wryter324

[wryter324]

Final Fantasy XIV's plot has a lot of mystery, deception, betrayal, and hidden sides

At least A Realm Reborn does. I started playing in January of this year, so maybe I'm late to the realization, but:

Everything to do with the Ascians (mystery, hidden sides): Their objectives and motivations are a giant mystery the plot revolves around unraveling, and all of them are people who cast aside their original identities

Foulques' backstory in the Lancer questline (mystery, betrayal): Part of a group that embezzled funds from the Lancer's Guild in private who couldn't bear the guilt and sought to confess, but the rest of his group backed out and let him take the full blame, turning him bitter and driving him to accuse the entire Guild of cowardice.

The side story of Edda, a novice conjurer (deception, betrayal, hidden sides): After losing her fiancé, she acts like she's going to give him his proper rites and move on as an adventurer after being inspired by you, but secretly delves into a mad quest to resurrect him.

"Into a Copper Hell" (mystery, deception): You catch a merchant accusing an innocent woman of stealing from him.

"What Poor People Think" and "Dressed to Deceive" (deception): The same merchant, Ungust, deflects suspicion away from himself in an investigation of a missing persons case. You then catch him duping wayward souls into Amal'jaa capture by posing as a priest.

"Lord of the Inferno" (deception, betrayal): After coercing Ungust into helping retaliate against the Amal'jaa, it turns out he AND a traitorous member of the Immortal Flames played you into a trap.

Trachtoum (deception): A random Roegadyn who dupes you into doing labor for him, under the guise of him being a former member of the Company of Heroes testing your mettle in your quest to face Titan. The most benign example of deception I could think of, but after you're done with him, you meet Wheiskaet, a real member of the Company of Heroes who also subjects you to a series of menial tasks as a test of your mettle.

"Give a Man a Drink" (mystery, betrayal, hidden sides): You discover the existence of a grape vine thought to be extinct post-Calamity, thanks to Drest, a homeless man with PTSD revealed to be an Imperial deserter pining for his true home country. Some of his former allies seek him out for revenge in a Deputy Postmoogle sidequest, but you don't find out until Stormblood that his home country was Damasca.

Cid nan Garlond (mystery, hidden sides): During your initial time with the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, you meet up with Biggs and Wedge, a pair of engineers who worked under a "Master Garlond" and sorely wish he was still here to help them. In the early quest "A Proper Burial", you meet an enigmatic priest named Marques, who turns out to be an amnesiac tech genius trying to understand his own abilities in "You Can't Take It with You", then Alphinaud outs him as Garlond in "Eyes on Me", revealing his full name in the process.

The entire MSQ from "Cold Reception" to "The Heretic Among Us" (mystery, deception): The Ishgardian High Houses refuse to trust you because you're an outsider, forcing you (an outsider) to solve their problems and unravel a conspiracy taking place under their noses. Inquisitor Guillaime has the unwavering trust of the Ishgardians in the Coerthas Central Highlands, able to turn them against you with a single claim no one thinks to doubt. Of course, he turns out to be an impostor and the heretic behind the conspiracy, who has sent countless innocent people to their deaths to spite House Durendaire. Even in his dying moments, he taunts Drillemont with the fact that the latter blindly permitted those deaths along with the deaths of any who dared to question Ishgard's crusade.

And that's only as far as I've gotten in the game and looked up on the wiki. I'm also led to understand that there's a main story quest where you get in on the deception by impersonating an Imperial soldier to infiltrate their ranks.

I find it weird how much the game uses this trope. All this mystery gets stale after a while.

Open to discussion, all spoilers allowed.