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

[aveyond-dreams]

words

Everything you've just said does nothing to justify the repeated use of the same "let's become a democracy!" plot that has been used 4 times already.

Also theocracy via the pope is not the same thing as a monarchy, as far as I am aware Thordan was chosen to be Archbishop from within the Church and his name "Thordan VII" refers to the fact that he is the 7th Archbishop to take the name of Thordan. It isn't his birthname.

Ala Mhigo was a massive failure of writing from multiple fronts but "yay democracy!" won out over the inclusion of any potential surviving royals (Larsas, Garnets, Ashes, etc) that could have been written into the plot, but weren't. Same thing for Garlemald.

Eulmore's resolution was lackluster after having gone through 2 versions of the same tired plot, because by that point my patience was exhausted. I had hoped Garlemald would have been handled better. And then it wasn't.

I suppose that when the Scions go into the void and beat up whoever is in charge there that we will once again set up a provisional government of freedom-loving voidsents to rule over the 13th. The nations back on the source will then proceed to morph into the United States of Final Fantasy, with Hien spontaneously deciding to give up his crown and Dalmasca being forgotten about entirely.

I don't see what fantasy that's shattering, other than that of living under tyranny. They were hardly sustainable forms of leadership, expect perhaps the theocracy in Ishgard before Thordan jumped off the deep end.

You can get rid of tyranny in more creative ways than "yay democracy!" especially when it's been repeated this many times. The good guy taking the throne would be a near-unthinkable turn of events in FFXIV's world given that as of now, it has only happened once in the case of Doma. These other states are all becoming ideologically homogenous with the likes of Sharlayan, and it's making for bad worldbuilding. Each nation stripped of what made it unique and gritty in the first place, then pacified as the Scions bulldoze their way through.

When the writers keep using the same messaging and plot over and over again, what is this if not preaching? This along with the messy themes and "morals" of Endwalker being shoved down my throat makes for a very unpleasant experience and a world that is quickly losing the things that made it worthwhile to explore in the first place.

Combine this with sectors of the playerbase that look down on others for being fans of Garlemald or monarchies in general (along with being on the "wrong" side of the debate regarding the Venat and Ancients situation), decrying them as all sorts of things while they parade around with their borgor catboy plushie, it's exhausting my patience and despite my love for the game I feel extremely strained by everything going on. The pillars of story and gameplay are crumbling, all while the community is too busy fawning over Tweetingway.

Again, why are these people playing FFXIV and not Persona? Why are they ruining this video game world when they already have their high school AUs and other forms of media where they can have their own values preached back to them instead of forcing them into a fantasy video game setting?

[MikkoAkure]

Everything you've just said does nothing to justify the repeated use of the same "let's become a democracy!" plot that has been used 4 times already.

Also theocracy via the pope is not the same thing as a monarchy, as far as I am aware Thordan was chosen to be Archbishop from within the Church and his name "Thordan VII" refers to the fact that he is the 7th Archbishop to take the name of Thordan. It isn't his birthname.

Ala Mhigo was a massive failure of writing from multiple fronts but "yay democracy!" won out over the inclusion of any potential surviving royals that could have been written into the plot, but weren't. Same thing for Garlemald.

Eulmore's resolution was lackluster after having gone through 2 versions of the same tired plot, because by that point my patience was exhausted. I had hoped Garlemald would have been handled better. And then it wasn't.

I suppose that when the Scions go into the void and beat up whoever is in charge there that we will once again set up a provisional government of freedom-loving voidsents to rule over the 13th. The nations back on the source will then proceed to morph into the United States of Final Fantasy, with Hien spontaneously deciding to give up his crown and Dalmasca being forgotten about entirely.

I'm not specifically talking about Thordan VII. Ishgard's ruling class are noble houses. Thordan VII also comes from a noble house. Aymeric was adopted into a noble house. Throughout the whole expansion it's the church, nobles and the knights who are causing us trouble. The Ishgardian theocracy is powered by the church and the noble houses whose existences are intertwined. I didn't think that needed explanation.

As for Ala Mhigo, why would a bunch of average, pissed-off citizens who just took back their own country without the help of the nobles who destroyed it and paved the way for Garlean takeover decide that they suddenly need to find a random jerk who crawled out of a specific womb just so they can rule? It could have been different if the monk NPC did the Estinien thing and came out of the side quests and into the MSQ to lead the army to victory but that's not what happened and he wants nothing to do with nobility or his family's "birthright".

Not sure what you would have expected for Eulmore. Would it really have changed everything for you if some random captain of the guard said "I'm king now, I guess" and the story never talked about it again after we move back to the Source?

And again for Garlemald. From at least ARR they were described as a former republic who started doing bad things as soon as they became an Empire so I'm not sure how someone could imagine them staying that way when none of the named ruling family exists anymore. They had 2 civil wars in the span of a year because they couldn't decide which royal butt deserves to kiss the throne when meanwhile they had 600 years of stability as a republic.


Edit: I could imagine the Ala Mhigans wanting to revive their monarchy if they had a favorable opinion of it. That happened with Doma. But the Ala Mhigan monarchy in recent memory purged their own noble houses and destroyed their own culture and religion before falling to a civil war that weakened the nation enough to be taken over with relative ease by Garlemald. As far as everyone knows, there's no one even left who could sit the throne. But the monk NPC (whose name I'm too lazy to look up right now) doesn't want anything to do with that history and has always been a monk. If he took the throne, old resentments that have since been buried would come back up. There's still Ala Mhigan royal loyalists calling themselves the Corpse Brigade in Thanalan and they're not exactly the friendliest people.

[aveyond-dreams]

more words

What part of this did you not understand? You've just described for a second time the flaws in the world-building that led up to each lackluster resolution. It's cyclical logic that would be broken by the inclusion of the necessary plot elements or characters to break free of the otherwise predictable mould. It still doesn't justify why things ended up the same way 4 times in a row.

There's no reason why they couldn't have added in an Ashe here or a Larsa there in order to break up the monotony and give us better leaders to root for than faceless parliaments 1, 2, 3, and so on.

Everything you've just said does nothing to justify the repeated use of the same "let's become a democracy!" plot that has been used 4 times already.

You can get rid of tyranny in more creative ways than "yay democracy!" especially when it's been repeated this many times.

[MikkoAkure]

What part of this did you not understand? You've just described for a second time the flaws in the world-building that led up to each lackluster resolution. It's cyclical logic that would be broken by the inclusion of the necessary plot elements or characters to break free of the otherwise predictable mould. It still doesn't justify why things ended up the same way 4 times in a row.

There's no reason why they couldn't have added in an Ashe here or a Larsa there in order to break up the monotony and give us better leaders to root for than faceless parliaments 1, 2, 3, and so on.

This "benevolent monarch waiting to take their country back" plot has already happened with Hien and Doma. Gaius for some reason was made defender of Werlyt. The Hannish people kept their dragon lord when their ruler died and it was revealed he was operating behind the scenes. Would you still be complaining about it if they had an Ashe or Larsa figure to appear and gallantly rise the power of a single-ruler government and rule benevolently every single time a government is toppled or in crisis and that we need a republic in there to shake it up or do you just have a thing about monarchies?

I feel like this is less about repeated story elements and more about how you have a tendency to pop into threads to let people know how much you don't like republics in fiction. I don't know anyone else who has had a problem with this and of those stories, only the government switchover in Ishgard had any actual role in the plot. Ala Mhigo and Eulmore sort of just happened because there wasn't a need in the plot to concentrate on regime change more than a quest or two since as you say it's trodden ground, and Garlemald is a pile of cinders that people can barely live in, let alone a nation. We haven't even crossed that bridge yet.

[CrownySuccubus]

This "benevolent monarch waiting to take their country back" plot has already happened with Hien and Doma. Gaius for some reason was made defender of Werlyt. The Hannish people kept their dragon lord when their ruler died and it was revealed he was operating behind the scenes. Would you still be complaining about it if they had an Ashe or Larsa figure to appear and gallantly rise the power of a single-ruler government and rule benevolently every single time a government is toppled or in crisis and that we need a republic in there to shake it up or do you just have a thing about monarchies?

I feel like this is less about repeated story elements and more about how you have a tendency to pop into threads to let people know how much you don't like republics in fiction. I don't know anyone else who has had a problem with this and of those stories, only the government switchover in Ishgard had any actual role in the plot. Ala Mhigo and Eulmore sort of just happened because there wasn't a need in the plot to concentrate on regime change more than a quest or two since as you say it's trodden ground, and Garlemald is a pile of cinders that people can barely live in, let alone a nation. We haven't even crossed that bridge yet.

It's hilariously ironic that the FAE of all races actually have one of the better systems of deposing and replacing a monarch. And even in that case, said monarch was such a threat that all they could initially do was ignore them until someone came along to actually perform the impeachment proceedings.

[KizuyaKatogami]

I feel like this is less about repeated story elements and more about how you have a tendency to pop into threads to let people know how much you don't like republics in fiction. .

The same way you pop into threads to let people know how much you despise Garlemald and love sweet mommy Venat? Give me a break.

[MikkoAkure]

The same way you pop into threads to let people know how much you despise Garlemald and love sweet mommy Venat? Give me a break.

Bits of the Garlemald story are interesting when they're not being written as the stereotypical monolithic evil fantasy empire. While I think they were done dirty by the writing as soon as Zenos took over and they decided to wreck everything, I'm not about to go full Garlean Legal Defense Team and I think story-wise they were in the wrong and shouldn't have done the things they did. They would've been better off not listening to foxy grandpa and the Lemures and a large portion of the senate and their supporters agreed. The whole Reaper storyline chronologically started when one of the Lemures tried assassinating his own emperor over disagreeing with the direction it was going.

The writers didn't stick the landing with Venat but I still maintain that there's no way that Hydaelyn was ever going to be the villain like some people in the forums had hoped. And when viewed in-universe through our character's eyes, for better or worse she's the reason us and everything we know exists. If a shadow ghost came up to me and said that 15,000 years ago people used to have amazing powers and were 20ft tall but there was a disagreement over the end of the world where they created two gods and one side wanted to cull the new life seeded onto the desolate aftermath (that led to us) to bring back their friends versus the one who said "no you can't do that" and stomped the other god so hard that the world broke, I'd pick the side that led to me and supports me continuing to live since that's all I know. Especially when that shadow ghost wants to kill everyone to bring back his god.

The Ascians and the Garleans are the same in that both try to kill you before explaining themselves. Both are also written to be the antagonists of the video game. The writers can give them more background to make you sympathize with them a bit more and make the game more interesting than what is was in ARR, but it doesn't change that they spent the whole entire game trying to kill us and as a video game the whole point is to "win" and one side has to lose. You can write your own book where the narrative ends up different, but the story here is reliant on the medium it's being told in.

[Theodric]

Again, why are these people playing FFXIV and not Persona? Why are they ruining this video game world when they already have their high school AUs and other forms of media where they can have their own values preached back to them instead of forcing them into a fantasy video game setting?

Let's not forget the player ran 'venues' which are often little more than brothels or modern day night clubs. Personally I use ESO for my 'immersive world' fix where MMO's are concerned. I'm also hoping Ashes of Creation, Pantheon and/or the League of Legends MMO end up doing very well for themselves.

I expect they'll each attract a very different type of player as well - one that primarily wants a game and an immersive, consistent world over a glorified visual novel.

It's a shame that it's a bit of a wait until any of them launch but...it is what it is.