Biosaur

Yes, Yuno's actions are not comparable to those of any other prisoners', but I feel like that just reinforces the point that Milgram is a horrible nightmare system with no consistent standards.

If the story meant to have us actually debate about Yuno's morality, the twist in her trial 3 wouldn't have been that she didn't even have a choice in ending her pregnancy.

I thought that it was compelling that she continued to feel guilty even when she did nothing wrong, and that her guilt was only worsened by her circumstances in the prison itself, in her inability to save Mahiru.

Also, Yuno's story twists our role as voters. Since there's no choice between guilty or innocent, I feel like it's meant to show the flaws of this voting system. Even voting innocent won't help Yuno, it only invalidates her own feelings.

At this point, you've only known G'raha for a couple of days before he promptly left your life. Meanwhile, G'raha has spent years following you through history books and has been yearning for you for nigh on a century.

It's touching when he expresses regret for not being able to go on adventures with you, but he doesn't know you. Most of what he knows about you is through second-hand accounts written by people who actually do know you. His relationship with you is almost entirely parasocial.

At least he's a little self aware about it, or at least enough to try to couch feelings behind a "I have this friend who is my 'Inspiration'", not that he was being very subtle. 100-year-old man.

And he literally kidnapped you. I get that he was just trying to save the world and he was probably feeling pretty lonely locked away in the crystal tower, and that technically you would have just died without his intervention...

...

The way that Es sees Kazui wallowing in guilt and self-pity, and understands how he feels, and what he needs. They start to interrogate him ruthlessly, not letting Kazui get away with vague answers. Kazui finally has a chance to get it all off his chest, and you can tell how cathartic it is for him.

Es respond by judging him harshly. I think this is the answer that Kazui is looking for, or at least he has convinced himself that this the answer that he deserves. But then Es follows up with kindness and understanding, and that is the answer that Kazui really needs to hear.

But apparently the empire was actually created by the Ascians for the express purpose of creating chaos and suffering...

I don't know how to feel about this.

https://deadlock.vlviewer.com/voicelines?voiceline=priest_killstreak_high_01.mp3

https://deadlock.vlviewer.com/voicelines?voiceline=priest_killstreak_high_02.mp3

Is he homophobic?

To be honest, none of them have really made me feel much, even though it seems like the story really expects me to.

Moenbryda's felt cheap because we barely got to know her. I know that it would've felt longer for people playing at time of release, but I feel like it's a bit of a waste of a character.

I think people really like Haurchefant, but I feel like he was sort of sidelined too much in the story before he died. We didn't get to see too much of what his relationships with his family were like, but I feel like there could've been a lot more there. Again, I wish we got to learn more about the character. Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention. Also it bugs me that everyone pronounces his name differently.

Ysayle is probably my favourite HW character, and I really liked her character arc. It would've been cool to see more of her coming to terms with the consequences of her actions, or to see her reconciling with Hraesvelgr, but I can see how that could get in the way of the pacing of the story. Her dying to the empire kind of felt anticlimactic and unrelated to her arc up to this point. But I wonder if cutting off her potential was the point, since you can really feel the weight of her absence through the rest of the Dragonsong war quests.

Minfilia's felt weird to me because it sort of happens right next to a huge exposition/lore dump, and a convoluted double-double crossing scheme by Urianger... I had to go to the wiki and re-read the cutscene transcript a couple of times and I felt like I was stupider each time. I also wasn't very invested in Minfilia as a chapter at this point. They try to play up her ties to Thancred and Krile right before this, but there's only so much they can do when she's not present, so for me it kind of fell flat. At least she gets a nicer outfit out of all this. (Also I assume she shows up again later)

I don't know what to think of for Papalymo's yet, since it kind of happens really suddenly after Yda and Papalymo return to the Scions, and before all this in ARR they are kind of comic relief characters, more or less. Papalymo's death is clearly setting up something for Lyse's upcoming arc in Stormblood, though, so I guess I'll just have to see how it's paid off.

Anyways, so far the heroic sacrifices in FFXIV have been sort of lacklustre to me, but maybe I need to pay closer attention or I'm approaching the story too cynically or I'm not opening up my heart enough to be touched by the emotional moments of the story.

I like how the story portrays the push and pull of the need to be known and understood by others, but also how the nature of how we are understood by other people can put limits on how we can exist...