Building a better Alphinaud

[MikkoAkure]

I can't. After the Werlyt questline, I think he's got a very good reason to want to be done with all that nonsense. He still cares about his homeland, but I can't remotely see him wanting to be in charge. Especially because he's come to see that he did some pretty wrong actions thinking they were the right things. Plus he knows Maxima is there and working on helping to rebuild. He can stay doing his own things with his new companions, and his daughter, and be his own person for once in his life now.

We're going way off tangent, but besides being accused of regicide, he's also a deserter. He can talk his way out of the accusations around murdering Varis since the lead witness and actual perpetrator is a traitor, but he 100% deserted his legion to pursue a personal vendetta against the Ascians and then started feeding information to the Eorzean Alliance. You'd need to rewrite elements of the story going back years to make Gaius a valid candidate for the throne.

While they could have introduced a Larsa-equivalent, it was a bit late in the game to do that and we'd just be repeating the same story as FFXII all over again. Just because it worked for one game doesn't mean it will work for another or needs to happen again. Regardless, Garlemald is neutered and can't really do anything large scale anymore. The writers left the fates of the remaining legions vague if they want to use them again for something, but we also might be stepping into territory the game has already been before if they have yet another rogue legion like the IVth or the VIIth. Legati and princes vying for the throne ended up destabilizing and destroying the country so it's probably best that they do away with the throne anyway.

[TaleraRistain]

We're going way off tangent, but besides being accused of regicide, he's also a deserter. He can talk his way out of the accusations around murdering Varis since the lead witness and actual perpetrator is a traitor, but he 100% deserted his legion to pursue a personal vendetta against the Ascians and then started feeding information to the Eorzean Alliance. You'd need to rewrite elements of the story going back years to make Gaius a valid candidate for the throne.

While they could have introduced a Larsa-equivalent, it was a bit late in the game to do that and we'd just be repeating the same story as FFXII all over again. Just because it worked for one game doesn't mean it will work for another or needs to happen again. Regardless, Garlemald is neutered and can't really do anything large scale anymore. The writers left the fates of the remaining legions vague if they want to use them again for something, but we also might be stepping into territory the game has already been before if they have yet another rogue legion like the IVth or the VIIth. Legati and princes vying for the throne ended up destabilizing and destroying the country so it's probably best that they do away with the throne anyway.

To be fair, though, Maxima's also a deserter and a traitor to some. I imagine he will have some issues as well, but he has a history of always working for the people so that will help him.

To the second point, I imagine a lot of Garleans are at least giving the side eye to a single leader idea the way the Ala Mhigans did to the idea of having another king. Been there, done that, let's try something else shall we.