Quote Originally Posted by MikkoAkure View Post
Walking around Garlemald in EW gives me the opposite impression. "Were" is the operative word here.

I don't think you can just put the deliberate civil war aside when it was an integral part to the whole reason for the empire to exist. It was designed by an Ascian to cause as much trouble in the world as possible in order to trigger a Calamity and then self-destruct in spectacular fashion to cause even more death and destruction. Garlemald has effectively ceased to exist as an actual power and they are now worse off than when Solus came into the picture.

Emet-Selch hated the Garleans as much as he hated everyone else and delighted in their deaths. Just as he gave the Garleans all these nice things, he also took them away. He let the curtain fall on his Solus persona and watched as the government and military culture he developed tear itself apart because he purposefully didn't name an heir and had a bunch of hot-heads as descendants.
Garlemald under the Imperial regime was a fully-functioning metropolis replete with modern day amenities. Emet-Selch disliked many people but his feelings towards the sundered mellowed with time, such that his Amaurotine shades regard us as children and not familiars. His Solus persona isn't all too unlike his actual personality. A snarky, but exceptionally cunning individual who demands respect and is no-nonsense.

This a leader who I can respect a lot more than the likes of Kan-E-Senna, who can't do anything because the magic tree said he doesn't like X person and thus refuses to heal them. I wouldn't consider his descendants "hot heads" when most of them seem to have inherited a degree of his intelligence. Varis is certainly competent, and was eventually successful in restoring order.

In any case, if you want someone to blame for the root cause of the Garlean's strife then look no further than the fallen angel Venat whose catastrophic mismanagement of the Dynamis threat led to their creation. If what Emet did in letting them live only to suffer is evil, then worse is what she did to not just them but all human life. If we want to apply these sorts of standards, at least apply them fairly. The one who inflicted the most suffering onto others in the name of selfish reasons was her. Down to fighting her in arena vaguely reminiscent of a lake of ice like in Dante's Inferno, as much as I liked her as the woman she was, she is still the cruellest of all FFXIV's villains and is no goddess.