Mikh'a Rintala
(Aether/Adamantoise) Outside of spoiler embargo windows, beware FFXIV spoilers up to the latest patch! sideblog of mercuryprime
🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️ he/him 30+
I wish that you could see crafter and gatherer portraits like how you see combat job ones at the start of duties, but since you can't I just want everyone to see X'vahl's FSH portrait
Credit where credit is due. FFXIV's latest Variant Dungeon, Merchant's Tale, came out this week in Patch 7.45. There's been a lot of well-deserved criticism levied towards it already, because some of the most prominently marketed aspects of this new release - the gear, some of the bosses, etc. -- have been Orientalist caricatures that are demeaning, racist, and frankly rather disappointing. It's obvious why this is (sex sells and Disney's Aladdin sells; hence the "exotic" belly dancer gear, the blue genie of the lamp, the flying carpets, etc.), and I won't rehash those points here because that isn't the focus of this post.
The point is this: there's been some actual research & work that's gone into Merchant's Tale, and those facets should be recognized and praised and discussed, even as we are justly and rightfully denouncing the aforementioned Orientalism. I'm an Iranian-American; I may not be the best person to speak on this on account of how I am diaspora, but my grasp of Farsi/Persian and my cultural upbringing gives me enough background to recognize the work that Creative Unit 3 did put into this latest release. It's my personal belief that we should be encouraging more and better representation, not less and worse, and until matters & industries & reach improve enough that we can enjoy homegrown representation developed in the countries best suited to represent themselves, we ought to give companies feedback to encourage them to do better (hire natives and first language speakers, do their research, understand what not to do, etc.) rather than to become entirely avoidant ("why bother with representing this culture when we'll only get slammed for it") or, worse, to start disregarding our feedback entirely in favor of what sells best. There's enough good representation in Merchant's Tale that it's worth not losing sight of it, and I'm going to be covering all of those things in this post.
Be warned: spoilers await you.
Finally, before we start: please pray for the people of Iran.
The Framework
The first thing about Merchant's Tale to reckon with is that it isn't current-day Corvos, which is to say that it isn't FFXIV's closest analogue to the Middle East. It's Corvos as depicted by a fictional collection of stories. Sound familiar?
The tale in question also suffers from having countless versions:
One aspect of the story is about as traditional as it gets in folklore. A young man winning the heart and hand of a woman:
If there's any doubt as to what's happening here, the reward for unlocking all thirteen routes of Merchant's Tale is an eye mask that looks like sleepwear. Something you'd wear to bed.
And, of course, there's both the genie and the flying carpet(s) which call to mind Disney's Aladdin, based on Aladdin, a tale that originates in a certain collection of folktales. I'm not including the picture of the genie here, you've all seen it, but we will revisit the carpet later.
FFXIV's Merchant's Tale appears to be based on, or heavily influenced by, One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of mostly Middle Eastern stories. I say mostly because some are mostly inventions added to the collection at later times by Westerners. The prime example of this is Aladdin; look that up if you'd like more details.
The majority of stories found within One Thousand & One Nights aren't very well known in the public zeitgeist, and we can probably attribute a great deal of that to vast gulfs in culture and sensibilities (old vs. modern). The most common and universal aspect of the collection, however, is the framing device: the stories contained in the collection are presented as stories told by Sahrzahd (commonly known as Scheherazade) to her husband the king starting on the night of their marriage. She regales him with these stories throughout the night, and ends mid-tale each time come sunrise; intrigued and possessed by the need to know how each story ends, the king always delays her execution (long story, you can look it up) until the next day.
You could say that these are bedtime stories she tells him, which makes the Comfortable Eye Mask reward rather fitting; by the end of the collection, the king withdraws the planned execution of Sahrzahd, having learned a great deal of wisdom from her stories, and spares her life. This brings the tales to the end and, presumably, a return to normalcy... and a normal sleep schedule. Which again, a fitting parallel for the reward: once you've experienced all the stories within Merchant's Tale, you too get to sleep.
It's a shame that Square Enix appears to have based so much of this content on One Thousand and One Nights. There are less well-known works rife with potential for creative storytelling (Shahnameh is right there, Yoshida) but it's clear that they went this route because it's familiar enough to a general audience and popular enough that it will generate excitement. In short, it's not as risky and more of a sure bet.
This is important context moving forward, though, as we'll see.
Firouzeh: Turquoise in Abundance
One of the things which struck me about Merchant's Tale, as far back as late 2025 when Creative Unit 3 began showing it off, was the abundance of turquoise. You see it everywhere: a sky blue or robin egg blue color which makes everything in the content pop.
For those who aren't aware: turquoise (firouzeh, in Farsi/Spanish) has the English name it does because the French got their pierre turqueise (Turkish Stone) from the Ottomans... who in turn got it from the Persians, who were mining it and using it extensively in many walks of life!
I never thought I'd see so much blue! I immediately got my hopes up that perhaps this meant that the content was geared a little bit more my way than usual, in terms of representation, than I was accustomed to expecting from the hodge-podge Orientalist melting-pot depictions we are accustomed to seeing from the West where all of the various MENA/SWANA cultures get jumbled up together into a nonsensical ball of disappointment. I was not disappointed.
No sooner does the Warrior of Light agree to accompany Y'nazqha the gleaner into this enchanted storybook than we get dropped into this gorgeous room, which is also bluer than I could dare hope or dream of.
Small side: Y'nazqha doesn't get the Story-Lover's gear treatment, but instead gets enchanted into the far more respectable Gemrise set from Dawntrail...
...which unfortunately does not offset Creative Unit 3 choosing to dress the tale's maiden in the oft-criticized Story-spinner's set:
It's not great, folks. There are so many culturally significant and appropriate and BEAUTIFUl dresses, outfits, and more for ladies from across countless cultures that Square Enix could be putting into the game.
Anyway, back to the blue. I ran into an immediate issue with my shaders, which -- to their credit -- Square did warn us about. I made some adjustments later, but you may see some slight differences in tone, hue, and warmth as a result between a number of these pictures. But the big takeaway is this: that interior is GORGEOUS. Somebody did the fuckin' work. In fact, they did so much goddamned work that two details immediately jumped at me.
First: the carpets have tassels and the seats are traditionally low to the floor, as is the furniture. Small asks, often lost in the wash when it comes to video games.
More importantly, however, I found myself asking, "Where is the samovar?" I could see the cup and pot on the table. I could see the kettle on the stove.
And that's when it clicked: the Middle East, Iran/Persia specifically, would not have had samovars at the time that this "ancient folklore" takes place. We only got them fairly recently, within the past few hundred years, from Russia. Square Enix paid enough attention to realize that there shouldn't be a samovar here.
Truly, they paid a good deal of attention throughout. The bazaar which you pass through? Carpets and rugs. Carpets and rugs galore. We're not done with carpets yet. Thankfully, none of these fly. I cannot stress enough just how much my family loves carpets, and all of the Iranians and Iranian-Americans with whom I'm familiar love carpets.
We'll touch more on aesthetic as we go, but it's time to discuss another important area in which the team paid attention to detail: language.
Farsi, Also Known as Persian
As it so happened, the first run I experienced with strangers took us down the bazaar and to the Anchorite at Corvos. This is a coastal beach section, and I'm not in a position to comment on the aesthetics here, having never had the opportunity to visit Iran; may I do so within my lifetime, inshallah! What surprised me, however, was the name of the final boss awaiting us at the end of that route.
Darya the Sea-Maid is presented as a mermaid with fairy-like wings, which is delightful enough on its own... but darya is Farsi for "ocean," and Farsi itself is a very poetic language. "Ocean, the Maid of the Sea" might sound repetitive to Western ears, but Darya khedmatkar-i darya has a certain charm to it that I cannot stop thinking about. It's lovely, truly.
Darya being a siren and being so focused on song & dance is also a delight, because song and prayer and our voices and our movement are so important in Iranian and Persian culture (I list both because there is a difference, we won't get into it here; may Iranians not of Persian background forgive me this trespass). We live, enthusiastically, and we enjoy and celebrate living.
While we're here, Darya also touches on faith and on fate. Something to keep in mind for later.
Finishing that first run was important, because Nazqha herself points out that the fiction we're exploring is not at all a one-to-one representation of true history:
We're not done, not by a long shot. Watch this post for more, because I've hit the 30-image limit on this post and there's so much more to cover. Reblogs appreciated, of course, but I do recommend holding them until I've gotten through everything. Please do note that I won't be reblogging or responding to any comments or tags or notes or reblogs until I'm completely finished, which may take several more posts.
But first: the importance of tea. Not only tea but tea with honey.
And a quick glance at a gorgeous courtyard, one of many:
If there was still any doubt that this is highly inspired by One Thousand and One Nights, specifically Galland's Arabian Nights, behold: an analogue for Ali Baba and his forty thieves.
I was to be disappointed by this mention of a "monstrous bird," because I was expecting the Simurgh to show up at some point. The central path through the valley, however, just brings you to the Rukhkh, also known as the Roc (yes, that Roc, the big bird, not the yellow one).
Majestic creature, the Roc.
And I don't know what these creatures are supposed to represent, Nazqha, but I'll tell you what their name means.
Shamshir, of course, is Farsi for "sword." These are "sword-arms." What a cheeky pun and a clever throwaway reference to how these sugar gliders in-game strike at you.
Past the cute little animals is the central path's boss, which... again, Orientalist, not great, we should criticize this too.
There's no Farsi in use here, but I will note that "Fang of the Lion" yet again features that poetic sense and would work very well when translated. Roughly speaking, would it be Dandan-i Shir? Hmmm. Where have I seen Dandan before recently...
Surely nowhere of import. Moving on!
The swordmaster may not be dressed appropriately and we don't get their actual name, but she does speak with a certain cadence typical of this kind of folklore.
Small aside: this swordmaster is of the Unyielding Blade tradition of Corvos, an ancient school which was snuffed out by the Garleans when they invaded as conquerors. Nazqha rightly points this out and it's a subtle reminder that the game does have things to say on the subject of colonial-imperialism:
That was run number two. Run number three for me was the leftmost path, which leads to a palace. On the way there, though, you encounter an apple orchard and some... strange flora. Why is this thing named "Bandari Weed?" Bandari means "of the port," with bandar meaning port. This is typically a reference to southern region of modern day Iran which faces the sea.
As for fauna, this game really wants you to internalize that this is the monstrous rukh (Roc) and not the noble Simurgh.
The palace is gorgeous, by the way. Remember all that talk about firouzeh/turquoise?
As we've seen from promotional material, there's grapes aplenty here. But did you know there's honey, too?
This is a reference to wildflower honey. Asal is delicious in all its forms, folks! And Nazqha agrees!
I'm not gonna dwell on the interior of the palace, folks. It's gaudy, it's filled with riches, it's the sort of Orientalist depiction used to fuel European fantasies about the exotic.
What I want to get to is this lady, the boss of the left path. Put aside her Orientalist depiction for now and pay attention to her name:
Speaking of this pari, we've heard of her before in the description of the Mogstation's Magicked Carpet mount:
Pari is a difficult concept to explain. The closest I can come is if you crossed a fairy with an angel and ended up with a winged wicked little gremlin of mischief. They're supernatural beings loaded with enchantments. You can think of the jinn as the Arabic answer to the Iranian & Persian mythology's pari. We're talking old mythology here, Zoroastrian and older, far outdating Islam.
Summon forth your magicked carpet. Fantasy will set you free. Finally.
It is said an ancient king of Corvos, upon conquering a tribe of faeries, bid the faerie queen weave her magicks to forge an object the likes mankind had never seen. The queen was executed shortly after presenting the king with a flying carpet. This is not that carpet, but at least no one was slain in its creation.
I'm not going to dwell on the fight itself much. It's neat that she's depicted as lazy, preferring to make her enchanted servants do most of the work, and and it's neat that this reflects as "the boss moves very slowly except when it's time for her mechanics," but the servants in question are all flying carpets. Sigh.
That said, though, mashallah, someone took the time to actually stare at a Persian rug. Look at this beauty:
And in case we need confirmation that this pari was indeed the same fairy:
The left path doesn't hold much more for us in terms of language, but there is a specific path which can be taken that leads to a bird's nest. A wind sprite attempts to steal the babies' food, and if you intervene... Mama arrives in time to save you from the sprite's wrath. Could this be a subtle nod to the Simurgh? I ask because the bird later comes to your rescue during one version of the pari fight.
Curiously, these sprites are listed as "Capricious Chambermaid" in dialogue. Ensorcelled women, perhaps? Who knows.
Okay, putting aside that this creature was summoned as a primal against the Garlean Empire and later become the inspiration for the Sapphire Weapon...
That brings us, more or less, to the final hidden route and the secret boss of Merchant's Tale: the Deadly Dandan.
For generations have the seafaring peoples of Corvos passed down the legend of this wicked wavekin, embodiment of all things great and terrible. Yet so tremendous was its perceived power that it was once summoned as a primal in a desperate bid to defeat the Garlean Empire.
I mean, look at it...
Defeating the hidden boss takes you to an ancient coastal village.
This thing's name is The Deadly Tooth. Someone did their fuckin' homework again, because while dandan means "tooth," dahan means "mouth," and so we have a slight stealth pun in this thing being not only the Deadly Tooth but... Listen, if you read it as dahan-dahan, then this thing is the Deadly Mouth-Mouth and it's got two giant mouths right fuckin' there. This tickled me pink!
I cannot stress enough how much we love our carpets and the talented people who make them.
Anyway, I've hit image cap again, but the important takeaway is that you return the pictured plate to the maiden of the tale. She shares with you her story, that her first beloved returned home to strike down this fell beast and save her & her village from its presence, but that he failed, and she lost him, her family, and more. The return of this keepsake touches her heart in a way that no other prizes won throughout Merchant's Tale ever could.
There's a lot more that I could say about this content. I've finished the Advanced version and gotten to see the pretty interior courtyard to which you're treated for the purposes of opening your loot chests. I've yet to tackle the Criterion or Criterion Savage versions. There are so many details to notice on each subsequent run of the Variant Dungeon.
Yes, there's a lot of Orientalism at work. Folks will notice that I didn't cover the genie of the lamp at all, and that I've skipped past a lot of other things either in the interest of time or because others have covered them better.
But I really do believe that Creative Unit 3 put some genuine research, thought, and work into this. They deserve to be encouraged for doing so even as we criticize them for their failings with regards to the gear and other aspects.
Depending on how you understand time travel working in the FFXIV universe there is a case to be made that the WoL created Hydaelyn.
There's a lot we don't know about Venat, a lot that is open to headcanon and theorizing about what exactly she's doing offscreen in critical parts of the timeline that she don't see. But if you wanted to, I think you could make the case that by telling her the future, the Warrior of Light sets Venat on her path to becoming Hydaelyn and perhaps convinces her that there is no way to prevent the future from unfolding as described--whether that's true or not, and who can really say if it is?
If you wanted to take it a step further, you could even argue that Elidibus, the heart of Zodiark, in his final act sends the Warrior of Light back in time as an act of self-preservation--to ensure that history unfolds such that Zodiark comes into existence.
Two things are true of primals as we understand them for most of the game's story:
They are created through the faith of their devotees. Their adherents create them, not the other way around.
Many display a self-preservative nature that is inherently destructive, both in drawing aether from any and all surrounding sources and in tempering their adherents to sustain their existence.
The WoL's (and subsequently Venat's) belief that Hydaelyn must come into being creates Hydaelyn, and Hydaelyn by Her blessing shapes the WoL into a person who believes She must come into being. Elidibus's belief that Zodiark must come into being creates Zodiark, and Zodiark shapes Elidibus into the person who believes that Zodiark must come into being. These things can be philosophically true whether or not either cycle involves tempering in the literal sense we know it.
I'm not necessarily saying this is true or an intended reading, but I think it's a viable and interesting interpretation to play with.
FFXIV has been said to have a lot of humanist themes, which I agree with, and I think a big theme Endwalker brings us full circle on is "We are beholden to the gods we make for ourselves."
ok i put this in the tags originally but i ranted too long and tumblr cut my tags off so HERE WE GO
shut up i am obsessed with alphi's character arc in relation to his relationship with the warrior of light (and how it informs his arc overall). so much.
consider that in arr he treated wol like an attack dog. a goon. a minion. literally. it was not actively malicious (it was more rich pompous educated kid-itis) but it was absolutely a thing. he referred to the wol in similar terms no few times and said cool bangers along the lines of, "shame if you had died, i'd have to get another primal killer". which i am positive from his perspective was a fun & even friendly jibe but it came off in super poor taste bc the wol is in mortal danger constantly.
again, not malicious - as others have pointed out on this post, there are plenty of hints that he actually does care quite a bit in arr! but that doesn't change the fact that his ego is massive and while he might not truly think his comrades infallible, he scarcely thinks twice about sending them off into any old bullshit and any anxiety he feels is commonly in retrospect AFTER considering/realizing the danger. arr alphi rarely seems to truly stop and consider what he is putting others through while he is happily playing Master Strategist and deploying people into peril every which way. debatably, the wol's talent at actually emerging from these absolute death traps unscathed only serves to enable this apparent feeling of invincibility that alphinaud is subconsciously carrying throughout arr. not only is he educated and brilliant with multiple successes in eorzea under his belt, he has a nigh unkillable attack dog that he points at things and problems get solved, what could go wrong?
we all know what goes wrong.
BUT POST ARR? THE HUMBLING? and how estinien calls him out for being callous about sending the wol off to fight ravana? annnd how alphi doesn't get defensive about it but seems genuinely shocked to have it called to attention?
that was a TURNING point.
alphinaud had been humbled and was already in the difficult process of rearranging his world view. but that was the moment he had to examine how he actually treated other people - specifically the warrior of light. bc the events of post arr were bringing them closer together, but he fell back into treating them like a pawn for that small moment. and treating people like pawns in his personal ego playpen is what caused the crystal braves incident in the first place.
but THEN, estinien catches that flyball quick. he blasts alphinaud for being callous to his associate/friend. and after that moment, alphinaud NEVER does that again. alphinaud never takes the wol (or anyone else) for granted. he doesn't diminish the peril they put themselves in nor dismiss their mortality. and this is in turn a huge leap forward for him in how he interacts with the world and other people around him. the veil of invicibility that he thought one received purely by being associated with him was suddenly and harshly ripped off by estinien's words.
and the change is rapid. you can tell estinien scared him and the reality took root immediately. when you get back from ravana? he was worried. when you pull the stunt against zenos in yanxia? he was panicked. if in arr he tended to play off any concern he felt, from hw onwards he is exceptionally transparent in his worry because now the pendulum has swung the other way.
but even THIS fear evolves over the expansions. as time continues, he begines to vocalize more and more that he is worried about the wol - but that he has faith in them. and when they come back, he always states how he is RELEIVED to see them triumph over every fuckass situation they have to deal with. and it's so gratifying to see him reach this middle ground. to find balance between awareness of his comrades' mortality and faith that they will prevail.
most of all i think this culminates BEAUTIFULLY in shb - near the end - you probably can guess the part. skirting around spoilers, but there is a missable dialogue (before accepting a quest) with alphinaud where he tells you - paraphrased - "you are more important than your duty." and isn't that a GORGEOUS summation of the character arc alphinaud has gone through, how he has gained such a deep empathy for ALL peoples around him, how he did not lose his ideals in his failings but instead fortified them and shifted them to be a cornerstone of his new way of approaching the world. how he was once a brat pushing tiddlywinks around a checkerboard but has cultivated genuine strength, politically and interpersonally, with the compassion his ego never could have afforded him.
chef's. kiss. sorry for such a long ramble but alphinaud's character arc over the expacs is genuinely one of my favorites period, it's so well done and one i'm privileged to have witnessed. his writing is spectacular and little moments like the ones screenshotted above are SUCH pivotal moments into it actively happening, i get super excited whenever i see them!
consider that in arr he treated wol like an attack dog. a goon. a minion. literally. it was not actively malicious (it was more rich pompous educated kid-itis) but it was absolutely a thing. he referred to the wol in similar terms no few times and said cool bangers along the lines of, "shame if you had died, i'd have to get another primal killer". which i am positive from his perspective was a fun jibe but it came off in super poor taste bc the wol is in mortal danger constantly.
THISSSSS ohhh my gosh. First of all love love love everything you wrote.
I’ll also add that I love the Alphinaud and wol relationship in arr so so much because it’s like, I think him being all “come along now.” Is like, also a marker of how much he trusts you—and it is ever only you. Like it definitely starts as a very formal, business like relationship, and him being a little callous with you, and making those kinds of comments, is both because he begins by seeing you as someone who is useful and who has a role to play—you’re all part of an org thats devoted itself to the betterment/salvation of eorzea after all, surely you’re down to go do this and that, no questions asked. But with every interaction he has w you he begins to be more and more (still not much, but!) open, and it’s pretty clear that he trusts you explicitly. He also trusts that YOU trust in him. He confides in you, and yeah that’s mostly to move the narrative along but it’s also like, but they didn’t have to put it in there. Minfilia even says it: he only ever really asks for help from YOU.
He only lets himself be vulnerable around YOU. And this is a kid who is trying SO hard to behave and be seen as a capable adult, he downplays injuries, he bumbles through people teasing him, he doesn’t know how to express concern for you, or wish you well before you go do something crazy (shiva)
He has YOU pick out the people who will join the crystal braves!! I totally forgot about that detail but he does! He trust YOU and your judgement. He values it! He never once blames you for what comes after either screaming crying throwing up, my boyyyy
Also he just keeps smiling and giving you fond eyes and smiler in post arr patches ugh my HEART.
He wants validation and trust and to be seen as someone capable and helpful and good and he sees you as someone who sees that in him, and who he can in turn trust and be vulnerable around—and this is still him having his guard up around you compared to EVERYTHING that happens after!!
Sorry for likewise going on a rant I just *clenches fists* ARR Alphinaud is SO dear to me. My wol saw a kid trying so so soooo hard to do good and act cool calm and collected and try to keep people away to achieve it and went “oh. Oh dear 🥺. Must protect and pat head bc holy shit who else is looking out for him?? Hello????”
honestly i find arr alphinaud (and ofc his relationship with the wol) soooo so fascinating and i don't think he'd have half the character arc he did if he was even slightly different. yes he's sort of insufferable but i think it's so important to understand that all of his callousness and seeming lack of care does not stem from a lack of compassion, even though it's totally understandable why one might clock him that way.
arr alphinaud is a rich, highly educated, sheltered teenager with an enormous legacy left to him by his grandfather and an equally enormous weight of expectations (external AND internal). and he walks, talks, and breathes the part with every mote of his being. empathy has to go both ways, and if you put yourself in his shoes it's easier to understand why he spends arr acting like he has his act all together and is the best of the best when it comes to political maneuvering.
but YES - he can't do it alone and he knows it. the wol basically falls into his lap and they are bar none the most capable, effective, and cooperative entity he comes into contact with. even his own sister left him to tackle things her way (which she had a right to), so being a lone kid with unbearable expectations trying to fix a foreign land is ROUGH and scary no matter who you are or how many smart girls wanted to date you in high school. the wol was like a damned blessing from hydaelyn brightening his doorstep and it's NO WONDER he latched onto them with such ferocity and faith. i am sure he saw it as very equitable, not really realizing his moments of callousness and pawn-ifying the wol and others under his command, but the wol was three thousand percent an enormous source of stability and dare i say comfort for this kid waay in over his head and absolutely deluding himself into thinking he wasn't and had the entire world under his thumb.
such a FASCINATING dynamic. alphinaud feels close to the wol and relies on them heavily, the wol in turn is tapped by him constantly to go get shit done, their preternatural ability to not die sort of enables alphi's sense of superiority but also strengthens his faith in them, repeat ad infinitum until the crystal brave incident.
even after estinien metaphorically slaps what has become this weird cross of hero worshipping the wol and taking them for granted out of him, the cornerstone of this dynamic STAYS. alphi trusts the wol implicitly in every way he did before, now he's just realizing that they're not immortal, too. which is a scary thing to have to wake up to, the fact that your greatest confidant and protector had the chance to die at any moment doing something you commanded them to do, and still could. it becomes fear and worry, and a new element alphinaud has to wrestle with from hw onwards.
but his trust in the wol never fades. not once, even when he has to grapple with their mortality. again jumping forward all the way to shb, but my god his character arc just caps so insanely perfectly there, it contains my favorite alphinaud quote of ALL time:
"I have borne witness to many such miracles at your side, and would do so again. This is but another obstacle in the road. So come, let us travel it. Drag me through wonder and danger, as you are wont to do, and I will endeavor not to slow you down."
UUUGHHH. ugh. ugh. incrediblllle growth. THANK YOU for letting me ramble and ramble back, i can never get out my feelings about alphinaud's arc with anyone willing to put up with me LMAO
#ffxiv#theres mooooore#delicious#also#i wanna point out something too#alphinaud is desperately trying to be grown up and independent on this first trip out of Sharlayan and away from his family#whose example is he following when interacting with them?#he is following his grandfather's ideals#but his behaviour and way of speaking to people is 100% his father#his father whose example he would have followed when dealing with foreigners coming to sharlayan#and not noticed or understood the difference between how he treated those people compared to other sharlayans#sharlayan has that unfortunate habit of intellectual elitism and talking down to everyone else#young impressionable alphinaud would never think of his father doing something like that#so he walks away thinking that this is how you do business/work with eorzeans etc (via @araceil)
YEAH YOU GET IT THAT'S THE THING. my WoL met fourchenault and was like "oh my gods. ohhh my gods so MANY things about alphy make sense now. i demanded to know which pack of wolves raised him and it was This Motherfucker"
You know... I liked that scene. Not in a 'oh, how funny'. But because it's G'raha caring deeply for Krile. Both of them having found out that they're people being sent away by their parents to a vastly different place for their own safety. And, while we see plenty of 'Crystal Exarch' G'raha Tia, I feel this is one where the part of him that's younger, for whom Krile isn't a distant memory, who is now and then a bit silly, and rash. Besides, that whole world was pretty gloomy all the way through. And it wasn't a 'oh, G'raha is such a doofus'. He knew exactly what he was doing and it worked.
Characters perform different roles in different stories. Yeah, he was Emet Selch's narrative foil, and got a lot more serious moments in a story where he was one of the central characters. But in this story, he's supporting cast.
You guys, FFXIV is not dying. These video essays about how "the game is dead" are wrong. Just because you aren't enjoying the current content, does not mean the game is dying. FFXIV is doing fine. It has a set schedule that's been the same since StB (possibly HW) and always has low pop times and high pop times.
This whole "omg the game is dead it's bad abandon ship" trend is stupid.
Sorry if I go off on one here but I have Thoughts™ on the whole "game is dying/dead" kind of discourse and I just
Look, I used to play World of Warcraft. I started playing World of Warcraft back in 2005 pretty much on the day of its EU release and stuck with it for way longer than I care to think about, and I recall hearing people bellyaching about how The Game is Dying back in vanilla, way before any of the I dunno how many expansions there are at this point. Hells, Blizzard not only simultaneously pissing off a sizeable chunk of pretty much every single segment of their playerbase AND also getting caught in a serious worker abuse scandal at the same time still did not lead to its long-prophesized demise. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, it didn't even take all that long for the subscriber numbers to recover.
So, with that kind of track record established... what, pray tell, is there to suggest their cries of doom are any more prescient for this game than for the many examples past? Why in all the seven hells should anyone believe but a single word when that kind of proclamation has just basically never been right. By default, doomsday prophecies tend to age like milk during a hot, humid summer - proclaiming that The Game is Dead™ mainly just shows that the proclaimant don't know shit.
Of course... it's never really about accuracy, is it? Rather it's far more commonly about validation - people who keep logging into the game because they feel compelled to do so but don't really know why, channel that confusion into frustration with the game itself and just want someone to pat them on the head and go "yes, you are right - 'tis not you that is at fault the game is just bad". It's basically trying to find someone or something to blame for why they're not having fun, instead of just... doing something they actually enjoy?
You do not have to play the game. You can choose not to play the game. YoshiP himself has given his express permission for you to unsubscribe from the game if you find that you no longer enjoy playing it for whatever reason. Take it from a disabled mid-40-something that needs way too much sleep to even function these days - your free time is precious: you don't have to waste it on things that make you miserable when there's stuff you could do that you actually enjoy doing.
There's nothing wrong with not enjoying something that other people might - it's entirely normal, it's why we have genres and cliques and all kinds of subgroups and what have you. Falling out of love with something you used to enjoy is extremely ordinary, as is falling in love with things you used to dislike - you are not the same person you were yesterday, and that's fine. It's not the game's fault, it's not your fault, it's just life. Wailing about how The Game is Dying is not going to help, it's just going to keep you walled up in your own misery.
The game isn't dying, it just doesn't feel like it did during Shadowbringers, during the pandemic, during lockdown, when everyone was stuck inside with nothing to do so they decided to try out FFXIV. It doesn't feel like it did when so many people were working from home, when the safest way to socialize was at a roleplaying venue, or in Limsa, or in party finder or your daily roulettes. It's been years. It feels like it's dying because it's no longer new, because you're comparing your feelings about the current content and community to the nostalgia of when the playerbase had the biggest jump in growth, and nothing will ever measure up to nostalgia.
I've seen so many complaints about Dawntrail that boil down to the person not remembering what ARR through Endwalker was like. "Why are there so many unvoiced cutscenes?" There always have been. Most cutscenes, in fact, are unvoiced. "Why is the beginning of Dawntrail so slow?" Because they're starting a brand new story, just like ARR. Shadowbringers and Endwalker started up quickly because they were picking up where ARR through Stormblood left off. "Why are they giving us barely any crumbs of lore for the new cultures?" They've only ever given crumbs at best, even for the cultures and races that have been here since 1.0. They have specifically stated they want there to be room for us to participate with our own ideas, to "cook our own food the way we like it," as it were. "There's nothing to do now!" There's as much (or more!) content in Dawntrail as there was in any previous expansion. The reason it feels like there's less to do now is because there was so much to catch up on...and now you're caught up.
The game isn't dying, you've just fallen out of love with it, and that's okay. You can either move on and fall in love with something new, or - like any healthy long-term relationship - put in the work to find and create new ways to fall in love with it. Try out content you haven't before! Make an alt and go through the game all over again in a different VO language! Do every side quest for the lore! Get into roleplaying! Find communities for the content you love - they're smaller now, but still out there! And if you're heartbroken to discover that you no longer want to play, remember that the love that you had for the game, the memories you hold dear, the experiences you shared with others - whatever parts you treasured most - will continue to be part of you long after you've uninstalled. It's that quote from the end of 5.3.
And if in the future you find yourself itching to play again, the game will still be there for you. It's not going anywhere. You just may have to develop a new relationship with it.
For a more general overview, this person literally wrote the book on fishing. Just with their tips in the skill descriptions (and the usual patience, perseverance, etc) I managed to get my cosmic fish stick :p
Y’shtola has Stone IV, Foul, Blizzard IV, Aero, Water, and Thunder spells, and is called a Sorceress.
Alphinaud is an Academician, so he gets to have Scholar spells while keeping his carbuncle. Minfillia was able to cast spells as a Rogue. Urianger has a Death spell as an Astrologian.
Basically, don’t let your dreams be dreams. Have your character know whatever skills/spells you want, and if people call it lore breaking or Mary Sue tell them you don’t care. And that’s that.
I remember thinking about this when they showed off the trust system menu. I thought about it even more going through the MSQ and seeing their other abilities in cutscenes. I get lore is important to some but this is throwing wide the gates of possibilities. Let your characters learn/do whatever they want and have fun!
IMPORTANT!
Because doing this with your own characters is actually not lore breaking/bending at all.
People who’ve known me for a while have probably heard this speech before, but what defines a Disciple of Magic class or job in this world has nothing to do with what spells they cast! It has everything to do with how those spells are cast. How do they manipulate aether? How do they focus that aether into a spell? And sometimes what medium are used to facilitate spellcasting. These are the things that define a mage, not what spells they cast.
For example, in lore a conjurer has access to all six elements: Wind, Lightning, Fire, Earth, Ice, Water. Y’shtola was originally trained as a Sharlayan conjurer. Thus, she has access to spells of all those elements. But how she casts those spells now as a “sorceress” might be different than what we, at a glance, might suspect from a conjurer, white mage, or black mage on the Source. It might be the same, just with a different name like how the WoD mage was a “Magus”.
Alphinaud isn’t a Scholar, because he doesn’t have a faery companion, or training as a Nymian Scholar. But he is a Sharlayan trained arcanist versed in healing magicks. Likewise, Urianger may be casting spells in the manner of a Sharlayan Astrologian, but he’s versed in other forms of magic from before, like arcanima. Those spells don’t necessarily go away just because you pick up a different tool… but you might have to reinvent how you work the spell!
A great example of this is Red Mage! They cast spells that were originally used by Black Mages and White Mages. The difference isn’t in the spells they cast, but again, it’s how they cast them that distinguishes them from their predecessors - casting using only internal aether.
So as @noscean-scholar said, don’t let your dreams be dreams! Just because we’re limited by the battle mechanics of the game, does not mean your characters have to suffer that same limitation. Mages invent spells. They come up with new incantations, geometries, and more efficient means of spellcasting. Just remember, it’s all about the “how” that defines the magic you use, not the “what” you’re casting.
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