Sharlayan Pacifism and Deus Ex Machina

[LilimoLimomo]

While I enjoyed Endwalker and continue to love so many details of the stories FF14 tells, I've got to take Sharlayana to task just a little. It's a silly place in so many ways, but I'm just going to focus on one: their pacifism.

To say the least, Sharlayan's disdainful judgment of nations and organizations that don't embrace pacifism is a bad look. The Empire is attacking you, why don't you just be peaceful? The Telephoroi are attacking you, why don't you just be peaceful? It's a non-solution that could only ever be articulated by someone privileged enough to be utterly detached from such conflict. Which is by no means a hot take, as it's right there on the surface and is surely something the writers expected and wanted players to roll their eyes at*.

But if you take a think, you realize that Sharlayan's position isn't just privileged, but contrived. You've got a wealthy country, where scholars live in luxury while gleaners purchase and hoard resources from around the world; a nation so rich that they developed the planet's very first space-faring ship**. And this rich country, without a military or any apparent police force, just exists peacefully, embracing pacifism, and nobody is attacking them? Nobody is trying to take their resources, their technology, their cutting-edge research? In a world full of empires and pirates and Ascians and simple human vice, everyone has just left Sharlayan and their vast wealth alone for no less than 50 — and presumably a few hundred — years?

With respect, I have to call world-building B.S. on that. It's just not believable given all we've seen of the world: a pacifist nation with resources ripe for plunder remaining intact and unchallenged in the world of FF14 is just so incredibly unlikely. And that's too bad, because it makes a place that is significant to many of the main cast seem less like a real place in a real world and more like a contrived plot device that's primary raison d'être was to be the nagging foil to the story's band of heroes. Womp womp.

Big fan my room in the Baldesion building, though!


*though it's probably worth wondering how smart these supposed scholars actually are if that's the best solution to the problem of being invaded that they can muster

**or at least one of them, depending on what you define as a ship

[MikkoAkure]

Eh. That idea only makes sense if you look at it from a surface level without thinking about it.

It was the very first nation in Eorzea after the 6th Calamity so they already have a few hundred years head start on everyone else and are the oldest known country in Eorzea at over 1500 years and probably the world, save for Bozja or maybe Dalmasca. They have a secret task force that goes out and kills their own people for sharing secrets. They're an island nation and all of the countries nearby are other small city-states with more problems with each other or invading forces or dragons than 1 nation far out in the middle of nowhere that is much more advanced than them and has done nothing but help them.

They are the only ones who know how to build and maintain the aetherytes that everyone in Eorzea depends on. Without those, life would be much more inconvenient and any force raised against them in anger will be responded to by other nations in Eorzea. You mentioned the Empire but how are they going to get there? It's been established that the airships need waypoints to refuel and in between Sharlayan and Garlemald are dragons who already destroyed a previous invasion force. So they may have a lot going on, but who are you thinking is actually going to attack them and what do they have to gain for it other than losing the aetheryte network?

[Cleretic]

That's... not really what Sharlayan's view is. Sharlayan's view on the conflicts around the world is basically 'not our problem, deal with it yourselves'. That is explicitly not an applauded or agreed-on view by the game, and a huge chunk of Endwalker is devoted to talking about how that's a terrible view.

They're not pacifists, they're isolationists. They've actually got some pretty solid ways to defend themselves, they just rarely have the need to.

But they can also afford to be, because they manage it in much the same way that several real-world equivalents do: by being too much effort to bother attacking. The Garleans aren't attacking them because they're too far across oceans to be worth attacking for what little they think they'll get; their greatest assets are secret, and they already get the aetherytes that they think are Sharlayan's main strength. The Telophoroi don't target them because the approach the Telophoroi was taking is just not especially viable in Sharlayan, and also they've got very little land to take and use. The Ascians confirmably did attack Sharlayan at least once, and lost. (Granted, it was a bit of a pyrrhic victory.)

In the real world, this was a big part of why Switzerland managed to remain neutral in the World Wars: too hard to attack for what they'd get. It's also why New Zealand never got attacked in either of them, and why Australia only ever got hit once.

Yes, plausibly, Garlemald would've gotten to them eventually if left completely unstopped, and if the world got destroyed by a Calamity or the End of Days, they would not be spared. This is a big part of why their isolationism is a bad view to take: in the grand scheme of things, no nation is an island, not even the islands. But they rest on the fact that they are nobody's first priority, meaning that if anyone attacks them anytime soon, it won't be at a level of strength they can't handle.

[Enkidoh]

Sharlayan also has a benefit of being extremely isolated in a far flung corner of the world, so far away from anywhere (even Eorzea), that it would just be too prohibitively expensive for any invasion force to waste resources trying to conquer what is a tiny little island of scholars. To say nothing of how Sharlayan has Labyrinthos, an entire self-contained underground area that they could easily withdraw into and seal off over a long period of time, preventing their capture by any invading force anyway.

Also although I have no proof, I suspect those large columns scattered liberily around Sharlayan are actually Allagan defense field generators that they could activate at first sign of an invasion that is virtually indestructable (the same kind used in Seiryu's Wall in the Burn to protect Doma and southern Othard, and what G'raha used as the first line of defense of the Crystarium), although I think that's more headcanon territory, but it does make sense (they're already using the same technology to make the 'floating platforms' to provide access to the forbidden parts of the library, and they're also used in the Ragnarok's dock to support the ship above the Aitiascope after all).

Either way, just because they don't have a visible defensive force, does not mean they are vulnerable. They wouldn't have lasted through the chaos that followed the Sixth Calamity where the world collapsed into illiterate barbarism otherwise. "A sly tiger hides it's claws" and all that.

[SannaR]

The Swiss also don't get invaded due to it being a very mountainous country where everyone has to serve in the military for a few years. They also seemingly all own a lot of guns. Sharlyean as others have said would only be reachable by Garleans if they had a fueling station close enough. They also seem to favor their Army as their Navy barely seems to exist. Outside of their airships thy don't look as to have much of an Airforce. Or at least not a big one that was mostly magitek and wasn't employed much. Sharlyean could also deploy the whole shut off the receiving end of any aetherite teleporation trick. Which no one would want to risk losing so many troops after they found out how that went the one time we hear of it being put to use. Unless you are very desperate most countries wouldn't deploy non accurate teleportation magics like Flow as again you can't count on your forces popping out on the other side or at the right spot.

[WhiteArchmage]

They're very much... not pacifists. They're scholars, sure, but in a world where that turns you into the most ridiculously, absurdly, powerful mages in existence. One only needs to look at Louisioux and the rest of the Circle of Knowing to get that. Sevestre was part of an actual assassin force who hunted down people sharing Sharlayan's secrets, and they've actively developed several forms of magic, primarily for defense but, again, assassins. They've got magiteck researchers that would make Gaius go pale. They were researching a godsdamned wish-granting primal (and incidentally, a forger of Trigger Weapons such as Save the Queen). Just because their philosophy is to <kupo!> off at the first sign of trouble doesn't mean they're helpless.

This thread seems to be made in bad faith, really...

[Bad_Luck]

I don't really think they're as pacifist as all that. I think we could have been shown a bit more of their defenses, but I wouldn't say they had none. Probably mostly focused on magical weaponry.

[Cleretic]

I mean, if you wanna break down to the most obvious possible facet to disprove 'Sharlayan is pacifist', remember that we have two different combat jobs from Sharlayan. That puts them ahead of several nations in the game that confirmably were in wars! And yeah, they're both healers, but both were explicitly mentioned as being combat-oriented, we're not looking at 'parlor tricks that happen to be able to draw blood'.

Again, as I said: they're isolationist, not pacifist.

[LilimoLimomo]

Again, as I said: they're isolationist, not pacifist.

Hmmm, I suppose the framing of them as isolationists as opposed to pacifists makes sense. I don't think having combat-capable Thancreds and assassins means that at a foreign policy level a country can't be pacifist, which is perhaps why I interpreted Sharlayan's actions and expressions as speaking to pacifist values. But on reflection, they never explicitly talk about pacifism, so that seems to be my label, not theirs. I probably didn't think of them as isolationists despite their relative isolation due to the fact that they seem to have gleaners importing all manner of goods from other nations, but that does seem at least closer to the truth.

Sharlayan's view on the conflicts around the world is basically 'not our problem, deal with it yourselves'.

Haha, that actually seems to hit the nail a bit more on the head. So they're just short-sighted jerks.

That said, I feel like I recall Fourchenalt rebuking Alisaie and Alphinaud for exacerbating conflicts (which seemed to echo what I recall of Louisioux's Circle of Knowing being rebuked), though I can't recall whether he said this as an individual or whether his views represent those of the Forum. Presumably a bit of both, as he seems to be an influential member of the Forum, which would suggest that his personal views would likely align with those of the greater Forum? These sentiments were at the core of my interpretation of Sharlayan's values, and the reason I made this thread. Perhaps someone knowledgeable can correct me if I'm misunderstanding.

[SannaR]

Sharlyean is like Radz-At Han. They're a neutral nation that is isolationist. Even an isolationist country would need to bring in any supplies that they wouldn't be able to make for themselves. That and we are talking about a country of scholars that loved to research the heck out of anything and everything. While slowly working on the escape in secret.