Ardbert's Party vs the Scions Analysis

[Iscah]

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It wasn't even my theory. I'm just saying it was one of the lines people were speculating along. One of the more extreme lines, but still, "Old Sharlayan looks like Idyllshire" is not in itself a thing that disproves it.

For my part, I had definitely noted the prior casting of Sharlayan as not entirely "good" even though it was the "good characters'" homeland. I expected more of that political scheming hinted at in the AST quests to come to the fore. Lots of factions, not all of them trustworthy, at least one already proven to be willing to assassinate you if you inconvenience their agenda.

I also think I was on the line that something significant might have happened 15 years ago that was a secret real reason for the exodus, and a shift towards the Sharlayans being more secretive – perhaps they dug too deep in the Antitower and were afraid of what they found, or were tempered simply by looking at the aetherial sea, or something happened back in Old Sharlayan that changed the mindset of the ruling class. (In which case that would explain the Scions being unaware of a shift in mood back home, as they spent that time in Eorzea.)

Yes it's a lot of ifs and maybes, but that's what we do when speculating. (Back when the lore forum actually had a colony of people who wanted to speculate.) I'd have to dig back into the forum discussions but I think it was a pretty common perception that the Sharlayans were going to be more difficult to work with than they ultimately were.

That said, I've gotten the impression from interviews that they sometimes change their original intended plot direction just to subvert expectations, which thoroughly sours my inclination to discuss what I expect to happen.

[Iscah]

One faction. A few small malcontents. Not the entire bloody NATION.

Adding on this, it's been a while since I played the AST quests but I definitely got the impression that they were more than "a few malcontents". Sevestre held a lot of influence and was a key player in the decision for the New Sharlayan colony to withdraw, and his faction's stance is to hoard up Sharlayan's knowledge because other civilisations can't be trusted to use it properly.

Whether it was his influence or an existing general sentiment already, Sharlayan's current attitude to other nations is his attitude.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

So, all I get from you is that the only way a nation can be antagonistic towards others is to declare war and nothing else. Well, yes, they're pacifists, everyone gets that.
What made them potential antagonists is that their neutrality was clearly, multiple times, presented in the story as a severe lack of empathy at a cost of many people's lives. Had Sharlayan got their way, the Seventh's Calamity would have annihilated Eorzea entirely with no hope of recovery and they were fine with that. The Circle of Knowing, which is part of the Scions's DNA, was literally made in OPPOSITION to Sharlayan's policy.
And you say they weren't presented as antagonists at all?

It doesnt make sense to call a nation antagonistic, Because they were neutral. Those 2 words clash.
Even with what you mentioned, it doesnt make sense to call them Antagonists, because they isolated themselves.

[MikkoAkure]

I also think I was on the line that something significant might have happened 15 years ago that was a secret real reason for the exodus, and a shift towards the Sharlayans being more secretive

Yet it was established in ARR that the Sharlayans still came back to Eorzea within the past 5 years to fix Eorzea’s aetherytes that broke during the Calamity so it’s not like we were completely abandoned and the nation overall is antagonistic. G’raha, the twins, and Krile had all been in Sharlayan through these past years and only “recently” came to Eorzea so it would have had to have been something super sudden to get them to not notice anything or for the other Scions not to figure anything out after talking to them about Sharlayan.

An idea there there was some massive secret that happened 15 years ago also goes against what we already know - that everything was kicked off by the Garlean Empire invading Ala Mhigo, Sharlayan actively sought peace, and they only decided to abandon the colony after their emissaries sent to Garlemald failed to convince them to stop their war. The EE mentions they spent a lot of effort on trying for that peace, which makes sense for a people who didn’t want to leave but did so as the last option.

While there probably have been other contrived coincidences, it would be stupidly convenient for that to happen at the same exact time as some sort of mass tempering and then you’d also have to wonder why they bothered helping Eorzea after the Calamity. The Sharlayan colony was established over 200 years ago and they’ve been in contact with the aetherial sea the entire time so it would’ve been odd for something to have happened right then of all times.

As I said before, Yoshi-P said that they designed Old Sharlayan specifically on player’s expectations and existing lore. Being disappointed with the result is more a product of an overactive imagination than bad writing. Of all the parts of EW, Sharlayan fit the most with what I expected, which was a bunch of grumpy mages holding a secret above our head and not helping us but not going out of their way to stop us either. While there could have been something more, there ultimately wasn’t and I would have been pleasantly surprised if there was.

[Kazhar]

It doesnt make sense to call a nation antagonistic, Because they were neutral. Those 2 words clash.
Even with what you mentioned, it doesnt make sense to call them Antagonists, because they isolated themselves.

I see no contradiction, as the story unambiguously presented said neutrality as a bad thing that needed to change, and which the Circle of Knowing acted directly in opposition of. The source of the conflict between Louisoix and Fourchenault was that neutrality, in the former's view, made Sharlayan indolent and wouldn't lead to progress.
And they were not exactly passive in their neutrality, (even if we ignore the actual assassins) as they actively tried to prevent their people to intervene in the Garlean invasion, despite the horrible implications it had.
How are they not an antagonist force when they were, at the root of the entire story, obstacles to the protagonists plans? Again The Circle of Knowing, which half the protagonists are coming from, was created to act against Sharlayan's policy. This is the textbook definition of being an antagonist.

[Silvarer]

Meanwhile, the Scions never die so there's no membership turnover either.

That’s just a blatantly false statement right there. Minfilia and Papalymo both died. Lyse left the Scions at the end of Stormblood. Krile, Alisaie, G’raha, and Estinien all joined the group after we did. G’raha and Estinien are also two people we met in our previous adventures before they were Scions, so your claim that we don’t get to keep any of the people we’ve met along the way isn’t entirely true either. There’s been plenty of change in the composition of it, but I guess you want to pretend that there hasn’t been just because some of the older members are still around.

[Iscah]

How are they not an antagonist force when they were, at the root of the entire story, obstacles to the protagonists plans? Again The Circle of Knowing, which half the protagonists are coming from, was created to act against Sharlayan's policy. This is the textbook definition of being an antagonist.

This. Their political neutrality just means that they will not start wars with other nations within the setting; it does not have any direct relationship to whether they could be regarded as antagonists versus the protagonists of the story.

Even being "neutral" has different meanings for different countries. Kugane is neutral and equally welcomes all nations to trade and have embassies there. Sharlayan equally tells all other nations to go away and leave them alone.

[Iscah]

As I said before, Yoshi-P said that they designed Old Sharlayan specifically on player’s expectations and existing lore. Being disappointed with the result is more a product of an overactive imagination than bad writing.

Was he talking in terms of politics or visuals, though?

The thing with all the speculation is that those ideas didn't come out of nowhere. From the way Sharlayan was portrayed in the leadup to Endwalker, it inspired people to look for those sorts of interpretations to their actions. If they had been shown as more purely neutral , then maybe people wouldn't be anticipating what it all leads to – the remarks that they are acting strangely and keeping dire secrets, Fourchenault disowning his children, Krile reporting that things seem off compared to usual.

Why shouldn't we look to details we already know about to theorise what revelation is being foreshadowed here? At that point, we knew a lot about primals but noting about the possibility of voluntary mind-wiping spells and a planetary escape plan.

In hindsight, the whole disowning thing seems like a "short-term shock for the 5.55 cliffhanger" plot point that wasn't really necessary to set up anything that followed.

[DPZ2]

Underneath a red sky, I would have the party camp out on the stony shores of the beach after emerging from a cavern connected to Labyrinthos, likely after having confronted a major threat in the zone before moving on to deal with the Sharlayan Forum. I would have substituted burgers for either canned goods retrieved from Labyrinthos or a freshly killed animal roasted over a fire, and rather than a cheery attitude the party would be more visibly shaken and emotionally vulnerable, which is the key to really being put in a situation where one must overcome overwhelming despair.

Ah. I understand now. You are definitely more into post-Apocalyptic literature, or perhaps Survivalist literature?

The primary purpose of the scene in the quest The Color of Joy was to demonstrate the properties of the Elpis flower. It takes place after we prove that the efficacy of the Talisman provided by the alchemists via the destruction of the Tower of Zot. It takes place as we plan to equip a company of relief works to move into the now war-torn land of Garlemald. It takes place before the beginning of the Final Days.

The immediate sense at the time was relief that the Towers are not invincible. That we can remove their threat before something really bad happens. Despite what many appear to believe, the entire expansion is not centered around despair, it is centered around hope in the face of despair. That's an important distinction to make.

[aveyond-dreams]

That still doesn’t justify why they were eating burgers of all things nor was i particularly impressed with the Elpis flower’s use in the story. I don’t care how much “hope” these characters have in the face of despair when they haven’t exactly been through very much especially after some of their character growth has outright regressed such as in the case of G’raha Tia.