#ffxiv meta

[picaroroboto]

Point #1: The first thing we learn about Emet-Selch, even before we learn that Solus zos Galvus is Emet-Selch, is that Solus loved theatre.

Point #2: Emet-Selch plays the villain with mannerisms so over-the-top you'd think he's about to burst into a disney villain-style song and dance number at almost any moment.

Point #3: He's self-aware enough to recognize that he is a villain in your story but a hero to his own people, and that whoever wins the battle will write history to declare the loser the villain.

Point #4: The Tempest, the zone where Amaurot is located, is named for the Shakespeare play of the same name, with other landmarks named after characters from the play. The BGM "Full Fathom Five" is also named for an iconic line.

Point #5: Amaurot feels so empty because it is, in essence, a set for a stage play. After the play is preformed it has no purpose.

Back to Point #1: Emet-Selch really loved theatre.

#whatever else Emet is he was the best damn stage designer in the world #built an entire replica city just for one play seen only by a handful of audience members #ff14 #ffxiv #emet-selch #shadowbringers #shadowbringers spoilers #ffxiv meta #meta posting on my art blog

[capriccio-ffxiv]

I strongly prefer it when the Scions *don't* have Ancient counterparts.

I think it means more if they're part of the new souls born to the star either after Zodiark's first summoning or after the Sundering. Which is a whole thing!

Importantly, those were the souls that the Convocation were going to sacrifice to Zodiark to bring back the Ancients they lost.

To me, I think it's vastly important that G'raha, Y'shtola, Urianger, Thancred, the twins, that all of them are people Emet-Selch would throw away without a second thought. That to him, you're the only one worth half a damn... And broken as you are, only half a damn. And before he lets himself accept that you really are what's left of Azem, you're just someone else he's convinced isn't a person.

But I think these are the very souls Azem left the Convocation to save, even if Azem still didn't want to break the world. And these are the souls that Venat and the Twelve did break the world to save.

To me that's so much more important than any reincarnation romance (much as I adore that kind of story too). That to Azem and to you, these people matter anyway.

#ffxiv #ffxiv shadowbringers #ffxiv endwalker #ffxiv meta #ffxiv discussion #this isnt to yuk anybody's yum at all its just how i personally feel about it #and yes i think the Echo can manifest even in people w/o Ancient counterparts

[asha-mage]

I have my gripes with FFXIV but I have to admit the decision to use a longsword as the substitute for a crucifix when making Ishgard's French Catholic aesthetic was artistically fucking brilliant and I still haven't recovered from it almost a decade later.

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #ff14 #ffxiv meta #final fantasy 14 #heavensward #ishgard

[worldoshaking]

There’s something uniquely haunting about the words ‘one brings shadow, one brings light’ and how many different things they mean over the course of the story. 

At the start of A Realm Reborn, the hero takes on the name of the Warrior of Light, and nothing could be more fitting. They are the champion of justice, someone who fights to bring peace to a war-torn, despairing world. It is a symbolism that resonates naturally and easily with the audience: the Warrior of Light lifts the shadow of the Empire, and lets people look forward to new beginnings, turn to a new dawn with the coming of the Astral Era. (As we eventually learn from Moren, the name was originally born of that symbolism: from people finding hope in their heroes, and giving them a name expressive of that hope.)

And then we meet the Warriors of Darkness: at first glance, they are obvious villains, seeking to undo the Warrior of Light’s work and drown the Source in darkness and fear. Their name evokes skullduggery and mystique, and it is a haunting inversion of the Warrior of Light’s, suggesting that they are bound to be our foes. 

And then we learn the truth of their origins: they were Warriors of Light, just like us, and their path, so like ours, brought ruin upon their world. We learn, for the first time, that the Light is a force to be reckoned with and feared, and that Light and Dark are not so different after all. 

When we finally get to the First, the inversion comes full circle. We meet Ardbert as the Warrior of Light, and our WoL is now the fabled Warrior of Darkness: the bringer of night and reprieve to a world that has known no rest from fear and striving. The term ’Warrior of Light’ is no longer a symbol of adulation, but one of reprobation and reproach. 

The duality of shadow and light is also exemplified by Emet-Selch and the Crystal Exarch. The Exarch turns to the future with hope, while Emet-Selch lives in the past, with the shades of memory. The Exarch seeks to protect Hydaelyn’s will, and avert the return of Zodiark. Emet-Selch slinks and prowls on the margins of history, weaving malign and intricate plots, sowing discord and fear and doubt. The Exarch stands at the forefront of history, facing down corruption and chaos, making his city a bastion of resistance and rallying everyone beneath the cause of hope. Emet-Selch represents the shadow of conquest and imperialism over the land; the Exarch has built a city of kindness, fellowship and egalitarianism.

And yet, even here, the symbolism is inverted, for the hope the Exarch brings is in the shape of the gentle night, while Emet-Selch seeks to drown the world in searing light. In the bright open spaces of the Crystarium, it is only the Exarch who walks in shadow. He deals in secrets, hiding his plans and his face and his name, while Emet-Selch seeks to understand, and bestows terrible knowledge. The light of the Exarch’s plan is perfect and pitiless, and it is up to Emet-Selch’s prowlings and plottings to save him, gun in villainous hand. 

And the most fundamental form of the inversion is learning that Emet-Selch is, in a way, fighting for the same thing as the Warrior of Light is: he is fighting to save his world and his people, and to him we are the villains. 

The light of the Warriors’ hope and belief breaks through the miasma of Hades’ terror and grief. And at the end, Emet-Selch stands there, ragged light spilling out of the hole in his body, and smiles, in a final gesture of acknowledgement. He dissolves into a shower of gentle light, spilling over the Warrior of Light like a benediction. 

Everything is inverted in the First: people glory in the name of sinners, shudder at forgiveness, and celebrate the night. The sin eaters are bright and beautiful and gentle, and they bring a terrible, merciless forgiveness: a forgiveness that tears you apart from the inside; a forgiveness that blankets the world in silence and inexorable light. 

The first time we hear the iconic line ’one brings shadow, one brings light’ is in the scene where the Warriors of Light and Darkness merge into one—the Warrior of Light helping to contain the light raging within the Warrior of Darkness, their souls embracing in understanding and warmth. It is a moment of glorious illumination: of the twin Warriors understanding their connection, and of Ardbert seeing his purpose, the clear resonant notes of the theme song ringing out in glorious triumph. But it is also a moment of gentleness and reprieve. The light is no longer spilling out of the Warrior of Light’s wounded soul; Ardbert is there, providing them with sanctuary, with gentle shade. The Warrior of Light does not have to be fight their battle alone and unflinching. They do not have to be perfect any more, for there is someone to watch their back. 

They are truly two-toned echoes tumbling through time: Ardbert retraced the Warrior of Light’s path on the First, and now they have retraced his.

The symbolism of light and dark is most starkly exemplified by Hydaelyn and Zodiark—Zodiark as the will of the star back to the past, to the splendour and sorrow and hubris of Amaurot; Hydaelyn as the will of the star towards light and growth and change. But now it is Hydaelyn who reigns, and defends herself against Zodiark’s incursion. She is no longer the disruptor, but the preserver of the status quo, of the lives that already exist. On the First, Light brings stasis and silence and emptiness. 

We revisit this symbolism with Elidibus in The Seat of Symbolism: the heart of Zodiark, taking on the person of the Warrior of Light, and fighting off Hydaelyn’s champion, who bears the mantle of a Warrior of Darkness. Elidibus is lost in grief and darkness and doubt; he fears loss, and he does not remember. He must fight to save his doomed cause, though he does not know why. The Crystal Exarch and the Warrior of Darkness bring him light, in the shape of remembering, and of absolution. Now he remembers the comrades he fought for, and the love that drove him; he does not have to struggle on in the darkness any more. 

In the Eden storyline, the symbolism of shadow and light is evoked by Ryne and Gaia, the Oracles of Light and Darkness. Mitron seeks to keep Gaia in the shadows, taking her memories, wresting away her agency over her life. Ryne brings her light, in a symbolic sense, helping her discover who she is and what she wants, offering her warmth and comfort and hope. But it is simultaneously Gaia’s darkness that helps them break the light’s chokehold and return life and growth to the world. It is the hammer of her darkness that breaks through the light’s overwhelming hold on Ryne, quite literally saving both her and the world. And in the end, she makes the powerful choice not to know of her past in Eulmore, preferring to turn her gaze to the future. Her story encapsulates a central theme of the Eden arc: escaping stasis, embracing change and growth, making new memories. 

In Shadowbringers, right and wrong are not inexorable absolutes that we are to be judged by. Light and Darkness are two-toned echoes tumbling through time: humanity and the dragons, the Warriors of Light and Darkness, the champions of Zodiark and Hydaelyn. We should not be too quick to form our judgements, for nothing is as it seems, and there is hope to be found in the night. 

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv meta #shadowbringers #shadowbringers spoilers #crystal exarch #g'raha tia #emet-selch #ardbert hylfyst #ryne waters #gaia ffxiv #rynegaia #my post

[littlelordalphinaud]

So I think one of the most underutilised thing in FFXIV canon is that the WoL, if they play specific classes, are channelling large amounts of magical energy through themselves.

(I'm mostly thinking of casting classes here, along with WHM/AST)

And, like, even with Hydealyns blessing, human bodies were not designed to channel such energies. That's why you get things like 'Hey if you try and be a BLM without the soul stone, you WILL burn from the inside out!'

And I know it's because they want you to be able to play every class, but just imagine if your class DID effect your character physically.

I was inspired to make this post because I saw a video of someone repairing a small vase via Kintsugi. Which in turn reminded me of the Gabrielle Aplin song of the same name. Which contains one of my all time favourite lines:

All my scars are golden.

See, scar tissue is already modified. I'm no biologist and it's been a while since I properly looked into scars, but scar tissue is different to regular skin, that much I know.

So imagine that being where it's obvious. Your WoLs scars.

A White Mage who emanates this soft white glow from their scars as they cast.

Astrologians that glitter and shimmer and glow as they pull the stars into themselves.

Black mages who's scars darken and seem to be collapsing as they draw on the void.

Red mages who are a mishmash of glowing and collapsing.

These people are pulling powerful forces through their body and you can see it. Even if you know nothing about magic, even if you're just a spectator, you can see how their journey has shaped them, has changed and effected them.

Everyone has scars, after all!

#final fantasy 14 #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv #ffxiv astrologian #ffxiv white mage #ffxiv black mage #ffxiv red mage #red mage #white mage #black mage #astrologian #ffxiv meta #ff meta

[anneapocalypse]

How the Scions failed Alphinaud.

(Note: I am still in Stormblood, so no spoilers please. ❤️)

And while I'm on the subject can I just take a moment to say how incandescently angry I get for Alphinaud sometimes?

The Crystal Braves had bad idea written all over them from the start. (It's funny to me because of how much it's like the Inquisition in Dragon Age, a paramilitary organization funded by powerful socioeconomic interests that answers to no sovereign nation, except that the Inquisition for all its flaws wasn't being run entirely by a precocious sixteen-year-old.) The question about where the money is coming from is set up pretty early and it's not overly subtle, Alphinaud is just like "Whatever, it'll be fine," and nobody really presses it. And yes, Alphinaud is really overconfident at this point in the story, but the thing is, Why wouldn't he be? He's got every single adult around him telling him he's a prodigy and a genius and basically Louisoix reborn and everything he's doing is a great idea and moreover that it's his duty to Eorzea to keep doing what he's doing!

And I just cannot come down too hard on him for how bad everything goes, because someone, any of the actual adults in the room, including all the Scions and the Warrior of Light, should have taken one look at this situation and gone, "Hang on a minute." And not one of them did, because I think all the Scions were too caught up in their own unhealthy hero complexes to realize that they should not be allowing a teenager to take on this kind of responsibility for the fate of three nations. Instead they saw Alphinaud acting like them, emulating the adults he admired and respected, and they went, "He's doing great."

And now he has to live with the consequences. Did Alphinaud need a humbling experience somewhere in his growing up years? Probably. Did he need it to be one where people died because of his decisions? He did not. I think Alisaie really had the right idea when she said, "I can't just be Louisoix's granddaughter, I have to find my own path, or at the very least I need to understand who my grandfather was and why he did what he did and the consequences of it, before I decide to follow in his footsteps." But Alphinaud. Oh, Alphinaud. He thinks he already knows who he's meant to be and what he's meant to do, and none of the older and wiser people around him ever see fit to tell him that maybe he too needs to find his own path.

I love the Scions, I love all these characters dearly, but they failed Alphinaud so badly here and honestly I haven't really seen any of them truly acknowledge that yet. They've all got other problems, it's true, but still... rather than a handful of loyal Crystal Brave proclaiming that they totally still trust their sixteen-year-old commander, what I really want is for someone to say to Alphinaud, "I'm so sorry. We should never have put this on you. We should have seen what could go wrong and we didn't."

#alphinaud leveilleur #my SON #ffxiv meta #ffxiv #a realm reborn #crystal braves #arr spoilers #ffxiv spoilers #afk by the aetheryte

[ungrateful-cyborg]

On Minfilia

When you take Minfilia at face value, she’s honestly a good character. And her writing is consistent enough that I can’t completely say that the way the community reacted to her was due to it but at the same time... it kinda is, in my opinion, and most of the arguments given to “hate on her” by people are mis-attributed griefs with the storytelling itself or the gameplay.

(The way some choose to mis-attribute it speak more of those people than of the story or devs, though.)

To me, Minfilia is a just and kind woman, if a bit politically naive, who tries her hardest to fill in the shoes of Louisoix when it’s very much not what she signed up for in creating the Path of the Twelve. It’s a hell of a role to take on at 22 (time of the Calamity, since she’s 27 in ARR) and she did an admirable job with it. You can understand why those who’ve known her for a long time feel like she’s incredible, given the facts.

But if you’re not a Legacy player, you don’t know those stakes, you don’t know her, and she doesn’t know your character either (she recognizes Legacy WoLs from what I've gathered).

So your actual introduction to Minfilia goes like this: you get told by Momodi that a secret organization is interested in hiring you and to go to Vesper Bay. You go there and speak to Tataru.

A summary in two screenshots:

The named Scion depends on where you started: Thancred for Ul'dah, Y'shtola for Limsa, Yda and Papalymo for Gridania. It's not Minfilia who recruits you, it's them. She just gets to make it official because she's the boss and got the last word.

And not only that but you've traveled to the town, then get to pass three doors (and two loading screens) in total before meeting her: to enter the building, to go to the basement and, finally, to enter her office where she's talking to the main Scions.

Which seems entirely trivial but I feel like it create a pre-existing distance before you even get to meet Minfilia.

In the Solar, she introduces herself, then immediately puts some distance between you and her by walking behind her desk—ironically while telling you that you're amongst friends—and starts her speech about the Scions, the Echo, the Primals and the fact that your Echo is especially strong. A speech she ends with this (notice the crossed arms—distance, again):

The next cutscene is about the perks of the job, settling once and for all that your relationship with her, even though she calls you friend, is transactional and hierarchical.

Which is fine, I'm not complaining. But she's our boss, which sets her apart from every other character in the story, Scions included.

The next hours are literally spent executing her orders, going back and forth between Vesper Bay and wherever she sends you (and we didn't have the aetheryte tickets until patch 5.3) until she gets abducted.

We meet quite a lot of NPCs who tell us that she's a great diplomat (something we didn't get to see so far since she doesn't accompany us on our diplomatic mission to talk to the Sylphs about Ramuh) and talented to bring people together (which is probably true but always happens off screen). We don't get to see it until well after they made her go from our boss to a damsel in distress we need to save.

To quote Erenville: first impressions last.

Especially when the story doesn't give you opportunities to change it for hours of gaming time.

She's not as passive as people tend to remember, but they botched her introduction to non-legacy players, in my opinion.

So I can't say it's entirely fair to pretend there's no reason to dislike her, or at least to not care much about her. There are other characters who play a similar role to her up to a point: the Exarch for example. But the Exarch goes, literally, outside to meet with us. We get to see him deal with Ranjit and the threat of Eulmore. By the time he needs saving, we've seen what he can do, even discounting his help in the first dungeon. I don't think he would have received such a warm reception if he'd just been waiting for us passively in the Ocular for the first half of Shadowbringers.

It's worth mentioning that the writers were working on the 1.X patches at the same time they were writing ARR, though. And to me, it feels like they either forgot or didn't care that new players wouldn't have a pre-existing rapport with Minfilia.

After all, Louisoix tells her in one of the short stories to wait for "one who bears the light". When we meet her in the Solar, we doom her: her role was to serve as a bridge between 1.0 and 2.0. To wait for us.

And we're here now.

(I don't think they meant to keep her around, even without the general disliking of her that players had—and that's probably why the twins were here from the start.)

#FFXIV #FFXIV meta #Minfilia Warde

[farfromdaylight]

so i've been replaying endwalker on an alt, and my main prevailing thought is: man, it is thematically dense. and yet, at the same time, not at all.

like, okay. the first half of endwalker is mostly about resolving earlier plot threads (garlemald, zodiark) and it's already pretty fucking heavy there: it asks you not to forgive the failing empire, but to acknowledge its citizens as people worthy of your help despite their nation's atrocities. zodiark you fight not out of hostility, but necessity: fandaniel, rejecting the mantle left by the fallen ascians, wishes to die and take the world with him. thus brings about the final days, which leads to some awful shit in thavnair wherein you struggle to save even one family in the midst of absolute chaos, and which asks whether you can hold onto hope in the face of despair.

but then you get to elpis, and you start to see how it ties together. hermes is ridden with angst over the day-to-day reality of his job as overseer in elpis. some creations must be remade or removed, and he can't bear the thought, much less the idea of his beloved friend fandaniel passing on and leaving the set to hermes himself. the specter of death hangs heavy over everything. and then you get meteion's report back, and it's clear that it goes far beyond etheirys itself. the universe is littered with dead civilizations.

add to this what happens to the ancient society itself — how venat ensures that they will live, at the cost of the bliss they once enjoyed. the only life that can survive must struggle.

then in ultima thule, you learn how despair overtook the other civilizations meteion visited. the ea stand out to me in particular: the futility of life, in the face of a universe that will inevitably die. a common science fiction concept, but so fucking unexpected for what began as a fun little fantasy adventure.

death, death, death. it all comes back to death. in the dead ends, pestilence, war, and ennui are the killers.

and yet, and yet: what is the ending, but proof that life prevails? what is the point of any of it, but fundamental proof that life is fucking hard, and it's still worth living? THAT is the pervasive theme of endwalker. it's told in myriad ways and i don't personally think they all work, but in the end, the punch lands. it's worth fighting. it's worth it to keep going, even when you're at your worst.

endwalker is fucking depressing. it's also one of the most hopeful stories i've experienced. at every turn, you still get up. you still keep going. in the face of impossible odds, you don't let up. what's the point of it all, if not that?

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #endwalker spoilers #endwalker #adventures in eorzea #ffxiv meta

[the-manderville-mambo]

I wonder

Maybe it wasn't the Blessing of Light that kept WoL from turning into a sin eater

Not entirely, at least

Maybe it was because they were already seven times rejoined, and had the additional aether from their six Crystals of Light, and so had vastly more aether at their disposal than the majority of the First's inhabitants. We see that Ardbert fusing with their soul gives them enough control over the Light that they can fight Emet-Selch, and even use that same Light aether during the fight, so clearly having more aether to your being has an effect on this sort of thing

The main point they drive home about Light corruption is that it consumes your aether and shifts it towards the umbral, but what if you have A Lot of aether? Wouldn't it then take much longer to shift it all? Especially compared to someone with (at most) an eighth of the aether you have? After all, Tesleen and the various animals and residents of Holminster Switch were turned pretty much instantly, and that was with far weaker sin eaters (comparatively speaking). It takes four whole Lightwardens for a true adverse effect to show up in WoL, and a fifth to truly tip the scales and start a transformation. That’s a massive amount of aether right there

We also know thanks to Y’shtola that when WoL slorped up the first two Lightwardens, the aether wasn’t negated by the Blessing, but rather, simply stored inside them. This could be because the Blessing is essentially two parts: the protective spell that prevents the corruption of aether, and the Crystal(s) of Light granted by the Mothercrystal. The six Crystals WoL has provide them with a large boost of aether, while the protective spell protects them from tempering... but not from being turned into a sin eater. Arguably because the spell, at its core, is Light-aspected: it prevents the corruption of aether by keeping it from changing—holding it in stasis, if you will. Perhaps this spell accidentally amplified the effects of the Light aether, and it was only because of the Crystals (and having a lot more aether to their body and soul than most residents of the First) that WoL lasted as long as they did

#ffxiv #ffxiv spoilers #shadowbringers #shadowbringers spoilers #ffxiv meta #this also makes me wonder #could they have actually used the crystal tower to hold the lightwardens' aether? #we know it's capable of capturing an unsundered ascian's soul #(something which in canon has a Lot of aether) #and the tower's primary purpose was to capture and store energy #so it could very well have worked #could be an interesting thing to explore in a fic

[ecosystem-administrator]

You know what one of the worst parts of the whole "Edmont the most okayest dad" thing is? Depending on how you count Ryne's Two Dads, Edmont is either the third or fourth best dad in the whole game. Raubahn, Urianger and/or Thancred, then Edmont. After that the quality drops off *sharply*.

...Fourth or fifth if you count Midgardsormr, just realized I forgot him.

yeah I think Midgardsormr tops the list for good dads, considering. I haven't leveled Lancer/Dragoon, but to my understanding Alberic is somewhere on there too, I think, since not-blood-kin obviously counts? And as of Endwalker, Wilfsunn seems pretty good. I don't even know how to rank Godbert Manderville, that family can't really be judged by the standards of normal mortals-

BUT THE POINT STANDS! and honestly there aren't that many great moms either, considering how many are dead or missing and don't even really count as characters so much as backstory devices (and on topic, oh boy Artoirel and Emmanellain's mom, I could write an entire essay on the nameless Lady Fortemps alone). This is just not a game with a lot of awesome parenting going on in general.

#ffxiv #ffxiv meta #thorn rambles #asked and answered

[chiclet-go-boom]

my favorite pet theory about Zenos at the moment: 1) Elidibus refers to Zenos at one point as “an experiment”; 2) It’s stated that Emet-Selch did something to Zenos but its never said exactly what, why, or when 3) Fandaniel wonders out loud if Emet-Selch “could have found a way” 4) Zenos has dreamed of the Final Days since he was a child

THEORY:

Emet-Selch was trying to find a way to restore the memories of Amaurot and their previous lives in the sundered who were not of the Convocation and thus did not have memory crystals to facilitate the process; and may have at least partially succeeded.

#ffxiv #zenos yae galvus #zenos viator galvus #ffxiv meta

[picaroroboto]

think of all the times an NPC will praise the WoL up and down before giving them a quest to do something really unpleasant - putting them up on a pedestal one breath and treating them as a tool the next. The WoL's skills make them superhuman, their tendency for violence makes them subhuman, but their most defining trait is their compassion, making them more human then most. Their adventurer status makes them a perpetual outsider but they have allies they can call on in every port. They have no choice but to be Hydaelyn's chosen one but they consistently choose to go above and beyond their duty to help others. They're an empty vessel for the player to inhabit and they're a distinct being that exists in the world of the game. You get it right

#ff14 #ffxiv #wol #warrior of light #ffxiv meta #meta posting on my art blog #i go hogwild for any tropes relating to dehumanization/what makes a human

[capriccio-ffxiv]

... Holy crap

At one point I speculated that Fandaniel's throwaway comment about Zenos being a case where Emet-Selch "finally succeeded" was about Zenos' corporeal aether being as dense as an Ancients'. Not his soul, but his body at least being 2x as dense as the average Source inhabitant (and 14x as anyone from a Shard).

One of the big reasons for the Sundering was that extremely aether-dense people can't interact directly with Dynamis. You can hear Meteion bc your aether is so thin. People turn into monsters bc Dynamis overwhelms and consumes their Aether.

What if Zenos cannot directly interact with Dynamis. At all.

What if THAT'S why everything seems dull and boring to him? There's a whole spectrum of emotion & feeling that he straight up can't feel because his booty too fat his corporeal aether is too thick. But he's still a sundered soul, so part of him still needs Dynamis to feel connected to other people (unlike the Ancients who seem fine?). But his corporeal aether blocks it. The same way that Zodiark's shield kept us from hearing the Endsinger for all those centuries (& by extension the whole universe really), Zenos' thicc aether literally prevents him from feeling connection to others.

This explains why he so easily no-sold the WoL. In addition to supernaturally thick aether, he's also mostly immune to our Power of Friendship crap.

... Mostly.

Because obviously the Ancients still weren't immune to the Endsinger, her effect was just different. They didn't turn into monsters, but their imaginations turned on them, causing their creation magic to manifest ravenous nightmares. In the same way, some part of the WoL's Dynamis was so potent that it broke through. And that's why he became so completely addicted to us. We're literally the only person with powerful enough Dynamis that he can feel any connection at all.

#zenos yae galvus #ffxiv #ffxiv shadowbringers #ffxiv endwalker #ffxiv stormblood #ffxiv meta #ffxiv speculation #ffxiv discussion

[gnbrkrs]

Some thoughts on Emet-Selch, Crystal Exarch, their roles as mirrors and how Shadowbringers is not quite a good vs evil story

I find it interesting that a lot of people miss a lot of the moral ambiguity about the Crystal Exarch/ Emet-Selch conflict in Shadowbringers because of the one thing about the former that isn't shown in much detail, which is the bad timeline and the opinions of it's denizens.

Although it is never addressed directly, and their belief in what is best for Etheirys was unquestionable, it is highly unlikely that he or the bad timeline Ironworks asked or had the opportunity to ask every person on the planet at the time if they agreed to be erased from existence for the sake of a better future that they would not see (yes, we do eventually find out that the timeline stayed intact, but that was their initial prediction in case of success and there was no way the could have known until after the fact). And just like the Scions in response to the Ascians, I doubt absolutely everyone would have agreed to give their existence up no matter how bad their life was and how much better the past would have appeared.

Both want to achieve a similar goal (reviving a better past and creating new paths from there). Both are willing to sacrifice other people for it (who may or may not agree with their vision of a greater future, although one could argue that Emet's way of restoring his world is a lot slower, more painful for those being sacrificed and therefore more evil) because of their attachment to the way things were before everything went to hell. The more one thinks about the bad timeline, the more these characters look like mirrors to each other, and yet a lot of people treat Shadowbringers as a more clear-cut good vs evil story, seeing Crystal Exarch as the unambiguously heroic and Emet-Selch as the tragic, but complete villain. And although one could make an argument that the latter's path ends up saving more lives in terms of numbers, it also requires taking a stance on several philosophical and ethical questions (namely whether one has the right to decide who lives and who dies, or the moral implications of saving certain people at the expense of others) to which the world may not have a definite answer. Which only makes the whole situation more interesting to observe from the sidelines.

While Emet-Selch's desire to restore Amaurot is made painfully clear to us, from our perspective it is still the past, which different players may or may consider to be worth the sacrifice, but a lot would agree that in the end, the cost is too great and he must be stopped. At the same time, the past G'raha/ Exarch is trying to save is our present, the world as we know it and are attached to, as well as the one we have just arrived to, and is clearly on our side. This would make a lot of players sympathize with him on for that reason alone. In addition to that, the bad timeline isn't much shown beyond how people were suffering, as well as the Ironworks' generations-long work to make time travel possible, which already makes erasing the bad timeline look like a mercy. It's even possible that the way we see it is not so different from the way the Ascians see the post-Sundering world. But what is easy to miss in both perspectives is that there are people who want to keep on living despite the misery. And judging by how both are viewed in rather emotionally colored perceptions, no one, whether that is G'raha, Emet-Selch, or us as the player, is immune to flaws in judgement.

If one looks beneath the surface, I think Shadowbringers could also be a great look into how susceptible people are to personal biases and attachments, and how it affects one's judgement, not only by showing us characters who are going through those things, but also by making the players experience the same thing, even though it may not be obvious at first. When one takes some distance from the situation, it may turn out that the enemy is not as different as one thinks they are. And while people may draw different conclusions from this, it is interesting to see that the themes portrayed in the plot itself can also apply to the player and not just the characters in the story.

#ffxiv #ffxiv meta #emet selch #crystal exarch #g'raha tia #shadowbringers #just one thing that's been buzzing in my head for some time because I rarely see others discuss it

[lookbluesoup]

So while I get that Gridanians live under these.... essentially toddler-gods who can afflict the entire territory with horrible plague, who will severely punish well-intentioned children that were manipulated by adults instead of the adult, and can't communicate their desires clearly, which leads the community to adopt a lot of hostility to change, paranoia, hate and even violence toward outsiders, etc...

Unless there's more explanation for this I haven't found? I know I'm not 100% up to speed on everything Gridania, especially pre-ARR....

Keepers of the Moon were living in the Black Shroud outside of Gridanian authority, for generations, presumably not being laserbeamed out of existence. There would have been a lot going on outside of the Seedseer's effective reach, and there aren't Moonkeeper Padjal to make up the gap there, only Hyur get to be Padjal.

Miqo'te are described as traditionally being far more in tune with nature and eschewing things like major city developments and whatnot. They're predators, yes, but predators have a place and function in the natural balance of the world.

"Beast Tribes" are a made up word from Ul'dah to protect trade monopolies in Thanalan, and Miqo'te could easily have ended up on the wrong side of that label if the rich elites had wanted them barred from the city. Historically, they're a lot more "feral" than a lot of the other spoken races.

I mention all this because it's unlikely the Elementals divide people into Beast Tribes and Human Races. Sylph's aren't being deleted by the Elementals, either, despite certainly having no inclination to live like the Gridanians do and being fairly mischievous.

My point being... I wonder if maybe the Gridanians kind of brought the Greenwrath on themselves. A lot of the time. The same way that some IRL religious institutions preach hate in the name of a deity and stir paranoia and fear of eternal condemnation. They create sins where there didn't need to be... Justifying division and destruction and isolation out of fear (and thus a need for control), and actually creating their own problems.

Elementals might not care about a lot of the stuff Gridania does, its clear a few times when something bad happens to someone, even just getting sick, panic strikes that the Elementals are behind it and people act irrationally out of fear, like the IRL Salem Witch Trials.

If you look at places like Haukke Manor... a country living in balance with nature does not need massive monuments to vanity like that. And there's apparently a whole quarter devoted to mansions for nobility in Gridania (which the npc says we're not allowed to visit.) Why do you have that. Why do you think that promotes peace with the natural world.

There's Wood Wailers who talk about wanting to kill Moonkeepers on sight, just in case they're "poachers." That's sort of like killing wolves because they're predators. Outside of some genuine bad apples, though, a lot of what seems to drive actual Moonkeeper poachers AND Duskwight Elezen to banditry is a straight up need to survive. Gridania's essential demand that they have dictatorial rights over management of the forest leads them to disrupt these group's lives, sometimes with exceptional cruelty.

I know that "central authority" is kind of... not super really a thing for Gridania, power is pretty divided up and a lot of it seems to run on an honor system. But that seems to have led to a lot of Process Loss and enabled a lot of prejudice and abuse to run rampant. Especially now that the Elementals are weaker than pre-Calamity.

I guess basically I wonder if the reason Sylphs and traditional Moonkeeper clans managed to survive out there was because, unlike Gridania, they don't have social systems built from the ground up on fear and condemnation. They're not constantly LOOKING for reasons to think the Elementals hate them and someone to blame for it.

They just live "natural" lives, that aren't inherently dangerous to the overall balance of the forest ecosystem, and they don't have an entire religious/government body dedicated to trying to interpret vague impressions from the Elementals (this is a HORRIBLE system of government and EXTREMELY susceptible to personal prejudices/bias), so these non-Gridanians run into conflict with the Elementals far less often.

i.e. Moonkeeper kills a rabbit, uses the meat, skin, and bones, is behaving like a hunter, Elementals don't care. VERSUS Gridanian kills a rabbit, uses it the same way, but then a villager gets sick and their friends panic and they turn into a mob and punish the Gridanian, Elementals didn't care but now they're a little pissy bc you're disrupting the forest with your insanity.

Basically... Gridania is the real affront to the Elementals, their very infrastructure and their culture of micromanaging the forest and constantly looking for scapegoats, kind of flies in the face of actually living in balance with nature. The Elementals aren't omnipotent or a unified group, and seem to struggle to understand human minds anyway, so they're trying to work with this city-state and have established some kind of partnership, but Gridania is really its own worst enemy.

#ffxiv #ff14 #miqote #gridania #keeper of the moon #elementals #padjal #sylph #seedseer #duskwight #lore #meta #shower thoughts #text #long post

[anneapocalypse]

I made a lot of comparisons between Solas and Emet-Selch back in Shadowbringers, and to be sure there's a lot to compare there, particularly in terms of their goals and desires for the future of the world. But having finished main Endwalker (I'm at the beginning of 6.3), I realize now that in terms of the past, Emet-Selch isn't the Solas figure.

Venat is.

Venat is the one who broke the world--sundered it, even, a word both franchises are fond of--because, as Solas puts it in Trespasser, "every alternative was worse." The Evanuris would have destroyed the world and sacrificed untold lives to maintain their power. The survivors of the Final Days would have continued sacrificing untold lives to Zodiark in hopes of restoring their "paradise." Solas and Venat both know there is no choice they can make that calls for no sacrifice. They both simply choose to make a different one. And they both live for ages hence with the weight of what they've done, the suffering they have caused, because they believed the alternative was worse.

Emet-Selch in Shadowbringers is a version of Solas who never comes to see the people of the future as people, as lives just as worthy of saving as those of ancient times. (And even he kind of does in the end, it just takes, you know. dying. for him to acknowledge it.) But Venat, past and future, is more analogous to a version of Solas that a lot of fans (myself included) believe it's possible for him to become: one who believes in the future and in its people enough to let the past go.

And I love them all.

#emet selch #solas dragon age #venat #ffxiv meta #dragon age meta #shadowbringers spoilers #endwalker spoilers #dragon age inquisition