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A lot of people dump on Wid for being boring and that's all they have to say about MNK job quests but he's the comedy straight man in every arc and they're all competently done at least. I like Erik too and Wid well enough and I really enjoyed these write ups and deep looks at things. Looking forward to Kheris doing 50-60 and 60-70!! The duty fights pick up a bit and the story is better and not as dry as 30-50 is often described.
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Mar 14, 2023 14:46
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Maxwell Lord posted:I was going to comment on the incredible levels of subtext in that scene (no matter the WoL) and then I saw what you titled the image, nicely done. Whenever someone gets knocked out and not killed in a story cutscene when I'm on Black Mage, I like to make the comment, "Don't worry, they'll live; I hit them with the flat side of the fireball."
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Mar 14, 2023 15:11
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I've seen Trigun, I can be nonlethal with my gun. 
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Mar 14, 2023 15:36
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Oh, and it kind of got buried under Monk, but yes, Lyse was super cute this update. I miss her sporty Tifa-like outfit already, but her formal war dress is also a nice look. Shame I wound up doing the Rhalgr's fist training fight as Dark Knight by accident, even though I consider myself a monk main.
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Mar 14, 2023 16:53
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MNK is my favorite ARR job questline. Two broken adults, burdened with loss and guilt. There's a cause to fight for, but do they have a place in it? How should they contribute? Are they even wanted? Some of the other jobs have similar themes, but Estinien is the Azure Dragoon, for instance. His role and goal are clearly defined. He knows (or thinks he knows) what to do. Jehantel's past his prime and Gridanians aren't suffering like the Ala Mhigans are. The line about hungry children hits hard. Wid is clearly being destroyed by guilt and desperation, and Eric is seeing the past repeat painfully. Yes they're lashing out, but that just makes me want to help them find some peace.
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Mar 14, 2023 17:01
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OddObserver posted:One thing that kinda bothered me about monk is that mechanically at L50 the chakras feel well short of their narrative significance, but I don't know how much of that is due to all the redesigns. Not to get too far ahead here but funny enough it works slightly better because you actually *get* chakra abilities in PGL that you didn't in ShB MNK progression. I'll have more to say for the next story up for how that works.
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Mar 14, 2023 17:13
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Mr. Nice! posted:Chakras weren't a thing in ARR monk that you actually used. The buttons for chakra stuff were added in HW. Here is an ARR monk primer: John loving Madden joke always gets a chuckle whenever I come across it.
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Mar 14, 2023 19:35
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I will freely admit I really dislike Lyse's outfit here as anything but a formal outfit. The fact she fights in it is weird. But it's better than Minfillia's outfit, so whatever. Erik is great. He is so awful I love him.
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Mar 14, 2023 19:55
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sweet geek swag posted:I'm so glad you finished the first set of Monk quests before you finished Stormblood, it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense afterwards. Up there with doing CUL50 right after the Banquet.
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Mar 14, 2023 20:04
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Hellioning posted:I will freely admit I really dislike Lyse's outfit here as anything but a formal outfit. The fact she fights in it is weird. But it's better than Minfillia's outfit, so whatever. Lyse has never fought in sensible clothing, her original pants were a glorified napkin.
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Mar 14, 2023 20:07
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Fair.
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Mar 14, 2023 20:10
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Hey, two glorified napkins. There was a connector, it didn't stretch front and back.
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Mar 14, 2023 20:17
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Maxwell Lord posted:I was going to comment on the incredible levels of subtext in that scene (no matter the WoL) and then I saw what you titled the image, nicely done. by ancient Kung Fu law, wheresoever you spar with someone for one day and one night, you are now wed in the eyes of Rhalgr sadly wid lacks the stamina for a proper courtship but he does teach the warrior of light some useful tricks for later: in this framework he is a teenage fling that was fun while it lasted
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Mar 14, 2023 20:49
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Sanguinia posted:Chapter 38: Where is Thy Victory? This is it. This is where the entirety of Stormblood pays off. The rest is falling action. This is the story climax, and it's why things yet to come will be so good. This segment deserves a long explanation. See, Stormblood isn't a story of people. It's a story of nations. The core character of it, its protagonist, isn't Lyse. It's Ala Mhigo, and its true villain isn't Zenos, it's Garlemald. Lyse and Zenos are merely the 'face characters' personalizing the true protagonist and villain's struggles. So as I promised (with some delay), let me break down why this segment, and specifically the scene where Lyse assumes the mantle of leadership, is so key. The first thing to remember about why this scene is so important takes a little bit of work to unearth: Ala Mhigo is not a good place and it's not full of good people. It was a tyrannical nation state that was at war with Eorzea, butchered its own people, and was the greatest cause of suffering on the continent until Garlemald invaded. In-universe, the Garlean invasion of Ala Mhigo was a real 'couldn't have happened to a nicer guy' moment. We've seen refugees get shunned from several places in Eorzea for a very good (if callous reason): the same people who came to Eorzea seeking succor are the ones who fueled the Ala Mhigan war machine once upon a time. Stormblood is the Ala Mhigan liberation arc, and from the start, the writers, very smartly, decided to go political and ask a fundamental question: is liberating Ala Mhigo a good thing? Does it deserve to be saved at all? The entire expac is fundamentally, a search for the answer to this question, at both the micro level of personal struggles, and the macro political level, wondering whether its institutions are all poison in the well or whether something deserves to be preserved. This question is why the Doma arc exists at all. it serves to contrast a traditional idyllic fantasy world Good Country (TM) with the unavoidable realpolitik of Ala Mhigo's situation. Doma, and Hien as its face character, call back to the 'Mythical Past' justification for a lost nation regaining its independence -- hearkening back to the Before Times when invaders did not roam the land, and it was a just and goodly place to live in. We see a crushed people who pine for the simple times before they suffered so. We see a dashing, righteous, highly perfect lost heir, returning to set things right. The Return of the King scenario the revolution of Doma presents is meant to be easy to follow, and a feel-good scenario. This simpler and subtler storytelling is, I think, a large part of why it's better received. You just have to take what you're shown before you moment to moment, and not weave any kind of bigger picture dating back to ARR. And it works -- the sole 'black spot' is Yotsuyu's backstory in this idyllic nation, and that is temporarily thrown under the rug so the player can feel very good about their accomplishment in Doma. It presents one possible solution to the question of Ala Mhigo's salvation: that yes, it deserves to be saved, because it's a good place worth fighting for. ...But of course, that's not true. Ala Mhigo never was a good place, and every other sidequest you complete emphasizes that its past is sordid and painful, even as it's full of nostalgia and yearning for a better time. Ala Mhigo was an aggressor. It was a broken state. It was, in short, not worth resurrecting as it used to be, unlike Doma. This juxtaposition begs the fundamental question of the story: What are we fighting for? Why are we here? And Conrad's presence and his continued interactions serve to hammer the point home further. Conrad is a relic of The Ala Mhigo Before (TM). He remembers the time before the rebellion against Mad King Theodoric better than he does the time since, even -- more of his life was spent in the Time Before than in the resistance era. At every turn, at every step, he seems determined to win back his people's freedom, but also reluctant to stay in charge. He knows that the past of Ala Mhigo is not worth returning to, because he lived through it, and was wise-eyed enough to see it for what it was. His death is tragic at the personal level, but triumphant at the macro level. It's an unprecedented event in the real world. The old and established, the holders of power, pass the reins over to a younger generation to do better than them and make their own (hopefully smaller) mistakes. Which of course leads to the final question? Why Lyse? Why is she the face of Ala Mhigo's renaissance? And the answer is exactly something that others have noticed. Lyse didn't live and grow in Ala Mhigo. This is a GOOD THING. There was nothing worth saving about Ala Mhigo the nation, and the game takes pains to hammer this point home again and again (the monk quests are so fierce about this, in particular with their finale! Perfect illustration of the larger main plot's argument, really). Lyse has lived abroad. She has seen how better nations conduct their business. She has fought to save other nations too. She is a breath of fresh air, unclouded by the biases of those who've lived in Ala Mhigo possess, clinging to a poisoned past. This, incidentally, parallels strongly the plight of several nations IRL, particularly the nations of south america, whose leading minds and revolutionaries were students and soldiers abroad in Europe around the time the French Revolution hit, and deeply affected by it. The ideals they saw abroad inspired them to return to their colonial homes to fight not for a mythical past, but a brighter, better future. The revolution of Doma is a restoration. That is not what Ala Mhigo needs. What it needs is a renovation, a revolution in the most radical sense that replaces the old with the new, not the new with the old. And that is why Lyse is the face of Stormblood. The chat with Raubahn is the scene where she seizes control of her destiny, and her nation's destiny, and becomes a truly great character, and subtly, the follow-up update where she dons the traditional dress is where she starts deciding which pieces of Ala Mhigo to bring forward into the future, and which to leave behind. I didn't see this when I first played this expac very well. It was only by reliving things through this LP that I finally understood what this plotline was about. And honestly? It's pretty drat masterful, IMO. Not as great as the expacs still to come, but pretty drat great still. What do you all think? Transient People fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Mar 14, 2023 |
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Mar 14, 2023 21:01
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Transient People posted:The chat with Raubahn is the scene where she seizes control of her destiny, and her nation's destiny, and becomes a truly great character, and subtly, the follow-up update where she dons the traditional dress is where she starts deciding which pieces of Ala Mhigo to bring forward into the future, and which to leave behind. if, as the old european artists liked to depict, the state is a body, then in lyse we have a new state, born and raised and trained abroad, literally wearing the clothes of the old for a sense of continuity, authority, and history (and now i'm thinking about the meiji restoration but i don't think that's intentional). (this is on some level a wording quibble but I think an important one: i'd suggest ala mhigo the nation, in the sense of "a body of people united by geography and culture and custom", has survived through the garlean occupation, and while we can sense it is undergoing an alteration in the (multiracial, meritocratic) resistance, no one has suggested killing it, and a lot of characters from raubahn to m'naago to fordola believe it worth keeping alive. it is ala mhigo the state, a political entity and hierarchy, that is up for debate) Valentin fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Mar 14, 2023 |
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Mar 14, 2023 21:16
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Transient People posted:What do you all think? This is a really interesting perspective. One thing that I think its missing, however, is how to address a relatively consistent theme in Ala Mhigo-focused plotlines that was displayed strongly in this last update: the idea that Ala Mhigo's punishment has been disproportionate to its crimes. Even accounting for the Imperialism of the Autumn War, the fact that the great hero Gylbrad was a treacherous wretch, the dirty political games between Church and Monarchy, the horrific atrocities of the Mad King's Reign, the story has continually presented those who speak of Ala Mhigo's status being just deserts as callous, the Alliance's refusal to help them until forced as self-interest at best and cowardice at worst, and the Ala Mhigan's grievances and outrage at their treatment as at least partially justified. I'd be curious to know how that factors into your thematic analysis, if at all.
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Mar 14, 2023 21:29
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Sanguinia posted:This is a really interesting perspective. It certainly is! It's why, in hindsight, we see that Ilberd was right. His desire for revenge was wrong, but it was only due to his drastic action that the moderates of Eorzea were impelled to actually act to save Ala Mhigo. I don't think it was intentional at all (Stormblood is very realpolitik savvy but I don't think it's that modern history savvy), but in a lot of ways you can think of Raubahn and Ilberd as MLK/Malcolm X analogues. Ilberd is more villainized, of course, but without his radical action, it's likely the liberation of Ala Mhigo would not have happened for a very long time. Ala Mhigo's story in Stormblood is the prism through which all of Eorzea is judged. It serves to separate the truly gallant and ideal Warrior of Light, fighting to save an oppressed and long-suffering people, from the leaders of the City-States, who, barring Aymeric (and we will SEE that Ishgard is built different, too, in one of my favorite blink-and-you'll-miss-it details), are still not exactly ideal leaders at all, from Kan-E's inaction, to Merlwyb's content with the untenable situation with the beastmen, to Nanamo's ineffectiveness. One thing worth going into further detail on this point, BTW, is the strict separation Stormblood makes between the National Stage (TM) and the Personal Drama (TM). These are so starkly separate that you can almost say there's two concurrent plotlines running in parallel throughout the entire expac, as opposed to the two stop-start plotlines of Ala Mhigo/Doma. At the personal level, Ala Mhigans are presented as just about always sympathetic. All of the most gut-wrenching scenes so far have been saved for the Ala Mhigan people. Look at Meffryd, or Conrad, or indeed the loss we take at Rhalgr's Reach, and compare to how in Doma the closest we come to that is the whining peasants in our first recruitment drive before we go fetch Hien. The people of Ala Mhigo are shown to be sympathetic and overall decent, while the people of Doma are shown (outside of the 'hero characters' of Yugiri, Gosetsu et al -- I mean the lesser normal people) to be fairly ineffectual without the 'face character' around to guide them. In that sense, Doma and Ala Mhigo are further juxtaposed. One has great people and a poisoned national ideal. Another has a perfect national ideal, and ineffective, less-sympathetic, less-important people. This in fact also dovetails Yotsuyu's story into the larger 'change of nations' plotline, as we see just how little we're supposed to like the 'normal doman' compared to the 'normal ala mhigan'. Valentin posted:if, as the old european artists liked to depict, the state is a body, then in lyse we have a new state, born and raised and trained abroad, literally wearing the clothes of the old for a sense of continuity, authority, and history (and now i'm thinking about the meiji restoration but i don't think that's intentional). Yes, I agree with this and it's a worthy clarification. Ala Mhigo the state died in the occupation and its corpse was puppeted by Garlemald to keep its people pacified. Ala Mhigo the nation lives on, and is struggling to help a newer, better, kinder state rise from the ashes of the old one. Good catch!
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Mar 14, 2023 21:48
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Transient People posted:What do you all think? I think this sounds very, very close to real world propaganda that glamorizes European nations and villanizes non-European nations, especially middle eastern and (to use your own example) indigenous nations. I don't think this was intended but it sure sounds like you're saying "Lyse is a better choice to lead because she lived in good countries instead of her bad home country and therefore knows how to make a better nation, unlike everyone who didn't leave Ala Mhigo", especially considering we know of the many, many issues the Eorzean alliance has. Ala Mhigo, the imperialist nation with a despotic monarch, wasn't a great nation and a newly liberated Ala Mhigo should be something different...but I am not sure if it was that much worse than Ul'dah, Gridania, or Limsa Lominsa, and it really sounds like you think it is. I think it's just as simple as 'old generation passing the torch to the new generation' without getting all the baggage about Lyse living in other countries and whether Ala Mhigo deserved to be liberated.
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Mar 14, 2023 22:21
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Transient People posted:This is it. This is where the entirety of Stormblood pays off. The rest is falling action. I feel like this is an incredibly beautiful piece of analysis and genuinely makes me appreciate Stormblood more.
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Mar 14, 2023 22:28
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Hellioning posted:I think this sounds very, very close to real world propaganda that glamorizes European nations and villanizes non-European nations, especially middle eastern and (to use your own example) indigenous nations. I don't think this was intended but it sure sounds like you're saying "Lyse is a better choice to lead because she lived in good countries instead of her bad home country and therefore knows how to make a better nation, unlike everyone who didn't leave Ala Mhigo", especially considering we know of the many, many issues the Eorzean alliance has. Ala Mhigo, the imperialist nation with a despotic monarch, wasn't a great nation and a newly liberated Ala Mhigo should be something different...but I am not sure if it was that much worse than Ul'dah, Gridania, or Limsa Lominsa, and it really sounds like you think it is. No, that is absolutely not the meaning of it. Are you familiar with South American history by chance? Because something that was actually a thing IRL was that some national heroes proposed plans to crown an indigenous ruler in opposition to the european monarchs. Like, this actually happened, was proposed by some of the celebrated national heroes who went abroad, and was shot down by the people then in power who'd never left the territory. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact the first world historically puts South America into an absolute memory hole, I would not be surprised if some elements of Stormblood had been inspired by south american history. Lyse's role certainly lines up with this kind of national myth, and those national heroes historically had good relations with the 'righteous inheritors' of the lands they liberated (multiple letters from one of the two major Liberators of South America (TM), José de San Martín, referred to the 'indians' as brothers and compatriots, and as these were private letters we have no reason to believe they were propaganda pieces). I absolutely think that you're supposed to see that Ala Mhigo is a complicated territory for which the 'fantasy solution' of the rightful king that Doma employs is not going to work, mind. That feels so clear in the text that I struggle to see counterarguments to it. It's why there's a strong undercurrent of 'but what should Ala Mhigo be, then?' throughout the plot. You can disagree but that means not giving the writers of XIV any credit, and I feel their work on Ishgard should grant them at least a little bit of goodwill on that front. They've shown they can tackle political stories with nuance and depth before.
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Mar 14, 2023 22:28
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Lyse....is cool. Ala Mhigo strong.
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Mar 14, 2023 22:34
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Transient People posted:No, that is absolutely not the meaning of it. Are you familiar with South American history by chance? Because something that was actually a thing IRL was that some national heroes proposed plans to crown an indigenous ruler in opposition to the european monarchs. Like, this actually happened, was proposed by some of the celebrated national heroes who went abroad, and was shot down by the people then in power who'd never left the territory. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact the first world historically puts South America into an absolute memory hole, I would not be surprised if some elements of Stormblood had been inspired by south american history. Lyse's role certainly lines up with this kind of national myth, and those national heroes historically had good relations with the 'righteous inheritors' of the lands they liberated (multiple letters from one of the two major Liberators of South America (TM), José de San Martín, referred to the 'indians' as brothers and compatriots, and as these were private letters we have no reason to believe they were propaganda pieces). I absolutely think that you're supposed to see that Ala Mhigo is a complicated territory for which the 'fantasy solution' of the rightful king that Doma employs is not going to work, mind. That feels so clear in the text that I struggle to see counterarguments to it. It's why there's a strong undercurrent of 'but what should Ala Mhigo be, then?' throughout the plot. You can disagree but that means not giving the writers of XIV any credit, and I feel their work on Ishgard should grant them at least a little bit of goodwill on that front. They've shown they can tackle political stories with nuance and depth before. I'm not discussing FFXIV's writing at all, frankly, I'm discussing yours. I think this post sounds a lot better than the other one I responded to in the first place, so maybe it's my fault? Really sounded like you were just writing off Ala Mhigo as a lost cause; I think directly saying that Conrad's death was a good thing from any perspective is what really annoyed me.
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Mar 14, 2023 22:36
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The thing is, I don't think Stormblood does a great job of saying Ala Mhigo was a bad place. You get some dirt on it from the Bard quests and the Monk quests, but Stormblood seems to try very hard to portray Ala Mhigo as just another downtrodden nation being crushed under the Garlean boot, and that Eorzea hasn't been helping them like they should, and it was only Ilberd's fanatical ploy that dragged the other nations into doing the "right thing" of helping Ala Mhigo. There hasn't been a whole lot of "do these people deserve to be saved? Because they were war-mongering aggressors."
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Mar 14, 2023 22:39
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Schwartzcough posted:The thing is, I don't think Stormblood does a great job of saying Ala Mhigo was a bad place. You get some dirt on it from the Bard quests and the Monk quests, but Stormblood seems to try very hard to portray Ala Mhigo as just another downtrodden nation being crushed under the Garlean boot, and that Eorzea hasn't been helping them like they should, and it was only Ilberd's fanatical ploy that dragged the other nations into doing the "right thing" of helping Ala Mhigo. There hasn't been a whole lot of "do these people deserve to be saved? Because they were war-mongering aggressors." This is correct, because Stormblood trusts you to have the scoop from Heavensward and, even moreso, ARR. A LOT of ARR's MSQ and even more of its sidequests tell the tale of how Ala Mhigo did wrong by its people and its neighbors. It benefits a lot from doing truly optional side content. I firmly believe they had those quests in mind when the MSQ was written, and also the zonal quests of Stormblood's Ala Mhigan section. Doing them helps create a lot of extra context for it, I feel. Hellioning posted:I'm not discussing FFXIV's writing at all, frankly, I'm discussing yours. I think this post sounds a lot better than the other one I responded to in the first place, so maybe it's my fault? Really sounded like you were just writing off Ala Mhigo as a lost cause; I think directly saying that Conrad's death was a good thing from any perspective is what really annoyed me. Oh no, not at all. To be clear, my point was moreso that Stormblood's central driving question is what to do with Ala Mhigo and it tries to explore it from every angle. Vassalizing it to Eorzea isn't a valid option, but neither is just restoring its monarchy and pretending everything's OK. There is no hallowed figure with a righteous claim to the nation's reins like Hien to turn to either, and the closest one that exists, Raubahn, actively rejects the possibility due to knowing how bankrupt that idea is (and not judging himself a worthy ruler on top of that). So something new has to arise from the ashes, and that's Lyse and her own ideals for what the nation should be. A common complaint is Lyse is a 'non character' for Stormblood and I think that's by design to this point. She's passively observing because she's trying to form her own ideas on what Ala Mhigo should be -- and when she's asked to take the reins, she proves she hasn't spent her time idly and emerges from the chrysalis a capable leader, ready to guide the nascent new Ala Mhigan state in a brave new direction.
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Mar 14, 2023 22:46
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I feel the core of this thesis is that Doma is a nation restored and Ala Mhigo is a nation reborn. One requires the old guard and one must reject it.
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Mar 14, 2023 23:20
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I feel like this thesis really can't be responded to in its entirety yet, but I agree that at this stage Stormblood is a story of nations, and is an unabashedly nationalistic story in the specific way that anticolonial movements often are. Note how neatly the villains of Stormblood slot into the classic (and not especially pleasant) anticolonial populist narratives - and in particular, both Yotsuyu and Fordola are fallen women, defiled by external forces. "They're corrupting our youth and women from the old ways!" By contrast we have Hien and Lyse, both Good Traditional Leaders who in their ways act as exemplars of national identity (and to some degree gender roles; Lyse literally dons a traditional dress to go to battle). There's a lot going on in Stormblood, and it just gets better as you peel back more and more of it. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Mar 15, 2023 |
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Mar 15, 2023 00:22
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Mordiceius posted:I feel the core of this thesis is that Doma is a nation restored and Ala Mhigo is a nation reborn. One requires the old guard and one must reject it. The thing is, a lot of the resistance to Garlemald is the same people who resisted the Mad King, the Autumn War was a century ago and Ala Mihgo as a nation turned on the monstrous oppressor right becore Garlemald invaded. The idea that Ala Mihgo itself needs to abandon/reject the old guard doesn't work for me, certainly returning to Theodric would be wrong, but Ala Mihgo and the primary representatives of it that we have seen (Raubahn, Conrad, the Job Trainers too) are already past that. Garlemald DISRUPTED their attempt to be a better nation.
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Mar 15, 2023 00:30
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Nymeia being the head God of the pantheon is pretty neat. As is Rhalgr being a literal comet Nymeia snagged from orbit and shaped into a God of Destruction. I never really got into the Twelve. Maybe if they led with that, I would have. Schwartzcough posted:The thing is, I don't think Stormblood does a great job of saying Ala Mhigo was a bad place. You get some dirt on it from the Bard quests and the Monk quests, but Stormblood seems to try very hard to portray Ala Mhigo as just another downtrodden nation being crushed under the Garlean boot, and that Eorzea hasn't been helping them like they should, and it was only Ilberd's fanatical ploy that dragged the other nations into doing the "right thing" of helping Ala Mhigo. There hasn't been a whole lot of "do these people deserve to be saved? Because they were war-mongering aggressors." Jetrauben posted:I feel like this thesis really can't be responded to in its entirety yet, but I agree that at this stage Stormblood is a story of nations, and is an unabashedly nationalistic story in the specific way that anticolonial movements often are. Note how neatly the villains of Stormblood slot into the classic (and not especially pleasant) anticolonial populist narratives - and in particular, both Yotsuyu and Fordola are fallen women, defiled by external forces.
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Mar 15, 2023 01:08
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dyslexicfaser posted:Nymeia being the head God of the pantheon is pretty neat. As is Rhalgr being a literal comet Nymeia snagged from orbit and shaped into a God of Destruction. Stormblood in general kind of has a fair number of women and it's fun (and revealing) to consider how many of the Good Women are cultural exemplars in some way. Even back in the Ruby Sea, Kurenai may dream of a free life, but she never once actually just says "this Ruby Princess Stays Sequestered In the Palace thing is nonsense."
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Mar 15, 2023 01:12
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A problem with presenting the situation as Ilberd Was Right is that getting to this point has hinged largely upon what Garlemald hasn't done, and attributing the good fortune to him. Like, it's openly noted that it's odd that there's been no counter-attack for Baelsar's Wall, and we hear (from a privileged conversation the Alliance doesn't know about) that Varis has expressly forbidden an open front. So already off the bat, Ilberd's actions only haven't provoked a potentially overwhelming response because, essentially, the alarm has been noted but not acted upon. And then, even with some exploratory raiding success, the only reason the Alliance/Resistance effort isn't completely crushed before they can make any significant gains is because Zenos deliberately refrains from a finishing blow after he had the Warrior of Light, for all their gallantry and idealism, dead to rights. The liberation would not have happened then, if ever, if not for the enemy's "mercy." Would he be wrong, then? Even his sentiment that only this drastic action with Shinryu could have spurred Eorzea to aid Ala Mhigo might just as easily have done too much damage to galvanize them and simply have made them dig in harder and abandon Ala Mhigo for lost entirely without Papalymo and Omega's interference. And yet, the Eorzean Alliance coming together to drive Garlemald out of Gyr Abania on Ilberd's preferred timetable prior to Nidhogg's Eyesicle might have just as easily caused a greater boondoggle and also rendered a free Ala Mhigo impossible within lifetimes. He caused A situation, and it's being salvaged towards a purpose thanks to some lucky breaks out of the hands of the revolutionaries.
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Mar 15, 2023 01:13
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Hogama posted:A problem with presenting the situation as Ilberd Was Right is that getting to this point has hinged largely upon what Garlemald hasn't done, and attributing the good fortune to him. Like, it's openly noted that it's odd that there's been no counter-attack for Baelsar's Wall, and we hear (from a privileged conversation the Alliance doesn't know about) that Varis has expressly forbidden an open front. So already off the bat, Ilberd's actions only haven't provoked a potentially overwhelming response because, essentially, the alarm has been noted but not acted upon. And then, even with some exploratory raiding success, the only reason the Alliance/Resistance effort isn't completely crushed before they can make any significant gains is because Zenos deliberately refrains from a finishing blow after he had the Warrior of Light, for all their gallantry and idealism, dead to rights. The liberation would not have happened then, if ever, if not for the enemy's "mercy." Would he be wrong, then? Even his sentiment that only this drastic action with Shinryu could have spurred Eorzea to aid Ala Mhigo might just as easily have done too much damage to galvanize them and simply have made them dig in harder and abandon Ala Mhigo for lost entirely without Papalymo and Omega's interference. And yet, the Eorzean Alliance coming together to drive Garlemald out of Gyr Abania on Ilberd's preferred timetable prior to Nidhogg's Eyesicle might have just as easily caused a greater boondoggle and also rendered a free Ala Mhigo impossible within lifetimes. He caused A situation, and it's being salvaged towards a purpose thanks to some lucky breaks out of the hands of the revolutionaries. perhaps the same could be said of all revolutions... no seriously the same could be said of all revolutions, there has never been a revolution where the body being revolted against acting judiciously wouldn't have smothered the thing in its cradle. ilberd is absolutely gambling with a lot of lives, but his core assumption- we can totally take them now- turns out to have been correct.
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Mar 15, 2023 01:37
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:perhaps the same could be said of all revolutions...
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Mar 15, 2023 01:44
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I mean, I think from Ilberd's POV, he watched the Garlean Empire descend into civil war and the Eorzean Alliance push the XIVth legion out with basically no major casualties or failures, only to halt at baelsar's wall. I don't think it's totally crazy for him to think there exists both the political will and firepower to free Ala Mhigo if he can force the alliance into the right corner.
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Mar 15, 2023 01:54
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It's kind of weird that the XIVth were still narratively acknowledged in-universe as occupying their castrums within Eorzea, post-Praetorium, and they're just kind of there because Square doesn't want to phase the zones. Less pushed out of Eorzea and more brought under control, I guess?
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Mar 15, 2023 01:59
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The XIVth were an isolated legion and still able to hold multiple fortified locations in the heart of Alliance territory for years, almost succeeding in a long shot plot to destabilize 3+ regions. Going over the wall is daring the entire Empire to respond and honestly I think things only work out because Zenos is insane and wouldn't request reinforcements/wouldn't let them come in/didn't push into Gridania because of his egotism. Or because a second legion never came to support the XIVth long before Stormblood. When it comes to Ilberd you do not, under any circumstances, "gotta hand it to them". We can assume things get spicier once Doma revolts and other countries revolt in unison but eh. It can be given a pass since FF14 and FF stories at large are driven by characters instead of hard logistics which usually just set the stage. The way ARR starts out the city states are in serious danger of being bled out by the guerilla warfare of beastfolk! The scale is pretty wonky at times and letting drama dictate the terms is for the best.
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Mar 15, 2023 02:06
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:perhaps the same could be said of all revolutions... An important aspect of Ilberd's action isn't just thinking that a reforged Eorzean Alliance *could* liberate Ala Mhigo, maybe. He's also totally fine with the result of Garlemald stomping the Alliance into the ground, since as far as he's concerned the Alliance deserves no better. Even though he dies, no matter what happens he wins.
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Mar 15, 2023 02:07
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In the narrative those castrums are described as barely holding on with airship resupply on infrequent schedules. So they can't project force anymore and the Alliance sees no need to go in and kill a bunch of Garleans and conscripts who honestly would love to just escape and go home but they can't. Maybe in the future they'll introduce zone instancing or something so you can have empty castrums but be able to pop back into the ARR versions to complete quests and hunts, but I wouldn't count on it.
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Mar 15, 2023 02:08
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Mordiceius posted:I feel the core of this thesis is that Doma is a nation restored and Ala Mhigo is a nation reborn. One requires the old guard and one must reject it. Yeah. I'm not totally on-board with it, but its an interesting take, and I'm especially intrigued by it being rooted in that reference to South American history. One of the things I've found most interesting about Stormblood is how different people seem to take different reads on it based on the history that's personally important to them and/or the nationality they identify with. I've heard from a few sources Stormblood is very popular with Chinese players, for example, because of the very explicit parallels they see between their experiences with Colonialism/Imperialism and what Doma and Ala Mhigo go through. dyslexicfaser posted:Nymeia being the head God of the pantheon is pretty neat. As is Rhalgr being a literal comet Nymeia snagged from orbit and shaped into a God of Destruction. Technically she's tied for Head God, Althyk was the other one who arose from creation of his own accord. I guess he fathered the other Gods who descended from Nymeia? It's kind of vague. Also from some reason Thaliak ALSO arose from nothingness, but he did it AFTER the other two and then married one of their daughters. Mythology is weird and neat. Sanguinia fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Mar 15, 2023 |
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Mar 15, 2023 02:08
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Thundarr posted:An important aspect of Ilberd's action isn't just thinking that a reforged Eorzean Alliance *could* liberate Ala Mhigo, maybe. He's also totally fine with the result of Garlemald stomping the Alliance into the ground, since as far as he's concerned the Alliance deserves no better. Even though he dies, no matter what happens he wins.
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Mar 15, 2023 02:11
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Jetrauben posted:Note how neatly the villains of Stormblood slot into the classic (and not especially pleasant) anticolonial populist narratives - and in particular, both Yotsuyu and Fordola are fallen women, defiled by external forces. "They're corrupting our youth and women from the old ways!" By contrast we have Hien and Lyse, both Good Traditional Leaders who in their ways act as exemplars of national identity (and to some degree gender roles; Lyse literally dons a traditional dress to go to battle). Yotsuyu absolutely fits into a bunch of classic patriarchal tropes, but at the same time her revelation is that she was driven to become the person who fit that role because of her own society rather than The Foreign Other. And, traditional dress aside, Lyse doesn't really fit the notion of a Traditional Ala Mhigan Leader, especially when we have Hien to compare her to (and that's not getting into how at least some of Hien fitting that mold is a deliberate facade on his part.) Stormblood really does have a lot of nuance going in a lot of these areas, but the sad irony is that it fails to develop these nuances as much as it could have because of The Stitched Narrative issue, and being half-finished makes the story kind of appear worse than it actually is on some metrics. But that'll be something to discuss in more depth when we see the final act of 4.0 play out.
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Mar 15, 2023 02:22
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