My Favourite Minion

[alias_sqbr]

So Final Fantasy 14 has these things called "minions", which are entirely cosmetic but fun little pets that follow you around doing absolutely nothing but look cool/cute. Thus far I've just picked up a couple from quests: a little wildcat kitten you rescue, a wind-up airship souvenir from flying in an airship, etc. They're fun, but can clutter up the screen, and sometimes it stretched my suspension of disbelief that like...a little puppy was following me into battle with giant monsters and not being hurt. It all felt a bit silly.

But that was before I got the minion reward for the quest The Rising Chorus.

Major spoilers up to near the start of Heavensward!

So. Your organisation is based in the remains of an old battlefield, where the skyline is dominated by the huge figure of the corpse of the dragon king Midgardsormr, curled ominously around the remains of the building-sized battleship he died to destroy.

Slightly to the north lies Ishgard, a country of tall angsty elves who ignore everything else going on in the world to focus entirely on fighting a centuries-long war against the dragons and their worshippers. They are viciously dedicated to destroying all dragons and dragon-worshippers, sending Inquisitors to interrogate and execute anyone showing the slightest sign of dragon influence. And not entirely without reason: dragons have a sort of Lovecraftian mind-control effect, making anyone under their influence become a mindless worshipper (I think? I might be mixing up dragons and beast gods)

The Ishgardians unbend enough to actually talk to your organisation when there are omens suggesting Midgardsormr may rise again. You go check it out, and discover his corpse still has a spark of life. He sends smaller dragons to fight you, and then there is a very strange and confusing conversation (I was distracted by telling Cam how incredibly badly my group did in the fight(*)) where he talks about a covenant and takes away your godly blessing and I think uses it to revitalise himself enough to take a new form, saying he will be watching you.

And so...you get a little Midgardsormr minion, a cute frowny baby dragon that flies around after you and sometimes sits on your head??

And on the one hand this is just a regular minion, you can replace it with the wolf puppy or whatever. And most of the time, as with any minion, it doesn't have anything to do with the plot.

BUT SOMETIMES IT DOES. A character sacrifices herself to defeat a villain and the little dragon pops up and Midgardsormr's deep voice says something ominous like, "Life for death, a fair exchange. There will be many others like it in the days to come" then vanishes again.

And it's SO BIZARRE going into a conversation with Ishagardians with baby Midgardsormr just chilling on my head when they're all "ALL THAT MATTERS IS DESTROYING DRAGONS". And then in cutscenes they're talking about their strategies for killing another dragon if he rises from his long slumber and the voice of Midgardsormr is all smug about the strength of his sons and how the Ishgardians will pay for their misdeeds (which I assume is another uncomfortable colonialism thing)

I'm guessing the Ishgardians can't see him??? Or they would...sentence my character immediately to death?? Also I'm not sure anyone else knows about it and either way am wondering what the hell my character is thinking, going into anti-dragon strategy meetings knowing the dragon king can hear everything. Is she mind controlled?? The story never brings up the possibility and currently has kinda moved past the dragon/Ishgard related parts to deal with other things, and since he's a permanent minion I guess he just...chills with you indefinitely???

All of which makes having this cute little dragon following me around on fetch-quests absolutely delightful. Yes, do sit on my head, you cute lil ancient being on a deadly quest for revenge. All I need is the option to give him chin scritches.

I'm writing this post because I'm not awake enough to do the next dungeon but am getting very close to the first expansion, Heavensward. Only two dungeons to go! It's exciting! I think Heavensward might be set in Ishgard, in which case little Midgardsormr is definitely coming with me.

(*) It was 3 sprouts (new players) and one non-sprout, and apparently none of the other noobs had looked the dungeon up on Youtube because it was the first time I've had one of those "one person in the team has to do X" mechanics where not only did someone not do it before I had a chance to even remember it was a thing, there were multiple times when my slow ass brain had time to go:
"Wait."
"Isn't that a thing we should be doing?"
"Is noone else doing the thing???"
"Oh god noone else is doing the thing ok crap how do I do the thing..."
And then I did it. Or in one case, I did not, and we all died, but I don't feel like that is all on me.
We died twice all up but everyone stayed cheerful and we got through it in the end, it was nice to see other people unambiguously screw up to the extent that we all died and see that it was fine, actually. Like I knew, but it's nice to see.

Comments

[scytale]

This is delightful and I am writing fic in my head in which your character redeems Midgardsormr through the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP (and chin scritches), as little Midardsormr pretends that he's hanging out with you for espionage, really!

[alias_sqbr]

Hee! The player character absolutely has the sort of earnest shonen protagonist personality where that works, too.

[therem_harth]

Aaaaa yes minions are so good! I liked Midgardsomr for a long while too, currently my fav is a field sparrow. Btw did you know that you can target your minion and write /beckon and they'll come sit on you? :3

[alias_sqbr]

gasp I cannot CONTROL the king of dragons! He sits when and where he chooses!! (But yes I did, because I keep opening that menu by accident when he flies in front of my cursor)