multijoe posted:

Also she's hot

Eimi posted:

Fordola's hotter.

Nessus posted:

Ultimately the appearance comes down to personal taste.

In terms of personality however, even leaving aside the war crimes, I look at Fordola and I see someone who will be constantly testing to see if you really care about them if you were in a relationship. Which would probably be made even worse by having surface-level telepathy. "I KNEW IT YOU SECRETLY loving HATED ME ALL ALONG!" &c.

Hogama posted:

Badger of Basra posted:

FFXIV Spoiler Thread: even leaving aside the war crimes,

Valleyant posted:

If there one thing I hate about 14 is that it seems to be in love with trying to redeem war criminals. Sympathetic villains are fine and good but if emet turned out to be our very best bud next expac I'd do a 180 on my opinion of the character

Vanderdeath posted:

My WoL is going to run away and get gay married to F'lhaminn and Mother Miounne personally

Cleretic posted:

I've mentioned before, I think my big problem with the way XIV does sympathy plays for villains is that they pick villains with very distinct, often observed crimes, and sweeps them under the rug in the process.

Like, random example, compare Emet with Magus from Chrono Trigger. Magus' crimes are honestly kind of vague and indistinct; we know he's waging war against man, but we don't really see why, or how, or what kind of damage he causes when doing so. Even so, when he does start getting his Vegeta treatment, Frog very directly challenges him on it as someone who has been hurt by Magus, and gets significant focus when he does so.

Emet, meanwhile, has very specific crimes under his belt, being responsible for several genocides, as well as the crimes of both the Allagan and Garlean Empires, who together comprise about 90% of the sources of problems we've seen in FFXIV's world. We know the specifics and details of what he's done, because we've been going up against it basically all game. And as we get to know him, we learn that the reasons are very selfish and dismissive of the pain he's caused. Yet despite his crimes being much more serious, we don't get that Frog moment where someone takes him to task, center-stage; the most we get is part of an ensemble callout that never really gets acknowledged by the character or the greater game.

Emet's the worst about it, but not the only one; Yotsuyu's previous sympathy play similarly never adequately acknowledged the whole 'she was still a tyrannical despot' thing (in fact, it paints calling her out on that as the problem when it does happen), and while Fordola's story certainly isn't done, it also only really grapples with her crimes from the perspective of how she feels about it, no direct voice is given to the victims.

...in fact, in retrospect also true of Ysayle, who I actually like. The pain of those she hurt is never addressed, only her pain in being deceived into doing it. Basically the only 'redeemed villain' who gets treated like their sins carry real weight to people they harmed in their redemption/sympathy story is Gaius.

Cleretic posted:

Emet's the worst about it, but not the only one; Yotsuyu's previous sympathy play similarly never adequately acknowledged the whole 'she was still a tyrannical despot' thing (in fact, it paints calling her out on that as the problem when it does happen), and while Fordola's story certainly isn't done, it also only really grapples with her crimes from the perspective of how she feels about it, no direct voice is given to the victims.

...in fact, in retrospect also true of Ysayle, who I actually like. The pain of those she hurt is never addressed, only her pain in being deceived into doing it. Basically the only 'redeemed villain' who gets treated like their sins carry real weight to people they harmed in their redemption/sympathy story is Gaius.

Nessus posted:

Yotsuyu was fixing to kill herself when her parents happened to wander into frame and say "Hey! You're still pretty hot! I bet we could sell you again!" so like, I'm not sure I would cast the 4.3 events as a "sympathy play" exactly.

What, in the context of the FFXIV environment, would be giving voice to the victims? Like it seems that the various crimes and horrors inflicted by these people do come up, there is just not a WOL-based oral/people's history project involving interviewing all the survivors and documenting grave sites. I do not think that I can blame the devs for not including a ton of that.

Nessus posted:

Mechanically, he probably could be either DPS or some kind of Dark Knight-esque tank if he's channeling Nidhogg's power.

Spiritually, he should have the dungeon theme be replaced by a Soken cover of House of Pain's 'Jump Around'

Rand Brittain posted:

I think Gaius and Fordola both count as redeemed.

The trouble comes when people don't accept "redemption" unless it comes with lots of penetential suffering.

ImpAtom posted:

I mean that actually comprises a good chunk of the "go to a place and talk to someone" plotlines!

Valleyant posted:

I don't think you can be redeemed without contributing to a restorative justice imho. I have no idea how you'd make that happen ingame but I'm also very much not a writer.

Valleyant posted:

I don't think you can be redeemed without contributing to a restorative justice imho. I have no idea how you'd make that happen ingame but I'm also very much not a writer.

Valleyant posted:

I don't think you can be redeemed without contributing to a restorative justice imho. I have no idea how you'd make that happen ingame but I'm also very much not a writer.

Valleyant posted:

I don't think you can be redeemed without contributing to a restorative justice imho. I have no idea how you'd make that happen ingame but I'm also very much not a writer.

cheetah7071 posted:

The weapons arc basically ended on Gaius promising to do that, offscreen so that's one option

Orcs and Ostriches posted:

Ysale for that matter is probably as close as anyone else. Her actions at the end directly and crucially aided in the end of the Dragonsong War. If being instrumental in stopping the war she aided in counts as redemption, that's up there.

Valleyant posted:

I think most of it being offscreen is what leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

ImpAtom posted:

The entire Weapons arc is him actively working towards that while also seeing the personal and emotional cost of the actions he was responsible for. It is all onscreen.

There's only so much time a story can dedicate to this kind of stuff but he got an entire plot arc dedicated entirely to him working towards freeing one of his most famous conquered lands and having it driven super-hard into his head that the suffering inflicted on people was his fault.

I think that's important to stress. Gaius' plot is exactly what that looks like within the context of a fictional story. You're going to see the biggest and most dramatic moments because that is how storytelling functions.

ImpAtom posted:

The entire Weapons arc is him actively working towards that while also seeing the personal and emotional cost of the actions he was responsible for. It is all onscreen.

There's only so much time a story can dedicate to this kind of stuff but he got an entire plot arc dedicated entirely to him working towards freeing one of his most famous conquered lands and having it driven super-hard into his head that the suffering inflicted on people was his fault.

I think that's important to stress. Gaius' plot is exactly what that looks like within the context of a fictional story. You're going to see the biggest and most dramatic moments because that is how storytelling functions.

Cleretic posted:

Yeah, I point out Gaius as the only one that's done it right because it does everything it reasonably could. I'm still not sure how I feel about him, really, but his redemption was sold as hard as it could have been, and I'm willing to accept it. Crucially, it's not an entirely internal journey, either, he's directly faced with his wrongs and those hurt by it, and works to right them.

I'm not actually a big fan of Merlwyb, despite what that one strawman post aimed at me seems to think (probably my least favorite city-state), but it did that right, too; Merlwyb actively reaches out, faces, and tries to right the specific sins that Limsa needs to answer for. Not a redemption story, but similarly it needed to do right by the victims, and did.

In contrast, sure Emet dies, but he dies never having really acknowledged the horrible things he did, and the game continues to never bring the, you know, multiple genocides into the picture when talking about him. They never quite go to 'redeem' him, but I keep saying 'sympathy play' because that's what they do, demand we feel sympathetic towards him without properly bringing the people he hurt into the picture.


My view is just that the people a villain is hurt by deserve to be given voice in the arcs humanizing them. The people that died under the Garlean regime are as human as the Garlean soldiers that committed it, after all.

ImpAtom posted:

Whatever city state is your favorite has similar issues. So do Ishgard and anything overseas.

When have the people who have been hurt not been given voice in the arcs humanizing them? Because it is part of both Emet Selch and Yotsuyu's plotlines.

Cleretic posted:

My favorite city-state is Ul'Dah, because it actually has a whole top-to-bottom story about how it's a capitalist hellhole built on the backs of the poor with a political environment that can't be un-hosed. You show me a peaceful, sinless utopia in a game like this, and I'll show you an underdeveloped setting.

And again, the victims of Emet's actions aren't being given sufficient voice in his, the extent of it is a part of an ensemble callout, none of which is addressed. Yotsuyu's victims do get voice when she goes to Namai, but I feel like their voicing that is portrayed as the problem when it happens. For all the spotlight Fordola's had, we haven't heard a peep yet from the people the Skulls actually oppressed.

Cleretic posted:

My favorite city-state is Ul'Dah, because it actually has a whole top-to-bottom story about how it's a capitalist hellhole built on the backs of the poor with a political environment that can't be un-hosed. You show me a peaceful, sinless utopia in a game like this, and I'll show you an underdeveloped setting.

And again, the victims of Emet's actions aren't being given sufficient voice in his, the extent of it is a part of an ensemble callout, none of which is addressed. Yotsuyu's victims do get voice when she goes to Namai, but I feel like their voicing that is portrayed as the problem when it happens. For all the spotlight Fordola's had, we haven't heard a peep yet from the people the Skulls actually oppressed.

Nessus posted:

As for the people Fordola was stepping on, I think they do get a fair amount of face time in the form of the people who are too beat down to be easily roused by Lyse and in the aftermath of the successful uprising, who are all gathering up for a meeting.

There's that one merchant guy who explicitly says to Fordola, "I won't forgive you (for what you have done), but I will thank you (because you saved us all from becoming tempered just now)". I think there are others too, he just stands out in my memory.

Valleyant posted:

I don't think you can be redeemed without contributing to a restorative justice imho. I have no idea how you'd make that happen ingame but I'm also very much not a writer.