FFXIV's story is threading on dangerous religious grounds

[Siniztor]

People still can't tell fantasy from real life and think that everything artists create is a direct message and reflection of their views?

This 100% This whole woke your hurting my feelings crowd is insane last few years.. Its a fake video game lol

[snuggans]

There is a god in this game called Lakshmi that we have to fight. And Lakshmi is one of the Hindu gods. Tell me how this type of storyline will not offend Hindu people. I, myself, am a Hindu person and I felt offended at that part of the storyline.

*SPOILER ALERT*

please look through the storyline again, the game is not saying that Lakshmi is inherently bad but that she was summoned by a Garlemald-aligned tribe with less than noble intentions and these intentions do influence the summoned variant, yet even in this scenario it was one of our party members who struck first after Lakshmi offered a truce, the developers were quite careful here. the other Ananta tribe asks you to vanquish this variant of Lakshmi because they know Lakshmi cannot be permanently vanquished and can be resummoned under better circumstances which does happen later. the moral of the story is that the concept of gods can be invoked for good or evil purposes depending on the worshippers, and history shows us this is true for many religions

also there is no singular beastmen hivemind that we "put in their place", there are often different factions some of which have been corrupted by non-beastmen actors, and other factions who are requesting our help

[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.

[Jennah]

Every JRPG except Dragon Quest still ends with you killing god

Dragon Quest 7 at least ends with you killing God.

[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.

[SeverianLyonesse]

People still can't tell fantasy from real life and think that everything artists create is a direct message and reflection of their views?

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.

[Siniztor]

There is a god in this game called Lakshmi that we have to fight. And Lakshmi is one of the Hindu gods. Tell me how this type of storyline will not offend Hindu people. I, myself, am a Hindu person and I felt offended at that part of the storyline.

You haven't even done the Lakshmi story line your highest class is 59.... Please lock this troll thread~~~~~

[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.