Fordola in Endwalker: An Arc Finished

jan 28 2022

After finishing Stormblood, I wrote an essay talking about how I felt Yotusyu's character arc was very well done, and does a good job at making the audience sympathetic with her, whereas Fordola's arc didn't work quite as well. Finishing Endwalker and its assorted role quests helped change my mind on Fordola and wrapped her character arc up very neatly.

The healer role quest for Endwalker deals heavily with a lot of the problems I had with Fordola's arc, and Ala Mhigo's arc in general. In my "Lyse Was Supposed to Be Alphinaud" essay, I talked about how Ala Mhigo's storyline felt lacking, in my opinion, because of the lack of follow-through. The healer role quest helped a lot, delving into the refugee crisis and the trauma experienced by Ala Mhigan citizens who worked for the empire. I think a lot of criticism of Fordola fails to recognize that she's an intensely traumatized teenager who was a victim of colonialism. Does this completely excuse her actions? Of course not, but this quest makes it abundantly clear that Fordola didn't join the army because she hated Ala Mhigo and loved Garlemald, but because she genuinely wanted Ala Mhigans to gain recognition and respect. I think white Americans like myself (or any citizen of an imperial nation) have a hard time understanding the compulsion to prove yourself and work within an abusive system in order to try to gain respect from your oppressors. That aside, there was some great character work on Fordola with these quests. The problem most people had with her "redemption arc" before was that she didn't seem remotely apologetic. At the time, I could understand that this was because of her prideful personality and her intense guilt, preferring to be executed for her crimes because she didn't think she deserved to live, but I still had a hard time liking Fordola. In the Endwalker healer role quest, it's made abundantly clear that Fordola does regret her actions and is actively making amends to the people she directly hurt.

However, I struggle with the greater "plot" of the role quest. The shared memorial service just feels pointless and like a naively positive view on things. It helps Arenvald's character by developing him into a charismatic leader who learns how to plan large events, but the game's narrative that the Ala Mhigans just need to find common ground with the people who oppressed them on a structural level falls flat, even if those people were Ala Mhigan conscripts. It's hard to watch the game act like love and forgiveness will solve major generational trauma and inequality, especially for the tribes like the Anata and Miqo'te who are already treated like second class citizens before Garlemald. I think the problem with this, and why other people will dislike it, is that while the game isn't forcing characters to forgive, it makes it very clear that it wants people to just move on already. Sure, you can never forgive the Garleans for what they did to you and your nation, and that's fine. But can we just find some common ground and move on already? It feels cheap and disrespectful. Part of the reason why Fordola's original character arc was so great to me was the decision to allow the Ala Mhigans to not forgive or like her, even though they accepted her help. It felt less like the game was telling us to just get over it and more like it was just encouraging us to see her as a nuanced character. While it's frustrating for me to see people act like Fordola and Yotsuyu are just evil villains, I understand that some people will never like them for reasons I can never personally understand.

People smarter than me have also brought up the fact that this is a Japanese game, and the Japanese mindset towards their own colonialism in the past has been this kind of "don't forgive, but just forget" mindset. This mindset is harmful because it erases the need to actively work to atone and encourages everyone to just bottle up their feelings and get along. While I don't think the game is entirely doing this- Fordola is working for the Ala Mhigans to make up for her support for Garlemald- Arvenvald's storyline does have some uncomfortable undertones. Ala Mhigans who have relatives who died fighting for Garlemald feel guilty mourning them, which leads them to bottle up their feelings and turn into blasphemies. These themes interest me and are complex. Do bad people deserve to be mourned by their families? What if they were unwillingly bad? Is mourning more for the dead, or for the living? The problem with this quest is that instead of delving into these themes seriously it just paints over them with a thin coat of "togetherness." I think a better idea for this would have been to have a separate memorial for families who had relatives die fighting for Ala Mhigans so they could have a chance to mourn among people who have had similar experiences without being judged, and then have some kind of other "togetherness" ritual like a celebration or parade to try to mend the gap between Ala Mhigans.

I also didn't like the noticeable absence of Lyse in this quest set in Ala Mhigo. It only makes me more confused about what her actual job is, like also talked about in my Lyse character essay. If Raubhan has taken over as commander of the Resistance and Lyse is more of an informal ambassador or helper, why did she come with us to Garlemald in the main story quest? Why is she not present now? Lyse already knows and has a rapport with Fordola, so it would make sense for her to come with us on this quest or at least be there in some capacity. It would be easy for the game to even slip in a line about how she's too busy with work to help us, which would at least give an explanation for why she's not there. It majorly frustrates me that the writers have just dropped Lyse like a hot potato. I can't think of any other main character of a whole expansion (who is still alive) that is treated like this. I really hope they don't continue this in the future and at least try to include Lyse and develop her character more. General community outlook on Lyse is negative because people think she's not developed enough as a character. I personally disagree, but I can see where this opinion is coming from and I would love to see Lyse's grief and rawer emotions explored more. Instead of actually trying to "fix" community opinion by developing her as a character, the writers simply hide her from view and hope people forget about her until she has a tiny role in a MSQ.

Overall, I did like these quests and thought they did a great job of humanizing and developing Fordola. While I thought she was a well developed character before, I just didn't like her that much, especially compared to Yotsuyu. This questline genuinely made me like and empathize with her. While there still are a lot of problems with this questline, at least they're actually bringing these complex and hard themes back into the story instead of just pretending they don't exist. I hope in the future they do this with other aspects of Stormblood as well.

Edit 11/6/2022: Edited intro for grammar/clarity.