FFXIV Spoiler thread

[Dartz1979]

i really wish minfilia ward hadnt died she was my waifu now i have to find another one.

[ippollite]

Ol' blue eyes.

[Katchii]

Ol' blue eyes.

Yeah, I was viewing that as simply a reflection or trick of the light. Because in later scenes her eyes are definitely still grey.

[Dakhath]

You're in a giant structure made from blue crystal, its a reflection.

[Katchii]

All the time is Grey. I was actually confused why you guys mention "blue", she had them Grey all the time, even in Shadowbringers and after that.

In the picture ippollite posted her eyes do look blue, though. They never were actually blue, but in that scene they definitely look that way.

[ippollite]

The funny thing is, since then ive probably had 2 or 3 close-ups in cutscenes to check against this screenshot. Yet because her eyes are very likely back to normal again, my brain never thought about it. (:

[Tenjen]

Yotsuyuu I can't sympathize with. Yeah what happened to her during childhood was awful... but then she starts trying to kill off and torture her people and ruin her country?

It wasnt just her childhood. it was her entire life. She literally never had a choice. She was abused her entire childhood, married off to violent drunk who beat and forced himself on her daily, when he died she got sold to a brothel when she was clearly mentally broken but ends up that drew more men to her, then her country arranged for her to service and spy on Garlean clients who treated her even worse, and she finally snapped when she realized they were going to get her killed in increasingly risky missions. Thats when she became a double agent.

She had not recieved a single act of kindness her whole life, her experience with people around her was binary. Abusers or people ignoring the abuse, the latter of which was a cultural aspect of her people. The only path life gave her from abuse was her hate and indulging in that hate was the only thing that made her happy. She had even less than a choice than Fordola, as in none at all and even when given a chance, she got pulled back in by the people centrally responsible for it all.

Her country molded the monster which subjugated the. It doesnt excuse anything she did, and hopefully Hien will keep that in mind as he rebuilds the country so no one else turns out like her. Tsuyu is how she would have been without the life long abuse, but Tsuyu is child like because that part of her never got to develop.

- - - Updated - - -

To me, the real offender is Gaius. ..etc

We clearly express the wish to fight and kill him on multiple occasions. No one has forgiven him and the only reason we tolerate him is because we really needed him against the garlean empire and to free an entire region, and keep the garleans (and later the new trouble) held back. Even THEN he has someone beside him who will kill him the moment he shows any signs of going back to the old ways.Killing him will cause worse situations than not and even then its only after three tiers of events break him.

That statement would hold weight if the WoL was going around telling the story of Amaurot or wrote a short book about it and had it mass produced by marmets and distributed by post-moogles.

That really doesnt have anything to do with anything. We're shaped by our lessons and no one is owed an entire life story about why. Amaurot will become more widely known as it is crucial info and should be shared on its own merit. The weight of the WoL's stance is not dependant on them sharing why to everyone.

[Tojara]

Yotsuyuu I had a glint of sympathy for because her life was absolute trash and she ended up treating everybody else like trash. She went out ending her awful brother who she disliked a lot, and she had recollections of how kind Gosetsu was to her.

Fordola was similar but slightly different, but for whatever reason I didn't connect to her story nearly as much given her circumstances.

Both Emet-Selch and Elidibus were paving the Ascian perspective in ShB, because before ShB (and I can't be the only one) the Ascian story was pretty shitty to be perfectly honest. You understand their perspective by the end of the story, especially through Emet-Selch, and his line about letting the victor write the story about the villains they vanquished is a fairly good line. Some of you might have liked the Elidibus story, and while I thought it was okay, it wasn't nearly as good as the Emet-Selch one.

The thing about villains is that pretty much every branch of villain can work, even ones who are batshit insane. Motivations literally don't matter as long as the character has some sort of charisma. Kefka from FF6 is a character with very little backstory and is absolutely deranged, but is cunning and knowledgeable enough to get where he wants to be. He technically wins and is by far one of the most absolutely evil characters in all of the FF series. The thing that makes him good is some of the choice dialogue you get from him and just witnessing all the vile things he's done to make you absolutely hate him. There's a reason why the Joker in Batman is universally liked and his backstory is hardly explained, he just does absolutely vile shit constantly.

The TLDR with villains, especially different ones is that having tragic backstories for every single character does get lame, which would be the same if every single character is just evil for the sake of being evil. GoT has tons of morally grey characters, but it's not hard to point out the few characters (that are just as well written) who are absolutely fucking twisted individuals. I think plenty of people were happy to see Ramsey and Joffrey die when they did.

[ippollite]

"But yes, Moral relativism and all that. Case in point: I do not consider you to be truly alive, ergo I will not be guilty of murder if i kill you".

Ascians and the funny things they say.

Dammit! i clicked through his very next line before my brain had a chance to process it. Then did a double take.
(so im going off memory)
'Oh dont look at me like that! You who i have so much hope for. You who have the power of the seven rejoinings within you'

Sorry... i garbled it. But is this the blessing of... not the light, because shes a primal and is evidently weakening with each rejoining... so not the light, but the source? Im basically 50% to being an ascian in terms of power. Which explains why im so much more powerful than every other character in game. So thats what the blessing is, right? Its not hydealyn, (she simply 'claimed' me), but a pure birth lottery where im not 1/13th of a real person like everyone else. Im a whole 1/2 of a real person (source+13). Which now i think about it... 1/2+7(1/13) (canonically, i assume we are defeating every 8man boss as the wol plus some plucky adventurers (and not 7 other wol's) = 1.03846153846, and thats why we can defeat ascians.

[Xilurm]

"But yes, Moral relativism and all that. Case in point: I do not consider you to be truly alive, ergo I will not be guilty of murder if i kill you".

Ascians and the fun things they say.

Dammit! i clicked through his very next line before my brain had a chance to process it. Then did a double take.
(so im going off memory)
'Oh dont look at me like that! You who i have so much hope for. You who have the power of the seven rejoinings within you'

Sorry... i garbled it. But is this the blessing of... not the light, because shes a primal and is evidently weakening with each rejoining... so not the light, but the source? Im basically 50% to being an ascian in terms of power. Which explains why im so much more powerful than every other character in game. So thats what the blessing is, right? Its source though isnt hydealyn, but a pure birth lottery where im not 1/13th of a real person like everyone else. Im a whole 1/2 of a real person (source+13). Which now i think about it... 1/2+7(1/13) (canonically, i assume we are defeating every 8man boss as the wol plus some plucky adventurers (and not 7 other wol's) = 1.03846153846, and thats why we can defeat ascians.

No, the blessing of light is from Hydaelyn. Your source of power being the 7 other shards inside would only make sense if the rest of the inhabitants of the source didn't also have 7 shards inside them.

[Lane]

Both Emet-Selch and Elidibus were paving the Ascian perspective in ShB, because before ShB (and I can't be the only one) the Ascian story was pretty shitty to be perfectly honest. You understand their perspective by the end of the story, especially through Emet-Selch, and his line about letting the victor write the story about the villains they vanquished is a fairly good line. Some of you might have liked the Elidibus story, and while I thought it was okay, it wasn't nearly as good as the Emet-Selch one.

Ascians barely had a story before ShB. They were just robed figures who were assumed to want to cause chaos in the name of their dark god. It's one of the reasons I'm peeved about EW being the end of a story I feel like just started in ShB.

The journey of Emet was the more heart wrenching, but the ending of Elidibus was more heart breaking (IMO).

The thing about villains is that pretty much every branch of villain can work, even ones who are batshit insane. Motivations literally don't matter as long as the character has some sort of charisma.

I've never liked the Joker, if I were going to pick a favorite comic book villain it would be Magneto. There was a point in the X-Men series they had to start making it more obvious he was a villain because readers were sympathizing with him too much, but that's what I like. Then again, I do like Harley Quinn, but she's often in that anti-hero role I also gravitate toward.

I personally need motivations or at least some kind of creed, otherwise the villain isn't compelling they're just an annoyance. Any interaction with them is reduced to an "ugh not this again" feeling vs. being genuinely excited to see them and interested in what they're going to say and do.

[Tenjen]

oh in terms of reformed former villains, lets not forget Nero, where its still very questionable that those former descriptives even apply.

I half expected his descendant or even the man himself to pop up during the nier quest after sneaking a ride on Typhoon.

[Auxis]

So, partway through Heavensward atm. Just finished the Vault.

I have a question about a character. Midgardsormr appeared and spoke to Ysayle/Iceheart before we left for the journey through Dravania, I know for certain that he appeared there. But I don't remember him popping up AT ALL during the entire pilgrimage. Not for the first dragon who let us through to the Shrine in the volcano, nor for Nidhogg's consort, nor for his own sons Hraesvelgr or Nidhogg.

Does he have some agenda or reasoning for not showing up that I'm about to learn about? Because I feel like he should have at least appeared before Hraesvelgr.

[Katchii]

No, the blessing of light is from Hydaelyn. Your source of power being the 7 other shards inside would only make sense if the rest of the inhabitants of the source didn't also have 7 shards inside them.

Only those who are reborn ancients have their soul expanded upon a rejoining. We're one of the rare few where this happens, it doesn't happen to everybody.

[Lane]

Does he have some agenda or reasoning for not showing up that I'm about to learn about?

Yes, he does. His agenda since Keeper of the Lake in ARR is to see if you're worthy of the Blessing of Hydaelyn. He wants to see how you're going to handle the situations presented to you.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Does he have some agenda or reasoning for not showing up that I'm about to learn about? Because I feel like he should have at least appeared before Hraesvelgr.

Midgardsomr is very wonkily written. The writers forget he exists for long stretches of time and he doesn't show up for events that he should have.

[Tojara]

I don't really think he's wonkily written at all. He shows up numerous times in HW (which makes sense, considering the context of the game), and a few times in SB. His last appearance in SB is pretty big and it's noted that he's basically resting after that moment.

It's FF so they can kind of do whatever they want, but it wouldn't really make a lot of sense to have him show up in ShB considering it's a completely different shard. Also time flows differently between the source and it's shards, and while I don't really know much time passed between the events of ShB and SBs conclusion, it likely hasn't been that long at all.

[Dakhath]

I always understood Midgardsormr as just being an observer, that's why your superpowers are taken away from what I recall, he wants to see if you're worthy and if just pops up when talking to his kids, it could influence said kids. He does show up for one of them though from what I recall, toward the end of the base HW story.

[Lane]

Does he ever even try talking to Nidhogg?

I think Nidhogg is considered a lost cause, little more than a shade driven by rage. It was what ultimately swayed Hraesvelgr that he wasn't acting against his brother because it wasn't his brother anymore.

[Drindorai]

Does he ever even try talking to Nidhogg? That always bothered me, but it has been so long that I'm not confident that I'm not forgetting something.

He pops out to chat with Tiamat and Hraesvelgr, and at one point laments Nidhogg's state, but never actually tries to converse with him as I recall.

From what I recall, closer you get to Nidhogg's first death, it becomes clear Midgardsormr realizes he's a lost cause. He doesn't speak to him, no, but the implication seemed to be he already knew Nidhogg was beyond saving.

It's super obvious Midgardsormr is aware of what all of his children are capable of and who is and is not beyond salvation. Tiamat is obviously nearly as gone as Nidhogg but she isn't interested in raging and destroying the world, so he's willing to speak with her and try to get her to change her mind.

He's written totally fine, shocking though that Val once again whines that a story is written poorly just because it doesn't go as they wanted. As someone says, he's more an observer than anything else. Showing up to give advice when its needed and only taking an actual active role once Estinien is transformed into him at the end of 4.0, having finally been spurned into action after seeing that the mortals were willing to actually change and Nidhogg was not, unlike at the beginning when he believes neither side will ever break the cycle.

He's so obviously a character that, after all that's happened to him, just wants to observe from the sidelines instead of intervening directly in any conflict. I can't exactly blame him after all he's been through. Everything since Nidhogg took over Estinien's body, though, shows that he's at least willing to be a little more proactive now, between actively seeking out Hraesvelgr to save us in the Omega raid and his rebirth around Shadowbringers.

Also we're very likely going to get a lot of Midgardsormr appearances/lore with Endwalker, considering we're flatout told that the Omega questline should be finished before Endwalker comes out by Ishikawa. As well as the Coils of Bahamut, if you haven't done it by now.