Prologue: Why Running Off Pure Edge is Bad
So Dark Knight’s quests tend to get a lot of praise because it appears to justify impulsive tendencies players have about conflict resolution and using ruthless violence to solve problems alongside getting back at all the fluff from ARR where you play delivery man for NPCs for hours on end. This is in contrast to the MSQ which typically has shounen-esque naivety and optimism where we just let the antagonist do stuff, settling things with violence later when the plot demands we fight, and how we just do whatever we’re told by NPCs despite being the hero of the realm. Usually in the lvl 30-50 stage people love “Fray” for their tendency to be a “voice of reason” because he/she shouts and yells at dumb petty NPCs and subscribes to the idea that freely using violence in the name of justice is justified.
Now let me explain through this section, and the rest of this spergy, why this idea is completely wrong within this game’s narrative with both the MSQ and the Dark Knight quest line itself stating that “Fray” is not supposed to be correct here.
FFXIV’s MSQ tends to punish the overuse of violence to solve problems and the overindulgence of one’s most negative emotions, especially when other solutions are potentially viable to resolve the current problem. Yes the WoL kills a bunch of people to solve problems, but it is usually done as a last resort when no possible other option reasonably exists right now. All the times where Alphinaud pleads to reason with the current antagonist on screen is the story’s way of exhausting other means of resolution, until finally we’re forced to draw a sword and hit the big bad guy until they see reason or we kill them.
Yes this isn’t always done well, like in Stormblood when we let WE GO TOGETHER man who we fight in Doma Castle just retreat for free 3 different times and his eventual fate is arguably worse then just killing him earlier, but their is a meaning to the WoL’s tendency to not just default to bloody murder right at the gate.
Ilberd is probably one of the better examples to show this. At Baelsar’s wall just before Stormblood starts, Alphinaud offers Ilberd a chance to resolve all of this conflict without his death, and sparing the potential lives of his people who are dying to Garlemald’s counter attack that Ilberd himself secretly orchestrated. Ilberd effectively got everything he wanted at this point with the Scions and Alliance getting involved. He could leave now and probably still get his homeland liberated, he might go to prison but at least when he gets out he might see a liberated Ala Mhigo. Ilberd instead tells Alphinaud he’s a fag and proceeds to go on a huge tangent about how his people suck, Eorzea sucks, and that the liberation of his homeland is basically for no one (“I will suckle on the souls of the hopeless and liberate the homeland they no long deserve”), draw on Nidhogg’s eyes to summon effectively Bahamut 2.0 using his body as a catalyst. Ilberd’s justified anger and contempt is radicalized to seething anger that completely removes any meaning his anger had by the end. Ilberd doesn’t want anything, he just wants to hurt people because they hurt him in the end. This is why just giving into anger and loathing is a terrible idea, because when you do it twists whatever good intentions you have.
Sidurgu can be considered another, albeit much less extreme, example but we’ll touch on him when I go into the 50-60 section. In essence we have someone who is a victim of terrible circumstance who eventually defaults to using massive amounts of violence to solve their problems and are killed for their decision.
So why would the WoL, an arguable terrible victim of circumstance, giving into “Fray’s” ideals be exempt from this eventuality? Just because we’re strong? Ilberd had the power of a great wyrm’s eyes and the bodies of many people to effectively create Bahamut 2.0 with Shinryu, he gets possessed by Zenos’ fake echo and is eventually killed anyway. Ilberd achieved fuck all except being remembered as a total asshole by the small handful of people who know what he did. We liberate his homeland for him, we get the title of liberator, and he can kiss our ass in hell. If Ilberd had waited he could see a liberated Ala Mhigo, instead he gets to die bitter, cucked by Zenos, and wholly unfulfilled.
So in order to not fall down Ilberd’s way, we’d have to be capable of overcoming our own pain, but giving into Fray’s desire IS effectively giving into it. It is acknowledging our pain as justified and to accept that it is right to be cold and bitter to the world, to hate people just because they bother you, and to do the wrong thing just because it is better for you. That’s why “Fray” is wrong, and why “Our Answer” is to say no to their way in the level 50 capstone.
Chapter 1: Our Answer (level 30-50)
So Dark Knight starts off with seeing the real and actual Fray Myste’s death and a sudden passing of the torch with the WoL taking up his Soul Crystal. The Soul Crystal has an unusual reaction to the WoL picking it up as it begins to speak from what we can presume is the WoL’s buried emotions after the events of 2.55, lamenting their current lot in life as the goodie goodie hero of the story. The Dark Knight quest out of all 3 of the HW jobs leans the hardest on ARR’s completion, it might as well be a canonical event after entering Ishgard due to how its first quest and the level 50 capstone quest use the events of 2.55 to explain why this story exists.
The level 30 DRK quest alongside “Fray’s” explanation of “Darkness” in the DRK unlock quest is kind of weird, they explain that darkness is “healthy”, but it can be dangerous if you use it improperly; how it acts as a ever burning fuel that you can use, but you must be careful on overindulging. In the solo instance “Darkness” takes the form of dark flames you can touch for damage boosts, but if you take too many you get stunned. It is pretty clumsily explained, so I’ll use the 1st lore book to help me define what exactly “Darkness” is and what it does for the Dark Knight job both in-lore power and thematically. Because I see a lot of people not understanding what this energy is and giving it way more evil implications then it really is. I’ve even seen people swear this is Void-like energy which is just wrong. So here’s the definition given by the lore book.
“Darkness: Arising from the fear and wrath of the Dark Knight’s own soul, this shadowy flame feeds greedily upon her body’s aether, its stygian fires coursing through her blade and fueling her eldritch arts. But as ever, such power comes with a price; should the dark knight lose control over this darkness, she will be consumed in a backlash of entropic energies.”
So let me translate: Effectively speaking “Darkness” is using your emotions to burn aether from your body to give you arcane power, that’s about it. It is like a slower burn version of the Astral Fire cycle on THM/BLM. Astral Fire in gameplay is a mana burn phase, but in lore it is effectively using fire aspected aether to burn your body’s innate aether rapidly in order to expend more aether for more powerful spell casting compared to normal spell casting traditions, Umbral Ice is a phase meant to cool your aether back down so you don’t burn your aether into the ground and actually hurt yourself. Once cooled, you go back to Astral Fire and repeat this cycle indefinitely if you properly balance it.
So think of the BLM cycle as if they’re constantly turning a burner on 500 degrees F and then cool the flame by dropping a bucket of cold water, then once the water has fully cooled the flame you light it back up to 500 degrees to repeat the cycle before you light yourself or something around you on fire (which can in-theory happen with a novice THM).
DRK is more steadily burning their aether, but there's no rapid cool off phase until you just stop. Due to this being a more steady burn it is more likely that a DRK will not just combust, but if we go off the level 30 instance your body does seem to just spasm out and fall on the floor for a little while if you intake too much Darkness which is where the “backlash of entropic energies” comes in.
Symbolically, Darkness is effectively just emotions that give you power, therefore your emotional state is tied into how strong you are as a Dark Knight alongside your physical strength. Pretty simple concept and a common enough anime power system, and this focus on emotional stability comes up more later on in a few select quests. This focus on emotions being a catalyst for power is probably why this whole introspective WoL story happens with Dark Knight and no other job storyline. If our emotions are used as our strength while we’re using the Dark Knight soul crystal, then it is only natural that they’d manifest into something unusual if our emotions are going in a particular direction canonically, and even Sidurgu acknowledges that these sorts of events have happened before with other Dark Knights.
Now that I’ve laid the groundwork and defined some stuff, I can quickly summarize the events of the quests as they’re not that terribly interesting to explain in their absolute entirety.
So level 30’s events are basically just us smashing corrupt temple knights who are kidnapping a girl for more or less no justified reason, which is thematic as a Dark Knight is supposed to go against authority to do the right thing. “Fray” makes a few comments in the solo instance like “If anyone comes after us, I’ll kill you, your family, and burn your god damn house down!”. This is designed to act as a catharsis for the player who likely is pretty damn pissed after ARR’s events (either for plot reasons, gameplay reasons, or both), to break away from the goodie good /nodder the MSQ has forced our character to be for dozens of hours now, and this sort of catharsis becomes a recurring element for the entirety of this 30-50 section.
Level 35 is pretty much just an introduction to mechanics for various communions with “Fray”, these communions are meant to slowly dive into the WoL’s psyche and show what they’re feeling on the inside, or at least how “Fray” feels about the event the WoL puts on themselves. The idea is you fight something strong, you can dive deeper into your soul and you learn something about yourself for the experience. The voice is treated as if it is something different from you, like an invisible guiding voice trying to warn you about mistakes you are making. As Dark Knight’s strength is based on emotions, it makes enough sense that understanding yourself gives you greater strength. This also implies that the WoL character is repressing their internal emotions in order to be the simple /nodder we know them as in the MSQ (especially in ARR) which is the entire reason the events of this story occur. While it makes for a good and effective hero, it does not make for an emotionally stable person (neither does typing this essay, but that is neither here nor there). This is ultimately where the WoL as we know them is at fault for all of this as opposed to “Fray” being the problem, they don’t have full control over their emotions and it has left a burning hatred that is coming to the surface and occupied Fray Myste’s corpse.
Level 40 is a bit more of the same, but this one more focuses on how other NPCs see you in this state, especially if you read the infamous DRK journal entries. It gives you a brief target before your next communion, which is implied and outright stated in the journal to annoy the WoL. But before you complete the ritual Isembard, the guy who manages Camp Drybone, begs for your help to rescue hostages. The WoL agrees, but Fray does not and neither does the journal, but eventually you do it for the sake of better sport for the communion .
The WoL is implied to be a maniacal bloody hungry lunatic in this fight if you read the journal (“Fortunately, Amalj'aa are far better sport than peistes, eh!? And the beastmen were happy to keep coming, howling with rage for their fallen kin, no matter how many you slew! Fray's chuckling is infectious, and you find yourself sharing his grin.”), your equipment and sword stained with blood according to Fray too in the quest text. It is so bad that Isembard can barely stand to talk to you as you look like someone relishing in the blood of your enemies. This is meant to hint at a decline in the WoL’s sanity, that the WoL is going down a bad path and that “Fray’s” influence is corrupting them in progressively larger ways. Which as I highlighted with Ilberd is how you eventually end up dead and unfulfilled in the end when you so heavily give into your most negative emotions, as opposed to the hero of Eorzea and eventually Norvrandt. As cool and edgy as this moment is, it is not a good thing and it is not supposed to be seen as good in hindsight either.
Level 45 is infamous. It is when you get the infamous “I should have let you all drown to Leviathan!” scene comes from which is not only one of the most player cathartic scenes in this game, but it also very suddenly tells you something is at least really off about all of this considering the implications of that line beyond the catharsis. It sets up for the climax of “Our Answer” by having Fray be fully at their wits end and the NPC we help being one of most obnoxious NPCs in the game that isn’t intended to be an antagonist. It really proposes upfront if being the WoL is even worth the effort, or if just having none of this and being isolated from all these incidents is better for the WoL’s well being.
Effectively the end of this quest is the turning point, Fray proposes going your own way and leaving Eorzea behind “To recognize that which matters─and forsake all that does not.” as they put it in the previous quest. If you talk to the NPCs from the cutscene with the merchant after Fray walks off from the scene, it is actually implied the Fray’s words are actually meant to be yours as the Maelstrom officer says something to the effect of “I understand you’re upset sir/miss…” in response to Fray’s outburst. This is despite the fact that in the cutscene we didn’t explode on the merchant, Fray did, and the NPCs look at Fray in acknowledgement of this outburst. In fact, all the NPCs look at Fray, yet there is no other acknowledgement of their existence beyond those head turns. No one asks “Hey who are you strange black armored conjurer?” or “Hello WoL, who is your companion?” or anything like that, they hear Fray’s words but they never acknowledge Fray him/herself. This revelation completely changes the context of a lot of scenes really as it is implied that Fray’s words are actually us speaking just with a different tone, like someone having a bipolar fit. This explains why NPCs are implied to be more scared and uncomfortable around us, because we’re effectively having a mental breakdown in front of them but to us it is split between two different people.
This is the calm before the storm, as the journal puts it in the last paragraph for this quest: “Fray is right, of course. Fray has always been right. Only when we have renounced everything are we free to do anything. We can leave it behind─all of it. The Scions. The Alliance. Even Hydaelyn. All we have to do is ask, and he/she shall set us free.”
This leads into the very fittingly named quest “Our Answer” serving as the climax for this story arc and our answer to Fray’s proposal. Before we do though, let’s make a short list of things that may happen if we go with Fray’s request assuming this takes place somewhere around 3.0’s start.
1: Ishgard eventually bleeds the land dry because Thordan will become King Thordan the primal.
2: Nidhogg goes totally apeshit and burns Ishgard to the ground in some battle between King Thordan and Nidhogg. As without the WoL’s assistance Estinien does not have the means to slay Nidhogg.
3: The Warriors of Darkness will force more primals out with their activities and no small force could realistically stop them, and they’re basically immortal so they just get back up even if some mass force kills them because their bodies don’t die.
4: Ilberd finds some other reason to spark a war with the empire as the Griffin, which causes a different forced war scenario only Ishgard is probably totaled by Nidhogg or their god king so they aren’t capable of assisting which means The Alliance will probably just get rolled over without the WoL. Thanks Ilberd.
5: All upcoming calamities will occur until Hydaelyn blesses a new Warrior of Light which is probably not easy to do in current declining state, this includes the 8th Umbral Calamity which is a desolate apocalypse so Fray’s freedom is kind of pointless at that point if we are merely free to live in a desolate wasteland with no hope in sight assuming we don’t just die anyway. This would likely be the WoL’s personal punishment for accepting Fray’s proposal in a cosmic sense, to have freedom in a world ruined by an event they could have stopped. Also Novrandt also dies, so fuck all those people too I guess.
In the climactic battle between you and Fray, you learn that Fray’s corpse is being possessed by a shade of yourself taken in the form of you wearing the HW Drk AF armor and using the Deathbringer. The solo battle officially names them as “Esteem” which is the name I will use for them from now on. Esteem shamed the WoL, stating that they accepted Esteem’s help because secretly they yearned for an escape from being the WoL they wanted to know the Dark Knight way no matter the cost or risk. Esteem states that “A house divided cannot stand”, stating that the internal conflict within the WoL must be put to an end, and if the WoL refuses to give into their needs then they must be overtaken with force.
The knights of Whitebrim lead by Lord Drillemont lend you their aid, a gesture to the WoL’s service to them in retaking Stone Vigil and a contrast to when this started with us murdering Temple Knights in the streets. It exemplifies that the WoL’s deeds have given them allies who are willing to lend them aid in times of need regardless of the societal norm of Ishgard to be self centered as of this point in the story. Esteem loses and states that the people of Whitebrim and the entire world will never see the WoL the same ever again, believing that by the new found faults and emotional fragility being put on full display make them weak, dangerous, and incapable of being the hero the realm wants and instead will be what the realm fears, despises, sees only as a tool, or looks down on. Various personnel of Whitebrim lend morale support stating that the WoL as a whole is a good person despite their faults, Lord Drillemont agreeing with them despite their first meeting when he turned the WoL away back in 2.0. Esteem actually shows shame in this moment of weakness due to their more saddened facial expression when the personnel shows up. This implies that even Esteem, the pragmatic self centered individualistic side of the WoL, does not like seeing the people he/she has helped see them as less than an absolute hero.
Being a hero is a core aspect of the WoL no matter what side we look at, caring about people is also important despite how Esteem might have denied this instinct for self centered reasons. Esteem never hated helping people, they hated being used, they hated being unregarded for their efforts, they believe the world will in the end turn on them for their kindness as it did in 2.55. Esteem wanted to avoid these problems instead of accepting them, which overall goes against the point of the Dark Knight as a title and the history it carries.
To be a Dark Knight is to enact justice regardless of the cost, by running away and deciding to go fuck off somewhere Fray broke the tenents of being a Dark Knight as they attempt to deny who they, as the whole Warrior of Light, are in an act of cowardice. While Esteem states that they are willing to take the WoL away from all of this responsibility if they ask, it is shown in “Our Closure” how Esteem laters regrets this statement along with the rest of their actions. This acceptance of who the WoL is leads to the WoL obtaining mastery of their emotions and by extension improving their power as a Dark Knight.
Chapter 2: The Power of Love
So now we enter Heavensward. Lord Drillemont and the rest of Whitebrim effectively commit treason to hide your consorting with Fray’s corpse from the Holy See, this shows the effect the WoL is steadily having on Ishgard as this is by Ishgard’s current laws treason and being an accomplice to necromancy. Drillemont knows you are a good person and thus chooses to look the other way for your well being, if we were to act like Esteem we would have had to fight our way through the Temple Knights to get out of this mess, which is obviously a much worse outcome overall.
Unfortunately not all knights agree with that take, a small group of knights convince the WoL to follow them away from Whitebrim under the guise of needing their help with something and immediately get owned. The resident edge lord for the remaining Drk quests enters, Sidurgu steps into the scene and offers to kill the knights for the WoL, the WoL hesitates and the knights escape vowing to bring the WoL to justice. Sidurgu mentions here that the WoL’s events with Esteem/Fray are not a first due to the unusual nature of the Dark Knight soul crystal. Dark Knight is one of the few job quests I can remember which really talk about Soul Crystals at all in any real depth. They’re generally just used as a justification for why you can learn esoteric techniques and are a sign that you are a practitioner of a rare martial art. Dark Knight a few different times suggests something a little deeper, that soul crystals have unusual powers or at least the Dark Knight one does. The Dark Knight one in particular can invoke events like with Esteem and another event we’ll see in the Stormblood section likely as an emotional response to some inner turmoil the bearer is having.
In the Forgotten Knight Sidurgu becomes a foil for the WoL’s general do-goodery like Esteem/Fray was, as Sidurgu kills the knights that tried to assault the WoL. Sidurgu explains what a Dark Knight actually is with the origins of the name, they were a Temple Knight who chose to forsake their shield (which has the Temple Knight’s standard on it) and their title to assassinate a high clergyman who was harming children. This Dark Knight became a criminal in order to be a hero, and created the idea that a Dark Knight is supposed to cross lines in order to bring about true justice. Typical vigilantism all in all really.
Sidurgu also explains his backstory, stating that when his tribe of Xaela fled to Ishgard to get away from the Garleans the Ishgardians presumed them dragon-kind and assaulted them. His tribe initially showed mercy, but were all slaughtered except for him due to his now dead master’s intervention. Due to his backstory Sidurgu believes that mercy is a weakness and a fool's errand, that attempts on one’s life should be met with intent to kill. This negative outlook on life highlights the central flaw Sidurgu has and what he has to steadily overcome to improve as a person and as a Dark Knight due to how emotional state is tied to the Dark Knight’s powers.
Side note, potentially another Xaela survivor you meet in the WHM quest line could be related, as she has some form of trauma likely induced by being slaughtered by Ishgardians like Sidurgu’s tribe. If she isn’t exactly related. This to my knowledge has never been confirmed but it is nice to think about.
We then meet our other NPC companion, Rielle. Rielle was being protected by Sidurgu, Fray, and their dead master which is why Fray ended up put on trial prior to us meeting them. Rielle’s backstory is mostly explained throughout this quest line and is the majority of the 50-60 section. So I’ll sum up what it is and what Rielle’s purpose is. Rielle has the blood of an ancient dragon, which is obviously against Ishgard law at this point in the story and makes her a heretic of the highest order. Her mother is in the upper echelons of Ishgard society and her father is implied to be the one tied to this blood. To absolve her bloodline of this heresy her mother tried to at first lock Rielle away in effectively a metal box so she doesn’t have to acknowledge the sin of their family, but over time her mother decided that she can’t stand Rielle’s existence and thus is aiming to remove Rielle from her life permanently.
Fray taught Rielle conjury while he was alive and due to Rielle’s ancient dragon blood she has an implied affinity for magic. Sidurgu uses Rielle’s plight as an excuse to fight the knights that murdered everyone he knew, Sidurgu doesn’t really care about Rielle and his loyalty to her is a thinly veiled excuse for vengeance that even Rielle can see through. Rielle is mostly used to help develop Sidurgu and it is one of the many times we dive into Ishgard’s politics from a different perspective. Sidurgu sees Rielle as a child he needs to babysit instead of as an actual charge he cares about and wants to protect sincerely. He only cares about Rielle because it means he can fight Ishgard’s military under the guise of bringing justice.
Sidurgu’s flaws is that he’s unironically too edgy, he doesn’t understand how to be a protector because he wants to be an avenger. Considering Rielle is so deeply depressed after everything that’s happened to her that she doesn’t have a ton of attachment to her own life, this presents Sidurgu with a need to actually change because Rielle can easily just walk out and probably not feel too bad for being executed. What is the point of being protected by someone who hates you, who only uses you as an excuse for violence?
The moogles in the level 58 quest suggest that Sidurgu needs to use the power of genuine sincerity and love instead of dictionary definition creeds and automated promises. Sidurgu needs to actually be honest with himself and reach into his actual feelings instead of speaking platitudes, citing oaths, and being a smoldering bag of anger. Sidurgu’s anger holds him back, it drowns out his actual feelings and replaces them with a mindless addiction for violence against the ones who wronged him. In essence Sidurgu must be truly honest with himself and with Rielle if he is to master “The Flame in the Abyss”.It is as the dying dragon says in the level 56 quest “Shrouded in thy rancor, thou standest apart from thy charge” which effectively translates into “You’re too angry to actually stand with your charge”.
Considering how FFXIV’s narrative tends to reward positive emotions and punish negative emotions, it stands to reason that despite how corny it sounds, the Moogles belief in the power of love is genuine and is the honest solution to Sidurgu’s problem and his inadequacies. Sidurgu needs to learn to actually care about someone again before he can truly reach his full potential, as in anger he merely stands away from people instead of beside them.
At the end of the battle against Rielle’s mother, Sidurgu holds her life at the end of his sword and despite everything she did to them today, what her country men did to his life, he recognizes that she is Rielle’s mother and effectively lets Rielle decide her faith. In a moment of acceptance Rielle accepts her mother will never love her and that she is better off at peace in Halone’s halls. Rielle gives her mother’s last rites and Sid cuts off her head, this time Sid killed her with purpose and in mercy, instead of in vengeance and in hate. The difference between Sidurgu’s motive and the original Dark Knight’s motive is that Sidurgu wanted to enact violence to get back at what was done to him, while the original Dark Knight enacted violence to save children who were being wronged by the untouchable. While enacting brutal violent vengeance can be a purpose, it is a direction that ultimately has little real resolution as the only reason you have the urge for vengeance with brutal violence is because you cannot find closure in what has happened. Sidurgu learned to let go and make a new life with Rielle as knight and charge.
Ultimately Rielle has a good enough dynamic with Sidurgu. Both have had terrible lives, but ultimately give the other purpose and work together on each other’s flaws throughout their time together. Sidurgu ultimately got Rielle to speak up, and Rielle got Sid to have genuine emotions besides anger. I think it’d be better if Rielle’s age was better defined and she wasn’t stuck looking like she’s 12. She implies in overworld dialogue after level 80 that she wants to be seen as more than a young girl to Sid and how she’s supposedly due to have a growth spurt, so I can only hope that Rielle is close to adulthood. Honestly if she grows into a normal looking giraffe Elezen woman in EW for any reason I’ll be thrilled. Sure the romance is sort of forced, but someone needs to keep Sidurgu in check.
Chapter 3: It weighs as it should.
So this questline has a lot of similar notes from 30-50, just with a different focus of acceptance. Where one focuses on tempering one’s emotions against selfishness and desire for isolation, this one is about tempering one’s emotions against the feelings of loss and failure. Both things can lead anyone down a dark road, Yotsuyu overall is a very depressed person due to her whole life, and her seeking some sort of fix to her problems ultimately killed her as she lacked the means to overcome her emotions.
At the start of the quest, our soul crystal breaks in half and a character named Myste who has light blue hair appears to states they needed aether to supposedly ease the suffering of depressed souls somehow. Sidurgu actually calls out Myste, as Myste as a name is a name associated with people from the Brume which is why the real Fray’s full name is Fray Myste as he was also a child of the Brume. Sidurgu’s concern is justified according to the journal which very quickly spoils that Myste is not exactly an innocent person, “Sidurgu is incredulous, and rightly so, for the boy is a liar…”. Despite this Myste is trusted and we let him play out his plans.
We meet a cousin of one of the Heavens Ward, Thordan’s knights, and through Myste’s magic the knight is seemingly reborn. This exchange between family is effectively one big session where Myste’s creation compliments and praises his cousin, acting as a means of closure for the cousin which seems to be Myste’s intention is to briefly restore a once lost man to a loved one. Myste admonishes his failure to maintain the knight, and begs forgiveness repeatedly. This becomes a trend as we go, Myste is set up as a child who lacks self confidence yet is playing with a lot of power given he stole half the aether from the soul crystal. Myste’s childlike way of viewing things alongside his childlike design is a means to be a hint of how his way of viewing the world lacks maturity, the temperance gained through age, and the fortitude given through the struggles all life takes.
All he wants to do is help people through his illusions, but his illusions are just false nonsense, they bring nothing but pure fantasy indulgence as opposed to ushering in resolved acceptance of one’s current place in life. The next quest brings this up where Myste tries to help the woman who tried to incite a revolt in Falcon’s Nest and was shot down, she is sent to work hard labor to atone for her crimes and Myste wants to bring back the husband she lost in the war.
Prior to this meeting we are given a moment of potential redemption for this “Lowdy” woman’s taskmaster, he decides to refuse the idea believing that her sins are too heavy that only death can atone for her crimes. He’s too enraptured in his beliefs, believing that redemption is impossible, but to do as such would be to go against the justice he strives to bring and thus he is cut down. We’ll call back to this in due time.
The meeting with Lowdy’s husband is a little hard to watch, a widow forced to look upon her dead husband again as if he were alive, even as she knows what he will say to her and reacts according to her memories tells her to let him go, she just refuses. Myste’s attempts at succor don’t pan out as he imagined, as Lowdy refuses to see this farce and this interaction we get a more obvious explanation about the nature of Myste’s creations. His creations use memories as the person who remembers them, almost designed solely for their deep inner turmoil to talk to them through their problems as with the Heavens Ward knight’s cousin and with Lowdy’s husband. Both attempt to comfort the living, both secretly wanting to be moved past their loss, but just can’t quite do it.
What Myste’s creations lack of comfort and resolved plights, they make up for in insight and closure of one’s inner turmoil, but Myste denies this outcome believing that only through a complete reversal of fortunes can good be achieved or as he put it “In the end I could not make her whole.”. Myste demands complete success and all else is not enough, Sidurgu actually believes what they did was an ultimate positive and thus was an overall good action believing in the smaller victory gained instead of the complete victory lost. That moment when the edge lord au ra can see the silver lining of things…
In the level 65 quest Myste has some optional dialogue and he considers Lowdy’s reactions to her dead husband, “She knew it was false...yet it still had power over her. Can there be truth in a lie...and perhaps salvation as well?”. Upon going to churning mists, Myste becomes very somber and sort of drops a level of their normal attitude of playing the sad puppy to say this: “Who did I lose? Everyone. No one. We have always been apart, have we not? Perhaps one day you will understand...and then you will understand my loathing and contempt.”. This contradiction I’d imagine indicates that as Myste is part of us similar to Esteem, but they are so recent that despite them bearing with our pain of loss, they also never had the pleasure of actually meeting which has likely driven them further into madness. Thus the question of “We have always been apart, have we not?” spurs the thought that Myste only knows how to feel loss, despair, and sorrow for the losses they bear alongside us, which explains their intense need to apologize, atone, and seek some sort of salvation for all of their pain and guilt.
The fight with Sidurgu and Fray’s former master is more a moment for Sidurgu, that beyond all his edgy aggression he himself has his own feelings of insecurity and weakness for the only reason he was beaten down in the solo fight was due to his own lack of belief in himself. Beyond the development of Sidurgu’s inferiority complex, their master states that a Dark Knight’s strength is through the ability to bear strength against the cruelty of the world. Ompagne sought penance for all the lives lost under his command, and became a Dark Knight to leave behind something that could undo his mistakes and find forgiveness for his transgressions. Ompagne cared for his men, and because of that and his ability to bear with that pain he is strong as is the nature of the Dark Knight’s power system.
Due to again Myste’s creations being only created based on what the memories of a living person knows, this means Sidurgu knew the entire time what he had to do to be strong, to protect Rielle, but he was incapable of doing it due to his hatred for Ishgard. At the time back in HW it was believed Sidurgu never actually knew but this revelation shows it isn’t lack of information but lack of will and fortitude that held back Sidurgu’s progress, that made him an unfitting knight for Rielle, that held back his growth as a Dark Knight despite all the oaths he carries he never really followed them. Which nicely comes full circle with his development from level 60, where his master’s shade can at least tell him what he knows deep down but still has his own personal struggles with fully reaching his potential.
Myste overall apologies for the 50th time for his mistake before later remarking that “Redemption is not beyond us.” when realizing that Sidurgu has learned from the experience Myste put him through. Despite his attempts at being apologetic, he leaves Sidurgu behind and seemingly ignores his recommendation to be careful with his power by meddling in an entirely different affair in Gyr Abania moments later. As a nice bit of continuity, when Houdart is summoned with Myste’s magic he claims he wanted to always meet the WoL. But the real Houdart already did when he was posing as the Griffin’s double we met in Little Ala Mhigo.
In short Myste’s new attempt fails as Houdart fades when Gallien dies alone, thus leaving no survivors from those Ala Mhigans we helped by in Quarrymill. Note if you talk to Gallien’s dead body you get a bit from the poem “Ode on Solitude” from Alexander Pope, the bit is “Thus let me live, unseen, unknown; thus unlamented let me die; Steal from the world, and not a stone. Tell me where I lie.” which is the end of the poem itself. I assume this is meant to reflect on the whole “we just want to go home” theme Houdart and Gallien had when they reflect on their wishes to see their home again. Which fits the original poem being about wanting to live a simple and unknown life.
Myste’s failure ushers him to consider far more drastic ideas, the idea that a world where death has no meaning can exist. Myste denies death as a concept and believes himself a master of it through his abilities, which harkens to a child and naive understanding of the world that he is intended to embody. As the journal states: “Myste muses on the possibility of a world where time and death hold no power over us. A world you could share. You need only ask. But we know better.” which that last sentence is contradicted by a different musing earlier in the same paragraph, “we have no choice but to accept the inevitability that everyone we know and love will join them (the dead) in time..or do we?”. The journal periodically makes words that feel more like Myste is writing in it then Esteem. The journal ultimately accepts that death is a constant and has to be accepted as stated earlier in it “He (Houdart) laments his fate, wishing he could go back and convince his former self to not place his trust in the Griffin...but if such things were possibly, you wouldn’t have a broken shield, now would you?”.
All of this questioning and posturing about the concepts of reversing or stopping death via use of fictional mirror images comes to a final clash between Myste and the WoL. The level 68 journal warns of this clash throughout the journal and various other texts exist to warn of Myste’s threat to you and potentially others. Esteem has been slowly watching this struggle or as they put “this farce” the entire time, and in the level 70 journal they very explicitly plead to be allowed to aid you in your clash...and so you allow it for justice demands no less.
Myste seeks redemption, yet he has killed more to do so with chocobos and various beasts just sapped dry of their aether. Myste believes that the WoL is a perpetual sinner due to the various murders they’ve enacted for the safety of the realm or in the name of justice, that in the end murder is murder. Believing that the only way to fix this contradiction is to fix the entire world itself with more murder for the sake of the aether needed. Myste in the end only wants to stave off their own sin and be removed of it for as he puts it “I offer you peace! Restitution! A chance to make amends! Do not think you are above it! Do not think a reckoning will be postponed indefinitely!”.
In the final conflict, Esteem taking the guise of Fray states “These scars and sins are ours to bear, not to deny! But, you, boy, I deny! Yours is a coward's way!”. Esteem believes that our mistakes are intended to be taken and held, not denied, washed away, or forgotten, this belief ultimately culminates to my favorite line in this quest line and the title of this section: “Do not seek forgiveness, for it will not ease the burden. It weighs as it should.”. When Myste asks what the dead deserve, what the people long gone should get in life, Rielle replies that the potential to lose is what makes life precious. Without the ability to die, living merely is a constant which makes the value of life lessened, which gets talked about a bunch of different times through Shadowbringers. Without the ability or desire to leave a legacy after death, mortals would not seek to strive for anything and we can see this with Amarout as they were more interested in idle banter and observation of the world then ultimately pushing for something for others. Amarout is implied to be a pretty isolated community, as there is talk of “other nations” in Amarout’s side quests and the common view seems to be to just merely observe from afar and let things play out the way they do.
Ultimately, Myste is given an internal forgiveness from Esteem, the WoL ultimately accepts them as part of them just as they had done with Esteem: “...So it goes. If you would not forsake me, then of course you would not forsake him. And so...neither can I. He is a fool, but he is our little fool. The little boy/girl who wanted to make this cruel, twisted world a better place, futile as that is. He's going to get us killed one of these days...but what can I say? I love him. I forgive him. And you…”. With this Myste and WoL’s internal guilt is calmed, they accept themselves as a good person. They bear the weight of their sins, for to deny them is to grow complacent, to try and wash them away is to seek to avoid responsibility, and to give into them is to allow one less person to stand a hero against the cruel world we live in. That is what makes the Warrior of Light who they are, they possess more than anything else the fortitude to bear with all they’ve gone through and more to come and still be the hero the world needs, that is why they’re the hero of this story. They bear their weight as they should.
Chapter 4: Be well.
This serves as a conclusion to the internal strife with the Warrior of Light, where they learn to accept who they are as the hero of the Source and now the 1st despite all the mortal danger it puts them in. Since the events of 5.0 it is implied that the WoL is finding out the true reach of their actions. 5.0 talks a lot about legacy, the legacy of Amaurat that lingers throughout all time in at least some small way as everyone in the world tries in vain to remember their paradise lost. The legacy of the Warrior of Light is the other main legacy talked about, the very reason the 1st shard can be saved and the dark future of the 8th umbral calamity can be stopped is due to the culmination of all the WoL’s actions inspiring them to take action.
Emet-Selch said near the end of 5.0 that the people of the Source would never sacrifice half of their number for the sake of the world as his people did, but he is wrong and that proof was staring him in the face the entire time with G’raha Tia. The very fact G’raha Tia travels through time and space to save the WoL with the hopes of people who will never see the fruits of their labor, this is their sacrificial act for a brighter future that they will never see. Emet is wrong, and it is all due to the WoL’s actions showing him the potential of this new found life that he looked down on for so long.
So what the hell does any of this have to do with the Dark Knight questline? Remember Esteem wanted to push away from being the Warrior of Light, they wanted to as the journal once said “To recognize that which matters─and forsake all that does not.”. To forsake the world for self preservation would be to prematurely end the legacy of the WoL, to deny the potential bright future they are capable of bringing, and to ignore the plight of others despite having the choice to do something. This arrogance is shattered amongst the weight of 5.0’s story, for the legacy the WoL has truly created that stretches beyond time and space. It reaches far beyond them, more than I think real people can ever truly fathom in their lifetime. That legacy and what it brings to the world is more important than the WoL’s life, to say otherwise is to give into arrogance and self centeredness and that is what Esteem comes to terms with by the end of this quest.
So the overall events are simple, you receive a letter from an anonymous sender who thanks you for your actions in helping them in life. You then go around and talk to various messengers who just so happen to be connected to your journey in very small ways. Some characters even get names now, like the first NPC Lunnie who was the woman you helped in the Drk level 30 quest. This idea of suddenly finding names of the npcs who were once effectively nameless gets talked about in the journal: “Do you remember Ser Patrounade? I do. Not by name of course--he didn’t have one when the tower fell. That’s how these things so often go--you do your bit, only later to fill in the gaps, to piece together the picture in distant hindsight. What will your legacy be tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that…?”. I believe the point of this little exchange and this journal entry is to highlight how throughout this story we’ve met many many different people, and a good handful of them do return in some form or another and some even get names beyond “Temple Knight” or “Resistance Member”. We always are moving from one place to another in an endless track, leaving some manner of effect on where we go no matter how minimal it seems at first.
In a grander sense the WoL’s actions shape the world around them as both the player who makes the world even exist in the first place and as the character of the WoL who’s actions and lack of action always shape the world around them. The journal brings this up again when talking about the deaths of Conrad and Meffrid who died in Stormblood, “ “Inevitable deaths on the road of a forgone conclusion,” sayeth the hardened heart, in retrospect. You’d be wrong, of course. It never had to be this way. This world is exactly as we choose to make it.”. This entry is a form of self chastisement for the WoL to still retain some of the lingering regrets they have and have been developing since around Stormblood as seen in the Drk quest line for Stormblood. If the WoL accepts the far reaching effects of their actions, then they would also naturally accept the downsides. To linger on many questions of “what if?”, what if they were stronger, faster, more attentive. In the end the WoL both on a meta level and within the narrative has an extreme amount of control over the situation of the world due to their strength of character and of combat prowess.
If the WoL fails to save someone due to inaction or the incapability to take action, the intended result is to bear that weight so as to strive to correct that weakness. Remember our weight weighs as it should, to toss it aside leads to one who can’t take responsibility, which leads to complacence, which leads to death. This would likely be the inevitable result of a completely Monetarist ruled Ul’dah if that were to come to pass. If we give into our weight, to buckle and break under involves us swinging ghosts sometimes even literally in the case of the level 70 instance. In the Monk SB quest for example Widergat falls into a slump when he believes he is incapable and undeserving of reviving his order, that his art is incapable of defending anything like he imagined it, due to losing in combat in front of his newfound disciples after promising them that his new Fist of Rhalgr would help them defend what they have. It takes a good talk for him to learn to seek a solution instead of simply standing in the dirt whining.
So the capstone moment of this quest is the talk with Frey/Esteem. You meet the merchant from the level 45 quest who after a string of misfortune turned around and came to understand the error of his ways when he yelled at the WoL. This leads to obtaining a floor made for funerals, you go to the cliff near camp whitebrim and let the flower blow away in the wind as a means to pay respect to the original Fray Myste’s death. In response to this Esteem appears before you and talks in a bit of text that actually has two different interpretations depending on the version.
The EN version is much more cryptic and a lot more somber in its approach. Esteem talks about how their regrets for trying to force the WoL to detach themselves from the world and live only for themself, realizing they as a whole person don’t need what they wanted “But neither of us needs it anymore. And if we were to look deep within ourselves, we would realize that we never did.”. Esteem’s reactions to the events of 5.0 have led them to respect what they as the whole WoL have done, that their impact on the world makes all the pain, all the danger, all the sorrow, and all the selfish people worth it. Esteem has seen the culmination of our answer back in the level 50 quest fully show itself in 5.0’s events, that even if they are a part of the WoL their words don’t need to be the WoL’s. “If you find comfort in my words they are yours for the taking, but that is your choice. Now and ever after, as it has always been.”.
While Esteem is part of the WoL and must be accepted, they don’t need to define the WoL just as the way others may see us doesn't need to define who we really are.
For example, if Yotsuyu chose to live as Tsuyu and moved past her pain, she very much could have lived as “Tsuyu” instead of “Yotsuyu” the evil witch of Doma that the rest of the world saw herself as, although in Yotsuyu’s case she in the end chose to be the witch as she was incapable of overcoming her deep rooted pain. Rielle could have chosen to just be a child that belongs in the grave, but she chose to go above that because her life with what she has with Sidurgu and the WoL are too important to be thrown away in despair. As Esteem puts it “We are the stories we tell ourselves. The brave hero, the tortured soul, the altruist, the pragmatist. They will tell you who they see, but you and you alone know who you are.”.
The last third of this exchange is very odd and cryptic, but ultimately it comes down to Esteem making a reference to Myste’s desire to bring a voice to the voiceless and stating this at the end before fading away “As we did together that day, when you gave us our answer. Was it ever mine…?”. I still don’t fully understand what this bit means, the best I can imagine is that I suppose it is meant to speculate on the whole “Does Esteem actually exist as their own being, or is it just a different mask for the WoL?” as the journal also refuses to answer that as for example, when the lady you rescued in the level 30 quest showing up in this quest the journal states “She’s not even sure how many of you there were that day. Are you? But never you mind that. You have a search to continue”. The journal at this point is Esteem musing about their part in your journey, pleading to be important, to have changed you as your actions have changed them. Reflecting on the events of the 1st, the lengths and power of legacy and in Esteem’s way they want to know that just as your actions have changed the very course of history, and they vainly desire the feeling that they were relevant to that history “I want to believe--I need to believe this was not for nothing. That I changed you for the better, as you changed me...”. Throughout the journal Esteem makes comments about how if Esteem exists or not is ultimate of the WoL’s choice, with one of the first paragraphs in the journal being: “So now comes the choice: hold the crystal close that we may enjoy these moments together. Or put it away and pretend I was never part of it. That I was never really here.”. In the journal itself Esteem’s commentary, and frankly most of the interesting writing here, only exists while you are playing as Dark Knight without it the journal is incredibly disjointed and doesn’t feel like it flows properly like something is missing. In essence Esteem wants to give the WoL the choice to remember them or not, but despite it being a choice Esteem also desperately desires to be part of the WoL’s life for their own vanity and because as they say at the end “But even if this is our end, it won’t change what we had. I love you more than you’ll ever know. Be well.”
Overall the story ends with us coming to terms with everything, all our whole selves have made peace with our inner demons and now we’re ready for what is to come as one whole person. It is true closure and settles the whole Esteem plotline well. We can choose how we want to interpret Esteem’s existence and how we want to bring them into our life, there is no risk of having yet another clash with our inner psyche which I think is fitting as the WoL should have at this point resolved themselves in how they want to see their place in the world. The only lingering question at this point is where Hydaelyn fits into all this, but hopefully we’ll see where that goes in Endwalker. Now I’m going to post an excerpt of the French version of the cutscene where Esteem talks, as the French and German versions tend to more heavily follow the Japanese script this is probably more or less what the JP script is as well (unless someone is willing to translate the actual JP script).
"If you love happy endings that bloom like flowers, I wish you can see many more... though it won't happen if you die, so please take care of yourself.
I'm always trying to protect you, you know? But during the last fight in the First World, I really thought that you... that we were going to die.
Although... if you're still alive today, it's indeed because you fought for another world, because you give your all for its people who weren't yours. Yes... I think this is a good way of thinking about it.
By saving this world, you have saved yourself. Despite the pain, the suffering, the losses, you've always pushed on, never to look behind.
Such ideals sure would have been very useful to me, the day we fought...
Really, you're such an amazing person!"
So this version is much more straightforward. It is Esteem sharing their concern for your well being after the fact as the tail end of 5.0 was playing out, praising your resolve in the face of adversity and admonishing themselves in the process. It is much easier to understand, but something about it is so off. The last line “Really, you’re such an amazing person!” just hits me all kinds of wrong, it feels so out of character and is so on the nose. It lacks that element of Esteem willing to let you go if that is your wish, it lacks that element of letting the WoL be the definer of who they are, the acceptance of the WoL and Esteem’s place in the world as the Warrior of Light/Darkness, it just feels like some self congratulatory moment for the WoL to basically praise themself which feels really off theme.
Drk’s entire theme is about overcoming your emotional barriers and using them as your strength in the process, something many characters in the story have failed time and time again, so your success in this story and throughout the MSQ is your way of proving why you deserve to win and it isn’t just complete plot armor. This is why for all of Drk’s praise, I feel many many people don’t understand what this story is really trying to say. People just like Esteem yelling at people, they like the epic moment when Esteem returns to help you fight Myste, and they love the feels of those moments, but the actual message just seems to slip through the cracks entirely.
Epilogue: In summary…
So no one is actually going to read my mountains of autism, at least not all of it. So lemme try to use one paragraph per quest line to explain what it represents and if you want more, then read the mountain.
30-50 is a story about accepting one's place as the hero, even against all practical sense. To be a hero requires sacrifice and it requires fortitude to bear that sacrifice. To deny your responsibility of the power you carry is to damn the world due to complacency and selfishness. In the same respect, you must also acknowledge what you’re feeling, as emotions have a tendency to make people react in destructive ways as shown by the MSQ time and time again. Our answer to pragmatism is to embrace the ideal, for the world will never change if we do ordain to change it with the power and strength of will we possess.
50-60 is about the acceptance of love over hate, for love is stronger than hate as love is the source for hate in the first place. That is the true strength of the Dark Knight’s power. Seeking revenge clouds your ability to see the world for what it actually is for you only see it through the lens of a past you cannot shake, you lack the foresight to uphold your own words when you are secretly plotting to do something else due to things that were done as of yesterdays gone by. Sidurgu cannot be a knight protector without first dropping his revenge and putting Rielle over himself, Sidurgu refused to do that and that is why he is weak for most of this story. Sidurgu in the end overcomes his hate and lets Rielle decide her fate instead of his revenge deciding it for her.
60-70 is about the acceptance of guilt, death and failure in the endless sea of life. Myste wanted to wash away their sins, to make amends for no one except their own desire to be rid of their own pain, to unwrite death and create fake immortality as penance. What Myste fails to accept until the end is that everything they feel, everything they strive to achieve through their guilt, and all that they remember of people long gone is the intended feeling. Life is only precious because death exists, to remove death from life is to remove life’s inherent meaning and merely makes it so. This makes the relationships we share and the lives we lead hollower for it if we were all immortal, for without the eventuality of death we merely will just exist in a perpetual stasis.
80 is about coming to an internal acceptance about all that has led you to this point. The 1st, the events of this quest line, what you take from it is your choice and only you can decide the life you lead. As the hero of the story we bear the legacy to change time itself, thus the world is ours to make change and impact through our actions and inactions. We bear this responsibility for that is our lot, and we bear is gladly for it weighs as it should. The closure we seek and find is merely the acceptance that all of this was for something, for without this journey we would not be who we are today. We are the summation of our legacy, and only we can truly decide who we are beyond all the titles we are given no one else can make that choice.
Be well, and see you on the moon.
