The Mexican folk saint Santa Muerte (or as their full title loosely translates, Our Lady of the Holy Death) is a deity figure that frequently appears as an iconic personification of death in many areas of Mexican culture, depicted principally as a protective figure who guides souls safely to the afterlife and shown visually as a female skeletal figure wearing a shroud and holding a globe. Many cultures have either separately formed or adopted a personification of death that bears similarities to the singular overarching concept of the Grim Reaper. Their skeletal nature reminds us of our ultimate fate, and their scythe is a symbol of a “harvest that is yet to come.” When contrasted with his more nebulously defined companions - War, Pestilence and Famine - there’s no doubt Death stands out as a particularly imposing figure. As one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Death was one of several figures that signified the biblical end times as the personification of one of life’s only certainties. The most popular rendering of Death as we might understand him today - as a skeletal figure in a black shroud and wielding a scythe - begins with artwork based on the biblical depiction found in the Book of Revelation. It’s a little unclear where the Grim Reaper originated as an idea. Orcus is a “grim” reminder that using the powers of the void is a dangerous game.Īcross a broad spectrum of separate mythological beliefs, the “Reaper” or “Grim Reaper” - otherwise known as “Death” - is an ethereal figure associated with the ending of human lives. This figure ultimately represents a lot of the same ideas that Endwalker approaches: endings, searches for meaning and the inevitability of change. My thoughts on Final Fantasy XIV’s Reaper feel particularly entangled with my understanding of Endwalker as a whole, anchoring my understanding of this sweeping conclusion to a decade-long saga to the Reaper. However, when I decided to dedicate this piece to the game, the thing I felt I could most passionately write about was what I’ve spent the most time with: the Reaper job. I could list countless aspects of Endwalker’s main narrative that personally connected with me or dissect the way it brings together its themes of searching for meaning in a meaningless world wonderfully. Like many others, I chose to level the new Reaper job before completing the Endwalker main scenario quests, which definitely framed my perspective on Endwalker as a whole. My character has put down the gloves and picked up a scythe. As you can probably tell from the headline of this article, I’m not about to use the next thousand words to complain about Monk, though: I’ve already made my peace with that (at the time of publishing, they’ve fixed a few of my issues with it). As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t bring myself to like the new changes to my main job, Monk. Warning: Spoilers for Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalkerīefore even starting my Final Fantasy XIV: EndwalkerMSQ experience, I had to cope with some disappointments about patch 6.0.
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