What lore do you ignore?

[SannaR]

Nothing really. Sure there are parts of the lore I very much disagree with/wish where different, we all have, but if I decided to ignore or mentally twist any piece of lore I had issues with then I would never be able to enjoy a fictional world whole haha! For better or worse I like to experience these worlds the way writers and creatives crafted them as, though people are free to enjoy media however they want. Thats just a personal preference of mine and lore/story quality is always subjective.

I think the only thing that I may come close to ‘ignoring’ is how much time has passed since ARR and Endwalker. I seem to remember someone on the creative team saying its only been like a year or so, which just seems far to little a time scape (Especially if one considers the notion that we do every quest and story during the expansion/time its released) so until it officially said in-game (Which I do not think has happened yet?) then I like to believe its been a long time between adventures.

Yeah I don't buy the one year thing as we know in Stormblood there's at least two boat rides to Kugane. Which we get told is at least a few months. Unless we've all been confusing it with that being how long the trip would take without a secret ceruleum engine on one's ship with how long it actually took us. Either way I feel as though a year would be a tad short. I know they want people to have fun and give themselves some flexibility as to how long it all has taken, but it would be nice if there was more of an idea. Especially when you poke and NPC and they're all oh its been quite awhile since I saw you last yet you could in theory do two different patches back to back and thus not been months for you the player.

[Cleretic]

I ignore nothing! Not only do I have no idea whatsoever what could suddenly end up story-relevant, I love the fact that's true; you can legitimately read Hildibrand solely for worldbuilding notes, and find things that actually become relevant. Sometimes that means content you don't like has useful information, so I don't throw it away out of hand. (In fact, that's why I do Hildibrand; I don't find the comedy funny at all, but you learn things that'll become really important down the line.)

That might be because I come from a roleplaying background, though; outside of concessions to allow for the fact we're all playing the same story, I find it's really important that everyone is on the same page about the common setting they're in. You can't just go 'I reject an entire expansion because I don't like it' unless you want to throw up a big unworkable wall between you and everyone else. That doesn't mean every character knows everything, but you as the players should generally be on the same page regarding out-of-character knowledge.

My character's allowed to be fairly rejecting of the Ascians' whole deal--she's a primal researcher, to her they primarily exist as a dangerous cult that's also essentially the in-universe equivalent of nuclear arms dealers, she's not aware of Amaurot and the like. But when I'm RPing with others, we both recognize that yes, they do exist as the story depicts and our characters only have certain sides of that story.

[Striker44]

Basically how other players don't fit into my character's story even though she spends most of the time with them. Everytime the WoL goes into a dungeon/trial/raid she is met with other WoL going through the exact same thing she is going through except they look completely different and wear street clothes or something goofy. I guess we're entering some kind of multiverse and meeting our variants to fight, but the WoL never mentions it to the other scions.

For the first several expansions, I believe the in-universe take was that the other PC's you team up with aren't also a WoL, but rather just other adventurers you happen to know through the Adventurers Guild. With the trip to Ultima Thule and Elpis, they've still given in-universe explanations for where these other characters come from so that it doesn't conflict with you being the central WoL of the FFXIV story.

[Iscah]

That might be because I come from a roleplaying background, though; outside of concessions to allow for the fact we're all playing the same story, I find it's really important that everyone is on the same page about the common setting they're in.

If you're dealing with other people then yes, but at the same time you can have a private concept of it happening differently.

Maybe it feels different with RP since that's closer-knit into your character concept in the first place, but for discussing lore here I will stick to the canon version, while personally noting that there are some things that wouldn't have gone that way if I was creating this story for my character(s).

I think the only thing that I may come close to ‘ignoring’ is how much time has passed since ARR and Endwalker. I seem to remember someone on the creative team saying its only been like a year or so

I've never seen the original source for that quote, but I suspect it may be a misquoted statement on the concept that the game occurs in a year-long time bubble (it will never move past "five years since the Calamity", however implausible) which can fit any number of years of activities into that bubble of calendar time.

It is also at least a few expansions old, so they might not even try to claim that any more.

[Necrotica]

I ignore nothing! Not only do I have no idea whatsoever what could suddenly end up story-relevant, I love the fact that's true; you can legitimately read Hildibrand solely for worldbuilding notes, and find things that actually become relevant. Sometimes that means content you don't like has useful information, so I don't throw it away out of hand. (In fact, that's why I do Hildibrand; I don't find the comedy funny at all, but you learn things that'll become really important down the line.)

That might be because I come from a roleplaying background, though; outside of concessions to allow for the fact we're all playing the same story, I find it's really important that everyone is on the same page about the common setting they're in. You can't just go 'I reject an entire expansion because I don't like it' unless you want to throw up a big unworkable wall between you and everyone else. That doesn't mean every character knows everything, but you as the players should generally be on the same page regarding out-of-character knowledge.

My character's allowed to be fairly rejecting of the Ascians' whole deal--she's a primal researcher, to her they primarily exist as a dangerous cult that's also essentially the in-universe equivalent of nuclear arms dealers, she's not aware of Amaurot and the like. But when I'm RPing with others, we both recognize that yes, they do exist as the story depicts and our characters only have certain sides of that story.

None of us need to be on the same page because none of us interact with each other in the lore. We are all THE WoL and shall never interact with each other in a lore sense.

[shadowclasper]

The whole 'time bubble' that states the entire game and all expansions all take place within a single year.

[Iscah]

The whole 'time bubble' that states the entire game and all expansions all take place within a single year.

The thing with the time bubble is that it is actually acknowledging that our adventures need to play out over several years, but they don't have the budget to adjust character ages and/or don't want to keep time statements on track across sidequests.

[Cleretic]

If you're dealing with other people then yes, but at the same time you can have a private concept of it happening differently.

Maybe it feels different with RP since that's closer-knit into your character concept in the first place, but for discussing lore here I will stick to the canon version, while personally noting that there are some things that wouldn't have gone that way if I was creating this story for my character(s).

Yeah, but there's a difference between 'I would personally have written this differently' and 'I disagree that this happened at all'. When we're talking about roleplaying they have to be entirely separated, while other sorts of fan creator might come from a different direction and be able to merge them more.

Best example I can think of: I don't think Ysayle should have died. If I were given power to rewrite the game she wouldn't have, and if I were writing fanfiction I may well either set it in a period where she was still alive, or find a way to fudge things where she actually survived (granted, her cause of death being 'exploded into aether' probably makes that difficult). Maybe in a very private RP environment we can play in that 'Ysayle didn't die' AU, but if we're meeting up in a general roleplaying context and the subject comes up, we just have to agree, basically wordlessly, that the information we were given by the game is exactly what happened, leaning into the lore from our common language whenever that differs. There are theoretically interesting edge cases (I'm particularly imagining a DRK player familiar with the English script meeting a DRK player familiar with the Japanese script), but for the most part that's just how it works.

I find that the interesting angle of creativity in roleplaying is making something that exists on top of the information we're given, rather than in other kinds of fanworks where it can be more of an intervention, altering what we were given. To that end, the most speculatory thing my own writing has ever really done is in relation to my main being a Summoner with an unusual selection; I basically had to invent how different primals factor into the Summoner kit, and which ones she could've found. And I actually made a point to play as lore-accurate as possible there, specifically picking primals that she could've crossed paths with and survived as a non-Echo-haver; the only thing I ever fudged there were the unseen surroundings of the Ala Mhigan summit in 4.2 (because honestly, pickings were slim enough that I needed to get to Lakshmi somehow).

EDIT: I know a lot of RPers have sort of a 'split character interpretation' for lack of a better term; where they have one continuity of their character as the WoL going through the main story, and one for roleplaying with others where they're just not. I respect that, but I personally don't do it, in large part because my character just wouldn't walk the same road to the point where the story would turn out appreciably differently, and probably a lot less enjoyably. Shadowbringers in particular; she'd have had a whole bunch less patience and fondness for Emet, which you can imagine would've kinda... broken that story. Endwalker would've probably hit all the same beats, but Elpis would've had a much less pleasant air about it.

[Vyrerus]

I wish I could willfully ignore things regarding XIV.

Things I'd like to ignore include:

Time Bubble
Any mention of Y'shtola being blind
Aenor's last name being Cockburne
The ultimately unresolvable/doomed 8UC timeline
The nothingburger behind the sibling choice in Nier/Nier in general
Every time the lore contradicts itself (Such as the Blessing vs. The Echo)
Misjia being able to replicate Aulus mal Asina's Resonance procedure without killing as many people (there weren't as many body bags around the place).

[Iscah]

The mention of the 8UE timeline above reminds me that it is a thing that I am ignoring/internally rewriting, though perhaps not in the same direction as Vyreus is thinking of.

I'm fine with the time loop and one half of the scenario – Black Rose killing masses of people and dooming the world to a slow death by stasis – but the "eternal age of war" half makes no sense to me. There shouldn't be enough survivors to maintain it.

Also, if it could be fixed as easily as the Unpromised Future side story claims, they never should have been meddling with timelines in the first place, and instead putting all that energy and resources into fixing up their own world. It also cheapens G'raha's efforts and his mourning for those people he left behind.

In my take, so long as no future plot depends on contrary details, they are genuinely doomed and their world is simply falling silent and they are making one last gasp before unpreventable death claims them all. I would probably also cast it as a shorter-term event, not one that can be survived for generations.