What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[Kozh]

As far as "deeper" stuff, my main impression was, "this seems to be a well-intended expansion about colonialism written by people who don't actually know or have much experience with colonialism."

Genuine question, do you have some examples of why would you think like that about the story?

Just curious though! It's fine if you don't want to answer.

[Brinne]

Genuine question, do you have some examples of why would you think like that about the story?

Just curious though! It's fine if you don't want to answer.

Oh, sure. I'm certainly nowhere near an expert in colonialist theory or anything, don't get me wrong. The reason I felt that way was because it felt like Stormblood often brought up concepts related to it, and then just sort of didn't quite know what to do with them, falling back on "um, and then things worked out because everyone was inspired by our hot-blooded heroism?" For example, Lyse's issues with diaspora, which I thought were potentially really interesting when first brought up - but then it sort of fell to the wayside and wasn't explored further until suddenly after spending some time with Hien (?????), everyone now believes in her and she's able to lead the Resistance based on her relationship to her father and sister (??????). Or, for example, it's obvious Stormblood was aware of the question of generations of younger people who had integrated into the oppressors' culture - or taking into considerations whatever valid reasons ordinary people would have to submit rather join an uprising - but didn't really present a compelling solution or deeper exploration for it beyond the WoL's personal charisma inspiring the population to stand up anyway.

Stormblood also sort of had problems in figuring out whether violent revolution was justified or not - see the common criticisms regarding the samurai job quests, and also, uh, frankly, no one in FFXIV has ever won as hard as Ilberd Feare, in terms of his methods and goals working out basically exactly the way he wanted to. (Venat would be very proud!) Ala Mhigo in general also honestly had a really interesting setup in the way Garlemald took advantage of its internal turmoil and civil war that resulted from its own extremely troubled history, and how that intersected with the "people who had integrated" issue, as well as the long-running unwillingness of the other city-states to help them - but this was largely brushed over and not really talked about in any depth within the MSQ. The fight for liberation, as far as Ala Mhigo was concerned, felt like it was treated is as generalized and broad a way as possible, with the possible exception of my beloved Fordola. Who, you know, is my wife. Wait what?