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

[aveyond-dreams]

A garlemald expansion going trougn the ilsabardian regions with the final boss being anima would be really underwhelming... I could see people saying it's stormblood 2.0 let's march to the empire liberating the lands in the way, then when we defeat anima and win the day we liberate garlemald! Now all the world is united under the banner of the eorzean alliance. How original... and you guys trash endwalker. That one would be a predictable mess.

That is hardly what those of us who like Garlemald want. At all. I would much rather see one of the more competent members of the royal family placed on the throne to guide Garlemald into an era of better rule. I would have liked to explore territories who are very much in favor of being in the empire, and seek to restore order rather than to break away into a series of small, likely to fail nation-states.

I feel like I need to be absolutely clear on this, but I do not want to see the Empire join the Eorzean Alliance. This isn't like the Alliance of Altana from FFXI-its comparatively far less appealing and less interesting and every nation who joins it becomes another "free" democracy!

Given what we know of Varis through other characters like Regula and the opportunity to expand on his character further, a final fight against him as Anima would have carried far more weight than the fight against Meteion. An idealized Garlemald in my view maintains its militaristic spirit and is still headed by its monarchy, with its armies focused on battling things like blasphemies.

Sadly, given the current writing direction of sapping all magic out of FFXIV's world bit by bit, I can definitely forsee a future where Alphinaud, or better yet, his father, pacify the state and set up a democratic provisional government, and then 7.0 will ship us off to who knows where with Garlemald being an afterthought.