Spoilers for the Stormblood expansion of Final Fantasy XIV
Have you heard about critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV with a free trial up to level 70 with no restrictions on playtime including the award-winning expansion Heavensward? It also includes bereft of awards and highly polarizing expansion Stormblood, so obviously that’s the one I’m going to talk about.
Stormblood is a story about revolutionary war. The countries of Ala Mhigo (fantasy Middle East) and Doma (fantasy Japan) have suffered for well over a decade under the rule of the Garlean Empire, and the player character’s plan to overcome the superior military might of the Empire is to stage a simultaneous revolt in both east and west and spread the Garlean forces thin enough to make victory possible. As a result the expansion is essentially split into two halves, with each half having their own antagonist to deal with. These antagonists are two women, Fordola in Ala Mhigo and Yotsuyu in Doma. The two of them have similar histories of suffering under occupation and eventually joining the oppressor, and both are also given an attempt at a redemption arc for their numerous war crimes after their defeat. However, their treatment and ultimate fate in the story are starkly different, and in this way they clearly expose underlying gendered biases in how their writers think about Evil Women(TM) and who “deserves” redemption in narratives about trauma and war.
