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

[CrownySuccubus]

I don't engage in 'gatekeeping'. I've pretty firmly and frequently during my decade long stint on this forum suggested 'agreeing to disagree'.

You have a habit of claiming that you "agree to disagree" while continuing to make one last attempt to disprove or refute the opposite point. Which negates the point; it thus comes across as an attempt to get one final word while claiming you want the argument to stop.

I believe I made it quite clear from the beginning that my goal is to get you all to stop derailing threads by starting fights with people because you don’t like the way they criticize the story or it’s characters. You, in particular, have been repeatedly starting shit trying to shut people down, taking up countless pages with it and it’s beyond annoying.

Which is nonsense, because your definition of "derailing a thread" is to actually respond to what people are saying. If that annoys you, or anybody else, then too bad.

You know, I almost MIGHT believe you if I'd like..... ever seen Theodric engage in anything remotely resembling gatekeeping instead of, you know? Defending poster's right to express their opinion against actual gatekeepers. As it stands, the only one currently engaging in such is you. Attempts at being subtle by shaming others into silence instead of the bog-standard method of shouting "SHUT UP!" isn't as obfuscative as you'd like it to be.

When you post ANY opinion in a thread, you run the risk that people will challenge it. This should be common sense. A rant thread does not equal hate thread where anyone can just vomit out any words that sound remotely negative about Endwalker (or FFXIV) in general, with no dissension about it whatsoever.

Alright now I know beyond any doubt you're concern trolling.

Whatever makes it easier for you, I suppose.

Tbh the racism thing isn't exactly unique to Garleans, and the Garleans being racist is a bit more understandable too considering their history.

Garleans are racist to an INSANE scale, though. Every city-state in the game has had some history of racism, yes, but the Garleans have an actual goal of cultural genocide across multiple continents. Every racist thing you can blame one single Eorzean city state for (oppressing specific ethnic groups, wiping out an entire city, etc.) Garlean has done to MULTIPLE races or countries.

The whole '' one true race '' thing makes sense too if you know the context behind it ( which we didn't then ), altho the way he presented it was definitely quite unhinged.
But his overall point was that the Ascians were bad and if we were going to stand a chance against them we had to be '' whole ''.
I definitely think Varis is a bit more nuanced with the full context revealed, I also think it's a bit understandable that he'd be a bit unhinged about it considering he had basically been carrying that knowledge alone and even been the grandson of and puppet of an Ascian himself.
Varis just was in a very very screwed up position and could basically not talk to anyone about it until then and like his entire life and the empire he loved was basically a lie.

It's not that I don't think Varis had his reasons. Every villain typically has their reasons. But as you said, he was unhinged. And, likewise, the entire premise of "we need to become one master race to win/survive" is not even remotely entertained as correct or true. The scene basically makes him out to be no different than your typical supremacist/racist dictator. He may BELIEVE he's right, but there's no reason to think he is.

I didn't really get the impression that the Garleans were just treated as racist monsters, especially not if you know the lore of the other races and how shitty they can be towards each other too.
From our pov we don't see much of it because we're the WoL and generally hang around good people.

That's still the fault of the story, then. If the story wants them to seem more than cardboard villains, then THE STORY needs to SHOW it. Otherwise, we might as well assume that Venat had better reasons for Sundering, but the story just decided not to show us. In a fictional plot, if the story doesn't show or infer something, then it might as well not exist.

Edit: When it comes to Ala Mhigo too there's the whole mad king thing.
There's some truth to the notion that Garleans offered stability even if it was oppressive, I think Eorzeans are portrayed in a pretty negative way quite frequently in the story too.
We saw that with how people trying to adapt were treated too ( Fordola's parents ).

We never really see any of these methods of "stability", though. Since most of the provinces we see onscreen are in active rebellion or oppression. I don't doubt that there were definitely provinces (aside from the Capital) that thrived under Garlemald rule....but they're barely seen or mentioned.