FFXIV's story is threading on dangerous religious grounds

[ArkenaeuxBelmont]

Sorry, but snippy attempts at shutting down all analytical discourse really irk me.

1) All fiction is somewhat rooted in reality and our perception/understanding of it. It is impossible to totally separate fiction from reality, nor would I ever try to because escapism is lazy and parasitic to the greater social organism.

2) The FF series is no stranger to incorporating real-world issues into its writing, and FF XIV is probably the installment to date that does it the most. Any argument that FF XIV does *not* encourage players to think about such things as institutions, tribalism, colonialism, class-inequity, exceptionalism, authoritarianism and *especially* religion would necessarily have to be founded on profound ignorance and evasiveness.

Or, you know, you could just play the game and enjoy yourself.

Not everyone has to look so deep as to find some super secret hidden meaning and agenda in things.

Chill out.

[SeverianLyonesse]

Or, you know, you could just play the game and enjoy yourself.

Not everyone has to look so deep as to find some super secret hidden meaning and agenda in things.

Chill out.

I agree.

But I also don't need to suffer people insisting that entertainment media cannot or should not have real-world meaning. It's a fiercely self-absorbed and anti-intellectual stance to take, not to mention just factually inaccurate.

People crap their two-second ideas onto these forums to defend their lazy, consumerist lifestyles. And the lifestyle itself is fine, totally their prerogative. But spreading misinformation and atrociously underthought, counterproductive heuristics to justify it doesn't help anyone other than to create the sort of toxic, no-thought "spout quippy soundbytes" discourse that produces BS threads like this in the first place.

[Caurcas]

I agree.

But I also don't need to suffer people insisting that entertainment media cannot or should not have real-world meaning. It's a fiercely self-absorbed and anti-intellectual stance to take, not to mention just factually inaccurate.

People crap their two-second ideas onto these forums to defend their lazy, consumerist lifestyles. And the lifestyle itself is fine, totally their prerogative. But spreading misinformation and atrociously underthought, counterproductive heuristics to justify it doesn't help anyone other than to create the sort of toxic, no-thought "spout quippy soundbytes" discourse that produces BS threads like this in the first place.

I too, enjoy vocabulary.

[Deceptus]

The main story of this game is threading on dangerous religious grounds mainly because of when a specific groups of people (beast tribes) summon their gods and we go there, kill their gods and put those people in their place after they get brainwashed (tempered) by their respective dieties. This kind of story is very dangerous in religious countries and square enix will get in legal trouble if they continue this type of storyline. This game has now gained a lot of attention and popularity. Its no longer hidden by WoW and the storyline will get a lot of attention now all over the world.

Basically the story of FFXIV is saying that "Don't worship your gods or else we will kill your gods and then put you in your place. All the gods when summoned turns evil and brainwash (tempers) their people".

I was also shocked to see that when a particularly important NPC told me all the 12 gods of the civilized races of Eorzea like Rhalgr, Halone, etc can be summoned if we lavish them with crystals and gorge them with ether. And when summoned the gods will turn evil (just like the beast tribe gods) and will fully brainwash (temper) all their worshippers. This type of storyline may have worked 15-20 years ago but nowadays in this new generation people will not tolerate it.

I won't be surprise if the storyline gets censored in the coming days in majority of the countries.

After having played the MSQ I was wondering how long some anti-religion post was going to get put here.

Was honestly longer than I expected.

[HollowedDoll]

Just wait till you get to the Ishgardian Church

[Flatopia]

The best part of the troll effort is the fact their job is a level 59 Marauder. Legit comedy gold.

[Fellgon]

Isn't religion subject against the forum rules??

[eaudaemon]

I think OP haven't gotten far enough through the story to understand how the primals are summoned and what their true natures are.

We could give a detailed explanation, but that would be within spoiler territory.

[Veridiano02]

It remembers me of a Netflix show, Midnight Mass, where a priest does a thing with blood and summons a vampire to become an angel of god or something.
What this has to do with this threat? Nothing. I just want to be here.

[MagicPeanut]

Okay, I KNOW you’re trolling, but I just have to say that as a Christian, I have always respected how FFXIV handled religion and gods. The XIII trilogy, specifically with Lightning Returns, always had my eyes rolling with how blatantly insulting the story was towards the idea of God. But I was always amazed with how well FFXIV handled the concept of religion and worship. The characters seek to stop the beast tribes, but never leaned into insulting their beliefs or stomping on it to get what they wanted. The existence of beast tribe quests basically proves this. Anyway, yeah. I burst out laughing when I read the title of this thread.