[SPOILER] 3.0 PLOT Question about the Ascians and King Thordan I

[KTSMEB]

Recently I have just finished the Dragonsong War story and I have a few questions about the Heavensward plot.

When I tried to read the summary of the story to review the plot, I found out something I did not remember from the game. In both Wikipedia/ Final Fantasy Wiki, the writer said that the Ascians revealed the source of a great wyrm's powers are their eyes to King Thordan I and urged him to betray dragons and slay Ratatoskr. However, when I played the game, I remember no such scenes mentioning that the Ascians are behind all the mess. For example, the cutscenes Hraesvelgr revealed the truth to WoL or the Haldrath slayed Nidhogg.

So here is the question: Can anyone tell me exactly which quests/cutscenes tell such story that: Ascians are behind the betrayal of King Thordan I? Thank you guys!

[Anonymoose]

Off the top of my head, that's the first I'm hearing of the accusation.

Unless I'm confusing "it's an obvious assumption to make, just unconfirmed and not necessarily true" and "the obvious thing actually did happen" again.

I'll double check, lol. For what it's worth, it wouldn't be the first time someone on FFWiki made a gap-jumping assumption, presented it as canon, and it stuck around. They have this frustrating corruption of the "any information is better than no information" rule where the result is that you can make stuff up and add it without challenge, but no one can delete it without proving the contrary ... and if there's no concrete citation to the contrary of the thing they made up, then it just stays. Essentially, we need a [citation needed] drive.

Did you know Thancred's favorite ice cream is Moose Tracks? (Prove me wrong.)

[Wyssahtyn]

You're best off not using the FFWiki as a source in any capacity, OP.

[ObsidianFire]

It's actually worse then you think. In the Lvl. 80 DRG quest, you get this exchange...

Faunhem
He valued strength above all else, and considered the affairs of mortals beneath his notice.
Only the seven great wyrms were worthy of his attention. And among them, none but Ratatoskr truly understood him.
Her song was beautiful indeed, and she graced both dragon and man with her wisdom.
She was invited by Thordan, king of men, to speak on our behalf. Ratatoskr expressed our desire to live in harmony. However, it was known that Nidhogg did not share these views.
When the king asked her how her brother saw mankind, she did not hide the truth. He believed that such frail creatures were incapable of protecting this star, that the task must be entrusted to the seven great wyrms alone.

Orn Khai
And that is why Thordan slew her!?

Faunhem
Ratatoskr had no intention of sowing discord, but the king could not countenance that his kind would be treated with such contempt, that we dragons would seek to claim this star as our own.
He turned on Ratatoskr, taking not only her eyes, but her life.

In other places in Heavensward, it talks about Ratatoskr being the dragon who liked humanity the most. I'll have to double check a lot of dialogue, but I think I remember it being said somewhere that Ratatoskr was the one to revel how important dragon's eyes were to King Thordan I.

The best place I can think to look would be the cutscenes with Hraesvelgr before and after the WoL and Estinean go to the Aery. Hraesvelgr talks a lot about the history of the dravanian/Ishgardian conflict there at least.

And yeah... the FFWiki is infamous in the FFXIV lore community for not requiring any citations for any info put up on there. In fact, it requires a citation for info to be proven wrong and be taken down... so no one takes it as a serious source of lore info at this point. You're a lot better off going to GarlandTools or GamerEscape or some other site that specializes in in-game only information.

[Nalien]

It's actually worse then you think. In the Lvl. 80 DRG quest, you get this exchange...

That really makes it seem like Ascians were poisoning Nidhoggs ear, rather than Thordan I, if he was pretty much spouting word-for-word the same sort of rhetoric Emet threw our way... Certainly nothing definitive there, but it's not like it's unheard of for Dragons to buy into Ascians words during hard times, and I do somewhat love the idea of Emet opting to throw a Dragon motif on his crown, not in some traditional sense of symbolism for great beasts (in reality we do that with things like Lions, fantasy setting substitutes Dragons), but as more of a vindictive nod to how completely and utterly he has played them over the eras... They are, after all, aliens to his star... I can see the Ascians taking their continued occupation rather personally...

[ObsidianFire]

Well... Given what Omega is, I don't blame Nidhogg for having that attitude. Even we, the Warrior of Light, needed both Midgardsormr's and Hrasevelgr's involvement to beat Omega, and as far as the Dragoon quests are concerned, we're one of two wielders of Nidhogg's power as it is. Oh, and we needed Cid and Nero and Alpha's involvement too. And something that could channel all the power used to wake Bahamut up while he was in Dalamud... If we were anyone else, we would have been screwed once Omaga woke up.

Also, I'm not a fan of attributing every single bad thing that happens to the Ascians where there is no canon proof for it. Dragons and humans have been jerks to each other plenty in the history of FFXIV without the Ascians doing anything. They don't need Ascian involvement to clash over such a difference in how the world works. And how Dragons see the world is plenty different from how humans see the world already even without any outside forces making it worse.

[JeanneOrnitier]

It would make sense that the spark of the Dragonsong War was Ascian involvement since they've done so many other things, but it's not explicitly stated and I have to agree that I'd really it rather not be. So much is attributed to them as it is that it'd be nice to have some conflicts unrelated to them.

[QT_Melon]

It would make sense that the spark of the Dragonsong War was Ascian involvement since they've done so many other things, but it's not explicitly stated and I have to agree that I'd really it rather not be. So much is attributed to them as it is that it'd be nice to have some conflicts unrelated to them.

At this point if they keep doing "The Ascians orchestrated this" it just becomes the "Space Time Continuum" (Star Trek) where it just makes the story dull and actually hurts the interesting backstory they did create of the Ancients and those that later become the Ascians. They (the writers) need to work with more (ingredients) than the same go to trope.

[JeanneOrnitier]

Yeah. That's the mistake Blizzard made with WoW by making absolutely everything the Old Gods' fault, right down to low level monster races like kobolds secretly being an Old God plot. It went way too far and ruined the setting.

I like to think Square knows better that to follow that same pitfall. That they had every opportunity in HW to say "Ascians started the Dragonsong War" but actually didn't say that, it makes me think, it probably isn't Ascians this time.

[MistakeNot]

I like to think Square knows better that to follow that same pitfall. That they had every opportunity in HW to say "Ascians started the Dragonsong War" but actually didn't say that, it makes me think, it probably isn't Ascians this time.

Did the Dragonsong War lead to lots of primals being summoned, or make a calamity happen?
No? Then it probably wasn't the Ascians behind that. The Ascians don't make trouble just to make trouble. They make trouble in order to trigger calamaties and the associated rejoinings.