I Don't Understand the Light Theme

[Jennah]

The only explicitly religious people you interact with belong to the Church of the Night's Blessed; that is, they worship the Dark. And it's very understated; aside from the comic relief character with the great serpent...

... and the reason the Sin Eaters are called that, and and have religious overtones, is because that's what Eulmore called them. And until we got there, what they said goes.

[whiskeybravo]

Here you go:

NY: From my own personal experience with fantasy media, there typically seems to be a conflation of “light” or “justice” with the notion of “good.” It feels unilateral to me. Surely any force that goes too far in one direction can’t be entirely good, right? That’s why I figured that if there was too much “light” in the world of FFXIV, then there had to be some negative effects. The linchpin here is the Warrior of Light being so thoroughly active in their duties as the realm’s champion that their “light” has become overbearing, disrupting the balance. That’s exactly what happened in the First—the setting for Shadowbringers—and why it has been decimated by the Flood of Light. We felt that restoring that balance would make for a very Final Fantasy-like narrative.

In terms of enemy design for Shadowbringers, this was actually a big stumbling block for us. Some context: generally speaking, Japanese people tend to be rather…agonstic, so to speak, acknowledging aspects of all religions. On Christmas, we exchange presents with one another, but a week later, we’re at Shinto shrines making offerings for the New Year. We’re neutral in that sense. So when we think about the concept of “evil,” we have a comparatively large pool of ideas to draw from. Now, in designing foes that stem from a source of light that has become too powerful, it’s all too easy to immediately jump to the idea of a fallen angel. We specifically wanted to avoid that pitfall in Shadowbringers. Players will be fighting against the First’s “Sin Eaters,” yes, but they are not necessarily angels. It’s funny—when our artists first started conceptualizing new enemies, many couldn’t resist the pull of drawing meticulously feathered wings on their creatures. I feel that’s oversimplifying things. That’s why I had to ask them for several retakes whenever I saw those wings start to appear. I had to explicitly ask them to tone down the designs. Basically…I told them to come up with something super demonic-looking, and then make it white. (laughs) We definitely did struggle with this concept because it’s apparently been ingrained into our collective consciousness to associate white with “good” and black with “evil.”

https://www.cgmagonline.com/2019/06/...naoki-yoshida/

[Ransom]

A lot depends on whether you are talking about light and dark in spiritual or physical terms. For example, I do believe that on the spiritual level light is good and dark is bad. But on the physical level, there is no such moral involvement and a balance between the two is indeed necessary for a healthy world (For example, endless day would be as destructive as endless night.) The light in the first is just that, a physical light, massively out of balance.

It is interesting to note, as long as any religious questions are there, that in the traditional Abrahamic view God is a being of light who surrounds himself with darkness to prevent the purity of the light from harming humans, while satan is a being of darkness who masquerades as an angel of light.

Still... Something's not right with the situation in the first. (Spoiler below is based on what I know as far along as the first trial at level 73)

The people of the first insist that sin eaters are mindless beasts. But mindless beasts don't use swords and shields. When Tesleen was turned, she said 'I'm sorry Alisae' AFTER she was turned, implying her mind was still in there. When Titania was taken over by a lightwarden, she continued to act like a pixie (if twisted) implying her mind was still intact to some degree. And if light is passivity, then why are creatures made of passivity aggressive? I'm hoping for answers further along (assuming my stupid key ever comes) but right now something just seems very off.