#lightsmercy

5. “Escape from Castrum Centri” This one…hoo boy. The entire quest arc leading up to this is amazing, for the record (I’m also a sucker for rescue missions and the planning thereof, but I always have been,) so I was hyped as we were led up to this quest. The whole breakout of the scions was fun, but man the whole while the Scions and myself were just going around like, “but Thancred??? Where is Thancred???” and it solidified that though they give him endless amounts of shit, the second the chips are down they’re all there for each other- you know, like a family or something, and then when we saw he was possessed by Lahabrea, and that that was what had led to them being captured, even! MY HEART!!! (Also I would like to submit a formal complain to SE for making Minfilia sad enough to cry out to her possessed father figure. Why would you do that to her. How dare you, SE. She didn’t deserve that.) Thancred’s possession didn’t feel like it came out of left field, either, something that I loved: there was a lot of foreshadowing that he was going to burn himself out in a very dangerous way even as far back as our fight with Ifrit, and even his optional dialogue if you speak to him was just him not coping with anything. It still surprised me, but not in a way that made me feel like the rug was pulled out from under me in a bad way, and I love those kinds of surprises in stories. 

4. “Yugiri’s Game” This one caught me off guard (and solidified that these kids were unofficially adopted by the Scions, too and were adored and doted on at every turn,) because Yugiri had managed to teach these little kids, who had only just recently escaped their war-torn home, the basics of being a shinobi while masking it as just a game of hide-and-seek. She was teaching them how to keep silent and hidden in the event of the Garleans finding them. Having such an innocent children’s game turned into a method of teaching survival was as clever as it was heart breaking, knowing that it was a necessity, that the kids knew why they were taught this way, and that the kids were still optimistic and cheerful in spite of that knowledge. The Doman Adventurer’s Guild is run by some wonderful kiddos, and this was a wonderful way to show that.

3. “Blood for Blood” helped cement that though Haurchefant, while the staunchest ally for building relations between Ishgardians and the outside world, he was not the only one that was willing to accept the aid of an outsider when they know their own people are failing them. Really, much of the Ishgardian quests within ARR did a beautiful job of leading up to Heavensward in that it showed that thought the government was rigidly against working with the outside world, its citizens- especially the working ones who just wanted to get by and not get into the political bullshit- were more than eager to work with those outside of Ishgard, though it also did an equally amazing job of showing how scared the population was of the Holy See and its Inquisitors- with their unilateral (and as is exposed with this questline, frighteningly unchecked validity of its own) authority, they can accuse anyone who disagrees of heresy, and their trial is literally a fucking witch trial. There’s no winning in such a trial: either you die and you’re proven innocent, or you refuse, in which case they kill you. These quests really solidified for me that going into Heavensward, we were going to have to save the Ishgardian people from it’s own government just as much as we would have to save them from the dragons. 

2. “Recruiting the Realm” was…eye opening. It did a wonderful job of really cementing the world’s view of the Scions, the Leveilleur name, and what everyone really thought of Alphinaud’s altruistic but ultimately doomed endeavor. The moment it was revealed that not only did Alphinaud obtain funding from the Syndicate, but that he was utterly disinterested in neither disclosing that to us, nor entertaining our concerns about it, it confirmed two things for me: 1) that though he (and really, at that point everyone that was a major NPC in a political position) genuinely cared for us and considered us a friend, we were, before anything else, the Weapon of Light (yes, Weapon, but I’d be here all day dissecting my thoughts on that and why I come to that conclusion) and weapons aren’t exactly asked for their opinions on the wars in which they are used, and 2) that A Realm Reborn was only going to end in betrayal and tragedy because all of the players involved thought they knew better when they didn’t.

1. “All Good Things”

Look. I’ve rambled at this point for several paragraphs more than anyone likely ever wanted me to, but holy shit I can’t articulate how much this gutted me- and how I liked the way in which it gutted me without writing a thesis on it so I’m sorry again in advance but from a writing perspective I love this quest so goddamn much.

Because it could have been easier for them to just have us ring up Minfilia following our success and have the attack on the Waking Sands already happening. It would have been easier to instill a sense of urgency and “Holy fucking shit we need to go now” to get us to the Waking Sands quicker, only to find the scene that we did. That would have been the expected trope: I mean, really, how many times has that sort of thing happened in video game stories before?

But they completely subvert that by having you report in to Minfilia as usual, and she’s always so bright and cheery and relieved that you’re okay, and her dialogue was just…in hindsight, it was fucking artful.

“Pray return to the Waking Sands, where you shall receive a hero’s welcome!”

And you have a moment, where you first get to the Waking Sands, where you realize that Tataru isn’t in her usual spot on the stool at the table by the door. And you think, “oh, that’s to be expected, she’s probably with the others downstairs waiting for me!” So you go down the steps and through the door like every other time before. You expect it to be warmly lit and densely populated. You expect everyone there cheering and glad that you’re alright.

You load in, and then your stomach drops. 

The lights are off, the vases that were otherwise just background pieces to fill space are knocked over and askew, and there are dead bodies in front of you- one of which is in a Garlean uniform.

I can’t properly articulate the way I felt cold when my brain caught up with what I was looking at. And I saw that the quest marker was pointing to Minfilia’s chamber, but I didn’t go down that way. I turned left first.

More bodies. Bodies of many of the NPCs that had always been there. Characters that had dialogue that updated with your quests, characters that were working on their own accomplishments and goals alongside you, characters that cheered you on as you went about your duties. Dead.

I couldn’t remember any of their names. I couldn’t remember any of their dialogue that stood out to me at the time. I even cried over the lalafell mender that usually stood on top of the boxes in there, because I couldn’t find him, either. 

Then I went to the Antecedent’s chambers and…hoo boy that Echo. That Echo. There’s a whole new type of helplessness when you’re watching a recording of a tragedy, personal or not, where you just wish you could reach out and just make it stop, but you can’t. You just watch in horror as people are gunned down, or stabbed, or taken away. You watch as Minfilia, at the ripe old age of fucking nineteen, doesn’t flinch when Livia fires a shot near her face, tries to negotiate sparing the lives of those she’s responsible for. You watch as Livia shows the levels of cruelty to which she will sink in the way that she not only denies that negotiation, but just kills a few more people- one of her own included- just because they annoyed her.

And then you watch poor little Noraxia, who had only ever done their best, die because you couldn’t save them, either.