Origin of the Enchiridion?

[UAnchovy]

Hold on, I thought we knew that there were significant gaps in time between Thordan slaying Ratatoskr, Nidhogg slaying Thordan, and then Haldrath defeating Nidhogg? Let me pull out the sources again...

The Encyclopaedia Eorzea (p. 149) suggests that Nidhogg killing Thordan and Haldrath defeating Nidhogg were part of the same battle, but that battle lasted for seven days and seven nights. It doesn't expand on what that means: perhaps it was a running battle with periods of rest, as each side withdrew to try to recover while the other side hunted them down, or perhaps Ratatoskr's eyes meant that each side had the stamina to literally fight for a week.

Then in-game... Ysayle doesn't provide anything in 'Purple Flame, Purple Flame'. In 'Heart of Ice', Hraesvelgr fails to add anything either. No dates are mentioned. No one mentions any dates in the Echo flashback after 'Into the Aery'. Neither does Thordan VII mention anything when he describes it in the flashback in 'The Sins of Antiquity'. I think those are the only places in the game where anyone describes what happened? Hraesvelgr, Haldrath, and Thordan VII all describe the same sequence of events - Thordan and the Knights Twelve slay Ratatoskr, the first dragon to learn of it is Nidhogg, Nidhogg immediately attacks the knights in a rage, Nidhogg kills Thordan and half the knights but is defeated by Haldrath, and then the surviving knights go on to found the high houses - but none provide any timeline.

Hm. When I played, the impression I got was that this wasn't all in the one day. It must have taken some time for Nidhogg to discover the news of his brood-sister's death, which would also allow time for the Knights Twelve to master their new powers. However, I can't offer any evidence for this. It just feels more right to me. In my defense, neither can I find any evidence that it did all happen in the one day. The only mention of time I can find is the EE's reference to the Thordan-Nidhogg-Haldrath battle taking a week.

On the integrity of the Knights Twelve:

Here's where the sheer ambiguity of what happened that day becomes a problem for me. I would think that we have a relatively consistent picture of Haldrath, and we know that he was pretty heroic. Similarly, the fact that three knights chose to walk away after the battle, instead of accepting power, suggests to me that they were not primarily motivated by greed or self-interest. Even the four who did take power couch their argument in terms of the benefit of the people (Flavien: "Think of your people, my lord! Without a king, who will the common man turn to in his hour of need?"), and then they immediately agree to share power and set up a stewardship. If they were motivated primarily by hunger for power, why not appoint a king from among their own number, as Haldrath suggested? Their restraint suggests to me some sense of propriety, some humility, or even some guilt, or a sense that they were unworthy. Or at the very least, enough enlightened self-interest to realise that feuding over who would be king would threaten them all.

Which makes me wonder: how the heck did Thordan pitch the slaying of Ratatoskr? All the Knights Twelve took part in it, including Haldrath, and at least one of them seems to have been a relatively decent person. Why did they agree to slay Ratatoskr? Was it, in fact, premeditated at all? Skimming the sources I mentioned above, there's even confusion as to what Thordan's motivation was.

EE p. 47 suggests that they devoured Ratatoskr's eyes "to gain preternatural wisdom", p. 149 says that Thordan "coveted the power" in the eyes, and p. 206 says that he killed her out of "avarice", "for her eyes and the strength they might provide." In 'Purple Flame, Purple Flame', Ysayle suggests that the knights believed that dragons are immortal because of the aether in their eyes, and that they wanted to become immortal. Hraesvelgr in 'Heart of Ice' just says it was the desire to possess 'strength', Haldrath in 'Into the Aery' says "we traded our honour for the strength which now courses in our veins", and in 'The Sins of Antiquity', Thordan VII says they killed Ratatoskr "that they might partake of her eyes, and thereby transcend their mortal limits".

So, what was the goal? Knowledge? Power? Immortality? How preconceived was this plan? For all I know, Thordan and the knights walked up to Ratatoskr, Thordan demanded that she share the knowledge and power of dragons with mankind, Ratatoskr tried to intimidate them and said that it could never happen while she lived, and battle broke out due to misunderstanding. I don't know what happened because they only people present for that battle were Ratatoskr, Thordan, Haldrath, and the Knights Twelve, most of them died, and the few survivors never talked about it.

Anyway. When I try to guess at something like this, I try to start with two principles. Firstly, I try to assume that no one was gratuitously stupid, and secondly, that no one was gratuitously evil. That's not say that gratuitously stupid or evil people don't exist in Eorzea (e.g. Hildibrand, Xande), but that they're unusual enough that I think it's better to start with the idea that people aren't morons or supervillains. If I bear that in mind and try to start from a position where Thordan and the Knights Twelve thought they were justified... well, how can that be?

I think I also prefer a non-stupid non-evil interpretation of the knights because it better contextualises their surrounding actions. In every part of their lives we know about other than the slaying of Ratatoskr, they don't seem to have been villains. Haldrath is unambiguously heroic; the three survivors who walked away weren't after power; and even the four founders spent their lives defending Ishgard and establishing a stewardship that would last a thousand years. Even Hraesvelgr describes Thordan I as "that most noble of elezen". (Granted, he might be sarcastic. What does a sarcastic tone even sound like in dragon speech?) Haldrath also refers to them as "men of such wisdom and compassion", though I guess he too might be sarcastic? Regardless, the slaying of Ratatoskr is the only clear act of villainy I can attribute to any of these people.

As a final note, I find it more dramatically interesting if the Knights Twelve were not just nakedly after power, or if they, Ratatoskr aside, were for the most part genuinely good people. A noble brotherhood who are tempted to do something evil, or who commit a terrible crime out of loyalty to a king who has gone mad with power, or who rationalise a dark deed to themselves and later regret it, or who commit an atrocity out of misunderstanding and then have to face the consequences, are to me more interesting than people who are simply monsters. I think that also heightens the parallel between the Knights Twelve and the modern Heavens' Ward, who contain some villains but also some genuinely good and heroic people. Thordan VII, like his original namesake, tries to use hideous means in order to accomplish a noble goal. I like the parallel you get.

Anyway, I realise I've gone on for a while, and haven't been very focused. I suppose this is what happens the first time you post in the official forum, with an entire game's worth of reflections to comment on. Thank you for indulging me.

[LineageRazor]

On the topic of why the knights went along with Thordan's insane plan to steal Ratatoskr's eyes, I think we might need to step back a bit and remember that this is a Japanese production. While pretty much the world over has stories of soldiers unquestioningly following their leaders, even when they really ought to have done some questioning, this kind of mindset seems particularly pronounced in a lot of the media I've sampled from Japan. Good man does bad things for bad leader for no reason beyond the fact that bad leader is the leader, and good man hates himself for it is a powerful dramatic trope in Japan, and I believe it was that trope that they were trying to evoke here. Thordan's knights assisted Thordan in retrieving the eyes without question or hesitation, because Thordan was their king and asked/commanded them to do it. After Thordan was dead, they acknowledge to each other that these were some pretty terrible actions they'd engaged in, and I don't believe this was a change of heart. They'd known it was terrible all along, but were unwilling to disobey their king.

Was Thordan himself a villain? Or just weak? One or both of these seems very likely, but we simply have too little information to make a judgment. Weak or bad, though, it's far from beyond imagining that his knights could have been honorable men, and nonetheless followed him unquestioningly. They might not even have liked him, on a personal level, and still been very loyal. It's easy to imagine a long-standing monarchy, featuring a hereditary line of kings of varying quality. Noble youths strive to join the personal guard of the king because it's a position of high honor and prestige with little regard of just who, exactly, is sitting in that throne. Sadly, this time around the one sitting in that throne was a covetous thief or a scheming mastermind who has decided to toss aside centuries of peace and prosperity for personal gain. And who knows? Perhaps Thordan had managed to convince himself that the murder was justifiable for the good that power would make him capable of performing in the service of his country - much as Thordan VII justified his own actions.

Basically, while in some cultures it might seem like blindly following Thordan's wicked ambitions are a sign of poor moral character, in others such unflinching loyalty is a sign of HIGH moral character. It can make analysis of this story very difficult with our cultural baggage. Are we supposed to quietly sympathize with the knights for winding up with such a terrible leader? Or are we meant to condemn them for not standing up to him?

[UAnchovy]

I wouldn't be surprised if there are elements of culture clash. There are some parts of Heavensward that are quite difficult for me to interpret. Earlier, I alluded to Hraesvelgr being one of them: the game seems to think I will be appalled by things that I don't have a strong reaction to (e.g. Hraesvelgr saving Nidhogg), and that I will approve of things that I am genuinely appalled by (e.g. Hraesvelgr and Shiva). There are points in the paladin Heavensward storyline that I can only interpret as the localisation team attempting to apologise for how little sense the story makes.

The idea of service in the context of Thordan and the Knights Twelve seems like it could be another one. You do often find that Japanese media that apes a Western aesthetic nonetheless still has a Japanese soul; and vice versa, for Western media that attempts a Japanese aesthetic. In this case I don't know which cultural lens to apply. Ishgard is clearly making heavy use of Western aesthetic themes: the entire dragonslayer conceit is Western (Beowulf, Sigurd, St. George, even Sleeping Beauty), the Knights of the Round are of course Arthurian, and there's even a bit of Tolkien in the doomed relationship between the mortal and the immortal. (I mention these two specifically because Yoshida has mentioned being inspired by Arthuriana and Tolkien.) Yet as you say, underneath that something about the heart of the game beats Japanese.

I suppose I would like the story to be open to a plurality of interpretations, especially since Thordan himself is presented in so many ways: Thordan I, Thordan VII, and the primal King Thordan are all related, just as Saint Shiva, Ysayle, and the primal Shiva are similarly related. The plot of Heavensward revolves around the Thordans and the Shivas, and while the surface reading of the plot is that the Thordans are evil and the Shivas are good, I can't quite accept that myself. The heretic or draconic heroes of the story are all problematised. What is the ultimate difference between Thordan VII, and Ysayle, for example? They are both characters who commit terrible deeds for a good cause, and who clad themselves in primals. The game's position on Hraesvelgr is very odd indeed. And underneath it all lies this mysterious figure of Thordan I: the original sinner, but one whose character, motives, and goals remain obscure.

Anyway. I don't blame anyone for taking a purely negative interpretation of Thordan I or the Knights Twelve. That may well be the most consistent intepretation to take overall. Personally, though, I find so much of Heavensward's plot ambiguous. There are plenty of cases where I just don't know what it's trying to say, or where it seems to undermine what it's trying to say, or where it seems to be saying something earnestly but that thing is so prima facie absurd that I can't accept it as presented.

[Zohar_Lahar]

Eventually that guilt might (a word I've chosen carefully, but to explain why would be spoilery) lessen over time for those few privy to it as they are born further and further from the date of the transgression, and such knowledge coupled with more organic developments could certainly impact how the Enchiridion was taught (to pull the original discussion of the thread back in a bit) if not actual changes to the text in the 1000 years of the Dragonsong War.

In the Scholasticate quests, it was mentioned how a man who had to keep records on these dark secrets for the Vault actually became depressed and committed suicide because of it.