Lord Vauthry, and the Insanity of Self Professed Innocence
A Sword & Saturday essay examining one of the most sinister villains in Final Fantasy's history.
Welcome back to Sword & Saturday, everyone, our celebration of all things dark and pulp in fantasy fiction here on Substack. After finishing The Claws of the N’longu a couple weeks ago and taking last week off from publishing new work for the most part, I’ve decided it’s high time we get back into the game of writing and discussing some good fantasy. However, as my next novella isn’t quite ready for me to begin publishing just yet, I’ve decided to take a fresh stab at a favored pass-time that I haven’t engaged with in quite a while now; a good, old fashioned, character study.
The subject in question today hearkens back to one I discussed for Warrior Wednesday a couple weeks back, that being Square-Enix’s hit MMORPG, Final Fantasy XIV. Today we’ll be discussing one of the game’s many villainous characters, a twisted man who believes himself to be righteous, just, and pure, all while openly displaying every trait possible to give lie to that belief. That man is Lord Vauthry, one of the two major villains in the main story of FFXIV’s highly acclaimed Shadowbringers expansion.
Before we dig deep into Vauthry’s character, there are two things to which I must tend. The first of these is the obligatory spoiler warning. Since we’re going to be discussing one of the primary villains of the Shadowbringers expansion, obviously that means we’ll be discussing matters of its story, as well as certain aspects of the game’s greater backstory to provide appropriate context. So yes, that means if you haven’t played the game and want to experience the story without it being spoiled, you’ll want to stop reading here.
The second of these is a bit of required backstory to set the stage, as it were. Shadowbringers is the game’s third expansion and while it is a step removed from the primary setting of the game that we’re used to, it still ties in heavily with elements of the game’s backstory that need to be clarified for the tale of Vauthry to be fully understood. I’ll do my best to keep this brief so, without any further adieu, let’s begin.
The Source and the Thirteen Reflections
The story of Shadowbringers, and thus that of Vauthry himself, has ties that draw back to the creation of FFXIV’s world and cosmology. Again, I’ll keep this as succinct as possible. In the base game and every expansion other than Shadowbringers, the overwhelming majority of FFXIV’s story takes place in the world of Hydaelyn. (Or Elpis, as it’s called come Endwalker.) However, the world we explore in the game as it is now is very different from what it originally was in its ancient past. You see, the game world in which we play in has a secondary name, The Source, which ties directly into the history of its creation.
Originally, the world was home to an advanced progenitor race known to us as the Ancients. If you’ve read fantasy, or even Greek myth, you already know the general idea - a great mythical civilization collapses in a calamity that caused untold devastation. Well in this particular case, the devastation came in the form of an event known as the Final Days, a cataclysm that was so tremendously grievous to these people that half of their number were willing to sacrifice their souls to birth an entity that could halt it. However, there were some among the Ancients who recognized this plan as the twisted and desperate thing it was, a last ditch effort to do the impossible in attempting to save a civilization and world that was already laid to ruins. As such, a counter plan was hatched to raise one of their number up to a similar state of godlike existence to try and halt this sacrifice, thus birthing the rival gods Hydaelyn and Zodiark.
Again, if you know fantasy tropes, you know the drill. They fight, Hydaelyn wins, and she shatters Zodiark’s body. However, by doing this, she also sunders the souls of every living creature in this ancient world as well as the world itself, breaking it into the Source and its Thirteen Reflections, all of which differ from each other in ways that are both slight and very distinct. Normally these worlds are largely cut off from each other but, as it turns out, the reflections can be accessed by those with sufficient knowledge and power. Enter the game’s long running big-bads, the Ascians, who seek to reconstruct the whole of the source by bringing its reflections back into it. How, you ask? By overloading them with various elements of the game’s primary magical force, Aether, and then causing a related calamity back on the source to draw that energy back in.
Norvrandt, the continent upon which Shadowbringers is set, is the last remaining bastion of life in The First of the Thirteen Reflections. Where the Thirteenth was swallowed up by the powers of Darkness, the First threatens to be consumed by Light, and very nearly was until one of the allies we, the player character, fights alongside throughout the first couple expansions steps forward to halt it herself. Most of the world in The First is stagnant and dead, consumed by the waves of light to be left in total imbalance. Only Norvrandt still remains, though it’s far from untouched, as the sky is bathed in the constant light no matter what time of day and the creatures born from this Light, the falsely angelic Sin Eaters, regularly descend on what bastions of civilization remain in an attempt to kill or transform those who still live into their own kind.
Lord Vauthry and the Sin Eaters
When our character arrives in The First, the Flood of Light which threatened to consume the world has already been halted, but the stagnancy, perpetual light that fills the sky, and the Sin Eater threat have been troubles the remaining people have had to struggle against constantly for close to a century. In this fractured world, two primary powers have risen in the form of two distinct city-states. The first of these is the Crystarium. Situated in the centralized region of Lakeland, the Crystarium houses a community of disparate survivors which came together to build a new home in relative safety beneath the Crystal Tower, a fixture in the game’s lore since the first patch of the game’s A Realm Reborn relaunch. Lead by the mysterious Crystal Exarch, these people try to eke out the best lives they can while attempting to fend off the Sin Eaters. Meanwhile, the Exarch himself has been hatching plans to defeat them, plans which ultimately involve petitioning the aid of you and your allies.
The second major power exists to the southwest of the Crystarium. Built off the coast of the large, mountainous island Kholusia, stands the city-state of Eulmore. In stark contrast to the hardworking and tentatively hopeful residents of the Crystarium, Eulmore’s outward appearance is far more akin to that of a colossal circus. Looking at it from a distance, the city is bright and colorful. Rainbows of bright spotlights shine from its many tiered walkways and bannisters every single night, while airships and hot air balloons drift and coast about its splendor. The people within the city reflect this, too, living decadent lives seemingly without any worry of the sort of fate that might befall them if the Sin Eaters were ever to attack.
However, closer inspection of the city rapidly shows its safety and beauty to be a dark façade. The city itself is built upon a rocky island that is only accessible by a single large bridge that reaches some distance across the water from mainland Kholusia. A massive gate, known as the Glory Gate, separates the people of Kholusia from Eulmore itself. However, Eulmore’s fame as a bastion of safety and the last place one can try to reach that has any hope for providing a happy life has drawn countless people to it. So many are drawn here, in fact, that along the coastal cliffs leading to the bridge, on the bridge itself, and on the island beneath the city, a massive ghetto of people desperate to gain entry has formed.
How do they gain entry? Firstly, they have to demonstrate a desirable skill. In the case of our character, we enter alongside longtime friend and ally Alphinaud, who manages to gain entry by displaying his talent in drawing portraits. We’re permitted to join him by playing along as his assistant. Once inside, we see the rigorous process newcomers are taken through in order to make themselves presentable within the city. We’re forced to immediately bathe ourselves before we can even go past the receptionists on the ground level, then are informed of the city’s standards for dress, behavior, and general etiquette. Eventually we make it inside and start to meet with some of the colorful cast of characters who we’ll be interacting with across the game’s story, until this opening chapter in Eulmore’s part of the tale reaches its climax: meeting its ruler, Lord Vauthry.
Lord Vauthry lounges within the highest level of Eulmore. The room is wide and open. The floors, walls, and pillars are all made of marble and inlaid with decorative golden filigree. The lord himself sits atop a massive bed with plump and colorful pillows, his corpulent form draped in fine robes and jewelry as he lounges back against nothing more than a colossal Sin Eater! More than that, the man has Sin Eaters tending to him!
All of this serves to paint an image of the kind of mythical life Vauthry leads. Throughout our quest to get into Eulmore, and then again once we’re in the city itself, we’re told rumors about how Lord Vauthry is able to tame and control the Sin Eaters, thus ensuring that Eulmore is the one place within Norvrandt that’s guaranteed to be safe from their wrath. Of course, we quickly see that there’s a catch to all of this. Lord Vauthry rules over Eulmore with an iron fist. Things are to be done the way he wants, and questioning his will isn’t tolerated. Fail to meet his expectations, and you can expect to be quite literally thrown out of the city, often from a balcony many hundreds of feet into the air.
When we first meet Vauthry, he’s in the process of passing judgement on a citizen for just such a perceived failure. The young man in question, a mystel named Kai-Shirr, (interestingly, the names for all the recognized playable races in The First don’t match the ones we know, and are instead taken from Square’s first attempt at a Final Fantasy MMO, Final Fantasy XI) is revealed to have snuck his way into Eulmore under false pretenses. Vauthry plans to have him tossed from the city, but after being petitioned by Alphinaud, he agrees to “lower” Kai-Shirr’s sentence by instructing him to prove his worthiness and loyalty by literally carving a huge chunk of his own flesh out of his arm. Alphinaud and the player character, disgusted by this, confront Vauthry on his actions, with Alphinaud laying into him with a well worded excoriation of his behavior.
Vauthry is stunned. As you and Alphinaud leave Eulmore with Kai-Shirr in tow, he stares at you all in amazement before he utters in complete disbelief, “Did that little worm just insult me?” And what does he do then?
Like a rampaging child, he screams and starts hammering his fists into his dais. Raging in his tantrum, he swears that he’ll see us all killed for daring to question and insult his authority.
It’s in this moment that we get the first very clear hint that something is far more wrong in Eulmore than just Vauthry’s cruelty and corruption. All throughout the scene where he attempts to sentence Kai-Shirr to either death or self mutilation, he treats the situation as if he’s entirely within the right. To his mind, his power is absolute and not ever to be questioned, and it seems that same belief extends to the citizenry as well. However, one might expect that a massive tantrum like this would get at least a few people whispering about the unstable nature of their Lord, yes?
No.
No one questions it. Stranger still, no one so much as bats an eye as Vauthry throws his tantrum. Mind you, this isn’t being done in an empty room, or only with his Sin Eater attendants around. Vauthry attempted to make a show of Kai-Shirr’s punishment, inviting a large crowd of Eulmore’s movers and shakers to bear witness to the event. Yet when it doesn’t go his way, when he literally throws himself forward like an angry toddler and starts stamping and beating the ground in impotent rage, nobody thinks anything of it. They hardly seem to react at all. This event serves to seed a very disconcerting thought into our minds: are the people of Eulmore so desperate to maintain the decadent life they have that they simply wouldn’t dare to so much as show even a slight reaction to Vauthry’s petulant behavior, or is something more brewing beneath the surface?
Meol and the Lightwardens
Stepping backward in our timeline just a little bit, when we first make an attempt to enter Eulmore at the Glory Gate, we witness an interesting event. A pair of female jongleurs emerge from the city with bags in tow. These two are effectively the criers of Eulmore’s will to the people living in Gatetown and the Derelicts at the bottom of the city. They go out to select the few people that seem to show potential to be valued citizens of Eulmore, but more than that, they’re the ones that demonstrate the city’s “generosity.”
Meol is a basic foodstuff that’s baked and distributed within Eulmore. As can be seen in the image above, it appears to be a simple loaf of round bread. The twin jongleurs bring sacks of meol with them every time they head out into Gatetown to make pronouncements to the people. These nutrient dense loaves are then handed out freely among the residence, providing them with basic sustenance. However, like with Vauthry’s later tantrum, the reaction the Gatetown residents have to meol is strange. Students of history will probably be aware that in the real world, when breadlines like this exist - that is what the distribution of meol effectively is, after all - it’s not something the populous tends to meet with excitement. It’s a necessity, something they’re desperate to get hold of for their basic survival.
Not so in Gatetown. The people are actively excited to get their hands on a loaf meol. Again, like with the complete lack of reaction to Vauthry’s tantrum, this breeds a touch of suspicion in the player’s mind. These people live in squalor. Their houses are all densely packed, poorly constructed shacks and lean-tos, and since they don’t live within the city walls themselves they’re at active risk of attack from the Sin Eaters. Yet, no effort is made on their part to change anything about their situation. They’re not just fully content to receive meol and hope they might be one of the lucky few to get selected to get into Eulmore, they seem actively happy to do this.
Onto something that’s seemingly unrelated, throughout our journey across Norvrandt, we’re tasked by the Crystal Exarch to hunt down creatures known as Lightwardens. These beings are particularly powerful Sin Eaters who are suffused with an especially high concentration of light aspect aether. The concentration is so high, in fact, that these entities are singularly responsible for maintaining the perpetual light in the regions which they rule over. In order to disperse that light and return the cycle of day and night to the lands of Norvrandt, the Lightwardens must be hunted down and slain.
As you might expect, the power of the Lightwardens gives them a degree of influence over other Sin Eaters in their region. In some ways, the more intelligent among them can command them. Though we don’t often get active examples of this, the expansion’s first four-man dungeon, Holminster Switch, shows this happening with a coordinated Sin Eater attack on this Lakeland community being lead by Lakeland’s Lightwarden. Once he’s slain, the light in Lakeland’s skies disperses, and the day/night cycle returns.
Throughout the course of the story we travel from region to region in our hunt for these Lightwardens. After killing the one attacking Holminster Switch, we move onto the ruins of the kingdom, Voeburtite, which has since been renamed Il Mheg and claimed by various playful and mischievous fey folk such as pixies. While there, we learn that even creatures who haven’t been changed into Sin Eaters can become Lightwardens when it’s revealed to is that the current Fairy King Titania has been corrupted by the Light, but hasn’t changed into a Sin Eater. Once we deal with them, we move into the regions of the Rak’tika Greatwood and the desert Amh Araeng, where we can actually see the wall of crystalized light waves from the calamity that nearly claimed The First. As with Lakeland and Il Mheg before them, we manage to hunt down and slay the Lightwardens in these regions as well, leaving us with a burning question:
Where is the Lightwarden of Kholusia?
Yeah, you already know exactly who it is by this point. The realization dawns on our character and our allies that Lord Vauthry has been Kholusia’s Lightwarden the entire time, a fact that even he wasn’t fully aware of. Returning to Eulmore to confront him, we find the citizens in a mindlessly aggressive state. They attack without thought, clearly under Vauthry’s thrall, so we pacify them as gently as we can. (It does create some ludonarrative dissonance to be playing a Black Mage slinging explosive fire spells at these people only to have it said they’ve been knocked unconscious. C’est la vie.) In the city’s upper plaza, we fight and defeat General Ranjit, the leader of Eulmore’s military and a consistent thorn in our side throughout the expansion by Vauthry’s orders. (Ranjit is also tasked by Vauthry to retrieving someone who’s been traveling with us, making this the third or fourth encounter we have with him.)
Finally, with Ranjit defeated, we reach the upper level of the city and face down Vauthry as he devours his pile of meol. In that moment, Alphinaud warns us that we have to stop him from eating any more than he already has, but it’s too late. Vauthry swallows the last of the meol, throws his head back, roars, and… sprouts itty bitty angel wings that he then flutters away to safety on. Yeah, it’s a little uncharacteristically goofy for this expansion.
Nevertheless, Vauthry makes his escape and flies off to the difficult to access Mt. Gulg, a tall peak which is tucked in the middle of the rocky mountain range along Kholusia’s eastern edge. Difficult to access then becomes impossible to access when he uses his newly awakened powers to lift the mountain into the sky, requiring us to go on a lengthy and, frankly, kind of boring quest chain to develop the means to get to him. It’s one of the expansion’s few lulls.
But that’s not important. So, what happened, exactly? Why did Vauthry suddenly sprout wings and fly off after gorging himself on meol? Well, as it turns out, Vauthry’s entire reason for being able to control the Sin Eaters is that he’s half Sin Eater himself. How that happened isn’t too important for this story. Suffice it to say, the expansion’s primary villain had a hand in it. As for why eating copious amounts of meol caused this change? Well, for the exact same reason that the meol fed to the people in Gatetown, the Derelicts, and the citizens of Eulmore itself caused them to suddenly lose their minds and attack us when Vauthry deemed it necessary - meol is made from Sin Eater flesh.
Everyone in and around Eulmore ate meol. Everyone in and around Eulmore was happy to eat meol. Everyone in and around Eulmore was happy to eat meol and ignore the horrible things Vauthry did. Why? Because it contained the flesh of Sin Eaters, and Vauthry can control the Sin Eaters.
It all ties back, in some ways, to what I mentioned early on about Sin Eaters transforming living creatures into more of their own kind. By ingesting food made in part from the flesh of those monsters, the people of Eulmore were opened up to their influence in a manner similar to how a Sin Eater running someone through is able to change them into another of their kind - the act suffuses them with the Light the Sin Eaters are formed of. Now Vauthry has suffused more of that light into himself, causing his body to begin to change, starting with those silly little wings.
Ascension, Innocence, and the Seven Deadly Sins
Upon ascending to Mt. Gulg and fighting our way through Vauthry’s Sin Eater forces, we see that he’s constructed for himself a fortress that’s so decadent in its holy, heavenly appearance as to be a mockery of virtue. And yet, throughout the dungeon that precedes our fight with Vauthry, we hear him make numerous proclamations such as:
“You will not defile my new paradise!”
“Come no closer, filthy creatures!”
“I am righteousness! And righteousness will prevail!”
This ultimately culminates in the line shown in the above image, where we finally confront him face to face. We begin by fighting him as he is, along with a cadre of powerful feminine Sin Eaters that he summons to aid him. However, as the fight with him rapidly draws on, Vauthry’s body begins to break down. His back splits open in three places as large, blade-like protrusions just out, and light begins to spill out of him until he finally ascends into a full Sin Eater.
The beauty of this design draws an immediate contrast to the type of man Vauthry has shown himself to be. However, it directly reflects the type of man he believes himself to be, glorious, righteous, just, and innocent. You may have taken notice in the first image in this section, too, that beneath the title of Lightwarden, Vauthry’s name isn’t listed. Instead, he’s taken to calling himself Innocence, a very ironic name given what we’ve seen of him. However, there is a reason for that which we don’t yet see, but we’ll get to that.
When this transformation happens, signaling the beginning of the fight’s second and more exciting phase, a short cutscene plays out. Again, dialogue in the cutscene gives us a strong indicator of Vauthry’s mindset:
“I see now… This is the passion of my ascension… Very well, I shall embrace this trial!”
I think that makes it very clear how he sees things. The passion of his ascension, in this case, refers to passion in the sense of Vauthry’s suffering and struggle in his contest against us. This is similar usage to the idea of the passion of Christ meaning the suffering he endured upon his crucifixion. Vauthry stated outright earlier that he views himself as both a king and a god. This change has only served to cement that idea in his mind. He is righteousness, the hero meant to save Norvrandt via his rule. But how did he come to this idea?
After we defeat Innocence, it’s revealed to us through the Echo - a power established very early in the game that allows us brief glimpses into people’s pasts based in part on their emotional states - that Vauthry has been raised through his entire life with this belief. Born to a very influential family in Eulmore, a mysterious benefactor reveals to Vauthry’s parents that he’s unique among all other people in that he’s been gifted with the blessing of being part Sin Eater and thereby having the ability to control and pacify the monsters. Because of this, Vauthry is taught from a young age that his destiny is to rule Norvrandt and keep the people safe from the Sin Eaters by controlling them. He’s raised with the belief that he’s destined to effectively be a god of this world and so, to his mind, he can do no wrong.
This is further influenced by the very nature of him being part Sin Eater. One important aspect to note about the Sin Eaters is how they’re labeled - each and every variety excluding the Lightwardens or named characters who were changed are labeled as some kind of forgiven sin. Forgiven Reticence, for example. The idea here is clear; when someone is turned into a Sin Eater, their most egregious sins are forgiven. However, being part Sin Eater himself, Vauthry in essence would be considered unique among all the different peoples of Norvrandt because he’s born without what is essentially their version of Original Sin. Thus, he is Innocence.
The irony, of course, is that none of his actions match the virtue that he was told all his life he represents. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Through both Vauthry’s actions and his appearance before his ascension, we see that he represents none of the Seven Cardinal Virtues that someone who’s as righteous as he constantly claims to be should. Instead, he represents each and every one of the Seven Deadly Sins:
Gluttony is the most obvious of them. We need only look at his massive size and the way he lives in complete splendor to see the evidence of that, but to further emphasize the point, we’re also given the scene of him gorging on loaf after loaf of meol before he sprouts those biddy baby wings in the earliest stages of his ascencion.
Greed is also readily apparent in his visual design. Where the people of the Derelicts, Gatetown, and greater Kholusia struggle in poverty, Vauthry adorns himself in silk, gold, and jewels, and situates himself first at the grandest heights of Norvrandt’s most decadent city, but then at even grander heights at the top of Mt. Gulg. He even goes so far as to name this pinnacle he plans to rule from The Crown of the Immaculate.
Lust isn’t quite as clear as the other two, but we are given clear hints of it. His chamber houses Sin Eaters with beautifully feminine bodies lounging around. Most of these are Forgiven Veneries, but the most standout among them is Forgiven Obscenity. She lounges next to the lion-like Sin Eater on Vauthry’s dais, and when we face her at the end of Mt. Gulg she is expressly titled as the “Consort of Sin.” I think that makes it pretty clear what Vauthry was doing with these feminine Sin Eaters.
Sloth is another one that’s readily apparent. Up until our confrontation with him, every scene we see Vauthry in shows him taking a back seat to whatever action is going on. The vast majority of scenes with him feature him lounging on his dais with his Sin Eaters with little care to do anything else. Outside of acting for his own entertainment, Vauthry is never shown taking action until such time as we force him to do so.
Wrath is shown in not just the way he throws his childlike tantrums, but the obscenely harsh punishments for what he deems are failures by citizens of Eulmore to perform as he deems they should and the swiftness with which he resorts to violence and warfare not just against our player characters and our allies, but against the Crystal Exarch and the Crystarium itself. Excessive violent action is often his first reaction to not getting his way.
Envy doesn’t show itself until the very end with Vauthry. Once we’ve defeated him, he laments his loss with shock and disbelief. He didn’t think it possible for us to defeat him, and once we do he whinges about how utterly wrong that is, that we’re just insects beneath someone like him. All of this serves to poorly disguise the envy he feels at our ability. That we were able to prove capable and stalwart enough not only to defeat him, but all the Lightwardens and thus return night to Norvrandt for the first time in over a century, is something he can’t allow himself to accept. To do so would mean admitting he was wrong, lesser, and that we have something he lacked. It also feeds nicely into the final sin.
Pride, which is perhaps the sin Vauthry displays most blatantly. Yes, even more than his greed and gluttony, every action Vauthry takes is steeped in his prideful nature. One need only listen to how he speaks of himself and about others, as noted by the quotes peppered throughout this essay. Vauthry is a man who holds himself in the highest esteem of all, one who has fully accepted the ideas he’s been raised upon: He is hope. He is righteousness. He is Innocence. He is a king and a god.
Lord Vauthry represents one of the most interesting villains in the whole of Final Fantasy’s storied history, to say nothing of Final Fantasy XIV in and of itself. That’s quite an impressive accomplishment on the part of Shadowbringers’ writing team, especially considering the stage he had to share with the expansion’s primary villain, the thoroughly beloved Ascian, Emet-Selch, whom a good many consider to be the greatest Final Fantasy villain of all time. I, personally, include myself among that many.
However, much like Aaron Eckhardt’s fantastic performance as Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight is often unfairly overshadowed by the praise Heath Ledger gets for his interpretation of The Joker, Lord Vauthry sometimes finds himself absent some of the recognition he rightly deserves. He may not have the same intricate level of depth that Emet-Selch does, and he certainly doesn’t play on our sympathies in the same way, but he still makes for an extremely compelling villain that showcases a goodly amount of complexity in his own right. Better still, that complexity is presented in a manner where it’s rarely stated outright, but rather left to the players to infer based on how his actions contrast with his stated beliefs.
Our Saturday Swordsmen & Sorcerers:
Thank you for the shoutout.
Wow dang, this is a great overview. It makes me want to play Shadowbringers again, except ... you know, Vauthry is just so disgusting. I hadn't made the connection that he represents every Deadly Sin, but he sure does, doesn't he? Of all the villains I was happy to kill in that entire game, Vauthry was probably top of the list. I don't think I took such savage pleasure in Endwalker's boss as I did fighting Vauthry into the ground. Even fighting Emet Selch kind of took backseat to ... well ... if you could take one more step, would you do it? You know the part I mean.