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I wonder if those two throne room guards had any idea what was even happening.
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Dec 23, 2023 15:49
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| # ? Jun 12, 2024 01:22 |
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Solus is able to keep the house of cards from falling apart because he's an evil ghost wizard but it seems clear the Garleans are doing the fascism for all the normal reasons and he just gave them guns. Now if they had Solus using mind control powers on Varis then it'd be really terribleRhonne posted:I wonder if those two throne room guards had any idea what was even happening. I like to think he does this every day just because it's a hoot and they just gave up thinking about it
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Dec 23, 2023 16:18
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Sanguinia posted:My objection wasn't to Solus making the Empire, it was to what Shadowhunter said, the implication that the reason the Empire is so bad is because Solus, an Ascian, made it, rather than because... its an Empire and Empires are always bad. He literally says "They have no interest in ruling, they just want to sew discord," and the unspoken part of that sentiment is "if they did have an interest in ruling the Empire would be fine and these things wouldn't happen." Yeah his stance and reasoning as well as the nature of the garlean imperial project sans ascian will get touched on.
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Dec 23, 2023 16:19
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GloomMouse posted:Solus is able to keep the house of cards from falling apart because he's an evil ghost wizard but it seems clear the Garleans are doing the fascism for all the normal reasons and he just gave them guns. Now if they had Solus using mind control powers on Varis then it'd be really terrible Yeah Varis is a genocidal fascist in his own right, and his son is a huge rear end in a top hat, but given their family history, they didn't have many chances to turn out differently.
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Dec 23, 2023 16:24
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Remember that 4.4 is also the patch where the last wing of the Omega raid dropped. They were firing on all cylinders.
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Dec 23, 2023 16:56
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Rhonne posted:I wonder if those two throne room guards had any idea what was even happening. When you've got a family like Varis', you retain personal guards who aren't bothered by seeing some wild poo poo.
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Dec 23, 2023 16:58
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Pyro Jack posted:Here comes a special boy~ Also, here's a video of the moment Y'shtola killed a man. There's some kind of imposter who isn't Kheris but is claiming to be the WoL in it, but its a moment that really deserves to be seen in all its glory.
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Dec 23, 2023 17:14
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1stGear posted:Also, here's a video of the moment Y'shtola killed a man. There's some kind of imposter who isn't Kheris but is claiming to be the WoL in it, but its a moment that really deserves to be seen in all its glory. I just love how you can see Y'shtola consider her words, carefully thinks the situation over, clearly weighing all the possible consequences, diplomatic and personal... ... And then just chooses violence. Also full credit to the animation team, because you can spot the exact moment that Magnai the Maidenless' soul leaves his body.
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Dec 23, 2023 17:18
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Don't forget she chooses to leave by just annoyedly walking *Between* the two most deadly warriors on the steppe facing eachother down, weapons drawn.Rhonne posted:I wonder if those two throne room guards had any idea what was even happening. They don't even flinch as the Emperor shoots the founding father and instead just boredly watch his corpse roll down the stairs. They've likely been dealing with that for a while. Galaga Galaxian fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Dec 23, 2023 |
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Dec 23, 2023 17:22
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Solus' model might be quite different from his art design of an old man, but there is still connection. There's a paint you can get of some of the empire folk of Stormblood, and Old Man Solus is on it, and the eyes are still the same as this model. 
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Dec 23, 2023 17:40
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That white highlight in his hair like a cartoon skunk, he's like Pepé Le Pew but instead of love he's looking for calamity
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Dec 23, 2023 17:52
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As far as "created by evil wizard ghosts to suck" thing, basically the only way Garlemald is atypically poo poo (in empire terms) is that we now know its political structure was probably deliberately unstable—Solus could have actually made one of his descendants as crown prince at any point and deliberately chose not to, and as an evil immortal ghost wizard he definitely knew the ramifications of combining "every yae in the family at once is a valid option" and "only respecting military might (at least by the end of his reign)". He probably didn't actively plan to have Varis win the war of succession, but I doubt he would have a harder time being just as evil ghost wizard (theater kid edition) to one of his sons so the victor likely just didn't matter.
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Dec 23, 2023 17:52
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Like Clockwork posted:As far as "created by evil wizard ghosts to suck" thing, basically the only way Garlemald is atypically poo poo (in empire terms) is that we now know its political structure was probably deliberately unstable—Solus could have actually made one of his descendants as crown prince at any point and deliberately chose not to, and as an evil immortal ghost wizard he definitely knew the ramifications of combining "every yae in the family at once is a valid option" and "only respecting military might (at least by the end of his reign)". Essentially, he saw a DBZA gag and thought it was a hilarious idea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKKkGSmNVAs&t=31s
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Dec 23, 2023 18:12
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Man, I can't believe they dropped The Burn and The Burn (Savage) in the same patch.
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Dec 23, 2023 18:25
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When Sang did last year's (2022) Rising, I noticed she left out the Solus minion on account of not having met the character. If you go to your minion guide and hover over Solus, it has the "I should be the one who sighs!" line. I tried convincing Sang to replace the first screenshot of Solus with this.
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Dec 23, 2023 18:38
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Being honest the "who was an Immortal Space Wizard" part of "A fucker who was an Immortal Space Wizard founded the nazis." completely slipped my mind.
ConanThe3rd fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Dec 23, 2023 |
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Dec 23, 2023 19:11
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With Trusts and Duty Support it always annoys me that the healers can't raise me if I die in-battle. I mean, I can understand on a mechanical level, dying means you start over. But I know these losers can cast Raise. So I just have to imagine every time the Warrior of Light falls in battle all your friends freak out and carry you back to the entrance on a fainting couch.
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Dec 23, 2023 19:16
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ConanThe3rd posted:Being honest the "who was an Immortal Space Wizard" part of "A fucker who was an Immortal Space Wizard founded the nazis." completely slipped my mind. This might be a good time to remind folks that, as much as we gush about the guy's character and style he is at least one Hitler. Maybe multiple depending on Allag and such.
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Dec 23, 2023 19:25
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The exact amount of Hitlers Solus is is a spoiler, but its definitely more than 1.
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Dec 23, 2023 19:30
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he's a very weird fantasy hitler in that he thought "hmm whats a real lovely thing that will accomplish nefarious goals for me: oooh, imperialism! that poo poo sucks bad!"
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Dec 23, 2023 19:42
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Bruceski posted:This might be a good time to remind folks that, as much as we gush about the guy's character and style he is at least one Hitler. Maybe multiple depending on Allag and such. the Solus zos Galvus Hitler count is at two as of his introduction. i think my favorite bit of the introduction is the "you fiends are overfond of your own voices." perfectly selling that this is not the first one of these conversations he has had, he knows that shooting his grandfather returned isn't going to do poo poo, and that the small satisfaction from putting one between grandpa's eyes is the only bright spot he's gonna get in this conversation. yes. i know. i'm the slave of ancient powers that created the throne I sit on as part of an elaborate gag at my and the whole world's expense. i'm still trying to spite you about it old man.
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Dec 23, 2023 20:18
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Something to be remembered in all of this is that, even absent any future revelations and only dealing with as much story as we have to this point, Garlemald is illustrative of the Ascians keeping as many irons in the fire as possible at all times, for as long as possible. Consider: Garlemald would not have survived intact to the beginning of another Calamity cycle to begin with, had the previous one gone off as they intended. Not a single soul would have predicted that Louisoix would actually prevent Primal Bahamut from wreaking unchecked devastation upon the world, and in fact do as much as possible to rejuvenate the damage that was done as he could manage. It was still a proper Rejoining, the Ascians' goal was met, and there was still major fallout from the Calamity, but all extant power structures were still in place - as far as we know, this is completely novel. There were always lingering remnants of prior civilizations, true, but even with all the continually unearthed and rediscovered Allagan technology (and survivors, as seen with Syrcus Tower) that remained potential Calamity fodder (Dalamud! The Warring Triad!), Allag itself wasn't really an empire that the Ascians could reuse as a tool. This is certainly one reason they desire promoting general chaos - it leaves them many dangling threads to be picked up as convenient for their schemes. Nael's proposal to restart Project Meteor was personally approved by the Emperor...Solus. Knowing now that he was always an Ascian, there's no way he couldn't have known what Dalamud was capable of (especially after the first disaster that closed the project), so it follows that he was willing to sacrifice Garlemald even before the question of a successor would come up. Having leeway to continue to allow imperialism do what imperialism does afterwards was merely serendipity, as far as he sees it.
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Dec 23, 2023 20:20
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I think we should also recognize the sheer power of the Emperor's helmet and shoulder pauldrons. And Varis is already like 9 feet tall to begin with, you will never miss him in a crowd
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Dec 23, 2023 20:36
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Rhonne posted:I wonder if those two throne room guards had any idea what was even happening. Blue oni: "I can't really tell the difference, tbh." Red oni: "Oh gently caress, granddad is back." Blue oni: "Oh god is he talking about Allag again and how things were better back in the 3rd Umbral Era, I don't want to look" Red oni: "Looks like Emperor Varis shot another one" Blue oni: "Man, that's coming out of our paycheck, isn't it" Red oni, /too busy paging building management services to get a janitor out here to answer.
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Dec 23, 2023 20:42
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FuturePastNow posted:I think we should also recognize the sheer power of the Emperor's helmet and shoulder pauldrons. And Varis is already like 9 feet tall to begin with, you will never miss him in a crowd I'm not sure where the tendency of Japanese fantasy villains to have absurdly large armored pauldrons originated, but Varis proudly adheres to that tradition.
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Dec 23, 2023 20:46
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Maybe they were just trying to get the WoW crossover audience with all the shoulder pauldrons and plotted war crimes
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Dec 23, 2023 21:00
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Hogama posted:Something to be remembered in all of this is that, even absent any future revelations and only dealing with as much story as we have to this point, Garlemald is illustrative of the Ascians keeping as many irons in the fire as possible at all times, for as long as possible. Consider: Garlemald would not have survived intact to the beginning of another Calamity cycle to begin with, had the previous one gone off as they intended. Not a single soul would have predicted that Louisoix would actually prevent Primal Bahamut from wreaking unchecked devastation upon the world, and in fact do as much as possible to rejuvenate the damage that was done as he could manage. It was still a proper Rejoining, the Ascians' goal was met, and there was still major fallout from the Calamity, but all extant power structures were still in place - as far as we know, this is completely novel. There were always lingering remnants of prior civilizations, true, but even with all the continually unearthed and rediscovered Allagan technology (and survivors, as seen with Syrcus Tower) that remained potential Calamity fodder (Dalamud! The Warring Triad!), Allag itself wasn't really an empire that the Ascians could reuse as a tool. this is a very nice touch, yes Solus is a man with a lot of plans, and unlike a lot of master manipulator villains, they're clear that he does not bat 1000. if all had gone according to plan, the empire he was emperor of would currently be a smoking crater! but, now, several ages into whatever the Ascians are doing, he structures his plans so that if they go off without a hitch, hey, that's great, fantastic, and that if they fail, well, there's still this enormous empire sitting around keeping the oppress peoples->they pray for deliverance->they get beat down for summoning a primal->they pray even harder for deliverance cycle running. Project Meteor failed, and the consequences of its failure were not "all is lost" but rather "next time we take Crystal Mom's champions out of the picture and THEN we pull the trigger." which they successfully did, mind you! the first moment something genuinely hosed with Ascians was when Thordan ate Lahabrea; up until that point everything was operating well within tolerances!
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Dec 23, 2023 21:00
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Bruceski posted:This might be a good time to remind folks that, as much as we gush about the guy's character and style he is at least one Hitler. Maybe multiple depending on Allag and such. Farg posted:he's a very weird fantasy hitler in that he thought "hmm whats a real lovely thing that will accomplish nefarious goals for me: oooh, imperialism! that poo poo sucks bad!" Inventing modern (and ancient?) fascism to be a self-destructive engine in service of killing a talking rock is certainly an RPG motivation.
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Dec 23, 2023 21:02
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Warcraft got the huge pauldrons and ludicrously long elf ears from Record of Lodoss War.
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Dec 23, 2023 21:03
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Farg posted:he's a very weird fantasy hitler in that he thought "hmm whats a real lovely thing that will accomplish nefarious goals for me: oooh, imperialism! that poo poo sucks bad!" Cause vs effect. I was referring to the attempted genocides.
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Dec 23, 2023 21:09
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Feldegast42 posted:Maybe they were just trying to get the WoW crossover audience with all the shoulder pauldrons and plotted war crimes Implying Warcraft inspired big pauldrons on a Final Fantasy villain is entering "WH40K is just riffing on Starcraft" territory. Unless 
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Dec 23, 2023 21:11
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Runa posted:Warcraft got the huge pauldrons and ludicrously long elf ears from Record of Lodoss War. Now I'm laughing about the Parn Maneuver like I'm in college again. As I do every time Lodoss comes up. (Parn the fighter would charge at the enemy yelling, usually getting swatted aside. When he leveled up he still just did the same thing but it would actually hit.)
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Dec 23, 2023 21:12
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The giant pauldrons are just the 14 art team trying to pull an FF9 and mimic Amano designs in a game as honestly as possible, while the rest of the pre-HD franchise knew exactly why this doesn't work and his art gets recontextualized every time it makes the trip into pixel or blocky people form. Garlemald itself is basically Palmecia from FF2, wearing the steampunk drip of the FF6 Empire because the western audience digs FF6 so much. Palmecia even has the same "we used to be a gentle peaceful place and then turbo-accelerated into totalitarianism" arc hiding around the edges of the plot.
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Dec 23, 2023 22:08
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In hindsight, IX's Garland does look remarkably similar to Old Man Solus.
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Dec 23, 2023 22:16
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Wanna agree with the others that the voice acting, with Ali, Zenos, and Solus specifically, is all utterly fantastic. I'm sure there's lots of reasons for people to keep the vocals in Japanese and read the subtitles, but they honestly are missing out here. And yeah, that entire throne scene managed to be equal parts shocking, intruiging, and absolutely hilarious. Varis just sighing, slinging up his revolver (where did it even come from???), blasting Grandpa Emperor in the face, and then another Grandpa Emperor just pops in again while the previous corpse cools in the background is insanely funny.
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Dec 23, 2023 23:00
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Blueberry Pancakes posted:In hindsight, IX's Garland does look remarkably similar to Old Man Solus. I can see it. I really like Old Man Solus's design in that concept art - something about the proportions and the huge beard/pauldrons/crown combo. Just a radically different body type to the majority of what we see in the game. Plus, how many visibly old characters do we get a chance to see?
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Dec 23, 2023 23:08
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Yeah the post-ARR Eng VA is top notch and they really knock it out of the park from here on out. My own use of JP audio is just inertia from the ARR days and it'd be weird for me to suddenly change some of these Scions' voices away from what I'm used to.
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Dec 23, 2023 23:09
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Really, the funniest bit that screenshots can’t convey is that after the shot, there’s just a solid 10 seconds of dramatic panning to Varis and his guards… while the sound of Solus’ body rolling down the steps just offscreen is in the background. And the BGM cuts out right after, so it’s the only thing you hear.
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Dec 23, 2023 23:18
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Solus  People getting called to who knows where The Burn (Savage) This is a good patch.
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Dec 23, 2023 23:32
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Honestly based on everything we know about Solus even at present I feel like he designed the giant crown and ridiculous pauldrons specifically to be a giant pain in the rear end to anyone who would theoretically succeed him. Varis is probably mostly fine with it because he’s a giant wall of meat but I can’t imagine it’s comfortable.
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Dec 23, 2023 23:40
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