7.0 News from Reddit.

[Saimeren]

People complaining about a goofy character in their serious game! And yet we're have Hildibrand (spelling) and people seem to love that stuff.

This community baffles me some times.

[Atelier-Bagur]

People complaining about a goofy character in their serious game! And yet we're have Hildibrand (spelling) and people seem to love that stuff.

This community baffles me some times.

Its like people forget they're playing *ahem*.....a final fantasy game. Not Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones or whatever popular no-nonsense fantasy world they like to imagine this game is trying to be.

[myahele]

Hmm what about the Ex Mistbeard pirate captain who is the second in command of limsa and the maelstrom? He's a masculine Roe and doesn't completely fall under the stupid brawns category or act is all boisterous like goesetsu

It would be nice to see him interact with his daughter too

[SkyEdge1]

To badly quote something I read on the internet once : The most important thing in writing darker fantasy, horror, pre or post apocalyptic stories, is oddly enough, the themes of love and laughter. If you want to save a dead world, and you succeed, congratulations you now have a still dead world. The reason those slice of life moments, those stupid, cringe-worthy jokes, and the silliness matter so much is because without it your serious moments lose their impact. The reason I loved watching G'raha stuff his face with a burger is because in the end his harder moments shine brighter when I remember why I love the character. The same holds true across the series for me at least.

[Midareyukki]

snip

Okay. Let's both take a deep breath and start from the beginning, especially as right now I think I get where you're coming from. You don't need to agree with what I say, simply understand what it is that I'm saying. I'm accusing you of not reading. You're accusing me of far worse. I'm not going to dissect your every word any further. I'll only pick on a few phrases because they did bother me more than others. The rest I really can only say "you're wrong, go back and read what I said". Disagree with the methodology all you want, I just see no point in going in loops when we can just solve the problem at the root.

So with no bull, no ill-will, nothing. I just hope you can understand where I'm coming from and respect what I have to say rather than being accusatory. Because you yourself said, you're not sure of what I'm trying to prove.

From my understanding, you're saying that the game does have characters that don't always fit a stereotype, and that me dismissing them looks like cherrypicking to fit my own views. To you, if the character exists, then they're a part of the world built, and thus are equally relevant to be considered. I'll provide you my definition of what my point is, hoping that you can at last understand why it is I dismiss those characters. It's not because I'm cherrypicking. Cherrypicking implies that I want to paint a narrative and ignore those others without a valid reason. I do have a reason, however, for casting them aside, and I want that reason to be very clear:

I'm referring to P&S characters, not just because they're voiced but because they're characters the dev take a lot of time to expose us to and flesh out further than just their one major appearance. Yes, background characters have a personality and might grow. But they don't tend to be major motivators or influence the plot other than their own. They're in the background to provide a character for ours to interact with, rather than be a presence to the Scions like Lyna was. I keep saying that all I'm referring to is that there are no traits in "primary or secondary characters", and that "background characters" don't really factor in because that's not what people generally search for in terms of representation. Just google people asking for representation in TV shows, you'll quickly see what I'm referring to. You said that you didn't care about tokenism, but what I've seen is that people who want representation don't want them.

P&S characters are ones that we players will be exposed to more often, and their more involved role will allow for a lot more nuance than just a one-time appearance or a background existence. Often, tertiary characters are at their best mentors or leaders, but when they become more than that, they influence the main roster directly. Which I'm sorry, but Rammbroes doesn't. And it's this influence that I want to bring up, because if we have characters with such an influence, they'll pop out more and have a wider presence. Thus allowing people to understand more immediately that a character can be written in such a way without implying any negatives. To me, background characters don't really work because they're there to fulfill a plot role or add to the background and barely anything further. And adding representation there doesn't exactly sit well when you could have similar characters in the main roster. To quote you now,

I read your post. You talked about male Roegadyn and then brought up Moenbryda (and Merlwyb) as having the same personality as your "all Roegadyn". So I responded to that.
And again, the brashness is only one aspect of her personality, and we are shown other facets of her, so I don't think it's fair to reduce her to that one aspect as if it's her only one.

Yes. Exactly. You quoted it yourself:

The whole point of bringing up Moenbryda was that EVEN SHE is brash and boisterous, like the Roe stereotype

You know full well that I didn't reduce Moenbryda to that one singular role, I'm simply saying that the Roegadyn with narrative prominence tend to have that trait. Not just the men, but the women too, hence me mentioning her. I haven't seen any primary or secondary character not display those traits, and the ones that you referred are minor NPCs in comparison. Valid in their own right, but not for the perspective I'm trying to offer. Yes, you can accuse me of cherrypicking, but at least I hope you understand why I do it.
Is it so bad that she's loud? No, it's just that to me, Roegadyn tend to be portrayed as such. And I wasn't the only one telling you that.

I do see where you're coming from. I just don't agree that they're the best fit for representation, as you can do a lot more and provide such a character to players in a more interactive way if their role is a bit more expanded. That's all I'm saying. Whether you agree or not is up to you, but you don't need to attack and accuse me of things, especially when I did not do them. I know I attacked you in turn, and I am sorry. But this is why I kept telling people that even if we disagree with others, we can at least offer a modicum of respect and just say we disagree. Now that I understand where you're coming from I can say: I understand, but I disagree. Whether you agree further than that or not is entirely up to you, I cannot change your mind. Merely show you my point of view.

I never said that you should take my definitions as gospel, just that this is my point of view on how representation should be provided and the sort of character we should elevate. We have a diverse roster for other races, so why is it that the Roegadyn featured in the main roster have such traits? You claim to not get what I said, but I don't think I can be any clearer when I say "body type does not justify a stereotype". The reason I'm asking for representation is specifically to bring that up and change that notion. A notion that wasn't even mine to point out, Aveyond-Dreams did, I simply agreed.

I didn't talk about Hrothgar because I was only addressing your assertion that Roegadyn are all portrayed a specific way, which they are not.

Your post started about me dismissing "background characters... The fact that you then focused on Roegadyn is apparent now, yes, but you still prefaced your post by making it clear you wanted to bring relevance to other NPCs. And I hope you at least understand that I'm saying that the ones that have such plot relevance unlike Rammbroes or others do have that one trait that I personally find unnecessary.

I don't even know where to start.

Maybe by trying to understand in kind? Because I got what you came from amidst your accusations. Maybe you don't like the way I write, but I did harp on the same notion over and over.

[Midareyukki]

Its like people forget they're playing *ahem*.....a final fantasy game. Not Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones or whatever popular no-nonsense fantasy world they like to imagine this game is trying to be.

Except the devs themselves said that FF14 was written with Game of Thrones as inspiration. YES it doesn't stop this from being a Final Fantasy game, and we shouldn't dismiss that simply because of the inspiration provided. The franchise involves a couple of expectations (lightheartedness, anime-esque, power of friendship...) that aren't present in Game of Thrones.

I'll argue though that the inspiration did at least serve to make a mature/sober narrative, especially initially, that is now clashing a bit with the rest of the game. Hildibrand was around in ARR, but he wasn't mandatory content. Krile was, and while G'raha's origins were in (at the time) optional content, his tenure as the Exarch happened during another mature portion of the narrative.

[Lauront]

People complaining about a goofy character in their serious game! And yet we're have Hildibrand (spelling) and people seem to love that stuff.

This community baffles me some times.

You mean that side content I can just choose to ignore?

[DPZ2]

Just a reminder, statistically you would be in the crowd cheering as the romans crucified Jesus! :^D

Only if Zanarkand-Ronso was in Roman Judea during a specific time period, specifically in Jerusalem. And only if their religion revolved around a specific monotheistic God who was not named Mithras. And only if they were disappointed that Yeshua ben Yosef was not leading an uprising against the Romans. The Forums of the day didn't even know the event was happening.

(Statistically ... pfui)

[ElysiumDragon]

I know people like to say "oh, the Scions were only gone for 10 minutes", but there's been far less of an emphasis on them as a group from what I've seen since the end of 6.0.

[Vahlnir]

I know people like to say "oh, the Scions were only gone for 10 minutes", but there's been far less of an emphasis on them as a group from what I've seen since the end of 6.0.

Less, but not anywhere near less enough for me on a personal level. I'd have preferred a mostly new cast of characters with an occasional cameo from one of the Scions.