Can we burn Ul'dah to the ground?

[KizuyaKatogami]

It's not that simple. The giants have gone mad, they've killed everyone they found in their way. I understand why. The injustices done to them are honestly insane but, after miners, it'll be settlements that get trampled. Who knows how many? Personally I'm not one for letting masses die "righteously", nor myself were I the WoL. They picked up a weapon and went on the warpath, understandable, but one shouldn't just lay down and die. Those settlements don't bear the sins of their forefathers either, AND I doubt anyone living outside the walls is related to the creme buying up mines. This is just putting an ugly end to an even uglier story.

The thing is we don’t even bring it up as a problem to anyone. We don’t mention it later on and try to do something about Uldah then and there. It’s all silence for the city states. Wouldn’t be the first time the wol did something pretty shitty though, just look at drk quests lol

[Rannie]

It would be hilarious to see a conflict between quark and the syndicate.

Quark and the Ferengi rules of acquisition would intrigue most of the Syndicate...especially Lolorito

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

A fictional World taking some realism from IRL by having us in a city that seems nice but has a dark history and is run mostly by currupt evil people that talk you into doing bad things and tell you you did good?

Huh, that actually makes me like Ul'Dah more, because it reflects the world I live in a little bit.
Post Arr was fascinating because....when did this patch come out?....either way, its commentary aged like Fine Wine because DAM, its Relevant Today!
Its scary, but amazing

[Lunalepsy]

No! That's where I live!

[JisKing98]

There's a reason why I want to be evil in this game so badly. Closest i could get is DRK. Man I wish more games had a morality system/choice in their games.

[phiore]

to be fair when you unlock copperbell mines the npc is kinda like 'well, it sucks that they were treated so poorly but we can't do anything but kill them'. like, the npc shows some level of remorse for the hecatoncheires' plight. sure does feel bad, though!

[Misplaced_Marbles]

so yeah, even the "bad guys", bei their Garleans or Ascians, arent just the black to our white...

The story never treats it like that though, but it certainly paints a clear picture of how the winners write history and the opinions of the dead don't matter. That is to say, we are always right(eous) and they were wrong.

The WoL, as a master of "not my problem, until a scion tells me it IS a problem", will just nod and trot off to off some monsters.

[IndyPendant]

Interesting questions, worthy of diverse answers. What do you think, though? Are your questions rhetorical?

I've been thinking about this since my original post. And in case that wasn't clear, the whole "burn it to the ground" part wasn't serious (although cleansing the cesspool sort of was).

I think my biggest problem with the whole scene was the way the WoL was written. Just...going along with it. It wasn't even ambiguous, it was blatant, it was obvious, and we very clearly -didn't care-. There wasn't even an option to show reluctance or regret, never mind an objection. So far as I know, the whole Copperbell Mines event is never mentioned again.

It's not that we didn't care. It's that we still don't care. It's not presented as maybe a foolish mistake we made in the naivete of our early career, that we deeply regret, like the whole Alphinaud arc. We, the Warriors of Light, we willingly chose to commit this atrocity, and we never so much as give it a second thought.

[Ath192]

I've been thinking about this since my original post. And in case that wasn't clear, the whole "burn it to the ground" part wasn't serious (although cleansing the cesspool sort of was).

I think my biggest problem with the whole scene was the way the WoL was written. Just...going along with it. It wasn't even ambiguous, it was blatant, it was obvious, and we very clearly -didn't care-. There wasn't even an option to show reluctance or regret, never mind an objection. So far as I know, the whole Copperbell Mines event is never mentioned again.

It's not that we didn't care. It's that we still don't care. It's not presented as maybe a foolish mistake we made in the naivete of our early career, that we deeply regret, like the whole Alphinaud arc. We, the Warriors of Light, we willingly chose to commit this atrocity, and we never so much as give it a second thought.

And I'm pretty sure if we were going to average out every FFXIV player and make that the actual WOL we still wouldn't care. You know there is an expansion that touches on this exact issue called Heavensward. Where some mad folk beyond reason had to go for the safety of everyone no matter how justified they were to be angry.

It was the good, practical correct choice. Those giants were beyond reason and going to kill others and they had to be stopped. I certainly don't regret preventing the death of a bunch of innocent poor miners who were going to get sent to those mines regardless of whether the giants were cleared or not, and you bet they would send them in anyways.

In fact if you want to feel better you can choose to believe that if you had not gone in the very next day they would have broken free and murdered every nearby villager and the Grand Company would have had to scramble and create a bloodbath in the surrounding areas. After all we do see the giants breaking free as we walk through.

So I wouldn't lose sleep over this.

[Zfz]

I still love the Sultana though. It's the people around her and the circumstances that prevented her from getting rid of those people. In a way I think Uldah is the most "realistic" of the three city states with its dirty politics and evil rich pulling the strings behind the Sultana.

And by extension, I've always had a soft spot for the Sultansworn. Especially Papashan. I wish the PLD job story line was more about the revival of the Sultansworn in the grand scheme of things and a return of Papashan. But I guess the nature of FFXIV as a MMO means there are just things that can't be changed by the story, because there's always new players joining.