*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

Please look at the examples i have with eden primals,egi’s,poroggo familiars, because it seems like those points are being purposely avoided as they refute many of the opposition people have with the ancients.

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I don't think anyone's problem with the ancients is that create things that they then destroy. I mean - Hermes does, but even his issues with their society go deeper than that. It's more that these beings were created to follow trends and were then discarded when they were deemed no longer useful. When it comes to the examples you gave, those all have a practical utility, born of out necessity. (also, is summoning and unsummoning a familiar/egi even the same as unmaking a creation? Unmaking seems like a pretty distinct and final destruction of a concept. When Mataoya unsummons her poroggo, she can summon more later, even the same poroggo as before, since they seem to remember previous instructions or interactions with you. When the lykaones were unmade, it seemed to be implied that nobody could ever create one again.)

Also, I think you're conflating moral superiority with physical superiority. I'm not superior to someone who is immunocompromized just because they could die from the flu. All anyone has pointed out is that like any culture, they have their flaws and blind spots. And that fact alone pokes a giant hole in Emet-Selch's view that everything was perfect before the sundering, or that there is no point in life that came after because that life is flawed.

Edit: Emet-Selch is presented as a villain to be slain because he puts himself in that role. He opposes you trying to prevent the flooding of the first with light, and the rejoining. He talks with you, he tries to reason with you, but you are a hero, and refuse to step aside so that everyone you love on the first can be killed in a rejoining. With neither of you willing to budge on your positions, conflict is inevitable. Even then, Emet-Selch is presented as tragic and sympathetic. And by the time of Endwalker, he isn't presented as a villain at all.

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Originally Posted by SpectrePhantasia

Why then is Venat, the initial aggressor, considered a hero by the game's narrative, where Emet-selch is the villain to be slain?

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Two reasons for that.

1. While the story is made to be able to be viewed externally and see 'oh hey, these two basically have mirrored plans', the characters in the story are from the world Venat is trying to save, and the world Emet-Selch is trying to mulch up. Naturally that means that the characters making in-game decisions have a certain bias, and when both sides have equal merit are going to pick the one that doesn't kill them.

2. Venat's plan worked, while Emet-Selch's plan wouldn't have (as confirmed by Emet-Selch himself). Generally speaking you look pretty good if you pick a fight and win.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Two reasons for that.

1. While the story is made to be able to be viewed externally and see 'oh hey, these two basically have mirrored plans', the characters in the story are from the world Venat is trying to save, and the world Emet-Selch is trying to mulch up. Naturally that means that the characters making in-game decisions have a certain bias, and when both sides have equal merit are going to pick the one that doesn't kill them.

2. Venat's plan worked, while Emet-Selch's plan wouldn't have (as confirmed by Emet-Selch himself). Generally speaking you look pretty good if you pick a fight and win.

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I understand that, of course the narrative is going to side with the protagonist's views here, and I'm not complaining that this is the case. For the record Emet was very much in the wrong as well, but the unwillingness to call out these same ideals in the one that's 'on your side' was in my opinion a disappointing departure from the nuance that Shadowbringers built up.

And you're right, her plan worked. But it also hinged on a gamble 12000 years in the making that, in total, accrued more suffering en masse than what the Ascians could dish out if their motive was just 'we hate you and want you to die.' The idea that there was absolutely no alternative but to do what she did, especially when there were people among her home that wanted to work with her, puts a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, is all.

Emet-selch saying what he said there struck me as a consolation prize more than anything. The truth is that the Ancients weren't given the opportunity to even try.

It should also be pointed out, this whole argument is victim to a bit of recency bias that we should be trying to be conscious of. We remember when Hydaelyn had her big Tragic Hero Story Reveal very clearly, because we just got it and saw it.

What we need to remember is that Emet-Selch and Elidibus had pretty much the exact same treatment, in a story that I understand is fairly popular called 'Shadowbringers'. Venat didn't get unbalanced credit in Endwalker, she just got the other side of it. ...and frankly, as someone who hates Emet-Selch rather a lot, I can tell you that his side was just as hard to swallow in disagreement as Venat's apparently is.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

It should also be pointed out, this whole argument is victim to a bit of recency bias that we should be trying to be conscious of. We remember when Hydaelyn had her big Tragic Hero Story Reveal very clearly, because we just got it and saw it.

What we need to remember is that Emet-Selch and Elidibus had pretty much the exact same treatment, in a story that I understand is fairly popular called 'Shadowbringers'. Venat didn't get unbalanced credit in Endwalker, she just got the other side of it. ...and frankly, as someone who hates Emet-Selch rather a lot, I can tell you that his side was just as hard to swallow in disagreement as Venat's apparently is.

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Except even in emet and elidibus’ case, we weren’t nearly as benevolent and understanding as we were to Venat. For example, i remember the dialogue directly before the SoS fight, both of the dialogue options we had were with pretty negative connotations. We basically had the choice to say you’re never going to win what you’re doing is useless or, all your friends and family are dead give it up. Versus the countless praise and dialogue given to Venat depicting her as a hero. I understand we’re the protagonist side and our allies revere Hydaelyn or what have you, but my problem is that despite everything we’ve seen heard and gone through, i don’t believe not once after zodiark’s demise is there any credit actually given to either elidibus or zodiark for both saving us and the world,both with zodiark’s shielding and with elidibus literally sacrificing himself to send us to the past. Instead all of the focus is put on Hydaelyn and Venat who even gets her own minion depicting her bravery and heroics.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

It should also be pointed out, this whole argument is victim to a bit of recency bias that we should be trying to be conscious of. We remember when Hydaelyn had her big Tragic Hero Story Reveal very clearly, because we just got it and saw it.

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That's something that I urge people to consider as well, but for the exact opposite reason. Endwalker has made the vast majority outside this forum forget the Ascians side of the tale. Nobody was saying Emet-selch was in the right, at least I would hope not, I wasn't around here when Shadowbringers debuted. However, he was liked because his goals were sympathetic in the sense of one losing their home and seeing it torn asunder for a place that seems far more miserable and bleak than the one that came before it. He wasn't necessarily one to be agreed with, but he was understood.

Meanwhile Venat, who has much the same views as Emet-selch but spun 180 degrees, is treated as only doing what she's done out of necessity, the only one who knows the truth, a hero, etc etc. However frustrating it may be for you, being one who dislikes Emet, I can promise you this dissonance of the narrative favoring Venat in absolutely everything is far worse for people who could truly empathize with the Unsundered.

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Originally Posted by QT_Melon

Also adding on to 5. in my post above. I really really am hesitant to put that in some morally grey with "better for everyone" I'm not saying Sundering itself for the plan to work out is bad, but I really question the easy morality of saying if it's not "murder" then it's better

It's like people don't know or remember the whole history of lobotomy. I mean we're basically mind wiped, possibly put into immediate danger/death in sundering. Had our bodies messed without consent. If someone said "well at least you were raped instead of murdered" that person would get a swift punch in the face and baby maker :P

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I'm so glad you pointed this out because this is actually my main issue with the sundering. In fact, it's my whole issue with both sides of the debate. In both cases it seems to boil down to one person or a tiny group of people deciding the fates of everyone else on their own. I think I may be coming at this from a different perspective because one of the most important things to me is individual autonomy and from the very beginning of this game I feel like I've hardly had any. I log in and a crystal is already trying to guide me and then I have to join a group called the scions which I never cared to do in the first place. My character never wanted to be tied down to or associated with one single group. Then later on in HW I get told this whole story about light and dark being one at the beginning but then dark became corrupted and wanted power and now it's up to me to make sure evil doesn't win...but then it's later revealed that there's way more to the story and it's not at all a black and white situation like it was presented to me.

The whole argument that Venat had to do what she did doesn't fly with me because in the end it comes down to CHOICE. And the ancients' choice and autonomy was taken away from them by force. It doesn't matter if I don't agree with someone about their choices. I can't then go and take over their body, mutilate them, erase their memories and give them all a slow cancer that eventually kills them "for the greater good."

And so the opposite is also true for me - the last of the unsundered don't get to then take mine and everyone else's choice away by rejoining everything. How about we sit down and talk about everything without the scions trying to divert my attention to another area or fetch quest? I wanted to talk to Emet and Elidibus a lot more and then if at the end of all the talking and debate we still can't reach any kind of common ground then ok let's fight. Either way, pretty much the whole time I've felt like our character has been treated like a tool for Hydaelyn's side when I never wanted to be on anyone's side but my own.

The Ascians had hardly any story at all prior to ShB. They were generic villains who worshiped a "dark god" and sought to sow chaos. As for Hydaelyn, I still believe she was being set up to go a different direction that they abandoned at the last, possibly for the dreaded subversion of expectations. There's simply too much prior to ShB that contradicts her only ever being benevolent. While I never thought it realistic they'd make her wholly evil, I also wouldn't have thought so for her to be wholly good either based on her history yet here we are.

-She tells Minfilia instead of escaping Ul'dah with the WoL to stay behind and die, which she does, and somehow nobody is disturbed by this? (Insert rant about how Minfilia, if not tempered, was a zealot and it's ridiculous that not only does no one treat her as such, but she's later said to have had free will and followed her heart. Yeah, okay.)
-Minfilia is then "adrift and alone" in the aetherial sea until she offers herself up to be used as a vessel by Hydaelyn to become the 'Word of the Mother' and, again, no one has as much problem with this as they should.
-Game art portrays Minfilia chained to the Mothercrystal and it doesn't appear pleasant.
-Hydaelyn does not intervene in saving the First from the Flood until Urianger and the WoDs force her hand in the matter. (Additionally, given the context of EW, it's possible this was on purpose because Venat knew the First had to be rejoined in a timeline.)
-We learn that Hydaelyn does, in fact, recruit. Not only via star showers, but a creepy automated message that's sent out to those with a triggered Echo. While this was discovered in ShB from Elidibus, it turned out to be true so I don't consider it spin. She also says in HW: "As the Ascians must serve as instruments of Zodiark's will, so too must others carry out the will of Hydaelyn."

Minfilia remaining on the First to spend the next century possessing young girls and using them to fight sin eaters to the death is also something that didn't receive the attention it should have in terms of morality. While we don't know for certain if Hydaelyn was in on this, it's at least clear by the time of Ryne that Minfilia doesn't want to do it anymore but reluctantly will if Ryne doesn't choose her own destiny. Take that as you will.

The irony is that the portrayal of Hydaelyn in ShB was more favorable to her morally than what they ended up going with in EW. She went from appearing to be the protector of new life to no better than Hermes. As much as people say her being an antagonist would've been a trope, she's not only still an antagonist but her motivations are even worse than they appeared to be in ShB. The only difference is every aspect of the narrative in EW tries to gaslight you into thinking otherwise.

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Originally Posted by OhNooo

I log in and a crystal is already trying to guide me and then I have to join a group called the scions which I never cared to do in the first place.

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Here I thought I was the only one who didn't want to join the Scions! Yet another dialog choice in EW that doesn't offer anything but positive options.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

Here I thought I was the only one who didn't want to join the Scions! Yet another dialog choice in EW that doesn't offer anything but positive options.

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Are you also the type of person that was mad you didn't get to agree with Gaius in the Praetorium?

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

Here I thought I was the only one who didn't want to join the Scions! Yet another dialog choice in EW that doesn't offer anything but positive options.

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I didn't really mind joining the Scions, but I did have a big problem when Y'shtola told Unukalhai during the WT that WoL signed up knowing full well that they would be forced to kill tempered individuals.

Like what? That's just an outright lie, we only get told about all that after joining and after killing Ifrit, when Thancred pulls us aside and goes "Yeah those guys? All executed, be ready to do it yourself in the future."