(04-17-2015, 09:01 AM)Kismet Wrote: and for DRK... I kind of like their 'darkness' is just their aesthetic/powers, and their motivations are something that's still noble. It means they actually bothered to keep the 'knight' part of Dark Knight genuine. All of the Batman references weren't just silly randomness! I can dig it.
I'm not entirely surprised. Dark Knights were never actually portrayed as "evil" or not noble as far as I can tell. Falgabard in FFIII was the land of the Dark/Magic Knights, and it was just a town of a dwindling population who mastered an art that brings great power at the cost of their lives - and was in front of a cave that had enemies that could only be harmed by their special skills (guardians, perhaps?). Cecil was a Dark Knight, and only did "evil" things in the collection of the Crystals - which was being ordered by a fake copy of the King (FFIV spoilers, I know...) - and was quick to turn on the matter once he learned the truth. There's no evidence that the Dark Knights of Baron did anything untoward before that point, and even Cecil mentions how the King was an honorable and just man (which is why he followed him in the first place... along with being a sort of "adopted son" if I recall).
They've never really been ignoble. It's just the power itself that can be dangerous. The only "evil" Dark Knight I can think of is Gaff/Goffard Gafgarion in Final Fantasy Tactics (though his class was changed in the War of the Lions re-release to Fell Knight as Dark Knight was added as a new Job) - and he was just a brutal mercenary who did what he was paid to do. Yet, you also had the rather good-aligned T.G. Cid using those same abilities amongst all the other sword skills.
I honestly don't get why people expected Dark Knight to be this evil-yet-not, grimdark antihero when the class was almost never presented that way in the games it appeared in.
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