This website is my own modest attempt at recreating the image-heavy aesthetic of old anime fanshrines. It takes its inspirations from other Warrior of Light fanpages across the web, and the passion and creativity Final Fantasy XIV players all seem to share. They say the endgame of FFXIV is glamouring, and they're right! There's an endless customizability among player characters, their looks and their stories, that makes them always new and interesting to explore, like a play that's been restaged and reinterpreted over and over again.
You could say A Will Most Incorrect To Heaven is the inevitable collission of my own long-term special interests. I started playing FFXIV after learning about it from my spouse, having long conversations about lore and gameplay over brunch and dinner dates. If you've played Final Fantasy, you know the series is its own exercise in reinterpretating and restaging old stories, and it was delightful to me to hear familiar names and concepts from someone experiencing that world anew. There's always a crystal, there's always a warrior. I made two other warriors, but the one that stuck with me and brought me through A Realm Reborn into Heavensward was Claudius Helsingore.
Enter my other special interest. Claudius takes his character and appearance -- and his later weapon-of-choice -- from a college production of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, available on Youtube. During the Coronavirus lockdown, a friend and I watched over twenty different productions of Hamlet, more than I ever watched when live theater was more readily available. Out of all these productions, it was this one amateur performance by a college student in 2013 that me reconsider my entire interpretation of the play and its primary villain.
Such is the magic of theater! And the magic of games, as it turns out. Playing Claudius in FFXIV launched my longest fanfiction series on AO3. An AU where the royal family of Hamlet became a family of nobles in Ishgard. Claudius grew up convinced of his own innate sinfulness, believing the voice of the Echo to be the tempting voices of heresy, resenting his famous dragon-slayer brother and loving his kind and generous sister-in-law. He plotted to kill his brother and usurp his place as the head of household, but in a trick of fate, deserted the Ishgardian army and ran away to lower Eorzea instead. There he learned the truth behind the Echo, and found supportive allies, despite his attempts to lie, swindle and manipulate everyone he met.
Therefore he couldn’t blame Thancred for being surprised at the force of his opinions, when he finally expressed them. He’d kept quiet and cautious long enough … “Surely,” he said, “you can see that this is an internal conflict. The heretics are former Ishgardians, or Coerthans alienated by Ishgard … by intervening, we’re essentially enacting the Holy See’s law for them. We’d be forsaking any claim to political neutrality. Protect our caravans, by all means, but the Scions can’t send a contingent of the Crystal Braves to aid the Temple Knight without making a statement …”
Thancred held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “All right, I hear you. You don’t want to help Ishgard. But Claudius, why are you telling me this?”
Fingers twitching with anxiety, Claudius crossed his arms to keep them still. “I hoped that you might sway the Antecedent,” he said, “so she can call off the Crystal Braves. They do answer to her, yes?”
“Ultimately, but they’re still Alphinaud’s outfit. Convince me to convince Minfilia and that’s still two people removed. Why don’t you raise your concerns to Alphinaud directly?”
“It would be better coming from the Antecedent. Alphinaud and I … aren’t particularly close.”
Thancred gave an indulgent smile that immediately irritated Claudius. “Are you sure about that? The boy idolizes you.”
He idolizes a champion of his own making. Claudius couldn’t help but roll his eyes.
“Let me put this another way,” Thancred continued. “Why are you telling me this? Are you really so bothered about political neutrality? It’s not a subject that’s ever seemed particularly near or dear to your heart. Or,” he asked, “is it something about Ishgard that has you hot under the collar?"
Claudius could easily deny it. But then he remembered what Thancred was, and decided there was little point — if Thancred wanted to know, he’d pry into it, anyway, and potentially unearth something Claudius didn’t want unearthed. “You do your job so rarely I forget you’re actually insightful.”
“Ouch. As a fellow bard, that hurts.”
“As a fellow rogue, you mean. Do you think I don’t recognize the knifework?” Claudius raised an eyebrow. “Neither one of us is precisely who he presents himself to be. No, I don’t trust Ishgard, and I’ve no wish to fight their holy wars for them. The best thing Ishgard ever did for Eorzea was isolate itself from the rest of us.”
“Right. Which part of the Shroud did you say you hailed from?”
“Where do you think? From a cave,” said Claudius, in tones thick with sarcasm. “Don’t push it, Thancred.”
Thancred laughed, and eyed Claudius anew. “I didn’t know the Warrior of Light had such a mean streak. You know, I like this side of you. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of it.”
Meanwhile Hamlet, bless his heart, has fallen thoroughly in love with Alphinaud despite Alphinaud's idolization of his useless uncle, and Gertrude has charmed her way back into the limelight by becoming Claudius's retainer. The universe keeps growing, and I keep having fun with it. Claudius has even had a charming romance with my spouse's WoL with a marriage on the horizon. I hope this website captures, as other fansites have, the joy of creation and inspiration that keeps fandom spinning round.
