Tale of Emet [FF14 x Nier Reincarnation event story]

You're still comparing modern day sundered, who are 57% rejoined (at 64% Emet was able to recognize Azem). It doesn't change the fact that Venat kicked mankind back to before the stone age and judging by the cutscenes they were little better than meandering zombies with basic motor functions.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

You're still comparing modern day sundered, who are 57% rejoined (at 64% Emet was able to recognize Azem). It doesn't change the fact that Venat kicked mankind back to before the stone age and judging by the cutscenes they were little better than meandering zombies with basic motor functions.

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Unfortunately, we don't have any indication on whether or not rejoinings make a Sundered significantly smarter, either.

Not unless there's some nugget of lore I missed that indicates a significant leap in IQ following the Seventh Calamity.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

Emet-Selch is absolutely not "legitmately correct" about sundered people being "lesser" in some way. He is judging them on a completely arbitrary standard 'aetheric density' and dismissing them because they do not have sufficently dense souls, despite clearly being actual people. The only difference between this and real life bigotry is that aetheric density of souls is a made up fantasy concept.

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Sorry I recognize this was some few pages ago but what? Emet-selch did not just judge the Sundered based on their nebulous 'aetheric density.' That wasn't anywhere close to the crux of his argument. If you looked at his character, especially at the end of 5.0, and concluded that he was just a fantasy racist, I feel like that's missing the mark by a mile. Emet-selch judged people for their vices; war, hatred and disease, all things that, if not caused by their frailer bodies, were caused by their inclination towards violence. The society he lived through had none of these terrible, terrible things and he was one of the few people to watch this transition firsthand. Endwalker aside, what makes him compelling as an antagonist was that his bias had a genuine point behind it. Of course, deep down he was using it to justify atrocities, and that is what makes him a villain, but trying to spin the idea that the Sundered aren't incredibly different is taking it too far.

Does it matter? The whole point is they weren't at the time of the sundering, that the effect of it was far more gruesome and horrific than originally believed.

It does seem like the sundered evolved and adapted, or perhaps time was needed to overcome the resulting trauma to the body and soul, but initially they were in an extremely sorry state.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

This strikes me as a silly assertion to debate over, because the unsundered are now extinct and humanity is still progressing.

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I’m sure you find many arguments you partake in silly. If you can’t even bother to read what the conversation is about, why bother chiming in?Also….the unsundered aren’t exactly extinct. All those unsundered souls that were in Zodiark are back in the lifestream. Emet and Hythlo are in there as well.

Again, the people of the First and the Thirteenth who are have never had a Rejoining are in no way less intelligent or less capable of magic or baseline less powerful than the more aetherical dense people of the Source.

Immediately after the Sundering a Tower of Babel situation where the souls are in shock and there's a period of adjustment where language and society is reinvented is perfectly logical.

And to carry the Nier theme - Emet denies that the new humanity are not shambling monsters (my attention is weighed to that second panel in that set that has all this drama) and it is only after he denies post 5.0 that he has his Gestalt-Yona moment to acknowledge that the Replicants with their independent souls shouldn't be sacrificed for a dead race. And unlike Nier, all but 3 of the Gestalt analogs are dead and the closest equivalent of the Black Scrawl that would wipe out humanity is the Endsinger, which we defeat because more life-affirming hopeful ending compared to Nier.

(Also I know we're dealing with a fantasy universe, but it still doesn't stop me from laughing derisively at any suggestion that people of Stone Age level of tech are less intelligent than modern tech, especially when fossils show that anatomically modern humans before the rise of agriculture had slightly larger brains).

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

You're assuming one person needed to be killed at all and they did not. Venat was driven by her beliefs/fears, not objective truth.

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Not true in the slightest, however horrifying it might have been it is undeniable that the Sundering was integral to defeating Meteion and alternatives did not exist.

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Originally Posted by SpectrePhantasia

Sorry I recognize this was some few pages ago but what? Emet-selch did not just judge the Sundered based on their nebulous 'aetheric density.' That wasn't anywhere close to the crux of his argument. If you looked at his character, especially at the end of 5.0, and concluded that he was just a fantasy racist, I feel like that's missing the mark by a mile. Emet-selch judged people for their vices; war, hatred and disease, all things that, if not caused by their frailer bodies, were caused by their inclination towards violence. The society he lived through had none of these terrible, terrible things and he was one of the few people to watch this transition firsthand. Endwalker aside, what makes him compelling as an antagonist was that his bias had a genuine point behind it. Of course, deep down he was using it to justify atrocities, and that is what makes him a villain, but trying to spin the idea that the Sundered aren't incredibly different is taking it too far.

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He called the people fo the first half-men and tried to convince us to betray as he watched them come together to save the world. In the collab he repeatedly remarks how they viscerally disgust him even as they improve. The idea that the Ancients were without vice is buying into to their worldview and is not objectively shown.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

Ok so if we’re going with her being objective then you’d agree that Hydaelyn is the light of the future then?

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I can agree with that as being plainly true, free of flowery moral implications of the term.

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Yes I do mean that troll. That troll proves as long as a being is capable of intelligent thought it can be understood with the echo, even if what physically comes out is gibberish.

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They’re human and even when they were incapable of speech they remained so. Being “unable to from words” due to losing language, culture and knowledge doesn’t mean they lack the intelligence to do so and it certainly doesn’t make them “shambling animals.”

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If it's the quality of intelligence which allows the troll to be understood through the Echo, and sundered people had their knowledge and intellect stripped away, does it not follow that those people could not be understood with the Echo, because they were reduced in intellect to the level of common trolls which cannot be understood?

Again, the troll is the exception which proves the rule. It's exceptional human-level intellect leading to it being understood through the Echo whereas normal beasts can't be, proves the importance of intellect with the Echo's power.

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There’s nothing to suggest the shards had an imbalance of aetheric density.

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Their proclivities towards differing elemental alignments would suggest some form of innate aetheric differences between them.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

I can agree with that as being plainly true, free of flowery moral implications of the term.

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But it’s the exact language we’re discussing no? If the flowery moral implications are wrong here why are they not wrong elsewhere?

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Originally Posted by Veloran

If it's the quality of intelligence which allows the troll to be understood through the Echo, and sundered people had their knowledge and intellect stripped away, does it not follow that those people could not be understood with the Echo, because they were reduced in intellect to the level of common trolls which cannot be understood?

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It’s only stated they could not form the words to speak, not that they lacked the intelligence to do so. Emets claim that Sundering also robbed people of their intelligence is a claim I, to put it mildly, do not agree with nor think is shown in the text.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

Again, the troll is the exception which proves the rule. It's exceptional human-level intellect leading to it being understood through the Echo whereas normal beasts can't be, proves the importance of intellect with the Echo's power.

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Right on this we agree. The question is whether the Sundered were intelligent, I’d say so. Losing one’s history and language would leave even geniuses incapable of speech. Strokes are a real life version of that.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

He called the people fo the first half-men and tried to convince us to betray as he watched them come together to save the world. In the collab he repeatedly remarks how they viscerally disgust him even as they improve. The idea that the Ancients were without vice is buying into to their worldview and is not objectively shown.

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Emet also struggled with the weight of his chosen course every day, and still harbored feelings of hope for the Sundered deep within. Listen to his emotional outburst in 5.0, you want to tell me he never even attempted to give them a chance?

Of course even the Ancients have their breaking points. I'm not trying to imply that an individual among them is above the failings of a Sundered person, look no further than Hermes for proof of that. Emet is among those who've been broken as well. I mean that for a Sundered person, that bar is far far lower, and as a society, the Sundered very evidently are far more vulnerable to this than the Unsundered were. That isn't really disputable; not even the game questions their selflessness (Not Alphinaud, nor the Minstrel) in choosing to condemn themselves to what they know is an awful fate for the sake of those that they love. However your subjective feelings on the matter of whether it was truly a solution or not, Emet was 100% correct when he said the Sundered would not be capable of making a sacrifice of 50% of their number, for the sake of the other half. There will always be good people among the Sundered of course, the Ironworks and the Scions and such, but it doesn't erase the very present existence of maliciousness that didn't exist in nearly that kind of scope in the Unsundered world. The success of their society and the content of their character is quite demonstrably shown.