What do you think Garlemald currently is?

[Morningstar1337]

(INB4 Theodoric :P)

I figured I should start this topic and ask what does the player think Garlemald is portrayed as at the moment. The Fantasy version of the Third Reich (Yes I'm Godwinning this. Someone had to get that outta the way)? A Ego-Driven empire purely bent on World Domination? The Only Sane Country trying to save Hydealyn from the Primals? Or Merely a flawed nation between these extremes?

At the Same Time I also want to ask what the players think Garlemald could become as the story moves forward and if they think the Empire could move away from their current portrayal eventually.

Finnaly I must ask people to be civil, and please give explanations for any comparisons they make to other Final Fantasy Empires or Real World regimes.

[Kallera]

I'm not sure what real world parallels can be made for it, I'm sure its a call back to an earlier final fantasy title...but I would guess it the closest would be Rome, with possibly Germany's beginnings, I'm not certain..

As for what they are in game, I kinda think what eventually came to be the Garlean Empire was the product of what was around them. Here you have a people that are not versed in magic,around nations and beast tribes that can, to disastrous degrees. the tech and ingenuity are pretty much the only thing they have going for them against god beasts and the heroes chosen by said god beasts. I'm willing to bet the average Garlean, with their role and status clearly and securely defined in a hierarchical society, would be frightened of what would be those that have seemingly unexplained powers, and the ability to call up the wrath of god over some real estate squabble. Garlemeld wasn't born a large empire, and if I had to guess, in the midst of all the magical hubbub going around that they cannot partake in, they likely had a hard meager life before then. Imagine if the gods existed and helped out and acted dickish, and everyone had one...except you.

So they managed to find the one area they had over their neighbors...and got REALLY REALLY good at it. and because they are not particular to the spiritual bits of primals, and rely on technology for their conclusions, it would make sense that their answer to the primal question would at first be as simple as it is final: kill the worshipers, kill the rampaging primal they believe in. Azis Lla would be as interesting to them as it is to us, as it presents how the Allagans handled primals back in their day, a technological method to defanging the primal threat would open up new avenues of subjugating their growing list of enemies(as empires are wont to have), and blunting the magical advantage, which if history tells us, can be a huge advantage.

The problem with all this is that we have a very limited perspective on what Garlean life actually is like. but if some of the the conquered are as willing to fight for them in such numbers as their own men, well, it must say something about what that life offers.

[Unittj]

From the evidence of what we can read from the text, I have to go with the third option. They may at first were pushing for a simple domination based on the sense they felt superior to the Eorzeans, but the Agrius wreck appalled them to the point they felt their invasion was not only something they wanted to do but had to do. Gaius Van Baelsar's flavor text quote from his Triple Triad Card says: “Unworthy is the ruler whose subjects seek the solace of false gods.”

I believe they falsely accuse all of Aldenard due to the "summoning" of Midgardsormr. So they feel some sort of divine crusade to bring civility to the entirety of their shared continent.

[CyrilLucifer]

I think we can make the argument that their struggle against the Primals is a worthy one, considering our actions are not terribly different in ruthlessly cutting them down repeatedly whenever they pop up, but their methods of genociding beast races and Echo users like us - not so much. As Limsa's mistakes have shown, as well as the Sylphs in Gridania, it's those specific overt hostilities that provoke the tribes into summoning and prevents peaceful relations.

(In fact, I'd argue the crusade against primals and the increased chaos left in its wake is precisely the evidence you have of Ascians influencing the higher ranks of the Empire when you compare Lahabrea's words to you about how you search for new Primals to destroy and the chaos it causes - but I digress and I apologize.)

It's very much like our situation - we're driven to believe that what we're doing is for the best for Hydaelyn, just like the Garleans. They are their own protagonists and see us as meddling antagonists (and possibly evil, teleporting robed wizards, depending on your class!) that are trying to stifle what they view as progress.

I think SE is trying to make reference to Rome with the caste system and naming conventions, but at the same time SE is picking and choosing their historical references. They're using "barbarians," but are neglecting things like potential foreign influence on Garlean culture and politics after assimilating so many regions, for example.

It's as I mentioned in another thread, we have a very one sided view of the Garleans right now because the narrative does not allow us to have a multi-dimensional view of them yet and has a bias against them. We can only hope that, in the future, we'll be given the opportunity to see them as more than just an evil empire.

[LordLucavi]

I've always envisioned it as kind of like an extremely imperialist USA, spreading their particular brand of Liberation (tm) from the terrorist (oops, I mean primal) influence. The annexation of other lands is their version of Manifest Destiny made possible by superior firepower. I visualize the regular citizens of the empire as generally content if not exactly happy with the government due to the influence of nationalism and propaganda, with relatively few (but very vocal) dissidents.

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

I think it's worth linking to Moose's The Rise and Fall of the White Raven for this, because it really gives a clearer idea of the origins of the Garlean Empire than ARR's in-game text has (and is endorsed by Fern and everything). Case in point:

-snip-

Garlemald's ambitions being borm of all that would make a lot more sense if their first encounter with Primals hadn't been in Othard, during an attempt to conquer. Which came after they had already done that to their home continent. The Primal crusade came well after Garlemald started doing the Imperialism Dance.

In other words, the Garleans aren't fighting to rid the world of Primals; they're trying to rid the world of Primals because Primals are the major obstacle to their domination of the world.

Anyways, from what we know, Garlemald is mostly the second option there; knowing their backstory like we do, any other conclusion is basically wild-mass guessing, and everything about their origins makes me preeeetty sure they aren't Option 3. That said, I don't think they're particularly Nazi-esque either (Beast Tribe genocide aside, but even that is more a result of their crusade against Primals). In terms of real-world reference, they actually remind me of the approach taken with Mobile Suit Gundam's Principality of Zeon - a unambiguously antagonistic dictatorship with a primary historical influence (with Garlemald, it's probably Rome; with Zeon, it was an amalgamation of the Soviets, the Nazis, and Imperial Japan) that nevertheless has been tweaked to the point where it's hard to reliably draw on those influences for story prediction. But yeah, everything we know about how they formed and how they operate points to ego-driven imperialism.

As for how we'll eventually address the problem...we're going to need to end their Imperial ambitions, at the very least in Eorzea. Frankly, I think nothing less than a total regime change would make them a trustworthy ally, but it's possible that the Ascians do something that forces a negotiated, more tenuous peace that can be used for future story developments (especially since we now have friends and allies from the lands they brutally conquered in the past). That scenario would also have the benefit of being more distinct from how we handled Ishgard.

Changing their portrayal is going to come with getting to know them better, but if I'm being honest, I'd probably feel a bit cheated if their current regime's nature was born out of some sympathetic event and the game just expects us to forgive them. I'd rather FFXIV not go down the route of Imperial apologism. If we want Garlemald to be friendly and sympathetic ala the other City-States, they need to stop seeing themselves as the rightful Owners of Everything.

It's very much like our situation - we're driven to believe that what we're doing is for the best for Hydaelyn, just like the Garleans. They are their own protagonists and see us as meddling antagonists (and possibly evil, teleporting robed wizards, depending on your class!) that are trying to stifle what they view as progress.

I think this is giving them a tad more benefit of the doubt than they deserve, mostly because the biggest difference is that they're doing what's best for GARLEMALD, not Hydaelyn. Progress, to them, is completely at the expense of the societies and people of the land they conquer. I don't think that's an insignificant distinction to draw.

[Theodric]

They're heavily based off of the Roman Empire and there's quite a lot of similarities between them. I've said this before in a different thread but even to this very day in the real world an immense amount of our culture is directly influenced by what the Romans did be it in terms of architecture, art, entertainment and even the method we use to tell time. They were, however, very driven in regards to wanting to conquer more and more territory and establish dominance. The irony is that even though the Roman Empire fell they technically succeeded - because even in the modern day we're very reliant on what they did for us.

It's pretty similar with Garlemald. Yes, Allagans are ultimately responsible for Magitek but Garlemald are the ones to have brought it back - and now Eorzea is quite rapidly embracing it as well as a direct consequence of Garlemald doing so.

They're certainly morally grey, there's no doubt about that - but we don't know a whole lot about their motives as of yet beyond them seemingly being well intentioned extremists. Yes, they resort to harsh methods but in a setting that has a lot of awful stuff going on I feel like a lot of people just rally against them as the 'easiest' targets.

Still, I'd like to see more Garleans who are similar to Drace and Gabranth from FFXII who are loyal to their homeland and people and aren't traitors - and I'm hoping that we'll eventually see that much like we found that Ishgard wasn't fully rotten to the core like many suspected.

One of the biggest issues with these sort of things, however, is that a lot of people are prone to viewing stuff as either 'black' or 'white' even if they claim not to. I mean, for those familiar with the likes of The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones there's a lot of characters who are pretty morally dubious by our standards. By the standards of the settings themselves, however, their actions and behaviour are...pretty understandable, really. I won't spoil anything since they're not FFXIV based stuff but...yeah. Hopefully someone gets what I'm rambling on about, eh?

Oh, and because I feel like it needs to be highlighted:

For all the criticism of Garlemald oppressing and killing those who boast different ideals to themselves...the WoL and their allies are prone to embracing the exact same mentality. I mean, think about it - how many lives have been snuffed out by the WoL and their friends? Did some have it coming? Arguably, but what about the majority who were just following orders or were loyal to their friends, family and causes?

I'm hoping we see a scene in the future where the WoL strikes down an opponent only for it to be revealed that their opponent was standing in their path to allow a friend or lover to escape. Because let's be honest - that's the sort of thing that is very, very likely to be occurring during the countless battles that have transpired thus far.

[myahele]

It's been a while, but I remember years ago when I did the quests to rescue the scions and disguised myself as a Garlean soldier. I spoke with the npcs that I was stationed with ... they were all seemingly "normal" my memory is hazy, but I remember one had a family and would have returned to his homeland eventually. Then we revealed ourselves and killed that group which offered a nice bit of moral greyness to our character

I was genuinely impressed that they weren't all stereotypically evil. Afterwards that wasn't the case anymore.

[cyborgmermaid]

*SNIP*

I remember that scene, and all I could think of was back in 1.0 during the (original) final quest, where Garlean soldiers are seen brainwashing Eorzean citizens, presumably by some magical means, into joining their crusade. It painted a picture to me that most of the Garleans we fight are actually brainwashed Eorzeans.

Then again there's a lot of stuff in 1.0 that seems to have been silently shoved under the rug *coughwhostabbedNiellefresnecough*

[Khalithar]

I just imagine it as Gestahl Empire HD.


That being said, it's pretty clear we'll be focusing on fighting them eventually but I don't know when, I certainly believe when we do go there we'll have a chance to go in to the imperial capital city and when we do, it will probably try and show it in a more sympathetic light, probably show us that the people living in the main city have an easy comfortable life where technology takes care of them and the vast majority of the citizens having no idea what's going on in the rest of the world.

Doesn't one of the quests say that the majority of the imperial army is conscripted soldiers from places that have been conquered? It would make sense then to me that the Garlean citizens (peasant and noble alike as I am assuming it has some sort of aristocracy) probably don't know the amount of damage the empire has done. All they probably hear about is how the glorious imperial army brought the light of civilization to barbarians of a new country and taught them the "joys" of serving the empire.