Is the WoL actually good though?

[Theodric]

Yes, convenient exceptions are made when it's the 'bad guys' being subjected to such transformations though if someone turned Alisae into a tree I daresay the Scions would seek to do everything possible to try to reverse it. In the event that they couldn't, they'd be incredibly angry!

Of course given how the protagonists are comfort characters who cannot possibly be meaningfully harmed in any way then it's unlikely we'd be able to see such an experiment play out. How unfortunate.

It's less so the act itself so much as the double standard. During Stormblood, the Eorzean Alliance shifted from the 'defender' to the 'aggressor' but they certainly didn't just shrug and say 'they were just defending themselves' whenever Garlean experimentation/body horror was put into play. Fae body horror and transformation is little different, really.

[CrownySuccubus]

Yes, convenient exceptions are made when it's the 'bad guys' being subjected to such transformations though if someone turned Alisae into a tree I daresay the Scions would seek to do everything possible to try to reverse it. In the event that they couldn't, they'd be incredibly angry!

Of course given how the protagonists are comfort characters who cannot possibly be meaningfully harmed in any way then it's unlikely we'd be able to see such an experiment play out. How unfortunate.

It's less so the act itself so much as the double standard. During Stormblood, the Eorzean Alliance shifted from the 'defender' to the 'aggressor' but they certainly didn't just shrug and say 'they were just defending themselves' whenever Garlean experimentation/body horror was put into play. Fae body horror and transformation is little different, really.

Again, this is trying to force a deontological argument of "this thing is bad, thus all examples which resemble said thing must also be bad...no exceptions". This tends to happen a lot whenever it comes to either demonizing the Scions or justifying the Garleans.

Garlemald was forcing gruesome experiments onto captives and reluctant test subjects who were seized or conscripted as a result of Garlemald's own military campaigns...almost always, I might add, for the purpose of creating a new weapon for further conquest and subjugation. That isn't even in the same ballpark as the Pixies turning a group of hostile warriors into trees and flowers and whatnot. The Pixies were not, for example, the aggressors in this scenario, nor did their long-term goals foster an intent to be further aggressors.

I don't disagree with the general statement that a cure to Pixie transformation would probably be an ethical undertaking, since we know for a fact that the Pixies would do it to anyone, regardless of morality, but painting this as some kind of "double standard" that those Dastardly Scions are guilty of is just...not genuine, to put it politely. There's plenty of other actions of questionable ethics that the Scions can be judged on, but that...like a lot of things which involve Garlemald...is definitely NOT one of them.

[KizuyaKatogami]

The only Eulmorans who encountered pixie wrath were attacking them. We weren't there. If we were, we'd have been fighting the Eulmorans. I didn't see the mighty army of Eulmore holding back, did you?

You are also assuming "that which is done can be undone". Turning something into a shrubbery is probably not reversable. Bringing someone back to life after drowning certainly isn't reversible. Drowning isn't a curse. Being transformed isn't a curse.

Your argument makes little sense.

But they explicitly state it to be a curse if you do the pixie side quests. Also…there’s that one quest i believe about the knight who got turned into a shrub to prevent him from fully dying in hopes of one day there being a cure. People thought tempering wasn’t reversible and look where we are now. Again, they were brainwashed people. They had little control over their actions, and as we saw, anyone who defied or expressed weakness was tossed aside by Ranjiit. The twins were there were they not? The people turned into shrubs are very much alive. That’s the worst part. They’re damned to be like that and all because they had little control over their actions. My argument makes sense it just seems like you don’t understand it.

How dare we not stop the fae from.....defending themselves? Yeah, I don't get this one.

Arent we told the Fae do it regardless to anyone for shits and giggles though lol.

[Necrotica]

Aren't the Scions the MOST guilty of 'x is bad thus all examples which resemble said thing must also be bad'?

They have declared that summoning primals is not allowed. They do make exceptions when the Primal is on their side, but that just makes them hypocrites.

[Cleretic]

Aren't the Scions the MOST guilty of 'x is bad thus all examples which resemble said thing must also be bad'?

They have declared that summoning primals is not allowed. They do make exceptions when the Primal is on their side, but that just makes them hypocrites.

...No.

It's more a matter of education in this respect; when we first met them they were universally against primals on a base scientific level. This remains true, as primals that aren't Zodiark and Hydaelyn are universally dangerous and bad for the environment (and Zodiark's not exactly free of sin in that regard). What they learn over time isn't 'sometimes primals are okay', but rather that primals are a symptom rather than the cause, and that primals can only be appropriately handled by preventing the reasons people are summoning them in the first place. Ysayle's a big, understated part of that, essentially being the human face of primal summoners to prove to us and the Scions that they are, indeed, people.

You might have noticed that by the end of Endwalker Ifrit is no longer a problem, and the reason isn't because we murdered all his followers. It's because we have taken away the need to continue summoning Ifrit. A kind response to an unkind problem, because the Scions and the Warrior of Light are not cruel monsters.


I don't know why I'm saying this, because I fully expect your response to be ignoring this point and to instead bring up another bad faith argument that's refuted in the story itself, but there it is.

[Necrotica]

...No.

It's more a matter of education in this respect; when we first met them they were universally against primals on a base scientific level. This remains true, as primals that aren't Zodiark and Hydaelyn are universally dangerous and bad for the environment (and Zodiark's not exactly free of sin in that regard). What they learn over time isn't 'sometimes primals are okay', but rather that primals are a symptom rather than the cause, and that primals can only be appropriately handled by preventing the reasons people are summoning them in the first place. Ysayle's a big, understated part of that, essentially being the human face of primal summoners to prove to us and the Scions that they are, indeed, people.

You might have noticed that by the end of Endwalker Ifrit is no longer a problem, and the reason isn't because we murdered all his followers. It's because we have taken away the need to continue summoning Ifrit. A kind response to an unkind problem, because the Scions and the Warrior of Light are not cruel monsters.


I don't know why I'm saying this, because I fully expect your response to be ignoring this point and to instead bring up another bad faith argument that's refuted in the story itself, but there it is.

Preventing the reasons people summon primals would not go well. Primals are summoned in response to suffering and conflict. And if we were to remove suffering and conflict we would all commit mass suicide cause the plot said so.

[EaraGrace]

Aren't the Scions the MOST guilty of 'x is bad thus all examples which resemble said thing must also be bad'?

They have declared that summoning primals is not allowed. They do make exceptions when the Primal is on their side, but that just makes them hypocrites.

By StB we clearly distinguish primals by nature of their summoning and their intent. In ARR you’d have a point, a point I might add that the narrative directly called out and has been resolving since. By the end of the Endwalker we are summoning primals with the aid of those tribes. That’s called character growth, for both sides of the conflict.

I suspect that what is and isn't a 'double standard' is going to differ from person to person. With personal beliefs, backgrounds and cultural beliefs factoring into things. As I've said in the past, I'm not exactly outraged by anything that happens in the game itself. I like darker stories. My opposition is entirely based on the habit of framing bad things as 'good' or 'necessary' when the protagonists are indirectly and directly involved but always pushing it as 'unacceptable' or an outright caricature if the antagonists are doing it.

That framing only works if the context of the situation does not change things. We can recognize that in general killing someone is bad, but in some specific contexts that it can be morally justified. That’s the problem with these equivocations. They strip valuable context that needs to be considered.

[Theodric]

I suspect that what is and isn't a 'double standard' is going to differ from person to person. With personal beliefs, backgrounds and cultural beliefs factoring into things. As I've said in the past, I'm not exactly outraged by anything that happens in the game itself. I like darker stories. My opposition is entirely based on the habit of framing bad things as 'good' or 'necessary' when the protagonists are indirectly and directly involved but always pushing it as 'unacceptable' or an outright caricature if the antagonists are doing it.

Personally I'm more of a fan of the game just presenting things in such a way as to allow individual players to draw their own conclusions about any given event. I like to be entertained first and foremost, though I also like that sense of 'consistency' to be in play.

[CrownySuccubus]

I suspect that what is and isn't a 'double standard' is going to differ from person to person. With personal beliefs, backgrounds and cultural beliefs factoring into things. As I've said in the past, I'm not exactly outraged by anything that happens in the game itself. I like darker stories. My opposition is entirely based on the habit of framing bad things as 'good' or 'necessary' when the protagonists are indirectly and directly involved but always pushing it as 'unacceptable' or an outright caricature if the antagonists are doing it.

Personally I'm more of a fan of the game just presenting things in such a way as to allow individual players to draw their own conclusions about any given event. I like to be entertained first and foremost, though I also like that sense of 'consistency' to be in play.

Yeah, nah.

I'm not in favor of going the extreme opposite route of painting moral greyness as the only absolute. That leads to situations where you have an entire group of slaveowners, rapists, child abusers and torturers being touted as "just as valid" as the society next door of hardworking, academic, equitable farmers and philosophers that build shelters for orphans. Allowing players to "draw their own conclusions" basically means forcing said players to ignore specific atrocities.

[Theodric]

I'm inclined to believe that the writers themselves do not think nearly so much about the implications of some of the things that they push until after they've already put it out there.

I was more referring to desperate people forced to do horrid things in order to survive rather than those who gleefully go around doing bad things with no greater purpose in mind. Both are technically bad, though a mother murdering a stranger to protect her son because he'll die if she doesn't play along is very different to someone doing it for the thrill of the hunt.

Morality in itself, however, is often very flexible. More than many would care to admit. There are countless examples of such throughout history. If a city is under siege and there is no way to escape or easily secure food, many survivors would do abhorrent things in order to feed their loved ones. Things that they did not believe themselves to be capable of, even.