Quote Originally Posted by Kozh View Post
One of the differences is that garlemald conquest was fuelled by survival (and revenge for corvos), while Eorzean city states conquest was fuelled by each thinking their deity is the “right one”, and perhaps for resources too.
The actions of the city-states have never been portrayed as a religious war, especially against each other. All of them believe in all of the Twelve; they just hold one in high regard as their own patron.

Even against the beast tribes with their different gods, it's not about "our gods are the right ones" but "their gods are living monsters and a threat to us".



Quote Originally Posted by Kozh View Post
And do you not think it was extremely cheap that the main Empire, whom we have been fighting against since the beginning, was destroyed off-screen and without our action?
Yes, it was cheap and awkwardly done, and seems to have been done that way because they didn't know what to do with Garlemald as a powerful empire so they imploded it.

So, having done that to remove it from play, why would the writers want to put it back as it was? What was the point of all the destruction?

If they wanted to go the path of a now-turned-benevolent empire, they could have done that far more simply by taking Varis in a different direction. There was a point where he hovered on the edge of being portrayed as sympathetic, between "Solus" bullying him around and his actions at the parley possibly being readable as a stealthy way of warning us about the Ascians meddling in his country and implicitly asking for our aid, unable to talk freely.