Quote Originally Posted by Vyrerus View Post
I like this answer, because it's sort of a complete answer and a non-answer simultaneously.

With hindsight in tow, it is pretty hard to flesh it out from a, "while it was current perspective." I'm of the mind that the point of Stormblood was to do a lot of worldbuilding in a very short amount of time, with the war with Garlemald basically being the excuse for why we go globe trotting. First time leaving Eorzea and what not.
I would have liked to have given that answer, except Stormblood's worldbuilding was very lackluster. Neither Ala Mhigo nor even Doma had the level of exploration that Ishgard got. Doma generally had more lore, better characters and better self-contained plotlines, but it also felt quite tacked on to the main plot of the expansion. Ala Mhigo was more involved, but it lacked in every other area. Both of them got like half the focus they deserved, and even now I maintain that Doma should have been reserved for a full Othard expansion down the line.

The real battle is good vs. evil, and the personal battle is what's directing the battle outside. Of course, that's not what's actually happening in universe, but it's what's happening with the script.
I considered this, but it comes with two issues. First, that kind of personal connection between Zenos and WoL is, I think, really lacking. Yes you fight multiple times, and I did feel as though the scenes and journal painted WoL as having a strong desire to beat him, but in the end Zenos doesn't actually do anything personally to WoL other than rough them up a bit. As I noted in another thread this section of the story was where the issue of characters surviving everything became very prevalent, and even though Zenos badly injures Y'shtola he fails to actually kill anyone close to WoL. If anything Fordola ended up with a higher headcount in that regard and WoL doesn't seem to have too much of an issue with her.

Secondly, if Stormblood was the big Zenos personal battle expansion... Zenos lived and persisted beyond it. Meaning the expansion was robbed of it's climax. You noted the imperial throne room scene, well people similarly felt the emperor's retroactive survival seriously diminished the impact those scenes had.

The ultimate point of Stormblood is that we take war to the Garleans, but we find out they were puppets to the Ascians all along.
We find that out in like 4.4. There was an entire base expansion plus three patches before that happens. By all rights 4.4 and 4.5 are more a prelude to Shadowbringers than an end to Stormblood, the same way Shadowbringers effectively concluded in 5.3, and 5.4 and 5.5 are a setup for Endwalker.

Anyway, as an aside, it's actually sort of a trope in itself, because it's usually what happens to empires in Final Fantasies. The Empire is destroyed or beaten somehow at a middle/late point in the story, and then the real threat rears its ugly head.
Yes, except XIV is a persistent game. Meaning the story will persist beyond the current Hydaelyn/Zodiark arc. Assuming we will have even one more arc, that would mean the empire was removed from the narrative in just the first quarter of the total plot. Considering the empire's lack of primary involvement in the crystal saga, the fact that Zenos continued beyond SB's climax, and how half of Shadowbringer's content lines are still dealing with the empire, it really seems as though "ending the empire" couldn't have possibly been the point of Stormblood.