Something about the new Ascian lore

[Iscah]

This is sadly true. Those of us that prefer a more nuanced approach to things are a minority. Most would rather get their feel goods from being the lolhero again.

This bothered me when I first read it, and I don't think it's a fair summary, but I wasn't sure what to say in reply. It's been on my mind since then.

Claiming there's a dichotomy between "people like you" who prefer "nuance" (by which I assume you mean the things you've said you want to see - Hydaelyn being 'not good', Zodiark being 'not evil') versus people who want Hydaelyn to be good so they can be the "lolhero"* is itself lacking nuance.

* whatever a "lolhero" is anyway. I'm going to assume you mean a "power up and save the day" kind of thing.

Hydaelyn can be good and Zodiark can be inherently-dangerous-if-not-willfully-evil and we can still have a complex story. They're still primals and it complicates things.

Hydaelyn can genuinely be the 'good', loving personality She has always appeared to be, who speaks to us as a "beloved child" - even if She isn't the creator-goddess we assumed She was - but we still might need to destroy Her in the end, whether despite or because of our love for Her and everything She represents.

How is that less nuanced than "She was bad all along and now we're going to kill Her", which seems to be the end purpose of wanting to see Her not 'absolved'? That sounds far more "lolhero" to me than the prospect that She's good and we're still going to have to kill Her.

She's a primal, but one that was born out of self-sacrifice and a desire to protect life. If a primal's mind is formed by the thoughts and intents of its summoners/creators, then there is good reason to hold onto faith in Hydaelyn's intentions, for now at least.

And Zodiark? There's a big question mark about His intentions until we hear more of the story - whether from Hydaelyn, Elidibus, the Echo, Zodiark Himself or some kind of neutral third party, as most of the sources are biased to one side or the other. (Hythlodaeus might be neutral, though I don't know if we'll see them again.) But there does seem to be an immediate contrast between Hydaelyn's summoners sacrificing themselves and Zodiark's summoners (the Convocation) calling for the sacrifice of other lives while keeping their own.


Yes, I want the pseudo-goddess I (and my character) have put faith in to be truly good. I want to see my character hold to those convictions and come through it all for those she holds dear. But it's not just about "playing the hero" - I feel like the core of my character isn't heroism but empathy and loyalty to others. That's what I think of if I have to define what she's like.

And in the end, not every story has to be shades of grey, and having a clear "good side" and "bad side" isn't inherently bad storytelling. Especially if there's still complexity within those clear sides, and I think this story has it.

[Daralii]

* whatever a "lolhero" is anyway. I'm going to assume you mean a "power up and save the day" kind of thing.

Hydaelyn can be good and Zodiark can be inherently-dangerous-if-not-willfully-evil and we can still have a complex story. They're still primals and it complicates things.

Hydaelyn can genuinely be the 'good', loving personality She has always appeared to be, who speaks to us as a "beloved child" - even if She isn't the creator-goddess we assumed She was - but we still might need to destroy Her in the end, whether despite or because of our love for Her and everything She represents.

How is that less nuanced than "She was bad all along and now we're going to kill Her", which seems to be the end purpose of wanting to see Her not 'absolved'? That sounds far more "lolhero" to me than the prospect that She's good and we're still going to have to kill Her.

She's a primal, but one that was born out of self-sacrifice and a desire to protect life. If a primal's mind is formed by the thoughts and intents of its summoners/creators, then there is good reason to hold onto faith in Hydaelyn's intentions, for now at least.

And Zodiark? There's a big question mark about His intentions until we hear more of the story - whether from Hydaelyn, Elidibus, the Echo, Zodiark Himself or some kind of neutral third party, as most of the sources are biased to one side or the other. (Hythlodaeus might be neutral, though I don't know if we'll see them again.) But there does seem to be an immediate contrast between Hydaelyn's summoners sacrificing themselves and Zodiark's summoners (the Convocation) calling for the sacrifice of other lives while keeping their own.


Yes, I want the pseudo-goddess I (and my character) have put faith in to be truly good. I want to see my character hold to those convictions and come through it all for those she holds dear. But it's not just about "playing the hero" - I feel like the core of my character isn't heroism but empathy and loyalty to others. That's what I think of if I have to define what she's like.

And in the end, not every story has to be shades of grey, and having a clear "good side" and "bad side" isn't inherently bad storytelling. Especially if there's still complexity within those clear sides, and I think this story has it.

It's clear good and bad sides anyway if Hydaelyn has been playing 14d chess the entire time, the lines are just painted along mankind versus every other being in the planet's microverse instead of Hydaelyn and Her chosen against Zodiark and His chosen.

I also genuinely want to know what people define as "lolhero", because multiple people have used it just referring to the idea that the WoL hasn't been actively making things worse the entire time by working with Hydaelyn.

[Absimiliard]

Stuff

It looks like you got something out of what I wrote that wasn't intended. When I comment on people getting their feel goods from playing the lolhero, I am referring specifically (and only) to individuals that would forgo nearly all complexity of story in favor of there being an extremely cut and dry X =evil, Y = good with no extenuating factors at all. In other words, I am referring to the individuals that just want to see the hero triumph heedless of any other context. It is my belief that a fairly significant portion of people prefer these kinds of stories in this day and age, while those of us that prefer greater complexity - of which gray morality is only one possible component - in our stories are seldom given satisfaction.

Thus far Final Fantasy XIV has been pretty good about nuance most of the time. The OG primals? Usually summoned by scared primitives in search of salvation from continued assault from both the Empire and their Eorzean neighbors. The Ascians? Desperately trying to rekindle the light of their once glorious race before it goes out forever. Zodiark? He might actually be as much a victim in this as pretty much everybody else despite having been one of the driving forces behind the initial Sundering. The fact that Eorzea's leaders aren't perfect is also a nice touch. They have made things much worse than they needed to be on more than a few occasions. In addition to these things, the dev team has done an excellent job of portraying the selfish, oft times shortsighted nature of humanity as a well. The only bad guy (that wasn't a one-off) they've introduced that really has no reason other than "for teh evulz" at this point is Zenos.

In any case, I am most likely quite biased here. I personally find the idea of a creature or individual being truly good and pure to be silly. If Hydaelyn is completely absolved by the end of all this then I will most likely permanently lose interest in the game's story. All this new lore - about Ascians/Zodiark especially - piqued my interest by introducing legitimate motivations for the Ascians and the possibility that Hydaelyn is pretty guilty herself.

The MSQ chapters are often experienced months apart, which means complex plots would be even harder to follow since details get lost to memory over the years. Because of the meta, they have to prevent the plot from getting too complex or they'll lose their fans. Because this is an MMORPG, story complexity could be a bad thing.

Agreed. Stories that are too convoluted or just plain drag on for too long become problematic, especially in an MMO. I believe that might be part of why new players usually despise having to play through ARR.