Is the FFXIV story basically the PURGE?

[Kallera]

Nope, he was just as bad, just as blinded by the whole mess. I can't even say he doesn't have "innocent blood" on his hands either because he likely took what chance he had to murder young dragons before they became an even bigger threat, or dragons who didn't wish to partake in the conflict.



The entirety of the end of ARR was written out of relevance. The entire Ul'dah mess was basically handwaved away with the only lasting consequence was Raubahn's arm. Y'shtola can "see" just fine and we never saw Thancred use his magic to begin with so the loss of that isn't even negligible, it might as well not be there. The storytelling had an angle and motivation that did not fit in the least with what came after. It's not retconning in the sense that they don't deny it existed in the past, but with how bad a record scratch was heard when you meet Ysayle later, compared to her portrayal which I linked to, they might as well have done that. You're speaking out of the assumption that when we meet Ysayle in 3.0, it's a logical progression of her character after we see her in 2.5. To me, it is not. I cannot believe the woman who laughed maniacally as she unleashed dragons upon Ishgard, calling for them to have their revenge, honestly didn't see the carnage that followed. 3.0 Ysayle is an amazing character. Her ties as a character to Ysayle in 2.5 are skin deep.
And ultimately doesn't negate the original point brought up regarding her, that despite being given the Echo by Hydaelyn, she did some pretty messed up stuff. When we eventually march into Garlemald, I should hope they don't show the WoL laughing themselves silly like she was shown in Ishgard. We'd certainly not send dragons upon the helpless.

Well, not dragons per se, but I hope you'll like Eorzeans using "bomb collared" soldiers more than I will...

[Wyvernheart]

@Momo

Genesis 1:4
[4]And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

[JunseiKei]

Nope, he was just as bad, just as blinded by the whole mess. I can't even say he doesn't have "innocent blood" on his hands either because he likely took what chance he had to murder young dragons before they became an even bigger threat, or dragons who didn't wish to partake in the conflict.



The entirety of the end of ARR was written out of relevance. The entire Ul'dah mess was basically handwaved away with the only lasting consequence was Raubahn's arm. Y'shtola can "see" just fine and we never saw Thancred use his magic to begin with so the loss of that isn't even negligible, it might as well not be there. The storytelling had an angle and motivation that did not fit in the least with what came after. It's not retconning in the sense that they don't deny it existed in the past, but with how bad a record scratch was heard when you meet Ysayle later, compared to her portrayal which I linked to, they might as well have done that. You're speaking out of the assumption that when we meet Ysayle in 3.0, it's a logical progression of her character after we see her in 2.5. To me, it is not. I cannot believe the woman who laughed maniacally as she unleashed dragons upon Ishgard, calling for them to have their revenge, honestly didn't see the carnage that followed. 3.0 Ysayle is an amazing character. Her ties as a character to Ysayle in 2.5 are skin deep.
And ultimately doesn't negate the original point brought up regarding her, that despite being given the Echo by Hydaelyn, she did some pretty messed up stuff. When we eventually march into Garlemald, I should hope they don't show the WoL laughing themselves silly like she was shown in Ishgard. We'd certainly not send dragons upon the helpless.

I don't think you get what I'm saying, or I'm just doing that bad of a job of explaining.

*Thinking.*

Let's see, in 2.x, we fight Shiva (which learns that she must have the Echo to drive her to such measures and to seek out Midgardsormr), we go and confront Midgardsormr as he rises then (and removes the blessing and tags along to see what we can do), learn from Estinien that she desires to reclaim the eye, Iceheart (Ysayle) with heretics and Horde to attack the Gates of Judgement and begin to dispel the wards to directly attack Ishgard (in which we successfully repel them). We don't see her again until 3.x, when we corner her in the hidden location in the Mills. In which Midgardsormr talks with Ysayle. We learn that she has the Echo and learned the truth from Hraesvelgr (the game even telling us Ysayle's voice 'swells with conviction'), only to be reminded the indiscriminate slaughter brought by the Dravanians that she helped to bring in only makes her doubt resurface and says she will make things right.

The cutscene you linked is during 2.x, just before The Steps of Faith fight. At this point, she is literally just going off the sadness and pain that she experienced through Hraesvelgr. However, as you read around (both in game, cutscenes and other observations), you come to find that Ysayle did not fully understand the depths of the Horde's hatred (that they want every Ishgardian dead or turned into a dragon). She thought Nidhogg would end the war by having his eye returned - it was Estinien that revealed it wasn't just the eye that was behind Nidhogg's ire.

What you see as "retconning" or re-writing a character's motivation is what I call not knowing the character fully to begin with (which would be, in this case, Ysayle not knowing the Horde wants to kill/turn everyone, not just retrieve Nidhogg's eye, and she's helping to do that).

[BillyKaplan]

@Momo

Genesis 1:4
[4]And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

>> Applying Western theology to a game made by a Japanese company

[Kallera]

This is why stuffing corrective lore into little short stories and random books is worse than actually putting it in the game. :/

[JunseiKei]

This is why stuffing corrective lore into little short stories and random books is worse than actually putting it in the game. :/

To be fair, there's a lot stuffed into the game, but a lot of people miss it; then that lore gets placed in said books and other outside sources. Multiple times have NPCs near main story quests, but not actually part of cutscenes, give lore and expanded explanations of things. Not to mention some other things tend to be added in the box of text for each quest, sometimes not mentioned anywhere else. A lot of people don't read that text nor talk to every NPC related, or near, the story.

The stuff I mentioned above is all from The Unending Journey's text blocks (at least you can go back and read those, unlike nearby NPCs).

[LineageRazor]

The sooner people detach "light and darkness" from "good and evil" the more this debate can progress. The two pairs are unrelated.

The trouble with detaching Light and Darkness from Good and Evil is that you are then left with the question: Just what ARE Light and Darkness? What kind of actions promote Light? What kind of actions promote Darkness? By elevating Light and Darkness to such abstract concepts, it becomes impossible to try to guide the world away from extremes. I ate a sammich for lunch, and the world got two Darkness points? Dammit! How was I supposed to knooooow???

It makes it easier to tell a story, sure. You can pick whatever actions best suit the current plot line to move the balance one way or another. In patch X.X, the WoL runs Dungeon X, and the Light is strengthened! Hooray! But in Patch Y.Y, WoL runs Dungeon Y, and inadvertently strengthens the Dark while the Ascians chortle with glee. Onoes!

Speaking of the Asicans, it doesn't help the "Darkness is not Evil" theory that the folks apparently on the side of Darkness are all (save Elidibus) cackling villains. :/ Sure, we have the Warriors of Darkness, in theory evidence that you can promote the Dark without being evil - but they USED to be Warriors of Light, and are only WoDs now because the Ascians helped them become so. Plus, they became WoDs out of desperation, and were prepared to engage in some pretty evil acts to save their world. Which, again, doesn't help the theory.

[JackHatchet]

So if Light and Darkness are not the same as good and evil--why didn't we just allign ourselves with the warriors of darkness. A duo of light and dark and then proceed to make all the world good with balance? How do we stop being so good that we ruin our world like they did. Or do we just have to main a dark knight of black mage. It's ok to do light things as long as I'm a dark-alligned class. Then it balances out?

I guess I'm just really confused on what the point of the light vs dark balance if there's no good way for it to work. Or should we refuse Hydaleans gift if too much light is like a poison. Maybe we need to cleanse ourselves of any elemental allignment and just be 'warriors of neutrality.' Heck, even ask Miggersomder to remove our light crystals or whatever. But didn't we have a dark one too? Ugh. I feel like the story is messed up.

[BillyKaplan]

What kind of actions promote Light?

Both us as WoL and the WoDs slayed Ravana. When we did it it promoted Light, when they did it it promoted Darkness. It's like I said before, it's a matter of association. We're Hydaelyn's Champions, the Ascians are Zodiark's. People are over complicating this.

Plus, they became WoDs out of desperation

Which should at least be proof that the Light can be evil, too. It destroyed their world.

and were prepared to engage in some pretty evil acts to save their world.

They weren't going to do anything we haven't already done, the difference was in narrative. Fight people? Kill people, even? Been there, done that. The rest is a trick of the narrative and some lazy writing with how they behaved, though as you said, they were desperate and exhausted, so I'm willing to give them that. Also there's an interesting case to be made here where the Ascians, while for their own ends, were willing to help them while Hydaelyn did nothing until we basically handed the WoD to her, and even then it was more for self preservation (sucking the Light out) than to help her former champions.

Does this mean both the Light and Dark are crummy more so than both can be either? So far, yeah, but Light not being all good is enough breaking the dichotomy for me.

why didn't we just allign ourselves with the warriors of darkness.

To be fair, most of the characters were in the dark, and were faced with the reality that the WoDs were out for blood. You're forgetting that someone did align himself with them, and solved their predicament without falling into the Ascians' hands to boot - Urianger.

How do we stop being so good that we ruin our world like they did.

They didn't ruin their world because they were good. They ruined their world because they were uncontested champions of Light, just like how the Void was born because the Darkness was too strong in it. It's all about strength, and who you represent.

I guess I'm just really confused on what the point of the light vs dark balance if there's no good way for it to work.

Well that's kind of the long lasting plot points so far, with the Ascians harping on and on about how we'd eventually see things their way, and all our scholars trying to find alternatives. That question isn't meant to have an answer yet.

I feel like the story is messed up.

Welcome to Final Fantasy.

[KisaiTenshi]

So from my understanding, in the fictional horror movie "The Purge," they've figured out that society functions best if we have a day of darkness once a year, so that people can be good the rest of the year. That is, everyone gets out their evil-impulses one day a year, so that they can be super good and nice the rest of the year. Trying to create some kind of wonky balance. I don't know. It's a fictional movie. *shrugs*


Now in FFXIV, they keep threatening that if we're good all the time, and let The Light win--that it'll consume our world-shard or some nonsense. And that's basically what happened with the Warriors of Darkness. Which means that ultimately to keep our world from being destroyed--we need to find a way to balance light and dark. So... wouldn't it be better to just copy the purge at that point? Run a tight ship of folks being good most of the year, and then just let people be evil one day a year to prevent us from ever going full-on light?

The film doesn't really do that. Basically the premise is that "the rule of law is suspended for one day", and it's everyone for themselves, thus the rich people live in heavily fortified houses and anyone who doesn't live in a bunker is fair game. It's too much of a stretch to apply anything from that to FFXIV.

At the beginning of the film you see the neighbors being all nice to each other, and then just as the purge day starts, a wounded stranger begs to be let in, and the family lets them in, which leads into the rest of the film basically having the family defend themselves from another group of purgers.

I thought the purge was more about racism and the rich being allowed to go beat up the poor once a year

You're not wrong, though the film kinda does a third act twist at the end, that anyone should have seen coming.

Now as for if it's "evil" or not.

The conflict in FFXIV is a "light vs dark" not "good vs evil", because if it were the latter... just look at how many times we go on quests that involve slaughtering tempered beast tribes. If the game had any kind of permanence, the game would allow the players to kill all the tempered beast tribes , and they wouldn't respawn, and thus beast tribes like the goblins and sylphs would just encourage us to kill the tempered ones. From our point of view, the tempered beast tribes are beyond redemption, so just kill them all and no more summonings right? But what causes them to summon their primal in the first place is the Eorzeans or Garleans invading their territories.

Are we any different than the beast tribes? We are doing things because Hydaelyn has blessed us to do them, but what about Zodiark? The Ascians are doing things for Zodiark to induce rejoinings. If we managed to kill all the Ascians, then the rejoinings would stop wouldn't they? Yet think about how we got the echo in the first place. We were just a random person caught up in a series of events. Perhaps so are the Ascians.