those were one off side contents.
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The moment Ultima Thule music kicks in . My heaart T__T
I'm new to this section of the forums. Do people still argue for our against either side after finding out about the time travel stuff in EW? Because it's pretty clear that Hermes was the least justified of all since he set it all in motion for a very selfish reason.
Accidently set it in motion. But his intention was still for the betterment of his race at least in regards to their hubris in not seeing the value of life (and death) in a vacuum. From his pov, he felt his people disregarded things too easily and quite literally took it for granted since they had very little limitations. You could say him setting Meteion free wasn't entirely in accordance with that but it still comes off as he forcefully tried to teach mankind a lesson about the world and life around them and more importantly to appreciate it, albeit in a roundabout way.
All three Ancients had reasons one could sympathize with, but the sheer loss of life and lack of consent involved made their methods contentious.
I think I would've only felt comfortable saying none of them were justified if I didn't agree with what they wanted for their people and found their methods detestable, but it was really only the latter in play, so I opted for "justified in their own ways".
Honestly, I think the only thing that might give me a little additional peace of mind would be the revelation that Venat's faction knew our whole story and they were perfectly okay with the Sundering and all it entailed with no deception, half-truths, and/or omission of information involved.
It would still leave the uncomfortable reality that the other Ancients had no idea what it was their opposition truly desired, though. There were truths they deserved to know, Hermes and the timeline be damned.
I believe they absolutely should have fit this within the MSQ. A large part of the controversy with Venat, in particular, is she's portrayed as a tragic heroine of righteousness and benevolence. It's never once addressed that in actuality she represents everything the Scions have consistently fought against and condemned, instead she's universally treated favorably despite her striking similarities to other villains such as Thordan and Hermes. If inserting logic, consistency, and realism into the story would've caused corners to unravel I'd say that speaks volumes about the narrative they were trying to spin.
I won't argue that Ishikawa clearly has a different view of Hermes than I do because I don't consider an extinction level event to be any sort of 'first step' for mankind, but as far as what's depicted in the game by the time we meet Hermes he seems driven by spite more than a genuine concern for the betterment of his people.
The whole of EW seems to justify violence if people aren't acting the way you think they should and that is a subject that should have been addressed in more than a side quest not everyone will do.
The thing with "this should be in MSQ" is that then they need to find a way to weave it into the MSQ.
FFXIV is written with the expectation that if people are into the story, they will play and experience the various sidequests to get the full picture. Being a sidequest doesn't make it insignificant, but lets it sit apart as its own story path separate to the direction that the post-credits MSQ is going.
Also, it inherently requires completion of the Omega raids before the story can play out.
On answering the question, I opted for "they were all justified in their own way" but would like to have been able to add "...but at the same time they also weren't."
On whether they could keep score of the answers, I don't think they can when it's just a conversation response in a cutscene. The two times we've had a tallied response to player choices (dwarves and Valentiones) it has been trackable through each choice being presented as an individual quest that locks you out of completing the others.