Political Ideology and Storytelling Within FFXIV

[KariTheFox]

Eh, the FF fanbase is as diverse as the games, if someone onboarded to the series with FF7, they might care little for classical fantasy elements like knights and castles and be more interested in fighting evil megacorporations and protecting the enviroment. Someone who fell in love with the series at FF8 might be there for interpersonal character drama and romance.

FF is such a divergent series of games at this point, the only thing you can say about them all is that they're all different.

[RyuDragnier]

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.

Here's hoping it's Gabranth again, he makes for a good moral villain considering he shares the same vision as the Scions in a sense (world peace) albeit using whatever means necessary for it.

[KageTokage]

I'd be really surprised if all of the remaining Garlean legions decided to play nice and follow the lead of the 1st and Xth in seeking peace, though it's hard to say whether that's a matter to be resolved in patch content or its own expansion.

I could realistically see a collaborative effort between a few of the defiant legions being enough of a threat to warrant to the latter if they decided to bring bear all the worst of the Garlean technology, be it the Resonant, synthetic auracite, and/or the weapons (Which could probably be downgraded into practical mass-production models). There's also potential for things to get even worse in that regard if research into dynamis and the blasphemies is able to yield fruit.

[Cleretic]

Here's hoping it's Gabranth again, he makes for a good moral villain considering he shares the same vision as the Scions in a sense (world peace) albeit using whatever means necessary for it.

While I would absolutely love the IVth Legion returning (especially because it probably means more Yasumi Matsuno writing), I don't think Gabranth can, going by the end of the Bozja story.

The final cutscene confirms he didn't have long to live, and the field notes given afterwards confirm his death some months afterwards. But there are still plot hooks about: Lyon is still around (with Pagaga at his side), and that final cutscene did confirm that they unearthed genuine original weapons of Gunnhildr's Blades.

[Lauront]

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.

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:

Hard agree with all this. No United States of Alphinaud for me.

[_Koneko_]

i hope you enjoy the new Garlean Republic because emperors are bad and they was created as republic Yo Dwag! we heard you like politics we put politics in your politics so you can politics while you politics i look forward to Senator Julius or whatever his name was i guess

[Cleretic]

i hope you enjoy the new Garlean Republic because emperors are bad and they was created as republic Yo Dwag! we heard you like politics we put politics in your politics so you can politics while you politics i look forward to Senator Julius or whatever his name was i guess

I've been thinking about this, and it'll be interesting to see what direction Garlemald will go, because there's an odd little hiccup: they actually liked being an empire. Like, that actually went pretty damn well for Garlemald for the most part. In fact, you can even go so far as to argue that the Garlean Empire didn't fail, the Garlean Empire was failed. If there were a suitable successor to the Garlean throne, I'd actually think Garlemald would just crown a new Emperor and keep going.

...the problem is, they don't have any options for that. Zenos was the end of Varis' line, and Nerva is M.I.A., so the Galvus name is dead. From there you'd presumably look to big Legatuses, but Quintus is dead, and most other Legatuses are either dead (Regula, Varros, Gabranth) or turncoat (Gaius, several unnamed ones in 6.0, Gabranth again). If they want to appoint someone to that throne, all the good options are gone.

While I fully expect the next patch or two to focus on Garlemald's politics, I actually don't expect their big concern to be 'well we lost, so we can't be an Empire anymore', I expect their actual stated problem to be 'guys, we ran out of Emperors, what do we do'.

[RyuDragnier]

I've been thinking about this, and it'll be interesting to see what direction Garlemald will go, because there's an odd little hiccup: they actually liked being an empire. Like, that actually went pretty damn well for Garlemald for the most part. In fact, you can even go so far as to argue that the Garlean Empire didn't fail, the Garlean Empire was failed. If there were a suitable successor to the Garlean throne, I'd actually think Garlemald would just crown a new Emperor and keep going.

...the problem is, they don't have any options for that. Zenos was the end of Varis' line, and Nerva is M.I.A., so the Galvus name is dead. From there you'd presumably look to big Legatuses, but Quintus is dead, and most other Legatuses are either dead (Regula, Varros, Gabranth) or turncoat (Gaius, several unnamed ones in 6.0, Gabranth again). If they want to appoint someone to that throne, all the good options are gone.

While I fully expect the next patch or two to focus on Garlemald's politics, I actually don't expect their big concern to be 'well we lost, so we can't be an Empire anymore', I expect their actual stated problem to be 'guys, we ran out of Emperors, what do we do'.

Which is why I suspect Landis may step up to the plate. The reason why I believe so? In the Ogre Battle series, which Landis (or Lodis) is a reference to, one of the countries was called the Holy Lodissian Empire. To quote the Ogre Battle Wiki on it...

Traditionally, the social structure of Lodis was such that the people were ranked according to their skills, regardless of race or class. But Lodis adopted a system of hereditary elitism by the general sentiment of the upper-class, which has continued to this day.

One of the demands placed by conquering Lodissian armies is that subjugated nations adopt this class system. The nobles and merchants who qualify as upper class are given titles in Lodis, regardless of their kingdom of origin.

Notice similarities between this and Garlemald? And with a power vacuum now in full effect, and the Magitek Academy being IN Landis...well, expect a new villainous empire to have arisen over the next few expansions.

[aveyond-dreams]

Eh, the FF fanbase is as diverse as the games, if someone onboarded to the series with FF7, they might care little for classical fantasy elements like knights and castles and be more interested in fighting evil megacorporations and protecting the enviroment. Someone who fell in love with the series at FF8 might be there for interpersonal character drama and romance.

FF is such a divergent series of games at this point, the only thing you can say about them all is that they're all different.

FFVII is a game that does not need a huge focus on classic fantasy elements because that is explicitly not the kind of story they are trying to tell-a story of corporations and environmentalism is better suited to settings like the city of Midgar and the modern settlements of that world. FFVII takes place in a time period roughly equivalent to the 1980s-1990s, depending on the given birthdates of the cast. FFXIV's battle of Cartenau takes place in the year: 1572.

FFVIII is a game whose story is driven a lot by individual character interactions and motivations, while still being upheld by more traditional fantasy elements by way of the sorceresses. Its cast makes an otherwise forgettable setting memorable, but FFXIV's crew of scions is composed of people who do little to challenge the player character and mostly just nod stoically as we go about the business of sucking magic out of the world by toppling kingdoms and gods left and right. Our best parties in this game were when we traveled with Ysayle, Estinien, and Alphinaud in Heavensward, and when we got to hang out with Venat, Hades, and Hythlodaeus in Elpis.

We have now reached the point where the two major deities have exited the story and the evil empire is now in tatters. The scions of whom only Alisae has anything resembling a backbone are still around, ready to bore us again at a moment's notice and Estinien has gone off on his own to Thavnair, which doesn't seem to have any major problems going on.

The region of greatest instability right now is Garlemald, where the twins have taken off to. The magitek empire that similar to FFVI existed in tandem with the fantasy kingdoms of the world. No emperor, no royal family, but mr. freedom for all the people is there probably jumping at the chance to reform the bad guys once again. And with that, another element of magic and fantasy is lost to the world, sealing the fate of another major world region, leaving us with only the imperial territories, Meracydia, and the New World as potential future settings.

While I would very much enjoy an expansion taking place within Ivalice inspired zones-I know that is not on the table. The other imperial territories may very well go on to form republics of their own "because freedom!" instead of restoring the monarchies that Garlemald likely put an end to in favor of their own. Corvos allegedly had a kingdom at one point, but what remains of it are anyone's guess. Meracydia, which could very well take after the southeastern Mist continent as opposed to fantasy Africa or Austrailia as a huge chunk of the community seems to believe, will either hit the mark or miss it completely. FF players might come to the franchise for a lot of things, but you won't be able to sell either of those niche real-world inspired locations to the fantasy or the modern crowd. And the New World? I have a hard time believing they'd be able to stomach more "the colonists are oppressing the people!" stories in the middle of nowhere.

As of now, all we know is that we're getting another battle of morals. Forgive me if I don't stick around for Hermes the Second wanting to end the world because he can't understand the meaning of life in the middle of the Austrailian savannah while we try to battle evil colonists oppressing fantasy kangaroo beastmen.

[Rulakir]

I don't usually find political or wartime stories interesting. My first FF title was FFX, which I loved. Then I played FFXII, which I didn't care for at all.

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.

Individuals have different sets of values and what's important to one person isn't to another. It's why I don't believe these conflicts work and you'd think they'd have learned that between ShB & EW (or real life for that matter). Especially given the way FFXIV tends to treat antagonists, it's condemning of the 'wrong' set of values regardless of what Yoshi-P says about accepting different ways of thinking. I wish more of the DRK questline mentality carried over to the main MSQ where the WoL struggles with whether or not they're doing the right thing.