Thread: 3.5/4.0 Speculation & Discussion (Spoilers)

Let us never forget that time Merlwyb once used her entire city as emotional blackmail to get us to back her aggressive expansion into Kobold territory. I mean, really.

Originally Posted by Alacran

I would concede to the fact there are no city states completely innocent in their histories or even in their current dealings, however i can't help but see the actions seen by Garlemald (up to this point) as by and far inexcusable. Should any have lore of war crimes comparable to these committed by the Ala Mhigans during the Autumn War or the it's fall feel free to educate (it's damn hard to find anything about Ala Mhigan lore, no lore book atm).

In looking back at what we were shown in 1.0 a few old adage's, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely", "A society will be judged by how it treats its weakest members."

One could argue that the conqured would be in the position of thery least of any given society.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uK2...F31pe&index=10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A0_...BI7lP1xgvF31pe

In Ul'dah the Thorn Dynesty enslaved and then sealed an entire race of Beastmen underground. One of the main reasons we have to fight them now is because of what the Ul'dah people did to those Giants in the first place.

Ul'dah turned Sil'dih's population into zombies with an alchemical weapon. In Ishgard, the first DRK became a DRK because he caught a clergy member raping children from the Brume and when it was brought before the Holy See the would be DRK was condemned for killing a clergy member.

One of the characters in the DRK story had his entire tribe of Au Ra refugees attacked and slaughtered by Ishgardian soldiers because they had horns and scales. These same soldiers had previously attacked the Au Ra and been spared.

The Kobalds are summoning Titan because the Limsans chose to break their truce with the Beast tribe to take land by force. Now the Kobalds understandably don't trust Limsa with any type of treaty.

The Limsa is still full of pirates. Its just they only attack Garleans. There is however no laws on how they treat Garlean people they capture.

There is a reference in one quest that suggests young women still are at risk of getting snatched of the streets of Limsa and end up on brothel ships.

There is a quest in Gridania for the Beast Moogle quests where a group of Woodwailers almost rape a pair of Seekers of the Moon because they are 'suspicious' which ends up forcing one of the Seekers to go back to live among the Seeker bandits. There are likewise a couple of times Duskwights are treated as untrustworthy and traitorous simply because of their race.

On the Garlean side of things, Garlean's obsession with conquest as well as their treatment of the conquered is horrible. That said, as screwed up as it all is, people who serve Garlemald, even as conscripts, earn citizenship along with all the rights and advantages that holds. I would also argue we haven't seen any potential benefits that might have helped conquered societies such as civil security, standardised trade, improved infrastructure and improvements in things like medicine.

None of that washes away the bad things Garlemald has done and it doesn't change the fact that the Military allows these types of things to happen. However it doesn't neccesarily mean the nation as a whole is completely unethical, or irredeemable. There were a lot of people who felt Ishgard was pretty irredeemable leading up to HW.

Originally Posted by Alacran

With so many in this day and age trying to make "complex, multifaceted, villains" is it so hard to believe an evil Magellanic capable of killing his own family is tyrannically ruling over a nation of zealots in love with their own technology based superiority? History says no. While some outliers will surely exist the vast majority seem happy to crush everyone and everything under foot (going by sheer number of Garlean troops seen in ARR trailer)

The thing with this is Garlemald is a nation, not a single person. You'll probably be happy to know they have said Zenos is someone no one is likely to sympathise with, indicating he will probably be a complete bastard. However a nation or race should be multifaceted and complex. Nations are. Even in WW2, its not like all Germans were evil people and Garlemald is more like ancient Rome than the Third Reich.

It's also implied, but never stated, that the Garlean race as a whole does all it does to compensate for being disadvantaged on a genetic level compared to the other races of Hydaelyn. They didn't become technologically advanced for the sake of Evil™, they did it because they had to. They make the best airships because travel is a lot more complicated for them without being able to hop between Aetherytes. Their mechs are so advanced because they can't make golems, arcanima, etc. Even their advanced weaponry exists to make up for their inability to use even the simplest attack magic.

Originally Posted by Fenral

It's also implied, but never stated, that the Garlean race as a whole does all it does to compensate for being disadvantaged on a genetic level compared to the other races of Hydaelyn. They didn't become technologically advanced for the sake of Evil™, they did it because they had to. They make the best airships because travel is a lot more complicated for them without being able to hop between Aetherytes. Their mechs are so advanced because they can't make golems, arcanima, etc. Even their advanced weaponry exists to make up for their inability to use even the simplest attack magic.

While it's true that their inablility to use Aether has been an extreme disadvantage, it doesn't really justify their aggressive conquest, oppression and the atrocities they commited. They aren't evil because of Magitech. They are reckless with the use of it and consider applications which can be considered pretty evil but the Magitech itself isn't evil. However forcing women to work as 'comfort women' for Garlean soldiers is a very hard thing to try and justify.

The biggest issue is the fact that several of the worst atrocities have been allowed or even sanctioned by people with authority. There is no question that the Garleans as a nation have done some very bad things and that is one of the reason we are going to end up fighting them. However this doesn't mean that such behaviour is all there is to the Garlean people and that many Garlean's wouldn't be horrified by such stories. Do remember there are factions within Garlean politics.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that I was saying Magitek made the Garleans evil, because I most certainly wasn't.

What I was trying to say is that when people feel like they've been beaten down by the world, they tend to overdo it once they empower for themselves. Just look at Nazi Germany. It was the very conditions imposed on Germany by the Allies at the end of WWI that allowed Hitler's nationalism to gain traction. Does that excuse what they did? Of course not, but it would be unwise to disregard the role that a pure, honest need for worth played in their rise to power, or what created that need.

Mm. Garlemald is a very much of a product of how it was treated in the past. Their rise to immense power is in itself a fairly recent affair but the lorebook confirms that they've been treated like dirt for centuries - forced to move from fertile, warm lands into a wasteland where every day was a struggle for survival. Enduring attack after attack led them to resort to whatever means were needed to survive and prosper - and whilst that doesn't exactly excuse their behaviour in the present day at the same time it sort of...does if you look at it from their perspective.

Incidentally this makes me wonder how innocent Garlemald's neighbours actually are - and whether this includes Ala Mhigo. I'd also be very curious to learn who, exactly, lives in the region that the Garleans were driven out from and if they descend from the same people(s) responsible. If so, what are their views? Are they remorseful? Did they attempt to co-operate in recent years or did they remain defiant and look down upon the Garleans right up until they began to conquer neighbouring lands?

I think that whilst Garlemald's darker elements need to be eliminated there also needs to be some sort of compromise that allows the Garleans themselves to benefit - be it through favourable tribe or being allowed to move freely through other lands without discrimination. Much of the dislike their bear for 'lesser races' is no doubt spawned from enduring centuries of persecution as a people.

Hopefully at least some of these scenarios will be addressed in 4.0 and beyond - which seems likely if they do indeed intend to explore 'shades of grey' as promised.

Garlemald and Garleans being abused by their neighbors prior to developing magitek is merely a motive, not a justification or excuse. Even if they limited their brutality to those same people who had abused them, it's little more than revenge when you get down to it, and in case you weren't paying attention during 3.0 - 3.3, revenge is bad. So, if you go seeking revenge, then you're bad, mmkay? Never mind how they extend that same brutality to Eorzeans who, by and large, likely had nothing to do with their mistreatment and their entire reason for doing so, as stated by Gaius, can be summed up as "because we can."

"Shades of grey" likely refers to the extremism of certain Resistance factions (the Masks) and how it's too destructive to be truly called "good." We may have sympathetic Garleans and the fact their society is ostensibly a meritocracy has some truth to it, but until their power structure and leadership changes I don't see anything other than alliances of convenience with Garlemald.

Off-topic!

Anyone else fight G-rated Ragyo yet? She's pretty strong huh?