Religion is bad, M'kay?

[Eisen-Zorn]

The message isn't "Religion is evil", but it is "Religion is susceptible to corruption."

The game has many religions which are spoken of quite fondly. However, that isn't to say that all religions are as pure as others. The Holy See was based on a half-truth, and the story was designed more to control the people of Ishgard rather than give them a real religion to place their faith. Those with bad intentions can take any well-meaning endeavor and twist it in to some corrupted shadow of what it should have been.

[IoannesBellator]

By the end of the MSQ, I was very livid. [spoilers] The thing that pissed me off the most was the fact that they didn't have to kill Thordan. Why kill Thordan and not Ysayle during the primal fight? Why was Thordan's primal not treated like, say, Ramuh? Because all those other primals are basically pagan equivalents of Zeus, Poseidon, etc.? And Thordan is the Pope, and everyone hates the Pope and his Church, according to the writers. And if it's all about being self-righteous, why is Thordan less righteous than the Warrior of Light and his merry band of god killers? It did not seem to me that Thordan intended to be a primal all his life, but only to destroy the dragon threat, which, thanks to the most stupidest idiot moment ever, reappeared. I guess, sigh, the Warrior of Light is going to save Ishgard once again? [/spoilers]

[IoannesBellator]

If Square Enix does something that'll make me happy, it'll be admitting the inconsistency of the righteousness of the Warrior of Light's cause and actions, because truth be told, he's just Alphinaud's hitman for the most part, and all he does is *nod* when everyone around him already made the "moral" choices for him. Establish an organization comprised of people with dubious scruples? *nod* Undermine a thousand-year-old society locked in struggle for its survival against a pitiless enemy? *nod* Don't check pulse of a political leader after she's supposedly murdered in front of you? *nod* Stand there like a dumbass while another political leader gets his arm cut off in a middle of a coup? *nod*

[MilesSaintboroguh]

words

It sounds like you don't like the idea of characters trying to do things peacefully and want to get your hands dirty, consequences be damned. As much as you love Ishgard for "doing something", they were also heavily flawed (their methods in determining who was a heretic, Crucible style, should have been a clue). As Kaiser said, Thordon was EXTREMELY flawed because not only he hid a 1000 year lie for the sake of credibility on his part, he was willing to become something that would endanger everyone just for the sake of ending the war. Two wrongs don't make a right. If you really think that the WOL is "righteous" then you either don't know what it really means on a character and/or you haven't done the Dark Knight quests that deconstruct it.

[IoannesBellator]

or you haven't done the Dark Knight quests that deconstruct it.

I want to so bad, but it's such a pain to level. And, no, I don't like the idea of characters resolving things peacefully, because that's too convenient, too simple, and belies something worse that people have become too complacent to worry about until it's too late. Trial by combat was a historical Germanic law, wherein might makes right, and right makes might, that, I'll give you, as well as the notorious "Trial by shoving people off cliffs" It would have been less wasteful to use torture, because it is not the end of such a practice to kill a person but only to test the limit of what a person will go through to protect a lie. Hence, my objection to Thordan's killing.

[IoannesBellator]

they were also heavily flawed (their methods in determining who was a heretic, Crucible style, should have been a clue)

Well, yes, there's always something to fight against. This is why I don't trust "peacable solutions" because if conflicts arise, one should always be ready.

I haven't been really convinced that everyone would have been endangered because of Thordan's zealotry. Zealotry is always directed against something, about something. If it would have killed the planet, then the amount of primals summoned from Odin and Behemoth, to Shiva and King Thordan, then the world should have exploded a long time ago, but it hasn't happened yet- I have not yet seen, or don't remember the effect of a primal existing for a long time having bad effects on the planet.

I also have a creeping suspicion... how do you know you're not being "dark crystalled" by Hydaelyn, and that people aren't putting faith upon the WoL to the effect that the WoL becomes a primal?

[IoannesBellator]

Another thing Square Enix can do is SUBVERT this trope. Because evil clergymen hasn't been in vogue since Cardinal Richelieu from The Three Musketeers in the 1800's.

Here's a test. Name me one high-ranking cleric from the Ishgardian Church that mattered in the MSQ. Now, name me thirteen "evil nasty bad guys" from the same organization. If the the Orthodox Church of Ishgard itself is not a thinly veiled criticism of religion, then there should be as much good, but they're nowhere to be seen. In fact, you have to kill a bunch of clergy in The Vault. You just killed people who were following their consciences. They deserved to die because The Warrior of Light knows about the origins of the Dragonsong War? Were I an Ishgardian and I knew the origins of the war, it would've been irrelevant, because dragons killed my family and threaten to destroy my home, I'll support the Archbishop anyway; Why would you trust one whose hobby is to destroy what communities hold so dear to their hearts?

[RyuRoots]

The theme isn't that religion is bad, but that religious people are rubes who don't understand what they're perpetuating. If you look at the events of the game and the history you uncover, that should be obvious (and personally, it's a narrative that is very, very believable).

[jomoru]

The theme isn't that religion is bad, but that religious people are rubes who don't understand what they're perpetuating. If you look at the events of the game and the history you uncover, that should be obvious (and personally, it's a narrative that is very, very believable).

The 12 are treated as legitimate. Gridania is even more an open theocracy than Ishgard(at least it also has noble houses!). The Church of Nald'thal sits on the Syndicate Council and the head of it just steps in and treats the sides in the Uldah issue like bickering children and solves it. A Church provided sanctuary for Cid for 5 years and even helped him regain his memories.

But Hey why notice that when you can casually assume that Catholicism is the only possible religion that exists!

And for everyone trying to say this game is pushing an Atheist message. The two main antagonists in this game over the long Haul are the Ascians and the Garleans. The Garleans are the only nation on the planet that are explicitly Atheists. They are not treated as some misguided good guys. They are treated explicitly as what they are a Totalitarian Empire of bastards. They commit Genocide. They have a strict Caste System! And they are going to keep doing horrible things until they stop publishing ff 14, when this expansion is but a memory Garleans will still be commiting atrocities.

Now lets look at who they try to Emulate. the Allag. They seem to go from being Sunworshipers to outlawing all religion and nearly destroying the world.

Now lets look at what we learned about Primals in the MSQ. They are litterally just creations of Aether. They are not what they are summoned as. They are the worst aspects of a faith litterally given form. They are flaws and lies made manifest. Not Gods who walk the earth.

So maybe things are a bit more even handed on the issues of faith and religion but the presentation is that PEOPLE are flawed. People do stupid and bad things. People are manipulated by their greed and ignorance.

[Eisen-Zorn]

The 12 are treated as legitimate. Gridania is even more an open theocracy than Ishgard(at least it also has noble houses!). The Church of Nald'thal sits on the Syndicate Council and the head of it just steps in and treats the sides in the Uldah issue like bickering children and solves it. A Church provided sanctuary for Cid for 5 years and even helped him regain his memories.

But Hey why notice that when you can casually assume that Catholicism is the only possible religion that exists!

And for everyone trying to say this game is pushing an Atheist message. The two main antagonists in this game over the long Haul are the Ascians and the Garleans. The Garleans are the only nation on the planet that are explicitly Atheists. They are not treated as some misguided good guys. They are treated explicitly as what they are a Totalitarian Empire of bastards. They commit Genocide. They have a strict Caste System! And they are going to keep doing horrible things until they stop publishing ff 14, when this expansion is but a memory Garleans will still be commiting atrocities.

Now lets look at who they try to Emulate. the Allag. They seem to go from being Sunworshipers to outlawing all religion and nearly destroying the world.

Now lets look at what we learned about Primals in the MSQ. They are litterally just creations of Aether. They are not what they are summoned as. They are the worst aspects of a faith litterally given form. They are flaws and lies made manifest. Not Gods who walk the earth.

So maybe things are a bit more even handed on the issues of faith and religion but the presentation is that PEOPLE are flawed. People do stupid and bad things. People are manipulated by their greed and ignorance.

All of this. Someone gets it.