What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

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Originally Posted by Theodric

The side quests in Elpis reveal that Hermes was far from the only Ancient to experience grief. I get the impression a lot of people are simply projecting their own experiences onto Hermes when to me he's one of the most laughable attempts at showcasing mental health issues and something as complex as depression and despair in a video game to date.

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Well, if people are finding him relatable, I think that would tend to indicate they got something right. Everyone's experience of depression is different. (I do think I recognized a lot of the absolutely wild depression-philosophy he was getting into in Ktisis Hyperboreia - I recognize that it's completely nuts, but it felt very similar to some of the rabbit holes I've gone into.) He does seem to be the only person who reacts as strongly as he does to the "necessity" of putting down animals that aren't meeting their performance metrics. Other people were experiencing grief, but was anyone else driven to the same level of despair over insufficiently successful animals? I don't think so. Emet has the whole monologue about how the Sundered are so worthless compared to him that our deaths are morally meaningless, and we can talk and express feelings - I really don't see any of the Ancients feeling more strongly than that about literal animals.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

The side quests in Elpis reveal that Hermes was far from the only Ancient to experience grief. I get the impression a lot of people are simply projecting their own experiences onto Hermes when to me he's one of the most laughable attempts at showcasing mental health issues and something as complex as depression and despair in a video game to date.

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All things "final enemy" related felt rushed specially for a multi-expansion plot.
But to be fair, the moment time travel was introduced again I pretty much checked out and couldn't help being snarky at every single revelation.

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You should replay those scenes, too. We are shown, emphatically, that they even possessed funeral rites for their living creations which were killed accidently.

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They weren't grieving for them, though. It was more of a "oops, their energy returned to the star, no big deal" philosophy. Heck, Hermes was specifically called out repeatedly by Emet precisely for seeing their creations as actually deserving of any concern whatsoever over their fates.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

They weren't grieving for them, though. It was more of a "oops, their energy returned to the star, no big deal" philosophy. Heck, Hermes was specifically called out repeatedly by Emet precisely for seeing their creations as actually deserving of any concern whatsoever over their fates.

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...they put flowers with them and were genuinely saddened by their deaths. They asked us how we say goodbye to the dead to incorporate that into that rite. I have no idea what you are talking about.

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Originally Posted by Tama-Kanzashi

...they put flowers with them and were genuinely saddened by their deaths. They asked us how we say goodbye to the dead to incorporate that into that rite. I have no idea what you are talking about.

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Not only that, though we see many researchers show genuine concern for the player character despite mistaking them for a 'familiar'. Even going so far as to offer up aether to ensure that the 'familiar' does not fade away. If that wasn't enough, many researchers are also shown to be very attached to their creations and those that go missing are shown to induce worry.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Not only that, though we see many researchers show genuine concern for the player character despite mistaking them for a 'familiar'. Even going so far as to offer up aether to ensure that the 'familiar' does not fade away. If that wasn't enough, many researchers are also shown to be very attached to their creations and those that go missing are shown to induce worry.

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I remember one researcher in Poieten Oikos fixing up a uh...questionable smoothie and being absolutely dejected when we refuse to drink it because it's kinda nasty, prompting us to say that we should talk to him anytime if we ever feel faint. This is my experience from DE dialogue, but yes it happened several times.

There is also several flavor dialogues prompted by walking by that talk about how much they love their creations and want to spend time with them.

If that is not genuine care and attachment, I don't know what it is.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

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First of all, moral values and morality are social constructs created by humans. Their primary goal is to ensure the survival and perseverance of humankind. Objectively speaking, once the self is removed from any situation nothing is good nor evil because no point of reference exists.

Needless to say, nothing about the social constructs is permanent or inherently true. As a result, we as humans of modern-day society can observe and study old civilizations and tribal communities that abided by moral values that had starking differences from ours.

In light of this, what you preserve as a villainous act is constructed by a world that does not exist in the game. Games cannot perfectly reconstruct our world and since characters are set in a fantasy universe, some of their decisions which are based on what is deemed to be logical and rational will inevitably misalign with in real-life moral values of some players.

The goal of Venat was to prevent the extinction of humankind through meaningless sacrifices to Zodiark. She succeeded by sundering the world. The Sundering is not an act of genocide. A Genocide leads to the absolute death and end of a certain group. The Ancients, although fragmented, continued their existence. Indisputably, some of the decisions made conflict with the moral values of the consumers of the story. However, this does not make them irrational, nor immoral in the game world.

The desire to depict Venat as a villain is driven by one's extreme reluctance to let go of what they perceive to be right.

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Originally Posted by Katoar

The goal of Venat was to prevent the extinction of humankind through meaningless sacrifices to Zodiark. She succeeded by sundering the world. The Sundering is not an act of genocide. Genocides lead to the absolute death and end of a certain group. The Ancients, although fragmented, continued their existence. Indisputably, some of the decisions made conflict with the moral values of the consumers of the story. However, this does not make them irrational, nor immoral in the game world.

The desire to depict Venat as a villain is driven by one's extreme reluctance to let go of what they perceive to be right.

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Except that if the last sacrifice had gone through as planned, being composed of non-human entities in exchange for the return of the human life given to Zodiark, humaniy would also have been preserved.

In sundering the star she left only 3 ancients remaining. The rest were changed irreversibly as has already been described at length in previous posts. What do you propose we call this then? Because I struggle to find any other appropriate terminology befitting of these actions or that of a character who chose to act in the way she did.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

Except that if the last sacrifice had gone through as planned, being composed of non-human entities in exchange for the return of the human life given to Zodiark, humaniy would also have been preserved.

In sundering the star she left only 3 ancients remaining. The rest were changed irreversibly as has already been described at length in previous posts. What do you propose we call this then? Because I struggle to find any other appropriate terminology befitting of these actions or that of a character who chose to act in the way she did.

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and then the Ancients get wiped out by Meteion's Song of Oblivion million of years from now........hooray???

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

and then the Ancients get wiped out by Meteion's Song of Oblivion million of years from now........hooray???

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Or alternatively given enough time as was afforded to them by Zodiark, they create concepts capable of being sent out to battle Meteion. Though to be honest, the introduction of both Dynamis and Meteion at the last minute was something that should not have happened, given all the problems it caused for the story.