The Warrior of Kindness (Spoiler)

[Schan]

The key difference between us is that we didn't go into their world trying to murderize the innocent.

sure, but we aren't in their same situation either.

They believed that to save their world they had to kill ours

While we believed that to save ours we had to save theirs

[Edax]

sure, but we aren't in their same situation either.

They believed that to save their world they had to kill ours

That's often the excuse of those who try to commit genocide.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

That's often the excuse of those who try to commit genocide.

Alright, this isn't reality. Now we're in the territory of "but in real life". It's a game. They made a mistake, and they didn't actually murder anyone, they were just killing primals (and beast men) . A lot like we were in fact.

[Bright-Flower]

I don't get why anyone would expect us to become 'evil.' The msq does coyly have the scions say things like we're the villains aren't we?' but really you're not and having the WOL suddenly become evil for an expansion would be stupid.

I am however disappointed in how the 'warrior of darkness' title was handled. We don't embrace darkness, or really even fight 'for' darkness. In fact it is our BLESSING OF LIGHT that allows us to BE the 'warrior of darkness.' Become the warrior of darkness didn't signify ANY sort of change it's just a surfce level label that plays into the fact that light is the force we're fighting against for now.

[ErryK]

Wish we were evil in this game.

Let me ask you one question... in what Final Fantasy game is the hero ever "evil"?

[Levy9]

I wasn't expecting to become evil, but I thought we would've been more of an anti-hero this expansion. The way the WoL is perceived by the world and the way he/she accomplishes their goals didn't change with ShB. We're the same as we've always been in the source, cherished heroes. I thought we would've been more like Fray from the Dark Knight questline. Fray wasn't evil, but he clearly didn't operate the way a typical hero would.

I was expecting us to be misunderstood by the world and cast as evil/villains for a time, even though we weren't. (Ranjit and Vauthry calling us villains doesn't count because they're the actual antagonists and more or less, the only people in Norvrandt that actually thinks of us as villains). I thought we'd wind up in a lot of situations similar to when Urianger teamed up with the original warriors of Darkness; that we'd be forced to appear as being on the side of evil in order to accomplish a greater goal for good.

Expectations aside, Shadowbringers is my favorite story in FFXIV yet. I don't really mind what story they tell, so long as it's a good one and Shadowbringers is certainly good, but this is where my mind originally went when I first heard about this expansion.

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

Light is not good. Darkness is not evil. That's the basis of a number of the Job Quests even, like Black Mage and Dark Knight.

Heck, the main villain of Heavensward (pre-patches) was a guy who used Holy magic.

[Alleo]

uuuh what.

Light is not evil, nor is Darkness. Too much of either is bad but not necessairly "evil". They have stated before Shadowbringers (in Heavensward actually) that neither are evil but too much of either is very dangerous and will corrupt life.

I don't feel it's nice to blame SE for your your prejudices regarding Light and Darkness and how one of them "has" to be evil. I wish people would inherently stop giving moral concepts to Light and Darkness. Guess what. They aren't people so morality shouldn't apply to it. They are technically energy.

You don't go around saying electricity is evil now do you? It can be dangerous yes but it doesn't get out of its way to kill your family for the giggles now, does it?

I think this only happens because unti now the Ascians which are the ones that are mostly using darkness are evil in our view, while we who mostly go with Hydaelyn and thus the Light are doing good things. Maybe they should have mixed that up before to show that Light and Darkness have nothing to do with good and bad. But even in this expansion we still use light to do good and its even our blessing that saves the world. Unlike the trailer that makes it seem like we are truly using darkness to fight the Light, we dont do that ingame. So I can see how people are disappointed by that. I never believed that we would turn evil at all and kinda was shaking my head at those that wanted to switch side or something.

sure, but we aren't in their same situation either.

They believed that to save their world they had to kill ours

While we believed that to save ours we had to save theirs

They did not come to our world to kill our world but to start the calamity which then would have been enough to rejoin their shard with the source. This would have lead to a huge amount of death and the destruction and complete death of the shard, but at that time they believed (thanks to the Ascians) that this was the only way. They of course still made the mistake (unknowingly) that nearly destroyed their world and wanted to save at least some souls by causing huge destruction but saw their mistakes, while certain other enemies simply dont care at all.

[Darkstride]

Playing through the expansion I didn’t see anything with us being the Warrior of Darkness.

Through the entire expansion everyone is praising the Warrior of Darkness for bringing back the night and purging the light that makes them suffer. Just because we aren't evil, or whatever you assumed darkness would entail, does not mean we were mislead and are not the Warrior of Darkness. We are exactly that in the context of the story and lore.

Darkness is not inherently evil, it's an aspect of existence that should be in balance with light. Light is not inherently good, either, it simply exists. Clearly it has the same potential for mass destruction as darkness. We are even told that Zodiark was summoned first as a savior, yet some feared its power so they summoned Hydaelyn to combat it. Hydaelyn was only "good" to those who summoned it, but not to those whose existence she threatened.

There was never any reason to assume that becoming the Warrior or Darkness meant embracing any sort of evil.

[AnimaAnimus]

I really was hoping we were going to become evil. .

To be fair, we slaughter other people, animals and what not by the hundreds for the most petty of reasons. Side quests always have us killing people and slaughtering vast amounts of animals for the silliest of reasons. That random NPC told me you stole her turnip! Time to DIE!

So to say we are "good" is already a stretch and we only consider ourselves thus because it's framed in a way we see all of our senseless and needless slaughter as heroic. When in reality we would be feared, reviled and hunted for what we have done and continue to do.