How smart is your WoL/OC? Are they on the level of an archon (regardless if they are one)? Are they, to put it nicely, dumb as a rock? Or are they just average in terms of intelligence? Do they recognize how smart they are? Are they humble about their intelligence or see themselves as superior? Do they feel embarrassed if they aren't smart, or do they not care?
Wilfreda inherited her love of the sea from her adoptive father, Arlandāa merchant captain by trade. Her adoptive mother, Sahja, generally preferred to stay ashore to mind their cottage (and to make sure Wilfreda got at least some semblance of schooling). Occasionally, though, they would all go sailing along the coast of Vylbrand, and these little voyages remain some of Wilfreda's fondest memories.
Shoutout to @diplomagics for making this incredible boat!
as part of something, i was thinking on ilberd recently. he's definitely not my favorite villain in the game but there is an emotional rawness to him thats quite interesting and arguably underexplored. but the matter of whether or not he was "right" or if he "won" came up, and mullin it a bit i think i land on:
the eorzean alliance suffered a moral failure in not acting on ala mhigos liberation until forced to own a terrorist attack and finangle something from there.
strategically eorzea made the right call in the end, as very cold comfort that would be ilberd and the rest of ala mhigo. the simple reality of the matter is that no one in eorzea had the force disposition necessary to do anything about the ala mhigan situation but play defensively. during its initial fall the eorzean alliance didn't even exist, you think gridania on its own could counter invade and push back the garlean forces entirely on its own? they couldn't even stop baelsars wall being built on their own. even when the alliance did invade, the campaign had to play exceedingly defensively during the initial invasion. so as coldhearted as it is, the monetarists do have a fairly sound reason for shooting down any attempt at starting the liberation of ala mhigo until everyones hands were quite literally forced.
now as to whether ilberd won. i'd say he won inspite of himself. dude was definitely clever mind, but thematically its probably quite important to consider how the le epic primal summoned from the wrath and rage of dead ala mhigans towards the empire, was immediately hijacked by the empire and its chief asshole nepo baby zenos as a weapon to use against literally bloody everyone. hell, zenos completely dominates shinryu by the time of endwalker, by all accounts ilberds special weapon was a complete failure at what he wanted it to do. though it did end up saving the universe.
like i'd say a big theme in stormblood is in anger and using it constructively. lyse has a lot of unresolved anger towards a whole heap of things, and an important part of her story is in learning how to use and direct that anger productively. and she succeeds in that task, eventually becoming the leader/face of the rebellion with a clear vision in mind for ala mhigos future.
and thats contrasted by the opponents lyse has to engage with and the directionless destructive anger that envelopes them. fordola has a bone to pick with the world in general, yotsuyu turned her entire governance of doma into a revenge shit list. about the only one without the anger defining them is zenos, and thats mostly because zenos is the antithesis of directionless destructive anger: directionless destructive apathy.
and ilberd is the one who sets that tone to the story, with his own brand of directionless destructive anger.
I think sometimes it's easy to miss the fact that Stormblood pivots the entire story of FFXIV in a new direction.
Rambling under the cut.
Until Ilberd's summoning on the wall, the game was about stopping a cycle of violence that was fundamentally caused by good people unintentionally making poor choices. All the infighting between the tribes and factions of Eorzea, between the Ishgardians and the dragons, was rooted in people trying and failing to look after their own. The sylphs are maybe the best example of this, having no desire at all to fight anyone, but summoning their god of destruction to protect themselves, turning themselves against one another in the process.
But Ilberd intentionally destroys everyone close to him. He destroys himself. All in pursuit of the goal of more destruction.
He's our first foreshadowing of what's to come at the parley with Varis, and the Ascians in Shadowbringers and onward. This was never a war about conflicting interests and beliefs, no matter what Baelsar thought. This was never a war at all. This is the point at which the stakes of the story are not only raised to be about the entire world and not just Eorzea, this is when we learn that Calamities are caused on purpose and always have been, this is the point at which we begin to see that our actual enemy is, and always has been, despair.
Because when we finally meet Ilberd at the top of the wall, who is he ranting about? It's notably not the Alliance, or the Monaterists, or the Scions.
It's the other Ala Mhigans.
How long have I struggled to reach this point! My countrymen so inured to the taste of defeat, they no longer balk at its bitterness. Shouting my throat raw with rallying cries, only to be greeted with dull eyes and blank faces!
My ābrothersā and āsistersā in Ul'dah have surrendered to their apathy and their appetites. Were it not for the glint of Lolorito's coin, I doubt even those here now would have answered my call!
āTake back our homeland! Free Ala Mhigo!ā Hah! They'll happily mouth the words, but they won't spill the blood!
His own people are the ones he strikes first with the warmachina for the sacrifice. They're the ones he hates, even more than the Garleans. He summons his primal on the border of his own homeland, attempting to cause a Calamity in the country he supposedly wanted to liberate.
Doesn't that seem reminiscent of Meteion and Hermes? So broken by despair, so surrounded by it, that they feel the only option is to destroy everything? Doesn't that seem like the Ascians, repeatedly destroying the star they gave everything to save?
I would argue that Ilberd hated Raubahn not because his old friend failed to run back and try to liberate Gyr Abania (which he could never have done alone anyway), but because Raubahn gave the refugees hope. He was their hero, proving that they could find new lives outside their fallen homeland, and that was the last thing Ilberd could endure.
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