Tales from the Dawn #4: "A Question of Death" (Jullus)

[Vyrerus]

Nothing inherently wrong with the Tumblr post, especially considering most Tumblrinas that are lolworthy moved over to Twitter anyway. Sounsyy's blog is grand.

It's the way in which was used, kind of like some bizarre appeal to authority cudgel. Backreading in context, it being linked almost seemed to be a non sequitur in general to the debate being had.

All in all though, I'm sad that we're arguing again. There really has been almost nothing productive in the last 8 or so pages, and the few folks who are just sharing their earnest opinions have been drowned out by the squabbling.

Also, something I take issue with is several people, notably Sentiofhoukai, Abismiliard, and a few others claiming that the Ilsabard contingent was full of Eorzeans on the quest for revenge. That's outlandishly false. The entire contingent was selected to be people who were willing to put aside or had no personal feelings. Hell, we even had the voiced cutscene where the former conscripted Ala Mhigan hands Jullus a hot drink.

If you're going to come in and fling mud, and settle all your scores, then at least be correct. I know we've basically become a Debate forum rather than a Lore forum, but you can at least get blatant things like that right. You're literally just giving the people you don't like ammunition.

But clearly these are wasted words. Y'all are in here to butt heads. Far be it from me to be able to stop you.

[Rannie]

the Ilsabard contingent was full of Eorzeans on the quest for revenge. That's outlandishly false. The entire contingent was selected to be people who were willing to put aside or had no personal feelings. Hell, we even had the voiced cutscene where the former conscripted Ala Mhigan hands Jullus a hot drink.

if I remember correctly it was said even during the scene inside the royal Palace of Ala Mhigo (before going there) by Lyse that while there were people who were glad and thought they got what they deserved and that there were also just alot of people that didn't care about what happened. The ones they chose were the ones who were willing to help. So yea they weren't out for revenge and that hot soup/drink scene always makes me cry.

[Cleretic]

Tumblr's got a great strength in being a blogging site with actual discoverability, it should also be said, and I believe is why Sounsyy uses it. Write the best Wordpress blog any human being has ever laid their eyes on, and it's actually not gonna do anything by itself because the only way for people to find it is to put out word on other platforms, whereas a Tumblr post can get popular through Tumblr alone. Forms of interactions like asks are also something not many other competitors have. And all this gets even more useful if you're writing for a community or fanbase that's already on Tumblr to some degree, which has been true for FFXIV for quite a while; most of the FFXIV community's favorite characters happen to have a very close overlap with the sorts of characters the general Tumblr userbase loves, often for many of the same reasons.

All of that is largely unrelated to the topic of the actual thread, though, except for the part where Zenos is absolutely one of those shared favorite characters, as well as a few other Garlean and Garlean-adjacent characters. Weirdly not Jullus, although opinions are rarely strong enough about him for me to tell exactly why. Maybe because his story is genuinely dark and uncomfortable to a degree that very few characters have; when I saw he was the POV character for the final story I actually felt a pang of dread, because my assumption was that they were going to do a retelling of the night of the tempering. And even just the cutscene where he described that night was kind of upsetting to me, I would've really struggled to read a more direct story about it. Amazing writing, not exactly a space people tend to like playing in as writers or readers.

This story wasn't just good because it was entirely new information, it was good because it was a story I was able to read recreationally without taking a few breaks to breathe deeply and stare at a wall until I felt like my stomach was stationary again.

[Lyth]

The amusing thing is that the person whom he linked it to runs their own Garlean-themed tumblr page. Perhaps he was just being diplomatic. Does it really matter, though? It just looks like a citation list of quotes and EE references on a subject-by-subject level.

Speaking of which, it's probably high time that we got another lore based text, even if it ends up being a new periodical.

Either way, this was a really nice little story. There's a good part of Ilsabard missing from the map, and I'm really hoping that we'll get to explore it in depth before moving southward towards Meracydia. I'm really interested in Corvos and Dalmasca, especially from some of the hints dropped through the Bozja storyline. And I do think that teaming up the twins with Jullus would be a great way of doing it.

[Jandor]

I appreciate Jullus getting a story, but for some reason I found this one kind of awkward to read.

[Cleretic]

Speaking of which, it's probably high time that we got another lore based text, even if it ends up being a new periodical.

Presuming you mean a physical book like the Encyclopedia Eorzea, I wouldn't be surprised if one is actually in the works, although it might possibly wait a couple patches. From what I've been told in conversation with people who actually know how S-E works, the Encyclopedias are basically composed during downtime; a bunch of it is actually about collating already existing writing they had to do for stuff like website blurbs, worldbuilding docs and the like, but putting it all together and editing it all to be a single cohesive text (including writing all the stuff that wasn't already written) is still a big job, and it's one that they have to do on top of writing... you know, the actual game at the pace we expect. So if the writing for the game itself is currently fairly heavy, you know they can't have much time to work on any extras.

However, it does seem like all the various weights from Shadowbringers and Endwalker have been lifted, and I'd consider the cookbook and Namazu picture book to be good signs; they're clearly free enough to do some non-essential writing, even if it's been small.

If I were them, though, I'd probably wait before announcing it, at least until Cagnazzo, Rubicante and Golbez show their deals. That'd allow the first three volumes to go all the way through the first 'arc' of the game, making for a nice complete package.

[Lyth]

Yeah, I'm mainly talking about an EE Volume 3, although I wouldn't mind if they changed up the nomenclature going into the next story arc. I remember FFVIII having a questline where you have to collect periodicals (Weapons Monthly, Combat Kings, etc.) and I wouldn't mind if they changed the aesthetic away from an 'Encyclopedia' to a different design aesthetic going into the next story arc just to make things fun. I'll probably dip into their artbooks in the interim while I wait. Anything Voidsent or Lucavi related is going to grab my attention really quickly though.

[Lauront]

Also, something I take issue with is several people, notably Sentiofhoukai, Abismiliard, and a few others claiming that the Ilsabard contingent was full of Eorzeans on the quest for revenge. That's outlandishly false. The entire contingent was selected to be people who were willing to put aside or had no personal feelings. Hell, we even had the voiced cutscene where the former conscripted Ala Mhigan hands Jullus a hot drink.

To be fair, I don't think that's quite accurate in terms of what she was claiming. Senti's claim was:

Absimiliard has the right of it, here. When you consider just how many Eorzeans wished to link up with the Ilsabard contingent for the sole purpose of revenge-driven murder, I cannot begin to worry for those non-soldiers in regions no longer protected by the nation of Garlemald and it's resources. Keep in mind, that places like Corvos, Dalmasca, and Bozja etc. are places where the Eorzean Alliance and the various city-states don't really have any form of direct control/influence over what happens there. That's not even mentioning places further out into Ilsabard we haven't even seen yet. Historically, those who were apart of now-broken Empires tend to be treated extremely poorly by those who saw themselves as oppressed. I just how dynamic of who is the oppressor does not change, as it has already once before in Eorzean history. We all know from Endwalker alone just how little the protagonists take the past into proper introspection when decided how to deal with the travails of today.

Granted, it's a bit unclear, but she clarified it here (and also here):

Nice work being a pretentious one, little Sylph. Your information is still yet inaccurate, however. I do believe it would be in your best interest to go back and watch those cutscenes, since you'd realize that Lyse mentions that the formation of the Ilsabard contingent was initially hamstrung by the necessity of the onerous process of weeding out those who merely wanted to go take bloody revenge on what they saw as their oppressors and those who genuinely wanted to help those who would be ultimately revealed as ailing, freezing, close-to-death victims of Zenos' and Fandaniel's monstrous villainy.

For as bad as Endwalker was with nuance, ironically the criminally short Garlemald segment was one of the few points in the storyline that lacked that absent nuance.

Sadly, I lost a good bit of the text I had saved just before Elpis, so having to rely on saved screenshots, I'm not sure what she's specifically referring to, as all I can identify is this and this, which suggests at the least that many did turn down overtures to join with the Ilsabard Contingent (and yes, that is because they see Garlemald as the enemy), and that this opposition was strong enough in both Ishgard and Ala Mhigo to limit how much Aymeric and Raubahn could do. In any case, her claim relates to those it turned down, not the Ilsabard Contingent itself. Insofar as the claim can be taken as "Eorzea as a whole is far from unanimous on this goal" or "some may wish to take vengeance against Garlemald"? I think that's a fair reading of these sources. I'll leave it to her to comment on whether she has another source in mind.

As for Absimiliard, which Senti was basing her post on:

It will definitely be a long road for the Garleans, whatever the case. Their inability to use aether is liable to make them very appealing targets for their neighbors now that so much of their magitek is gone.

He is simply stating that Garlemald being left in a vulnerable position leaves it exposed to potentially hostile neighbours, which led some to dispute that it had anything valuable to take, which is not the case. The rest of his posts seem to be in the same vein. Considering the frosty relations Garlemald has always had with its immediate neighbours, and the fact that there are also elements within Eorzea outwith the Ilsabard Contingent, and other provinces that see the Garleans (understandably) in none too favourable a light, this point is not unreasonable. Mal then saw it fit to chime in and claim that ceruleum is not valued outside of Garlemald, which as I stated, is patently false. He then directed us to a site that has a massive dump of lore resources (which, whatever its issues, is at least pointing to lore resources I recognise as canon), and when asked to clarify what specifically he is asking for other posters to consult, did not specify. I often find that this poster simply dismisses textual evidence out of hand, without specifying any valid reasons for doing so.

So yeah, unfortunate that the thread turned to a shouting match, but I think let's be fair here that that wasn't quite what Senti or Absimiliard were saying.

[Absimiliard]

Also, something I take issue with is several people, notably Sentiofhoukai, Abismiliard, and a few others claiming that the Ilsabard contingent was full of Eorzeans on the quest for revenge. That's outlandishly false. The entire contingent was selected to be people who were willing to put aside or had no personal feelings. Hell, we even had the voiced cutscene where the former conscripted Ala Mhigan hands Jullus a hot drink.

Care to quote anywhere I've said the Ilsabard Contingent was full of people out for revenge?

It's not about the Ilsabard Contingent. They're, as you said, the scant few willing to give the Garleans a chance, although not all of them are quite so happy to be there. Just about everyone outside of them ranges from completely indifferent to thirsty for revenge. The Garleans are de-fanged former conquerors sitting on top of a high concentration of one of the most valuable resources on Etheirys, and their neighbors already showed a high willingness to attack them long before the empire formed. With their diminished numbers and loss of weapons and tools, they're back to being prime targets.

There's plenty of in-game text and peripherals to back it up.

[AwesomeJr44]

So yeah, unfortunate that the thread turned to a shouting match, but I think let's be fair here that that wasn't quite what Senti or Absimiliard were saying.

I would have preferred that it didn't turn into what it did, but that's what happens when one side of a debate links the home page of FFXIV Wikipedia and demands that nobody responds until they read the entire thing.