Is the WoL actually good though?

[CrownySuccubus]

I dont see it as racist at all. Moreso it seems to be more like, if this character wasnt ugly but actually pretty instead. Factually people react more positively and understanding towards someone they perceive as pretty or handsome.

I mean, this isn't an either/or, mutually-exclusive fact.

Racists typically tend to find the features of their preferred ethnicity (or ethnicities) beautiful and humanize those people more than they do for the features of ethnicities they dislike or despise. In fact, stating that someone is more willing to kill a thinking, sentient person based on beauty standards inherent to their race is pointing out the most basic kind of racism.

[Necrotica]

I mean, this isn't an either/or, mutually-exclusive fact.

Racists typically tend to find the features of their preferred ethnicity (or ethnicities) beautiful and humanize those people more than they do for the features of ethnicities they dislike or despise. In fact, stating that someone is more willing to kill a thinking, sentient person based on beauty standards inherent to their race is pointing out the most basic kind of racism.

The uggos got to die and I will not apologize.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Why didn’t the WoL express any initiative to want to help the Eulmorans who the pixies had turned into shrubs/drowned btw? Or any remorse. After all, we learned they were effectively brainwashed. Yet no one seems to comment on that after the fact or expressed any interest in trying to undo their curse.

[Lucida3b]

That did always bother me a bit myself honestly, i always presumed the transformation rendered them non-aware

[DPZ2]

Why didn’t the WoL express any initiative to want to help the Eulmorans who the pixies had turned into shrubs/drowned btw? Or any remorse. After all, we learned they were effectively brainwashed. Yet no one seems to comment on that after the fact or expressed any interest in trying to undo their curse.

The only Eulmorans who encountered pixie wrath were attacking them. We weren't there. If we were, we'd have been fighting the Eulmorans. I didn't see the mighty army of Eulmore holding back, did you?

You are also assuming "that which is done can be undone". Turning something into a shrubbery is probably not reversable. Bringing someone back to life after drowning certainly isn't reversible. Drowning isn't a curse. Being transformed isn't a curse.

Your argument makes little sense.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Why didn’t the WoL express any initiative to want to help the Eulmorans who the pixies had turned into shrubs/drowned btw? Or any remorse. After all, we learned they were effectively brainwashed. Yet no one seems to comment on that after the fact or expressed any interest in trying to undo their curse.

How dare we not stop the fae from.....defending themselves? Yeah, I don't get this one.

[Theodric]

Yes, convenient exceptions are made when it's the 'bad guys' being subjected to such transformations though if someone turned Alisae into a tree I daresay the Scions would seek to do everything possible to try to reverse it. In the event that they couldn't, they'd be incredibly angry!

Of course given how the protagonists are comfort characters who cannot possibly be meaningfully harmed in any way then it's unlikely we'd be able to see such an experiment play out. How unfortunate.

It's less so the act itself so much as the double standard. During Stormblood, the Eorzean Alliance shifted from the 'defender' to the 'aggressor' but they certainly didn't just shrug and say 'they were just defending themselves' whenever Garlean experimentation/body horror was put into play. Fae body horror and transformation is little different, really.

[KizuyaKatogami]

The only Eulmorans who encountered pixie wrath were attacking them. We weren't there. If we were, we'd have been fighting the Eulmorans. I didn't see the mighty army of Eulmore holding back, did you?

You are also assuming "that which is done can be undone". Turning something into a shrubbery is probably not reversable. Bringing someone back to life after drowning certainly isn't reversible. Drowning isn't a curse. Being transformed isn't a curse.

Your argument makes little sense.

But they explicitly state it to be a curse if you do the pixie side quests. Also…there’s that one quest i believe about the knight who got turned into a shrub to prevent him from fully dying in hopes of one day there being a cure. People thought tempering wasn’t reversible and look where we are now. Again, they were brainwashed people. They had little control over their actions, and as we saw, anyone who defied or expressed weakness was tossed aside by Ranjiit. The twins were there were they not? The people turned into shrubs are very much alive. That’s the worst part. They’re damned to be like that and all because they had little control over their actions. My argument makes sense it just seems like you don’t understand it.

How dare we not stop the fae from.....defending themselves? Yeah, I don't get this one.

Arent we told the Fae do it regardless to anyone for shits and giggles though lol.

[Theodric]

How dare we not stop the fae from.....defending themselves? Yeah, I don't get this one.

From what I recall they subject random strangers to such 'tricks' as well. Il Mheg is actually a deceptively dark place despite the bright and cheery aesthetics.

I think it's pretty interesting. I love that sort of thing. I just think it's also good to own up to the morally grey aspects of the story.

[CrownySuccubus]

Yes, convenient exceptions are made when it's the 'bad guys' being subjected to such transformations though if someone turned Alisae into a tree I daresay the Scions would seek to do everything possible to try to reverse it. In the event that they couldn't, they'd be incredibly angry!

Of course given how the protagonists are comfort characters who cannot possibly be meaningfully harmed in any way then it's unlikely we'd be able to see such an experiment play out. How unfortunate.

It's less so the act itself so much as the double standard. During Stormblood, the Eorzean Alliance shifted from the 'defender' to the 'aggressor' but they certainly didn't just shrug and say 'they were just defending themselves' whenever Garlean experimentation/body horror was put into play. Fae body horror and transformation is little different, really.

Again, this is trying to force a deontological argument of "this thing is bad, thus all examples which resemble said thing must also be bad...no exceptions". This tends to happen a lot whenever it comes to either demonizing the Scions or justifying the Garleans.

Garlemald was forcing gruesome experiments onto captives and reluctant test subjects who were seized or conscripted as a result of Garlemald's own military campaigns...almost always, I might add, for the purpose of creating a new weapon for further conquest and subjugation. That isn't even in the same ballpark as the Pixies turning a group of hostile warriors into trees and flowers and whatnot. The Pixies were not, for example, the aggressors in this scenario, nor did their long-term goals foster an intent to be further aggressors.

I don't disagree with the general statement that a cure to Pixie transformation would probably be an ethical undertaking, since we know for a fact that the Pixies would do it to anyone, regardless of morality, but painting this as some kind of "double standard" that those Dastardly Scions are guilty of is just...not genuine, to put it politely. There's plenty of other actions of questionable ethics that the Scions can be judged on, but that...like a lot of things which involve Garlemald...is definitely NOT one of them.