Revelations from NA Fan Fest (July 2023)

[Alenore]

Those are mandragoras, not Tonberry.

Though that just makes me further wonder if they're going to go for the "People from Elpis are the Twelve" angle considering we had that mandragora researcher...

The statue in the center, with the waterfall in the background, looks a lot like a Tonberry. It seems to be holding a lantern.

[Narnio]

The other interesting answer was that there wasn't an Star Wars Outter Rim type situation pre-sundereding. So, take that how you will.

I re-watched some of the panel looking for this. What are you referring to here out of curiosity?

[Enkidoh]

I re-watched some of the panel looking for this. What are you referring to here out of curiosity?

I think Sanna is meaning that there wasn't any nations autonomous of Amaurot's control in Ancient Etheirys (in the Star Wars universe there were worlds in the Outer Rim that were not part of the Republic and so were fully independent politically, hence the juxtaposition).

Which, is rather odd, considering that the Convocation had an actual seat whose whole purpose was stated among other things to "study other cultures on the Convocation's behalf" - aka Azem - so that is either a retcon or the lore panel's explanation has been misunderstood.

[SannaR]

I re-watched some of the panel looking for this. What are you referring to here out of curiosity?

So in Star Wars let alone similar universes where there is a huge central government that governs vast swaths of populations. There are town, nations, or planets normally on the out skirts that are so far away that said government don't feel it's worth their time to govern. So those areas tend to be either lawless or run under different set of rules. However the pre-sundered world no matter how far away from Amurot is under the Convocation's jurisdiction. At least by the point of time when we visit Elps. So those other nations that were already being affected by the Final Days that were being debated about on if they should send help or not were read by some as maybe not falling under the Convocation's jurisdiction.

Yet now we know for sure anywhere that Humans were in the pre-sundered world by the time the Final Days started happening those places were under Convocation jurisdiction and normally wouldn't or shouldn't have been ignored just because they were so far away. It would be like if Alaska or Hawaii got attacked, but Washington D.C. debated on if to send troops or any form of help due to them being so far away. Or technically not under their control. You know if planes didn't exist.

[Cleretic]

Which, is rather odd, considering that the Convocation had an actual seat whose whole purpose was stated among other things to "study other cultures on the Convocation's behalf" - aka Azem - so that is either a retcon or the lore panel's explanation has been misunderstood.

I don't remember that line (so indication of when that might've been said would be helpful), but even if that's true, it doesn't go against this: a one-world government doesn't mean a monolithic culture. Cultures and subcultures persist and emerge no matter how singular, conformist and all-encompassing the 'core identity' is. Hell, I'd argue that a society so insanely conformist that they mandate identical robes and masks is absolutely gonna have new punk and rebel subcultures cropping up on a weekly basis just out of boredom if nothing else, and if you're really serious about keeping Big Greyrobes in business as an industry, you're gonna have someone keeping track of that!

[Alleluia]

I'm curious to learn more about this 'Golden City'- and severely doubt it'll be just an El Dorado of something that looks like Tuliyollal but gold-plated. The biggest question for me will be if it is at all connected to the Urqopacha ruins with the mysterious lightning aether built by the 'giants' empire or it belongs to another hidden or ancient civilization (capitalization deliberately not used but then again I wouldn't be 100% surprised).

On reddit a post thread has discussed the Wanderer's Palace Hard, so I do am expecting an optional dialogue option or sidequest to connect back to our part in the death of a Mamook throne contender. (Also expecting an addictive retcon explaining that Manxome Molaa Ja Ja was aiming to be leader not of the entire Federation but a Mamool Ja state within it or a group outside its governance. But I do expect a "Technically I didn't kill them, it was tonberries" dialogue option.)

"And he deserved it."


I wonder why outside help is even being sought to decide the throne in the first place. And how can that be legitimate? Its one thing if we're there already and then get dragged in, but to be sought out is odd. Erenville possibly being an exception if this is the family business he was concerned about. Is it confirmed he's from there? I know the voice at the end of the trailer isn't him.

And, for the record, I'm not really surprised by the one world government thing with Amaurot. Simply b/c they seemed to be the ones making the decisions for everyone and always spoke as if they felt they represented the whole planet. Could have just been arrogance, but that was less likely since the ancients apparently didn't do war ("disagreements on the fate of the star, always fleeting"), which means no one challenged their authority on it.

Given our setting's love of city states, it was probably just a federation of those with Amaurot designated as the capitol. Locals dealt with local policy, and sent help tickets up to the Convocation for bigger issues. And then IT Azem got sent to assess.*

*Note, I have not seen the lore panel yet, so forgive me if I am just stating the obvious.

[Alleluia]

I don't think the problem is as simple as 'the story says there's not colonialism so don't think about it like that'. It's sort of an inevitable specter around a story where the base pitch is 'a bunch of white people (who are generally from a European-analogue location even if geographically it's more Africa) go to the unsettled America-analogue'; even if you're not doing a colonialist story, there's a lot of tropes you could accidentally fall into. Which, in fact, they've already been doing: we've been calling it 'the New World' until now, which is... not great.

Perhaps fortunately, the lore and translation panel from FanFest did make a point of basically saying 'we know we haven't been the best at this in the past, we're making an effort to do better with Dawntrail specifically'.

I don't see the issue with saying the New World, personally. It was new to them versus the old, fully charted and explored, world they came from. That goes for both real life and in-game. English says "Earth", Japan says "Ningenkai". Hingashi calls us "the west" and we call Othard "the far east", etc. Descriptors based off your own pov aren't inherently a good or bad thing.

besides, we're getting the proper name from the locals for it when we get there and I'm sure it'll either supplant "New World" or both will be referenced from that point on. New World might still be used to reference the two continents at once, like "The Americas" or "The Three Great Continents".

[Iscah]

Also the WOL is fighting Gulool Ja Ja in the trailer and this doesn't match what was said in the keynote (that Gulool Ja Ja is looking for successor). So some sort of political turmoil will see us on the wrong side established rule and if we take it a step further, the mysterious character who hasn't been revealed to bring the WOL to Tural will most likely be caught up in this struggle as well.

We don't know for certain that we're fighting Gulool Ja Ja, given that there are potentially multiple two-headers around. And if it is him, maybe it's a trailer fakeout and he's just testing us.

Manxome Molaa Ja Ja

That reminds me, I wonder if they're going to run with the Jabberwocky references from the boss epithets there.

there weren't any nations autonomous of Amaurot's control in Ancient Etheirys

Just grabbing your quote because it's closest, but on that general subject, I agree with the people saying it doesn't line up with what we knew before, like the debate scene and Azem's job to visit other cultures.

Throw it in the pile of "I don't think the Ancients were ever treated with robust worldbuilding, so don't stare too closely".

[Alleluia]

And if it is him, maybe it's a trailer fakeout and he's just testing us.

That feels very likely to me. The scions are way too relaxed in that town for us to actually be persona non grata there at that moment.

[Cleretic]

I don't see the issue with saying the New World, personally. It was new to them versus the old, fully charted and explored, world they came from. That goes for both real life and in-game. English says "Earth", Japan says "Ningenkai". Hingashi calls us "the west" and we call Othard "the far east", etc. Descriptors based off your own pov aren't inherently a good or bad thing.

besides, we're getting the proper name from the locals for it when we get there and I'm sure it'll either supplant "New World" or both will be referenced from that point on. New World might still be used to reference the two continents at once, like "The Americas" or "The Three Great Continents".

A quick quote from Wikipedia, that I think does a pretty good job of explaining why the term is problematic in real life:

The term "New World" is still commonly employed when discussing historic spaces, particularly the voyages of Christopher Columbus and the subsequent European colonization of the Americas. It has been framed as being problematic for applying a colonial perspective of discovery and not doing justice to either the historic or geographic complexity of the world. It is argued that both 'worlds' and the age of Western colonialism rather entered a new stage, as in the 'modern world'.

Basically, while it may not have been intended in this way when originally coined by Vespucci, it completely dismisses the people and culture of that area by basically just implying that the region itself has less-to-no history compared to the 'old world', and is very much language used to implicitly justify or soften colonialism. Yes, it makes some amount of sense that in FFXIV the term cropped up, but it was still a bad move for that reason, both in-universe for that reason and out-of-universe for echoing language used in a part of history that casts a pretty dark shadow on the story being told.

If you want to tell a story about going to a fantasy version of the Americas, that treats the native people and cultures with respect, the first thing you want to do is to avoid calling the place the name for the Americas used by the real-world people that absolutely did not respect those peoples and cultures.