#lord vauthry

With everything that is going on in the United States right now post election, I've been taking time to reflect and think about things. And what I've noticed a lot currently - and I kind of blame a TikTok I watched for this - is there are parallels to the Shadowbringers expansion of Final Fantasy XIV. I've probably lost y'all, but just... give me some time and I'll explain. It'll make sense.

For those who haven't played but want to, I will be HEAVILY going into spoiler territory. Back out now if you don't want to be spoiled for the expansion.

Everyone gone who wants to be spoiler free? Okay, here we go.

Anyway, for a TL;DR of the game so far before we head into Shadowbringers, the player (as the Warrior of Light) along with your friends - the Scions of the Seventh Dawn - has at this point:

Rejoined the main three city-states of Eorzea

Stopped a group of "counter" heroes from making a mockery of you and your group

Caused for a fourth city-state to join in the alliance

Got blamed for and stopped a coup while at the same time ending a 1000-year man-vs-dragon war

And brought independence to two nations who would become allies to Eorzea

Towards the end of the last part, most members of our group fell unconscious, leaving us as the last. During all of it, we found that we were being called and eventually we did find our way from the Source to the First.

Anyway, while we're on the First, among the chaos that we see in realizing that we have a reflection to save, we see the difference between two leaders.

On the one side, we have the ExArch of the Crystarium. He helped people for nearly a century after The Flood of Light fiasco to just try and survive. We learn later on how he had gotten to the First - it had been a disaster where he was from, but he'd been a point of... hope.

The ExArch was an unwitting leader of the people, gave people a beacon. He cared for the people, helped them to create a life in the world that seemed to want them gone. The people wanted him as king, but he only wanted to be seen as one of them, because he considered himself one of them. They wanted him as a leader so they created his role - the ExArch. He helped with supplying, storing and rebuilding a community; a community of lost souls. When the Scions arrive, he tells and shows them the world of the First. He wants them to understand and see what has happened with everything and everyone. He worked to keep the remaining people of the world safe.

But that led to where one of the Scions was made to go: a place called Kholusia and the city-state of Eulmore. It's a place that looks amazing from a distance but on the outer edge and below, it's slums. And there, is a leader of this place - a leader who lives in opulence and who believes in the separation of those who are lower in status to those who are rich.

His name is Vauthry. When we meet him, we immediately know he's corrupt. He is the (heavily overweight, infantile-like) son of the past leader of Eulmore - a man that the ExArch had been friends with. He surrounds himself with the well-off and makes beggars of those not so much. He basically does a sort of performative charity in the slum areas to show that he's a great guy and deserves to lead the people. And if you didn't do as you were asked/required to do? Well... needless to say, he prided himself on fear as well. He also believed he was a sort of god among men and threw tantrums if things didn't go his way. But there was more as well (I'll get to that in a minute).

The ExArch tried to get along with Vauthry, but they didn't agree on what should be done and how. They both wanted to save the people of the First. However, their methods differed by leaps and bounds. Vauthry only wanted the well to do to be saved. They had money and because of that nothing else mattered and they could buy their way into the lives of the poor. The ExArch, on the other hand, found a way to lead the people in a way that the people became self-sufficient. He led with compassion and kindness, believing that everyone deserved a chance to live.

Going through this election cycle brought forward a lot of things and watching it was strange because I hadn't realized it yet. It wasn't until a TikTok video pointed out that "America really voted in a Vauthry" that I understood what I was seeing. The comparisons between Trump and Vauthry are insanely staggering.

Vauthry/Trump are extremely rich

Vauthry/Trump prefer the rich over the poor and tax/hurt those with less money in order to widen the gap

Vauthry/Trump do performative charities to their own benefit

Vauthry/Trump have shadow organizations running the show in the background

Oh... You saw that last one?

Much like Trump has several people from the National Heritage Foundation (a Christian Nationalist Conservative "think tank") in place for when he takes office (including his Vice Presidential pick, J.D. Vance), Vauthry was supported by his own shadow group.

Taking a step back to what I said about Vauthry believing himself a god among men (which, let's be honest, Trump pretty much blatantly infers this of himself on the daily), he actually wasn't wrong... to a degree. You see, while he is able to solve certain problems, he is also the cause of them. This being because when he was conceived/born, he was given a power by a group we know want the destruction of our home because they wanted things to go back to the way they were. Sound familiar? It should. The Ascians wanted to return the Source and its reflections back to how it was during their time. They thought of the current man as less than a person ("I do not consider you truly alive. Ergo, I will not be guilty of m*rder if I k*ll you." -Emet-Selch). Once again, sound familiar?

So as we go through the First, we meet the various peoples - many familiar in appearance, while others have changed in some way. In this world that is covered in never ending light, we change our moniker from Warrior of Light to Warrior of Darkness. That being said, we never fully change our position, we're just going under a different name since the last WoL wasn't exactly looked highly upon in their end. (Remember that group who were trying to make a mockery of us? Needless to say, they'd been misguided and brought to the source under false pretenses.) As we make our way through the world and defeat the enemy leaders, we become a beacon of hope ourselves as we bring the night back to the world. Not only that, but even the ExArch believes in us more and finds a way to help with getting the people of Eulmore to break themselves free of the corruption of Vauthry - we and our fellow Scion already having planted a seed of change within the people there during our earlier visits.

That said, as we go through the story, we do see the ExArch faulter. We see him question himself. We see him doubt if he'd done things right. But as he does, he looks to his people and sees their work and their hope. He watches us and the Scions as we go through our trials, our battles. He watches as each enemy leader falls at our hand as we fight corruption and knows what he must do. He's always known, but he didn't really know the how or when until we arrived and did what we could. He led as he followed and followed as he led. He knew what we represented and who we were.

For as much as the ExArch was a leader of the people, he was also someone who believed in the people as well. He believed in us and our team. The people of the Crystarium. Honestly, he believed in the people of the First. For even in the more dire of times, he knew what could be done and who could do it. Because the ExArch believed in the people as much as they believed in him. He was able to give hope and peace of mind rather than doubt and fear.

That's why, in all truth and honesty, I believe that the Crystal ExArch's role could be filled by Kamala.

So, why the title? Because when it comes down to it, we as voters? Are the player. We as voters are the Warrior of Light (or in the case of the First, Warrior of Darkness). We are the ones who can make the change. But now that the votes have been cast and our world's Vauthry and Ascians have (at least temporarily) won, it's time to take up the banners and ready ourselves for the next set of battles.

They won't be easy - anyone who's played as a WoL in Final Fantasy XIV knows that the grind is difficult. But let me remind you of a question:

When has fighting for peace, hope, and survival ever been easy? To quote the ExArch himself:

"To take action is to hope. To believe - to choose to believe - is to take the first step for towards a brighter future." ... "For in times of hardship, when you fear you cannot go on... The joy you have known, the pain you have felt, the prayers that you've whispered and answered - they shall ever be your strength and comfort."

There could have been more time in the writing of the Eulmore arc, if the writers had been more clever and hadn't used lazy tropes to phone it in. But Yoshida bodyshamed a cosplayer for their weight live onstage at Fanfest 2014, so while I was disappointed, I sure wasn't surprised. Square in general loves shitting on fat characters.

So here we are, with inexplicably overpowered grandpa (who died in a duty), the totally plot twist Lightwarden Of Kholusia, and the "perverted paradise" that actually made the 1% foot the tab for their employees, before being replaced by the much more benevolent capitalism. (◔_◔)

By all means Nonnie, you do you, but you should consider that Vauthry was the original victim of the "cult", as you put it. He had no chance of free will since before he was born. Tempering/Light corruption doesn't work like that, and Tempering/Light corruption has never made an exception for anyone else, including the Warrior Of Light, who had Hydaelyn's Blessing protecting them. Vauthry was bound to the instincts and will of a Lightwarden his entire life. Or, as Emet-Selch, the actual founder of the Eulmore "cult", stated:

"Those in your company will likewise turn to sin eaters, and in time you will succumb to your base instincts and hunt innocents to feast on their sweet, sweet aether."

You think that whole situation was bad for your WoL? A lot of players go on in great length how horrifying it was for theirs. Loads of High Drama and Existential Dread. How do you suppose it was for a child alone, surrounded by people who were only using him for their own ends? 

The Ascians were there to guide their creation to do their bidding the whole way, it seems. It would only make sense, why would Emet-Selch corrupt a baby for such a crucial role, then leave him to do whatever on his own? 

Then you had his father, the Former Mayor, who obviously made up a fanciful story of why his son was born as he was, framing all who oppose him as villains who seek to destroy the peace he brought between man and sin eater. That unfortunately included the Scions and their allies, although even Emet-Selch stated he was surprised Vauthry sent the Eulmoran Army after us. That does imply it wasn’t common for Vauthry to resort to violent behavior in the past, if he resorted to it at all. The Eulmorans themselves definitely weren’t afraid of him ‘til the very end. You already know everything else I have to say on that subject, right? ( ᐛ )b

But yeah. We're talking being indoctrinated into this from birth. For those who dismiss that, I'd love to hear how they expected a child to know what was real and what was not at that point, carefully isolated from any life outside his false destiny. (Seriously. If any of you who subscribe to this mindset are reading this, DM me. Anon is obviously on. I really do want to see where the train of thought is coming from.) For the “well Vauthry was a spoiled rich kid” crowd, I don’t want to hear it--there are a lot of “rich kids” in this game that you love. Alphinaud, Alisaie, Hildibrand, Nanamo, the noble kids of Ishgard, etc. Think harder than that. Vauthry had to be convinced he was doing good for the world. He had all the power in the world to not care. Yet he remained mayor of one settlement, when he could’ve been in control of all of Norvrandt if he had even a fraction of Emet-Selch’s tin pot dictator ambitions. 

He didn’t. He hoped to "vindicate his existence" as the "half sin eater" the Ascians made him, as G’raha later said. But he died in bewildered sorrow because he "kept the people safe!" from the “villains”, never understanding everything he was taught was a cruel lie.

He did terrible things in the time we saw him, but blaming him for Light corruption he never chose and a lifetime of brainwashing feels like blaming Thancred for the fate of the Waking Sands. Would any of it have happened were it not for Emet-Selch’s direct actions? No.

Also, while I appreciate the compliments, Nonnie, why is "cuddly" and other similar terms always and only ever used for fat characters, smh. The fanbase tries to make Dulia everyone's maiden aunt as it is.  

WoL: Of course I’m familiar with the seven deadly sins!!

WoL, points to Vauthry: the munchies

WoL, points to Nidhogg: super pissed

WoL, points to Emet Selch: naps

WoL, points to Elidibus: thinking yr hot shit

WoL, points to Lahabrea: thinking your friend is hot shit and being mad about it.

WoL, points to Taledji Adeledji : capitalism