Final Fantasy XIV has recently announced its latest expansion, Endwalkers. Now I haven’t gone near it as I’m still within Stormblood. However, that is not what I will be discussing today. Today I will be discussing the Dragoon, the iconic job in the Final Fantasy franchise and how in Final Fantasy XIV the narrative twists it in an avenue never witnessed before.
Beware, there are spoilers ahead
One of the main classes in Final Fantasy XIV Online is the Lancer which, when it hits Lvl 50, becomes the legendary Dragoon job/class. This is all grand and pretty cool. Until you hit Heavensward, the first expansion of Final Fantasy XIV. As you traverse through that plot you become embroiled in the Dragonsong War between Ishagard and the Dragons.
As you peel back the layers of this 1000 year feud you learn the horrifying truth. The dragons during a truce were beset upon by the ancient Ishgardians. Mutilated and eaten, the dragon’s power was transferred to the Ishgardians. They developed abilities to combat dragons. This was the birth of the Dragoon.
This storytelling was so effective that I recoiled. I was so disgusted that I genuinely don’t ever want to become a Dragoon. The game offers so many opportunities to play as a heroic figure but with such high-level storytelling, it may have sacrificed one of the core classes. How can you play as a hero when this class is drenched in the blood of a whole race.
Final Fantasy XIV and the Dragoon drenched in the blood of the innocent
The narrative is pushed even further when a character you follow during the narrative becomes possessed by a notably dangerous dragon. The Azure Dragoon aka Estinien Wyrmblood, the most powerful Dragoon becomes the puppet of Nidhogg. This cycle of hatred is unending. Nidhogg lost his sister which drove him into a rage which began the Dragon Song War.
Estinien became the Azure Dragoon as well as a bane to all dragon kind because he lost his family when he was a child to a dragon attack. As a player interested in the Dragoon as a character type within the Final Fantasy lore, I was saddened by the disgusting legacy of this job/class in the Final Fantasy XIV canon.
This to me is a testament to the level of storytelling on show within Final Fantasy XIV. And this is in a roundabout way a recommendation to everyone out there to play this game. I found I had been pulled in so much that even now, I don’t want to become a Dragoon myself. This destructive cycle does eventually come to an end, but the damage has been done.
As I look forward to all the avenues open to me as a player in Final Fantasy XIV I also wonder, did anyone else feel this way when the terrible reveal happened in Final Fantasy XIV? Let me know in the comments below. And if you’re interested, let me know if you’d like to follow my journey in Eorzea on the GamEir Twitch Channel.
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