#garleans

(Violence, fantasy racism, kidnapping, death)

His side twinged, but he winced and kept tracking his quarry. It was not difficult, given their vehicles and the way they marched the troops and their prisoners.

A surge of anger rolled through him and he pressed on, the pain in his side forgotten. It had been his own fault, when his mentor had pushed him out of the way of the attacking soldiers. It had saved his life, but his mentor’s had been lost.

Along with most of the village they protected; the warders had failed. His shame in surviving could only be alleviated by finding the children that had been taken.

In the smoldering wreckage he had found his dying mother. She had weakly cried out for his sibling, using their diminutive nickname for the child—Ijna. When he made his occasional visits to the village—as a young man, he made more frequent trips than his elders tended to—he would be sure to visit his mother, and had been fond of Ijna, with skin as coal-dark as Mother’s. Their dark hair had turquoise streaks to match their bright eyes. A small, slight child, but he had once been, too, and had often assured the little one that someday they would grow as large and strong as himself—perhaps moreso, if they were a girl.

His sibling was among those stolen.

On the Garlean Third Eye -

Made of keratin, the third eye is the unique distinguishing feature of the Garlean race. Thought to be a subset of Hyur at first, Garleans found their home in Goug until pushed out of their homelands and into the cold, harsh environment of Ilsabard proper.

The third eye is an organ used for superior spatial recognition, assisting in dexterous tasks such as aiming or detecting aetherical or environmental disruptions.

The eye itself is sensitive to the touch. A soft hand to the organ can be pleasant, even intimate to the comparison of a kiss, whilst a more aggressive blunt force to it could place a person unconscious or severely motion sick.

It is far more common to see Garlean couples use their third eye in acts of intimacy than their lips. The cold weather of Ilsabard can chap lips yet the pearly third eye finds pleasure in being warmed by another's breath or touch.

Size, shape, and color are all variable. Those of Garlean pure blood only have this organ and thus at times it is used as a way to signify social standing. Those with rounder third eyes are of a high caste and even rarer - those with a color beyond the pearly white seen in most are believed to have particular luck or skill. Those of common family ties share qualities in their third eyes - the imperial family in particular known for their perfect shape and pure color.

Garleans are born without the eye visible a majority of the time, children not named until it breaks thru flesh around the second week of life. Another thought on its emergence at 2 weeks of age - if it hasn't shown by then many parents opt to cut and reveal the third eye, leading to quite a number of scars or half shown eyes as well as drama when the child is revealed to obviously not be of thought parentage.

This game spends so much time trying to make you sympathize with the Garlean conquerors while placing them alongside their atrocities and xenophobic language. They talk about racial/national purity and denounce everyone else as "savages." Like someone wrote all of this shit. Endwalker, especially irks me.

What baffles me is folks talking about how Werlyt deconstructs Garlean ideology like what is there to deconstruct, it's Nazi shit. You need to spell out why it's bad?? Lmao. Had to put a cartoon villain next to an even more cartoon villain and leverage children to purify his character through the narrative. He is redeemed as far as the narrative (and the fans) is concerned, it just took murdering a half-dozen children to do it.