Are <5.0 main villain> fanboys also supportive of <6.1-6.5 main villain>? *SPOILERS*

[Mostly_Raxus]

what about Gaia, is it ok that she is just as guilty and culpable as emit or any other ascian and yet because she forgot all the people she murdered she is off the hook?
what about Fordola, just cause she had a sad backstory doesn't excuse her actions..
crap even Estinien was a crazed lunatic through the lancer quest line, but hey he was nice to that spoiled kid that got firewood once so all is forgiven i guess..

this entire game is full of this crap, its anime troupe that villains become alleys after defeated..
and not to mention we can be 10000000000% ok with a fake genocide in a video game because no one actually died regardless of how emotionally delusional it made you.

[WhiteArchmage]

what about Gaia, is it ok that she is just as guilty and culpable as emit or any other ascian and yet because she forgot all the people she murdered she is off the hook?
what about Fordola, just cause she had a sad backstory doesn't excuse her actions..
crap even Estinien was a crazed lunatic through the lancer quest line, but hey he was nice to that spoiled kid that got firewood once so all is forgiven i guess..

Gaia is not Loghrif, the Eden questline was all about that point. Gaia has the soul of Loghrif but she's her own person with her own wants and wishes and actions.
Fordola is still being punished. The Ala Mhigans outright said "I thank you for saving us, but I don't forgive you for for hunting us." And she herself is undergoing a redemption arc of feeling exactly how she hurt others and the grief she put them through. So, uh, congrats? The game and Fordola herself agree with you.
Estinien has been getting a crap-ton of character development and the people he needs to make ammends to (the dragons, and the WoL) he turned to defend them instead, so really he's a whole separate case.

[Cleretic]

Gaia is not Loghrif, the Eden questline was all about that point. Gaia has the soul of Loghrif but she's her own person with her own wants and wishes and actions.
Fordola is still being punished. The Ala Mhigans outright said "I thank you for saving us, but I don't forgive you for for hunting us." And she herself is undergoing a redemption arc of feeling exactly how she hurt others and the grief she put them through. So, uh, congrats? The game and Fordola herself agree with you.
Estinien has been getting a crap-ton of character development and the people he needs to make ammends to (the dragons, and the WoL) he turned to defend them instead, so really he's a whole separate case.

I'd actually point to Fordola as a great example of a redemption/atonement arc, because they REALLY have her walk it. With this sort of thing, I ask a question of 'what more could they have done to sell me on this', and with Fordola I genuinely don't think there's anything else they could've done both in terms of action and treatment. I have a similar view of Gaius, although it's a bit more conditional: I think they've done everything they could've done within the confines of the stories he's been in. If he were in parts of the game with more storytelling space and freedom it wouldn't be enough, but he's not.

Golbez is sort of in the same boat as Gaius: I don't know if what they've done with him is enough for me to believe his face turn, but I also know that he didn't exactly have the luxury of space for it. If/when he comes back I'd hope to see some 'Fordola in EW healer quests' work on him, where he's clearly doing the hard yards and going through an uphill battle.

(Also, his story even now is better than IV Golbez's, which is a game with far less excuses.)

[Absimiliard]

(Also, his story even now is better than IV Golbez's, which is a game with far less excuses.)

Have you played the DS port of FFIV or any variation of The After Years, out of curiosity? The former makes apparent several key aspects of Golbez's story that, while supposedly intended, were conspicuously absent from the original and all of its non-DS ports. The latter fills in even more blanks while also addressing the matter of seeing the rest of his redemption arc through.

I'm not going to say XIV's Golbez isn't more fleshed out by the time they're done with him, but I do think people are selling the original quite a bit short.

[Cleretic]

I shouldn't need to play another game to state an opinion regarding a game I'm currently playing.

I mean if you're saying 'they butchered Golbez', that's a claim you can only make with authority if you've actually played the game Golbez is from.

I have played it, and I can tell you there's not much to butcher; Golbez is probably the worst FF villain among the ones with actual... y'know, characters. XIV's Golbez has actual agency and XIV Zeromus is more than a last-minute 'Space Flea From Nowhere' final boss, that puts them both above the originals.

Have you played the DS port of FFIV or any variation of The After Years, out of curiosity? The former makes apparent several key aspects of Golbez's story that, while supposedly intended, were conspicuously absent from the original and all of its non-DS ports. The latter fills in even more blanks while also addressing the matter of seeing the rest of his redemption arc through.

I'm not going to say XIV's Golbez isn't more fleshed out by the time they're done with him, but I do think people are selling the original quite a bit short.

Specifically, I played a few versions of FFIV in part, the one I actually completed was the pixel remaster last year. IV was never exactly a game that grabbed me. That's nice that Golbez gets more non-brainwashed scenes, but it doesn't really factor in for me; scenes added that long after the original don't really feel like they should be used to excuse it. Also, doesn't really solve the problem that he spends most of the game mind-controlled by a secret villain with even less characterization; technically speaking, the problem with FFIV's villains might not be that Golbez is underbaked, it's that Zemus is, since he's essentially the one we're fighting against the whole time.

I know the story of The After Years from reading a Let's Play of it at some point, but I don't count The After Years because it's bad and FFIV doesn't deserve being shackled with that.