Thread: Revelations from Patch 4.2

Originally Posted by Dualblade

The last one is blatantly false given that plenty of Eorzeans worship the Twelve, including the leaders.

No it's not. The Erozeans are against religious observations, those of the beast tribes.

Plus, it's only a matter of time until one of the twelve is summoned......

Originally Posted by Theodric

SNIP

Exactly my point Theo. The Alliance gets to play hero cause they got handed the best tool for the job. Everyone else gets to live defenseless in a hellish world where thoughtforms can manifest as God-like tulpas that can mind rape everything around them and can be brought into reality by everyday emotions like grief over losing a child or parent.

Originally Posted by Xie_Belvoule

You mean the stated policies of the Eorzean nations, until the WoL showed up.

Why do people keep using "whataboutism" as a valid line of logic whenever people have the audacity to point out how god-awful the Empire is? I've said before that I'm all for three dimensional depictions ofGarlemald's people, not its empire-building, racist, brutally oppressive policies. Equating the negatives of Eorzea's city-states with the Empire's is just silly.

But since you really wanted to:

War of the sisters was fought for the security and prosperity of the two cities inhabitants, check.

A conflict that happened over four centuries ago.

Autumn War was fought for the security and prosperity of Ala Mhigos people, check.

The Autumn war, which also happened a century ago, began an age of peace and unparalleled cooperation throughout Eorzea.

Whatever skeletons the Eorzean city-states have in their closet, however much they feud and fight and bicker and scheme against each other (namely over Omega), simply does not compare to the amount of misery, violence and brutality Garlemald has visited upon three entire continents.

No it's not. The Erozeans are against religious observations, those of the beast tribes.

Plus, it's only a matter of time until one of the twelve is summon

Yes, it is false. As we've seen in sidequests and with the beast tribe quests, the people of Eorzea are actively trying to work with and help the beastmen that aren't tempered, which is approached with a balance of sensitivity and balancing that with more practical concerns.

If the city-states were anything like the Empire, they'd instead refuse any sort of negotiation or cooperation whatsoever, and try wiping them out instead, since Varis has gone on record to say he makes no distinction between tempered and untempered beastmen.

Definitely a man I want to see ~nuance~ in.

Originally Posted by Xie_Belvoule

Exactly my point Theo. The Alliance gets to play hero cause they got handed the best tool for the job. Everyone else gets to live defenseless in a hellish world where thoughtforms can manifest as God-like tulpas that can mind rape everything around them and can be brought into reality by everyday emotions like grief over losing a child or parent.

This is implying that the city-states are not actively trying to stop the primal threat. It was mentioned that whenever the GCs go up against primals the first wave goes in known full well every single one of them is going to be tempered. So rather than try agitating the beastmen like the Empire loves to, they've gone to make good relations with the untempered ones instead. Naturally that'll be rife with tension, conflicts and so on (I remember that Limsa Lominsa's treatment of the Sahuagian was never fully addressed but it was pretty bad if I recall).

Mind you, this is a threat that only came about when the Empire's wonderfully conceived first invasion was stopped by the Dravanian hordes and allowed beastmen the ability to summon their primals. Which, sure, is something that they're struggling with, due to the Calamnity. Which, surprise, is another event whose fault lies squarely with the Empire. Along with a third conquest attempt where the person in charge went against orders to try holding an entire continent hostage with a weapon of mass destruction.

Also, I'm really not sure where you're getting the "defenseless in a hellish world" thing from. Eorzea's far and away from being some primal-infested apocalypytic landscape, though I'm sure Imperial censors love painting it that way.

Nuances don't simply cease to exist just because a handful of vocal posters want to flock to this board to bash Garlemald at every single turn. I know some people do not actually come here to actually discuss the lore, though. They seem much more interested in trying to push political biases above all else.

Yes, Garlemald is 'bad' by modern day real world standards. So, too would the Roman Empire be considered 'bad' by modern day real world standards. Thankfully, though, it's perfectly possible to discuss both of them in such a way as to outline the reasons why they did what they did.

It's not an unreasonable angle to push, either. Eorzea has an immense luxury in the form of the Warrior of Light. It is a luxury that many other nations do not have, thus they resort to increasing extremes to solve their own problems.

Garlemald's harsh policies are a direct result of years of persecution and being forced to live in a complete wasteland. Such a lifestyle served to harden its people, so it is hardly any surprise that they resorted to the aggression that they have displayed as a consequence. Not being able to manipulate aether is a huge disadvantage in a setting such as this. One that is, unfortunately often downplayed.

Does this mean that Garlemald is justified in everything that it does? No, not at all - and I would very much like the expansionist policy to cease. As would my character, in fact, given that I role-play a Pureblood Garlean in-game.

As for Pureblood Garleans being racist? Can you blame them, given that they've been persecuted for much of their history and have only been able to claw their way to relevance as a direct result of increasing their power and influence? Why wouldn't they see outsiders as 'savages' when 'savages' are responsible for pushing them out of fertile lands, looking upon them with disdain and disgust?

Racism and xenophobia is a huge part of the setting, anyway. The Duskwight are treated like dirt within Eorzea. Interracial relationships are frowned upon. Adventurers may be more open minded (as well as the protagonists in general, conveniently) though the 'every-man' of the setting isn't necessarily.

Hingashi and Sharlayan also have strict isolationist policies.

The Warrior(s) of Light didn't arise in Eorzea until after Silvertear, which provided the beast tribes with both the means and the motive to amp up summonings. They were known to happen beforehand, though no records exist of any specific instance. Again... while primals were known to be summoned on occasion, Silvertear turned a nuisance into a plague. As Hien rightly notes, the Empire indirectly creates the very beings it claims to want stamped out. And again... the Warrior(s) of Light rose in response to that plague.

Meanwhile, back in Ilsabard, the Garlean Republic is not known to have seen or dealt with a primal for eight centuries or during its conquest of Ilsabard. They are also seemingly uncommon in Othard, as only two (the one summoned during the Imperial conquest and Susano'o) are known to be extant, and Susano'o's summoning was more or less a freak accident. Primals are mostly an Eorzean issue, and had the Empire not decided to kick that hornet's nest they would have remained an occasional nuisance.

But... "We have to invade to stop them from summoning!" leads to summonings, which leads to "See? We had to!" A self-fulfilling prophecy can only be defeated by not believing the premise upon which it rests (in this case, "We have to invade to stop them from summoning!") to be true. And that's not even getting into how the whole thing is a convenient excuse, given the Empire didn't see or deal with a primal until it went after Othard six years after conquering all Ilsabard...

Here's the BGM for this. I'm goin' ta bed.

Ultimately, though, if Pureblood Garleans had not been persecuted as 'easy targets' based on their inability to manipulate aether, driven out of fertile lands and forced to carve out a living for themselves in a complete and utter wasteland then they very likely would never have felt the need to forge The Garlean Empire in the first place.

When a particular people are pushed and persecuted they resort to increasingly desperate measures to defend themselves, their loved ones and their interests. Sometimes in a misguided manner. Other times through preemptive preventative measures - though, again, they do not have the various 'plot conveniences' afforded to the protagonists of this setting to swoop in and save them right before they have to make any tough, morally dubious decisions. They couldn't rely on aether. They couldn't hide behind religion. They were not about to roll over and die...and their distaste for 'savages' is understandable when you consider that it was 'savages' who almost wiped them out to begin with.

As for my debate theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEzzn_q5wP4

I don't like Zenos as a character, mainly because I feel that if there needed to be some antagonist to put up a strong enough resistance to the WoL to defeat us multiple times, it really should have been the Warriors of Darkness.

The Warriors of Darkness get plenty of reasons why they would be able to overpower us, and there would not be word one of complaint from me about that plot point. (Which does still let me continue to complain about how the "hopeless battles" were implemented, encounter-design-wise. But that's game mechanics, not story.)

Zenos just isn't interesting enough. I was actually kind of optimistic after seeing him return, because now we can figure out if there is any more depth to his character in situations not tailor-made for him to be all pointlessly and petty evil. What does he think about being brought back to life (or surviving his apparent suicide)? Was it part of his plan, or was it against his wishes? The end of 4.0 would imply the latter, but Zenos hasn't immediately tried to leap out of a max-skybox-height airship yet, so I assume he's either resigned to his new life, or he didn't really mean to kill himself in the first place.

Zenos does illustrate a lot of the issues with the usual back-and-forth about Garlemald: the Garlemald we think should be the case, with the oppressed people deciding to take revenge against the whole world and built and Empire to do so in the last century or so, is simply not the Garlemald we actually see in-game, with its incredibly stupid strategic decisions and rogue Legatus warlords and throwing away vast amounts of men and materiel for no apparent reason. We can talk all about how Garleans feel persecuted, but that still doesn't explain why Zenos acts the way he does without consequences.

So there's the arguments based on what the arguer wants Garlemald to be, and the arguments based on what the arguer sees Garlemald as it is actually portrayed. The former works on extrapolation based on RL human nature, but is not represented in-game. The latter works on in-game evidence, but makes very little sense.