The way characters talk and events play out in Living Memory feels very bizarre and uncomfortable to me and entirely out of step with how the rest of FFXIV has felt.
We learn that the Endless and the entire area of Living Memory are being fueled by the life force of others, that normal aether cannot sustain them, and Cahciua points out that the civilians killed during the assault on Tullioyal could be fueling any of them. And yet the entire zone and string of quests are a very long tour of how pretty the place is, how happy everyone is and how it allows such beautiful miracles to occur. Wuk Lamat says seeing everyone so happy makes her happy, and G'raha wonders at how he never thought he'd see such sights.
But the whole time I couldn't get over the fact that they are talking about an area built entirely on robbing others of their life. I genuinely don't understand if I've missed something here, but the Endless are a chosen group of people (Alexandrians) who are living centuries beyond their actual natural deaths in eternal luxury and splendor and comfort without a single care and with their every whim catered to, on the backs of the literal slaughter and consumption of innocent people. I understand that this is why the Scions and Wuk Lamat end all of this, but it's still very strange and uncomfortable to me that everyone keeps talking about how hard a choice it is and how wonderful the area is, at no point does it seem to be brought up that all of this 'beauty' is being sustained by a system as evil as any Ascian or voidsent plot. Eulmore in Shadowbringers made the case that living in luxury supported by exploitation is wrong, yet here the characters view it as bittersweet to put an end to when the exploitation is on such a higher scale.
I felt genuinely disgusted talking to the characters living an eternal theme-park existence while burning the lives of others, and if this is intentional that's great writing but the way the other scions react to it makes it feel very unintentional. When G'raha looked out on the gondola ride and talked about how incredible the glowing city was, all I could think of it as was a corpse-fire.
This is just a big rant to say I've never felt so out of step with what the writing is trying to convey, I've loved every moment of FFXIV before this and it's really sapped my desire to push through the last couple quests
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We learn that the Endless and the entire area of Living Memory are being fueled by the life force of others, that normal aether cannot sustain them, and Cahciua points out that the civilians killed during the assault on Tullioyal could be fueling any of them. And yet the entire zone and string of quests are a very long tour of how pretty the place is, how happy everyone is and how it allows such beautiful miracles to occur. Wuk Lamat says seeing everyone so happy makes her happy, and G'raha wonders at how he never thought he'd see such sights.
But the whole time I couldn't get over the fact that they are talking about an area built entirely on robbing others of their life. I genuinely don't understand if I've missed something here, but the Endless are a chosen group of people (Alexandrians) who are living centuries beyond their actual natural deaths in eternal luxury and splendor and comfort without a single care and with their every whim catered to, on the backs of the literal slaughter and consumption of innocent people. I understand that this is why the Scions and Wuk Lamat end all of this, but it's still very strange and uncomfortable to me that everyone keeps talking about how hard a choice it is and how wonderful the area is, at no point does it seem to be brought up that all of this 'beauty' is being sustained by a system as evil as any Ascian or voidsent plot. Eulmore in Shadowbringers made the case that living in luxury supported by exploitation is wrong, yet here the characters view it as bittersweet to put an end to when the exploitation is on such a higher scale.
I felt genuinely disgusted talking to the characters living an eternal theme-park existence while burning the lives of others, and if this is intentional that's great writing but the way the other scions react to it makes it feel very unintentional. When G'raha looked out on the gondola ride and talked about how incredible the glowing city was, all I could think of it as was a corpse-fire.
This is just a big rant to say I've never felt so out of step with what the writing is trying to convey, I've loved every moment of FFXIV before this and it's really sapped my desire to push through the last couple quests
Continue reading...