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

[KizuyaKatogami]

Ala Mhigo was invaded and the war restarted because a band of terrorists put on Eorzean Alliance uniforms and attacked a Garlean outpost, following it up with summoning Shinryu. The Eorzean Alliance saw no way out of it other than to continue and besides, at this point all of Eorzea had spent the past 15 years being threatened by Garlemald and had survived 3 failed invasion attempts with Garlean soldiers still to this day present in Eorzean territory. Ala Mhigo wasn't a central part of Garlean territory and it was a 1500 year old sovereign state that wasn't even on Ilsabard, was not a target of Garlean revanchism, and had absolutely no history with the Garlean people at all.

Varis purged a dissenting political party because they said "maybe we shouldn't conquer and destroy people who had nothing to do with our original homeland". When they started gathering together with arms because he was killing them, he gassed them. Part of the point of that plotline, besides reintroducing the gas to people who didn't do SB sidequests, was to show that he's not a good person even to his own people. The Garleans had nothing to do with Aldenard and Othard and a sizeable chunk of the Garlean population agreed with that but Varis destroyed them so that he could continue his insane effort to take over the world and trigger Calamity after Calamity, the first of which ended up destroying Garlemald anyway in 8UC.

Between the civil war Varis led trying to take the throne that caused more chaos than Emet-Selch had hoped and his purge of the Populares, the Garleans probably ended up killing more of their own than any single foreign army had caused. Then his son, who by Varis' own admission had no business being in line for the throne, repossessed his body and ended up killing him and completely obliterated the rest of the country.

What a legacy.

I dont really need the history lesson. I understand the story. Again though, he accomplished something not even most of the other antagonists have accomplished. Also im sorry if i tend to sympathize more with the nation that was manipulated and had no savior to descend unto them and solve their every problem.

The problem with the "it's just fiction" justification is that it can be applied to just about every argument in the story, and runs the risk of rendering all discussion rather pointless. The world of FFXIV shares our morality (or thereabouts) and beliefs, and I'd rather the game acknowledge and deal with questionable scenarios when they arise rather than brushing off certain acts whilst condemning others because "it makes for a cool fantasy story."



I'll give you Sil'dih, though we are talking about a city state that existed hundreds of years ago and has little to do with Ul'dah in the present. But you're grossly exaggerating the reality of the other city states in an attempt to justify what the Garleans did. I can't really take you seriously when you're trying to make out the Eorzean Alliance are "just as bad" when Garlemald has continually sought the conquest and subjugation of other nations for its own glory and brought the racism, rape, genocide and slavery you mentioned to the countless provinces under its control.

Varis was dealt a rough hand when it came to his family, for sure, but after a certain point it cannot be used to justify the choices he made.

Okay and...did Limsa not seek the conquest of the Kobolds' land? Did uldah not seek to destroy Sildih? Whether these happened in the past is a non-issue. again, even today, Slavery is allowed in uldah. Racism and rape is rampant in both gridania and limsa. these arent problems only caused or only majorly done in purely garlemald territories. Am i supposed to just turn a blind eye to this because the writing is depicting all of the protagonists must be amazing and perfect and acknowledge their faults? Like...its the same as what i said above. I can only imagine what the city states would be like if the WoL hadnt showed up...Sorry if i dont feel sympathy for the places that had a demi-god figure show up to help them all and treat their woes while the other people had to work with what they had.