Does FFXIV Hate Politics Now? [Spoilers for Dawntrail 7.1]

[Hallarem]

Aaaand someone took the bait

[Rinoa_353]

I agree, they should have dedicated Alexandria for 8.0 and add political intrigue to the Rite of Succession including one claimant being assassinated.

[Valence]

Yes, the white savior who some villagers scorn one time. Who then falls upwards and becomes the leader of an entire rebellion. Who then falls upwards again and becomes the leader of an entire nation. Who went to a totally foreign country and convinced a whole bunch of countries to unite against the occupying force. Blond hair, blue eyed, "literally just got here" Lyse. The poster girl for a white savior narrative, that one. Despite a few villagers giving her the side eye, a common occurrence in white savior storylines.

I don't know, I guess I got that vibe a thousand fold more with Dawntrail actually, when not one but two heirs to the throne feel the need to hire foreign white saviors that know literally nothing of their culture, because their own homeland is totally devoid of talents somehow...
And hey, it worked right? The two others that didn't were the assholes of the story.

[Hallarem]

At this point I don't know if you both are trolling or not, but I'll bite.

Ehem. You do realize that Hydaelyn has no skincolor based racism right? It's mostly actual different races or nations going at each other, alá Ishgardians vs Au Ra for looking like dragons. Gridania being racist against Duskwights and Keepers of the Moon ( as much as SE is trying to pretend thats not a thing they wrote )

You do realize Lyse is Ala Mhigan right? You do realize that if you fly through Gyr Abania, even by your twisted logic of trying to troll / insert real world problems into a fantasy game that there are ton of "white people" who are also Ala Mhigan right? This is the Tural colonialism conversation all over again

[CVXIV]

At this point I don't know if you both are trolling or not, but I'll bite.

Ehem. You do realize that Hydaelyn has no skincolor based racism right? It's mostly actual different races or nations going at each other, alá Ishgardians vs Au Ra for looking like dragons. Gridania being racist against Duskwights and Keepers of the Moon ( as much as SE is trying to pretend thats not a thing they wrote )

You do realize Lyse is Ala Mhigan right? You do realize that if you fly through Gyr Abania, even by your twisted logic of trying to troll / insert real world problems into a fantasy game that there are ton of "white people" who are also Ala Mhigan right? This is the Tural colonialism conversation all over again

It's pretty funny to read honestly, as if Lyse isn't a refugee who escaped Gyr Abania in the first place when she was a child, and the entire point of her taking the identity of Yda

You are right though, I don't recall there ever being an instance where one's skin color is the source of any discrimination
It's mostly one's race

You see it a few times, with one notable example to me is a fate in the ruby sea where a kid calls one of the red kojin a "red fish-back"
or the other words meant to demean which we've seen since ARR

[CaptainLagbeard]

If you want to argue DT being a "white savior" story, I would point out that wuk comes to Sharlayan to find people to help her... And the closest Stormblood gets to it is the Doma part of the story. Though even there we don't go in just purely to save the locals.

SloppehIlberd kinda drags the other nations to the war at the end of HW, and after getting smashed by Zenos the WoL and crew went to Doma to help the resistance there to get them to team up against the Garleans.

[Naraku_Diabolos]

If you want to do real life comparisons, since this is a Japanese game, understand this. Japan knows that wars and conflicts are pointless and only cause more suffering with no side ever prospering. For the current Dawntrail story, the story and lore writers know this. Since the conflicts and slavery had happened in the past, the people of Tural have put that part of history behind them. They know they have suffered from it and do not want to go back to how it was in the past. Gulool Ja Ja had fixed every one of the race/tribes plights and sufferings and had united them as a people of Tural so that everyone would know peace and cooperation.

I mean, doesn’t it make sense to have a person who is strong and wise speak to the people and tell them look past differences and just work together to establish peace and prosperity? Japan did this after WWII and they would not dare repeat it because they know something like a world war is catastrophic and pointless; they are allies to the US now. Some Japanese could show resentment for WWII’s outcome, but they don’t want to lose their community and country like they almost did.

[Daralii]

If you want to do real life comparisons, since this is a Japanese game, understand this. Japan knows that wars and conflicts are pointless and only cause more suffering with no side ever prospering. For the current Dawntrail story, the story and lore writers know this. Since the conflicts and slavery had happened in the past, the people of Tural have put that part of history behind them. They know they have suffered from it and do not want to go back to how it was in the past. Gulool Ja Ja had fixed every one of the race/tribes plights and sufferings and had united them as a people of Tural so that everyone would know peace and cooperation.

I mean, doesn’t it make sense to have a person who is strong and wise speak to the people and tell them look past differences and just work together to establish peace and prosperity? Japan did this after WWII and they would not dare repeat it because they know something like a world war is catastrophic and pointless; they are allies to the US now. Some Japanese could show resentment for WWII’s outcome, but they don’t want to lose their community and country like they almost did.

The problem there is that the BLU quests established that Ul'dahn ceruleum barons in what we now know is Xak Tural were effectively enslaving the local tribes, obviously based on what happened in the Old West with oil barons. Come DT, this ranges from heavily minimized to nonexistent. Overthrowing them could have been a decent story for a zone, and could have political ripples back across the ocean, but Shaaloani is instead Disney cowboy land and the rest of Xak Tural got eaten by awfully done FF9 references.

[Hallarem]

The problem there is that the BLU quests established that Ul'dahn ceruleum barons in what we now know is Xak Tural were effectively enslaving the local tribes, obviously based on what happened in the Old West with oil barons. Come DT, this ranges from heavily minimized to nonexistent. Overthrowing them could have been a decent story for a zone, and could have political ripples back across the ocean, but Shaaloani is instead Disney cowboy land and the rest of Xak Tural got eaten by awfully done FF9 references.

Don't forget Red dead redemption references because popular game
Don't forget Cyberpunk references because popular game
Don't forget the 7.1 dungeon resident evil reference, because popular game

We lost the Whalaqee - Ceruleum storyline to "Muricans love cowboys right? Lets have cowboys with american accents"

[Exmo]

It's pretty funny to read honestly, as if Lyse isn't a refugee who escaped Gyr Abania in the first place when she was a child, and the entire point of her taking the identity of Yda

You are right though, I don't recall there ever being an instance where one's skin color is the source of any discrimination
It's mostly one's race

You see it a few times, with one notable example to me is a fate in the ruby sea where a kid calls one of the red kojin a "red fish-back"
or the other words meant to demean which we've seen since ARR

Lyse was like 5 years old when she fled Ala Mhigo, then lived for 20 years in Sharlayan and Eorzea. At the start of and throughout Ala Mhigo she's Ala Mhigan in word only. She's "European". Her role and characterisation are beat for beat a white savior narrative.

Even if you set aside the fact that half of StB takes place in the far east, where Lyse is once again coming in as an outsider, everyone knows that CBU3 historically uses tan skin colours as signifiers of racial politics while skirting the topic of race. Ala Mhigans, like Dhalmekians in FF16, are analoges of the Middle East without the devs actually committing to having POC prevalantly in their game as a collective people. They do this intentionally because they want to talk about topics related to racial politics in the real world, without actually discussing race. Whether they are wise to try it or whether they succeed, that's a topic for another day.