Political Ideology and Storytelling Within FFXIV

[EaraGrace]

Getting into some of the weirder political systems, you have the Fae in Il Mheg with a monarchy based entirely around the possession of magical artifacts, the factions of Idyllshire and their political union, the beast tribes and their chieftains, the Viera tribes, and the political haziness surrounding Mor Dhona and the Adventurers Guild (is it an independent town, is it a corporate town?).

Honestly there’s not to many democracies comparatively.

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.

Well put!

[aveyond-dreams]

Regardless of what the actual numbers are the fact remains is that democracy is still painted as the good guys in this game and they are given far more focus while monarchies continue to be villanized or the few remaining ones have exited the plot due to irrelevance.

Aymeric, designed as a "tragic prince" becoming speaker of the house was ridiculous. Were this FFIV or FFIX he would have been rightfully crowned king by virtue of his leadership.

Hien at the very least got to take back his throne, but now there is no reason to go back to Doma. Would that he could have been the muscle in our party instead of Thancred or goodness forbid, Lyse.

There doesn't even appear to be much hope of restoring monarchy to Garlemald, with one of the sidequest chains revealing that the rest of the royal family has been slain by rampant war machines just outside their supposed safehold.

I don't play FF games to spread freedom and democracy like some bizarre American fantasy, I come here for the high fantasy elements: kings, gods (of which there are now none), castles, that sort of thing. I outright reject the trend of liberating these nations and sucking the magic straight out of them by turning them into another part of the United States of Final Fantasy. Enough is enough.

We're left in a world whose story has been resolved-which would be ok if that meant the game was ending-but I do not see how we can go forward for the next 10 years in a world bereft of deities and monarchs, in favor of more tiring "we are a free republic so we are the good guys here to save you!" I can only hope that the wills of Hydaelyn and Zodiark persisted and reincarnate into new gods, and that 7.0 represents a return to high fantasy, with sights as iconic as Ishgard's castle, knights in shining armor like Aymeric and Estinien, and that we leave the snoozefest of Sharlayan's "peaceful democracy" behind forever.

“A King may be ill advised and act wrong, a Republic never acts right, for a knot of villains support each other, and together they do what no single person dare attempt."

Well spoken. So as to avoid drawing parallels to real-world locations, take Princess Garnet for example. A young woman who learns and grows so much by the end of her adventure, and goes on to likely lead Alexandria into a golden age. Cecil Harvey, not even of Baron is entrusted with the crown due to his heroism and his previous leadership of the Red Wings, roughly analogous to Aymeric's position as leader of the Temple Knights, taking the noblewoman Rosa as his queen. This is what people come to Final Fantasy for-not for this "House of Lords/House of Commons" nonsense.

[Jandor]

Well put!

“A King may be ill advised and act wrong, a Republic never acts right, for a knot of villains support each other, and together they do what no single person dare attempt."

[Slatersev]

This is what people come to Final Fantasy for-not for this "House of Lords/House of Commons" nonsense.

Your speaking for a very large fanbase here without any real justifications. I highly doubt the majority of fans, weather it be just XIV or the series as a whole get mad at the idea of turning a monarchy into a democracy.

I was around when 3.3 dropped. People weren't mad that Aymeric became Lord of the House instead of a king. Hell Ishgard pre HW wasn't even a Monarchy anymore anyway, the church had already assumed full control and the nation was a Theocracy with a Noble Class under it.

Stormblood has us reinstate one Monarchy and reform another into a Democracy.

Eulmore was a Democracy pre Vauthry, we just returned it to that state.

None of the OG 3 City-States are Democracies. The idea that they have somehow gotten less focus is flat wrong.

The game treats various forms of gov with a pretty even hand. But even if it didn't I think its a bizarrely narrow view to get mad at the idea of a Democracy or several of them existing in a world of High Fantasy and Gods. There not mutually exclusive at all.

[aveyond-dreams]

Your speaking for a very large fanbase here without any real justifications. I highly doubt the majority of fans, weather it be just XIV or the series as a whole get mad at the idea of turning a monarchy into a democracy.

I was around when 3.3 dropped. People weren't mad that Aymeric became Lord of the House instead of a king. Hell Ishgard pre HW wasn't even a Monarchy anymore anyway, the church had already assumed full control and the nation was a Theocracy with a Noble Class under it.

Stormblood has us reinstate one Monarchy and reform another into a Democracy.

Eulmore was a Democracy pre Vauthry, we just returned it to that state.

None of the OG 3 City-States are Democracies. The idea that they have somehow gotten less focus is flat wrong.

The game treats various forms of gov with a pretty even hand. But even if it didn't I think its a bizarrely narrow view to get mad at the idea of a Democracy or several of them existing in a world of High Fantasy and Gods. There not mutually exclusive at all.

I've been around since ARR and also cleared patch 3.3. when it dropped. I was not pleased with the outcome other than Estinien surviving.

Stormblood's monarchy, Doma, is so far removed from the world that we have no reason to go back to it unless they want to take us for another eastern themed expansion, which is extremely unlikely for the start of season 2.

Ala Mhigo was arguably better off with a mad king at its head than with a government that has anything to do with Lyse, goodness help them. The entire kingdom is a colorless wasteland that failed massively to get me to fall in love with it or its people, who I would have much preferred to abandon to the Garleans. Nearly every patch sees us return there for a meeting, or Limsa Lominsa whose pirate-land politics failed to ever catch my interest.

Eulmore was a democracy, a completely failed one at that given that they elected Vauthry's egotistical father who was just as much a villain as he was, only without the magic powers to see his agenda through.

As for the OG 3 city states? The ones who were so bereft of traditional fantasy elements that so many people complained about it that Yoship made an express point to dangle Ishgard right in front of our noses in ARR so as to tease Heavensward? Yeah, I don't care much for them either. Gridania was cool for 10 minutes before Kan-E-Senna opened her mouth and relegated the city-state to little more than a starter village with a complete lack of defining features besides: "forest!"

The number one place that people seem to have fallen the most in love with is Ishgard-the castle on the mountain, where we had an entire expansion's worth of prince charmings and knights. That is what you can sell to Final Fantasy fans-not this tired "lets go liberate X country because freedom!" Stormblood-era writing, whose story was the worst received of all by the playerbase. But hey, if they want to set up the United States of FF in place of Garlemald next expansion starting with Corvos, they can go on ahead. Or better yet, an African Safari in Meracydia or fighting an "evil!" Colonial Empire in the New World.

I refuse to follow down this game down that pathway, I'm sick of these tropes and now that this world does not even have any gods there is less allure to it than the mechanized settings of FFXIII's games and modern setting of FFXV. I refuse to be Sharlayan's new peacekeeping mercenary, wielded by none other than Alphinaud and the great leader G'raha Tia himself! I'd rather fight on the Garleans side in the name of a new emperor, or hop over to another shard and leave the source behind entirely. Failing that? Consider me gone, nebulous "themes" of freedom didn't sell me on Heavensward: the castle on the mountain and Aymeric did.

[EaraGrace]

The number one place that people seem to have fallen the most in love with is Ishgard-the castle on the mountain, where we had an entire expansion's worth of prince charmings and knights. That is what you can sell to Final Fantasy fans-not this tired "lets go liberate X country because freedom!" Stormblood-era writing, whose story was the worst received of all by the playerbase. But hey, if they want to set up the United States of FF in place of Garlemald next expansion starting with Corvos, they can go on ahead. Or better yet, an African Safari in Meracydia or fighting an "evil!" Colonial Empire in the New World.

I refuse to follow down this game down that pathway, I'm sick of these tropes and now that this world does not even have any gods there is less allure to it than the mechanized settings of FFXIII's games and modern setting of FFXV. I refuse to be Sharlayan's new peacekeeping mercenary, wielded by none other than Alphinaud and the great leader G'raha Tia himself! I'd rather fight on the Garleans side in the name of a new emperor, or hop over to another shard and leave the source behind entirely. Failing that? Consider me gone, nebulous "themes" of freedom didn't sell me on Heavensward: the castle on the mountain and Aymeric did.

Now this is an interesting hill. Most often the criticism runs the opposite way, for good reasons admittedly, that the game flirts too much with classist systems of power and inadvertently paints over the way even the best of these types of systems rely on exploitation. Which makes this take interesting!

Is it the aesthetic of these systems that make it appealing to you, or do the systems themselves that you like? I can agree that I like the aesthetics of “sword and board, fight the dragon, save the kingdom fantasy” but the latter? Ehhhhhh lol

[aveyond-dreams]

Now this is an interesting hill. Most often the criticism runs the opposite way, for good reasons admittedly, that the game flirts too much with classist systems of power and inadvertently paints over the way even the best of these types of systems rely on exploitation. Which makes this take interesting!

Is it the aesthetic of these systems that make it appealing to you, or do the systems themselves that you like? I can agree that I like the aesthetics of “sword and board, fight the dragon, save the kingdom fantasy” but the latter? Ehhhhhh lol

When I first looked at Ishgard’s castle, I went “woah, that place is cool, I want to go do things over there with their knights instead of lame pirate/desert/forest people.” A religious theocracy instead of a kingdom? Kinda sucks, but it’s still a place I wanted to check out, especially with the whole Dragonsong war and heretic stuff going on. Heavensward then proceeded to blow us all away.

When I look at the state of present-day Ala Mhigo, I think “man this place looks boring and I can’t wait to be out of here, why am I the errand boy of a character who is no longer her bubbly self anymore, they want to turn this into a republic? Helping these people was a mistake.” Now that Garlemald’s noble class has all but been exterminated, I predict that that they will revert to being a republic and “be good again!” just like Bozja, with more “every citizen gets a say!” nonsense.

In any case, I do not believe that monarchy has to be linked to exploitation. There are poor people in every country of the world and arguably such a state of affairs is often exacerbated by the existence of republics-because a group of politicians cannot feel or empathize with people on the level that an individual ruler can, especially one who believes it is their god-given right to rule and preserve the integrity of their kingdoms.

Princess Garnet from FFIX, King Edgar from FFVI, Princess Lenna and Princess Krile from FFV, King Cecil from FFIV, King Alistair from Dragon Age, King Hien, and Aymeric-these are people who cared for their people and would make better rulers and advocates for the wellbeing of their people than some faceless mass of nobodies.

This goes deeper than mere aesthetics however-even Noctis showed the makings of a king by his journey’s end, despite Insomnia quite literally being Tokyo mixed with what appears to be an upperclass London vibe. We went on an adventure with retainers who were loyal to us-one whose sense of duty was so strong that he blinded himself for our sake and another who actively challenged our ideals when we began to falter.

Contrast this experience to the good-doers of the scions. A bunch of yes men who were only made tolerable by the state of affairs surrounding us in Shadowbringers and Endwalker-I celebrated when they met their apparent demise at the end of ARR and we were shipped off to Ishgard instead. At least Estinien, our knight in bloodied armor, joined with us in Endwalker though I would have much rather journeyed on with him and Aymeric in other kingdoms inspired by Europe as opposed to:

The entire Ala Mhigan arc of Stormblood-a specific portion that holds the esteemed position of being what must be the worst writing in the history of Final Fantasy

African or Australian Inspired Meracydia

New World full of colonial conflicts “because someone is oppressing X people again!”

Reforming Garlemald into a republic

These are not stories or experiences that you can sell to a fantasy lover or a Final Fantasy player unless they are hopelessly attached to the game. If such a game didn’t have the FF title attached to it, it would be destined to fail. Even I, who has been here since day 1 of ARR, would bow out if that’s where the road to 7.0 leads. No gods, no kingdoms? Just more nation building and reforming because “king=bad democracy=good? and more abstract hope vs despair conflicts?” I’ll be gone faster than you know it.

Instead of more direct lifting and copy pasting the real world into FFXIV, here's my take on what Meracydia should look like (since of course they decided that it would have the shape of Austrailia, as can be seen from the moon), complete with an entire plot that draws inspiration from the wars on FFIX's Mist continent and monarchies from past titles-this is what I want to see instead of us fighting kangaroos and colonial powers next expansion:

[KageTokage]

Them already mentioning that 7.x would involve a "conflict of morals" is giving me a vibe that we're going to be dealing with another "ends justify the means" sort of villain in a foreign land.

I do enjoy some level of political intrigue, but at the core of things as long as I'm getting to see new places and cultures and getting to punch more nasties in the face the game will hold my interest for the future.

[Cleretic]

Them already mentioning that 7.x would involve a "conflict of morals" is giving me a vibe that we're going to be dealing with another "ends justify the means" sort of villain in a foreign land.

I do enjoy some level of political intrigue, but at the core of things as long as I'm getting to see new places and cultures and getting to punch more nasties in the face the game will hold my interest for the future.

Honestly, I'm hoping we get more proper, 2.5 or Heavensward-level political intrigue. While I really love how they wrote Garlemald, as far as actual political maneuvering goes nothing all too intricate really happened.

2.5 and Heavensward were hampered by the writers still not knowing quite what they could fit into their workflows and story space (hence why the titular Heaven's Ward were barely factors), so I'd love to see what they could do if they circled around and, now that they have a much better idea of what fits into an expansion, just doing a story that's ALL politics.

That said, I'm a little worried about the idea that 7.0 will be a 'conflict of morals', because... well, if Endwalker has taught me anything it's that parts of this fanbase are real bad at those.

[_Koneko_]

you have the problem that many people think political plots are boring though a common complaint about a lot of stories is they "waste" to much time on the politics a lot of people crave action that's why you have a lot of people who won't even watch cutscenes in the msq if it even hints at politics