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Glad to hear you're okay! And oooooooooooh, double update?!  edit: Aaaaagh! Shameful snipe! Quoting to atone! Sanguinia posted:For those getting antsy after so long without an update, don't worry, I'm very close to finished Alphinaud's side of the introduction. There ended up being a lot more for me to talk about than I expected, so much so that I'll probably have to split it into a double update!
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Apr 22, 2024 17:58
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I mainly figured you just got caught up in it and ended up doing the whole 5.0 story then backfilling later. For the live/current player that’s definitely how we’re used to it around expansion time
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Apr 22, 2024 18:17
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Glad you're doing well. And trust Alphinaud to be so wordy he needs a double update  Sanguinia posted:On a related note, this week's chapter is going to be somewhat delayed because I put more than 20 hours into the game this weekend without really meaning to. >_> Also, to cut back to this for a second: I would be very interested to know what stretch of content this covered, at the appropriate point in the LP of course. I have theories. Mister Olympus posted:I mainly figured you just got caught up in it and ended up doing the whole 5.0 story then backfilling later. For the live/current player that’s definitely how we’re used to it around expansion time Yeah, this would not surprise me in the least.
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Apr 22, 2024 18:18
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Even when Alisaie has the more exciting events, Alphinaud still manages to steal the limelight. It's Coils all over again. 
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Apr 22, 2024 19:13
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in every partnership, someone has to be the talent, and someone has to be the assistant
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Apr 22, 2024 19:26
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Hydaelyn's Perfect Special Boy just needs some extra time.
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Apr 22, 2024 19:41
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Sang had to wait for Colin Ryan to finish recording for Hades 2, so that he could come back and voice Alphinaud for Kheris.
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Apr 22, 2024 20:15
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He's the zucchini bread of the Scions Needed a little extra time to cook
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Apr 22, 2024 20:18
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Staggy posted:Also, to cut back to this for a second: I would be very interested to know what stretch of content this covered, at the appropriate point in the LP of course. I have theories. FATEs and big fish
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Apr 22, 2024 20:24
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Qwertycoatl posted:FATEs and big fish Three more Zodiac Weapons for the precious tertiary lore, clearly.
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Apr 22, 2024 20:32
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Staggy posted:Also, to cut back to this for a second: I would be very interested to know what stretch of content this covered, at the appropriate point in the LP of course. I have theories. Replaying huge chunks of the game on alts to recapture missed optional dialogue.
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Apr 22, 2024 20:55
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Now that I think about it, Kheris has clearly spent the time becoming an RP nightclub DJ.
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Apr 22, 2024 21:18
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I went to one of those once and even loaded the twitch stream up on my sound bar, it was a great ol' time.
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Apr 22, 2024 21:21
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Kheldarn posted:Sang had to wait for Colin Ryan to finish recording for Hades 2, so that he could come back and voice Alphinaud for Kheris.  Have to admit, Alphie got quite the glowup from when we saw him last
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Apr 22, 2024 21:31
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Prime Minister Alphinaud's blackface scandal rocks the Sharlayan Parliamentary Elections, news at 11.
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Apr 22, 2024 21:59
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it's just a tan, we swear
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Apr 22, 2024 22:02
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Runa posted:it's just a tan, we swear Lies, Alphinaud is physically incapable of being out in the sun without burning.
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Apr 22, 2024 22:18
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Alphinaud is the sun, which explains why he cannot swim.
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Apr 22, 2024 22:26
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Well of course he’s the sun, he thinks everything revolves around him
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Apr 22, 2024 22:34
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...Have we ever seen Alphinaud and Magnai in the same place at the same time?
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Apr 23, 2024 01:22
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wrong thread
Kwyndig fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Apr 23, 2024 |
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Apr 23, 2024 01:27
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Oi, wrong thread
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Apr 23, 2024 01:48
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Runa posted:it's just a tan, we swear  He has the genes
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Apr 23, 2024 12:56
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Grandpa got so much suntan in his final moments of life that it traveled back in time
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Apr 23, 2024 13:49
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Chapter 3: We Are Programmed to Receive On our way back to Crystarium, Alisaie reaffirms her commitment to fight for this world's future-  -and then Kheris grabs a second letter of introduction from Crystal Jim and flies to the grim island of Kholusia.  …  Ardbert's narration becoming extra poetic and melancholy feels appropriate. The first images of the area seem even more lifeless than the desert. The Light's sickly reflection on the white stone cliffs, the withered trees, the patchwork of yellow and brown grass, and the near-motionless sea all create a distinct feeling of death. If the windmills weren't turning, I'd wonder if the place was, as the man says, frozen in time. Underscoring all this is the zone theme,  "Unmatching Pieces." It's definitely a funerary piece, at least for the first few minutes, with both the piano and backing strings thick with a sense of bleakness. There's also a distinct use of notes in the minor key, which press an almost subconscious sense of discomfort on the listener. That said, the song has more than bad vibes. The last minute of the loop perks up significantly (though the discordant notes remain) as if to assure us that as bad as things look, this place isn't beyond saving. Our escort, a Zun named Szem, explains that Sin Eater attacks are rare on Kholusia, but that doesn't mean visitors should let their guard down. That fortress beyond the shantytown is the previously foreshadowed Eulmore, the only other true city left in Norvrandt. Crystarium once counted the place an ally, but in recent years, relations have strained to the breaking point for reasons we're not yet told. Kheris contacts a local fishmonger the Exarch employs as a spy. The gentleman promises to get Alphinaud a message and then provides some additional information about the state of affairs on the island. First, Eulmore has more wealth and resources than the rest of the continent combined. Second, they've offered to share these resources with any settlement (including Crystarium) willing to pledge fealty. Third, no settlements have taken their offer. Seems foreboding, but then again, the only thing I know about these people is that some of them created a monster bounty system in the hopes that all the hunters would get killed. The rendezvous with Alphi is in Stillport, a ramshackle fishing village. Oddly, the local 'Tell Me About Town' NPC mentions that most of their catch ends up being sold to Eulmoran "Free Citizens," begging the question of why they don't accept their customer's governing authority if they're already so economically dependent. The guy also notes that the town's name comes from the fact that almost the entire ocean was frozen by the Flood, which is why the relatively small patch of water they have left to fish is so stagnant.  The Settlement Theme for this town is called "No Greater Sorrow," a track it shares with the Inn at Journey's Head. Is the slow death of an entire ocean a tragedy equal to watching countless innocent people be euthanized so they don't have to transform into mindless engines of the apocalypse? Tough call.Alphinaud is supposed to meet us at the local tavern, but Theva, the bartender, won't let a stranger loiter without buying a drink. Despite the Exarch's promises, the woman is skeptical of my Eorzean gil and asks for a favor in exchange for the ale. The farm outside town has been dealing with a rat problem, and she wants someone to give the farmer a kick in the pants so he'll do a better job protecting the harvest. Sounds simple!  OH gently caress! Is that a Goblin? Is that what Goblins look like without their cute masks?! Yeesh, better steer clear… At the farm, our hero clears a few vermin out of the vegetables, but when she checks on the house, she discovers that it has been abandoned for months. Theva isn't surprised.  Rather than explain what she means, the lady just gives Kheris a drink. Sitting there with the cup of booze made me think about the last zone. When Tesleen made the Warrior of Light her special stew, the dialogue strongly implied that they willingly ate the meal even though they didn't hawkishly watch every second of its preparation. The writers have tended to leave scenes like this vague since Heavensward, allowing the player to personally interpret whether or not their character is holding onto the trauma from the poisoning incidents. Shadowbringers seems to be making a deliberate effort to show the protagonist has moved on from that scar. That's kind of neat. Our hero isn't made to wait for long.  A poncho? Jeez, Alphi, your sister spent the time since she disappeared hitting the gym, growing four inches, and getting serious about her career prospects as a wandering warrior. You took a gap year to explore the finer points of hemp cultivation!  …  Our boy isn't thrilled to hear confirmation of open war with the Garleans, mainly because he expressed doubt when his sister gave him the news and this makes him look like a fool. She was at the first battle with me, dummy! To make up for being thick-skulled, he shares something Kheris doesn't know:  Urianger's vision told him that the Eighth Calamity would be triggered by Black Rose! To think, this plot point started as a random sidequest. The question is how that's supposed to work. In the past, it's taken things like earthquakes, floods, or the moon falling out of the sky. How could a few gas bombs be that destructive? Leaving that explanation for bigger nerds, Alphinaud drops a more immediately relevant factoid: the Scions have learned that Rejoining requires catastrophes of equal scale to happen simultaneously on both the Source and whichever Shard the Ascians want to smash into us. This is why destroying the Sin Eaters will stop the Eighth Calamity. It's also why Alphi has spent a year trying to ingratiate himself with the Eulmorans. Whatever else may be true about them, they've managed to stave off Sin Eater attacks within their borders and maintain the world's largest military. If he can work his diplomatic magic and mend fences, they could be the key to accomplishing our mission. Unfortunately, the kid hasn't even managed to get through the city gates, let alone open a dialogue. To help Kheris understand why, he suggests a trip to Gatetown, the slum near the city's entrance.  ~*~*~ Though they hardly merit mention, a small group of sidequests unlocks after Alphi heads down the road. They focus on how much of a struggle basic subsistence is on the island. The surviving wildlife holds no fear toward the dwindling human population and happily raids their fields, not to mention attacking anyone they find harvesting the ocean's now-meager bounty. The sea is also still a treacherous mistress despite its weak appearance. One fisherman tells the story of how his friend tried to sail to the mainland in a rowboat only to wash up on shore as a corpse days later. The stories go a long way toward heightening the mystery of why these people so stubbornly refuse Eulmore's gifts and protection. Their comments on the issue are impressively vague.  Take note of the mention of "Meol." It'll be important later. When we catch up to Alphi, he opines that these survivors are no different from people we know back home. By interacting with them, he's started to internalize that each of the Seven Calamities has coincided with a world being wiped from existence. It's a good reminder of the stakes of this story, but before he can get too moody, we hear a cry for help.  I suppose "reduced," and "eliminated," aren't the same thing. By the way, I didn't bring it up last time, but the Random Encounter Theme for Shadowbringers, "Rencounter," caught me off guard with how hard it goes. That electric guitar riff is sick nasty, and thanks to the chanting, the song doesn't let up as you get deeper in on the long fights. It has an intensity that previous basic battle themes lacked.Once the old woman is safe, we learn she's the last person living in this collection of run-down buildings. Everyone else has died or traveled to Gatetown, a common occurrence across Kholusia. Indeed, if you wander around, you'll find homesteads, villages, and even significant pieces of infrastructure that once served the capital completely abandoned. The lady hates to leave these last vestiges of better days, but the reality of what the Sin Eaters can do to her if she remains alone pushes her to make the unhappy decision.  …  drat, that's a grim expression. Seriously, how bad is this Eulmore situation there that he'd react that way? Within minutes of arriving in Gatetown, we get the beginnings of an answer. Up close, the place was in even worse shape than I suspected, which is saying something.  The shelters aren't worthy of the name, and several characters are debilitated by illness. This is partly a consequence of that first problem. Most of the sheds can barely keep out the wind. It's also partly due to the piles of refuse found all over town. Several residents describe a permanent and pervasive stench caused by people collecting the city's garbage, plucking anything valuable from it, and leaving the remainder to rot. We'll see later why they would be so interested in Eulmore's trash, but the more immediate question is why they'd choose to live in filth rather than keep their town clean. Our best clue comes when a rando explains that he came here because he couldn't stand one more day scaling fish with no hope of improving his lot.  Oh no, the Poking around town draws attention, and Kheris is soon confronted by a local roustabout who speaks in a vaguely threatening manner and asks if she has any "tricks," to show him. Alphi shoos him away, assuring him that we haven't come to "compete." Before that can be explained, two voices summon everyone to the center of town.  …  Eulmore is such a Society it has TWO Jokers! And they use Calcabrina's themesong!Alphi explains (with a particularly dismal look on his face) that what we're seeing is a selection process. When the Flood came, Eulmore was the refuge for the wealthy and powerful, who brought all the wealth they could carry to this isolated castle, weathered the storm, and then resolved to live in splendor for the rest of their days. This earned them the moniker "City of Final Pleasures." The elites only allow poor people inside their walls when they want something, and the clowns are their envoys, identifying those who can grant a patron's wish from among the rabble. Why would ordinary people go along with such a cruel setup? For one thing, Eulmore has that powerful military that makes doing anything about them challenging for peasants struggling against starvation. For another, once one has earned their way into Eulmore, the place is said to be a paradise even for those who serve. Sure, you have to do whatever your patron invited you to do, but the way the Jesters speak about the arrangement, it SEEMS like you're set for life. Rather than protest the exploitation, everyone is fighting each other for the chance to become one of the exploiters. Forcing desperate people to compete against each other for a lifetime of plenty would normally be a powder keg, but there's one last thread to this spider web that keeps new people trickling into the candidate pool and those stuck waiting docile:  …  Meol, a staple food eaten by even the city's elite, is given to everyone who lives in Gatetown at regular intervals. On top of this, everyone gets a bonus ration whenever a person is chosen to enter the city. That line we got about living off scraps from the table was surprisingly literal! Anyone who dedicates themselves to earning their way into Eulmore is freed from the drudgery of eking out a living in a world where most plants struggle to grow, and animals are either dying out or hunting humans. Your magnanimous overlords don't just provide protection from the Sin Eaters; they end the greatest burdens demanded of those trying to endure armageddon. Nothing is asked for in exchange for these benefits, which means those who accept them can spend all their time scheming to make themselves worthy of being invited through the gates. No wonder they don't bother cleaning the garbage or building a sturdier town. That's time that could be better spent honing your talents!  …  As a side note, the name "meol" and its appearance as a pale white cake struck me as yet another reference to the Abrahamic religions, specifically the manna God gifted the Israelites during their trek through the desert.  The Books of Exodus and Numbers describe God's followers collecting raw manna, which appeared as pale white seeds, and then pounding it into a cake of dough that could be eaten raw, baked, or boiled. We observe some of the locals throwing their meol into otherwise plain pots of water-  -while others greedily shove the loaf into their faces. At least one guy claims it's the best thing he's ever tasted. Alphinaud notes that things weren't always this way in Kholusia. This grotesque lottery began twenty years ago when rule passed to the current Lord of Eulmore, a man named Vauthry. The situation is deeply troubling to our young friend… though the way he expresses that unease is less than ideal.   These complaints sound uncomfortably close to Godbert's philosophy that people are naturally lazy if given too much charity. Alphi seems to be arguing that these folks, having been handed their basic needs, are now listless loafers who can't imagine working for their living. That's hardly an ideal perspective, especially coming from the son of a wealthy noble house of Sharlayan who was so ignorant of the value of money that he almost impoverished the Scions while buying a sword. If you press him, he amends his thoughts to be a little less gross.     …  His objection is less that these people should be pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and more about how arbitrary the situation is, as well as the consequences that stem from a perverse incentive structure. Much like how Gatetown is a smelly pile of crap because nobody wants to 'waste time' cleaning it up, all the other settlements are dying because Eulmore withholds their protection and resources from those who won't bend the knee. People with the strength and skill necessary to make their communities more productive or secure choose to take the city's free lunches and pour all their effort into earning a golden ticket, leaving the rest to suffer and die. We could take this as an allegory for human capital flight in pursuit of economic opportunity, more commonly known as Brain Drain.  Those who already control a disproportionate amount of global wealth maintain their dominant position by offering the best workers an illusory chance at The Good Life. The places those workers come from end up trapped in a downward spiral as the skills they need to thrive are lost. It makes sense, but we'll have to get inside Eulmore before we can be sure if that's what the story is going for or if there's something else at play. That said, it's worth taking a moment to address the Gatetown sidequests, which show how badly these Discount Hunger Games have warped their victims. You meet a woman training as a singer who can no longer practice because of threats from her neighbors. You feel bad for her until a few lines later when she almost casually explains why she can't sing outside town.  If you help her, her warbling attracts multiple monsters. The quest is played as a joke, of course, but I still couldn't help but notice that she wasn't bothered by the fact that her practice endangers people. All she talks about is getting inside Eulmore because of her amazing voice. She's not malicious; there are no rants about how she'll succeed even if others have to die. She just… doesn't care about anyone else.  Elsewhere, you meet a young girl whose elder brother is so sick he can't get out of bed.  More than one NPC in Gatetown complains about the presence of "rivals," while others whisper vaguely about something unfortunate happening to a girl they all knew. I thought it was just the conditions making people sick, but the more aggressive candidates may be trying to eliminate their competition. On the flip side of this coin, trying to help Older Brother leads us to a cynical apothecary who hopes his medical skills will be of value to some Eulmoran noble with a bellyache. When he learns you're trying to help someone with no expectation of reward, the doctor feels a spiritual numbness he's been carrying since he decided to move here melt away.  I feel like this quest is here specifically to clarify that we should not read Alphinaud's criticism as a knock against giving people help. The problem is that Eulmore has taken something good, providing for those in need, and twisted it to serve a darker end. As much as anything else, Alphinaud wants to get inside the city to identify the reasoning behind this situation and see if it can be fixed. To that end, he's recently contacted the First's Sahagin, known as the Ondo, and discovered they love fruits and vegetables that grow on land. In exchange for a regular supply of these delicacies, they offered numerous items for trade and seemed almost amused when he chose something they wouldn't even miss: PEARLS.  We make for the farming village of Wright to pick up our side of the bargain, but not before a mysterious figure overhears our conversation.  ~*~*~ Wright is much better off than any other small town I've seen on the First Shard. There's enough food to keep folks from starving, the fields have a decent crop sprouting up, and the buildings are in an excellent state of repair. Poor soil and the Everlasting Light make life difficult, as do the rampant beasts and raiders, but the inhabitants are weathering those challenges better than Stillport by a country mile. I wondered if they were doing this well on the surface because they'd accepted Eulmore's protection, and thus we would soon learn why nobody else is willing to do so, but it turns out they're also independent.  …  Poor Ardbert.  This is as good a time as any to come out and say it: the narrative never really addresses why all the other towns in Kholusia reject Eulmore's authority. There is a good reason for them not to sign on, but none of them know it because they absolutely would have told Alphinaud, not to mention the world at large. He and Kheris will learn it together once they get into the city. The banal platitudes about how they want to stand tall as long as possible and work the land their forefathers did are the only reasons anyone has to offer. The game is usually meticulous about the logic backing the world's politics and economics, but Kholusia leaves this critical question unanswered. The best I can figure is the writing team wanted us to infer the villagers' disgust for what happens to those who go to Gatetown and used that as a reason to keep Eulmore at arm's length. While some folks in the slum are content to take the city's charity without growing villainous, and the twisting isn't irreversible based on the apothecary, we've generally been shown that people who take Eulmore's gifts end up abandoning their dignity and empathy in the hopes of earning more. But as far as I can tell, nothing is stopping the other villagers from catching fish and growing crops while ALSO taking the Meol and protection from the Sin Eaters. As we've established, they already sell everything they can to Eulmore. It's not like the people of Gatetown have been commanded not to work or to live in filth; they've just decided buying more lotto tickets is a wiser use of their time. This implication that the drive to stay independent is rooted in moralizing and fear of a corruption of spirit is why it's so easy to misread Alphinaud's complaints about Gatetown as a rant against state welfare. All the people he likes and who like him are framed as stereotypical hard-working Salt-of-the-Earth types who don't need The Gubment tellin' them how to live, especially when they disparage those who willingly put themselves on the Eulmoran bread dole. When you actually examine what the characters are saying, that isn't the message. Still, it's a very easy leap without a concrete reason why the other towns are so reluctant to sign on. If there had been even one example of an abandoned village that had taken Eulmore's protection and was now extinct because they'd been ordered to put all their labor into some nonsense thing for rich people, or they'd all decided doing nothing in Gatetown was a better prospect than being a serf, or if every soul had been drafted into the army, or some other concrete thing to make the deal undesirable, that would be enough. Now, I think there is a point to the narrative's refusal to show Eulmore doing something explicitly harmful to those under their protection and limiting their bad deeds to putting temptation in front of people so they devolve in an attempt to grasp a reward. Until we get there, I'll just say that Wright was when I started to cement my feeling that the Kholusia side of the introduction was weaker than Ahm Araeng. The way pieces weren't adding up left me with the impression that I was seeing a proscribed drama play out on a stage rather than events happening in a world where my character lives. Back in the plot, the mystery eavesdropper, a catboy named Kai-Shirr, has snatched our produce. When we track him down, he explains that he's simply desperate to get inside Eulmore and thought stealing Alphinaud's plan was his only chance. However, the reason for his despair isn't quite what you'd expect.  ...  Kai endured the horrible conditions of Gatetown and being singled out as easily removed competition because the group he traveled with made a promise to live in paradise together. He knows he could make a home in Crystarium or some other town, but seeing his friends again means just as much as the easy life they all wished for. He felt like he would rather die than give up those future days of bliss with his compatriots, and after months of trying, death has become a serious possibility. His buttons expertly pushed, Alphinaud takes pity on the guy and agrees to hand the pearl business over.  …  Despite this decision, once we're alone, he wonders if he did the right thing.  …  …  He makes his voice all deep when he does that impersonation. It's so cute.  Before we head back to town, something in the distance catches Alphi's attention. The next thing we know, we're resuscitating a nearly-drowned man named Tristol. A few months ago, he won his way into Eulmore through his skills as a painter. Unfortunately, his work did not suit his patron's tastes, and they soon revoked their approval. When I was presented with the Gatetown Lottery, I asked myself two big questions: "What happens if you displease the person who invited you in," and "What happens if you can no longer fulfill your assigned task?" The most basic answer to those questions (revealed in the near future) is that you must find another patron or accept a position as a general laborer with the state itself as your patron. Tristol was distraught and did not find the life of a soldier or scullery appealing, so he sought an audience with Lord Vauthry and asked to leave Eulmore.  …  …  When the two jesters took that chef inside, they implied that once you've earned a place inside Eulmore, you can stay for life. Somehow, it's not surprising that "for life," means you're killed if you try to leave. Tristol offers to help us enter the city, though he struggles to understand why we'd want to after hearing his story. The nobles who hired him will be seeking a new painter, and if we show the clowns his well-worn brush, we should be able to pass ourselves off as artists of repute. Alphi even has the skills to pay those particular bills!  Poor guy. I hope he'll be alright. ...I hope we'll be alright. ~*~*~ While Alphi situates himself for the next selection, Kheris has a short time to square away Wright's sidequests. Like Stillport, most don't amount to much on the surface, but it will turn out that several are interconnected in a cool way. First, we learn that the town is in such a good state of repair because the shipwright families have passed down their skills for the last 100 years, applying them to cannibalizing abandoned hulls and fixing up houses. Then we're called upon to bring down a camp of raiders who were once Eulmoran soldiers before they were exiled for the ultimate crime of stealing thing the rich won't miss. Third, a fieldhand asks for help investigating a mysterious wailing noise near the coastline. The sound has struck fear into the heart of every villager, and he worries it might be some type of Sea Witch.  Wait for it…  Ha! Another fellow shares a ghost story: a family of pig farmers were ruined when wild beasts ate their stock, so their eldest daughter and her lover came to Wright hoping to start over. The man was subsequently killed by a powerful Sin Eater named "Daikaiosyne." With nothing left to live for, the pig farmer's daughter leaped from a local bridge, and now folks claim her grudge-bearing spirit haunts the place. Surprise! It turns out it's haunted by her spirit AND THAT OF HER UNBORN CHILD!  Dark. The weirdest quest involves a servant from Eulmore visiting Wright because his master loves the town's famous ale and wants to ascertain why shipments of the drink into the city have ceased. An older gent explains they no longer have large enough harvests to brew the stuff. It was hard enough to get sufficient barley out of the fields years ago, but it's been impossible ever since ~a mysterious incident.~  The blatant foreshadowing isn't what's weird, though. It's that the servant wants to help.  Stuff like this really doesn't help my impression that the relationship between Eulmore and the rest of the region was poorly thought out. Wasn't the entire gimmick that they'll only help people who bend the knee? If you can get them to help just by having something the rich pinheads want badly enough, wouldn't the dysfunctional relationship of brain drain and principled independence start to fall apart? I know I'm nit-picking, and there are ways that this could make sense, but the issue was getting under my skin at this point. Thankfully, the area's first Major Sidequest was a home run. Eueliss, interim mayor of Wright, needs an escort to the watch tower on the edge of town. Someone she knows has been wandering out there nearly every day. Between the animals and Sin Eaters, it's just too dangerous to leave them unattended. Normally, she'd ask a neighbor to help, but everyone has been reluctant to put themselves in danger since that 'incident' the old man alluded to during the beer quest. We find the man she was looking for, Sai-Lewq, glowering at the top of the tower. When we address him, he recognizes Eueliss as his best friend's daughter, and his bad mood disappears... for a moment. It turns out his safety wasn't the main reason she came out here. Indeed, it seems likely that he was trying to avoid the question she wanted to ask.  …  Despite how quickly his mood blackened when asked the question, Lewq quickly snaps back to cordiality and says he'll consider her request if she does a few chores for him.  …  …  …I have a feeling I know where this is going. Back in town, Eueliss acquires the sickle, but when she mentions it's "for her father," the lender is appalled by whoever made the request. As I suspected, Cliftol, the previous mayor, is dead. The incident that killed him (and much of the town's population) was an attack by a rogue Sin Eater that wielded powers far beyond anything the village had ever seen. Could this be the mysterious Daikaiosyne that pushed the pig farmer's daughter to suicide? They never say so explicitly, but it seems likely. I said that the incident "killed," Cliftol, but that's not technically true. The mayor survived the battle, but everyone blamed him for what happened. He'd once had the opportunity to submit to Eulmore and decided to spurn their protection and maintain the town's independence. Death was their only reward for that decision.  I wonder if the reason they're still not under Eulmore is that everyone was so ashamed after pushing the man over the edge that they couldn't bring themselves to go against his wishes after he was gone. Lewq happily accepts the sickle and sets us a second task. His Talos has been missing from the village for a while, and he wants us to find it on the road so it can come home. A few characters mentioned that word earlier as if it were something I should know. What's a Talos?  Whoa… The image of a relic from before the fall resting as nature reclaims the land around it is always cool. Who doesn't love a Miyazaki send-up? Eueliss explains that there was once a company called Daedalus Stoneworks that mass-produced these golems to automate industrial-scale manual labor, like the hauling of materials in mass quantities. She claims that they were once essential to the operation of the shipyard but also that the Stoneworks only shut down fifteen years ago. That means they were founded before the Flood, survived it, and carried on their business for nearly a century after the end of the world. Now that's some neat world-building! I wonder what forced them to finally close their doors? Regardless of the answer, the magic/technology of the Talos was proprietary. When the company went Chapter 11, their products quickly fell into disrepair. God drat designed obsolescence! You let some tech start-up create your infrastructure, they go under, and your civilization falls apart faster than a new cell phone! We report to Lewq, who remains as deluded about his favorite robot as he was about his best friend.  Unfortunately, the worst is yet to come.  Eueliss seems even more distressed over this request than the one related to her dead father. Even Lewq's bubble of insanity starts to crack under the strain of taking things in this direction.  As her companion struggles to tell the story of how the woman was slain during the Sin Eater's rampage, Kheris is compelled to ask the curt but necessary question. The response is eye-opening.   This is the kind of story I'd wanted to see more often since arriving on the First Shard. As bleak as certain moments have been, the writers have worked to inject levity and optimism so these introductory chapters don't grow too heavy or depressing. Sometimes, as we saw in Ahm Araeng, that's been an overall benefit. It's allowed the darkest stuff to hit harder by providing contrast and getting me to let my guard down. Still, it bugged me a little how much they relegated the day-to-day horrors of living in a world on the brink of doom to the margins. I was intrigued by the possibilities in that space, and they've felt a little underserved. Here, no punches are pulled. Lewq has lived through a tragedy so unfathomable that it shattered his mind, and we haven't even been told the worst part of the story yet. By all rights, he should be allowed to live in his sad little fantasy, but Eueliss can't let him. He's needed. She and the rest of Wright's people didn't just lose loved ones in the Eater attack; they lost able bodies off the front lines of their fight to survive. In a world this hostile to life, people don't have the luxury of letting a born leader like Lewq spend his remaining days in a pleasant dream… Oh, hey, is that a thematic link between sidequest and MSQ?! What is the City of Final Pleasures but a selfish escape, a dream that all who go to Gatetown hope to lose themselves in, just as Lewq has in his memories? Their decision to chase that dream is understandable, given the nightmare their world has become. Like Eueliss, we can sympathize with them and be gentle in our efforts to guide them back to reality… but we can't leave them to their fantasy.  …  With our final gift, Lewq breaks down and apologizes for the pain we must have felt while humoring his sad game of pretend. He also explains that before he can even consider taking up the office of mayor, we need to know the awful truth about the Sin Eater's attack that broke him. You see, he was on watch duty when the monster struck. He failed to raise the alarm. That makes him not only responsible for the death of his wife and the others but for the suicide of Clifton. He should have been blamed, not the old mayor. But Lewq is one of the most canny hunters on Kholusia. How could he have missed the approach of this unstoppable threat?  Note that he didn't say this was an Afflicted who went through the change and then attacked. He specified it was a Sin Eater that looked like a human. Now THAT'S worth looking into! Despite Eueliss' insistence that nobody will blame him for his mistake, Lewq feels he can't look his fellow townsfolk in the eye, let alone lead them, as long as this bizarre abomination roams free. Kheris offers to destroy the creature for him, but Eueliss takes the ending in an unexpected direction and asks if we'll return to the village and look at something before charging off on a Sin Eater hunt.  In addition to serving as interim mayor, our girl has been working herself to the bone every day to restore this field to fertility. One of the last conversations she shared with her father was about his plans for the future. As bad as things were after the Eater attack, he still believed that Wright could recover. He refused to accept the death of his town just as he refused to accept the death of the world, regardless of how hopeless things appeared. The first step, he told her, was to tend the fields until they could once again produce barley worthy of that famous ale.  …  Seeing his friend's daughter act as a living legacy, hearing her wish to charge forward instead of dwelling on the past, does more for Sai-Lewq's heart than revenge ever could.  ...  What a beautiful ending. I want more stuff like this, Shadowbringers! Perhaps I'll get it when we step through Eulmore's gates. Sanguinia fucked around with this message at 13:58 on Apr 27, 2024 |
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Apr 26, 2024 21:14
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Shadowbringers: A Story About Mayoral Politics
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Apr 26, 2024 21:19
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Yeah I was having very similar thoughts to you at this moment. Combined with the comment from the Crystarium tradeskill lady about 'we work for a living unlike the layabouts in Eulmore' it did not endear me to the way I thought this was going to go.
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Apr 26, 2024 21:34
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One of the things that struck me the most about Shadowbringers is how good the zone music is. The soundtrack mixes with the everpresent light shining from overhead, giving this general wash of oppressive monotony - life trudging on without relief.
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Apr 26, 2024 21:37
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ShallowKnave posted:One of the things that struck me the most about Shadowbringers is how good the zone music is. The soundtrack mixes with the everpresent light shining from overhead, giving this general wash of oppressive monotony - life trudging on without relief. Kholusia's theme is one of my favorite overworld tunes in the game yeah.
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Apr 26, 2024 22:25
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Tesleen was a shocking introduction to the world but something about Gatetown just sucks at my soul. Even before you meet the people the look of it, everything desperately crammed up as close to Eulmore as they can get, really hit me.
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Apr 26, 2024 22:30
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The red and blue jester ladies are pretty much a direct reference to recurring antagonists Zorn and Thorn from FFIX. I do notice they lack Zorn and Thorn's talking gimmick of one speaks a sentence and the other repeats it in a different manner.
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Apr 26, 2024 22:33
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Zorn and Thorn are recurring antagonists from FFIX and are pretty much directly referenced by the red and blue jester ladies. Zorn and Thorn's talking gimmick of one repeating a sentence in a different manner after the other speaks it is one they lack, I notice.
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Apr 26, 2024 22:36
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Sanguinia posted:If you press him, he amends his thoughts to be a little less gross. While I don't mind the idea that people aim higher when they have skin in the game, I think it kind of overlooks the parallels: Alphinaud once WAS that fickle noble going around Eorzea and picking odd strangers out of the enormous list of minor characters to live in a utopian dream. What's happening in Gatetown is not too different from him going out to places like Quarrymill and Aleport to enlist strangers into his league of nations. And when he sees the people of Gatetown, he sees the folks in the Ul'dah slums who assaulted him, because Teledji paid them to, in order to push the refugees into living on the cratered lands of Cartineau just so he could have a labor camp to dig up Omega. Likewise, Alphinaud has also seen Doma, and that despite Hien having a bunch of people addressing him as 'Lord' that Hien has little to offer Doma other than his skill with a blade and the continuity of his bloodline. All Hien represents is a chance to re-establish the traditions of how their society worked before Garlemald's interference, and the Doman Reclamation stuff happens more because of crowdsourced tradesman than any sort of noblesse oblige. Which is to say, there isn't anything wrong with needing support, he even planned as much when he had the Domans move to Revanant's Toll, but he didn't intend to keep them under his thumb the way Teledji did, and that seems to be what Eulmore is doing now. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Apr 26, 2024 |
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Apr 26, 2024 22:54
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We are almost ready to meet my favorite character of the expansion.
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Apr 26, 2024 22:57
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"Daikaiosyne." A Greek word meaning righteousness or justice. A peculiar break with the pattern we've seen with Sin Eater names so far. Which have been "Forgiven [Attribute]." Edit: Then again, I guess actual people wouldn't be calling these monsters, "Forgiven this or that" and have their own names. OhFunny fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Apr 26, 2024 |
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Apr 26, 2024 23:00
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Chapter 4: Prisoners, Here of Our Own Device In Gatetown, Alphinaud makes his pitch to the harlequins, and they buy our claim that only a true artist would have a brush so well-worn.   ...  Rude! We get a second intro cutscene with narration, showing that Eulmore is somehow even more absurdly decadent than I expected.  ...  ...  ...  The city's BGM is called "Pain in Pleasure." The instrumentals have a sense of whimsy and elegance with a dark undertone that made me think of a Danny Elfman score. The heavy use of staccato notes creates a distinct impression of delicacy. It's as if everything we see is intensely fragile and could break if the music were to stop for even a breath. It's the kind of song you'd hear during sweeping shots of a masquerade ball right before the outbreak of war, a signal to the audience that the bad thing they've foreseen is coming even if none of the characters know it yet.As you can see in the shot above, a second slum wraps around the base of the castle. It's called the Derelicts and is even more run-down than the last one. The clowns tell me to ignore it so I can start my new life of joy and wonder. Naturally, the first thing I did was snoop. The existence of the town isn't explained very well. Gatetown had a sort of inherent logic because it acted as a physical divide between the worthy and the unworthy, forcing anyone who wanted to breach the threshold to prove themselves to their "betters." The first NPC you meet on this side claims that the Derelicts are inhabited by people worthy of the name, those who know they will never get into Eulmore. They live off rations of Meol, the few fish they can pull from the polluted waters, and produce that the nobles toss out for not being pretty enough. The hope for paradise, twisted or otherwise, has faded. The monologue that explains all this is a powerful one.     I figured that Derelicts must be where the Eulmorans send those who fail to live up to their expectations when they're not foolish enough to ask to leave. Except it's going to turn out that isn't true. None of these people have been inside the city, so it begs the question of why they're allowed on this side of the bridge. The best explanation I can figure is that this was the original poor people screening center until it grew too crowded with rejected "parasites," who refused to abandon Eulmore's charity. Gatetown then sprouted up due to lack of space. If you explore further, that identity as the place where people have given up and are passing the time until they die doesn't even hold up. Many houses are lightly painted or display fancy furniture discarded by the city. There are infiltrators from other regions who've snuck across the water to learn more about Eulmore or help friends who ran away from home hoping to earn that life of luxury and were never heard from again. Some locals are brazenly defiant regarding the lords above, clinging to their pride and refusing the Meol rations while also refusing to leave.  (Weird. I wonder if this is foreshadowing and there's a plot reason that various characters describe the taste of Meol so differently?) Several NPCs even discuss how they're still trying to impress potential patrons. One lady mentions that her neighbor was recently let inside.  Is there a rating on your building survey paperwork lower than "unacceptably hazardous to human life?" If so, circle that one. In the aggregate, Derelicts just feels like an average town once you look past the surface. It's a bit of a shame because I was into the idea of physical divides in Kholusia between those who still have hope for a better future in the outlying settlements, those whose hopes have been replaced by tainted ambition in Gatetown, and those who have given up both in Derelicts. The progress of their degradation of spirit would be delineated by how close they are to "paradise." It evokes layered cosmos of Dante's Divine Comedy, even moreso when I found out a few minutes later that Eulmore is also strictly stratified with different levels of the tower having specified functions. Sadly, despite putting a lot of thought into it, I couldn't think of a way to map Kholusia's regions to Inferno, Paradiso, or Purgatorio, so I can't call it a direct reference. The Derelicts' purpose being muddled certainly didn't help. Maybe something like that was still their intent, though. I will say this much in its favor: the town has some extremely evocative imagery that helps us understand at a glance the spirit of the people who live here and that of the Eulmorans who lord over them.  ...  ...  I guess we know why people in Gatetown dig through the trash so much now. Also, no, those islands in the distance with the fancy-looking towns on them are not mentioned or explained. I assumed they were either abandoned or act as barracks for the Eulmoran army. Our first task as servants is on the city's bottom floor, the Buttress. I may not have been able to link it to Dante directly but rest assured, it is a circle of hell.  Immigration and Customs Enforcement...  The nightmare of government bureaucracy is everywhere on this floor, from the rooms full of imports waiting to be cataloged to fresh arrivals being instructed in etiquette to mall cops ready to pounce on anyone who tries to sneak in unauthorized. The civil service appears to be made up entirely of our fellow selectees, but they make sure we have no illusions about whose side they're on.  That term, "Bonded Citizen," is part of our orientation. We'd already heard of "Free Citizens," and the distinction is exactly what it says on the tin. All the rich folks have full rights and privileges by the grace of Lord Vauthry. It's noted that this isn't limited to those descended from the elites who fled here 100 years ago; anyone who earns (or buys) Vauthry's approval can join the club. The Bonded are second-class citizens whose rights extend only as far as our patrons allow. As mentioned, if we lose our patron, we must find a new one or work for the government like this lot. In an experience worthy of a DMV Simulator, we get our paperwork stamped and are informed that we'll be serving a pair of nobles known as the Chai family. Then we take our forms ten feet away to a second desk so they can also be filed because gently caress you.  ...  ...   That's HILARIOUS! Of course, we stink! We just came through two garbage-filled shanty towns, and that's not even counting all our other adventures! The joke isn't entirely for yucks, either. Calling your washroom a Delousery has some pretty grim connotations, evoking prisons, internment camps, and other dehumanizing institutions. While the stalls are pretty and surrounded by fancy furniture, they are still communal showers with minimal thought for privacy. As parasites who haven't yet submitted ourselves to our new masters, we merit nothing better. The room being fancy is for the aesthetic benefit of the Eulmorans, not us. None of this is lost on Alphinaud.  ...  That's a top-tier dialogue box. One thing's for sure, though: Estinien is the wrong answer. I still remember that time you went months without a bath while wearing your blood-stained armor everywhere, you grimy bastard!  ...  Before we start up the stairs, there's one more thing worth noting on the bottom floor. In the corner of one of the rooms, you can find a clerk with a job and attitude that sticks out from the others. She helps people who don't know how to read, write or who have limited vocabulary skills make their way through the registration process. It's a logical position to include among the staff since the Free Citizens will recruit anyone with the skills they want regardless of any other abilities. The machinery of decadence can't pause for the shortcomings of the smallfolk! Except she explains that she actually volunteered for this job because she was illiterate until her patron taught her how to read.  It'd be easy to dismiss this as an example of the Kind Slavemaster Fallacy. This poor girl carrying a torch for the deceased simply doesn't understand that she's been exploited and is now perpetuating the cycle. However, in retrospect, this will turn out to be our first clue that things in Eulmore are very different than what we assumed. ~*~*~ On our way to meet the Chais, we pass the Understory, Eulmore's military headquarters. There's not much to see at this point, but you can find a few more strange details that don't fit with what Eulmore appeared to be from the outside.  I figured the military would be exclusively Bonded Citizens. Some of these slovenly one-percenters are subjecting themselves to physical training and personal danger when they're required to do nothing but sit around and indulge in pleasure all day? That's not the only strange thing. It turns out the military used to occupy the highest level of the castle. The same "reforms," that created the selection system also saw their headquarters moved into a space that was once the city's jail. They're also now required to split their time (and workspace) between soldiering and warehousing resources.  Generally, you'd expect that if a guy like Vauthry rose to power in a post-apocalypse and immediately weakened a dominant military in favor of giving the aristocracy a useless playground, he'd fall backward onto fifteen upturned daggers and then stumble out a window. How did he keep his head when making these moves? On the top floor, known as the Canopy, we find our patrons enjoying a spot of tea.  ...  ...  Oh my God, Dulai-Chai is so cute! They did an amazing job on the pudgy Miqo model! And her voice is all prim and squeaky! I love her! Speaking of prissy voices, Alphinaud lays it on thick during this whole speech trying to sound like the biggest stuck-up douche that he can. The dramatic pause ellipses and the italics on the word ARTIST aren't for show; they are leveraged for all they're worth in the line delivery. Growing up a wealthy dandy in Useless Academic Land may have made him naive, but our boy knows how to run with this crowd. Chai-Nuzz, in comparison to his wife, is far less likable. His first few words are mostly bad-mouthing his last artist (who almost died for his displeasure, if you recall) and questioning why Alphi needs an assistant. Fortunately, he's a limp noodle, and watching Dulai run over him is very satisfying.  ...  Alphi secures us permission to explore the city under the guise of doing Artist Things necessary for a masterwork portrait, and we take the chance to split up and gather intel. In many ways, Eulmore is precisely what one would predict based on the foreshadowing: a den of iniquity, egomania, and elitist arrogance.  ...  ...  Most of the people who are tolerable only manage it because they're so wasted that they're barely conscious.  ...  I mean, hell, they're so evil that they LOCKED THE AETHERYTE!  Even Lolorito had the grace to simply not build one! As is tradition in speculative fiction, the biggest sign that we're in a bad place is that an entire section of the city has been given over to a cabaret club known as the Beehive. This is an obvious send-up to FFVII's famous Honeybee Inn. The employees are even called "honeybees," by order of the mysterious, unseen owner, Queen Bee. Their motto is to provide a "sting," in the lives of their patrons, ensuring that even when the Eulmorans grow numb to every other form of debauchery, they always have a place to find something worth getting excited about. In line with this ethos, they cater to all tastes.  ...  The Eyes Wide Shut meets The Purge masks are a nice touch. Oh, and don't worry, the rich jerks also come in every flavor.  And yet... even here, there are hints that more is going on than just the elite indulging at everyone else's expense.  A handful of these dirtbags, like Tatcha here, are not just being outwardly polite to The Help while mocking us behind their backs; they express genuine care for everyone in their community, Free and Bonded alike. Moreover, not one Bonded (as several characters openly identify themselves) mentions any discontent with their circumstances. If anything, they're vocal in their concern for their patrons, and many talk to them less like servants and more like friends. Now, we've all seen Django Unchained. In unequal power structures, the oppressed are often expected to participate in, or even show enthusiasm for, their oppression. Even in situations where they seem to be exerting power, like a Bonded girl loudly berating her patron for drinking too much-  -the act that defies the power structure is often what the dominant party wants rather than a legitimate exercise of agency. However, as Kheris turns over more and more rocks to figure out what's going on, that explanation seems less and less likely. When she comes across a woman in a long silk dress, the encounter brings an earth-shattering revelation.  gently caress my life... I finally meet a parallel double, and it's ROWENA?! Where's Parallel Haurchefant or Parallel Yugiri? Hell, I'll take Parallel Magnai to see if that one got all the rizz!    Alphinaud, we need to talk about worker solidarity. We split up to spy on these idiots, and you decide the best use of your time is introducing the concept of a company town to the gentry? Sheesh. Fun fact: Unlike Stormblood, which requires you to reach the level cap and clear the base MSQ to access Scrip items, Shadowbringers makes the full selection available from the moment you talk to this transdimensional clone.  ...  Now, that's an Artist's Assistant if I've ever seen one. Anyway, the REAL earth-shattering revelation comes from a different woman in a long silk dress.  The Bonded she's looking for has been hunting for her lost handkerchief for hours because it's just VERY IMPORTANT to recover a scrap of cloth for some reason. It sounds like a typically farcical situation between an overindulged bourgeoise lady and their put-upon servant, right? Well, things go in a different direction when you find the guy a fingertip away from falling off the side of the tower.  ...  She didn't send this lummox after the handkerchief at all, let alone order him to risk his life to recover the thing. It was all his idea. To use his words, he put his life on the line for a hankie because it "might spare [his] mistress but a single moment of sadness."  The real twist to this interaction comes when you return the big dummy to the girl in the dress. She scolds him, not for failing to recover her property, but for putting himself in danger. It turns out she'd explicitly told him to forget the handkerchief when it blew away and reminds him that all she ever asks from him as her Bonded is to keep her company.  ...   Hold the loving phone. The Free Citizens are forbidden to hold property of any kind. Wealth is apportioned based on a state-determined standard of living. The Bonded Citizens are brought into the economy based on their abilities and produce labor in quotas dictated by the community's needs. The state employs a vast military and bureaucratic apparatus to manage and protect the nation's resources from external threats and prevent the consolidation of power within the economy, thereby eliminating struggle between the classes... ARE THESE PEOPLE COMMUNISTS?!  Not exactly. We'll get back to this. The revelations continue as the investigation takes you into the Beehive. A sultry young woman named Tista-Bie offers to tell you anything you want to know about the city, provided you can beat her at a guessing game.  ..  Once you win, she makes a startling claim: the reason the city is so safe, and the military's reduced standing was accepted without complaint, is that Lord Vauthry has the power to control Sin Eaters! Kheris struggles to believe this outlandish boast and attempts to confirm it by questioning another Free Citizen. His information also comes with a price.  Aw, hell! Kheris has never danced in front of a crowd before! How can she possibly win the approval of this over-indulged wastrel... Think, Warrior of Light, THINK!  ...  ...  ...  ...  Phew. We'll have to make sure she's prepared in case this ever comes up again. Rich Boy not only confirms that Vauthry has the power to control Sin Eaters, but he goes so far as to say they've become the city's allies, willing to fight to protect it so the humans don't have to. This explains why the army has been forced to take on glorified clerical work cataloging dusty rooms full of forgotten doodads. If they weren't doing something ostensibly productive, they'd be "parasites," and we can't have that. It also tells us why the alliance with the Crystarium fell to dust. Eulmore's soldiers once bled on the same front lines as the rest of humanity, but now they've made a separate peace, and if that leaves the rest of the world to be devoured, so be it. The funny thing is that Rich Boy's feelings about the people getting screwed for his benefit aren't haughty or arrogant. If anything, he seems sad for them, as if he can't understand why everyone doesn't join Team Eulmore.  As we've seen to this point, nobody outside the city is aware of Vauthry's influence over the Eaters. They all assume the city is safe because of the Eulmoran army. What we're not told is why they don't know. One would think such an ability, if publicly known, would be a pretty potent recruitment tool. Ultimately, we're not given a direct answer to this question, though there is an implicit answer later. That said, I know precisely why outsiders don't know what's happening inside Eulmore in a metatextual sense. Earlier, I claimed there was a reason the narrative never explicitly showed Eulmore doing bad things to the people outside the city. After these reveals, I fully understood that reason. The name of the game has been misdirection from the start. When we arrived, we were shown a desperately impoverished region next door to extravagant wealth. Alphinaud explained that even after a year of trying, the castle was a complete black box to him, but he did know that the only way to get inside was to make some faceless Rich Person happy. The implication was clear. We've seen this story in Ul'dah, Ishgard, Hingashi, and the Imperial Provinces: the rich maintain their status by setting the poor against each other and leveraging their money and power against anyone who would challenge the system that has privileged them. It's Class Struggle 101. Except that's not what's really going on. When we get inside, we learn that people on both sides of the divide have embraced an egalitarian ideal. Yes, the Bonded are required to work for their place, and the Free aren't, but the two groups have embraced each other despite the fundamental inequality of their relationship. Some of the Free choose to work, even serve as soldiers, because it benefits their community and spreads greater happiness to everyone, including the Bonded. Others grant their Bonded as carefree a life as they themselves enjoy, ultimately demanding nothing from them. Whatever task initially brought them inside Eulmore eventually stops mattering because happiness is the Free Citizen's only true pursuit. We see this concept reinforced in our next interaction with the Chais. Dulia not only doesn't mind Kheris running around not working as long as it makes Alphinaud happy, but she doesn't even care that much whether or not Alphi is working on her painting. His mere presence brings her more than enough joy.  ...  Even when her stuffy husband starts complaining about how he wants the job done, Dulia ultimately gets him to back down because the only reason he wants the painting is to make her happy.  ...  The narrative implied that Eulmore was full of Proletariat-crushing monsters without ever showing them doing anything directly horrible because it would make these revelations extra-shocking. Some of our resident Evil Nobles are good people? Those who get inside really are living in something like the paradise they were promised? The Sin Eaters are being stopped by a mysterious magic that turns them friendly rather than Eulmore's military might? Those are some significant subversions of the expectations an average player would have brought into this plotline. And the biggest twist is still yet to come. ~*~*~ With his new Timeskip Gear acquired, Alphi decides to start doing his actual job. While he paints, Kheris undertakes one last fact-finding mission inside the military headquarters. There's nothing new to be learned from the soldiers, but she does find something strange: a Bonded hiding in one of the cells, crying her eyes out. She was invited inside Eulmore to sing, but some illness has afflicted her throat, and now she fears what will happen if she can't do her job.  To keep anyone from learning of her problem, she sends you to an apothecary who lives in the Derelicts. His diagnosis is that she'll need throat surgery, which means it's likely she'll never sing again.  ...  Just when Kheris was starting to wonder if this place was really so bad... but let's stop and think about what this guy is saying for a second. No corpses have been taken out of the city for years. Vauthry has put a handful to death by throwing them off the balconies, presumably for the crime of asking to leave his utopia, but the doctor has no clue what's happening to the rest. He could have some reason for thinking they're suffering an undesirable fate. Perhaps he's kept track of how many go in and realized the place would be overpopulated by now if something wasn't happening to control the number of citizens. Then again, when we go back inside, we're given reason to think he's making a baseless assumption.  There's no hint that this gentleman believes death is the natural consequence of a Bonded outliving her usefulness. Indeed, we're made to question if the girl even contemplated that possibility because her response is to express fear of becoming a burden to him. Even though she is losing the capacity to do the thing that got her into the city, she's more worried about her patron than herself, once again showing that living in this place seems to dissolve the divide between the classes. Surely, this kind of affection would be impossible if Bonded were being regularly killed and everyone took it as normal and expected. However, the conversation's next turn is enough to make one think that cackling old sea rat may have been more on-point than even he knew:  ...  ...  ...    ...  These people aren't communists. This entire city is a Doomsday Cult. All the pieces fit together perfectly: the totalitarian structure, the isolation from external influences, the care taken to engender desperation in potential recruits to curtail resistance to indoctrination, the intentional cloak of mystery around the city's practices and its leader's abilities even when it could serve to create greater interest in the movement, the violent reprisals against anyone who attempts to leave, the divestment of wealth and property that leaves even the most powerful among the membership utterly dependent on the leader, the encouragement of idealism that makes all members view each other as equals in their subservience, a figure at the top of it all purportedly imbued with divine power. Many or all of these traits could be found among New Religious movements in the modern era which went on to link their teachings with the fear of apocalyptic destruction in the nuclear age and the promise that adherence could mean salvation. Of course, they're much better known for becoming synonymous with brainwashing, sexual abuse, and mass murder/suicide. Even the presence of people in Derelicts who want to rescue friends who've found their way inside the organization fits. It was the outcry of family, fearful after losing all contact with siblings and children, that often led to these organizations being exposed as more than just harmless religious communities. The writing team could have looked to any number of potential inspirations for this scenario. This idea of "ascension," and Sin Eaters rapturing the worthy into an endless paradise seems to evoke the Branch Davidians or Heaven's Gate. The emphasis on breaking the class divide and the split between those who labor for the community and those devoted to other pursuits as dictated by the leader inevitably raise the specter of Jonestown. Of course, this is a Japanese game made for a Japanese audience, so the most significant touchstone would be Aum Shinrikyo, the perpetrators of the Tokyo Subway Sarine Attack.  This group was founded on a bizarre mishmash of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, Hinduism, Christian Millennialism, and the prophecies of Nostradamus. Their leader claimed to have been Jesus Christ in a past life and that he was capable of miraculous feats such as levitation and spiritual healing. He also commissioned an anime to help spread his message. No, really.  This all sounds very funny until you learn that he not only required his followers to hand over all their worldly property but tortured them with physical trials like sitting in pots of boiling water or being buried alive in small boxes for days. Reports say that if anyone was killed during these trials, witnesses to the body would be murdered, all corpses secretly cremated, and no one was permitted to speak of those who disappeared. What were followers supposed to gain for this sacrifice? While the leader did promise spiritual powers similar to his own, the primary draw was a guarantee: any who followed him would be cleansed of their sins and remain untouched when the world was ended by the nuclear fires of World War III. Sounds pretty relevant, wouldn't you say? However, when I was reading up on this, what stood out to me most was the people this cult targeted for recruitment: students at elite colleges, specifically those on career tracks for the highest-pressure, highest-competition fields. These young adults had already spent their entire childhoods going through a meat grinder, trying to one-up each other in a handful of top high schools, devoting most of their free hours to private tutors and practice exams. Their university life was more rat-racing in service to obtaining a corporate career where days off are a joke and recreation only happens when the boss decides he needs people to go out drinking with him. Thinking about this, I couldn't help but make the connection to the people of Kholusia. They live on a dying planet, forced to struggle just for the right to put a meal in their bellies without being killed. They have no reason to believe anything will ever get better. Toil and fear are their entire present, their only future, and many in their communities seem to think that's something worthy of gratitude. Why wouldn't some among them, like the victims Aum Shinrikyo, eagerly swallow a promise of something better? Regardless of what mixture of famous cults the writers used as their framework, there's no denying this conversation begs many questions. Is this so-called "ascension," just a euphemism for death? If so, why are no bodies left behind? Could we be looking at a Soylent Green scenario, explaining the source of the mysterious Meol? Or are there no bodies because Vauthry is arranging for people to be turned into Sin Eaters? A steady stream of victims with no resistance might explain his ability to "control," the beasts. Is something else at play here? The only chance of getting those answers is to meet the man himself. Kheris rushes back to Alphinaud to report on what she's heard. Our boy is already well on his way to completing his task.  As usual, you can't knock his talent. His reaction to her report is impressively subdued, but we are surrounded by potential enemies, so I can't blame him for keeping cool. Before we can speculate on the source of Vauthry's influence on the Eaters or what is happening to the disappearing people, we're interrupted by Mr. Nuzz.  Everyone's a critic! His rant is interrupted when a blood-curdling scream echoes through the hallway from a floor above the Canopy. Nuzz identifies the place as Lord Vauthry's private estate, The Emergent. Then the clowns appear, inviting all citizens to gather in their master's audience chamber, The Offer. He has identified a villain skulking the halls of his beloved city and wants everyone to witness the malcontent's punishment.  I know it can be a little problematic to use obesity as a short-hand for evil, but getting food on this planet is really difficult, and this guy could probably eat the also-overweight-but-nice Dulai for breakfast and still be hungry. I mean, drat! Of course, the more relevant detail here is that he's using the Lion Boss from Amdapor, presumably also a Sin Eater by his pitch-black eyes, as a couch. And that's not all he's got lying around!  A harem of murderous apocalypse angels can't be a good sign. And indeed, it is not.  When Alphi demands to know what is happening here, Vauthry is initially baffled that someone would dare speak without his leave but soon deigns to explain that Kai-Shirr committed the crime of fraud. He claimed to be a businessman, but based on his conduct in the marketplace, he is just an ordinary peasant who fooled the selection process with a handful of pearls. He lacks the education and skills to fill the role of merchant, and that makes him guilty even if he could repeat the trick of turning fruit into jewelry.  It's funny, while the systems in place on the lowest floor are plainly dehumanizing in their design, nobody except Vauthry and the two Clowns (who serve him directly) has thrown around this kind of rhetoric. Even the more malicious members of the Free Citizenry haven't mentioned this concept of taking without giving or referred to the idea of people being parasites if they want a piece of Eulmore's bounty. Work and Fulfilling Purpose are always spoken of positively, but their absence isn't stigmatized. Vauthry's conception of this Ciy of Final Pleasures isn't the only one in Eulmore. It's just the only one that matters.   ...  What the heck is that thing under his arm...? A Sin Eater baby? Anyway, Kai's punishment for fraud was supposed to be throwing himself from the balcony, but the kid begged for mercy. Vauthry's alternative sentence was to hand over a knife and demand a literal, unironic pound of flesh.  This information provides a clear implication for what "ascension" actually means. If the Sin Eaters need to devour living aether, and no corpses ever leave the city, he's allowing the creatures to consume all the aether his "chosen ones," have to offer, body and soul. That would certainly explain why they obey him... or rather, it would if Alisaie hadn't claimed they lack the capacity for reason. Maybe it's just that they're as intelligent as animals and can be tamed enough to show up and eat food when it's put out for them. Then again, there might be more we don't know about this arrangement. It also potentially explains why Vauthry has worked so hard to keep the fact that Eaters obey him secret. Maybe he wants the other towns to refuse his rule because as long as they remain on their own, they serve as a self-replenishing source of workers AND food for his pets. Are the handful of Eater attacks that still happen on the island at his instruction, or do they happen because he deigns to allow them, or are they just random from Eater he doesn't control at all? Throughout this morbid exchange, the camera occasionally cuts back to the crowd of Eulmorans, who look on with completely dead expressions. There are no smiles, frowns, tears, or jeers; they just stand there like statues, watching us talk. Only once their leader's way of thinking is laid bare do they respond... with applause.  Even then, their faces remain emotionless. It's beyond creepy. To cap things off, Vauthry orders Alphinaud to paint him a picture, or he will be the next one judged for his insolence. This is all Kheris can take, and she's ready to start carving her way through everything in this room, but Alphi signals her to hold back.   The reason for his restraint is simple: Kai will die if we don't help him. He kneels and heals the boy's wounds. Vauthry is incensed.  ...  Oh, drat! Is that the biggest clap-back Alphinaud has ever delivered? Maybe he did grow up a little during his gap year. Even Vauthry himself can't believe how owned he just was.  ...  Nice meltdown. Fortunately, we're already gone and don't have to witness it. The Eulmoran people, on the other hand, stand there and watch him throw a tantrum, their faces as blank as ever. So weird.  WHAT?! Things aren't going to go in a happy direction anytime soon, are they? ~*~*~ Outside the city, Alphi takes a breath and realizes what he's just done, prompting him to apologize for acting so rashly. Kheris wanted to be even more rash, so she's got no room to complain, and Kai is just happy to be alive. His failure to sell himself as a businessman isn't Alphinaud's fault, after all. He decides that whatever his next move is, he will make it on his own instead of relying on others. Alphi is genuinely happy to hear this, which is nice after he's been so depressed this whole arc, but I still can't say I love the whole "It's better to do stuff on your own than get help," thing. On the other hand, in Kai's case, we can take this idea more as a reference to those friends he was chasing after. Rather than going into Eulmore because it's what he wanted, Kai was letting people who weren't even with him anymore do his thinking for him and set the terms on which he lived his life. In that regard, I can agree that finding the strength to move on and forging a little self-reliance is a good thing. Just before they start the trip back to Crystarium, our heroes get one last unexpected interruption.  NOT NOW, IDIOT! YOUR WIFE HAS MUCH MORE IMPORTANT MATTERS TO DISCUSS!   She really is a cinnamon roll, isn't she? Alphi, naturally, can't get into the fact that she's part of a cult that's probably feeding people to angels, possibly turning people into angels, and perhaps secretly doing mass cannibalism by turning people into the Meol they're all eating. He simply tells her that he has to leave and tries to return the clothes she loaned him. Dulia won't hear of it.  ...Ok, look, I've gone along with some flimsy justifications in this game when they wanted to do a story thing that should lock off an area but not take away my ability to go there. We all remember the Crystal Braves occupation; the idea that I could keep coming and going in Ul'dah and Revenant's Toll was silly, but they put in some work to make it make sense. You could let yourself go along with it. This? This is loving stupid. It may, in fact, be the most insulting thing the game has ever put in front of me. Don't worry, Dulia will talk to the guards. No problem. THIS CITY IS RUN BY A MURDERING PSYCHOPATH WHO EVERYONE WORSHIPS AS A GOD AND COMMANDS THE BIGGEST ARMY IN THE WORLD! Why is this even here? So people can turn in collectibles to Not-Rowena? They couldn't have put a smuggler in the Crystarium market or something? You can't convince me that there are going to be sidequests or other things pulling me back to this area throughout the campaign. I still can't even attune to the drat Aetheryte! If I want to return to Eulmore, I have to teleport to Wright and ride over on a ground mount! All to visit a city that has nothing in it but NPCs who should be killing me on sight! *Sigh.* Ok. Let's take a breath.  The Kholusia leg of the introduction left me more conflicted than almost any other stretch of story I've played in this game. Some of the stuff here was beyond brilliant. That Major Sidequest is one of their best ever. There were some fantastic scenes and absolutely haunting images. Vauthry is an instant winner as an antagonist, and the idea of this fake utopia of well-meaning pseudo-innocent cultists wielding both a powerful army AND tamed Sin Eaters is compelling as a threat. They laid out some fertile thematic soil here, asking questions about how one can be expected to maintain the will to live in a world that seems to have no future and the importance of holding on to truth even when fantasies seem infinitely more welcoming. But the execution of all this good stuff was practically tripping over itself almost from the start. I get it. The writing team wanted to do a mystery story. They wanted to contrast Alisaie knowing everything about her zone with Alphinaud knowing nothing. They wanted us to think we had everything figured out at various phases so they could use our preconceptions to pull the rug out from under us and make the answers hit that much harder. They didn't want to lead with their idea that the rich idiots are also victims this time, and they wanted the fact that there's a mortal with Sin Eaters working for him to be the big climax, which required it to remain hidden information at all costs. Everything in this zone that irritated me or strained my credulity was in service to those requirements, and I understand every bit of the motivations behind those bullet points. I just... man, this struggled to work. Ultimately, it got there, but it was an uphill battle. None of that is even mentioning the weird plotholes that seem to mainly be a product of making concessions to realism that really didn't need to be there or amping up the red herrings. Why are there Eulmoran military exiles acting as raiders when there's a big plot point that not even corpses leave Eulmore very often? Why is the relationship between the city and the outer towns so messy? Why is Derelicts so inconsistent with the identity were told it's supposed to have? Why are there so many Eulmoran Free Citizens who are complete dicks if you go around talking to them or observing them when the MSQ dialogue pushes so hard that they're mainly victims with good hearts and good intentions? It's all so... uneven. When you compare it to how clean and hard-hitting Alisaie's intro was, it's really a night-and-day experience. Well, I guess the important thing is that we're through it now, and I'm not complaining about our new antagonist or the unanswered questions that linger after what we've experienced. I'm very much eager to see where this goes. I just hope the next stretch of plot road doesn't have quite so many potholes. Sanguinia fucked around with this message at 03:42 on Apr 27, 2024 |
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Apr 26, 2024 23:13
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Hell yeah. Two updates in one day. We feasting. Now another three more updates before the day is out, right?
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Apr 26, 2024 23:20
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 10/10
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Apr 26, 2024 23:39
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Sanguinia posted:OH gently caress! Is that a Goblin? Is that what Goblins look like without their cute masks?! Yeesh, better steer clear… No, that's the Hobgoblin. Similar to the Green Goblin, but he refined the serum so that he doesn't suffer from bouts of insanity.  See? Totally different.
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Apr 26, 2024 23:53
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| # ? May 7, 2024 20:59 |
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Not the first time Alphinaud didn't hold back against those in power
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Apr 27, 2024 00:00
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