Bringing Our Own Hope (We are Warriors of Light/Darkness)
With everything that is going on in the United States right now post election, I've been taking time to reflect and think about things. And what I've noticed a lot currently - and I kind of blame a TikTok I watched for this - is there are parallels to the Shadowbringers expansion of Final Fantasy XIV. I've probably lost y'all, but just... give me some time and I'll explain. It'll make sense.
For those who haven't played but want to, I will be HEAVILY going into spoiler territory. Back out now if you don't want to be spoiled for the expansion.
Everyone gone who wants to be spoiler free? Okay, here we go.
Anyway, for a TL;DR of the game so far before we head into Shadowbringers, the player (as the Warrior of Light) along with your friends - the Scions of the Seventh Dawn - has at this point:
Rejoined the main three city-states of Eorzea
Stopped a group of "counter" heroes from making a mockery of you and your group
Caused for a fourth city-state to join in the alliance
Got blamed for and stopped a coup while at the same time ending a 1000-year man-vs-dragon war
And brought independence to two nations who would become allies to Eorzea
Towards the end of the last part, most members of our group fell unconscious, leaving us as the last. During all of it, we found that we were being called and eventually we did find our way from the Source to the First.
Anyway, while we're on the First, among the chaos that we see in realizing that we have a reflection to save, we see the difference between two leaders.
On the one side, we have the ExArch of the Crystarium. He helped people for nearly a century after The Flood of Light fiasco to just try and survive. We learn later on how he had gotten to the First - it had been a disaster where he was from, but he'd been a point of... hope.
The ExArch was an unwitting leader of the people, gave people a beacon. He cared for the people, helped them to create a life in the world that seemed to want them gone. The people wanted him as king, but he only wanted to be seen as one of them, because he considered himself one of them. They wanted him as a leader so they created his role - the ExArch. He helped with supplying, storing and rebuilding a community; a community of lost souls. When the Scions arrive, he tells and shows them the world of the First. He wants them to understand and see what has happened with everything and everyone. He worked to keep the remaining people of the world safe.
But that led to where one of the Scions was made to go: a place called Kholusia and the city-state of Eulmore. It's a place that looks amazing from a distance but on the outer edge and below, it's slums. And there, is a leader of this place - a leader who lives in opulence and who believes in the separation of those who are lower in status to those who are rich.
His name is Vauthry. When we meet him, we immediately know he's corrupt. He is the (heavily overweight, infantile-like) son of the past leader of Eulmore - a man that the ExArch had been friends with. He surrounds himself with the well-off and makes beggars of those not so much. He basically does a sort of performative charity in the slum areas to show that he's a great guy and deserves to lead the people. And if you didn't do as you were asked/required to do? Well... needless to say, he prided himself on fear as well. He also believed he was a sort of god among men and threw tantrums if things didn't go his way. But there was more as well (I'll get to that in a minute).
The ExArch tried to get along with Vauthry, but they didn't agree on what should be done and how. They both wanted to save the people of the First. However, their methods differed by leaps and bounds. Vauthry only wanted the well to do to be saved. They had money and because of that nothing else mattered and they could buy their way into the lives of the poor. The ExArch, on the other hand, found a way to lead the people in a way that the people became self-sufficient. He led with compassion and kindness, believing that everyone deserved a chance to live.
Going through this election cycle brought forward a lot of things and watching it was strange because I hadn't realized it yet. It wasn't until a TikTok video pointed out that "America really voted in a Vauthry" that I understood what I was seeing. The comparisons between Trump and Vauthry are insanely staggering.
Vauthry/Trump are extremely rich
Vauthry/Trump prefer the rich over the poor and tax/hurt those with less money in order to widen the gap
Vauthry/Trump do performative charities to their own benefit
Vauthry/Trump have shadow organizations running the show in the background
Oh... You saw that last one?
Much like Trump has several people from the National Heritage Foundation (a Christian Nationalist Conservative "think tank") in place for when he takes office (including his Vice Presidential pick, J.D. Vance), Vauthry was supported by his own shadow group.
Taking a step back to what I said about Vauthry believing himself a god among men (which, let's be honest, Trump pretty much blatantly infers this of himself on the daily), he actually wasn't wrong... to a degree. You see, while he is able to solve certain problems, he is also the cause of them. This being because when he was conceived/born, he was given a power by a group we know want the destruction of our home because they wanted things to go back to the way they were. Sound familiar? It should. The Ascians wanted to return the Source and its reflections back to how it was during their time. They thought of the current man as less than a person ("I do not consider you truly alive. Ergo, I will not be guilty of m*rder if I k*ll you." -Emet-Selch). Once again, sound familiar?
So as we go through the First, we meet the various peoples - many familiar in appearance, while others have changed in some way. In this world that is covered in never ending light, we change our moniker from Warrior of Light to Warrior of Darkness. That being said, we never fully change our position, we're just going under a different name since the last WoL wasn't exactly looked highly upon in their end. (Remember that group who were trying to make a mockery of us? Needless to say, they'd been misguided and brought to the source under false pretenses.) As we make our way through the world and defeat the enemy leaders, we become a beacon of hope ourselves as we bring the night back to the world. Not only that, but even the ExArch believes in us more and finds a way to help with getting the people of Eulmore to break themselves free of the corruption of Vauthry - we and our fellow Scion already having planted a seed of change within the people there during our earlier visits.
That said, as we go through the story, we do see the ExArch faulter. We see him question himself. We see him doubt if he'd done things right. But as he does, he looks to his people and sees their work and their hope. He watches us and the Scions as we go through our trials, our battles. He watches as each enemy leader falls at our hand as we fight corruption and knows what he must do. He's always known, but he didn't really know the how or when until we arrived and did what we could. He led as he followed and followed as he led. He knew what we represented and who we were.
For as much as the ExArch was a leader of the people, he was also someone who believed in the people as well. He believed in us and our team. The people of the Crystarium. Honestly, he believed in the people of the First. For even in the more dire of times, he knew what could be done and who could do it. Because the ExArch believed in the people as much as they believed in him. He was able to give hope and peace of mind rather than doubt and fear.
That's why, in all truth and honesty, I believe that the Crystal ExArch's role could be filled by Kamala.
So, why the title? Because when it comes down to it, we as voters? Are the player. We as voters are the Warrior of Light (or in the case of the First, Warrior of Darkness). We are the ones who can make the change. But now that the votes have been cast and our world's Vauthry and Ascians have (at least temporarily) won, it's time to take up the banners and ready ourselves for the next set of battles.
They won't be easy - anyone who's played as a WoL in Final Fantasy XIV knows that the grind is difficult. But let me remind you of a question:
When has fighting for peace, hope, and survival ever been easy? To quote the ExArch himself:
"To take action is to hope. To believe - to choose to believe - is to take the first step for towards a brighter future." ... "For in times of hardship, when you fear you cannot go on... The joy you have known, the pain you have felt, the prayers that you've whispered and answered - they shall ever be your strength and comfort."
We are Warriors of Light/Darkness. It's time to step up and make the world better.
