Do you feel empathy towards the Warriors of Darkness?

[Kalise]

What makes you assume they "chased down" Elidibus and had to convince him to help?

Oh right, yeah, no they probably had him on speed dial in their linkshell.

I think it's far more likely that Elidibus sought them out

Which would further go to show that they didn't try anything else before they hopped on the Ascian wagon and set sail to go murder innocents on the Source.

Well, now I'm totally sympathetic to them! /s

True, they didn't tell us whether they tried any other solutions first... but why would they?

To try and justify their attempts at mass murder on the Source so they don't look like complete and unempathizable assholes?

Like, if the revelation about their world being consumed by a flood of light caused by their actions as WoL's is supposed to be evoking some manner of empathy, despite their giant middle finger of "Lul we're creating a Calamity on your world because we don't give two hecks about anyone on it" then, it would be pertinent for them to show that this was a reluctant last resort.

Since otherwise, it just feels like they leapt at the chance to go kill a bunch of people on the Source and thus are no better or in fact worse than Zenos (I mean, at least Zenos only cares so far as his entertainment goes. He could have butchered every last person at Rhalgr's Reach if he wanted to, but he's not sadistic enough to go out of his way to kill people. Yet, the WoD's DO come across as sadistic if they literally didn't try anything before resorting to mass murder)

It would just be details that would bog down the flow of that scene. I'm not sure why you would expect them to go into it at that point.

I'm not sure how it would bog things down?

A simple sentence of "We tried everything we could to stop the Flood, but nothing worked so we had to follow an Ascian's orders and renounce our flesh to come here to try and cause a rejoining of our world" would have sufficed to at least hint towards them actually being "Heroic" in their cause and not just sadistic and angsty because "Hydaelyn failed them"

[Claymore65]

I sympathize with them to a degree, but I would agree that their actions and personalities beforehand (viciously and gleefully trying to murder Alisae etc) are really kind of incongruous with their motivation (cause a calamity on the source to cause a rejoining, which seems preferable to a light void). I think their storyline was rushed, so the characterization felt like whiplash. They go from villains to morally ambiguous characters at a speed that's a bit too rapid to get used to. I love the idea of them and their tragic fate, but I think their early appearances were badly handled. Perhaps if they were a bit kinder in their earlier appearances, they would come off a lot better. Maybe they could obviously regret attempting to murder Alisae, even if they ultimately feel that their actions are justified. I don't blame them for not pursuing other options (they were actively misled by Elidibus into thinking this was their best course of action, and obviously Hydalen couldn't/didn't do anything to convince them otherwise), but I do they think they were needlessly cruel in a few early scenes, which seems almost out of character.

[RopeDrink]

A simple sentence of "We tried everything we could to stop the Flood, but nothing worked so we had to follow an Ascian's orders and renounce our flesh to come here to try and cause a rejoining of our world"

Let's get this straight. The story has undeniably highlighted that should either of the sides dominate a shard, that shard is essentially going to be utterly blanketed in total destruction. Light, Dark, doesn't matter which - you either get all-consuming light or swallowed by void.

Pray tell, what would a band of 5 adventurers do in terms of 'looking for other options' when the entire world is pretty much white-washed by all-consuming power that is well and truly beyond them? All you have to do is think of the very first ARR cinematic with all the people of Eorzea having no option but to just watch as the world burned to get some sort of idea. Ironic, isn't it, that those characters in said cinematic are also practically identical to the WoD's? The Warrior, Paladin, Bard, White Mage and Black Mage. We know they're not the same people, but if you need help imagining the WoD's witnessing utter annihilation and feeling powerless, just watch the Flames of Truth again for an idea.

It was clear Hydealyn didn't heed them (as evidenced by the WoD conclusion with Minfilia), so now you can imagine that the force they championed pretty much shunned them after doing her dirty work, leaving them powerless. There are obviously no conventional answers to this sort of problem. Even in the ShB trailer, we (former dedicated representative of Hyde) are being attacked by beings of light (and getting soundly beaten until resorting to dark). All the hints and information to see how powerless the WoD's were in their plight on their shard is all there for you to enjoy.

As such, the solution was nothing to do with their actual shard, it was to do with bringing Dark back into some semblance of power to try and restore balance to their world - a goal we know Elidibus also seeks in his own way at the source - and something we all know is the ONLY thing keeping our own world from having a similar fate. They could never achieve this on their own world as it was blanketed in utter light. The sad reality is, the way our world is in-game is about as close to normal as it'll get, with both Light & Dark still active and constantly at each others throats to keep each other in check, except we as WoL's have been tipping the balance in favour of Hyde and now need to address the problem. Arbert and Co, however, didn't have that luxury - they won outright and netted themselves a dead world as compensation for doing everything for Hyde.

There are NO other options. It has been drilled into us multiple times. It is the very REASON ShB is happening and why we're becoming WoD's ourselves.

The severity was clear to me - and I'm of the opinion that we don't always need to have every minute detail forced down our necks, like how Elidibus and the WoD's met or what they had for supper when discussing how to best employ dark shenanigans on Eorzea, though I have a sneaky feeling that we actually WILL learn more about that in ShB down the road. Now that Elidibus has less need to kill us to restore balance (seeing as we're going WoD), I have a hunch he himself will explain things from his PoV now that our goals are (somewhat) the same. He may be an Ascian, but unlike his staunch followers of Zodiark, his concern is the balance, not Dark winning. As such, him helping the WoD's makes total sense for both them and himself. We view him as bad because his goals involve routes that go against us, but in essence, he is to Zodiark what we will become for Hyde - the middle-ground.

[Kalise]

Pray tell, what would a band of 5 adventurers do in terms of 'looking for other options' when the entire world is pretty much white-washed by all-consuming power that is well and truly beyond them?

... Exactly what we're about to do in the next expansion?

Create Darkness to try and bring the levels of light down? Beat up some Sin Eaters?

Essentially the exact stuff they went to the Source to do? With the express purpose of creating Darkness, in sufficient levels to create a Calamitous event.

A band of 5 adventurers... We're a single WoL that's about to go and fix their world, with help from our 5 and half Scion friends and maybe Mr CrystalTowerGuy.

All you have to do is think of the very first ARR cinematic with all the people of Eorzea having no option but to just watch as the world burned to get some sort of idea.

Except unlike a Calamity, they (At some point) knew the reasoning for what happened. They knew that their killing Primals caused too much Light and this over abundance of Light is now causing a flood that is consuming their world.

Ergo, is it not logical to try and reduce the amount of Light by creating Darkness? To see if that has any effect on things.

It was clear Hydealyn didn't heed them (as evidenced by the WoD questline conclusion with Minfilia).

That's pretty much the same for us though? We don't up and start talking to Hydaelyn whenever we want. She specifically contacts US. Outside of that one quest with the WoD's where we all used our Crystals of Light to go talk to Minfilia/Word of the Mother.

Yet, instead of us being "Lets go murder people" we're about to go and try and save not only the First, but our own world too.

The solution was nothing to do with their actual shard, it was to do with bringing Dark back into some semblance of power to try and restore balance

No. Their only goal was to create a rejoining so that the souls of the people on their world could enter the Aethereal Sea.

That was the goal of the WoDs. Which they were trying to bring about via causing a Calamity on the Source by creating a large amount of Darkness.

a goal we know Elidibus also seeks in his own way

We're not fully sure on what Elidibus' goals are. We don't know if he wants to actually maintain balance of Light and Dark or if his ultimate goal is still the same one as other Ascians, which is to cause rejoinings by shifting the balance of Light and Dark fast enough to cause a Calamity.

and something we all know is the ONLY thing keeping our own world from having a similar fate.

Yes, but as far as our character goes, they don't know this yet. They've only been hinted at by Mr CrystalTowerGuy about "All paths lead to oblivion" (He could have been more straight forward and said plainly "If you beat the Garleans, the world will be engulfed by Light. If the Garleans beat you, the world will be engulfed by Darkness")

The sad reality is, the way our world is in-game is about as close to normal as it'll get, with both Light & Dark still active and constantly at eachothers throats to keep eachother in check, except we as WoL's have been tipping the balance and need to address the problem. Arbert and Co, however, didn't have that luxury - they won.

Actually, our world is hinted at having been tipped towards the light, not because of WoL's actions (Or the actions of Garleans and Allagan's who've been defeating Primals and Eikons for eons). But because the Source is linked to all the Shards and because of the First experiencing a Flood of Light, that light is leaking into the Source.

There are NO other options. It has been drilled into us multiple times. It is the very REASON ShB is happening and why we're becoming WoD's ourselves.

This is literally an oxymoron.

There can't be NO OTHER OPTIONS if your next sentence is literally us becoming WoD's and going to fix the First.

ShB's very existence and the very fact that it's all about us becoming "WoD's" and fixing the First suggests that there is in fact another option that isn't "Cause a Calamity on the Source and destroy the First in a rejoining"

Maybe we learn about something on our journey through the First... But if that is the case, then the possibility exists that that band of 5 adventurers could have also learned the same thing.

Unless ShB hinges around Minfilia inexplicably becoming a literal Goddess with magical powers far beyond what any WoL that has Hydaelyn's Blessing is capable of (Pulled out of Hydaelyn's butt because she already has taxed herself greatly in granting our character the Blessing and is too weak to do much more) then there exists an alternative that the WoD's could have explored if they weren't so eager to "Get back" at Hydaelyn for "Ignoring them" because they don't even give a damn that maybe, just maybe, Hydaelyn has her own problems to deal with, like the fact she damn near killed herself to create a Warrior of Light on the Source to try and prevent the Source from being exploited into creating rejoinings that destroy literally every other Shard (And then resurrect Zodiark)

The severity was clear to me - and I'm of the opinion that we don't always need to have every minute detail forced down our necks, like how Elidibus and the WoD's met or what they had for supper when discussing how to best employ dark shenanigans.

Except, without even the smallest snippet to suggest that they had at least thought about other options, then the entire arc surrounding their turnaround from "Evil Villains of Evil" into "Empathizable Character with Tragic Backstory" becomes moot, because they never show that they're actually the "Heroes" that they refer to them being.

Like, I can't even take ther word that they even WERE Warriors of Light. Since nothing they have said or done has actually had any qualities I would attribute to a "Hero" or "Warrior of Light". All they've shown is ruthlessness and a lack of caring about how many innocent lives they will take to fulfil their own agenda.

They've been portrayed as one of, if not the most unpleasant and Evil antagonists in the game.

Heck, even ZENOS of all people garners more empathy than they do. Since, he's the byproduct of a psychological defect as well as being raised within the Garlean war machine. He's not evil by nature, it's just a matter of him being born within a nation that has evil agendas.

But the Warriors of Darkness? All they're shown to be is pure evil, malice and spite. They say they used to be Warriors of Light, but apparently they only seem to give a damn about doing the right thing if they can get a pat on the back from Hydaelyn.

Maybe Elidibus was REALLY good at convincing them there was no other alternative... But again, I'd expect a Warrior of Light to think for at least a few seconds before hopping into bed with an ASCIAN. You know, those people who seek to bring back Zodiark? The ones who are quite happy to destroy 13 worlds to ensure this happens?

You know... Much like how our character still defied the Ascians at every single turn. Even when things seemed hopeless, when the Walking Sands was destroyed, when the Banquet happened and the entire world turned against them, when the Crystal Braves revealed the traitors among them and usurped the entire organization. Sure, these weren't nearly as dire as the entire world being engulfed by Light, but they are times when things felt hopeless and we've also been talked to by Elidibus himself.

But what happens every time? We say NO. Even if it could cost us our life (See: The final solo duty for SB) we defy the Ascians. We do not let their honeyed words sway us.

Meanwhile, as far as we know... The WoD just leapt at the chance the moment Elidibus came offering a single solution. "Sure, we'll renounce our flesh and become Ascians!" "Sure, we'll commit mass murder on the Source!" "Sure, we won't question why you're helping us!" "Sure, we'll praise the one true god Zodiark, at least he won't ignore us!"

[RopeDrink]

Essentially the exact stuff they went to the Source to do? With the express purpose of creating Darkness, in sufficient levels to create a Calamitous event.

They went to that extreme because the Darkness required to bring any kind of balance back to their annihilated home was extreme. You are comparing our in-game world, one with a balance slightly tipped in Hyde's favour, to one that was utterly destroyed thanks to Hyde's champions outright dominating Zodiark entirely to the point where she was in sole power.

Ergo, is it not logical to try and reduce the amount of Light by creating Darkness? To see if that has any effect on things.

Which is exactly what they deigned to do.

That's pretty much the same for us though?

Not entirely, but that isn't the point. The point is that having won for her, they were shunned anyway as if they were inconsequential. They had no options regarding the light, only darkness. You should understand this seeing as your grief is with the notion that they might have had alternatives. They clearly didn't. No conventional means, and no treating with light, so they treated with Darkness as the last resort.

We're not fully sure on what Elidibus' goals are. We don't know if he wants to actually maintain balance of Light and Dark or if his ultimate goal is still the same one as other Ascians, which is to cause rejoinings by shifting the balance of Light and Dark fast enough to cause a Calamity.

Sure, nothing is certain, but all that has been shown and gleamed from scenes and dialogue indicates his job is the balance, not victory for Zodiark. It is much like how Minfilia, now 'emissary' of Hyde, will be working with us on a similar goal, as opposed to going against us to champion Light. It's just easier to muddy Elidibus because he is currently seeking to balance the losing side and deems actions such as our death as appropriate balancing. I suspect this will somewhat change with us as WoD's. Certainly won't become friends or outright allies, but I expect there'll be a somewhat neutral face-off for story purposes, likely with some more WoD meat to further explanations.

Yes, but as far as our character goes, they don't know this yet.

Hello entire WoD questline, with Arbert himself asking the WoL to seek a better fate after all the revelations of what happens when Warriors of L/D serve a side wholesale and destroy their home.

Actually, our world is hinted at having been tipped towards the light, not because of WoL's actions (Or the actions of Garleans and Allagan's who've been defeating Primals and Eikons for eons). But because the Source is linked to all the Shards and because of the First experiencing a Flood of Light, that light is leaking into the Source.

Hence ShB, the WoD questline, the later blunt-fisted explanations of the motives behind the empire and Ascians as a whole, re Solus scene-chewing. The WoD questline has also mentioned how some experienced the opposite - total darkness. I see it as little more as enforcing the point that balance tipping in either direction = NOT good, and the WoD's themselves serving as a prime example of what happens when it tips to the very end of one side.

There can't be NO OTHER OPTIONS if your next sentence is literally us becoming WoD's and going to fix the First. ShB's very existence and the very fact that it's all about us becoming "WoD's" and fixing the First suggests that there is in fact another option that isn't "Cause a Calamity on the Source and destroy the First in a rejoining"

You are the one bewailing how the WoD's 'probably didn't check all avenues before doing what they did'. That is the sole point behind the following rebuttals. The difference between the WoD's and us is that said option was the only one available to them when it was all far too late, done and dusted, light had won, enjoy your doomed world. It is in seeing such examples that we have the luxury of doing it ahead of time, when the scales are only slightly tipped, NOT when one side has dwarfed another entirely and the aftermath has already taken root. We are not going to 'do what the WoDs did' because we don't have to go any similar sort of extreme. Zodiark and Hyde are still fighting over the source with some remote semblance of balance, albeit tipped.

Except, without even the smallest snippet to suggest that they had at least thought about other options

Aaaaand we come full circle. Previous post already discussed this. There are no conventional means of overcoming a planet doomed by one side. Said side clearly had no communication with them and likely treated them like tools, much like how we can sometimes feel about Hyde who, as you say, picks their moments, and so they learned of the balance and treated with their 'former enemies'.

then the entire arc surrounding their turnaround from "Evil Villains of Evil" into "Empathizable Character with Tragic Backstory" becomes moot, because they never show that they're actually the "Heroes" that they refer to them being.

To say this would be to call your own WoL a non-hero in the context of the build-up to that point. They were adventurers, like us, later becoming champions of Hyde, like us. They did what was asked of them by the light, like we've been doing. They did it so much that Hyde was totally victorious, and were rewarded with a doomed home-world, like we'd be if ShB hypothetically doesn't happen. They were very obviously made to be a mirror of ourselves and our current path, and a display of the consequences should we have done what they did (ie. continued doing what we were doing without realizing what it leads to).

These aren't characters who go from Evil McEvil and do a 180. The tragedy is that they were those heroes, like us, rewarded with nothing but doom for doing the right thing, and that the only conceivable option they had left was to go against that entirely and serve the dark, not even for a reward, but in the hopes that their normality would return. It is similar to the Warrior of Darkness angles provided in previous FF games, toying with the simple idea that you are not inherently 'good' just because you serve light, nor inherently 'evil' for serving the dark. Sometimes good intentions require an evil path, or vice versa.

It was all nice and neatly summarized by Arbert himself.

"We were blind to the truth once, so I tell you this - as one fool to another. Light, dark, it doesn't matter. What matters is how you choose to use them. We made our choice and you see what became of it, so please... Forge a different path. Seek a better fate."
/smiles
/disperses

[Jaywalker]

I'm sorry Jaywalker but I truly, honestly have no idea where you got that impression of Zenos. Throughout the entirety of Stormblood all I ever saw was, as you put it, sir fights-a-lot. Please point me to some cutscene or something that gave you an impression otherwise because I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about to get anything like that from him. I'm not being snarky here when I ask that, I mean it.

Hey Jeanne! No worries for the record, would’ve gotten back earlier but had a big work day!

I can try to find some scenes and break them down analytically if you’d like, RopeDrink did a pretty great job with it but honestly I do get wanting specific scenes and I’m used to breaking stuff like that down analytically. It’s just sort of like the psychobabble thing where I wanted to avoid going on too long in the thread—especially on a tangent. XD My first reaction when I saw you wanted more specific evidence was “ohgod are you sure???”

I can’t swear to it just because life gets busy, but I’ll see if I can find the specific moments I remember either on YouTube or in the journal for specific quests. Will try and either set up a new thread or link to a blog post depending on where it seems appropriate.

For what it’s worth, I totally get the feeling where you don’t get a character or much like them but then someone with a dramatically different view shows up. I hope I can at least help you not feel frustrated by Zenos technically so much even if he’s not your thing. ^^ One less thing to feel frustrated about, yeah?

[JeanneOrnitier]

You don't have to get back to me on it, don't worry! Like you said RopeDrink laid out their (and it seems your) stance well enough. Either way it's pretty off topic to the WoD topic of this thread, so I think we should probably put the Zenos discussion to rest.

[RopeDrink]

I can try to find some scenes and break them down analytically if you’d like, RopeDrink did a pretty great job with it but honestly I do get wanting specific scenes and I’m used to breaking stuff like that down analytically.

Zenos is not a character who's subtleties can be directly linked to a small portion of scenes, hence I'd encourage said person to revisit his appearances from start to end with an open mind -- to see all the little hints.

To take note of his utter boredom with his lot in life, his reactions when actually challenged, his less than stellar opinion of his own grand father, Solus, whom he believed ran his Eikon crusade out of fear, or of Varis and the empire, who he believes is spending far too much time deliberating and playing it safe rather than, you know, going out and being empire'ish. His uninterested view of the empire as a whole, to which he has kept his own selfish research mostly hidden. The fact he has no qualm bullying or massacring his own fodder for 'weakness', from slaying troopers to the rather tense scene where he was pulling Yotsyu's hair to simply enforce a point. How the very few smiles he provides are often done only when something deliciously nasty happens (or may happen), or when he actually achieves some kind of emotional response near the climax. How his selfish goals and emotionless desires cause him to cast away the typically expected Garlean racism or superiority-complex in favour of receiving deliciously evil plans from a 'savage' rather than his own advisors, because if it gets him what he wants, why not?

How all of this is done in a consistent state of emotionless malice - not for its own sake, but more a case of him just not really knowing any better, and being totally devoid of registering the aftermath, as would be expected of someone who knows they're the strongest force in the room (without the need to advertise it), and find this to be soul-suckingly boring. I vaguely remember a scene where even Varis seemed a bit cautious of him, Varis (at the time) being the closest thing to an unaddressed final-boss (up until that was put in its place with the more recent revelations re. Ascians).

How the closest thing to a friend or emotion is elicited indirectly by someone who equalled him (with intent to stop him or even kill him if necessary), and despite this, Zenos looks at you more as a work-and-friend-in-progress, rather than an actual enemy as a result. How he damns all factions as irrelevant and lets loose revelations in his fit of near ecstasy, and not caring that he did so (because Doma, and Allag and Garlamald be damned).

How "The hunter has indeed become the hunted. And yet... There is only joy. Transcendent joy that I have never known. How invigorating, how... pure, this feeling."
-- "Is that what this was all about? All the meaningless death and destruction? So you could FEEL something!?"
-- "Meaningless? Men die that others may live. Those who survive are stronger for it. Not that you could ever understand. To have stood upon this great stage of fools... to have played my part to perfection... Oh, this... this moment... Let it be enshrined in eternity. My heart... beating out of time... So clear, so vivid, so real... So real."
/Smiles, raising his sword.
-- "Farewell, my first friend. My enemy."
/Slice.

Doesn't go into all the mini-scenes or too in-depth, and can easily be viewed a certain way if you only look directly at certain bits. As said, you'd really need to watch it from start to finish and pay attention to him to see that it wasn't just some fighting-mad-meathead with nothing going on upstairs. The guy was so subtlety demented and had such off-kilter moments that had you wondering whether he was even all that loyal to his peers outside of it just being a means to an end. He was brutal and malicious, but not for the sake of it. His own desires (or lack of) pushed decisions and actions above stereotype and loyalty to others, to a point where you sometimes didn't know what to make of him (outside of the fact that he was obviously an immediate threat - and of the empire). How he rarely (if ever) really treated those he fought as 'enemies', more a case of random flies in need of swatting. How this also mirrored to his treatment of his own allies and how little he genuinely cared for any of them due to his mental state.

It's hard not to type about him without tangents, because there's quite a few - and as someone mentioned above, there's most definitely tonnes of space for a lot of his antics to be akin to specific mental conditions. Was he literally just a plain psychopath? No. He was most definitely a driven man, yet one of the funniest comments I saw recently was someone who noticed Zenos being included in Dissidia, and how you can "Literally see the crazy in his eyes". Was he evil? Absolutely, but not for the sake of it. He's evil insofar as his actions and the reasoning behind them are wanton and against the norm, yet you have to account for the fact he just doesn't know much better, not when he self-admits having never even discovered certain feelings at all, or his out-of-game backstory regarding a not-so-nice upbringing. Was he loyal to the empire? Well, he'd do enough to make you think it, but otherwise, probably not entirely. He'd be the type who'd prefer to do his own thing when the rest doesn't suit his needs. He was also intelligent. He was rarely cocky about his prowess, of which he had an abundance, which was becoming more of a burden rather than a thing OTHER villains are often written to advertise and constantly point out in that annoying "Look at me, I'm so bad. You can't stop me, har har!" sort of way. Zenos was NEVER that. He just 'was', which made his immediate threat enticing as a character who has been casually thrown against Primals like they're a bad joke.

I could go on but meh.

[Jaywalker]

You don't have to get back to me on it, don't worry! Like you said RopeDrink laid out their (and it seems your) stance well enough. Either way it's pretty off topic to the WoD topic of this thread, so I think we should probably put the Zenos discussion to rest.

Alright, thanks! I agree on a lot of what RopeDrink mentioned, but there are some moments where I think things were stated a little more explicitly and it can be neat to spot those. If you ever feel like it it might be fun to play detective and see if you can find stuff supporting or discrediting the interpretation (I think there was a scene where Zenos talks about feeling nothing or empty when not in combat, it might have been the royal menagerie scene but not sure) but if you don't wanna no worries. I just honestly appreciate that you were willing to ask and wanted some specific examples, imo that's pretty fair.

-----

OOP JUST SAW THE ADDITION. Actually using the quotes is very helpful and offers some good concrete evidence for the guy, thank you! It was really fun reading your analysis and I agree with your observations. I figure this is just a situation where it might depend a little on whether you know what to look for and how to look for it.

I think there was a Hemmingway snippet, "FOR SALE: Baby shoes, never worn." If you take it purely at face value you might be like I don't get it, someone's selling baby shoes. So? But if you read between the lines, there's a heavy implication that there was a miscarriage or similar dead-baby tragedy. Reading Zenos works on a similar principle.

Warriors of Darkness it's interesting looking at the thread and seeing how much is critique in execution and how much is critique of concept. I'm curious if SE manages to address that weird behavior inconsistency in Shadowbringers, could be a great opportunity.

[Berethos]

But the Warriors of Darkness? All they're shown to be is pure evil, malice and spite.

Except for the part where as we uncover more of their story, they begin to appear more filled with regret and sadness.

I really think you need to rewatch some cutscenes.