What lore do you ignore?

[SannaR]

I guess the things I ignore is the one year for events, Q&A answers for how the races came to be, that Azem was just doing whatever you think they were and the Nier raids. For me a lot of why is because it makes no sense to me. Neir just asks for it to be ignored. If it integrated itself more into the world of XIV and didn't come off as another thing a Yoko Taro fan needs to be aware of I might not want to pull a Lahabreha and cast it off. To me it doesn't make sense for Azem to do what they did just because they've gotten behind on their knitting projects or whatnot. The races things goes against what little we do have with how genetics and evolution work in the game.

[Lyth]

I can understand why some people consider the collaboration events as being 'external' to the game lore depending on how well it is integrated with the story. But there are a lot of things that can be handwaved with 'wanderers from another dimension'. I don't think the writing takes itself seriously enough to be rigid with this.

A: What Venat’s successor to the seat of Azem was doing during the Final Days is a secret, one that may or may not be revealed in the future. However, we do have some idea of what they were up to. Whatever you imagine you would’ve done if you were Azem is probably the closest we can get to the truth. (laughs)

This essentially reads as: 'We already have a story planned around what happened to Azem, but we can't tell you yet.' The last line is just Yoshi-p being clever about Azem's identity i.e. 'You tell me what you were doing all this time.'

[KageTokage]

Definetly for me it was EW's silly retcon of the Blessing of Light being what protects against Primal influence/tempering rather than the Echo despite the game constantly stating and proving it was the Echo doing the protecting for a decade. It's a clunky attempt to fix a minor plot hole that appeared in SB (how to explain the 'tempering shielding' ability the WoL used during the 'Return of the Bull'), and only snowballed in ShB (where the Ancients/Ascians were revealed to be tempered by Zodiark and yet still had the Echo). .

That point and dynamis are things I'd rather pretend didn't happen...though I think the latter is liable to end up becoming too deeply ingrained in the plot for that to be reasonable in the longterm.

It tries to retroactively attach deeper logic to something that didn't need it. Overcoming obstacles through sheer heroic willpower is more romantic to me then doing so through my unmeasurable ability to subconsciously manipulate invisible nonsensium.

[Iscah]

I think another aspect of this "reject your lore and substitute my own" thing is that the devs literally don't know the truth of at least some of their plot mysteries at the time they are established, meaning that they are essentially setting themselves the same puzzle that is set before the fans: here are the fragments of facts established so far; what coherent story can you construct that ticks all of these boxes?

In some cases, I think I have found a better and more satisfying solution to this problem than they found for themselves, in which case it feels frustrating that the official version doesn't "fit the evidence". Sometimes I get the feeling that they do it deliberately just so they won't present the logical conclusion that fans have already reached, so they can "surprise the players" at the cost of something less logical and foreshadowed.

[Lyth]

Every serial work ever is written over time. You can have a rough plan of what you want to do with a creative work, but that's not realistically going to be static as you write.

I think it's fun to try and guess what's happening next, and sometimes you're lucky and your prediction is accurate. But you're also not the writer, so you're not going to come up with the same ideas that they do. People only get wound up over this because they set up unrealistic expectations for themselves. But again, this happens with every serial work ever.

This concept of 'ownership' of a creative work is the reason why fanfiction exists. People get attached to characters and storylines and want to inject their own ideas into the universe. Yet at the same time there's still an 'official' version of events. It is what it is.

[Jandor]

I suppose it's not outright ignoring, but I very liberally interpret the Blessing of Light as being a protective ward that subscribes to the idea that the best defence is a good offence. Builds on top of the echo and lets us do things like create weapons of light to poke holes in Ascians, or slurp up some of that excess light on the first so we can split the sky in half and reveal the night.

I don't really think that's what they were going, but it works well enough for me. Plus, that sort of "active protection" philosophy seems like something a former Azem would come up with.

[Ildefons]

Personally I only ignore a couple of things in-game and don't care much for what's not stated in universe.

For example, the timeline. When my character hears people talk about the calamity happening 5 years ago, I just take it as "it's been longer than that but it doesn't feel that way now, does it?" While I don't have a specific timeframe in my mind for how long each expansion lasted, I like to think it was at least 1 year, maybe a bit more (with the exception of ShB).

Another thing I ignore is how "awesome" and "expert" my WoL is. While I may have all jobs at level 90, in my mind I'm only a thaumaturge with some knowledge of Black Magic but not even close to the level of the Mhaachi mages. Crafters it's the same. I have dabbled in all professions but I'm not the expert some people claim my character is. I just do this because it makes it more believable when someone threatens my character and he just stands there.

The final thing I ignore is when some of the dialogue options only give you the chance of being nice to certain NPCs. I roleplay my character as being too polite but he doesn't like some people so I would be colder in my interactions with them while still agreeing to help or whatever.

Other than that, I accept the lore no matter how much I dislike the direction it takes. If it contradicts itself I just take it as different interpretations of the truth or that we were working on incomplete information.

[JepMZ]

I'm ignoring everyone automatically using the name Etheirys. It's so cringy and massively gatekeepy towards Free Trialers. I'm fine with Lollopits saying it since they're the only living boomers left and are contained in Endwalker exclusively. But everyone else saying it is a big no for me. I found out earth used to be called Tonantzin, I'm not gonna start calling it Tonantzin now just because that's what it used to be called. We spent two expansions fighting against terrible Etheirys residents from commiting global genocide, and Meition got away with it too with 100% complete forgiveness.

[Iscah]

I'm ignoring everyone automatically using the name Etheirys. It's so cringy and massively gatekeepy towards Free Trialers.

Gatekeeping them from what, exactly?

Personally I would have appreciated an alternate name for it sooner. It was always unnecessarily confusing to have the planet and the entity referred to by the same name.

You don't even need to spoil anything for newbies if they ask why you're calling it Etheirys. Just say it gets introduced later as a term specifically for the planet so it's clearer which one is being talked about.

[RyuDragnier]

Gatekeeping them from what, exactly?

Personally I would have appreciated an alternate name for it sooner. It was always unnecessarily confusing to have the planet and the entity referred to by the same name.

You don't even need to spoil anything for newbies if they ask why you're calling it Etheirys. Just say it gets introduced later as a term specifically for the planet so it's clearer which one is being talked about.

That entire comment of his guaranteed the odds that he's a troll. So let's just ignore him.