Meteion vs WoW's The Jailer (Spoilers)

[Kalocin]

Pretty sure the song of oblivion is referenced in a lvl 60 bard quest lol. Meteion was mostly shown to be more of a force of nature that existed far beyond your time. Hermes already sent out like thousands of her before you even arrive, and by that point all the Meteoins are a hive mind of doom and gloom. It's not really immediate villain of instant power when you consider it like that.

I also consider it more similar to WoW's Ulduar story where you find out the Old God's corrupted the OG Titan races. The Jailer on the other hand has mostly been used as a plot device to make Sylvanas the main character of WoW for some reason. Meteion naturally ends up filling in the blanks while The Jailer does the exact opposite, the story is adjusted to justify his existence

[RyuDragnier]

If you talk to Sidurgu after the end of the MSQ, he's one of the few NPCs you can actually discuss the matter with and he does question a possible connection between dynamis and the dark arts...though I suppose we'll have to wait and see if they build on that.

Interesting, and it's definitely something I could see being the case. If Dynamis is powered by emotions, then a DRK, who harnesses their emotions for power, is a master of a form of Dynamis. The same could be said of Warrior, who unleashes their inner rage. It's possible that BLU may also be a manipulator of Dynamis, considering that while you are able to copy the moves of monsters, you'd also need to know the circumstances of how and why they use them before being able to harness them yourself.

[KatsuraJun]

I posted this elsewhere and felt like it would be fitting in this thread. Since I wrote it up already, I felt like I might as well throw it in here.

No, Meteion is not like the Jailer and her relatively late introduction isn't bad, because Meteion isn't the villain. The "villain" is philosophical argument that corrupted her, and it certainly didn't come out of nowhere; it's been a part of the game since the beginning.

She's just a piece of said philosophical argument, which serves as the thematic center of not only EW, but XIV itself. In real life ー in the face of our increasingly secularized world, religious institutions argued that a loss of faith would lead to a loss of purpose in living and self-destructive nihilism. For the faithful, God provides meaning, and Meteion's creators are the closest things we have to gods in FFXIV, literally shaping their world as they see fit in paradise. But even here among the gods, Hermes could not find the answer for why we live. Thus, he looks to the stars for answers, but what Meteion finds is emptiness: nihilism, and as Hermes falls to despair, so does Meteion, when her god cannot provide her purpose.

But that is because the answer to living was always within ー internal, not external. The story is literally about exploring Nietzsche's concept of "God is dead," where we find that every one of the gods in our world, once examined, are not really gods at all, and thus it falls on us define the purpose of our existence.

• In ARR, we are questioned why we don't simply call down the Twelve in defense, if our gods are real. The entire casus belli of Garlemald is to force us at gunpoint to abandon our gods, after all.
  "For the world of man to have meaning, man must own the world!"
  
• In Heavensward, Ishgardians struggle with the fact that the Halonic Church that's literally defined their purpose for living for the past millennia is based on a lie.
  "You reject my divinity, yet what have you to offer my people in its stead? Bitter truth? Virtuous suffering?"
  
• In Stormblood, we meet Zenos, who represents the dark mirror half to the existentialism of the Scions, and what people feared existentialism would bring about ー uncaring humans who answer to no god, and thus are morally inculpable to whatever cruelty they desire.
  "We tower above the gods! You by your gift, I by my might! And before the Resonant the gods shall be made to kneel!"
  
• In Shadowbringers, the entire basis of our counterargument against Emet-Selch is an affirmation of existentialism; it is neither Gods nor Ancients that gives value to our lives, it is found within ourselves.
  "We define our worth, not the circumstances of our creation!"
  
• And finally, in Endwalker, we discover that even the benevolent mothercrystal that watched over and protected us ― the closest thing to a true god in the setting of XIV ― was nothing more than a construct crafted by humanity to end our own godhood, urging us to find our own strength and Answers within.

As a side note, notice how the specific statement that causes Zenos to rethink his approach is Alisae's assertion that he needs to start considering the needs and wants of others. In essence, she's arguing that existentialism still needs to be married with empathy, or else you become a caricature of it. Theologists in real life argue all the time that without a god to constrain our morality and define our purpose, we will devolve into bloodthirsty, selfish animals driven purely by our whims. Sound familiar at all?

Anyway, these themes definitely have been established since the very beginning of the game. Meteion is not and was not meant to be the final antagonist or even an antagonist at all in a thematic sense, she merely serves as the vessel through which the antagonist is actually delivered, because it's quite difficult to punch philosophical concepts in the face, you see, and this is still a game in the end. That's why her relatively late introduction does little to harm the narrative integrity of the story, because if anything, she's just another victim to the self-destructive nihilism that the Scions are, and have been trying to defeat all along through existential nihilism. And in the end, they emerge victorious ー they cast away gods and faith in a supreme being for faith in themselves, each other, and you, which is exactly how you as the WoL are able to reach Meteion at the end of the universe.

[Brightamethyst]

FFXIV does a much better job at working new concepts into established lore. All the crazy revelations we got in ShB and EW felt like expansion and explanation of existing lore rather than feeling like BS retcons. Yes, the whole Meteon thing came out of nowhere fairly close to the end but it also fit the themes and made sense in context. Compare to WoW where most of the story in the past few expansions, and especially in Shadowlands has felt incredibly forced and unbelievable.

[Nekaru_Infitima]

snip

Of all the philosophy in this game that was great I hope this is the one that is utterly not true as then I can't play it anymore because it goes completely against my religion.

[Bright-Flower]

I don't think FFXIV players are as lore intensive as WoW players as a whole. The game is also designed differently. WoW is an MMO dropped into an already existing world that has other games and even books written within its world published for it. FFXIV is whatever Banri Oda and Koji Fox want it to be for the next expansion. Oda even dropped tons of dinosaurs into HW just because he really likes dinosaurs. I don't think you can get away with that in WoW.

And to piggyback onto what Mirron said, we only found out that the Final Days were a thing 2 years ago in the previous expansion. And back then, the fact that Zodiark and Hydaelyn were primals also came out of nowhere. People brought the possibility up on the forums, but there wasn't anything concrete until foxy grandpa started giving us exposition dumps. And then in HW before that, the fact that the world is split into shards and when there's a calamity, a shard is returned to the Source came out of left field. There didn't seem to be anything at all alluding to that and it also changed our view on the void, which was something else entirely. And then before that in 1.0, we had no idea that the 2nd moon in the sky which until then was just a neat little fantasy thing, was an ancient superweapon. And when we found out it was an ancient superweapon, we had no idea that it had an ancient dragon primal inside it.

I can't speak for WoW because I know nothing of it, but most of the revelations in FFXIV bring more to the story. At the start of the game, the Ascians were just a bunch of mustache-twirling villains who went around menacing adventurers for literally no reason other than to be evil (which is weird to replay after recent events). They longed to revive their long-dead god who our crystal mom killed and that was the story we had. Now it's a lot richer and the Ascians' actions have been given new light, but a part of me still misses the simple old days before calamities were even a thing and we only had 1 linear uncomplicated world history and the Allagan Empire was just a bunch of snail-eating, road-building onion knights.

WoW does rule of cool stuff all the time, including DINOSAURS. WoW has a lot of lore but they are NOT afraid to do stuff they want to in the moment and are NOT afraid of retconning past lore in the slightest.

[KageTokage]

Of all the philosophy in this game that was great I hope this is the one that is utterly not true as then I can't play it anymore because it goes completely against my religion.

I really don't think the game is trying to push anti-religious themes given how most of the people of Etheriys have their own gods they turn to for comfort in trying times.

[KatsuraJun]

I really don't think the game is trying to push anti-religious themes given how most of the people of Etheriys have their own gods they turn to for comfort in trying times.

Anti-religion isn't exactly the point of it, no. Seeking comfort and help in a higher power isn't portrayed negatively, as Hydaelyn herself serves as that kind of higher power that people pray to, and she was indisputably good - much to the chagrin of the "hydaelyn is evil!" crowd.

The fatal decision is to look for a reason to live in that higher power. Hydaelyn, nor any other god can tell you why life is worth getting out of bed for every morning. The story asserts that only you can answer that for yourself, because everyone has a different answer.

Think about the religion practiced in Thavnair and you can see exactly why religion isn't necessarily incompatible with the philosophy being discussed here.

[Vexander]

Of all the philosophy in this game that was great I hope this is the one that is utterly not true as then I can't play it anymore because it goes completely against my religion.

Maybe this will help?

[KatsuraJun]

To elaborate further, since I was in the middle of a meal earlier;

You only need to look at the difference between the tempered and untempered versions of each beast tribe to see the story's stance on religion. That is to say, the untempered tribes look to their gods as protectors, as loving mothers and fathers who watch over their growth. They are free to choose their purpose in life, knowing that their gods are there to cradle them with a gentle hand.

The tempered, on the other hand, treat their zealotry as an end in itself. Every atrocity committed is in dedication to their god's infallible greatness, living and dying in sole dedication to it above all else. Their purpose in life becomes defined solely by their god.

As you can see, religion isn't incompatible at all, just certain ways of practicing it. The game extols the virtue of the gentle prayers of those who find their life purpose in helping the unfortunate, and disdains the violent zealot that pillages and murders in the name of their god's glory.