Some cutscenes are just so fascinating, especially with the benefit of hindsight, for they end up being far more impactful long after we see them.
Parley on the Front Lines is an example of this, having directly lead to the Eighth Umbral Calamity in the other timeline.
Parley on the Front Lines – Anatomy of a Cutscene – FFXIV Lore
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I still don't understand what Varis' big plan was. So he knows that the Source and the 13 shards were once one world, and he knows that all races were once one race (I guess the Ascians told him), and he knows that the Ascians want to rejoin the Shards with the Source via the calamities. And his plan to oppose the Ascians is…by doing the exact same thing they are doing???
Either I am missing something crucial here or there was a different plan of how the the story would've evolved but then it got changed into ShB->EW. Because whatever "Varis' big plan" was feels like a giant open plotline for me.
Always liked this cutscene a lot. Draws on a lot of established stuff and brings out plenty of the ugliness about the city-states that often went unmentioned. Stuff that would be given more serious resolution later on down the line, in the Alliance working more closely with the beast tribes and bringing their conflicts with them to an end.
As reprehensible as it is, you can kinda get the sense why Varis would feel this was the only way to oppose the Ascians. To us, we'd dealt with an extremely burnt out Lahabrea and an Elidibus who'd mostly just been meddling in the background. It doesn't seem like it should be impossible for us as we are to deal with them. But then we have Emet, who is really just far more dangerous and powerful than either of them. And he's certainly not barking up entirely the wrong tree. It did take us one more rejoining, personally, to defeat Emet. It just came about in a way that Varis probably never could have imagined.
I always wonder how Varis would have taken it to see both Emet out of the picture and the Alliance with a cure for tempering. I feel that is a lot more "talking the talk" of us keeping the peace and being able to deal with the Ascians on our own. But you also get the sense that he was a pretty twisted guy at this point, and probably would have fought to the bitter end the same as someone like Quintus. XIV has a lot of really standout villains, and Varis tends to get overshadowed a bit in the grand scheme of things, but I think this cutscene is him at his best. Still a little sad we never got that oft-discussed full Garlemald themed expansion that could have slotted in between Shadowbringers and Endwalker.
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