Emet-Selch *Major Spoilers*

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Originally Posted by Edax

At least the WoL ends up in the cutscenes. At least people talk to the WoL in cutscenes and holds some importance to the story, that's more than the player character gets in WoW, whose more of a background extra while the NPCs take center stage.

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Yes the NPCs talk to you and the WoL listens then nods and does as he/she is told. On the other hand if you need to think or come up with a solution to a problem the WoL just stands there quietly and waits for someone better/more intelligent to do it for him/her.
The WoL is in the cutscenes as decoration to make it seem you matter when you actually don't. While it's true that many things in the world of FF requires killing, any mook who is "chosen" could do it just as well and considering you always need help, the WoL sucks at the only thing he/she is supposed to be good at. I mean in HW and with Emet-Selch you were so weak you needed a corpse to rise from their grave to help you and you still couldn't do it alone.
And all the "importance" you hear NPCs say is them all kissing you ass like any japanese mindless "chosen hero" story. Or any and EVERY "chosen hero" story that has ever been recycled.
I admit that i DESPISE this "chosen/destined/fated hero" garbage SO. MUCH.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Could they go the route of us being tempered? Of course they could. Does it make sense with everything we know right now? No not really. We already have WoLs of the past that outright betrayed Hydealyn. We had Ardbert who raised his axe against the word of the mother and we have Hydealyns view through the song of answers. If she is tempering us then our tempering is really quite similiar to free will.

Also lets not forget that the Ascians are 100% tempered. ;)

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This is how I see it too. As of now to me it doesn't seem like our actions are controlled by Hydealyn, still feels more like a "blessing".
Also Midgarsormr sealed away our blessing/echo once (which in theory coud mean that we were "freed" from Hydaelyn at that point if we were actually tempered.) but nothing really changed on the WoL. (like something in our mind or "something" that would imply we are influenced)
I also still believe that the artificial echo, created by the Garleans (Zenos) will play a big part at a later time when it comes to taking care of Zodiark & Hydealyn themselves.

I hit the quest wall for level 80 last night, so I probably won't be able to kill Emet until later tonight. Though, his death doesn't quite make sense to me, because he's too smart to get himself killed by WoL in the First.

During the whole cut scene after Vauthry's death, Emet being the way he is, I didn't really feel he was angry or that disappointed at me. I actually felt he was using some reverse psychology to motivate me not turning into a sin eater. Then, he was pretty confident that I'd make through and be able to see him in the tempest. To make sure that I'd go, he took the Exarch as hostage. The last few words he said to me before he left, "There is no hope! We are finished! Mankind is finished!" are the exact same words I saw in Exarch's memory. Emet possess the echo too, so he probably had seen it before he shot down the Exarch.

There is obviously something he wants from the WoL. Is it worth risking his life for? I don't think so. Like he said before, whatever happens, the worst case scenario is to delay his plan a little. He's immortal and WoL is going to die one day (unless WoL becomes immortal too). He always has time to start over again. I think he's plotting something big. Even I kill him now, how can I be sure that is 100% of him, not just a fraction?

EDIT: I see how he got himself killed now, by his own arrogance and carelessness. He didn't challenge WoL, but WoL got really mad at him and challenged him. Obviously, he didn't expect Exarch to summon a 8-man group to raid him either. Hopefully he kept a backup of himself somewhere. I don't think that Emet can't be redeemed. He's too absorbed in his view of the "perfect" world in his memory, which wasn't even true. He'd need help to change his view to accept and respect the world as it is, not flawless but actually better, in my opinion, than his old world. It would take time to convert him though, maybe in a novel, not in a video game.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

If he went back to before Zodiarc was created, and managed to prevent the destruction we saw at the end of days in the Amourot dungeon, then I'd have been more sympathetic to him. But that's not his plan, so I have a hard time seeing him as anything other than a murderer.

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Likely his interest in the Exarch and the Crystal Tower was to see if he could go even farther back in time and change some of the events before the Sundering to prevent it from happening.

But he was still tempered. He wouldn't have gone back before Zodiark's creation because that could have disrupted Zodiark's existence. He would have gone back just far enough to interfere with Hydaelyn's summoning. If successful, most (perhaps all) of the fragmented souls in the current Sundered universe would still exist but they would be different from what they are now.

Would it be okay for you as long as you existed but were a totally different being from who you currently are? If so, does that make us wrong to have killed Emet-Selch when he might have prevented the Sundering given access to the Tower's knowledge and power?

As for being a murderer... do you think of yourself as a murderer when you step on a bug on a sidewalk and crush it to death because it might spread disease? That bug's life might have meant something to it even if it meant nothing to you.

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Originally Posted by Yencat

Now Zenos however... I just cannot care for him as a villain at all.

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You know i have always wondered, what peoples problem with Zenos is? He is the only true villain that the japanese writers allow to enter their stories. because other wise it is the same crap as always, which is of course the beautiful person with a sob story. beautiful, because otherwise no one cares, sob story because it's a convenient excuse when every masturbator goes crazy for them (this is more a description for Yotsuyu).
I mean like the OP says "Complex, interesting" Hah! What is complex in "Boohoo someone died Boohoo is the reason i'll kill you all Boohoo turned me evil Boohoo die Bohoohoo". How is that more "complex" than "i kill/fight because: fun/leads to my goal/ i can"?
I would rather have a villain who knows who they are and knows what they want without excuses or reasons and especially no sob stories.

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Originally Posted by Tsaranoga

Yes the NPCs talk to you and the WoL listens then nods and does as he/she is told. On the other hand if you need to think or come up with a solution to a problem the WoL just stands there quietly and waits for someone better/more intelligent to do it for him/her.
The WoL is in the cutscenes as decoration to make it seem you matter when you actually don't. While it's true that many things in the world of FF requires killing, any mook who is "chosen" could do it just as well and considering you always need help, the WoL sucks at the only thing he/she is supposed to be good at. I mean in HW and with Emet-Selch you were so weak you needed a corpse to rise from their grave to help you and you still couldn't do it alone.
And all the "importance" you hear NPCs say is them all kissing you ass like any japanese mindless "chosen hero" story. Or any and EVERY "chosen hero" story that has ever been recycled.
I admit that i DESPISE this "chosen/destined/fated hero" garbage SO. MUCH.

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Your complaining how you hate "chosen one" stories while also complaining that the Warrior of Light doesn't matter and about how weak they are. Can you pick a consistent side in this arguement? Do you hate that the Warrior of Light is too important or not enough important enough?

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Originally Posted by MariaArvana

G'raha's plan is to save the doomed future, and by extension, preventing untold amounts of death, destruction, damage, etc in the future ... snip ...

I think WW2 probably has one of the best examples of what fundamentally separates G'raha and Emet. The USA had two options in dealing with Japan: Either drop the A-bombs vs invading Japan proper ... snip .... G'raha would drop the bombs, where Emet would invade it proper.

They're on extreme differences of the moral compass. G'raha's desire to save life vs Emet's desire to destroy all life and cause untold suffering ... snip ... Morality at the end of the day is what fundamentally separates them. One that wants the good of the future and to lessen death suffering & destruction for the infinitely larger majority vs the other that wants to create untold amounts of death, suffering, damage all for the purpose of saving the minority.

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The amount of doublespeak you're engaging in here is really quite disturbing.

Let me make my own position clear, I'm not saying we shouldn't have killed Emet Selch. Given the parameters of the story, we had no choice. But it is nonsense to argue that G'raha is a good guy, he does exactly the same thing as Emet Selch; he destroys entire world/s to save the people in the past who are already dead and gone.

You're engaging in semantics by saying G'raha wants to save life and Emet destroy it. Or you didn't actually pay attention to what was happening in the story. G'raha travelled back through time to prevent the 8th Calamity from happening and in doing so, wiped out everything and everyone in the future. He did so 'knowing' that would happen - he expected to cease to exist if it did happen - which demonstrates he knew the consequences of what he was doing very well. Emet Selch is taking actions to rejoin the shattered pieces of the Source and Shards in order to restore Zodiark and have Zodiark restore the original people of Amaurot. He knows that means the destruction of life on the Shards but considers it worth the sacrifice.

BOTH MEN BELIEVE THE PEOPLE IN THE PAST ARE WORTH SAVING AT THE EXPENSE OF THE PEOPLE IN THE PRESENT.

I suppose you might argue that Emet causes more direct mayhem than G'raha, but it is never suggested he takes pleasure in it. And excusing G'raha on that basis is like saying it's okay to bomb people from a distance because you don't look them in the eye while you do it. More to the point, your parallel with World War 2 is based entirely on subjective opinion. Where is it demonstrated in game that Emet Selch deliberate chose the path of most destruction? On the contrary, it's very much implied that if he could get his hands on the Crystal Tower, he would go back through time himself and ensure the Terminus event never happened or, at the very least, that Hydaelyn never did. He's not a psychopath, he's doing what he thinks he has to to restore his people, friends, family. Exactly like G'raha

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Would it be okay for you as long as you existed but were a totally different being from who you currently are? If so, does that make us wrong to have killed Emet-Selch when he might have prevented the Sundering given access to the Tower's knowledge and power?

As for being a murderer... do you think of yourself as a murderer when you step on a bug on a sidewalk and crush it to death because it might spread disease? That bug's life might have meant something to it even if it meant nothing to you.

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Zodiark was demanding human sacrifice at an ever increasing scale, so if his plan was only to go back so far as to prevent the creation of that power that kept the primal in check, then no. I don't support that as a right move. Simply preventing the sundering isn't enough if the new god was going to demand that innocents give up their lives.

As for the bugs... that sounds a lot like the rationalization that Emmet Selch used to justify murder. There's a pretty big difference here, though. Emmet Selch can have intelligent conversation with those he attempts to kill, he just views them as a lesser race to himself. So this is more in the vein of eugenics than extermination of pests, at least in my view.

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Originally Posted by Elladie

BOTH MEN BELIEVE THE PEOPLE IN THE PAST ARE WORTH SAVING AT THE EXPENSE OF THE PEOPLE IN THE PRESENT.

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There's a major difference here. The ascians believe in killing as many millions of people as it takes in order to recreate the past in the present. Graha Tia believes its better to go to the past and create a new timeline for the people in the future. He is not killing anyone in his present. Whether his plan will actually make a better future can be debated, but the fact is one is actively killing existing lives and the other is trying to change the destiny of the lives yet to be born.

Because he was still a jackass.

Someone being "written well" does not mean they deserve plot armor.

Tbh I think the only real difference between what G'raha & co. did vs what the Ascians did is how they view the lives they're saving and destroying.

The Ascians think them and only them are whole and legitimate lifeforms, and then and only them should survive as stewards of their star. Everything alive now is a pale imitation unworthy of consideration, and for Emet, a series of disappointments. I'm a little iffy as well on whether their plans involve saving all of the Ancients, or only the followers of Zodiark - the ones who shared their philosophy. Otherwise they'd just end up in the same situation, no? Because even their own people didn't agree with their original goal, which included sacrificing current life on their own star to bring back those who'd died. What's interesting to me is that their plan STARTED with genocide to revive those lost, even when their world WAS whole - sacrificing life for life, perhaps with the same reasoning. The Ancients sacrificed were more valuable than the new life that had been born in the wake of the cataclysm.

G'raha & co made fundamentally the same choice... it's a matter of sacrificing the present to alter the past for the sake of the future VS sacrificing the present to restore the past for the sake of those lost in the past. Thinking about it maybe the only slight nuance is that the Ironworks folks were seeking to change their own world and not someone else's. The Ascians see a broken imitation of their world, and the Ironworks folks & G'raha were stuck in a doomed one. I'm not sure if G'raha knew it, but there's also the fact that if the past wasn't changed, the Ascians very likely would have eventually succeeded in their goal and everyone in that alternate world would be doomed to die anyway - because realistically, who but the half-rejoined WoL from the source is going to be able to stop them? Several whole worlds have already failed, and it took our interference to stop yet another from failing (again). No impact on morality if G'raha & co. didn't know that going in (genuinely don't remember) but it does make for some interesting thinking material :P

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Originally Posted by wereotter

Zodiark was demanding human sacrifice at an ever increasing scale, so if his plan was only to go back so far as to prevent the creation of that power that kept the primal in check, then no. I don't support that as a right move. Simply preventing the sundering isn't enough if the new god was going to demand that innocents give up their lives.

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Not really a thought from lore read (just a thought of intention/possibility), but occasionally I think of that Mushi from Mushishi that gave the main character his one green eye trait. The one where the fish were absorbed into the darkness by a Mushi, and Ginko thought they were dead but really they had become some great white spirit or something within. With Zodiark not saying a 1:1 but that I had thought he needed more and more sacrificed as he was making the world whole again- inside himself. He was doing his job by taking it in, just needed to do it in bouts rather to get stronger and stay stable rather than yeeting everyone across the universe from being unable to hold it in. So not really a sacrifice as much as he was trying to take in the world's flaws, internalize and form them again, and at the end once absorbing the poison of the world big bang it out into a new universe (doing his job of making order out of the chaos, even if some didn't appreciate it- tempering those along the way).

Vaguely also like Sin in FFX with his whole mess going inside himself. That and Noah's ark. Zodiark is the ark, is Noah's boat. Perhaps there was supposed to be the next step of getting off the boat after the flood, but the boat was never properly filled in the first place because once the boat (Zodiark) was built another 'solution' came and kicked it. Might add a bit to tempering too since it'd be like your Zody passport, Zodiark tempered individuals ready for the next step in the purification.

Not saying it's morally good now just wonder if the those deaths were not just because he's a hungry boi wanting sacrifice and more like taking in and screening files (people) for viruses, altering (tempering), and then preparing to reprint everything 'purified'. And the whole process got hijacked.

Since I'm already playing super loose with 'reminds me of' anyways, I think of the Templars and Assassins with Zodiark and Hydaelyn (at least when Ubisoft doesn't try to make them super good/super evil and more onto arguing over how to best manage people, or like memes on that political compass).

I hope they don't make a super clear cut this is the good guy this is the bad guy in the end of all this, though I'm fine with one being a bit more 'right'/good just hoping not for pure evil vs pure good lol. Like when the kick happened I'm assuming that caused a lot of damage, being able to have some discussion on that perhaps rather than it being 'she gud, he bad'. Personally prefer the primals to keep a bit of that 'ideas made real' feeling (built around a core concept rather than a free flowing deity), even if the eldest are the most advanced and lively versions of that- keeping them in some ways trapped in their own cages of what core beliefs made them born.

Make Us Whole.

https://i.imgur.com/lISwAhZ.png


(For those confused, it's a dead space reference)

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Originally Posted by Tsaranoga

Yes the NPCs talk to you and the WoL listens then nods and does as he/she is told. On the other hand if you need to think or come up with a solution to a problem the WoL just stands there quietly and waits for someone better/more intelligent to do it for him/her.
The WoL is in the cutscenes as decoration to make it seem you matter when you actually don't. While it's true that many things in the world of FF requires killing, any mook who is "chosen" could do it just as well and considering you always need help, the WoL sucks at the only thing he/she is supposed to be good at. I mean in HW and with Emet-Selch you were so weak you needed a corpse to rise from their grave to help you and you still couldn't do it alone.
And all the "importance" you hear NPCs say is them all kissing you ass like any japanese mindless "chosen hero" story. Or any and EVERY "chosen hero" story that has ever been recycled.
I admit that i DESPISE this "chosen/destined/fated hero" garbage SO. MUCH.

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To be fair in both those examples you mention something was either taken from you to make you weak or you were outmatched. It's not as simple as the WOL is just weak by default.

Er... yeah, the Exarch is not remotely the same as the Ascians. The Ascians want to sacrifice innocent people who didn't agree to being sacrificed in order to negate the sacrifices made to create Zodiark. The people who summoned him did so of their own free will to boot. The Exarch is trying to stop a tragedy of untold proportions, with mostly willing help.

Isn't he from the future? Is thats so then technically it hasn't happened yet so that alone makes him different then Emet.

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Originally Posted by Edax

Your complaining how you hate "chosen one" stories while also complaining that the Warrior of Light doesn't matter and about how weak they are. Can you pick a consistent side in this arguement? Do you hate that the Warrior of Light is too important or not enough important enough?

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You don't need to be "chosen" to matter or to be strong, that's just the unbelievably and undeniably shitty writing.

Being the "chosen one" doesn't mean your choices aren't your own, it depends on the story.
Aang from Avatar was the chosen one, he messed it up initially and even when he did finally fulfil his "destiny" he did it his way, flying in the face of what everyone told him he "had" to do and saved the world in a way he could live with.

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Originally Posted by BlitzAceRush

Being the "chosen one" doesn't mean your choices aren't your own, it depends on the story.
Aang from Avatar was the chosen one, he messed it up initially and even when he did finally fulfil his "destiny" he did it his way, flying in the face of what everyone told him he "had" to do and saved the world in a way he could live with.

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I'm certain the same also applies ro Korra from her eponymous sequel series as well

But, yes having a destiny and free will are sometimes not mutually exclusive.

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Originally Posted by MirronTulaxia

Er... yeah, the Exarch is not remotely the same as the Ascians. The Ascians want to sacrifice innocent people who didn't agree to being sacrificed in order to negate the sacrifices made to create Zodiark. The people who summoned him did so of their own free will to boot. The Exarch is trying to stop a tragedy of untold proportions, with mostly willing help.

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The Ascians A) don't really regard people as people, because Eorzeans are the broken, twisted remnants of a more evolved earlier race. If the entire human population suddenly devolved into Homo habilis, and you were one of like 20 people left, you would almost certainly view the bulk of "new humanity" as an abomination beneath you. And B), the Ascians were willing to step up and sacrifice themselves (voluntarily to empower Zodiark twice. So I think it's understandable that Emet-Selch and co. feel like they have paid their dues.

This is what makes good - re: not Zenos - antagonists compelling: because we can empathize and understand-with their motives, even if we might not necessarily agree (honestly, I'm at the point now where I will not rule out Hydaelyn being a cleverly-disguised foe; the ultimate 'great threat' to all existence). It's an issue that Final Fantasy games have struggled with as long as Squaresoft has existed, and they have a pretty spotty track record on it from game to game.

It's not much of a noble sacrifice worthy of praise if you then turn around and go.
"We saved the world by choice, now save us because we say so."
It's like taking a bullet for someone, then getting up and choosing someone or something you consider lesser than you, someone of a lower status or say a dog and then holding them/it in front of you to take more bullets, you stopped being noble the moment you picked up the dog/other person.

Claiming they're our betters is just their justification, fiction and real life is littered with people using that as an excuse, the holy crusades, WW2, Rome to name a few. To them it makes them noble and just, to everyone they're killing, it makes them monsters.

The difference to me between the Exarch and Emet/Ascians is consequence of their actions.

Exarch has come from a future where the Eighth Calamity happened and now we are not having that Eight Calamity this the future is changed yet he is still around. This is significant as you can imply that the bad future still exists thus no one is sacrificed thus Exarch has killed no one, but if the bad future is erased yea Exarch murdered whether willing(Euthanasia) or not(Manslaughter) a single world's worth of people for reasons he believes is just.

Emet/Ascians have already murdered 7 worlds worth of people, they just think those people are beneath them, that doesn't make it justifiable, to them yea to us no.

Exarch's consequence is left vague, Emet's is not, this is why the Exarch isn't viewed as negatively despite having parallels to Emet, until we get told what happened to the bad future which regards to its existence neither side is wrong to think Exarch is a Savior or as bad as Emet.

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Originally Posted by TeraRamis

The Ascians A) don't really regard people as people, because Eorzeans are the broken, twisted remnants of a more evolved earlier race. If the entire human population suddenly devolved into Homo habilis, and you were one of like 20 people left, you would almost certainly view the bulk of "new humanity" as an abomination beneath you. And B), the Ascians were willing to step up and sacrifice themselves (voluntarily to empower Zodiark twice. So I think it's understandable that Emet-Selch and co. feel like they have paid their dues.

This is what makes good - re: not Zenos - antagonists compelling: because we can empathize and understand-with their motives, even if we might not necessarily agree (honestly, I'm at the point now where I will not rule out Hydaelyn being a cleverly-disguised foe; the ultimate 'great threat' to all existence). It's an issue that Final Fantasy games have struggled with as long as Squaresoft has existed, and they have a pretty spotty track record on it from game to game.

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1. The Ascians don't regard them as people, but that doesn't make for a compelling argument because they are still very clearly people.

2. For all that the Ascians claim to be better than everyone else, the "lesser" race accomplish things they hadn't expected, like G'raha Tia pulling off his Crystal Tower thing. Other than a denser soul/bigger battery they haven't really demonstrated anything that makes them "better" than others.

3. I most certainly wouldn't feel like they're an abomination. Especially when I can talk with them, reason with them, and in general have no real means of saying they're different from me in a meaningful sense.

4. Emet-Selch and co... didn't pay their dues. They didn't make any sacrifices. It was others who made sacrifices. And then they want to kill unrelated people to try and rewrite those sacrifices. Committing genocide is, generally, a bad thing.

5. I'm not saying he isn't a compelling antagonist. But at the end of the day, he's still very much a monster, and not the same thing as the Exarch. You can argue there are parallels, but the difference is one is trying to save the future, the other? Not so much. Emet is trying to commit genocide to unwrite others sacrifices.

I find it weird how people glorifying a villain who wants to genocide people.

G'raha Tia isn't trying to save the future. He's trying to destroy the actual future so that he can have the future HE wants, a completely different future which doesn't contain the actual people from the actual future he doesn't want. Hence why the majority didn't support the Ironworks plan.

The beastmen are very clearly 'people' too, but the WoL apparently doesn't have a problem with killing them. You can't have moral values be applicable to only one side. But then we get the 'oh but ....' arguments. If the 'oh but the Ascians had a reason for considering others not people' doesn't count, neither does any other 'oh but' argument. It's either a moral absolute or it isn't, and if it is, you can't pick and choose who it applies to.

As for not wanting to do something about it if humanity was almost wiped out .... well, congratulations on your high-minded and saintly stance. Personally, if my parents, friends, siblings and children had sacrificed themselves to save the world and I had a chance to bring them back, I'd be seizing it with both hands. But I'm old and I'm a mother and grandmother, I'm not naive enough to kid myself I'd take your stance in those circumstances.

In other words, I can empathise - even sympathise - with Emet Selch. But he wasn't going to change his mind about the Rejoinings because he was tempered, and so there was no other option but to fight and hopefully destroy him. Fortunately for G'raha Tia, he is on the same side as us, so stopping him isn't something we consider necessary, although the WoL in the future that he ended may well have felt differently.

It's a matter of perspective. If you're not able to switch perspective and see things from another point of view, you are sadly lacking in empathy

Edit: I'm not sure where anyone has glorified Emet Selch. Perhaps you'd like to point that out?

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Originally Posted by Gojin

I find it weird how people glorifying a villain who wants to genocide people.

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Hi, welcome to fiction. You can check the triggered morality at the door. Thanks!

The future G'raha doesn't want is the future where most of the world, including people he cares about deeply, are dead. A doomed post apocalyptic world which, whether he fully knew it or not, was doubly doomed to ultimate destruction by the Ascians. His goal was to prevent a horrible future and to create a better one for everyone, a world that isn't defined by suffering in the wake of a cataclysm. From their decision making standpoint, really they were acting on the assumption the world as it was was doomed - from the opposition, it may have seemed like there was a chance to eventually mend the world, and make things better again. Only speculation, but of course people would want to believe that. Rewriting the past wouldn't heal their world, it would eliminate it, and any chance of proper healing along with it. So why would they support a plan like that?

I do think there are a lot of shades of gray here, and I wouldn't call G'raha and the Ironworks folks' choice morally "good" or "bad" at the end of the day - though it's certainly good for everyone in opposition to the Ascians, since it means we all get to continue to exist.

What was interesting about Emet to me is that I kind of got the impression he didn't fully believe what he was selling. The Ascians see us as inferior and unworthy, clearly, but it really seemed to me like he wanted to believe that wasn't true. I think on some level he wanted to be proven wrong. Whether he did or not, though, he was too deeply committed to his cause, had shouldered the burden of his peoples' memory for too long, and there really was no going back for him.

Bit of a tangent, but the WoL doesn't seem to have many problems killing anyone or anything, and imo there's a lot of gray morality in what they and the city-states do too. The city-states' hands are not clean in the dealings with the beast tribes, and part of that is from the same mindset that they are "lesser" even though they're clearly not.

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Originally Posted by TeraRamis

Hi, welcome to fiction. You can check the triggered morality at the door. Thanks!

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Oh hi Pot, you're looking awfully black today as well.

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Originally Posted by Elladie

Let me make my own position clear, I'm not saying we shouldn't have killed Emet Selch. Given the parameters of the story, we had no choice. But it is nonsense to argue that G'raha is a good guy, he does exactly the same thing as Emet Selch; he destroys entire world/s to save the people in the past who are already dead and gone.

You're engaging in semantics by saying G'raha wants to save life and Emet destroy it. Or you didn't actually pay attention to what was happening in the story. G'raha travelled back through time to prevent the 8th Calamity from happening and in doing so, wiped out everything and everyone in the future.

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Did G'raha "wipe out everything and everyone" when he went back in time? Is that how time travel works in FFXIV? If he travels back in time 5 minutes, did he just commit genocide and wipe out the previous world?

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Originally Posted by Edax

Did G'raha "wipe out everything and everyone" when he went back in time? Is that how time travel works in FFXIV? If he travels back in time 5 minutes, did he just commit genocide and wipe out the previous world?

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It's kind of mind bending to think about. Reminds me of the Swampman thought experience or Star Trek teleportation (body in location A gets killed and a copy is made in location B, is that still you?). What is "you"? Does it even exist? Are we dying every second and being reborn as cells replace themselves? Is this idea of a consistent self in time simply an illusion?

So if you travel trough time, are you killing all those previous existing consciousness (from the future)? That's what got to be happening I guess, unless a seperate timeline is made each time you time travel.

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Originally Posted by SamRF

It's kind of mind bending to think about. Reminds me of the Swampman thought experience or Star Trek teleportation (body in location A gets killed and a copy is made in location B, is that still you?). What is "you"? Does it even exist? Are we dying every second and being reborn as cells replace themselves? Is this idea of a consistent self in time simply an illusion?

So if you travel trough time, are you killing all those previous existing consciousness (from the future)? That's what got to be happening I guess, unless a seperate timeline is made each time you time travel.

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It's not the travelling, per se. You could - theoretically - zoom backwards and forwards as much as you want. It's what you do when you get there. G'raha deliberately set out to destroy the future where he was awakened by Cid, by taking actions to try and stop the 8th Calamity from ever happening

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Originally Posted by SamRF

It's kind of mind bending to think about. Reminds me of the Swampman thought experience or Star Trek teleportation (body in location A gets killed and a copy is made in location B, is that still you?). What is "you"? Does it even exist? Are we dying every second and being reborn as cells replace themselves? Is this idea of a consistent self in time simply an illusion?

So if you travel trough time, are you killing all those previous existing consciousness (from the future)? That's what got to be happening I guess, unless a seperate timeline is made each time you time travel.

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I mean it depends how time travel works. If you're just reversing time (as in all the atoms and molecules are just moving backwards), your not destroying the previous world, it's just been altered. The previous consciousnesses will still be there, just altered.

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/SarcasticS...restricted.gif

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Originally Posted by Edax

Did G'raha "wipe out everything and everyone" when he went back in time? Is that how time travel works in FFXIV? If he travels back in time 5 minutes, did he just commit genocide and wipe out the previous world?

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If ending someone's conscious existence is death. . . ? If it's simply atoms then when Emet makes everyone whole that should be fine, so it's got to be the conscious part that's important (ending one conscious to reform another). Though then you've got things like teleporters then, if it takes you apart and then makes you again did you die? Murder for only a little whlie? lol.

Honestly I feel most stories, and probably this one too, could have been better without time travel- the amount of what if's / but then what about's... I feel time travel is almost always a misstep to introduce. That said I still enjoyed ShB, just the time travel part of it wasn't the highlight. If I'm prepped from the outset I'll probably be fine with that expectation and build a world view around things are not permanent / not always the true experience (Chrono Trigger), but generally, imo, introducing it after already inhabiting the world for a while and using existence is existence material to suddenly switch to vague "but it's a dream, but it's only one of many timelines", so even something like in Harry Potter and the time turner, is a bit frowny face for me.

The whole losing experience concept really bothers me, who are you to decide that my experience should be removed? So I understood Emet but he wasn't going to get my vote, even if he thought he was making me whole and not actually killing me, too late the country is already made- we can't restart everything now because history was unfair. Forced amnesia (not done by self) usually really annoys me too. Leave my memories alone (same deal, leave my experience alone, if something failed it failed). Also why I think villains that can manipulate thoughts are both exceptionally scary and frustrating.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Honestly I feel most stories, and probably this one too, could have been better without time travel- the amount of what if's / but then what about's... I feel time travel is almost always a misstep to introduce. That said I still enjoyed ShB, just the time travel part of it wasn't the highlight. If I'm prepped from the outset I'll probably be fine with that expectation and build a world view around things are not permanent / not always the true experience (Chrono Trigger), but generally, imo, introducing it after already inhabiting the world for a while and using existence is existence material to suddenly switch to vague "but it's a dream, but it's only one of many timelines", so even something like in Harry Potter and the time turner, is a bit frowny face for me.

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Well put. Time travel stories are almost a subgenre unto themselves in that regard. I, too, always felt like the time turner was jarring nonsense of the first order (and a strong [though by no means isolated] example of why Harry Potter is profoundly overrated fantasy).

If you're going to tell a story about time travel - if its idiosyncrasies are the very fabric of the tale that you are trying to convey - then it's an excellent vehicle for thought-provoking fiction. But when it's deployed in an otherwise-stable universe (typically in the form of a distraction, unplanned narrative crutch, or even the dreaded deus ex machina), it is at best distracting, and at worse stupid. The time turner didn't break Prisoner of Azkaban, but it left yet another gaping lore wound (akin to Sirius' "veil" moment, why some people become ghosts, why so much time was devoted to the house elf revolution only to drop the thread entirely, etc., etc.) in the series that was never properly stitched up.

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Originally Posted by Edax

I mean it depends how time travel works. If you're just reversing time (as in all the atoms and molecules are just moving backwards), your not destroying the previous world, it's just been altered. The previous consciousnesses will still be there, just altered.

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It's still somewhat the same thing though, isn't it? As soon as you reverse time and start at a different point, a billion random butterfly effects will happen and you will never get back into the same state of conciousness as before the time travel, effectively killing that consciousness? Killing that reality?

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Originally Posted by SamRF

It's still somewhat the same thing though, isn't it? As soon as you reverse time and start at a different point, a billion random butterfly effects will happen and you will never get back into the same state of conciousness as before the time travel, effectively killing that consciousness? Killing that reality?

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If modern (contemporary writing) time travel doesn't include a multiverse component, it's essentially bad lore.

The Exarch existed in a future where the eighth umbral calamity had happened. He travels back to the past to stop the calamity with no suggestion that he is entering some alternate reality in the process. By succeeding, he should therefore have no reason to travel to the past in the first place. Ergo, the calamity must happen.

I hate to go the Emmett Brown, route, but that right there...

https://i.imgflip.com/34m1v7.jpg

... is a paradox.

Good time travel stories eliminate the element of destiny (the all-important question of: was Harry always in the past to summon the petronus to save himself? How did Harry get to the past to summon the petronus if he had never been saved by it in the first place? Destiny) by generating multiverse "ripples" whenever the time travel occurs - all actions, no matter how small, generate alternate realities, each of which can be dealt with individually without necessarily stomping like elephants on the bodies of the previous ones. The time travel in FFXIV doesn't deign to dally on those details, so the consequence is that it is fairly branded ludicrous storytelling.

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Originally Posted by MirronTulaxia

1. The Ascians don't regard them as people, but that doesn't make for a compelling argument because they are still very clearly people.

2. For all that the Ascians claim to be better than everyone else, the "lesser" race accomplish things they hadn't expected, like G'raha Tia pulling off his Crystal Tower thing. Other than a denser soul/bigger battery they haven't really demonstrated anything that makes them "better" than others.

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These two arguments (that I agree with) are exactly why I can't have any sympathy for Emet.

I can't hear what he's saying after interacting with the NPCs of this world and the other player characters and not help but think of him as being not entirely unlike humans of the 19th century who viewed people of color as not actually being human, and using that mindset to justify the terrible acts they committed. And that's not an attitude I can condone or be sympathetic to. He's been a much bigger and more culturally relevant villian than any other we've seen so far, but not deserving of our sympathy. It's a good thing he and his kind are being wiped out.

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Originally Posted by TeraRamis

If modern (contemporary writing) time travel doesn't include a multiverse component, it's essentially bad lore.

The Exarch existed in a future where the eighth umbral calamity had happened. He travels back to the past to stop the calamity with no suggestion that he is entering some alternate reality in the process. By succeeding, he should therefore have no reason to travel to the past in the first place. Ergo, the calamity must happen.

I hate to go the Emmett Brown, route, but that right there...

https://i.imgflip.com/34m1v7.jpg

... is a paradox.

Good time travel stories eliminate the element of destiny (the all-important question of: was Harry always in the past to summon the petronus to save himself? How did Harry get to the past to summon the petronus if he had never been saved by it in the first place? Destiny) by generating multiverse "ripples" whenever the time travel occurs - all actions, no matter how small, generate alternate realities, each of which can be dealt with individually without necessarily stomping like elephants on the bodies of the previous ones. The time travel in FFXIV doesn't deign to dally on those details, so the consequence is that it is fairly branded ludicrous storytelling.

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Yeah I'm still kind of hoping it'll get explained at some point. I've kind of been operating on the assumption that G'raha effectively did create an alternate reality, meaning that world that saw the 8th umbral calamity still exists and will probably keep on doing so until it's eventually destroyed anyway. Otherwise we've got all sorts of head-hurting questions to deal with. Compounded by time apparently behaving differently on different shards. It's enough to give a headache trying to puzzle it out.

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Originally Posted by SamRF

It's still somewhat the same thing though, isn't it? As soon as you reverse time and start at a different point, a billion random butterfly effects will happen and you will never get back into the same state of conciousness as before the time travel, effectively killing that consciousness? Killing that reality?

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Not exactly. If I woke up tomorrow and there never was a pandemic and I don't remember a pandemic, I wouldn't consider that death of my consciousness. If I woke up tomorrow and my Grandpa was alive again and I remember that always being the case, I would just consider that an altering of consciousness, not death. Heck, brain trauma can cause a person to lose memories or have their personality altered, but that doesn't mean their consciousness has died.

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Originally Posted by Edax

Not exactly. If I woke up tomorrow and there never was a pandemic and I don't remember a pandemic, I wouldn't consider that death of my consciousness. If I woke up tomorrow and my Grandpa was alive again and I remember that always being the case, I would just consider that an altering of consciousness, not death. Heck, brain trauma can cause a person to lose memories or have their personality altered, but that doesn't mean their consciousness has died.

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If you go back in time some people will not be born anymore and new actions will alter their timelines entirely (some for the worse some for the better, depending on what it could obviously be "a lot more for the better"). For you personally perhaps you've lost nothing or actually gained ("eeeh I got my grandpa back!"), but some will have lost something even if they don't remember it (or not existed, and due to new changes in the timeline may never exist again- so a full stop end to their story). So by going back some will have gone and stayed gone (and some will have been brought back/be born that would not have been born otherwise). Not selling it as a pure negative but to me traveling back within a singular timeline (vs cross infinite dimensions) is at least like using a mass destruction bomb to end a war, the war may have cost a trillion times the bomb and so some groups may argue "worth it" but the bomb still cost something too. Might understand why you used the bomb but not sure I'd want to dance around and high five for it.

That's also ignoring talking about all those what ifs, paradoxes, why doesn't y do x sort of stuff time topics raise and just that focusing on reverting time can revert conscious states to pre-existence and may mean they'll never exist again depending on new events which would mean a termination of existence or death if we view the timeline as a whole. Of course if there are infinite dimensions and he traveled cross that and not time then he only helped out one dimension and left another, which changes the discussion quite a bit over just changing the timeline.

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Originally Posted by Elladie

But it is nonsense to argue that G'raha is a good guy, he does exactly the same thing as Emet Selch; he destroys entire world/s to save the people in the past who are already dead and gone.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

If you go back in time some people will not be born anymore and new actions will alter their timelines entirely (some for the worse some for the better, depending on what it could obviously be "a lot more for the better"). For you personally perhaps you've lost nothing or actually gained ("eeeh I got my grandpa back!"), but some will have lost something even if they don't remember it (or not existed, and due to new changes in the timeline may never exist again- so a full stop end to their story). So by going back some will have gone and stayed gone (and some will have been brought back/be born that would not have been born otherwise). Not selling it as a pure negative but to me traveling back within a singular timeline (vs cross infinite dimensions) is at least like using a mass destruction bomb to end a war, the war may have cost a trillion times the bomb and so "worth it" but the bomb still cost something too. Might understand why you used the bomb but not sure I'd want to dance around and high five for it.

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My point being I wouldn't equate G'raha's actions with Emet's on the morality scale. If I'm alive in both timelines, I've not really been "destroyed" because I don't consider the world having been destroyed just because it's been altered. G'raha is not only trying to save dead people, he could be trying to save the living people in this timeline as well. For all we know, the Eighth Calamity was an extinction level event, one that would last centuries.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

I wish they'd kill off this forum.

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Thank you.