In regards to something involving the main cast

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

Y'all can post essays about it all you like, it doesn't change the fact that for months when it was the Ancients doing it it was wrong, now that it's Y'shtola it's because we're somehow missing context (read: subjective interpretation) or skipped scenes. Conveniently coming from the same handful of self-admitted Ancient haters. I don't hate Y'shtola and I don't particularly care about her familiars other than the sheer hypocrisy of it, which was the point of the thread.

Committing to things like playing god and creating life is wrong or genocide is wrong but, oh, not if they do it because they had reasons. Just no. There's no conversation to be had about that because now it's just pure bias. You can agree or disagree with something, but at least own that it's based on your personal preferences and isn't objective observation.

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Are you implying that your opinions are based on objectiveness, not subjective interpretation and bias?

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

Y'all can post essays about it all you like, it doesn't change the fact that for months when it was the Ancients doing it it was wrong, now that it's Y'shtola it's because we're somehow missing context (read: subjective interpretation) or skipped scenes. Conveniently coming from the same handful of self-admitted Ancient haters. I don't hate Y'shtola and I don't particularly care about her familiars other than the sheer hypocrisy of it, which was the point of the thread.

Committing to things like playing god and creating life is wrong or genocide is wrong but, oh, not if they do it because they had reasons. Just no. There's no conversation to be had about that because now it's just pure bias. You can agree or disagree with something, but at least own that it's based on your personal preferences and isn't objective observation.

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Yet context DOES matter. Context is HUGE in XIV. To dismiss it is foolish

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Originally Posted by Tehmon

Are you implying that your opinions are based on objectiveness, not subjective interpretation and bias?

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Not at all, I have biases just like everyone else. Like I said, it's the hypocrisy that bugs me. I probably wouldn't have given the Y'shtola familiars a second thought if it hadn't been for equivalent or lesser actions being cited as negatives against Ancients. Unfortunately, this seems to be a recurring theme like OP mentioned.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

Y'all can post essays about it all you like, it doesn't change the fact that for months when it was the Ancients doing it it was wrong, now that it's Y'shtola it's because we're somehow missing context (read: subjective interpretation) or skipped scenes. Conveniently coming from the same handful of self-admitted Ancient haters. I don't hate Y'shtola and I don't particularly care about her familiars other than the sheer hypocrisy of it, which was the point of the thread.

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Y'shtola wasn't creating life. She also didn't create them just for fun. Nor was she flippant about the results.

There you go, no essay.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

Y'all can post essays about it all you like, it doesn't change the fact that for months when it was the Ancients doing it it was wrong, now that it's Y'shtola it's because we're somehow missing context (read: subjective interpretation) or skipped scenes. Conveniently coming from the same handful of self-admitted Ancient haters. I don't hate Y'shtola and I don't particularly care about her familiars other than the sheer hypocrisy of it, which was the point of the thread.

Committing to things like playing god and creating life is wrong or genocide is wrong but, oh, not if they do it because they had reasons. Just no. There's no conversation to be had about that because now it's just pure bias. You can agree or disagree with something, but at least own that it's based on your personal preferences and isn't objective observation.

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the nixies had no impulse or sentience outside of fulfilling yshtolas simple order. ancient creations were meant to live and reproduce after being "perfected". there is a difference.

Not really a difference between the two. Ancients didn't create life, they created familiars (with the intent of helping the environment/planet yes) but it was the planet that gave the familiars life/a soul. If the planet just so happened to give Ysholta's familiar's life at that time, would you still be saying the same thing?

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

Y'all can post essays about it all you like, it doesn't change the fact that for months when it was the Ancients doing it it was wrong, now that it's Y'shtola it's because we're somehow missing context (read: subjective interpretation) or skipped scenes. Conveniently coming from the same handful of self-admitted Ancient haters. I don't hate Y'shtola and I don't particularly care about her familiars other than the sheer hypocrisy of it, which was the point of the thread.

Committing to things like playing god and creating life is wrong or genocide is wrong but, oh, not if they do it because they had reasons. Just no. There's no conversation to be had about that because now it's just pure bias. You can agree or disagree with something, but at least own that it's based on your personal preferences and isn't objective observation.

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Because there totally wasn’t essays all over the lore forums on the Ancients and their morals. Honestly, all this post seems to be interested in is engaging in an extreme form of whataboutism without actually engaging with the ideas and suggestions that people have posted, are posting, or will in the future post.

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Originally Posted by Krithas

Not really a difference between the two. Ancients didn't create life, they created familiars (with the intent of helping the environment/planet yes) but it was the planet that gave the familiars life/a soul. If the planet just so happened to give Ysholta's familiar's life at that time, would you still be saying the same thing?

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100% would change my tune and say “hey Ysthola the hell you doin?”

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Originally Posted by Krithas

Not really a difference between the two. Ancients didn't create life, they created familiars (with the intent of helping the environment/planet yes) but it was the planet that gave the familiars life/a soul. If the planet just so happened to give Ysholta's familiar's life at that time, would you still be saying the same thing?

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I'd be pissed off at fate for stepping in at the most ironic time for suddenly giving that familiar the sentience to comprehend the pain it was in at exactly that point. What the hell, existence, why would you give that nixie the gift of a soul at the point where the only thing it could learn from that and take into further lives would be the agony of having its existence rotted from the inside?

And then as a member of an audience experiencing a story I'd recognize that the only reasons that a writer would write such a turn of events would be to either be pointlessly dark, or to put a crime on Y'shtola that reasonably speaking she'd have never once intended or expected.

I actually did find Y'shtola's actions quite questionable, and found it weird that nobody in our presence acknowledge the nixie turning into a voidsent. But I am also going to side-eye the ancients and how they treat their creations.

Also, I actually like the ancients, but I do not buy that they were morally superior to us, that their civilization was a paradise for all, OR that their world should be allowed to exist over ours, or that the sundered are more flawed than the ancients were. Yet that doesn't mean I don't secretly hate to love Emet-Selch.

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Originally Posted by Tehmon

I actually did find Y'shtola's actions quite questionable, and found it weird that nobody in our presence acknowledge the nixie turning into a voidsent. But I am also going to side-eye the ancients and how they treat their creations.

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Sounds like we agree then.

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Also, I actually like the ancients, but I do not buy that they were morally superior to us, that their civilization was a paradise for all, OR that their world should be allowed to exist over ours, or that the sundered are more flawed than the ancients were. Yet that doesn't mean I don't secretly hate to love Emet-Selch.

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Likewise, I don't believe the unsundered are morally inferior to the sundered or that their world deserved to be destroyed. Personally, I thought part of the point of Elpis was to show that the two aren't dissimilar.

I think the thing to keep in mind about Elpis and Amaurot isn't that it shows that they're worse, but that they're the same but in a much more powerful state. I mean, we're comparing them to the Scions because of similar actions, but the Scions are all basically confirmably Good People, while Elpis is instead full of people just doing their job with varying levels of morality about it. Realistically we should be comparing them more to a city full of regular people, like Sharlayan, Limsa or Ul'Dah, where they probably come out roughly equal all things considered (once you accept that Ul'Dah's main problem is that its worst people are all at the top).

However, those average people with average levels of morality who perhaps haven't figured out the customs we know are in a rather different place in Elpis, and are responsible for things with long-reaching effects. Someone who's kind of iffy about how they take care of animals in Limsa might be bad, but they won't affect much; that exact person in Elpis has effects that are felt twelve thousand years later. To a degree this is just a consequence of where the story put them, which sort of leads to them being an answer to a philosophical question; an all-knowing, seeing, and loving god can't be responsible for our world, because they wouldn't allow bad things in it, so that god must be imperfect. And in FFXIV, the answer to that is 'the people who made this world were as human as humans, which means some were kinda dumb and kinda terrible'; nobody can invent an apex predator and also be a good person, so therefore since apex predators were invented, their creators must not be good people.

Which then leads to a 'with great power comes great responsibility' situation; we hold these people to higher scrutiny, because their missteps do more damage.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

And in FFXIV, the answer to that is 'the people who made this world were as human as humans, which means some were kinda dumb and kinda terrible'; nobody can invent an apex predator and also be a good person, so therefore since apex predators were invented, their creators must not be good people.

Which then leads to a 'with great power comes great responsibility' situation; we hold these people to higher scrutiny, because their missteps do more damage.

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That's a Hell of a moral judgment to make and explains a lot as to why we'll never see eye to eye.

First of all, I don't agree with applying modern day standards to the past, especially when the sundered world exists as a result of a crime against mankind. Frankly, if the sundered are struggling with anything the Ancients created 12k years ago take it up with Venat. It certainly wouldn't be the first or only thing her sundering left people ill equipped to handle.

Second, you can't expect a society of 'godlike' beings to be concerned that several millennia in the future their race will be decimated to such an extent they lack the creation magic to even make a robe, something that's pointed out even small children are capable of doing and they can't comprehend why even that is too much for the WoL. Your expectations are unreasonable.

Third, saying good people wouldn't create apex predators is an inflammatory statement and that's all I'm going to say about it.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

Sounds like we agree then.



Likewise, I don't believe the unsundered are morally inferior to the sundered or that their world deserved to be destroyed. Personally, I thought part of the point of Elpis was to show that the two aren't dissimilar.

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Same mind. My general stance is: sundered = not bad. Unsundered = not bad. Funnily enough, I recall that Famitsu interview recently where Yoshida said the Ancients came across as "scary" but many of the JP players instead thought they were "good people".

Personally think the game itself does a disservice by flinging around "Perfect! Perfect! Perfect!" as hatebait. It was pretty obvious since 5.0 that their society was not perfect with hints to a darker past, but nonetheless, they won me over.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

First of all, I don't agree with applying modern day standards to the past, especially when the sundered world exists as a result of a crime against mankind. Frankly, if the sundered are struggling with anything the Ancients created 12k years ago take it up with Venat. It certainly wouldn't be the first or only thing her sundering left people ill equipped to handle.

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The people back then had a hell of a time with rogue creations too. The researchers in Elpis allude to more than just simple injuries happening and it's why there's a rule there that people need to have their hoods off, in order for better peripheral vision so they're not taken unawares. Then there's all the deaths of Ancients caused by the creatures let loose in Pandaemonium and Akademia Anyder.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

Third, saying good people wouldn't create apex predators is an inflammatory statement and that's all I'm going to say about it.

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Saying they weren't good people is a bit far, but at the same time I don't know what kind of sane person decides that the world needs flying wolves that breathe fire or land sharks. It feels like at some point, it stopped being more "about the Star" and more just because they could and they kept escalating from normal things like migratory birds until they got bored and started making deadlier things, following trends, and deciding to craft whole sapient species like Lupin. When "everyone else is doing it" and everyone else is also bored, ideas like that stop being silly and they also need to make bigger and scarier monsters in order to balance out the ecosystem from their other big and scary monsters but to a little WoL who is being introduced to all of this all at once, it's a bit much.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

The people back then had a hell of a time with rogue creations too. The researchers in Elpis allude to more than just simple injuries happening and it's why there's a rule there that people need to have their hoods off, in order for better peripheral vision so they're not taken unawares. Then there's all the deaths of Ancients caused by the creatures let loose in Pandaemonium and Akademia Anyder.



Saying they weren't good people is a bit far, but at the same time I don't know what kind of sane person decides that the world needs flying wolves that breathe fire or land sharks. It feels like at some point, it stopped being more "about the Star" and more just because they could and they kept escalating from normal things like migratory birds until they got bored and started making deadlier things, following trends, and deciding to craft whole sapient species like Lupin. When "everyone else is doing it" and everyone else is also bored, ideas like that stop being silly and they also need to make bigger and scarier monsters in order to balance out the ecosystem from their other big and scary monsters but to a little WoL who is being introduced to all of this all at once, it's a bit much.

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Yeah, you're getting it more than Rulakir seems to. I'm not saying that the Ancients were by and large bad people, I'm saying that the Ancients were people, and that like any people they had bad people, be it bad in terms of actually meaning ill or just bad in terms of not being very good at their thing. Which is an answer to a theological question about gods and intelligent design; the answer to 'why would good creators allow bad things to happen' can in fact be 'because the creators weren't good'.

Perhaps 'apex predator' was an ill choice of words, but you're right that the Ancients didn't design with purely kindness and necessity in mind, Ancients had other priorities that we can call out as 'hey that was kind of a dick move for us, the people who now have to live with these things'. The world that they made includes giant bipedal sharks, the Nepto Dragon, manticores, malboros, everything Meletos made, and all manner of other extremely, fundamentally nasty things to try to coexist in the world with. They did not create the world we walk with the view of kindness and fairness to all within it. That's unarguable, and we can call it cruel and inconsiderate because it was. And to deny that would also be to deny the Ancients' inherent humanity and agency.

The Ancients are people, for good and for ill. And sometimes, people suck.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

That's a Hell of a moral judgment to make and explains a lot as to why we'll never see eye to eye.

First of all, I don't agree with applying modern day standards to the past, especially when the sundered world exists as a result of a crime against mankind. Frankly, if the sundered are struggling with anything the Ancients created 12k years ago take it up with Venat. It certainly wouldn't be the first or only thing her sundering left people ill equipped to handle.

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Perhaps I'm missing something but isn't that point of not judging the past due to the fact that we generally regard past societies as being less developed and less advanced in regards to moral and ethical thinking? Wouldn't it be just the opposite for the Ancients then, given their status as "enlightened, stewards of the star?"

And honestly if I had to choose between being well equipped to deal with bears or being better prepared with facing Meteion, the latter is the option I'd go with 100% of the time.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

Second, you can't expect a society of 'godlike' beings to be concerned that several millennia in the future their race will be decimated to such an extent they lack the creation magic to even make a robe, something that's pointed out even small children are capable of doing and they can't comprehend why even that is too much for the WoL. Your expectations are unreasonable.

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I partly agree with this, the Ancients couldn't have predicted when creating most of their creations that they would need to kill it post Sundering. Still I think Cleretic's point is that the Ancients reasons for creating such species was mostly vanity. While they did have criteria for what they released the fact that the Behemoth was approved should be a good indicator that maybe they aren't doing things purely for the benefit of the star.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

Third, saying good people wouldn't create apex predators is an inflammatory statement and that's all I'm going to say about it.

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I'd say making apex predators for the purpose of improving the function of certain habitats is a good reason and doesn't reflect poorly on anyone. Doing it just because you thought it'd be cool though? You're this guy.

https://i.redd.it/ho2zlmfkn2b01.png

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Originally Posted by Skyborne

Same mind. My general stance is: sundered = not bad. Unsundered = not bad. Funnily enough, I recall that Famitsu interview recently where Yoshida said the Ancients came across as "scary" but many of the JP players instead thought they were "good people".

Personally think the game itself does a disservice by flinging around "Perfect! Perfect! Perfect!" as hatebait. It was pretty obvious since 5.0 that their society was not perfect with hints to a darker past, but nonetheless, they won me over.

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I think the purpose regarding the repeated use of perfect was to make clear that while the flaws were obvious to us, they were less so to the Amaurotines themselves, largely due to their mistakenly belief that they had a society, position, purpose etc. that gave them moral and intellectual superiority. That they were, in fact, perfect or close to it. This would also be what leads the Ascians to be... well... what they were. "Who are you? No one. Nothing." :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

Saying they weren't good people is a bit far, but at the same time I don't know what kind of sane person decides that the world needs flying wolves that breathe fire or land sharks.

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People who live in a fantasy setting, where such whimsical elements are a deep and intricate part of the genre. :cool:

It's...it's also a Final Fantasy game. FFVII in particular has some strange creature designs but is by no means the first in the series to embrace the weird and wonderful.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

People who live in a fantasy setting, where such whimsical elements are a deep and intricate part of the genre. :cool:

It's...it's also a Final Fantasy game. FFVII in particular has some strange creature designs but is by no means the first in the series to embrace the weird and wonderful.

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Other Final Fantasy games don't make the origin of strange powerful creatures and how an all-powerful ancient civilization treats them a pretty important plot point in their stories though, so that would be the difference, I think.

But this specific topic is hard to argue when we don't really know much about how life was in the star, and what it truly meant to '' return to the star. ''
Ancients made it their job to make the star a better place, and one has to wonder what part ferocious beasts play in such an undertaking.

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Originally Posted by Tehmon

Ancients made it their job to make the star a better place, and one has to wonder what part ferocious beasts play in such an undertaking.

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The same purpose they play in the real world. Without ferocious predators to keep the population of other creatures in balance, a predator's prey will inevitably cause environmental destruction. As cute as a gazelle may be, if left to graze with no limit then there's not going to be much in the way of grass which negatively impacts many other species. So the existence of a lion to feast upon the gazelle will ensure that the delicate balance remains intact. Aside from feeding the lion, the gazelle's carcass will also provide much needed nurturing for the soil itself. Furthermore, as it decays even bugs will serve a purpose - hastening the decay.

It's a safe bet that the Ancients themselves came to such conclusions during the course of their research, especially since they had entire academies devoted to different fields.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

The same purpose they play in the real world. Without ferocious predators to keep the population of other creatures in balance, a predator's prey will inevitably cause environmental destruction. As cute as a gazelle may be, if left to graze with no limit then there's not going to be much in the way of grass which negatively impacts many other species. So the existence of a lion to feast upon the gazelle will ensure that the delicate balance remains intact. Aside from feeding the lion, the gazelle's carcass will also provide much needed nurturing for the soil itself. Furthermore, as it decays even bugs will serve a purpose - hastening the decay.

It's a safe bet that the Ancients themselves came to such conclusions during the course of their research, especially since they had entire academies devoted to different fields.

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Yes, I understand the concept. The Circle Of Life from The Lion King is playing somewhere in the distance.

What I'm wondering about, is how these apex predators and volcanoes make the world better, as they definitely can oppose a massive threat to people. If the point is to make the life on star as great as possible, what purpose do these sources of, ironically, suffering and death, bring to the '' humankind '' if we can call it that, if ancients were trying to make the star a paradise. Or were they trying to make it a paradise, or just some other iteration they had in mind that would suffice the star? And if they did come to the conclusion that misery is part of the life in the star, and that humans don't reign supreme for merely existing, it does put an even more ironic twist to the entire story.

But if people living in the star aren't threatened by any of these things and are almost if not as capable as ancients themselves, doesn't the entire '' returning to the star '' seem much more odd in retrospect?

But alas, because we know very little of the unsundered existence beyond Elpis, Amaurot and the stars Meteia visit, and what we are told by biased sources, I don't know how to argue this topic, and can only ask questions.

In truth, everything you say can make perfectly logical sense, but it's as much of a theory than any other. Unless I missed something vital, which definitely can be the case.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

The same purpose they play in the real world. Without ferocious predators to keep the population of other creatures in balance, a predator's prey will inevitably cause environmental destruction. As cute as a gazelle may be, if left to graze with no limit then there's not going to be much in the way of grass which negatively impacts many other species. So the existence of a lion to feast upon the gazelle will ensure that the delicate balance remains intact. Aside from feeding the lion, the gazelle's carcass will also provide much needed nurturing for the soil itself. Furthermore, as it decays even bugs will serve a purpose - hastening the decay.

It's a safe bet that the Ancients themselves came to such conclusions during the course of their research, especially since they had entire academies devoted to different fields.

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My whole point is asking why they thought they needed to escalate the ecosystem's arms race by making things that had no place to be there that eventually warranted more insane monsters. In our world, the food web is balanced and everything has their own ecological niche. When the environment changes or new species migrate in, some who can't adapt die and then the remaining ones will change to fill in any empty niches. When you introduce something that has no business being there, you upset the whole balance. Like how Australia decided to introduce cane toads to solve a beetle problem but the cane toads are poisonous and nothing can eat them and they went crazy on the environment and left the beetles alone.

The gazelles are kept in check by lions, there's no real reason to add the giant, flying, fire-breathing wolves unless you made them either because you felt like it or because the ecosystem is being thrown out of control by the humongous, antlered, lighting-calling panthers you made last week.

"It's a fantasy game and it's just a reason to explain monsters" is the meta excuse. But the Ancients didn't wake up one morning realizing they're in a fantasy game so they have carte blanche to recreate Street Sharks. Though I doubt we'll learn of how it got this way unless they make a Tales of the Dawn entry on the origins of Elpis, it was probably a slippery slope that led to where they got to at the point we arrived. I'm sure it started with better intentions but it ended with researchers wanting to see a bunch of things fight and creating life to keep up with the trends. When it's normal, you don't see it as a bad thing and I'm sure most of them see it that way. But then you have Hermes who was in the wrong position for someone cursed with caring too much and he decided he was going to end the world over it.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

They did not create the world we walk with the view of kindness and fairness to all within it. That's unarguable, and we can call it cruel and inconsiderate because it was. And to deny that would also be to deny the Ancients' inherent humanity and agency.

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Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they don't 'get' it. I feel the need to address this because it's a common tactic I see in this forum to dismiss people.

The quoted statement is just further confirmation there's no discussing the story with you because you are so hardwired in your beliefs you don't even consider the subject debatable. You have already passed your judgment on the Ancients and deemed any other interpretation to be wrong to the extent of cutting anyone who would dissent off at the pass by saying they'd be in denial.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

The same purpose they play in the real world. Without ferocious predators to keep the population of other creatures in balance, a predator's prey will inevitably cause environmental destruction. As cute as a gazelle may be, if left to graze with no limit then there's not going to be much in the way of grass which negatively impacts many other species. So the existence of a lion to feast upon the gazelle will ensure that the delicate balance remains intact. Aside from feeding the lion, the gazelle's carcass will also provide much needed nurturing for the soil itself. Furthermore, as it decays even bugs will serve a purpose - hastening the decay.

It's a safe bet that the Ancients themselves came to such conclusions during the course of their research, especially since they had entire academies devoted to different fields.

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Like I've been saying: even if it works, it's not a kind world at all. I'm sure the gazelle isn't very happy that someone decided that the best way to keep them in check was to invent lions.

...and given that FFXIV's origin myth is apparently just a bunch of weird creatives, I'm wondering how the gazelle's inventor and the lion's inventor feel about each other. Like, was this a mutual agreement, or was Mr. Gazelle pretty mad about this?

EDIT: In fact, given we don't actually know about the in-universe origin of the gazelle-lion dynamic, do we even know that the gazelles came first in this case, or is it possible that the lions existed first and then someone decided the savannah needed edible lawnmowers? That's also not great news to the gazelles, mind you, but it does change how the Ancients might feel about the lions.

all of this mud.... because yshtola created a cute mindless bubble.

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Originally Posted by sidurgu-12

all of this mud.... because yshtola created a cute mindless bubble.

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That’s just one example. It’s mainly because this story has a bad case of rules for thee but not for me.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

That’s just one example. It’s mainly because this story has a bad case of rules for thee but not for me.

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genuine question- when? the time travel to save the wol? which also prevents the heroes from being too crippled to fight back against the ascians and saves an entire world? or the primal summoning in the eden raid? which let them rebalance the worlds aether and let it heal?

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Originally Posted by sidurgu-12

genuine question- when? the time travel to save the wol? which also prevents the heroes from being too crippled to fight back against the ascians and saves an entire world? or the primal summoning in the eden raid? which let them rebalance the worlds aether and let it heal?

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Fifty imaginary dollars says they're gonna say Venat and this thread spirals into that argument too.

I've mentioned before, I've seen a lot of people claim hypocrisy on the part of the game or the playerbase in giving heroes a pass for actions the same as the villains, but whose examples only make sense if you completely dismiss all context explaining the actual difference between the two.

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Originally Posted by sidurgu-12

genuine question- when? the time travel to save the wol? which also prevents the heroes from being too crippled to fight back against the ascians and saves an entire world? or the primal summoning in the eden raid? which let them rebalance the worlds aether and let it heal?

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I already gave one example. The WoL expressing shock at butterflies being killed for clothing when it’s literally no different from leather workers or Weavers killing animals to make their products. It’s a weird tone deaf way of trying to paint the ancients as “scary” when in reality what they do is no different from what the sundered do.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Fifty imaginary dollars says they're gonna say Venat and this thread spirals into that argument too.

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honestly after that last thread im so incredibly tired of that debate.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

I already gave one example. The WoL expressing shock at butterflies being killed for clothing when it’s literally no different from leather workers or Weavers killing animals to make their products. It’s a weird tone deaf way of trying to paint the ancients as “scary” when in reality what they do is no different from what the sundered do.

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the given responses are wondering if their creators would get mad at us or something else. in game we never condemn them for the butterflies or anything else in elpis for that matter.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

I already gave one example. The WoL expressing shock at butterflies being killed for clothing when it’s literally no different from leather workers or Weavers killing animals to make their products. It’s a weird tone deaf way of trying to paint the ancients as “scary” when in reality what they do is no different from what the sundered do.

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Except that Leatherworker itself teaches that Eorzean leatherworking is done with a deep care for the animals and the land. A care that Hythlodaeus doesn't show anything comparable to--and in fact, one that seems to be held by only a minority of people in Elpis. So yeah, as a level 90 Leatherworker, I'm calling Hythlodaeus pretty insensitive on this one, although I will point out that the game itself never does.

(I recommend doing Leatherworker before commenting on it; Leatherworker is an understated hitmaker of the class questlines, all three of their storylines are great.)

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Except that Leatherworker itself teaches that Eorzean leatherworking is done with a deep care for the animals and the land. A care that Hythlodaeus doesn't show anything comparable to--and in fact, one that seems to be held by only a minority of people in Elpis. So yeah, as a level 90 Leatherworker, I'm calling Hythlodaeus pretty insensitive on this one, although I will point out that the game itself never does.

(I recommend doing Leatherworker before commenting on it; Leatherworker is an understated hitmaker of the class questlines, all three of their storylines are great.)

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I’ve done leatherworker, i don’t need you to be condescending and tell me to do it. Just as they’re shown to care for the animals and land, so too do the ancients so i’m confused as to why there’s a differentiation here. Do we as the player pray for every animal killed? It seems we didn’t care too much since we almost caused the extinction of an entire species of animal in diadem as well.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Except that Leatherworker itself teaches that Eorzean leatherworking is done with a deep care for the animals and the land. A care that Hythlodaeus doesn't show anything comparable to--and in fact, one that seems to be held by only a minority of people in Elpis. So yeah, as a level 90 Leatherworker, I'm calling Hythlodaeus pretty insensitive on this one, although I will point out that the game itself never does.

(I recommend doing Leatherworker before commenting on it; Leatherworker is an understated hitmaker of the class questlines, all three of their storylines are great.)

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out of all the roll quests crafters tend to have the best stories. though id recommend alchemy since i havent done leatherworking yet.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

I’ve done leatherworker, i don’t need you to be condescending and tell me to do it. Just as they’re shown to care for the animals and land, so too do the ancients so i’m confused as to why there’s a differentiation here. Do we as the player pray for every animal killed? It seems we didn’t care too much since we almost caused the extinction of an entire species of animal in diadem as well.

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Did Hythlodaeus do those things? My message on this whole thing has always been on an individual level above all else; I'm calling out Hythlodaeus for being less sensitive to animals than Eorzean leatherworkers, which is why I give the latter more of a pass than the former.

The Ancients are a population of people, and like all populations of people, some of them are better or worse than others. Elpis has Meletos in it, that's perhaps the greatest example of all that they aren't really saints. But even though I'll point out individual ills, I can't let the entire nation off the hook, because then of course you factor in that everything in the present world's biosphere is a knock-on effect of a decision someone in Elpis made, and there's suddenly a lot of legitimate complaints to raise with these guys, and the answers aren't necessarily going to be nice ones. I'm inclined to raise an eyebrow at both the individual Ancient that invented Ixion, and the system that approved it, because... well, that system can't possibly have only one Meletos.

I look the same way at all societies we've been through in this game, it's just that this one gets a little weird because we didn't exactly sit down and talk about the societal breakdown of Amaurot. I went through this in my politics videos; Amaurot's a weird egg in terms of this game's 'nations' for that reason, but it's no less full of issues to look at and address, it just has to be in a different way.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Did Hythlodaeus do those things? My message on this whole thing has always been on an individual level above all else; I'm calling out Hythlodaeus for being less sensitive to animals than Eorzean leatherworkers, which is why I give the latter more of a pass than the former.

The Ancients are a population of people, and like all populations of people, some of them are better or worse than others. Elpis has Meletos in it, that's perhaps the greatest example of all that they aren't really saints. But even though I'll point out individual ills, I can't let the entire nation off the hook, because then of course you factor in that everything in the present world's biosphere is a knock-on effect of a decision someone in Elpis made, and there's suddenly a lot of legitimate complaints to raise with these guys, and the answers aren't necessarily going to be nice ones. I'm inclined to raise an eyebrow at both the individual Ancient that invented Ixion, and the system that approved it, because... well, that system can't possibly have only one Meletos.

I look the same way at all societies we've been through in this game, it's just that this one gets a little weird because we didn't exactly sit down and talk about the societal breakdown of Amaurot. I went through this in my politics videos; Amaurot's a weird egg in terms of this game's 'nations' for that reason, but it's no less full of issues to look at and address, it just has to be in a different way.

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im more mad at the phantasmal creators given the fact that spirit monsters have no real role in nature.

You can't really judge the Amaurotines for living in a different time, with no knowledge of the sundered world. People in the unsundered world were powerful wizards. They did not need to go into the wilderness to hunt food and risk being attacked by monsters. They could just conjure food up at home. The wizards also have magical perception that would allow them to see anything coming from a distance, and they could easily protect themselves, either by teleporting, flying, turning invisible, casting a barrier spell, transforming, casting an illusion spell on the monster, or simply kill it. And lastly, the Amaurotines who created the monsters had no reasonable way of knowing that there would eventually be a race of weak people going into the wilderness and being vulnerable to monsters.

The treatment of death is always going to vary by culture and religion. I also don't believe the LTW quests somehow nullify the gross amount of senseless killing that occurs in the world either, which more often than not doesn't result in the procurement of crafting materials. Not to mention that living creatures don't give a toss if you're thankful to them, you're still taking their life against their will. I could say I'm thankful for the shards dying so that my WoL can become more whole, does that make rejoinings okay?

It seems like people are looking for reasons to condemn the Ancients so they can feel self-assured they deserved their fate or at least convince others they did. Even if they were unquestionably bad I would still struggle to make that judgment. The fact that they weren't and you have to nitpick to find (subjective) reasons they weren't good speaks for itself. There's no evidence there was war, murder, sex trafficking, etc. (all things that exist in the sundered world) in their society, which by all appearances was peaceful and prosperous. So, instead, we're going to buckle down on the fact that they had a belief system individuals (certainly not consensus) don't agree with and weren't vegan.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

The treatment of death is always going to vary by culture and religion. I also don't believe the LTW quests somehow nullify the gross amount of senseless killing that occurs in the world either, which more often than not doesn't result in the procurement of crafting materials. Not to mention that living creatures don't give a toss if you're thankful to them, you're still taking their life against their will. I could say I'm thankful for the shards dying so that my WoL can become more whole, does that make rejoinings okay?

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Is your WoL becoming whole as much a moral good as preventing the destruction of all life?

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

It seems like people are looking for reasons to condemn the Ancients so they can feel self-assured they deserved their fate or at least convince others they did. Even if they were unquestionably bad I would still struggle to make that judgment. The fact that they weren't and you have to nitpick to find (subjective) reasons they weren't good speaks for itself. There's no evidence there was war, murder, sex trafficking, etc. (all things that exist in the sundered world) in their society, which by all appearances was peaceful and prosperous. So, instead, we're going to buckle down on the fact that they had a belief system individuals (certainly not consensus) don't agree with and weren't vegan.

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Again, the Ancients were blessed with inherent abilities and vitality that made life easy. Objectively made life easy. The fact war doesn’t exist is not evidence of moral superiority, because they lacked the factors that made war desirable to the Sundered. And I’d point out, murder and other crimes are not said to not exist. They just were swept under the rug. Less in number for sure, but still there. Pandaemonium is indicative of that, hell even the Final Days is technically born of internal conflict.

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They just were swept under the rug

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like the pixie beavers.
or on a more serious note pandaemonium. though tbf the higher floors are for studying why some failed while the lower is to contain those too powerful.

...the fact they created highly dangerous things more powerful than themselves is kind of scary.

Why is it important that they meet your idea of morality? I think that's the real question here. What level of morality does a world need to have so that when they're wiped out you can feel comfortable that nothing of value was lost?