What lore do you ignore?

[Vyrerus]

The Great Man Theory is the idea that "exceptional individuals' innate qualities and talents that make them born leaders. It emphasizes individual agency and willpower as the primary causes of historical change, while downplaying the role of contextual factors."

FFXIV does like to give its protagonists some humility, but this doesn't change the fact that they are shown by all accounts to be beyond all others in the setting, with those in leadership positions being much the same way (with, I believe, the exception of Nanamo particularly in the realm of physicality).

When you glance over The Great Man theory, you see the likes of historical juggernauts like Caesar or Genghis Khan. Obviously these men didn't single handedly conquer things. They had armies and many many mundane considerations to overcome, along with tons of idiosyncrasies in their personalities and vices and failings.

But the theory isn't positing that Great Men are perfect or without those things. It's positing that they have anomalies in their physiology that set them apart from their peers, allowing them to rise to those positions in the first place. And that most of these anomalies are with regards to individual intelligence and capability.

It then postulates that the Great Men still have to rely on society to be sympathetic to the way they think, you know, in order to want to follow them.

More or less, it's a very long winded way to say that Great Men are the, "idea guys" for society, and they create new paths for society to progress.

In our real world it's not just rulers who are the Great Men. It's inventors. It's philosophers. It's scientists. It's rulers. It's storytellers. And that's where the theory itself differs from the theory as a historical framing device.

But in FFXIV there is a lot of overlap with who the Great Men are. It's bundled up tightly with leadership. I'm basically saying that in XIV, we rarely come across common folk who are exceptional. It's always leadership. Mostly they're born into it. Their pedigree accounts for everything. Something something, it's a Rey Palpatine sort of situation. (with the exceptions/characters further from this being my favored characters, more often than not)

The WoL themselves fell to this, and I view it as a failing of the story. Our Ancient pedigree explains everything about our power, and we now use the Azem Stone without hesitation everywhere we go. Supposedly there's a Dynamis factor in it for us on top of that, but we've yet to consciously use Dynamis as the mainstay in a conflict explicitly. Yet, because of the way the story is now framed due to The Sundering being intentional, this also still ties our ability to be affected by/use Dynamis to our pedigree as a Sundered individual, so it's still inherited.

*ahem*

How that all ties into my "complaint" about us always dealing with leaders of nations and such, is that XIV is tacitly endorsing the theory because we have yet to see a commoner burgeon upwards and be stronger than a leader or even become a leader. The WoL used to be an example, but has not been for quite a while now, narratively (and won't ever be a leader of a place anyway). Like the closest thing we've got to that is like... The admiralty/pirate confederation of Limsa Lominsa, the Syndicate in Ul'dah, and Lyse (but of course, Lyse gave way to making a democratic republic and trying to put Raubahn in charge, which Raubahn actually still fits the bill as self made, from dirt, but he's also been sidelined heavily and is just a General now).

I don't know exactly how to articulate myself beyond this. Suffice it to say, where are the adventurers and fighters that rival the WoL? (this is what made things like Bozja so gripping for me) Where are the other Raubahns?


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Drawing back to the common man's role in Great Man Theory. Like I glossed over in the above, the Great Man Theory doesn't posit that the Great Men succeed alone. In fact, many of its proponents always argue that the Great Men still require the populace to want to follow them and their ideas.

The populace in FFXIV does want to follow us, as well as all of the leaders we've helped, and the leaders we've put back in power.

We do not yet have a storyline where we go to help people, and the people say to us, "No, you're wrong. We don't want to follow you at all. We won't even consider what you say. Your way is not what's best."
We had a tease of it with the Sharlayan Forum in Endwalker actually, but this is another of my disappointments with this story. The reticent of The Forum fell away under some of its own member's wanting to aid us. In the end, we got almost every culture from Eorzea to Hingashi to help us fuel the Aetherburner with the Forum's full blessing.

Anyway, this is all a bit long in the tooth now. I hope you understand me better in this post.

[Palladiamors]

If your claim is that the Ancient world beyond the parts we've been to doesn't have the exact same restrictions as the places we've been, then I'd like to see the proof.

I'd be an interesting way to look at things, because Elpis actually does seem to be written as if it's free-spirited and expressive as far as the Ancients go: it's full of creatives trying to follow both aesthetic and functional flair, it's got a number of people written as bucking the trends of the society--Hythlodaeus, Venat and even Athena in their own, very different ways--and they even have a rule that visitors have to remove the masks that are otherwise customary.

And yet every single one wears the exact same thing.

The rest of your post isn't you addressing my stance: it's you explaining yours. That's nice, but I'm not you.



You proved my first sentence so perfectly and directly, I'm actually impressed.

Thank you for this. It's nice to see someone talking common sense.

[Cleretic]

You're scared of a world where a child's nightmares can become real, but the adults in that world have dreams aplenty that can put it back to bed.

This is only a comfort if I'm closer to the adults than the child when it happens. And if I trust the adults.

You're scared of a world where nature is so powerful that things like the Behemoth are considered a good addition to it that will balance it. How much more scary its natural order must have been! But a far finer addition to any world than a gunship the size of an aircraft carrier, or the cannons that line the Ruby Sea bay outside Hingashi.

I'm actually scared of the Behemoth because the thought process that led to it was someone wanting to make an apex predator. Someone decided 'I'm going to win at the food chain', and everyone's okay with it. I don't like a gunship either, but at least that takes more effort and has a more deliberate purpose.

You're scared of a world that's so accepting that it allows people to eschew its own customs without punishing them, and your favorite Ancient Venat is proof of that.

My favorite Ancient is Athena.

You're scared of a world where everyone has the potential to cause great pain, but almost everyone chooses not to do such things, and instead battles each other with ideas. Well, prior to their Final Days driven Civil War, anyway.

My worry isn't just about people doing things intentionally: it's people doing it accidentally. Which we have multiple examples of.

You're scared of having a power that would let you share your soul with others so directly that you could not be misunderstood, should you choose to do so. I can only envy such a wonderful power.

I'm not scared of having the power of expression; I like art. I'm scared of having power that could hurt, especially when I may not be able to control it; it's why I don't drive.

Nowhere is perfect. Amaurot was not perfect. But it excelled in ways we can only dream of. Post war, post scarcity, and conservationally minded in the extreme. Global Warming? Climate Change? Never heard of it.

Thavnair doesn't know what climate change is, either.

[Cleretic]

Most English references say that an ideological divide gave way to open conflict and a final battle between Hydaelyn and Zodiark of a like usually found only in myth, but in French we have...

I wouldn't say it was focused specifically on the third sacrifice, though. That was one part of a larger whole, the trend of trading more and more sacrifices (out of less and less true necessity) in a futile effort to restore "a past that could never be restored" (see: Unending Journey). It was a snowball at the core of which was the refusal to give new life and future generations a say in the way forward, aiming to reclaim the past even if it meant the "stewards of the planet" sacrificing the things they swore to be caretakers of.

I've always been a little surprised that people didn't think there was any vocal opposition at all outside of Venat. Logically speaking, if your game plan is to sacrifice the lives of people who support you, then every time you do that, you're only losing supporters and the percentage of the population that's against you is only going to be proportionally larger. Surely after you burn through 75% of the population, the remaining 25% probably consists of a lot of people who aren't your supporters.

I don't like double-posting, but these really are just entirely separate points and this should be allowed to stand separately.

[SuperChris]

I'm going to start by ignoring this entire thread up to this point and doing what the thread title actually says.

First and foremost, I ignore what little lore there is surrounding the Nier raids. Besides simply not enjoying them - I know now to avoid playing the original game as well - the whole thing is an outside context problem that does very little do affect the world outside of disappearing a pair of dwarf twins.

I also ignore the lore that Exdeath was from a children's story that Nero heard as a kid - as far as I'm concerned, Sigmascape was as out of left field to them as Deltascape was.

I also ignore that they declared the Seventh Umbral Era over after ARR - 5 years does not a dark age make, and they still had a world war going on - none of them really lied to themselves and pretended that they had done more than win a battle, and that the war itself was still more or less raging.

The last one I can think of that I ignore, I ignore primarily because the writers have been quite inconsistent about it: the implication made in a few places that interracial relationships are considered taboo (most prominently with the NPCs who start the 'Not Easy Being Green' quest where they imply they were ostracized from their village not because they were gay, but because they were different races.)

[Cilia]

It's funny that people like this because it has a positive spin, but I don't disagree with your read. And who is the Ubermensch in the FF14 universe? Zenos. I've stated multiple times that Zenos is the embodiment of Venat's philosophy. But people don't like that.

I like that, because I like Zenos as a character. My moral disgust with his actions doesn't mean I can't admire his fiercely individualist philosophy, and the big lesson he has to learn in Endwalker (that you have to care about what other people want instead of selfishly pursuing your own interests to get anywhere) elevates him from villain to nominal anti-hero by the end.

My issue with Venat wasn't that she lived by her own ideals. But that she forced everyone else to live by her ideals by devolving them and shaping their beliefs for the next twelve thousand years. You and I don't seem to disagree on what happened, we just seem to disagree on if that's cool or monstrous.

While it's true that Venat blasted humanity back to the Stone Age (so to speak), she never shaped their beliefs in any way, shape, or form that's been shown. Other than people referring to the planet as Hydaelyn (instead of its Ancient-given name Etheirys, with the reason behind this unclear) and indirectly intervening whenever the Ascians step up their game, she is shown to have an extremely hands-off approach to the advancement of civilization or direction of religion. It's unclear how or why the Eorzeans came to worship the Twelve, but other than that no religion is shown to have any relation to Hydaelyn whatsoever.

It's not that I find Venat's actions cool (or not monstrous), but they're a (fictional) historical thing that happened, and arguing about whether it was cool or monstrous strikes me as wasteful. What's important is whether or not her plan worked (it did), whether or not anyone had another plan to actually deal with the root cause or even wanted to do so (they didn't), and where we can go from here (anywhere we want, as opposed to the Ancients' / Ascians' plan leaving everyone bound to the Amaurotine ideals that indirectly caused the mess to begin with).

I mean, nihilism is not inherently negative. And I think one of the many abstract things Endwalker is focused on, many of which are related, is a very similar fundamental question: 'if life has no meaning, what do you do with it'. And your answer is ultimately personal, but that doesn't mean it has to be individualist: remember that the people who we directly see stare down the End of Days and overcome it are Thavnairians, who end up leaning on faith and religion, an ultimately extremely communal subject. Most of the role quests are also about addressing communal pains and helping each other.

Nihilism is just a philosophical stepping stone towards anti-nihilism ("nothing has any meaning" -> "nothing has any meaning so I will impose my own meaning on it").

That said I acknowledge the story concludes that people live for others' sake (see Zenos learning this lesson, above) but would argue that's largely a consequence of the Eastern collectivist mindset bleeding through in spite of the Western existentialist philosophy it leans so heavily on. An indidivual's "answer" doesn't necessarily have to be individualistic, but it has to be something you reach on your own in order to live a truly fulfilling life.

[Iscah]

The last one I can think of that I ignore, I ignore primarily because the writers have been quite inconsistent about it: the implication made in a few places that interracial relationships are considered taboo (most prominently with the NPCs who start the 'Not Easy Being Green' quest where they imply they were ostracized from their village not because they were gay, but because they were different races.)

Do we have any other examples of interracial relationships being taboo, other than Hilda, who is about class and situation as much as actual race?

I've always read the conversation with the couple from the Wanderer's Palace differently to most people. They never outright state the reason for being ostracised, only for being "different" while talking about one way in which they are different – almost as a challenge for you to agree that there is nothing else "different" about their relationship compared to others.

There are other non-remarkable examples of interracial romance and relationships but, particularly at the time, little evidence of other same-sex couples.

Other than people referring to the planet as Hydaelyn (instead of its Ancient-given name Etheirys, with the reason behind this unclear)

Do we actually have any evidence that people generally refer to the world as Hydaelyn? My impression is that it may only be the Sharlayans (who believe that they have made contact with the planet itself) and people taking advice from them who use that name because it is the name of the entity they spoke to. Once their knowledge has been updated, they are very quick to shift into calling it Etheirys.

Regardless of the exact name, it always feels unrealistic when fantasy worlds have grand, specific names for their planet and everyone uses it, when out in the real world we've simply named ours Earth – literally the ground we walk on.

[SuperChris]

Do we have any other examples of interracial relationships being taboo, other than Hilda, who is about class and situation as much as actual race?

It's hard to find any, since like I said - the writers are fairly inconsistent about it. And while class is a huge part of Hilda's situation, her appellation 'Hilda the Mongrel' kind of implies that race is a significant aspect of it. At any rate, if I am reading too much into it, then I would say my ignoring a taboo that isn't actually there is the correct attitude to have.

[Cleretic]

Do we have any other examples of interracial relationships being taboo, other than Hilda, who is about class and situation as much as actual race?

There's a book in I think one of the Gubal dungeons (I would check, but... yeah) that's the diary of a roegadyn who has an unrequited crush on Brayflox that they call forbidden, but there's some extra layers there.

I've always got the feeling that while it's not frowned upon per se, it's not common, likely because a lot of individual cultures still have their own hangups and internal cultural ideals. Hilda's parents are a good example: it's not necessarily them being hyur and elezen that's the problem, so much as the fact that highborn and lowborn in Ishgard (which isn't exactly on racial lines but there's definite population differences) are a very distinct difference, and you can't exactly 'pass' as one or the other if you're a halfbreed.

I don't think the Wanderer's Palace NPCs actually are a couple, so much as just friends. They bring up their races clearly enough that I don't have to double-check that part, but I actually don't read the line as necessarily romantic:

We...we had grown rather fond of the tonberries while living amongst them. They have good hearts, no matter how odd their appearance. None of that should matter anyway. This fellow is Hyuran and I am Miqo'te; are we lesser a couple for our difference? I should think not!

For the sake of argument, though, hyur and miqo'te relationships I could see having some cultural divides to work out. I can't tell if we're looking at a mooncat or suncat, but either way we're talking about a society whose entire thing is built around internal familial, tribal and social dynamics, even if many of the tribes probably aren't too strict about it. Their problems probably exist in similar ways to real-world interracial couples: there's no specific taboo anymore, but individual family members are probably gonna be terrible, and there's some serious work to be done in weaving the two cultures together. A gay couple would only exacerbate that; how does a fundamentally patriarchal society like the suncats even handle the concept of lesbians, even if Eorzea on the whole isn't homophobic?

That said, I feel like miqo'te are one of the situations where the subraces would have more cultural issues with a relationship between each other than outside the cat-eared-folks.

[Anonymoose]

Do we have any other examples of interracial relationships being taboo, other than Hilda, who is about class and situation as much as actual race?

Examples are difficult to come by. This is something we've been told more than shown. The Sixth Astral Era featured a lot of racial animosity given the times and places and means of different populations showing back up to the continent. This was to the point of races concentrating in different cities, and then those cities also have periodic historical bad blood themselves. Cultural animosity and racial animosity are entwined, in many cases. But if you peruse any compilation of quotes about interracial relationships and mixed-race children and you'll find a lot of, "such relationships are possible, but are fairly rare for cultural reasons". In the age of adventurers, such attitudes are increasingly less common.

Do we actually have any evidence that people generally refer to the world as Hydaelyn?

The 2010 lore was that the planet was named Hydaelyn but not many people used it because, to think to do that, you'd need to know what a planet was - and that you were on one - and that there were (or at least could be) other ones out there. If you were ignorant of all that, you'd never bother to learn (or at least rarely think to use) the word for the distinction. NPCs saying "on Hydaelyn" are rare, and most often are well-educated. Godbert, Cid, Jannequinard, Mikoto. The most unlikely one is Medrod, the miner out in the Shroud during early ARR, who says "Nothing on Hydaelyn is worse than what I saw..."