About the Emperor [Major Spoilers for 4.4]

[Remedi]

Tbf few ppl knew of the puppet thing, most of the ppl a well meaning and extremely misguided in the end.
I mean Gaius is an example and he's coming back with a vengeance

I do think they are trying to salvage the empire after they have kinda demonized them too much with what Zenos was doing. I mean, if Zenos was the poster boy of the empire I don't think anyone would say they can be saved, since they would be irredeemably evil

[Rocl]

I definitely never considered Zenos the poster boy for the Empire fwiw; he goes out of his way to show you he doesn't really care about the Empire or their purported mission. He may be the Emperor's son, and legatus to boot, but he's a really piss-poor Imperial.

[Bright-Flower]

I definitely never considered Zenos the poster boy for the Empire fwiw; he goes out of his way to show you he doesn't really care about the Empire or their purported mission. He may be the Emperor's son, and legatus to boot, but he's a really piss-poor Imperial.

Yeah, and they made Zenos intentionally unsympathetic for the purpose of not having people side with him like some people wanted to side with Gaius in ARR. If anything this move is to help push people away from siding with the empire by saying 'actually their mission statement about saving the world form primals is a lie.'

[Remedi]

I thin this move is making ppl side with the empire more, since now the Garleans can be redeemed, tbh the story being set up is not much different than Ishgard

[ChaoticCrimson]

I thin this move is making ppl side with the empire more, since now the Garleans can be redeemed, tbh the story being set up is not much different than Ishgard

I wouldn't say Garlemald is redeemable exactly, or at least not in its current state. Ascian manipulations aside, as well as whatever true feelings about said manipulations he has, Varis is still very complicit. I don't doubt he could potentially become a valuable ally for a time, should he become too much of a nuisance for the Ascians and Elidibus plays the crown heir's body card to usurp full control of Garlean operations. Even so, it's an alliance that likely won't last one way or the other. While Varis may be doing what he believes is right for his people, I don't think he'll abandon his own beliefs on what should be the core Garlean values. Without Ascians to pull the strings, he will likely still lead the Empire on its path of conquest, only according to his own designs instead. Even should he decide to change things and make amends for the wrongs the Empire committed under the influence of the Ascians, he should still be held accountable for his own part in perpetuating them. In order for Garlemald to truly begin the path of "redemption", as you may, I think it could be done only under the rule of someone else entirely. Perhaps someone who has already paid dearly for following the path of conquest, and for working closely with Ascians? Someone who may already be trying to make amends for these mistakes? I wonder...

[Remedi]

Neither Varis nor Gaius wants to abandon their conquest wiew nor does the populares mind you.
Can't say for Varis exactly, but both Gaius and the populares wants to have the empire being not an oppressive force.
As I said elsewhere, the populares treaty for Doma was essentially asking to become Vassal since they were asking them to enforce their belief of no summoning to the othardian's beast tribes.
It's another form of conquest, not done by war but by politics (you can guess what would've followed if they didn't accept).
What I mean with redeemable is that, they are not exactly all evil, which was not really something you could imagine from what you saw Zenos' doing. It also makes the empire all the more interesting and less cartoonish villain.


TBF I was expecting ppl being more disappointed that this is Ishgard all over again more than anything else

[ObsidianFire]

Because it's not Ishgard all over again. That's why.

As far as we can tell, the Ascians were never involved with Ishgard's problems until very recently. The Ishgard/Dravanian conflict? That's all on the Ishgardians killing Ratatoskr way back when and Nidhogg never letting go. Thordan's ambitions? From the sound of it, he's always had those, the Ascians just gave him a means to act them out fully. Nearly all of Ishgard's problems and conflicts have nothing to do with Ascian involvement and everything to do with normal ordinary people grabbing power and practically immortal beings holding a grudge.

Garlemald though... people have been debating for literal years what kick-started the Empire after 800 years of a successful Republic. And they've been debating for just as long why the Empire can't seem to get that trying to concur people to eradicate eikons contributes more then anything else does to eikons being summoned in the first place. We've all known something out of the ordinary must have happened for the Empire to have formed. An Ascian creating an Empire to keep the world in a constant sate of chaos nicely fills in all those gaps.

From everything we can tell, the Garlean Empire is the first (and currently only) country that the Ascians built from scratch. They didn't subtly influence it's founding, they didn't try to nudge it's leader in the direction they wanted him to go. Nope, instead they ran the entire thing from day one with seemingly no resistance and appeased the people they were leading with a bunch of logical sounding lies. We've never had that before. Certainly not on that scale. Garlemald controls an entire continent. Compared to that, Ishgard is a city-state and it's surrounding lands. The scale alone makes the two situations very different.

[Cilia]

The term "vassal state" has a lot of political strings that weren't present in the primary agreement - in that case, Doma would be completely and totally subservient to the Empire, which was not part of the agreement. The agreement was simply to not summon eikons themselves and keep an eye on the beast tribes and try to prevent any summons - things they were already doing. Of course the Empire may have attacked had they not accepted or kept their word, but the terms were so agreeable it was nearly impossible not to (purposefully, mind) - but, threat of war or not, there was no request for submission from Doma. Becoming a vassal state was neither explicit nor implicit. ("Don't summon eikons and try to make sure the locals don't either, and we'll work towards peaceful coexistence starting with a prisoner exchange. No agreement, no exchange.")

We... don't actually have evidence that the Populares have the same goal as the Optimates and are just using a different method of achieving that goal. We also we have no idea what Gaius' goals are at this point beyond the extermination of Ascians - though his experience working with Lahabrea has clearly changed his perspective on some things.

Nobody has ever said that the Garlean people are all evil - but the system they have set up perpetuates violence and conflict, and is rooted in a bunch of meaningless lies. Zenos is a poor example of what the Garlean people could be, but he is an exemplar of the sort of evils the Empire's system produces, and stopping monsters like him is the very reason the Empire must be opposed.

We don't know this is going to go the Ishgard route and I will be somewhat disappointed if it does, but that's better than having to tear the whole thing down. I guess it needs to be clearer, but I don't think most people have issues with the Garlean people - it's their war machine that's the main issue, with the brutality some (if not most) provinces are subjected to being a close second... and the motivations for those things are nothing more than meaningless lies, so "morally grey" or not, who is in the right is pretty clear.

[Alleo]

I thin this move is making ppl side with the empire more, since now the Garleans can be redeemed, tbh the story being set up is not much different than Ishgard

Garlemald could have always be "redeemed". Just never with its current system. Just like Ishgard a change in government and revealing the truth behind it could make for a different Garlemald. My problem with the Ascians being founders is, that it even makes current Garlemald completetly morally black. People cant even go and say that the government believed to do the right thing because the government (or at least the emperor) knew that it was all a lie. (One could argue that the people of Garlemald still were behind the idea of conquering other states because even an Ascian needs the approval of the masses to act as a ruler) So any complexity behind it is gone. All is a lie and its even worse than Isghard in that case because there it was a lie to protect people, since knowing the truth may have broken the will to fight thus killing them even easier. Here its a lie built in a state where there is no harsh enemy, just a lie to have people go to war against the world.

A lie that killed millions of people thanks to all the conquerings, thanks to the calamity that they created and all the suffering that people around the world go through. The empire until its reformed and peaceful is nothing but bad. No nuance there, nothing. Just there to create chaos and bring back Zodiark. (And again I do mean the government or state of Garlemald, not individual people that live there, those can be quite different on the moral scale)

[Remedi]

Suppose we can agree to disagree. I didn't see a way for a Garlemand redeem story before, while this makes that option possible

I honestly see parallels to Ishgard and frankly Ishagrd comes out in the worst since as far as we've seen only Solus knew the truth while Ishagrd had essentially a secret police and the head of the clergy keeping the popoluce under constant check, not to mention they spun that lie to keep themselves appear holy and rigtheous.