Endwalker Main Scenario Commentary & Feedback

[Puksi]

Parting thoughts on prior post:

Pretty sure as soon as the dialogue turned to another variation of "won't anyone think of the murderers" I rolled my eyes and tuned out, but I do remember that bit. I took it as less of a "character development" for Arenvald and more another push by the writers to ignore the weight of the Crania Lupi's deeds, though. One minute they are "terrorizing" as Lyse once described, the next they're to be "equals" to their victims?

As they were beating Wercrata half to death, the Skulls practically used Quintus' logic to boot: "We'd have it good if you just let yourselves be conquered!" The threat of Lakshmi only became a thing in the first place because the Skulls murdered the Qalyana broodmother's daughter, Anamika. Under Fordola's command, they murdered a child. Raganfrid keeps saying he forgives none of it, but he certainly does go on and on how tough it must be to beat and kill civilians in order to secure a place with Garlemald.

Blaming families for the choices of relatives is one thing. The Skulls themselves, though, made their own choices, and should face realistic consequences for them. But the writers really did use the classic "I was just following orders" "no matter how depraved" to push sympathy for a Skull whose father turned into a Blasphemy from guilt.

The quest chain in Ala Ghiri with Baut was way more believable than all this.

Arenvald's dream was adventures like we had in Skalla. There's no reason why he needs to put those dreams away in a fantasy world where physics only apply at weirdly selective times.

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Again, I'm not arguing E-S's atrocities. What I'm still trying to understand is the logic of the writers in dismissing them all to call the "megalomaniacal madman" a hero instead, and call said atrocities some kind of noble "burden". Even if that poster's take was the narrative's intent, like you said it still doesn't work, and placing a mass-murdering dictator in such high regard certainly is a bold take on the writers' part.

For the past three expansions now, the onus has been increasingly placed on characters who have suffered harm to forgive and/or forget, rather than on the ones who harmed them to regret their deeds. I don't know why the writers choose to prioritize this, but it feels pretty awful as a player.

[Cleretic]

Parting thoughts on prior post:

I think you're being rather blind to a known issue, in real life, that's being echoed in the story.

When a war is settled, there is a big question of culpability, of exactly who is responsible versus who was simply another kind of victim being used as a tool. Similar issues cropped up around Doma in 4.x; after you've taken new control over a nation, what do you do about people guilty of things that just weren't crimes under a new nation?

The Crania Lupi are a perfect example of a facet of it. They were forced into service, either by outright conscription or a form of blackmail and extortion by their rulers ('your only way to get the respect and protection of the Empire is to join their army'), and acting on orders they weren't coming up with. If a man shoots against his will, under threat of his family being harmed if he doesn't, how guilty is that man of the death that may follow? This is a complicated goddamn issue, enough so that IRL the International Criminal Court basically exists to figure it out. Saying 'but they're all murderers' and calling it a day is dangerously reductive.

Chances are, if you really went through it all, the Crania Lupi probably had members that fall on both sides of this divide (and Fordola might be the hardest question of them all). But the problem is that Ala Mhigo never really asked those questions, they tried to brush it all under the rug. That led to nobody really getting any answers or closure; not only are now liberated civilians leery of that family around the corner whose son joined the Empire, but the ex-Lupi and their family themselves are grappling with the morality of what happened under occupation, wracked with guilt for actions that ultimately may not have been their fault. That creates the pariah situation that we saw in the healer quests; a complicated situation was not acknowledged or approached, and as a result people jumped to the simplest answer, which happened to be the most painful one.

[Puksi]

Ala Mhigo didn't brush it under the rug--the writers did. If they weren't willing to delve into the gravity of the situation they created, they probably shouldn't have crossed so many moral event horizons. It's ridiculous to show a child dead in the dirt only to shrug it off and later call the one responsible a "hero"--a "hero" that's shown no regret for any of it, either, except for how it's affected her. The narrative is also very quick to portray the Ala Mhigans who were harmed as "unreasonable", in what feels like an attempt to generate sympathy towards the "Butcher".

In terms of pure story, though, there was zero reason to permit Wercrata to be beaten, and zero reason to kill Anamika. Fordola was in command of both those situations, and could have handled it as Baut handled Ala Ghiri--Baut was a conscript too, yet still had the ability to choose basic decency. Fordola had command over even Imperial soldiers at the tower. Yet she allowed a defenseless civilian to be beaten and a child taken hostage and later murdered--in the end she even killed her own men, her "friends", supposedly also reasons she joined the Crania Lupi in the first place.

The Imperial she ordered to fire on them hesitated to do so longer than it took her to arrive at the decision that she wasn't going to throw away her progress with Garlemald for their sakes. She even admitted in she wanted revenge on the Ala Mhigan people.

Gaius seems to have also been forgiven for forming the Crania Lupi to begin with as well, so there's that. And, of course, they've elevated the founder--and until recently, the Emperor--of Garlemald itself to practically the face of the series lately.

I'm not blind. I'm sick of the writers tossing around these monstrous deeds and lazily ignoring the weight of them--somehow always going directly to redeeming the irredeemable, no regret needed, because reasons. That's the only thing reductive in this conversation.