Dark Knights Questline (Spoilers ahead)

[Kalise]

I really didn't like the SB quests for DRK.

Myste was super annoying and horrendously naive.

Like, the single most painful thing to endure, is the loss of someone important. He wanted to put people through that a second time, by tricking them into thinking that their loved one was still alive, before they eventually poofed into nothing.

The only time his plan had any merit was when he summoned Ser Ompagne to allow Sid (Whom was fully aware that this was not him being still alive and Myste would have known this, unlike with literally everyone else he summoned for) to have some self reflection.

Then the final quest? Where this little brat is trying to guilt trip me?

Are you for real?

It's not as if I went out hunting down people to kill for kicks and giggles. No, the kills I've made were to prevent someone from perpetuating suffering and death on a mass scale.

Like, JFC, Temple Knights? We had to take them out to stop Thordan from continuing the Dragonsong War that had lasted over 1000 years and had claimed innumerous souls (Both human AND dragon). To say nothing about him trying to gain more power and become a Primal... (While Ystride we took out because she was trying to kill her own daughter. With who knows how many other people she'd put to death for her stupid beliefs?)

Freaking Ilberd? The bloody guy that literally rallied a bunch of people to march them to their death into Baelsar's Wall? AND THEN summoned a Primal with intent to have it just go around and murder people all willy nilly?

Imperials? The people that are literally trying to take over all of Eorzea and wipe out all races they deem "Savages"? With recent reveals showing that the Emperor of the Imperials actually wants to literally destroy all life on several different worlds?

Come on kid... At least think about things for a second... Take account of our motivations behind what we did. The fact that we had to do what we did in order to prevent evil or misguided people from causing harm to many more innocents...

Don't just "Killing people is bad. Therefore you must be bad >:[" logic. Yes, killing people is bad. But sometimes, letting a monster live can be worse.

Or what next, you gonna try and guilt trip me about killing Nidhogg? The murderous ball of hate and vengeance that literally wanted nothing but to cause pain and anguish to every single person in Ishard for all of eternity?

[Rollout]

snip

snip

The thing is, while you, the player, may not feel guilty about taking those lives, it's implied that the WoL does.
Myste is just like Fray, he's a manifestation of the emotions that the WoL is trying to suppress or ignore.
We just see them as unlikable characters in a video game and their deaths are just the deaths of a character in a video game.
But to our WoL, those are real, living people that they've taken the lives of.

[Bright-Flower]

The thing is, while you, the player, may not feel guilty about taking those lives, it's implied that the WoL does.
Myste is just like Fray, he's a manifestation of the emotions that the WoL is trying to suppress or ignore.
We just see them as unlikable characters in a video game and their deaths are just the deaths of a character in a video game.
But to our WoL, those are real, living people that they've taken the lives of.

Maybe that angle would work better for me if the WOL was more of an actual character. But really. ILBERD? We didn't even kill Ilberd, Ilberd killed HIMSELF as part of his summoning ritual. Whether targeted at the player or the WOL, either way the message would have been far more effective if they had some actual sympathetic characters to draw from to make us, or the WOL, feel bad about killing.

The game implies the WOL should feel sympathetic toward Yotsuyu dying in 4.3, but that still doesn't make me give a crap about her. And the WOL isn't enough of a fleshed out independant character for me to feel anything indirectly through the WOL like that.

[Sorimachi87]

Bringing out my old thread about the drk questline... :3

I just finished the lvl 80 questline for darkknight and i gotta say. It has me emotionally on edge positively.
Gotta say after this questline.. I have played with many protagonists in video games and MMOs but no one, absolutely NO ONE has me invest so much emotionally and everything like our warrior of light / darkness.

Thank you for this wonderful questline that dives into the psychology and darkside of the warrior.

Being a hero isn't all great after all...

Aoi

[Kalise]

The thing is, while you, the player, may not feel guilty about taking those lives, it's implied that the WoL does.
Myste is just like Fray, he's a manifestation of the emotions that the WoL is trying to suppress or ignore.
We just see them as unlikable characters in a video game and their deaths are just the deaths of a character in a video game.
But to our WoL, those are real, living people that they've taken the lives of.

Except that Ilberd is hated by the WoL, because he was a backstabbing mass murderer.

Except that the WoL didn't kill Ystride, Sid did (At the behest of Rielle).

Except that the Imperial goons were literally trying to kill us in order to allow the Ultima Weapon to be used without resistance.

It's no different to how we killed Nidhogg. Twice. He was a real, living dragon. He was entirely justified in his anger because it was humans that betrayed the peace and murdered his sister to get her eyes.

It's no different to how we killed all those Ascians. They were real, sort of living? People. But they were evil to the core and trying to destroy all life.

That's why the WoL's response to all of this nonsense with Myste wasn't even close to being guilty. It was anger at the fact that Myste was trying to do this. That's why we ended up summoning up Fray and why Sid was also angry at Myste, because both of these people also know that Myste is talking absolute crap and know that you have to do bad things for good reasons.

Heck, even Rielle accepts this fact (Which is why she wants to train in Conjury with E-Sumi-Yan rather than to walk the path alongside Sid and us, she doesn't want to have to make that kind of choice)

[Bright-Flower]

Except that Ilberd is hated by the WoL, because he was a backstabbing mass murderer.

We also didn't kill him. We fought him, and he leaped away, and let himself fall backwards to die in the fall as part of summoning Shinryu. We didn't even actually kill him.

The SB DRK story COULD have worked, it's an interesting idea exploring the ramifications of all those that die in our wake, but as far as an attempted guilt trip go this is a pretty weak selection of characters to pull out regardless of whether it's targeting the player or the WOL.

[RyuDragnier]

We also didn't kill him. We fought him, and he leaped away, and let himself fall backwards to die in the fall as part of summoning Shinryu. We didn't even actually kill him.

The SB DRK story COULD have worked, it's an interesting idea exploring the ramifications of all those that die in our wake, but as far as an attempted guilt trip go this is a pretty weak selection of characters to pull out regardless of whether it's targeting the player or the WOL.

IMO they should have summoned Moenbryda, Hauchefant, and Ysayle. THAT would have hurt us, badly.

[Bright-Flower]

IMO they should have summoned Moenbryda, Hauchefant, and Ysayle. THAT would have hurt us, badly.

Bringing out people we weren't able to save might have been more impactful for me. As it was, bringing out Gaius' lieutenants, the HW and Ilberd didn't get a reaction out of me other than laughing when Ilberd showed up.


EDIT:

I will say though, while I found the execution of the SB DRK story flawed, it was at least better than the PLD SB story. It was a decent Gladiator story but a poor PLD story.

[Kabooa]

Except that Ilberd is hated by the WoL, because he was a backstabbing mass murderer.

Except that the Imperial goons were literally trying to kill us in order to allow the Ultima Weapon to be used without resistance.

Ilberd represents every single Ala Mhigan that were left by the wayside. He wasn't alone on that wall, but he's the only one with a face.

Those Imperial soldiers were told that the Ultima weapon was the key to ending the threat of the Eikons, that basically 99.99% of the Imperial population believes is the sole reason behind Garlemald's aggressive actions towards 'less civilized' nations.

FF14 may not be the most well written narrative but it explores pretty common themes. I'm still not entirely certain the Warrior of Light is the good guy in the grand scheme of things.