Political Ideology and Storytelling Within FFXIV

[aveyond-dreams]

At least in FFXVI all but one of their nations have a distinct fantasy feel. A Grand Duchy, a Holy Empire, and two Kingdoms. Only one republic.


Whereas here in FFXIV:
Limsa - a bizarre political system where its ex-pirates are pretending to be...something.

Gridania - child druids who commune with elementals. No distinctive architecture. Literally just trees.

Ul'dah - a "monarchy" where the monarch wants to abdicate and create a republic.

Ishgard - originally a monarchy, then a theocracy, and now it's a republic.

Doma - a monarchy we were actually able to preserve (thank God)

Hingashi - a monarchy (but we have access to only 1 city, and it doesn't fulfil the European fantasy of a kingdom)

Garlemald - literally Detroit

Thavnair - ??? potions ??? elephants ???

Dalmasca - in ruins, storyline shelved.

Bozja - killed the queen, on the way to becoming a republic.

Sharlayan - another republic.


One of the reasons 1.0 suffered so much is because so many fantasy elements were locked behind Ishgard. The only real castle in the entire game at that point. Even now, it's frustrating that the game lacks a fantasy feel until you reach 3.0. Wherever we end up going in 7.0, I just hope we return to fantasy instead of constantly nation building and trying to "liberate" people and turning their countries into more republics.

At least in FFXII where you're trying to liberate Dalmasca, you had the princess in your party and by the end she becomes Queen. In FFXV, your main controllable party member is a prince, despite its more modern feel. In FFXI, one of your starting areas was an elven kingdom. In FFIX, you have a princess in your party and its most iconic cities belong to kingdoms. In FFVI, you get to have two princes in your party, and in FFV you get two princesses. By the end of FFIV various characters who were implied to hold some kind of noble/military rank become the monarchs of their respective nations.

FF has historically never focused so much on the idea of republics to this extent and by this point the gimmick has become stale.

[Vyrerus]

Republics D:<

Guess when you put it that way, seems like FFXIV team must have all been Team Bastok in FFXI

[Cleretic]

Focusing only on the ones that we actually know things about (so we can't say much about Dalmasca, Thavnair or Amaurot), there actually aren't a lot of republics per se (although many look to democratic solutions), but everything that isn't a real-world-rooted system does have some form of history in some form of fantasy.

Limsa: Essentially, an attempt at actually realizing and exploring the concept of Libertalia, the probably-mythical pirate colony.

Ul'Dah: The Syndicate are an idea right out of cyberpunk, complete with the recognition that it's actually a terrible system.

Gridania: Oppressive mystical theocracy combined with 'tree elf utopia'. Very rarely do you see those done simultaneously, but they're both pretty standard by themselves.

Ishgard: When we turned up, it was a theocracy overtly borrowing from the Vatican, but also from Byzantium. And of course, 'holy city' is a pretty standard fantasy setting. After 3.0 wraps they actually become... something democratic, but otherwise unclear. They have a House of Commons and House of Lords, similar to Great Britain (which is actually a pretty bad democratic system), but it's not clear who their head of state actually is. Aymeric is a speaker of sorts, but that's it.

Ala Mhigo: Previously a monarchy, then an occupied Imperial state. Afterwards they refused to go back to a monarchy, because the monarchy they had was famously hot garbage and was actually already overthrown. Now... again, its head of state is unclear, but it probably is some form of republic, so this one you get.

Hingashi: Some level of feudal Japanese lordship, specifics are not gone into.

Doma: Also a form of feudal Japanese lordship, with a brief time as an occupied Imperial state. Unlike Ala Mhigo, the Doman people had no real problems with their previous form of government, so they were fine with reinstating it.

Crystarium: Uhh... post-scarcity socialist commune. It's basically Star Trek. Very weird choice for a story that's ultimately post-apocalyptic, gotta admit.

Eulmore: Democratically-elected municipality both before and after Vauthry, dictatorial lordship under him.

Bozja: Far in the past, absolute monarchy. There's no mention of a royal family in the story of the Empire's takeover, however, so we can assume that changed eventually, although it was clearly some form of heavily-stratified aristocracy. No clear evidence of what it is becoming in terms of governmental form, but it will be more egalitarian.

Sharlayan: While its members of government seem to be democratic in decision-making, everything we've heard suggests that their appointment is likely either oligarchical (far too many examples in real world and fiction), or a geniocracy (rule by the smartest, you see appeals scattered about fiction).

And Garlemald, of course, is a totalitarian empire. Was a republic before then, though. Star Wars-style.

[Jandor]

After 3.0 wraps they actually become... something democratic, but otherwise unclear. They have a House of Commons and House of Lords, similar to Great Britain (which is actually a pretty bad democratic system.)

The UK's system is fine, especially for a society like Ishgard.

[Cleretic]

Our system is fine.

Okay I don't want to get super verbose and real-world political on this one, but I will outline why 'fine' might be the best you can hope for with that system, because it actually makes perfect, 'I loved to see that's where they went with it' sense for why Ishgard adopted it.

The Houses of Lords and Commons are essentially a compromise of a political structure. You want to get the common people a way to have a say in how their country is run, but you have to do that in a way that doesn't disgruntle the people who already have the power--in both Britain and Ishgard, that was largely noblemen and the clergy. So you give them two houses of government; one for representations of the old established power, one for those elected by the masses, neither of which can completely overrule the other.

Now, if what you want is full democratic rule? It's not very good. Someone can still be literally born into power, the official religion still has outright political strength. You haven't fixed the problems of an aristocratic society, you've just reduced them. But it does have a strength, which is the same as the reason it was conceived: it doesn't make any one group too unhappy, which means that, extreme circumstances notwithstanding, basically every group will be content to play by the rules.

That's actually why I think, of every nation we see in the game, Ishgard is the one I'm certain will remain solvent for the forseeable future. A lot of nations in the game seem like they're one bad ruler away from an uprising (Limsa and Doma stand clearest, Ala Mhigo's not out of the woods of 'figuring out a good government' yet), or possibly even worse (Gridania and Ul'Dah seem like one bad ruling away from burning down, given the leadership already has problems), but Ishgard? Other nations will figure out better systems eventually, but judging by real-world history, Ishgard's will be 'good enough' for centuries; not the best system, but not bad enough to tear down and rebuild.

[Jandor]

The Houses of Lords and Commons are essentially a compromise of a political structure. You want to get the common people a way to have a say in how their country is run, but you have to do that in a way that doesn't disgruntle the people who already have the power--in both Britain and Ishgard, that was largely noblemen and the clergy. So you give them two houses of government; one for representations of the old established power, one for those elected by the masses, neither of which can completely overrule the other.

Now, if what you want is full democratic rule? It's not very good. Someone can still be literally born into power, the official religion still has outright political strength. You haven't fixed the problems of an aristocratic society, you've just reduced them. But it does have a strength, which is the same as the reason it was conceived: it doesn't make any one group too unhappy, which means that, extreme circumstances notwithstanding, basically every group will be content to play by the rules.

That's actually why I think, of every nation we see in the game, Ishgard is the one I'm certain will remain solvent for the forseeable future. A lot of nations in the game seem like they're one bad ruler away from an uprising (Limsa and Doma stand clearest, Ala Mhigo's not out of the woods of 'figuring out a good government' yet), or possibly even worse (Gridania and Ul'Dah seem like one bad ruling away from burning down, given the leadership already has problems), but Ishgard? Other nations will figure out better systems eventually, but judging by real-world history, Ishgard's will be 'good enough' for centuries; not the best system, but not bad enough to tear down and rebuild.

You don't fix the problems of an aristocratic society, but likewise, you don't get rid of the benefits of an aristocratic society either.
It's not very popular to acknowledge these days, but people literally raised from birth to rule tend to be pretty decent at the business of actual ruling, especially in a society like Ishgard where I imagine secondary and tertiary education isn't all that widely available.

Elected politicians providing a voice for the people and setting the agenda for governing, and then having that agenda put into action by people who have spent most of their life being raised and educated for ruling.
I'd say it's not just a 'good enough' system for Ishgard, it's a straight up good system, the main problem it has is that it comes up a tad short on the lofty ideals front and therefore doesn't stack up well when compared to various idealized utopian setups.

[MikkoAkure]

It's not very popular to acknowledge these days, but people literally raised from birth to rule tend to be pretty decent at the business of actual ruling, especially in a society like Ishgard where I imagine secondary and tertiary education isn't all that widely available.

While that can certainly be the case, as it is with Doma, the people stop being interested in monarchical rule when the will of the aristocracy stops being benevolent and no longer matches up with the will of the people as a whole. Without using real-world examples, the ruling nobility of Ala Mhigo and especially King Theodoric himself weren't exactly good for the people and the fact that the people were stuck with him due to him sharing blood with past rulers, meant that they had to revolt in order to change their government. An elected government is no more immune to misgoverning or corruption, but they're more easily replaced in theory. For Ishgard, the more egregious examples of nobles misusing their power had to be put to the sword in both the MSQ and DRK quests and there was no system in place to keep them in check or to stop them from being terrible people.

Ultimately, just because someone was taught from birth to be a ruler doesn't mean that they're going to be good at it, and it also doesn't mean that they won't use the position they attained only through being born to it which they can't be removed from to do bad things.

[Jandor]

While that can certainly be the case, as it is with Doma, the people stop being interested in monarchical rule when the will of the aristocracy stops being benevolent and no longer matches up with the will of the people as a whole. Without using real-world examples, the ruling nobility of Ala Mhigo and especially King Theodoric himself weren't exactly good for the people and the fact that the people were stuck with him due to him sharing blood with past rulers, meant that they had to revolt in order to change their government. An elected government is no more immune to misgoverning or corruption, but they're more easily replaced in theory. For Ishgard, the more egregious examples of nobles misusing their power had to be put to the sword in both the MSQ and DRK quests and there was no system in place to keep them in check or to stop them from being terrible people.

Ultimately, just because someone was taught from birth to be a ruler doesn't mean that they're going to be good at it, and it also doesn't mean that they won't use the position they attained only through being born to it which they can't be removed from to do bad things.

Of course you can end up with bad eggs, hence the addition of the democratic component to keep them in check. I don't think a pure system one way or the other would be good for Ishgard, (although it should be noted that their aristocracy did keep the country functioning throughout a thousand year war and pretty catastrophic climate change, so I'd say on the whole they're definitely pretty decent at what they do) but the hybrid system they've arrived at isn't just a compromise that keeps enough people happy to remain stable, it's a combination of the strengths of both systems.

[RyuDragnier]

While that can certainly be the case, as it is with Doma, the people stop being interested in monarchical rule when the will of the aristocracy stops being benevolent and no longer matches up with the will of the people as a whole. Without using real-world examples, the ruling nobility of Ala Mhigo and especially King Theodoric himself weren't exactly good for the people and the fact that the people were stuck with him due to him sharing blood with past rulers, meant that they had to revolt in order to change their government. An elected government is no more immune to misgoverning or corruption, but they're more easily replaced in theory. For Ishgard, the more egregious examples of nobles misusing their power had to be put to the sword in both the MSQ and DRK quests and there was no system in place to keep them in check or to stop them from being terrible people.

Ultimately, just because someone was taught from birth to be a ruler doesn't mean that they're going to be good at it, and it also doesn't mean that they won't use the position they attained only through being born to it which they can't be removed from to do bad things.

Another example of this is Bozja, where the nobles had the vast majority of the wealth and the poor underclass was everywhere. The queen was a political tool, and the nobles treated those lower than them with other disdain. It's rather telling that Garlemald taking over actually IMPROVED life for those who were poor.

[Guancyto]

Crystarium: Uhh... post-scarcity socialist commune. It's basically Star Trek. Very weird choice for a story that's ultimately post-apocalyptic, gotta admit.

No post-scarcity about it, the Crystarium is more or less a voluntary commune under the absolute dictatorship of someone who luckily happens to be a good guy. Of course, depopulation and horror monsters keeping the population low helps keep that sort of thing manageable, and sanctuary from the massive existential threat helps keep people from wanting to leave.

If the Exarch hadn't specifically engineered the society to be safe and familiar to the WoL they probably wouldn't even have currency.