#ffxiv meta;

[lesenbyan]

You know. I think I like G'raha for some of the same reasons people i know dislike him but likewise in the agreement on these facts is also why I dislike fandom G'raha. 'cause like. He isn't the same character as the Exarch. the G'raha we know and travel with in EW is not the same man as the Exarch, even with his memories, and I don't mean bc he's younger. like.

okay. I was raised on way too much sci-fi, okay? I got deep in it with paradoxes and time travel and alternate and parallel realities before i was 10. I had a lose grasp on certain quantum mechanics concepts at 13. you give me a time loop and I will immediately understand two things:

every loop is an alternate universe converging off of the same single point as there can be (are, depending) near infinite universes off of every single point in space (<- this is why AUs are called AUs after all) and thus

even if it's the same face, even if it's the same name. even if it's the exact same past up until now, even if everything is perceptibly the same, and this is crucial, they are not the same person.

(I promise, I'm getting there)

This holds true, even in a closed paradox bc you now have a chicken and the egg scenario. Like we all kind of understand the grandfather paradox, we understand that if we kill our grandfather before the respective parent is conceived we couldn't have been born and thus couldn't kill him, ad nauseum. but even if you close it. Even if, say, you're your own grandfather, every loop something's going to change, even if it's not noticeable, even if it's not in your life. something is gonna change. A fundamental fact of how i understand the theory to work (granted I'm no scholar) is every time you go back in time you're not actually going back on your linear time, you're creating an alternate universe which will then be the universe you also fast forward through when you go forward in time.

That being said, the G'raha Tia that becomes the Exarch is not the G'raha Tia that we know, this is proven the fact that the G'raha Tia we know cannot go on to become the Exarch bc the Exarch did not live these post 5.3 experiences. And from there that means the Exarch also didn't come from the G'raha we knew in Crystal Tower. CT and EW G'rahas are the same. the Exarch is from a parallel reality G'raha that yanked us bc the us from his reality died before he woke up and that is how that reality will always play out and we just so happen to be from the reality he reaches into/splinters to save a future. not his future. the people of his future are far beyond his reach and have been since he traveled to the First.

And I think all of that is incredibly fascinating. Especially bc if the G'raha we know was the base of the Exarch you'd think, now that the Exarch's memories are part of him he'd act more like him. but it still doesn't sit right on his shoulders. bc it's not him. This is someone else. this is a role he can play, a mask he can slip into, a dance he knows. but it's not who he is. it's not where he's comfortable, like he was comfortable for 100 years. You see it in Thavnair, you see him steel himself for it. he sees what's happening and he knows what needs doing bc he's got the memories of managing a panicked peoples before in the middle of tragedy. But it's not him. The Exarch is a different man. And I wonder, desperately, how G'raha feels about that man.

[siderealcity]

The symbology of the Convocation of Fourteen is just... one of my favorite details in ffxiv. And yeah, I know they have zodiac signs because Final Fantasy Tactics had zodiac signs and FF12 had zodiac signs, but 14's spin on them is inspired, and I don't think that gets enough appreciation.

Each of the Ascians is characterized to at least superficially match their sign. Emet-Selch seems like a Gemini, seemingly on both sides of every issue. Fandaniel seems like a Leo who wants to be the center of attention. Lahabrea, The Creator, seems like an artsy Pisces... just...y'know, a horrible one.

And it's not as if "terrible, messed-up version of Zodiac symbol" is new here. Tactics definitely had that already. The thing ffxiv adds to the trope is the presence of the Sun.

Azem's symbol being the sun and not a constellation tells us exactly what their role in the Convocation was supposed to be. The sun's path through the constellations is what gives all those signs their meanings. You can't be a Gemini unless the sun is in Gemini. The sun's passage through the zodiac is supposed to illuminate the best way forward. This is why Emet-Selch calls them both "Shepherd to the stars in the dark," and "Counsellor to the star's people." They're meant to inspire people to become their best selves. This is inadvertently what WoL does in numerous places and times across the game, (and one of the ancients in Elpis even comments on it) because apparently repeatedly dying at the hands of their coworkers and friends for eons did not get them out of having to do their job.

When the sun protested their unspeakbly terrible plan, they went all in on their hubris by casting it down forever. They never replaced Azem. They don't even want to remember they ever had a sun. They don't have the light that illuminates their best selves, their better future. So they can't find it anymore. They don't know how to be themselves anymore, in Azem's absence. In Elidibus' case, literally. He is so desperate for the guiding star he can't even remember having, that he constantly, instinctively, seeks out Azem in different forms. Wearing Ardbert's corpse, and wandering up to WoL for awkward chats, and looking back to the heroes of the past who were definitely Azem shards.

The sun, torn from the heavens, leads to the maker's ruin.

[tritoch]

the other thing I find very funny about trying to write a canon compliant wol is taking all the wolship hints extremely seriously.

I don't really wolship because I'm just fundamentally not that kind of fan. But I know for those who are, the sheer number of romance hints FFXIV throws at you can be overwhelming to parse in a context where you have a preferred/intended wolship, particularly if you're not attracted to the gender the hints are coming from in the first place (a particular tip of the hat to wlw fans navigating the g'raha of it all). I've seen plenty of people write around them or write them out or be like "no aymeric was for real inviting my wol to a nice platonic zero-subtext dinner," and God bless all of you.

But it's really funny to imagine them all as all-too-real but unreciprocated or perhaps unreciprocatable. The sheer scale of it is comedy. Spoilers for all of FFXIV follow.

Oh God, the Lord Speaker wants to have dinner, just the two of us, at his family estate and not a government building. I hope he doesn't bring up his crush on me. Thal's balls he's about to bring it up—oh thank God there's an emergency. Oh no someone got hurt! Oh no it's the teenage girl with a crush on me.

Your life is a cosmic joke. You watch the Sultana get poisoned and all your friends probably die to save your life and it's kind of all your fault in some ways, I mean at the very least you should've spoken up when they gave the teenager a private army, and then the teenage boy speaks up and is like, "hey, I guess we have at least one ally. What about if we go visit that guy who is really obviously down unbelievably bad for you and wants to lick the sweat off of you." and you have to be like, yeah, Alphinaud. Great idea. Let's do it. I'll call him.

(brief interlude: also haurchefant's DEATH hits so good if you don't reciprocate. It's okay. He gets it. You're going through a lot and even if you had time to sort through your feelings maybe you're just not into him. That would be okay! You can love someone, or the idea of someone, without needing it to be romantically reciprocated. That's chivalric, even. Knightly. So he won't ask you to lie to him and say you love him as he lies dying in your arms. He's not so low as all that. But could you smile for him as you used to? That true hero's smile of yours. And you do, and he dies. And you both know he died for a lie, in a way, or a flight of fancy. And he's okay with that. Are you? Should you be? Should he?)

Then you're into Stormblood and it's like wow, okay. That last part was all high fantasy, of course there were loyal knights and elegant princes. But this is war. Imperialism. Grim business, surely there's no way—oh no BOTH handsome young revolutionary leaders seem to have a special interest in you?! And so does the Crown Prince of the Empire? Come on, man. I should get to do the whole horrors of war thing without having to also deal with this. Gaius sucked and it was weird that he let his foster daughter run around being openly obsessed with him but at least he never made it my problem.

You can't even get away from it across dimensions. Shadowbringers is a horror story about going on a teambuilding camping trip with your work colleagues for some reason except they all suddenly got really hot and they keep touching you affectionately on the shoulder and being like "I care for you and your happiness. Truly." And also you're being stalked for the whole camping trip by two old men who are obsessed with you. The false climax of the story is that the one old man tries to betray you and give a dramatic monologue about how he loves you but the two of you are doomed by the narrative and then the other old man shoots him in the back like "no actually its MY turn to betray them and give a dramatic monologue about how our love is doomed by the narrative." Then the real climax is old man #1 backstabbing old man #2 in the middle of said monologue before old man #2 dies and gives ANOTHER wistful monologue about his doomed love. Then for the patches they're like okay so we have this even CRAZIER old man who's gonna strike when you're weak and give a dramatic monolo—

and that's without even getting into the literal soulmate ghost only you can see

my warrior of light never felt more betrayed than in that scene where Y'shtola is like "haha Alisaie and G'raha have crushes on the warrior of light." Like I thought we were COOL, Y'shtola! I work here! This situation is already in such a delicate balance! Right when I got here I met Alisaie's "friend from work" who was like oh haha so YOU'RE the one she can't stop talking about and we never followed up on that because the woman died horrifically like five minutes later right in front of us! Then when Vauthry got away and we had to do all that shit with the dwarves, G'raha kept pausing every ten minutes to be like oooooh I'm so old I'm gonna die soon...at least I got to spend some time with some people who are really important to me...in fact here's what I'd tell the person who's most important to me...actually u know them really well haha. And I just had to sit there and be like wow, dude, crazy.

even in the face of apocalypse you still gotta go back in time like 12,000 years and there's somewhere there who makes you sit and listen to his story which is that the purpose of his whole godlike immortal life was to be in a throuple with you and old man #2 from the camping trip. and you just gotta sit there the whole time knowing you/your past life is the one who broke up the throuple over politics. He's like come help me harangue the old man into streaking in public, he'll do it if you ask.

then you meet and fight and kill God and you gotta turn to the team and be like hey sorry guys can you give me a sec. I'm gonna call God by her real name because we met one time for like four days and after that the promise of meeting me again was one of the things that sustained her through her millennia of suffering. Not like that but like. Idk. Just gimme a sec!

It's a relief when you finally get to Lahabrea and he's like actually I still don't fuck with your vibe. Like thank GOD.

And my WoL is very obviously dad-shaped so Dawntrail had a very specific energy for me but I understand that for plenty of people your deepening rapport with Wuk Lamat had a romantic subtext (same for Koana depending on how you read a few of his lines). And personally I think it's the height of comedy to be like, noooo, babe, your highness, I know you and your brother the king are in love with me and want me to stick around and support you emotionally through this governmental transition haha. But it's just...the cursed wineglass, babe. I GOTTA go figure out what's up with this cursed wineglass.

It's a running gag in some of the more optional content that people are like "you have an unreasonable number of hobbies and side gigs" to the WoL from time to time. But if every time you tried picking up a new hobby some new elf started baring their soul to you, you too would be like Hey Jessie (or sometimes Krile or Tataru), my good friend who is one of the only people in my life who knows what professional ethics and work-life boundaries are, any chance you need muscle on a gig on the other side of the world? Ideally with only Cid and his ex so all libidinal energy in the room is directed towards machinery or someone who isn't me?

ironically one of the only places you get a break from psychosexual obsession is the nier content

[worldoshaking]

I find Y’shtola so interesting; I think she exemplifies some very fascinating dilemmas, but what’s unique about her is that they’re externalised as ways of seeing the world rather than internal emotional states. Her perspective is also a really important aspect of the story and the world.

The most fundamental thing about her is that she’s a scientist. It’s not just what she does, it’s who she is. It represents her strengths, her ambitions, her temperament, and the way she interacts with the world.

Unlike the other scions, she’s a scientist who grew up outside of Sharlayan’s academic structure, and is unbounded by its strictures and politics. She represents unbounded theoretical curiosity, independent of institutions and all their dampening considerations. It’s a beautiful, idealised vision of what science could be, if unbound by considerations like institutional approval and funding. It’s something Y’shtola learned in part from Matoya, who rejected the confines of Sharlayan academia and accomplished stupendous things in her cave.

I think this complements G’raha Tia, who represents an idealised vision of what academia could be: he explores the limits of what people can achieve together if they can throw aside clout-chasing, nepotism, petty politicking, biases, and the other things that cloud the idealism of academic institutions. G’raha is someone who fell in love with what Sharlayan represented, and came back to point out how they fell short of their own ideals. G’raha is someone who works to reform institutions; Y’shtola simply works independently of them, pushing the limits of what one person can accomplish.

Another very scientific characteristic of Y’shtola is her refusal to acknowledge limits: when she finds a thing that can’t be done, she hammers at it until it budges. She is convinced that there are answers to everything, and that science can find them. This is really something that’s fundamental to the scientific method: the idea that there’s always an answer to the question of ’why,’ and that that answer is something we can find and comprehend. What are atoms made of? Why are there only so many fundamental particles? Why do voidgates form? What is the fate of the universe? There is an answer, and she’ll find it. This is part of her initial clash with G’raha; she is insistent on the truth, and doesn’t like his keeping secrets.

She is also committed to seeing the science through, no matter what she’ll learn from it. She was ready to hear the Ea’s answer about the fate of the universe, no matter how terrible it was. And when she finds it, she’ll greet the unknown with delight; when she meets Zero, she looks the void in the face and smiles.

She’s also just a little remote, in the way of one who has spent too long staring into the heart of things. This doesn’t change the fact that she is a brave, steadfast, loyal companion to her friends, and a staunch champion of what’s right in the world. It’s something very personal; she sees things beyond the others’ sight, and her heart is preoccupied with things that are very removed from the considerations of everyday.

The Sharlayans’ performance of scientific objectivity is shown to be rooted in their very human prejudices, something that’s very true of institutional science in our world too. Y’shtola’s objectivity isn’t that sort of cold, inhumane objectivity; it isn’t a pretext for bigotry, or an abdication of responsibility. It’s something much more remote and whimsical, a commitment to a way of approaching things rather than a badge of superiority.

These are all, in a way, things that characterise the WoL, and I think they underlie the curious solidarity that builds between them post-Endwalker. The WoL, in a different way, is someone who doesn’t acknowledge the limitations of common sense, someone who looks truth in the face without flinching.

It’s also a delightful contrast, because the WoL is someone who repeatedly defies the limits of possibility, and that makes it even more interesting that they’re drawn together. Y’shtola is someone dancing at those very limits; the point where the preposterous becomes fact is where scientific discovery is born.

It’s also a very fun way of seeing science. Science as an institution is actually preoccupied with a kind of individualism - with the performance of individual merit, with the idea of the lone genius. (As we see in post-ARR, Alphinaud is misled by the accolades of the Studium to disastrous hubris.) Y’shtola might be fiercely independent, but she also isn’t that lone genius. She is utterly preoccupied with finding the answers, and not at all with any idea of personal success. The thing that lets her transcend her limits, the thing that lets her accomplish more than Matoya could, is friendship. When she works with the Scions, or Nidhana, or Zero, she can accomplish more than she ever could on her own.

I also think it’s very relevant that she’s a woman; in both our world and theirs, academia is largely male-dominated, and a lot of its flaws have to do with upholding that hegemony and not being open to more diverse perspectives. The ideal of the lone genius is overwhelmingly associated with men.

I think there’s something deeply idealistic and joyous about this unfettered spirit of scientific curiosity persisting through and after the events of Endwalker. We met the god of everything and defeated her in a duel; that doesn’t mean we know all the answers, or even all the questions. We cross paths with a far more technologically advanced civilisation, and Y’shtola is still able to have interesting scientific conversations with them. Even if many things about our world are arbitrary and uncaring, Y’shtola holds to her belief in the scientific method, and is still wholly, exuberantly committed to seeking out truths.

[anneapocalypse]

Okay hot take time: If the Archon title is granted to people who have made significant advances in a particular field, they should be giving an Archon mark to Alisaie for her work in curing tempering. Like why haven't they already given it to her, honestly. That is a world-changing scientific achievement. Anyone who achieved something on that level in the real world wouldn't just have a PhD, they'd have a Nobel prize.

[picaroroboto]

As an appreciator of angst I like the times when the WoL's friends and allies worry for them: there's no doubt that the WoL can fight most anything and win, but that doesn't stop their loved ones from being concerned for their mental and emotional health, and there's an interesting flavor to that sort of drama. The scene I really want to talk about now though isn't about the WoL's friends.

The scene being the one in the StB post-patches where Fordola has an Echo vision of the WoL's past and is, to put it simply, shaken by what she sees. Her horror at the WoL's past isn't because she's worried about them as a friend, far from it, she's basically still an enemy at this point. My brother has a good take that Fordola's false Echo acts as a sort of "forced empathy" for her - she has her ways of rationalizing and justifying the bad things she's done, feeling little for the people she hurts, until the Echo forces her to see and share in that pain. So she gets a moment of direct soul-to-soul communication with the WoL, not friend to friend but just human to human, and her reaction is shock, confusion, and a small amount of empathy too, because she felt their pain through the Echo.

No doubt it's a sobering moment for the WoL as well. Like her, like anyone else, they likely have their own ways of compartmentalizing, justifying, choosing the stories they tell themself about what they've done and what's been done to them. By Stormblood they've likely come to accept their way of life as what's normal for them - but then someone looks at their life and her reaction is basically "how have you not gone insane yet?". It's a jarring reminder that all that fighting and grieving and being used as a weapon is not normal or okay.

The dialogue options in response are all very characteristic of the WoL: simple and blunt, a little bit harsh - there's no quips here considering the gravity of the moment. There's also, notably, no "..." option that crops up often in other exchanges. You can't keep silence, in this moment you have to choose a reason to say why you're still standing, for your own sake as much as for the one asking.

(Also, I have heard that this exchange is a bit different in some of the other translations of the game, with more emphasis put on the Echo and how the WoL suffers from being exposed to other people's pain as opposed to just their own pain in the English version. I don't think either version is right or wrong, but I do like the rare times where the Echo is explored as something more than a plot device for giving plot-relevent flashbacks. The Echo is psychic empathy; the fact that they frequently get brain-blasted with other people's trauma plays a role in the WoL's heroism.)

[emcapi-gaming]

Sphene and Wuk Lamat: A Theory

So... There's something that's been on my mind since I first played Dawntrail. And tbh, I'm surprised that I don't think I've seen anyone else come to the same conclusion, because it was really obvious to me.

Yeah uh... ever since like 10 minutes into meeting Sphene, I've suspected that her and Wuk Lamat are each others shards/reflections.

My initial suspicion was largely based on personality, the way that they immediately clicked and seemed to have a lot in common. And then I was like "wait a fucking second, they have almost exactly the same eye color, if not a perfect match," which pretty much cinched it for me.

(Note: technically - since, as far as we know, the Sphene we met was a recreation without a soul - it would have been the original, living Sphene who was Wuk Lamat's shard.)

It's pretty undeniable that they're set up as narrative foils from a character perspective, but I think it goes beyond that. This line in particular grabbed my attention:

That's... pretty direct.

And that's also the big difference between them: Wuk Lamat is someone who is physically strong and was raised as a warrior; Sphene is neither of these things.

The other thing that's standing out to me is that this whole situation between them, where they have mutually conflicting goals? Where one invades the other's world, even, putting it into peril, for the sake of saving their own?

We've seen it before.

Even including the fact that the main character's reflection is already dead.

And after patch 7.1, I'm only more convinced... because guess what?

I daresay we've seen this before too.

And beyond just the interesting narrative parallels between Sphene & Wuk Lamat and the WoL & Ardbert, the fact that Sphene's story clearly isn't over is making me think that this is going to be relevant.

[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.

[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.

[parallelkozak]

all else is equal

[lilas]

Also thoughts about Endless!Cahciua having emotions other than happiness, kind of as a tangent from this post:

She never would be happy in Living Memory because exploring and traveling was what made her happiest; her happiness is functionally incompatible to her reality as an Endless

Erenville is obviously dealing with a lot and she has No idea how to handle that, and is either redirecting to other things reiterating her feelings again

This could be that Endless!Cahciua is just acting according to how Cahciua would (several comments from Erenville make it seem that she was dismissive when he was upset)

OR it could that Endless!Cahciua can’t possibly adapt to This New Elene’shypya because Cahciua never met the man Erenville became while he was abroad for three years, so she doesn’t know how to have these new complicated conversations with him

In conclusion, I am sooooo fascinating by their relationship and Cahciua omg, and it makes me so sad that Cahciua never saw for herself how Erenville changed and grew.

[farfromdaylight]

i try not to complain about heavensward. i really do. it's a beloved expansion. people love ishgard. i love ishgard.

however, heavensward FUCKING SUCKS.

listen. so much of heavensward's plot is either badly written or badly paced or both. if you play through it once and don't think about it further, it's a great game. if you even glance back at it, it falls apart like a house of cards.

Actual shit that happens in Heavensward (spoilers):

You fight against the Heavens Ward to prove you're not a heretic. Five minutes later you have to go back to Ul'dah to save Raubahn.

After several levels of exploring Dravania and reaching the Churning Mists, you finally find Nidhogg's lair. You can't get there. You turn around and go back to Ishgard.

While you're fucking about waiting for the manacutters to get done, you go get the sultana back. Literally the entire plot momentum built up from your big road trip across Dravania comes to a dead halt as you go back to Ul'dah.

You slay Nidhogg. You go back to Ishgard. You spend eight quests killing time until the Vault, learn that class warfare is a thing, and fight off one of the Heavens Ward, who BACKFLIPS AWAY FROM YOU.

Immediately after the Vault, you go fight a whale.

The Emperor of Garlemald shows up in the Sea of Clouds just to tell you that you suck.

At the exact moment Y'shtola would be convenient to the plot, she returns.

The archbishop gets to Azys Lla way before you, but helpfully waits until you get there before continuing the plot.

and so on. i'm sure there's more.

here's my problem with heavensward: individually, there are a lot of great plot elements in it. however, they are presented in such a fucking buckwild manner that a lot of them are diminished. let's take the Hilda section for example: it's great to learn about Ishgard's class struggles! Of course this is great worldbuilding! However the actual section where you learn about it feels like (and basically is) filler. You finish the Aery, learn a lot of important Dragon Lore, and come back to Ishgard. You then have to fuck about until you're a high enough level to do the Vault, and in that section you do some of the worst fetchquesting in the game. It is atrocious.

Are there things I like about Heavensward? Absolutely. I fucking love Ishgard. I think the overall worlbuilding is phenomenal. Dragon vs man is a compelling storyline. But my god, the plotting and pacing are SO BAD. You spend an unbelievable amount of 3.0 dealing with the Ul'dah plotlines of post-ARR when you should be fully immersed in Ishgardian politics. It would not have killed you to leave the sultana stuff for HW patch quests, guys.

The best comparison I can make is that it's like if in Shadowbringers, instead of seeing the Meanwhile In Garlemald sections, you instead had to just abandon the First and head back to deal with that shit right before fighting a Lightwarden. It brings the narrative to a dead halt. It just doesn't work.

And like, I get it. It's not easy to write a game like FF14. The fact that later expansions are as well-written as they are is frankly a miracle. This is a huge worldbuild with a ton of plot threads and it's incredible even half of them get wrapped up. But viewed in isloation, Heavensward is one of the most tonally inconsistent parts of the entire story.

[tritoch]

the warrior of light as a game-breaking force of violence

there's a moment, relatively early in dawntrail, that establishes succinctly how out of place the warrior of light (as the savior of eorzea and main character of four successive final fantasy game plots) is in what is essentially the story of fresh new final fantasy protagonist wuk lamat. and it sets up quite nicely how the framework of fantasy video game conflict pulls the warrior of light forever towards violence as the expansion goes on.

spoilers through 7.0 follow

consider wuk lamat's kidnapping and rescue. bakool ja ja holds his blade to wuk lamat's throat, taunting you. his lackeys line up against your party in neat little ranks suspiciously reminiscent of a classic final fantasy encounter screen.

and it simply does not matter to the warrior of light. you stride right through their combat setup because you are beyond that by now. the warrior of light has absolutely no respect for the "we are about to do ATB combat" lineup. the camera even jumps the line for you in one continuous rotating shot, crossing the axis of action as though to emphasize through the disruption of visual convention how far outside the game's boundaries you are.

this is how far you are above the problems of dawntrail's first half. you cannot even be bound by the normal rules of cinematography and video game combat. everyone else here lined up for a good old-fashioned scrap and the warrior of light said haha nope actually. i'm going to stroll through here like a god of war astride this tiny battlefield. your henchmen cannot even raise a hand to me. i don't even have to engage in violence directly anymore. my mere presence is enough.

in fact, not only can bakool ja ja's henchmen not raise a hand to you, he's not even worthy of your direct intervention. he kidnaps wuk lamat and steals her keystones and frees valigarmanda and kidnaps hunmu rruk and none of it warrants the warrior of light so much as raising a finger. he's wuk lamat's recurring villain, that's not your problem. you're just here to take in the scenery.

zoraal ja spends his whole life aspiring to be thought of as his father's equal and a worthy successor to the dawnservant as the "resilient son." all it takes for gulool ja ja to acknowledge you as a warrior on his level is like a five minute sparring match. the acknowledgement from gulool ja ja that zoraal ja hungered for his whole life and would eventually go full cyborg supervillain to get via regicide is something the warrior of light receives casually in a throwaway line after their level 93 solo duty on the way to more important plot conversations.

it really seems for a second, in the first half of dawntrail, like you are strong enough and the problems simple enough for this to be a clean and easy adventure. bakool ja ja? power of friendship'd. mamook? successfully reintegrated, no worries about the crimes against humanity. rite of succession? handily won. nothing can stop you. even duty finder queue times have been conquered: you can do all your duties with trusts now.

all of which only makes it better when the second half has sphene ask you and wuk lamat directly: could your strength have been enough to save alexandria? could you have found a different way?

i know some people get very annoyed we don't intervene in the gulool ja ja fight. now personally i think if you see arthur and mordred squaring up it's rude to intervene, but beyond that, it simply wouldn't have mattered. by the time zoraal ja's forces arrived in tuliyollal, alexandria and tural were already on a collision course and doomed to conflict. your hands alone could never have averted this conflict. sphene was always bound to do what she did—and certainly a gulool ja ja without his reason would not be any more inclined to peace than wuk lamat and koana were.

there's a great little moment just before living memory where estinien, champion at reading the room, is like "okay so if thancred and i stay here that frees up you up, aibou, to do what you do best and save the world and have epic fights. woo!!!" and immediately afterwards you basically have to apologize to alisaie because part of the sort of unspoken premise of this whole trip in the first place was that you were, finally, not going to plunge into mortal peril to save the world. you were finally going to take it easy. you were finally done with that. and she has to sort of ruefully be like nah it's fine bro. i was trying to get you to take it easy and not do insane risky world-saving violence. but y'know these things (interdimensional invasions) happen.

by the time you reach the very last trial, all pretense that the warrior of light could have ever been beyond these problems has vanished. you were, very emphatically, not strong enough to hold onto all that was dear without sacrifice. gulool ja ja and otis and cahciua died. yyasulani was irreversibly changed, physically colonized and culturally decimated by another dimension. you systematically shut down each part of living memory, and all its friendly, charming, loving ghosts, with your own hands. with your own clicks.

not even the vaunted strength of the warrior of light is enough to overcome sphene's inexorable logic of conflict. and so, in the end, she plucks you out of the crowd and says, explicitly for reasons of your strength, that you are going to have to do a boss fight now. you are going to have to kill her and you are going to have to do it in a proper 8-on-1 trial, and she forces you to affirmatively state that you understand you're going to kill her.

did you think you were above it all? did you think you could get away from here with your weapon undrawn, with your hands clean? that for you and you alone the logic of conflict comes undone? wrong. wrong. wrong.

your strength cannot redeem you, says sphene. your friends cannot make these sacrifices for you. if you would play the hero then you must play the hero. no half-measures.

back to the duty finder with ye.

[anneapocalypse]

On wards and the Waking Sands.

Edited to add: Please look at this version of the post, as there's some additional context I neglected to include in the original post.

I can't say whether this was intended, but there's something very interesting, and somewhat heartbreaking, about looking at the Garlean attack on the Waking Sands in light of certain plot points in the Warring Triad storyline.

In the latter, Urianger takes great pains to ward the containment bays on Azys Lla specifically so that the Garleans sniffing around the isles can't get into them and take control of the primals contained within. So certain is he that his wards are impassable by Garlean invaders that when they get past them regardless, he figures out pretty quickly that someone else must have taken them down, and that that someone is Unukalhai.

I wove the ward in accordance with the most closely guarded teachings of the archmages of Sharlayan. Naught was left to chance. Naught.

It's not surprising to me that Urianger, an Archon and arcanist, would have knowledge of such things. What is notable is that there were seemingly no such wards upon the Waking Sands when Livia sas Junius marched through its doors in ARR, slaughtering most of the Scions present and taking Minfilia and several others--those others including two Archons and talented mages--captive.

The Garlean attack has always stood out to me as highlighting the weaknesses in the Scions' operations in ARR. Far from mentioning any magical wards, Minfilia's shock is that Livia knew where to look for them at all. Clearly, the Scions believed their headquarters to be a far better-kept secret than it actually was, and this is well before the defeat of the Ultima Weapon thrusts them into the public eye. (In fact, after playing through this myself for the first time, every time I was called back to the Waking Sands thereafter I kept shouting at my screen, "NO! That location is compromised!" 😂)

It speaks to how the Scions had been operating before and during ARR, I think, that they really seemed to have believed secrecy alone would protect them.

And I can't help thinking of how this particular mistake must have haunted Urianger, in particular. After the bloody banquet, it's noted that he has cast a glamour over the Waking Sands to make it appear abandoned--a spell which Tataru says he has been preparing since the Garlean attack.

Though he rarely speaks of it, I think there's no doubt the attack affected him. I've written before of how I think this incident contributes to Urianger's subsequent downward spiral, considering that prior to the attack we see him socializing with many of the Scions who are later killed by Livia's troops. In light of the magicks he later employs specifically against the Garleans, I cannot help but think he probably holds himself responsible for failing to protect his friends and colleagues, one of many regrets that drive his later actions.

[picaroroboto]

Shadowbringers is a ghost story, it's a love story, it's a post-apocalyptic horror story, it's a high fantasy that turns the genre's notions of light and dark and hero and villain inside-out and upside-down. Fitting with the whole light and dark schema it's FF14's writing at it's darkest and edgiest, and most optimistic and hopeful at the same time. It's about the struggle of finding and protecting whatever hope you can in the most painful of situations, about how even the strongest of us have to rely on one another, and it's an allegory about healing from grief and trauma on a grand scale. It's about choosing an imperfect present, a broken world, over a false promise of a utopian past.

Most importantly it's a story about the universal human experience of trying to kill evil angels while being lied to by wizards who are weirdly obsessed with you.

[emcapi-gaming]

i am back on my tinfoil hat bullshit

ok so i know "x is a shard of y" theories are totally overdone but unfortunately i have a very specific flavor of autism that makes me go bonkers over similarities between characters

and i will be honest i'm putting a lot less stock in this one than the Wuk Lamat/Sphene theory in terms of how sure I am that I'm right, but! hear me out! (also even if this turns out to be absolutely nothing, i may still roll with it as a headcanon just for fun :3)

"but emcapi," you say, "they literally just look alike because they're both face 4 fem elezen!"

yes, i do fully admit this one might just be a coincidence!

but it's a really fun coincidence :D

additional points (thank you, Garland Tools, for enabling my tinfoil-hatting):

exact same iris color

exact same lipstick color

same bangs! (which I honestly didn't even realize until I put them side by side)

Now, narratively, this would actually explain a great deal about Shale getting pulled into the Main Character Squad at lightning (har har) speed. Which is that, specifically, I'm 97.5% sure that our next expac is going to be a joint Meracydia/Southern Seas + Void expansion.

Why I'm so convinced:

Fits with "patches playing setup for the second-next expac" pattern: see also, Doman refugees in ARR patches -> Stormblood, Warriors of Darkness in HW patches -> Shadowbringers.

We have very obviously not seen the last of Zero (I MISS MY WIFE, TAILS)

We are SOOOOOO obviously going to Meracydia it's not even funny.

It's like the only destination on Emet-Selch's itinerary we still haven't hit up.

AND we had all that business with the Milallas coming from the South Seas, and using the Mysterious Hourglass to do it, which OBVIOUSLY warrants some investigation.

Huuuge connection between Meracydia + Void via the war with the Allagans (which is how Azdaja got stuck in the Void in the first place)

With the context of all the other hints, specifically having Cloud of Darkness as the first chaotic raid is making me go 🤔🤔🤔 another hint, perhaps?

IN CONCLUSION: i have max brainrot debuff stacks BUT i am definitely on to something with the next expac, and i am either on to something or have made a VERY fun new headcanon with Shale and Cyella/Cylva.