Fordola

[Kallera]

I'm not sure if the writer's can conceive of the Alliance losing anything, really. There is too much NPC plot armor established, and the general region of Eorzea are basically untouchable areas.

[Lazaruz]

Just a small nitpick but it was actually the VIIth Legion (Nael van Darnus's legion) that fought at Carteneau, not the XIVth (Gaius refused to support Project Meteor and simply watched the devastation unfold from his airship). Any remaining troops from the VIIth after the Calamity would have been absorbed into the XIVth though, so from a certain point of view that is still correct though.

Ok it's time I sew my mouth shut and stop typing, because that's my third embarassment in this thread alone XD
(Have a like though for the correction, lol)

[Sigiria]

Well from her point of view she was trying to help her people. She was born into the empire and thought the only way to be treated right would be to submit to the authority.
So the act of rebellions were actually hurting her people in the long run.
Because she had no sense of what it was before the Empire and never thought they would be able to be free from it, in her head she might have thought she was taking the hard route by turning against her people to get them accepted by the Empire, when she was actually taking the easy route of submission. Now she can still realise she was wrong all along and that she always had a different way to help her people without hurting some of them.
That, of course, don't excuse any of the messed up things her and her men did, so I'm curious to see if they'll make her take some backlash for it or just go "whatever psycho, we're good now"

Kinda like what they'll probably try to do with Yotsuyu, which in her case would be really dumb since her reasoning was pretty much "My family was mean to me so I'll ruin my whole country and torture everyone there! that will show them"
Nice going girl, way to take your anger on the wrong people.

[missybee]

Spoilerinos, but just like Yotsuyu, I was hoping Fordola was written out of the story.

I feel like they are both such weak characters and the "backstories" were such a miss for me.

Like, okay - both of these crazy batches are going around murdering and being generally terrible, and I am supposed to feel sorry for them?

Hard pass.

[Vahlnir]

I actually liked her. T_T

I didn't mind her character, she just suffers from what a lot of other characters do in this game: a lack of any real depth. They tend to kill off the most interesting ones, sadly. That said, Stormblood brought more of those characters which the game sorely needed, like Gosetsu and the Au Ra tribes.

[Mirateski]

I love Fordola, and I find it kind of sad that people don't understand that from her perspective she sided with the right people.

Also remember that her unit wasn't founded by Zenos, but by Gaius (Skulls of the WOLF). Gaius, as seen with Rhitatyn, would legitimately raise up non-Garlean people who earned their position on merit alone, and Fordola and her unit were formed under that promise. As soon as he was exiled in Eorzea, though, and Zenos took over... by that point she's bought into one hell of a sunk-cost fallacy.

People talk about her firing the cannon, too. She could've refused, sure. But someone else would've done it, and she knew it, and she knew her unit would die regardless. Better to try and prove SOMETHING with it, right?

(She's a lovely, nuanced character, and I sincerely hope she isn't killed)

[Enla]

I love Fordola immensely and was glad they added a character like her to the story to help provide a counterpoint to what I felt was some rather weak writing in the Gyr Abania section of the story. However, sadly, she also suffered heavily by the mad rush to liberate both lands within the same patch cycle in the same way that Lyse's character development was butchered. (We skipped entire sections of her character arc after the Steppes because she /had/ to be the resistance leader by the time Ala Mhigo was liberated; and it was done in such a way that honestly her title didn't feel even half way earned.) Had the first patch cycle been focused entirely on Doma and the next few focused on Ala Mhigo I think both she and Yotsuyu in particular would have been given the time to cook that they needed, along with most of the other relevant story lines that were mashed beyond recognition in their mad rush to end with some measure of a climax.


I also don't understand why people think you need to like or feel sympathetic towards a character for them to be effective at conveying their role within the story. Yes, the poor writing butchered most of her arc, but it was understandable why Fordola did what she did. Especially if you like reading the lore and didn't jump in blind with this expansion. The fact that she stuck so heavily to those brainwashed beliefs was a touch I appreciated as well as in lore it's pretty canonically evident that the Garleans went out of their way to ensure her generation would be loyal. A beaten dog will eventually wag it's tail towards it's abuser, after all.

[F_Maximillian]

Well, she couldn't really refuse on account of Zenos would've killed her if she didn't go through with it. Plus, she and her unit believed that what they were doing would pave the way for Ala Mhigans being seen as legitimate citizens of the empire instead of "savages". In her own way she was trying to fight for the freedom of Ala Mhigo even though she was wrong, just like Gaius wanted to save Eorzea from the primals even though his methods were flawed. I personally wouldn't mind her getting a redemption arc. Yotsuyu on the other hand knew exactly what she was doing and her singular goal was to inflict suffering on innocent people because of her own troubled past.

[KalinOrthos]

I'm actually far more interested in seeing what Fordola does in 4.2. I'd imagine at that point, Garlemald will have mustered enough forces to attack both Doma and Ala Mhigo in a massive counterattack, in conjunction with whatever it is Elidibus has planned. I assume we'll see Gostestu and Yotsuyu return as well, with the latter fully backing the empire in a murderous rage. It would make for an effective contrast with Fordola, who is, at this point, probably going to have to ask herself whether she truly is for a strong Ala Mhigo, as she has always said she's been, or is she really for the Empire, who has oppressed her people since she was a child?

[Theodric]

-snip-

Sadly.

I hope it changes - I want to see some major losses because the stakes don't feel very high when it's obvious which characters are going to prevail time and time again. For all the flaws in regards to WoW's storytelling it is bold enough to allow for major changes to the game world over time. Including major leader figures changing or dying.

Furthermore, although I like Yotsuyu and Fordola quite a bit I do wish they'd just kept Regula around to provide more moral greyness. We came to learn that he was a pretty honourable fellow - he just happened to be fighting for a different side. Having him serve as a contrast to Zenos would have been quite interesting, I believe. Though he was, unfortunately, written out of the plot rather abruptly and never mentioned again. Something that they really need to stop doing...