The WOL and Mass Murder

[SannaR]

I would assume a cannon job would be any job the WoL has been shown as in official art. So far that would be Archer, Pld, War, Mnk, Sam, Drg and Drk. Meteor really loves his tanks. Anyways I still don't think the WoL is as much of a blood thirsty murder hobo as the OP and some others think they are. Also no where as close to probably Halone who one time went on a walk with Orcheon and killed everything that they came upon. Which extremely pissed off Norphica to the point some of the other Gods had to intervene. You know you have a high body count when a nature Goddess is seriously wanting to commit some murder.

[Cleretic]

Anyways I still don't think the WoL is as much of a blood thirsty murder hobo as the OP and some others think they are.

Yeah. Focusing on things like 'how many people have they killed and how bad of a person does that make them' is a bit of a disingenuous argument, because the story itself doesn't carry that or even really consider it. The WoL is a person in a world and job where death happens... frankly, much more often than I would hope most of us are used to, and frequently finds themselves in exactly the situations where they have to do that themselves. Take Zenos' view in what that says about the WoL as a person if you wish, but the fact is the WoL killing something in their line of work is nowhere near the same as how we, as presumable civilians in what's probably been mostly a peaceful life, see a person killing someone. (I know I'm making assumptions about audience here, but I hope you get my point.)

So trying to declare them evil or cruel needs to be determined less by our interpretation of their deeds, and more by the interpretations of everybody around them. And the world around the WoL clearly recognizes that they are a good person, doing what's right. Granted, some of that has changed over time--most instances of outright murder or more morally dubious acts of violence come from 2.0, where the tone was much darker since it was carried over from 1.0--but broadly the WoL is seen as a good, well-meaning and helpful person. Nobody treats them ill for 'too bad you killed all those people', so we can reasonably assume that as far as the general moral views of the world around them, the WoL is considered A Good Person.

[SentioftheHoukai]

Every starting questline also has one named-character kill; Gridania has Janremi Blackheart, Ul'Dah has Garibald the Fargone, Limsa has Baenryss of the Deep. All three are confirmed dead thanks to PotD, which also confirms that those guys got killed by someone else even if we weren't there.

Once we get into vagueries and unnameds, there's a scant few times when certain job questlines/starting cities have slightly more blood on their hands where it is confirmed deaths, and (for the 'but the WoL is baaaaaaad' crowd) includes actual non-aggravated murders. If you wanted to determine the potential WoL with the highest bodycount, then the bloodiest WoL start is probably Lancer, thanks to Gridania WoL killing three qiqirn as vengeance for a threat, and being plausibly charged with the death of Foulques of the Mists (granted, he attacked first). If you wanted to then branch into exactly one post-launch job, our bloodiest Theoretical WoL is actually a Lancer/Dragoon-turned-Dark Knight; 30-50 DRK has quite a bodycount, thanks to Fray.

I'm not sure what my point is here. Maybe it's that people who pick DRK and then say that the WoL is a killer/bad person have completed a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Let's be honest here, how many people would actually charge us with that for Foulques of all people? I mean, come on you said it yourself he literally committed multiple crimes already which the average adventurer could theoretically kill him in retaliation for. Assuming of course we're discounting killing someone on the basis of pre-crime.

It's actually a shame, since I actually liked Foulques and wanted to get justice for him. Another victim of ARR's shitty writing, really. Then again, consider how long ago it happened I wonder just how plausible bringing the true situation to light might end up being.

Anyway, none of this is truly necessary since "canon" events are completely irrelevant in an MMO. For the player character, anyway. You wanna play a magical girl that literally does no wrong and kills nobody ever? Go right ahead. You wanna instead roleplay a former Garlean Legatus or Ascian turncoat that the Scions only keep around despite their enormous bodycount because they need them to slay all the primals? Work it, you edgelord you.

[RukoBoshi]

Let's be honest here, how many people would actually charge us with that for Foulques of all people? I mean, come on you said it yourself he literally committed multiple crimes already which the average adventurer could theoretically kill him in retaliation for. Assuming of course we're discounting killing someone on the basis of pre-crime.

It's actually a shame, since I actually liked Foulques and wanted to get justice for him. Another victim of ARR's shitty writing, really. Then again, consider how long ago it happened I wonder just how plausible bringing the true situation to light might end up being.

Anyway, none of this is truly necessary since "canon" events are completely irrelevant in an MMO. For the player character, anyway. You wanna play a magical girl that literally does no wrong and kills nobody ever? Go right ahead. You wanna instead roleplay a former Garlean Legatus or Ascian turncoat that the Scions only keep around despite their enormous bodycount because they need them to slay all the primals? Work it, you edgelord you.

I don't think the headcanon people have is really relevant when dealing with the canonical kill count the WoL have. We did kill at least a hundred garleans by our hands, and a couple named characters.

If we have to integrate the headcanon of someone who never kill anyone, there's not even a possibility to discuss, this is why canon facts from the game are what must be discussed to judge the WoL on that front.

I also agree with Foulques, we forgave and help people as dangerous or sick as him, it's kind of gross that we just kill him and nothing is being done to change the mentality of people in Gridania.
We really need content dealing with the elementals and Gridania rampant discrimination and racism.

It is wild that even in the Endwalker role quest, we don't acknowledge how horrible Elementals are, we killed gods for less, we should get working on the elementals.

[SentioftheHoukai]

I don't think the headcanon people have is really relevant when dealing with the canonical kill count the WoL have. We did kill at least a hundred garleans by our hands, and a couple named characters.

If we have to integrate the headcanon of someone who never kill anyone, there's not even a possibility to discuss, this is why canon facts from the game are what must be discussed to judge the WoL on that front.

I also agree with Foulques, we forgave and help people as dangerous or sick as him, it's kind of gross that we just kill him and nothing is being done to change the mentality of people in Gridania.
We really need content dealing with the elementals and Gridania rampant discrimination and racism.

It is wild that even in the Endwalker role quest, we don't acknowledge how horrible Elementals are, we killed gods for less, we should get working on the elementals.

We didn't kill Foulques, he brought his end upon himself by being blatantly hostile and taking his anger out on innocents uninvolved in what happened to him. No, as a matter of fact we tried to save him from backpedaling off a cliff but failed.

Even then, being a member of an oppressed demographic hardly gives one carte blanche to commit criminal acts with impunity.

[Misplaced_Marbles]

We didn't kill Foulques, he brought his end upon himself by being blatantly hostile and taking his anger out on innocents uninvolved in what happened to him. No, as a matter of fact we tried to save him from backpedaling off a cliff but failed.

Even then, being a member of an oppressed demographic hardly gives one carte blanche to commit criminal acts with impunity.

That was basically a disney villain death, so... yeah... of course that's true for almost every villain death in FFXIV.

Regardless, the self-disposing villain is ever convenient so the hero(es) never has actual blood on their hands. Childish writing, indeed.

[Cleretic]

That was basically a disney villain death, so... yeah... of course that's true for almost every villain death in FFXIV.

Regardless, the self-disposing villain is ever convenient so the hero(es) never has actual blood on their hands. Childish writing, indeed.

That's... actually rather in the minority of villains for this game, though.

Just sticking with MSQ and tentpole side-content, the only dead villains that didn't die to us that I can think of are...
-Teledji, Lahabrea, Asahi, technically Elidibus, Quickthinx, and Gabranth in the category of 'someone else ended them first',
-Zenos and Amon in the category of 'killed themselves before we got to do it',
-And spoiler-tagged because it's 6.2,

Hephaistos, also in the 'someone else ended them first' category.

Most everyone else died to us, rather explicitly. Most of the ones that didn't die at all are things that literally can't die, like Omega.

The WoL's K/D/A is prodigious, it's just that the vast majority of those cases were aggravated or wartime contexts, so their murder count is so low that your choice of job changes it considerably rather than just being in the margins.

[Cleretic]

It is wild that even in the Endwalker role quest, we don't acknowledge how horrible Elementals are, we killed gods for less, we should get working on the elementals.

The Elementals are a funny one for us, as people who both are English-speaking players and people who for the most part didn't play 1.0, because that leaves us absent a lot of the cultural and historical context for the Elementals. Namely, wiht two things.

1. we're missing the IRL cultural context that the Elementals are heavily based on the classical image of the kami from Japanese beliefs. It's pretty clear when you know that context that they're clearly fitting into the mold of 'if we keep them happy we get blessed with nature's bounties, if they're upset then natural disasters happen'. Visually there's European fae mixed in, but the Gridanian relationship with the fae is straight-up the kami.
2. In terms of in-game cultural context, we miss the good things the Elementals do and only see the bad. Because... well, there's not much appeal in a game like this in focusing on bountiful harvests, helpful weather, and other things that happen when the Elementals are happy. But when they're upset? Natural disasters, curses, blights, even tangential stuff like the Hearers' approach to the whole thing. There's more focus on the negative for the Elementals because the negatives are much more visual and interesting.
And 3. as people who mostly didn't play 1.0, we don't know how ABSOLUTELY HORRIFYINGLY POWERFUL the Elementals are. They disintegrate people, they turn them into monsters. They actually were mobs in 1.0, and you genuinely didn't want to piss them off because they were forty levels higher than maximum. I don't care how storng you think your character is, if they swing at an Elemental, they're not walking away from that fight.

[Raiya]

I believe we have the ultimate defence to whoever we offed: "They shot first".

[DPZ2]

I also agree with Foulques, we forgave and help people as dangerous or sick as him, it's kind of gross that we just kill him and nothing is being done to change the mentality of people in Gridania.

Having just played through the level 30 Lancer quest again, it must be reiterated that we did not kill Foulques, nor were we at a point where he would have died by our hand. "We just kill him" is an incorrect summary of both the battle beforehand and what came after. It's statements like the above that lead to the gross misrepresentation of our actions as 'murders'.

We really need content dealing with the elementals and Gridania rampant discrimination and racism.

The elementals are as alien to us as the inhabitants of Alpha Centauri. They appear to be arbiters of who gets to live in the woods, but their thoughts are not our thoughts and their decisions are not based on human psychology.

The discrimination of Gridanians toward the Duskwight is not built on centuries of slavery in North America. The conditions are different, the appearance of racism is not our own. You've got content about the methods for dealing with the situation, you've either not done any side quests to see them or you've missed them.

Then again, I've noted more True(TM) Gridanians have been the cause of doom, disaster and despair than Duskwights in this game.

It is wild that even in the Endwalker role quest, we don't acknowledge how horrible Elementals are, we killed gods for less, we should get working on the elementals.

We've killed Primals, who are not really gods. We didn't wipe out the so-called Beast Tribes because they summoned Primals. We went out of our way to engage them and, eventually, win a small amount of trust that things going forward will be better.

You consider Elementals to be horrible, and apparently wish to wipe them out, or put them in their place (whatever that is). I consider them to be Forces of Nature, beyond our comprehension and understanding. One might as well rail against the Thunderstorm, for all the good it would do us.