Final Fantasy XIV

It says a lot that Asahi, over Zenos, Lahabrea, Varis, and Solus is the sole Complete Monster entry that the game has.

Though, at the moment I suppose that tends to be an issue of "Say, not see" with villains. We -hear- about horrible things Zenos has done, we -hear- about what any other major antagonist wants to do. So far Asahi is the only villainous character we've actively -seen- do genuinely, horribly irredeemable things to people innocent or otherwise.

Edited by NaraNumas on Apr 4th 2019 at 1:04:01 PM

I mean we get to see Zenos go around and murdering and dragging women by the hair but he can also be surprisingly merciful in his boredom

Asahi's a much more present kind of evil, I think. Zenos is your standard Blood Knight, so he's more or less something we're used to seeing, but the child of abusive parents scapegoating his sister to their parents' wrath and using her as a stepstool to advance his own position, both within their family and then in general, is a lot more "realistic" in some ways.

And he doesnt even care about his parents either.

I wouldn't care about them, if they were my parents

One thing I will say about Asahi is that I'm a little disappointed they did go the 'sudden cackle villain' route with him. I was intrigued by him when he first showed up, first possibly as an grit-our-teeth-and-bear-it ally of convenience for the next expansion and then as a villain for it. His sort of "let's all just be civil. We wouldn't want any diplomatic incidents, right?" rules lawyering villainy isn't something we've seen a lot of in-game, and it was an interesting change, even if he was exceedingly punchable even back then. Sweeping that aside to make him openly, cartoonishly evil (and making his Zenos-worship extreme to the point of 'please spit in the dirt so I can clean it with my face, milord!') kind of felt like a waste, in some ways. Especially when his grandest political maneuver past that point consisted of him insisting over and over that the Garlean viceroy using Garlean crystals to summon a primal after being goaded by the Garlean emissary somehow constituted a binding political failure on the part of Doma, until he got stabbed in the stomach.

It says something that Elidibus, who admits to the Griffin he doesn't needlessly waste people that are of aid to him and his goals, set all that up to ensure Asahi would die even if Yotsuyu didn't get her sweet revengeance.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Apr 5th 2019 at 12:39:08 PM

My favourite thing about Asahi is him gloating about how you can't hurt him because of the diplomatic summit as he is literally in the middle of ruining the diplomatic summit

Yeah, I know multiple other people who thought that Yotsuyu stabbing him was the Warrior of Light finally having enough and deciding to channel their inner Fray, the angling and suddenness of it didn't help, but I feel like that split second of "Wait, did we just-" was entirely intentional.

Edited by NaraNumas on Apr 5th 2019 at 3:12:17 AM

It seems that way to us on the ground, but he was going for a propaganda victory back in Garlemald. All he would need to cover up was where the crystals came from, really. Yotsuyu was not popular back home, so your everyday Garlean would probably be ready to think of her as a Doman savage first and an imperial viceroy second.

From us, he just needed the tiniest technicality to give the story a kernel of truth, it didn't matter if we saw through it for the flimsy pretext that it was. Considering his "haha, you'd kill a garlean emisary?" line, us seeing through it and still being unable to do anything about it probably made his day even better (until it got very abruptly much much worse).

Also, I keep saying "he" but really, Asahi was just as much a pawn in this as we were. I wonder how much of the "smear the Populares" plan he was actually privy too - his glee could have just come from having the chance to fuck with the warrior of light.

Edited by LittleMako on Apr 5th 2019 at 2:55:37 AM

That is true, but it's not like he had anyone left to spread the word. Maxima and the soldiers who survived Tsukuyomi were actual Populares who had a vested interest in the peace talks succeeding, and it's not like Asahi brought video cameras. The Warrior of Light or Hien could easily have struck him down and then told the Garlean prisoners the truth - that the former ambassador's attempt to assassinate foreign dignitaries had failed, resulting in his death. Or just roll his smug, dead ass into a latrine somewhere and tell the prisoners he offered to have them all executed, which is also true enough given that he forcibly summoned Tsukuyomi in the same building as them.

It's entirely possible that Asahi never intended to go home at all, and just wanted to spit in Hien and the WOL's eye, true. In which case, at least he died in a way that made him at least somewhat useful to someone.

What and here in the west we don't like our cackling bad guys? Like The Joker? i mean, at least Zenos has some style to him, like hijacking Shinryu, having an intimidating presence and handing us our first 2 defeats. Plus i sort of like the bizarre hate friendship we have, it works for my Xaela PC at least. But Asahi has NOTHING to find admirable, He's like that smug, entitled prick you meet at school or at the work place or somewhere else IRL. Though i'm pretty sure, Asahi was just an unwitting pawn for our favorite White robed Ascian, which makes his notice me Zenos antics all the more useless in the end. But as devoted to Zenos as he is, I doubt Asahi would have gone all the way to be a sacrificial pawn willingly, i'm sure he was planning on surviving and reuniting with the homeland.

Here's some Mood Whiplash. Someone through modding managed to get Asahi to dance with the new Manderville dance. Let that image sink in.

But has someone made a mod for the Fortemps family? Also i'm not surprised, this is a world where we have a mod for Gheb from Fire emblem.

Lahabrea wishes he was a Complete Monster, but aside from making Ultima expend Hydaelyn's power at the end of ARR, he's largely a pathetic and ineffectual villain. He even gets killed by one of his own plans and mocked by Solus.

And Elidibus.

Elidibus has been trying to kill Wo L because Lahabreas plans continued to make them too OP.

"Warrior of Light, you have grown too powerful and must needs be destroyed! But not right now. Cliffhanger is up at the Gold Saucer and I need the MGP." - Lahabrea probably

Lahabrea is the Memetic Loser of XIV.

And yet people still like him for...reasons, enough that they still insist that he's not dead.

Speaking of Ascians, I always thought Nabriales was pretty competent for a one off villain.

Nabriales was a better villain than Lahabrea, for sure.

Reading through the YMMV, I actually forgotten how people actually booed Yoshida at the first Las Vegas Fanfest because he announced that the 2nd Coil of Bahamut was getting nerfed.

Some people are masochists i suppose. Class act to Yoshida for taking it with grace. He still seems to enjoy doing fanfests. Off course dressing up as GUNBREAKER is pretty sweet.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Apr 7th 2019 at 11:27:06 AM

I feel like the community's grown a lot, especially from the raiding scene perspective with Alexander and Omega have casual-friendly normal modes and then Savages for the "Big boy" content. Of course, the people that booed Yoshida may have since quit the game, but eh, good riddance.

I wish they had retroactively done that to the original raids.