Does anyone ever feel like they're an impostor because they don't look like Ardbert?

[MsMisato]

Like, the idea of the game originally was that we were the "Warriors of Light". Even described in Carteneau in plural, that they couldn't remember us, but that we were legion.

And of course, it's neat the the use of the default Midlander as a stand-in for the Warrior of Light has been a tradition since 1.0. It's nice that you can chart them since the very beginning as the face of Final Fantasy XIV.

But as time has gone on, Ardbert has been introduced, mirroring the exact team as shown in promotional materials, a Midlander man with short brown hair, a Lalafell with blonde twintails, ect.

Coupled with the inherent problem of MMORPG storytelling where a multitude of players share a very specific, linear, one person story of being the "chosen one", that should be exclusive to one player and doesn't make sense between multiple players. Not a problem unique to Final Fantasy XIV by any means, but a problem with the entire genre, themeparks especially.

But it all comes together to make me feel like an impostor. Not only do I have the strange ORPG cognitive dissonance of having a mutually exclusive and unique story shared with every other player. But every time I see Ardbert, I think upon the many increasingly impressive promotional trailers, featuring the Warriors of Light. And I feel even less canonical than before.

It makes me feel like an impostor. And I'm starting to get a strange sense of derealization. I feel like a Lalafell woman pretending to go through the story of Midlander male's. I don't feel like I'm a Warrior of Light. In every cutscene, I feel like a Midlander Man who looks like Ardbert was supposed to be here.

Nah. Even then back in 1.0 I assumed Midlander was picked because off humans being selected as the most played characters in FFXI since that was at the time according to the census in FFXI a very popular race since stats did play a huge role in that gameand they fit nicely into all jobs and FFXIV 1.0 was based off how FFXI worked for the most part. SO I never felt my character was not a WoL or an imposter/impersonator

However,

once the WoD quest line came into play between HW and StB and we learned of Ardbert and his gang. I thought it was cool they finally gave the derplander a part in the story and just not as some advertising for all these years. Even the teh Elezen Paladin from the 1.0 trailer made an appearance in the role quests in ShB which I thought was super cool. I have to give to the Devs for tying up the entire story from 1.0 to the end of ShB like they did.

I honestly felt hella bad for Ardbert and all the crap he has been through.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Headcanon: the trailers happened on another Shard that was oddly similar to the Source, but with some key differences; Derplander as the hero instead of me, Hraesvelgr being the villain instead of Nidhogg, etc.

[EirolOcarrol]

This said, yes the Default WOL is the Midlander Male found in promotional videos. However your playthrough is just as valid, and you shouldn't feel like an imposter. However, the RP of the WOL is the Everyman default dude, which is how an RP player should treat things. For non-RP players just enjoy the story as you see it, and ignore the promotional videos.

I missed this earlier, but are you saying that people who roleplay as the Warrior of Light are expected to be a Midlander, in roleplay groups?

Once again, my apologies for the spoilers. I didn't realize that their name could be considered a spoiler when I wrote the title.

[Liam_Harper]

And all this time we thought they were RMT spammers, when it was simply all the people who re-rolled to the true Warrior of Light race...

[Hawkpeft]

Nope, not in the slightest. After paying attention to the trailers, i noticed 90% of what happens in them involving the hyur doesn't happen to us. It's a lie, fake news, revisionist history! In essence, it never happened. What we do as whatever race, gender, job, color, whatever is what really happens. The trailers are of a tale told about us after our victories and peace was had by all, like the allagan stories we explore. What we look like doesn't survive the ages, because it's our actions that mattered.

[Gothicshark]

... that people who roleplay as the Warrior of Light ...

No, it is actually considered in poor taste to go into roleplay as if you are THE Warrior of light.

[Enla]

No, it is actually considered in poor taste to go into roleplay as if you are THE Warrior of light.

This, doing that is a way to instantly get black listed or at the very least ignored by most of the RP community in the game.

[Kahnom]

No, it is actually considered in poor taste to go into roleplay as if you are THE Warrior of light.

I don’t get it....I mean, we’re WoL then why would anyone want to RP as WoL despite being one already ?

[lolicon09]

No. Derplander is the true fake WoL

[Rymm]

Not at all.

I mean, why should we look alike? If we were going to share an appearance, we should probably look like Azem, as s/he is the original "us". But, as I understand it, Azem's soul was shattered into pieces, of which we are one. There's really no reason that Ardbert's and our souls would have to be identical (similar, sure, but not identical) when we're fragments of the same whole, not carbon copies of it. If it makes sense that even our formless, genderless souls aren't exact copies, then there's no reason at all for the fleshy wrappings around those souls to be. Especially considering the fact that we've probably been reincarnated a million times anyway between the original Azem and our current form.