping through a lot of logical hoops. "Garlemald is acting in self-defense too!" Yes and no; while it is earnest in its desire to suppress primal summons and activity, it is going about it in counterproductive ways for selfish ends, and would still have its aggressive and oppressive foreign policies even without those threats (minus, perhaps, the outlawing of any and all religious practices, no matter how benign). That is what makes the Eorzeans, Domans, and Warrior of Light the "good guys" in context.

To boil it down, a hero is someone who uses their strength for the sake of others - not only themselves. The Eorzeans (and in particular the Scions and Warrior of Light) have repeatedly done as much, while Garlemald has only ever fought and waged war for its own sake. So... saying they're just protagonists and not genuine heroes comes across as somewhat disingenuous.

Is Garlemald morally grey? Yes, in the sense that it has a long-reaching good end (preserving the planet), but the means it uses to do so, how it treats conquered territories and peoples, and the fact it does so only in order to have something to rule over pushes it so close to black saying the military conflicts between it and other nations are "morally grey" affairs is practically laughable.

Someone poke holes in this; I need to resharpen my argumentative skills.