Emet-Selch *Major Spoilers*

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Originally Posted by Arillyn

I'm not sure how they could move together in cooperation? The Ascians want all the sundered worlds recombined back into one whole world - what it was before. Those who don't remember the world as whole and only as their own sundered world/shard want to continue to live. It's like being pregnant - you are or you aren't - there is no in-between or compromise to be had there.

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Again, you're arguing the narrative had to go a certain way because the narrative went that way.

This is fiction... and not particularly provoking fiction, as a general rule of thumb. The bad people are bad, and we - being the 'light aligned' good people - kill them. Should it come at any surprise that some of us are getting kind of bored with that (especially when it involves offing the occasional compelling character in the process? The treads of our mighty bulldozer of purity can broke no halting! All must be ground beneath DESTINTY© as brought to you by Square Enix).

If that doesn't work for you, how about this? I'm going to argue this from the perspective of the narrative, just like you are doing: the hero of light is responsible for billions upon billions of beings never being born, because the world that would exist if the Ascians managed to merge all the shards to the source is being denied. We're essentially pre-genociding untold magnitudes because we don't approve of the reality that they would exist in.

See how ridiculous that is?

Considering Ifrit all but spells it out way back in 2.0, and especially given how much they've amped this up as being the case lately.... it's rather near explicit and I'm kinda hard pressed to see where you're finding reason to dispute this.

The "blessing of light" is a euphemism. She's a primal. What do we call those a primal has "blessed"?

She's not the good guy, they've dedicated this whole expansion to teaching you that.

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Originally Posted by Anatha

Considering Ifrit all but spells it out way back in 2.0, and especially given how much they've amped this up as being the case lately.... it's rather near explicit and I'm kinda hard pressed to see where you're finding reason to dispute this.

The "blessing of light" is a euphemism. She's a primal. What do we call those a primal has "blessed"?

She's not the good guy, they've dedicated this whole expansion to teaching you that.

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What is the point of teaching lessons when we default to the same formulaic resolution every time? Bad man is bad; bad man must DIE.

I didn't miss anything on my road to 80 - I understand what Square was showing us. They just chose to set aside their own lessons at the conclusion and reaffirm that it's our character's way or the highway.

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Originally Posted by TeraRamis

Again, you're arguing the narrative had to go a certain way because the narrative went that way.

This is fiction... and not particularly provoking fiction, as a general rule of thumb. The bad people are bad, and we - being the 'light aligned' good people - kill them. Should it come at any surprise that some of us are getting kind of bored with that (especially when it involves offing the occasional compelling character in the process? The treads of our mighty bulldozer of purity can broke no halting! All must be ground beneath DESTINTY© as brought to you by Square Enix).

If that doesn't work for you, how about this? I'm going to argue this from the perspective of the narrative, just like you are doing: the hero of light is responsible for billions upon billions of beings never being born, because the world that would exist if the Ascians managed to merge all the shards to the source is being denied. We're essentially pre-genociding untold magnitudes because we don't approve of the reality that they would exist in.

See how ridiculous that is?

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It also ends up maintaining the status quo, where the souls are enervated and continue to grow weaker, plus the worlds are detached and their aether split across them... which, when you think about it, means it's also weakened relative to any other stars out there. We'll find out in due course what the real crux of Zodiark and Hydaelyn's disagreement was, but at least up to now there has been plenty of latitude in the story for making sense of the Ascian perspective. And as you say, it is in the end a writer's choice for it to go the way it has gone (or the way it will go) - it's not set in stone.

But it cant remain that way, our character doesn't have a way if Emet did not.

In that scenario it's just tempered being tempered. At some point that becomes untenable.

And so if it is that way, how is that cycle broken? How is tempering overcome? Hopefully when they get to addressing that and how its worked out, that it's done well.

Just not sure what that looks like. The amaroutians weren't able to resist tempering even as complete souls.

I'm rather interested in seeing how the problem of Hydaelyn and Zodiark is solved. I'm just hoping it's not pulled out of whole cloth.

And again, maybe you did miss something because it's made explicitly clear that zodiark is not bad and hydaelyn is not good.

You seem to be holding on to a convention that's been tossed aside by the writers merely because Emet was killed. He had to go. He never had any intention of stopping his plans.

His only choice was "am I going to kill them or convert them"? We "failed" his test, so death it became.

He wasn't screwing around as Hades, that was not a test, that was an execution.

I have an opinion noone is going to like.. but I hate Ryne. Minfillia was way more useful tho sadly it was all offscreen so noone cares. I do, but I'm only one person. Ryne is literally useless for the entire trip until the end and even then you can make a case for her still being pretty lackluster. You have all been tricked into thinking she's useful because she's walking with you. As far as Emet? Yeah no, he needed to die. Just because he walked with us and told us his backstory doesn't mean he gets to avoid the axe coming for him. He was literally going to kill everything for a CHANCE at seeing his old dead friends again. Remember.. it's told to us that the rejoining isn't perfect. So what? We leave him alive to wipe out millions of lives for a chance? Yeah no fam, you gotta die faster then the moto bug in Sonic 1 green hills act 1 buddy.

As it got closer to the finale of Shadowbringers, I was starting to question our "allegiance" to Hydaelyn. I think it became apparent that we weren't exactly fighting ONLY for the light, but because we, honestly, had no choice.

Emet-Selch was in a place of no-return. He wasn't going to listen to reason. Since his introduction, he clearly had a scheme laid out for us and no amount of companionship or adventuring with him was going to change that.

He was going to destroy everyone and everything.

He was sympathetic.

He was very charismatic. That's why I think people liked him so much (including myself).

And he left a morality choice of "would you have done the same thing?"

But he was too far gone. Either he died, or you and the ones you loved did.

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Originally Posted by TeraRamis

See how ridiculous that is?

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It's a traditional archetype in literature: good vs evil; good always comes out on top. It's familiar and it is probably why you will always see that particular element in storytelling.

I guess the thing I liked the most about Shadowbringers is that...there were times I didn't feel like the hero. We didn't go around parading that we were "The Warrior of Light" in this world, because we would immediately be scorned and feared. We just...kind of went along with the plan; to save people (whether they were of dark or light). And EVEN THEN, I felt that my allegiance was in question. I was a fan of this expansion because it TOYED around with the idea of Light is NOT ALWAYS GOOD. I didn't feel like a "Warrior of Light"; simply just a warrior. It may have been "because the narrative went that way" when Emet-Selch said "Screw it. I'mma kill you all now.", but it didn't feel unnatural that he did. As the climax came to a close, it was pretty clear that he wasn't going to change and that (damned if you do or don't), only one of you was going to walk away alive.

When we had the fight, our character was down. I was saying to myself now the poorly written and most boring characters appear behind me magically. And who knows? The Scions appeared and all the previous excitement was gone, killed in one moment.
Shadowbringers is good but they just have to (for some reason) carry around that ARR level pack of npcs around with us. And the moment they give us someone interesting actually they kill him off. We'll twice actually, glad that Zenos is still alive
Heanvensward ftw