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Jiyan De'lulu

The Seventh Dawn

Lamia [Primal]

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Stormblood - Character Arcs Part 1

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I've been marinating my thoughts on Stormblood even after I'm well into Shadowbringers. What stalled me from posting was my lack of pictures haha but my posts here are a blend of thoughts and not just mere, lookee nice pics (though there's plenty of that too).



At first with Fordola ... I thought she was despicable. This denier who identified more with the colonizing - and oppressing - faction than the native locale. She would never been seen as the majority race's equal but there she was spitting on and beating up the minorities alongside them. Just because her family managed to squeak into their good graces by kowtowing and basically being excessively obedient and servile to the Garleans.

I find it repulsive. But I have my reasons. I've see too much of this already growing up. And I admit experiencing some of that same resentment towards the qualities that made me stand out from the majority race. Maybe Fordola too wished she had a third eye, so she can blend in more. Fortunately, I grew out of it, and that was largely in part because I moved out of the siloed culture that kept telling me, the best way for me to co-exist with the majority is to walk on eggshells and blend into the background.

When you wake up from that kind of shackled dream, it's hard not to feel resentment towards the time you've lost. Time spent hating yourself instead of getting to know and appreciate the real you. Like all the energy put in trying to be someone not because it's the natural choice, but because it's the choice that keeps you under the radar. Like ... how can then one not sympathize with Fordola's sudden lack of will to live. Her eyes were opened to the suffering she caused to the Ala Mhigans, but in turn, I understood why she swerved so far to the other side early on.

The Garleans were so efficient and thorough in making the Ala Mhigans think that despite them being all collectively grouped up and oppressed by the Imperials' movement, that they're all suffering this alone. That's how they infiltrate the community and make their fanatical fascism take over the overwhelming dissenting majority. Cuz we stay silent. We think it is only happening to us. We allow the blinders placed over our eyes to be effective. And so they can overpower and strip away the good in the society we had.

So while I no longer find Fordola despicable, it's not like I'm going to say, oh she's a good person now. I'm still waiting to see if she has truly embraced her new situation and will accept her new role as someone who helps the Ala Mhigan community instead of just looking out for herself while torturing and killing the ones she was able to step on. Her hate was justified at the time. I stress "at the time". Since now, with the Garlean empire falling apart and her aspirations to climb up to their ranks has been demolished, her arc lies ahead to either redeem herself or to still wallow in self-pity since she was on the losing side.

But overall, this was a good arc. A villain is not just there twiddling their evil mustache and being mean and violent for the sake of being mean and violent. Looking at you, Zenos.

Comments (1)

Ice Phoenix

Sephirot [Materia]

Fordola was my fav NPC after Nanamo.
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