FFXIV Simp

07 - The Forest

The Fool

polaris 7 It's been a long time...but the real shocker is that I'm still drawing enough wolgraha to make 100+ page books in the year of the lord 2026...😳💦

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

there's a lot to unpack with the Yugiri and WoL Try To Shank Zenos On The Side Of The Road scene, but on the whole: i love how this actually gives solid characterization to the Warrior of Light.

like, the way your specific warrior of light would respond to it varies wildly, but the canon WoL goes along with Yugiri's ill-advised plan. it is categorically a terrible idea, and yet you do it anyway.

why? frankly, because you have to.

if yugiri goes alone, she will certainly die. you cannot allow this. you cannot abide it. and frankly, you want a second chance at zenos. video game bosses that are forced defeats are a real tricky note to hit; too much, and the player will feel cheated. (i think zenos works in stormblood, but ran'jit doesn't in shadowbringers because We Just Did This.) but as for the WoL as a character: you have never really lost before, and you want to prove that you're better and stronger now. you want a second round.

this is what makes zenos effective within stormblood. the canon WoL has no connection to either resistance movement; you are neither Doman nor Ala Mhigan. you are here to help, but this is not, specifically, your fight. this, too, is what makes zenos's overall arc work more than i have previously thought: from the very beginning, he is one of the few — if only — actual foils to the WoL in terms of combat. nobody else pushes you even half as hard. in that vein, i actually like that final clash in endwalker much better than i did before.

for my specific WoL, though: Cálei absolutely would have followed Yugiri. He would have gone to face Zenos. He would have gotten his ass handed to him. And he would have been livid. Partially at what Zenos represents, of course: he is the face of the empire that has hurt so many people. But also because he just fucking hates losing. It smarts his pride. You do not become Warrior of Light without some measure of confidence and this is a real hit against that. At this point, he will do as Zenos says: he's going to keep going, just for a chance to punch this guy in the face.