The Motivation for King Thordan and the Knights Twelve? (HW Spoilers)

[FJerome]

Big spoilers for pretty much the entire HW storyline

So, why exactly did King Thordan and his knights decide to murder and eat one of their allies in a way that was guaranteed to sunder their existing civilisation? Comparing Isghard to the ruins of Avalonia and Zenith, it does seem like their culture took a definite downgrade in the aftermath.

Were they just weirdly racist for a bunch of guys raised next to dragons their whole lives and also wildly optimistic about how the plan was going to go? Were they just assuming that all the other Elezen in the kingdom would be cool with it? Were all the other Elezen in the kingdom cool with it?

Like Hydaelyn herself, I'm very confused as to the whole chain of events.

[Belhi]

Its hard to be clear on details. From the little we know it sounds like Thordan and his Knights did it to take the power of a celestial dragon for themselves. As to the why, its assumed that it was out of greed. Weither that was all there was to it or not isn't clear at this point.

As for the other Elezen, there is no guarantee they ever had the truth revealed to them. Indeed the opposite seems to be the truth. Thordan and his knights could easily claim that the dragons attacked them. Alternatively Thordan could have been part of a group of Elezen who felt that either they were becoming effectively servants of the Dragons rather than partners or felt that the differences between dragon and elezen meant that eventually their shared civilisation was destined to fall apart anyway. We see on the dragon side of things at least Nidhogg never liked the humans to start with. He pretty much says 'I told you so' during the echo vision.

Im kind of hoping they will delve further into this during the patch cycle.

[Enkidoh]

Well, to me it seems at least that there was at least

some hint of Ascian involvement in the whole situation - Hraesvelgr admitted after all that even some of the dragons succumbed to the 'dark ones lies', specifically Tiamat summoning the fallen Bahamut as a Primal, and seemed to muse that the same thing was the cause of the elezen betrayal. And when you think about it, the current events of the Archbishop and the Heavensward becoming a Primal version of King Thordan and the Knights Twelve was just history repeating itself. All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.

My only fear though is that the writing team doesn't fall into the trap of simply having the Ascians behind every problem or disaster that happens in Hydaelyn, as Lahabrea and his ilk are starting to prove tiresome as antagonists.

But I'm just rambling again...

[FJerome]

As for the other Elezen, there is no guarantee they ever had the truth revealed to them. Indeed the opposite seems to be the truth. Thordan and his knights could easily claim that the dragons attacked them.

Pudgy-Puk on tumblr did an interesting analysis on the flashback wood-paintings and made the point that while they tell the true events of the story the hierarchical proportions read as if the artist was attempting to glorify Thordan for them. It's possible he tried to make it look like a good thing back when they thought they were going to get away with it (Thordan's defeat isn't directly depicted, after all). Or is just unintended meta on the part of the SE art team. Or they didn't tell their own people but these were all painted by a third party, like some extremely creepy Moogle.

My only fear though is that the writing team doesn't fall into the trap of simply having the Ascians behind every problem or disaster that happens in Hydaelyn, as Lahabrea and his ilk are starting to prove tiresome as antagonists.

Agreed, I was thinking that might be the ultimate answer but I'm hoping it isn't, especially since 95% of the time it feels so unnecessary; the mortal factions seem perfectly capable of sowing chaos and destruction without any outside help.

[Dererk]

We don't even see them eat the dragon maybe there's a deeper conspiracy going on could be a number of things.

1. Nidhogd is the one who told them that their eyes are their source of power and expecting that they will kill his brood sister and give him an excuse to kill them and break their alliance. And maybe he had some grudge against her.

2. The dragon they ate told them to take her eyes for some even deeper conspiracy we don't know about. Maybe she found out something was going to happen maybe she was severely wounded by something or some one and thought her eyes would better serve their ally's than die with her.

We don't know because we can only relie on the echo maybe it will go into more detail down 3.x

[MidnightS]

Anytime the world takes a turn from order towards chaos, you can bet good money the Ascians have a hand in it.

[Cilia]

More likely than not, the Ascians told them about how to gain the dragons' power; if not, the dragons told them themselves, and they simply succumbed to the temptation.

Even if you want to believe man as a whole is good, all it takes is one bad apple to ruin it for everyone...

[Belhi]

Im not opposed to Ascian involvement for a simple reason.

In FF14 the narrative plays out on two levels.

On one level there is the day to day struggles that the WoL goes through. Fighting primals, helping people, fighting the Garleans and dealing with the dragonsong war. While the Ascians exist behind the scenes a lot in all of this these conflicts are perpetrated by mortal desires, ideologies and beliefs.

On another higher level there is a meta war that exists above all this and that most of the world is only vaguely aware of and that is the war between darkness and light. Its a war that we as the WoL have stepped into towards the final moves and its a war where we don't know all the rules. All the day to day struggles are merely battlefields in this abstract war that lights at the very heart of Eorzea's fate and its this war that ties all the other conflicts together. Even something as long and huge as the Dragonsong war is just another piece in this giant chessgame.

This is one of the really interesting things about the FF14 story. A war so grand in size that most people simply don't fathom it. In this the Ascians exist as our opposites. This is why I think their presence in all the major events is valuable. However the depth of their involvement and how apparent it is can vary. I don't think every such conflict needs some direct confrontation or heavy manipulation. I like having the Ascians spend most of their time lurking off behind the scenes, playing their hidden moves in this shadow war. Lets be honest, at this point most of them would probably be incline to avoid confronting us unless necessary.

In 4.0 I would like two things. The Ascians to step back into the shadows for a bit and for us to take some time off from Allag lore. I love the Allag but frankly they seem more present in everything than the Ascians are.

[Fenral]

But everything would be sunshine and rainbows for everyone if just those pesky Ascians didn't get involved. I believe that's the trap Enkidoh is referring to. FFXIV is currently more than a little guilty of turning the "darkness" usually characterized as being an inescapable part of human nature into an external, defeatable foe.

The Cloud of Darkness (a terrible, ironic name) is sort of a cosmic cleanup crew that sweeps in any time light or dark get too far out of balance, Zeromus is simply an avatar of hatred that can be born and reborn any time someone's heart succumbs to it, and most other FF antagonists (Kefka, Spehiroth, Kuja, Seymour, etc.) are simply there as an obstacle to reinforce some underlying theme of the heroes' adventure, rather than serve as a representation of any particular morality.

The Ascians, on the other hand, are framed as an inhuman and external player in most larger conflicts, and while they may be taking advantage of human weaknesses, the implication is still by and large that things wouldn't have gone as badly if not for direct intervention from a supernatural entity. The Ascians can't be defeated, but not because the source of their power is an inescapable part of human nature, but because the power they receive from their ambiguous dark god simply makes them extremely difficult to kill. And defeating all 12 (14?) will be a decisive victory for the light and the creation of a world where everything is happy for everyone all the time.

Or so the writer and director would have us believe. How long we have to believe that depends entirely on how long they think we'll keep buying such an obviously ludicrous premise. Yes, I'm using the majority of other games in the series as a frame of reference, so slap my wrist if you must, but there's probably something more there than our current "light is good, more light is more good" mode.

[Ayuhra]

Starting a thousand year war would be right up the alley of a people devoted to sowing seeds of chaos and carnage.

I'm not sure what Thordan I's actual motivation was. My assumption based on a surface reading of the lore was that he learned Dragons derive longevity from their eyes so he and his knights killed Ratatoskr and ate her eyes to try and gain immortality. This might have been perceived by other Elezen of the time as him trying to grasp long term glory for his people, so that the tribes could rise up and dominate. Certainly historians have recorded it that way, though over time the whole eye gouging thing was forgotten and the story was turned into one of self defense.

So who told Thordan about the eye? Maybe an Ascian. Maybe Lahabrea himself.

In which case won't it be fun when someone takes out Nidhogg to save Estinien and eats the eye with Lahabrea lodged in it. It's like musical chairs only with more laughing.