Endwalker was "meh" (for reasons other than technical issues)

[Tsukino]

I don't agree with any of this at all, but I doubt just explaining why is going to suddenly convince anyone to change their mind...

The pacing is weird and I do agree that the Radz-at-Han aetheryte not being able to be attuned to is annoying for no reason. But I don't think this is some kind of crazy outlier when it comes to FFXIV. Even Shadowbringers, which was many people's favorite including my own, had that whole dumb section in Western Amh Araeng with the miners for the flimsiest excuse, Ran'jit showing up all the time and being super strong for no reason, and everything involving the mystel couple and Alphinaud in Eulmore. And that's to say nothing of the other two expansions and 2.x which are truly awful by comparison in this area.

I didn't even register a "darkness" theme, since by this time we know the story behind Zodiark and the Final Days pretty well. The whole story this time is payoff for the setup concerning these events in Shadowbringers, and a key aspect of any Final Fantasy storyline - we have to figure out the cause of the Final Days and the truth behind what really happened to get the world to where it is now, and we do. Zenos was pretty pointless and I really don't understand why the writers keep him around at all, so I do agree that he brought everything down here, just not for "story is too dark" reasons.

Everyone else has already mentioned that the Garleans act a lot like imperial citizens in real history. I also liked that our relationship with the empire ended this way - no need to have Stormblood part II where we have a massive world war to take them down, instead empires are naturally unstable and collapse under their own weight as soon as they have problems in the leadership. They're no longer a threat and this demonstrates it well while making way for the rest of the story.

[DoH]

Maybe it's because no matter how intelligent you are, someone can pose a question that makes you question your beliefs? Maybe you can't come up with all the answers right on the spot no matter how intelligent you are if you meet the right person to question your motives?

To me it makes more sense that the question stumped him initially, only for him to come up with an answer later after thinking on it

You can be an intelligent person but still admit that you don't know all the answers, heck admitting you don't know all the answers is essential to developing a more rounded worldview

Again, though, Alphinaud was stumped by the legates’ question of why didn’t you accept peace when the Garleans offered it - how is what the Eorzean alliance doing any different than what Garlemald tried to do?

Well, let’s see. Sure, the Garleans may have been persecuted a long time ago; as a result of that, and to compensate for their inability to use magic, they came up with magitech… which they eventually used to basically pull a Nazi Germany and invade the rest of Eorzea, killing those of different faiths (i.e., the beast tribes). As I mentioned above, we literally had the WoL there and could’ve subjugated them then and there if that is what our plan was. Alphinaud being unable to raise any of the law counter arguments to the legatus was weak.

[Powercow]

Again, though, Alphinaud was stumped by the legates’ question of why didn’t you accept peace when the Garleans offered it - how is what the Eorzean alliance doing any different than what Garlemald tried to do?

Well, let’s see. Sure, the Garleans may have been persecuted a long time ago; as a result of that, and to compensate for their inability to use magic, they came up with magitech… which they eventually used to basically pull a Nazi Germany and invade the rest of Eorzea, killing those of different faiths (i.e., the beast tribes). As I mentioned above, we literally had the WoL there and could’ve subjugated them then and there if that is what our plan was. Alphinaud being unable to raise any of the law counter arguments to the legatus was weak.

Do you think Alphinaud should have brought up that they had the definitive upper hand in these negotiations?

What you might think he sounds like: "If we wanted to invade and use violence, we could have, and the fact we haven't is testament to our intentions."

What the Legatus will hear: "If we wanted to, the Warrior of Light here could kill you, your guards, and every man, woman, and child in a ten mile radius without breaking a sweat. Now, do what we say before we unchain this savage monster on you all."

Your average Garlean citizen is, as Alphinaud learned earlier when three malnourished men stabbed him behind the shed so a defenseless woman can drag her sick sister across monster-infested frozen wastelands just to get some physical distance from us, pretty untrusting of Eorzeans. What do you think a Legatus -- especially the one who was fanatically serving the Empire after the Emperor's demise -- would think?

[JanVanding]

On one of your points. Specifically Doom and Gloom.

We are facing the Final Days, the end of all existence and the main villain of the expansion is basically Owlman whom has Anti Monitor already at the end of the universe wrecking stuff, of course it's going to be a very dark, existential crisis style setting.

There were always going to be deep moral quandries and heavy philosophical questions to answer, things that make you think and that to me makes this one of the more mature and well handled usages of this setting I've seen.

We can agree to disagree on other points, I get the escort quests aren't liked by a lot, but the Doom and Gloom point ....if you were looking for a more light handed handling, you would be asking for them to try to gloss over the theme of the expansion and that would not have done it justice.

[yajnaji]

If so many people "like" and agree with op wtf y'all doing in a forum of a game you consider "meh"?

I don't understand, please enlighten me.

Also please leave the game and give your place in the queue for people who actually enjoy it.

[KatsuraJun]

It absolutely did not. He went into a non-sequitur on his personal beliefs which had nothing to do with the actual history of their conquest or how they supposedly offered 'prosperity'. Alphinaud is supposed to be a master debater from a nation of scholars and getting shut up by such a stupid argument is absolute cringe storytelling. I don't think the writers even know how to write a smart character. You can't keep fanboying how smart and talented Alphinaud is and then keep having him fail so God damn always and resort to stupid anime schlock like 'the power of hope and friendship'.

He went into his personal beliefs precisely because it is a matter of personal belief.

The core disagreement between him and Quintus was simply this: given that humans will naturally come into conflict because of their differences in values, that as established by Quintus holds greater value to them than peace (if peace was your greatest desire, why not surrender?), is there any hope of real resolution, or can you boil down every human interaction to a zero-sum game where one party stands to lose from the exchange? In the end, all Alphinaud can do is affirm his belief in the ability for humans to cooperate ー ergo, the power of friendship/hope/whathaveyou.

It's precisely because he is a good orator that he doesn't launch into the trap of calling out Garlemald about their conquests, because you saw how well *that* went with Varis, no? lol. In the end, it's action which proves the truth of Alphinaud's worldview, which is why he set out to prove their good intentions through action and not words with characters like Jullus. Whereas, the one whose worldview led to self-destruction is Quintus.

[Tanis_Ebonhart]

But why are you in a rush to beat it?

[KatsuraJun]

Do you think Alphinaud should have brought up that they had the definitive upper hand in these negotiations?

What you might think he sounds like: "If we wanted to invade and use violence, we could have, and the fact we haven't is testament to our intentions."

What the Legatus will hear: "If we wanted to, the Warrior of Light here could kill you, your guards, and every man, woman, and child in a ten mile radius without breaking a sweat. Now, do what we say before we unchain this savage monster on you all."

Your average Garlean citizen is, as Alphinaud learned earlier when three malnourished men stabbed him behind the shed so a defenseless woman can drag her sick sister across monster-infested frozen wastelands just to get some physical distance from us, pretty untrusting of Eorzeans. What do you think a Legatus -- especially the one who was fanatically serving the Empire after the Emperor's demise -- would think?

It's amazing how many people think that Alphinaud should have just said the equivalent of "But GARLEMALD BAD!" and think that would accomplish literally anything in that situation.

You might as well just force them into compliance and kill the resistors if that's how you want to go about it. Yes, Garlemald is a messed up empire. No, if you're trying to actually fix things and coexist, that's not a great approach, especially when the reason they're a nation-building state going around slapping other nations is because other nation-building states did it to them first. You can list off their crimes all day, and they'll just do the same back to you, and in the end, someone's going to have to be beaten into submission, which is exactly what they're trying to avoid.

Literally, this approach was attempted only last expac with Varis and people with goldfish memories apparently forgot how that diplomatic meeting went.

[Saier]

Calling the Garleans 'dumb' for refusing the aid of their enemy since conception is a bit flippant, don't you think?

The Legatus had a point - warring states don't do things out of the goodness of their hearts, regardless of what you and the contingency believe. The offering of aid carries and implicit expectation that the Garleans who accept will cooperate with their 'liberators,' which is a hard thing to sell after all of the things the alliance - and especially the WoL - have done to them. In a way, it's a predatory proposition - they are in no position to refuse, and if they do, then they will starve and freeze to death. Whether they were wrong in the war is irrelevant at this point.

That's not even talking about how utterly terrifying it must be to see the WoL in their presence. Having heard the things the WoL and alliance has done to Garleans (and then multiplied due to likely propaganda), how could you possibly trust them?

I had that thought too but then remembered that the Garleans were always the aggressors. The Alliance only recently got out from under the Garlean thumb, so I don't think its fair to phrase it that way. I'd say its more like that fable about the tiger with a splinter; the legatus would could never accept help from the same people he wanted to kill / subjugate not that long ago.

[KatsuraJun]

I had that thought too but then remembered that the Garleans were always the aggressors. The Alliance only recently got out from under the Garlean thumb, so I don't think its fair to phrase it that way. I'd say its more like that fable about the tiger with a splinter; the legatus would could never accept help from the same people he wanted to kill / subjugate not that long ago.

The Garleans were the aggressors only after being pushed to the north by other magic wielding aggressors. Nor are they the only ones who suffered at the hands of nation-builders, when you look at the beast tribes of Eorzea.
They take a look at how the Limsans lied to the kobolds, how Ul'dah treats refugees. They look at the racism suffered by the Duskwights in Gridania, and can only see that the Dragonsong War ended through violence, and then you tell them that they, as foreigner refugees that were formerly your enemies, should just trust you because you just want to help and sing kumbaya around the fire － of course they'll ask: is this a joke?

That's why their entire worldview boils down to, conquer or be conquered. That if they didn't do it, you'd be doing it to them. It quite literally parallels the rationale behind the formation of many empires in history, including Japan for that matter, after their ports were forced open by America, and saw what happened to China when it got carved up neatly by the British after the Opium Wars. Is it just? No, but it's definitely not unrealistic, and trying to talk them out of it is about as feasible as doing it to an empire in real life.