Thread: 3.4 speculation

I feel like it'd feel a bit too contrived for Yda to turn out to be royalty. I already found it to be a bit awkward when Aymeric just happened to be the son of the Archbishop. Personally I'm hoping that if Ala Mhigo is 'reclaimed' it involves the establishment of some sort of council that boasts both an Ala Mhigan and Garlean presence. It is, after all, a place where many Garleans have lived side by side with Ala Mhigans for over two decades. Even if it isn't a mutually beneficial relationship...what, exactly, is the Ala Mhigan Resistance/Eorzean Alliance going to do with the Garleans (including civilians) living there? Exile them? Kill them? Imprison them? Force them to side with their cause and have the Garleans betray their homeland and people?

I want the situation in Ala Mhigo to be interesting and complicated with blood on the hands of all parties involved. Not a dull, cliche tale about the self proclaimed heroes taking back their homeland from an evil empire. I've said this before but The Arcadian Empire in FFXII is the perfect model to do Garlemald justice.

Although I agree with you Theodric that it's highly unlikely that Yda turns out to be a long-lost heir to the Ala Mhigan throne (apart from Papalymo using Rhalgr as an exclamation there is absolutely zero evidence to prove that they even came from Ala Mhigo originally, and the only time she has ever mentioned her family was an off-handed reference to her mother in 1.0, stating "My mother always told me I was destined for great things!", to which Papalymo rolled his eyes, so that doesn't even count), we've already argued this repeatedly in the past that SE themselves have consistently depicted Garlemald as nothing but an evil empire only interested in conquest (hell, this was the only reason Gaius wanted to 'save' Eorzea from Meteor - he wanted a land to conquer which he all but shouted in 1.0). Like it or not, it seems SE are more using the Gestahl Empire from FFVI as Garlemald's model (with a little bit of Paramekia from FFII thrown in for good measure) than the Archadian Empire in FFXII (even the names are similar).

Although I do not believe Ala Mhigo would restore it's monarchy once the inevitable liberation of the city occurs (given that the nasty aspects of Ala Mhigo's monarchy have not yet been forgotten, namely, the final King of Ruin's tumultuous and disastrous reign, which is what opened the door for Garlemald to move in and take over in the first place - the Resistance has never once stated they want to restore the nation to a monarchy, they just want to liberate the citystate from Garlean control), the fact that Ishgard went from being originally an autocratic monarchy to an autocratic theocracy to a parliamentary democracy, there is hope that the Ala Mhigo resistance could establish a working democratic government answerable to their people as well.

Or maybe I'm just a dreamer...

Well, as always I'm going to have to disagree.

Garlemald's actions aren't necessarily a sign of the place being completely rotten to the core. If anything they come across as well intentioned extremists - and we don't know enough about their motivations to have the full picture that includes their side of the story and motivations. If we take a look at real world history many countries sought to conquer their neighbours for various reasons and it wasn't as if they were completely rotten either. Yes, there's a lot of negativity associated with the British Empire and the Roman Empire but at the same time they had an immense influence across much of the world and culture that exists to this very day.

When people first encountered the Dravanians they were brushed off as 'evil' and yet over time we came to see that their reasoning - whilst flawed - was fairly sound and driven by something far deeper than Nidhogg and his brood killing people for no reason at all. I predict that it will be much the same with Garlemald. Perhaps the nation itself was pushed around whilst it was still small and fought back when it gained power over magitek. Perhaps Garlemald has been manipulated by Ascians for quite some time - which seems pretty likely. Again, just speculation but we just don't know enough to judge them.

Garlemald's motivation is very simple - go forth and conquer. That's it.

This mentality was brought up by Solus zos Galvus, the first emperor of Garlemald who starting ~50 years ago turned the country from a humble farming nation into the warlike magitek empire it is today. Their efforts to shackle Primals are on the surface noble, but deep down little more than a means to stop people from impeding their way with said Primals and make sure there's something left to rule when they're done. They are much more based on the Gestahlian Empire from VI than the Archadian Empire from XII... Which is no small part of what has me so concerned about what's going to happen on Azys Lla and with the Triad in regards to them... Hell, their magitek armors are perfect recreations of the ones from VI, alt. paint schemes notwithstanding.

In many ways, Gaius van Baelsar embodied the best and worst aspects of the Empire. On the one hand he was meritocratic, sporting in combat, gave a fair chance to surrender, and was horrified when Lahabrea's forced casting of Ultima laid waste to the Praetorium. On the other... he still considered Eorzea his for the taking because he believed nobody could stop him and condemned all religion as a sham (even being a non-religious person I won't do the same; though I do find it somewhat odd Lucia suddenly found religion when she fell in love with Aymeric after a lifetime of atheism... but I digress).

Of course, as I've become somewhat (in)famous for saying, this doesn't preclude the possibility of there being some good characters in the Empire - a Judge Drace or Gabranth, if you will. Still, there's no evidence of such a figure yet, and until then the only "good" Garleans we have are expatriates.