Hi. I've recently began playing through Shadowbringers after being gone from the game for 1.5 years or so, and I'm finding myself increasingly frustrated by the lore so far. I'm hoping y'all can help me resolve what I see as issues, because I have to think that I'm off-base with my perceptions, I'm just unsure exactly how.
The idea of Light and Dark being opposing forces that need balance is great. I liked the WoD storyline back in Heavensward, and I was ready to see some more explanation about what Light and Dark actually are, but it didn't come, and it left a lot of concerning holes by the time of ShB starting. The problem is that those holes aren't patched yet by the time of me already committing to bring balance to the First by fighting back the Light. I'm committing to a conflict that, as of yet in the story, still doesn't make any sense.
The holes I'm talking about boil down to this: The conflict between Light and Dark on the Source prior to ShB hasn't felt cosmic or abstract at all, it has just felt like heroes vs villains, over and over. Us tipping the balance towards Light involved putting down Primals, and just going around doing generic hero things repeatedly. The big conflict capstone in ARR was us stopping the Ultima Weapon and Lahabrea from causing mass death and destruction. That set the tone completely for what Light vs Dark means. After that, us tipping the balance continued in a similar direction. Over and over.
This doesn't mean that Light is Good and Darkness is Evil. Far from it. But, it means that, generally, actions that can be perceived as good or heroic are those that push the balance towards Light. And the opposite: the Ascians repeatedly try to push towards Darkness by causing disasters, death, and destruction. So, the methods open to either side for pushing the balance have been implied to be limited to this, thus far.
It feels like the writing up to ShB doesn't support the main conflict we just jumped into, for this reason. We want to fight back against the Light. But, the only method we have been shown to do that is by nuking the world or forcing Primals to show up and start causing problems.
And I'm okay with that? There hasn't been a good explanation of why Light and Dark work the way they do yet, or alternative methods of tipping the balance. So, at this point in the story, I'm signing up to replicate Ascian methods of mustache-twirling villainy, based only on what I know up to this point.
I get that the Light vs Dark conflict is supposed to be more abstract, and that it's not as simple as Good vs Evil. But, I don't feel like that has been reinforced well up until this point, so it feels contradictory to the events of the previous expansions.
Edit: I summarized it below well, I think: It's like the game is saying "Darkness isn't evil. It's just a massive coincidence that the servants of Darkness keep doing evil things."
Continue reading...
The idea of Light and Dark being opposing forces that need balance is great. I liked the WoD storyline back in Heavensward, and I was ready to see some more explanation about what Light and Dark actually are, but it didn't come, and it left a lot of concerning holes by the time of ShB starting. The problem is that those holes aren't patched yet by the time of me already committing to bring balance to the First by fighting back the Light. I'm committing to a conflict that, as of yet in the story, still doesn't make any sense.
The holes I'm talking about boil down to this: The conflict between Light and Dark on the Source prior to ShB hasn't felt cosmic or abstract at all, it has just felt like heroes vs villains, over and over. Us tipping the balance towards Light involved putting down Primals, and just going around doing generic hero things repeatedly. The big conflict capstone in ARR was us stopping the Ultima Weapon and Lahabrea from causing mass death and destruction. That set the tone completely for what Light vs Dark means. After that, us tipping the balance continued in a similar direction. Over and over.
This doesn't mean that Light is Good and Darkness is Evil. Far from it. But, it means that, generally, actions that can be perceived as good or heroic are those that push the balance towards Light. And the opposite: the Ascians repeatedly try to push towards Darkness by causing disasters, death, and destruction. So, the methods open to either side for pushing the balance have been implied to be limited to this, thus far.
It feels like the writing up to ShB doesn't support the main conflict we just jumped into, for this reason. We want to fight back against the Light. But, the only method we have been shown to do that is by nuking the world or forcing Primals to show up and start causing problems.
And I'm okay with that? There hasn't been a good explanation of why Light and Dark work the way they do yet, or alternative methods of tipping the balance. So, at this point in the story, I'm signing up to replicate Ascian methods of mustache-twirling villainy, based only on what I know up to this point.
I get that the Light vs Dark conflict is supposed to be more abstract, and that it's not as simple as Good vs Evil. But, I don't feel like that has been reinforced well up until this point, so it feels contradictory to the events of the previous expansions.
Edit: I summarized it below well, I think: It's like the game is saying "Darkness isn't evil. It's just a massive coincidence that the servants of Darkness keep doing evil things."
Continue reading...