Emet-Selch *Major Spoilers*

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Originally Posted by Elladie

So, pretty much like G'raha Tia then? He had no qualms about killing all the people in the bad future to save the people in the past ....

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Considering all the lore the game gives along with the tales from the shadows entry that talked about that bad future, it wasn't really G'raha Tia alone. From tales from the shadows: 'A world forsaken':

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In addition, by presenting their plan as an attempt to save the Warrior of Light rather than a bid to rewrite history, they were able to gain the support from survivors of many different species and subgroups. Representatives from various settlements came to donate resources and foodstuffs to Garlond Ironworks, despite possessing barely enough to sustain themselves. Many of them were also acquainted with the Warrior of Light, some even claiming to have been beneficiaries of the late hero’s acts of philanthropy.

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Over time, support for the Ironworks continued to grow, their cause finding allies in the most unexpected of quarters.

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Many, MANY of the people living in that doomed future wanted it to be unwritten by their own choice; even if it may be inadvertedly causing themselves to be sacrificed depending on how time worked. Whereas Emet-Selch was ready to bring suffering and death to all the innocents of the source and every shard in order to save the world he knew, G'raha's mission was to alter the events of the past in order to give all those who suffered & died a second chance and most importantly, wouldn't be enacting complete and heartless genocide to do so. G'raha's mission was one of hope and saving as many as possible, where Emet-Selch's was one of desire at the expense of all living things besides the Ascians (and tempered shenanigans), which is a huge fundamental difference between the two of them. The desire to save as many as possible vs the desire to only save one race, at the expense of destroying all other life to do so.

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Originally Posted by MariaArvana

Considering all the lore the game gives along with the tales from the shadows entry that talked about that bad future, it wasn't really G'raha Tia alone. From tales from the shadows: 'A world forsaken':

Many, MANY of the people living in that doomed future wanted it to be unwritten by their own choice; even if it may be inadvertedly causing themselves to be sacrificed depending on how time worked. Whereas Emet-Selch was ready to bring suffering and death to all the innocents of the source and every shard in order to save the world he knew, G'raha's mission was to alter the events of the past in order to give all those who suffered & died a second chance and most importantly, wouldn't be enacting complete and heartless genocide to do so. G'raha's mission was one of hope and saving as many as possible, where Emet-Selch's was one of desire at the expense of all living things besides the Ascians (and tempered shenanigans), which is a huge fundamental difference between the two of them. The desire to save as many as possible vs the desire to only save one race, at the expense of destroying all other life to do so.

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And I will reply with quotes from the same story in Tales from the Shadows that demonstrate many people also OBJECTED to the plan

'This was met with some resistance, however, as many expressed disapproval at the idea of forsaking those in the present day in order to save a world they would never live to see. Unable to deny this, Master Cid simply nodded and said: “Even so, our sacrifice will not be for naught.”

'Their aim was to change the past to create an alternate reality in which the Calamity never occurred─a feat rendered conceivable by their knowledge of the advanced technologies of fallen civilizations. However, many of those who would bear the burden of continued existence in a world ravaged by Black Rose failed to see this as a viable stratagem. Such responses were consistent with my projections, as it is generally the primary objective of all life-forms to secure their own survival in the here and now.'

'Many of Master Cid’s followers either refused to cooperate or expressed a desire to leave the Ironworks altogether. Certain former employees went as far as to appropriate equipment and supplies by force before heading into the wilderness to fend for themselves.
Although the vast majority opposed Master Cid’s radical proposition, a select few remained to lend their assistance.'

I am pretty sure these quotes demonstrate that G'raha's acts were opposed by the majority. So again, what is the difference between him and Emet Selch? Except, of course, that G'raha is on the same side as the the WoL

Guy is literally tempered by Zodiark, he would never stop attempting for more Rejoinings even if we came to an understanding.
Sure he had a noble cause but the way for that cause to succeed was genocide. He didnt even consider people real just immitations.

Yotsuyu got back to her evil self anyway, if she was to survive as a Primal she would have killed everything and it wouldnt have been her doing it, as shed eventually lose control and the Primal would take over[Shive 2.0 is a good example]

Minfilia was boring cause people think a leader should be at the frontlines of a battle, which isnt true. Most of the help/assistance the WoL received was her doing.[but sure shes useless /s]
Minfilia 2.0 wants to be in the frontlines instead, cause she grew up being trained to fight[due to Ranjit] and later Thancred training her.

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Originally Posted by TeraRamis

Because I was being sarcastic; because labels-mean-someone-equals-evil is about the lamest excuse ever for motivation to hate a character.

These forums are increasingly helping me to understand why... creative vehicles like Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey made boatloads of money.

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Huh, and here I was expecting a conversation, guess there wasn't one to be had :/

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Originally Posted by Theodric

If nothing else, hopefully Emet's popularity gives the development team more confidence to do something very bold with the story as it moves towards a conclusion. After all, there's plenty of people - myself included - who play JRPG's for the intriguing antagonists rather than for the often stereotypical protagonists.

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I doubt it, from what I can tell FFXIV has a Roadmap Planned out and are just over time getting it illustrated.
So now its a matter of "Is another good villain coming soon?" or "Will the story make a such a bold move?"
Everybody wants good villains, but its much harder to write a good antagonist then it is to write a decent Protagonist

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Originally Posted by Elladie

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We don't know the exact numbers of who supported vs rejected Cid's plan by the time they were ready; but the fact is, there was still a sizeable chunk that approved by the time the plan was put into motion given the lines I quoted. Especially in apocalyptic times, people have a per-disposition to look after themselves, as Omega even states bluntly - "as it is the primary objective of all life-forms to secure their own survival in the here and now." If our world suffered an apocalyptic event and then the remnants of Microsoft said they have a plan to re-wind time, how many people would realistically believe them until they whipped out a time machine?

But I already said why. G'raha's plan is to save the doomed future, and by extension, preventing untold amounts of death, destruction, damage, etc in the future of every Shard along with the Source due to how linked they are, even if time worked where past timelines are just wiped out, the sacrifice of a small amount of people (given that black rose annihilated huge swaths of the source's population by the time of the tales from the shadow) would save the majority and prevent untold amounts of suffering across all of existence. Emet-Selch wanted to do the opposite: genocide of untold levels to bring back his people long dead.

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 on Hiroshima & nagasaki, killing a small portion of the population to lessen the suffering and death of countless more innocents, vs invading Japan proper, causing magnified tons more death, suffering & damage from soldiers, innocents, structures, buildings, etc etc on both sides being killed/destroyed during the invasion due to Japan's WW2 mentality of never surrender. 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. And if time works out where the timeline gets wiped out? then they're not being destroyed, they're being given a second chance to live a life of peace and happiness in a tranquil world, than in one of death and suffering. 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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Originally Posted by Edax

I mean you could draw parallels to Emet and John Marston from Red Dead Redemption. Marston just wants his family back to bring things back to the way they were and ended up committing mass murder as he shoots his down thousands of soldiers, bandits and renegades for the government. The key similarity is that even though John Marson is the protagonist, he's still not redeemed for the mass murders he's committed and is gunned down by the same agency that he worked for. Both John Marston and Emet had to account for the blood on their hands and they paid the ultimate price for it and I don't think either game was wrong to kill them both. We can sympathize with their motives but the good they do does not wash away the bad.

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I never said it was bad to kill Emet, nor what he was doing was right. We had to do what we had to do - we had to stop him. I'm just saying I can empathize with his reasons of trying to bring back his world and friends.

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Originally Posted by MariaArvana

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. And if time works out where the timeline gets wiped out? then they're not being destroyed, they're being given a second chance to live a life of peace and happiness in a tranquil world, than in one of death and suffering. 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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Except their goal is not to save a "minority", or one race. It is to put the Source back on the footing it was before the Sundering, and restore the sundered souls to the state they were in before the Final Days. Their goal is entirely premised in terms of the state of the souls, as they view physical existence as fleeting and a mockery of life as it once was, with the cycle of rebirth presently in place further weakening the souls, and each rebirth resetting memory anyway. That is why they don't see an equivalence in the lives. One can try bring in tempering, or claim that Zodiark could not restore the souls, etc., but for now these remain unknowns, and their focus is what it is.

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Originally Posted by MirronTulaxia

Ascians are tempered. Tempered people aren't reasonable. Even Ramuh, one of the most reasonable of Primals, still has unreasonable tempered Sylphs. It kind of has to be that way. The alternative is "everyone dies". You could argue about killing him when we did, but how long can you keep him around without removing him as a reasonable threat? If the Ascians as a whole just took a step back and we focused solely on beating the evil empire I suppose it could work, but I don't really see that happening. They seem determined to finish things now.

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Two points: 1) we don't really fully understand how tempering works on higher life forms as yet and 2) we're assuming the "heart" (in this case, Elidibus, assuming he is the original) is also tempered, when prior instances of similar occurrences (Shiva, Thordan) do not imply the vessel for the Primal is tempered. Point being, their motives don't necessarily stem purely from tempering, and in at least one case, appear unlikely to do so. Hence, the focus by Elidibus has always been more squarely placed on equilibrium, whereas the other Ascians are more focused on Zodiark - but it is hard to discount Emet's (and probably, Elidibus's) nostalgia are big factors here in addition to their more pragmatic concerns.

Besides, Zodiark is not the only primal involved here; so is Hydaelyn. We know that the effect of tempering is, primarily, to spread the Primal's dominant element/energy, and this only secondarily has the side-effect of mind control (this is apparent from Emet's dialogue in the FR version and also from the new info from 5.1) The BoL, coincidentally, allows for the spread of Light. Of course this proves little, for now, but it does make one think...

In the end, I am reserving judgement on the Ascian project based on what led to Venat's group thinking that Zodiark was not a "permanent solution". Even if the writing team decides to make the (erroneous, IMO) decision to make it that Zodiark is some "big bad", or try blame creation magicks as "drying up the planet", etc etc., there is always the understanding that it could have been written differently, and as things stand, their plot point is one I could easily see myself aligning with in an RPG.

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Originally Posted by TeraRamis

Because I was being sarcastic; because labels-mean-someone-equals-evil is about the lamest excuse ever for motivation to hate a character.

These forums are increasingly helping me to understand why... creative vehicles like Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey made boatloads of money.

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You should see certain... sections of this forum. ;)

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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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This is an MMORPG and these types of games typically have a good vs. evil motif. There is conflict of some kind.

Also, I wasn't arguing anything - just pointing out that the two sides are diametrically opposed. Even irl when that happens, it is extremely rare that those two sides will cooperate. You can dislike the story and that's your opinion. Others also didn't. A lot of people did enjoy it (I enjoyed it because it put the Ascians motives in play - they aren't just the big bad with no reasoning behind it even though I can't agree with their methods. It also made me ask questions about my character because Hydaelyn is a primal - am I tempered? Am I really the good guy?) But since you seem upset at the story - what would you have done differently? How would you have had Emet and the WoL cooperate?

There's also the issue that given this is an ongoing story, we have to ultimately win or any defeat we take has to be salvageable as if we were to ultimately fail then that's the end of that.
We do also suffer a fair few defeats on our rise to greatness, The parting glass, The knights of the round and then losing the key to them later, Nidhog's revival, Iceheart, Zeno's x2, G'raha's poor timing, Elidibus, Ranjit, Emet and becoming a warden. Even now we're not exactly winning Elidi is up to something and we're not able to stop it thus far, we suffer losses, some are short lived but The parting glass arguably our biggest was the end of ARR, we had to stew in that one for a fair bit and we lost everything with that one.

As for siding with the "bad guy" or having large options like that, it really wouldn't work with XIV's story structure XIV is a single player story stuck in an MMO, you can have dynamic and huge story changing events in single player games as they're finite and have an ending where as in MMO's such decisions have to be accounted for going forward and every branch adds multitudes of workload to accommodate for, even in games like WoW while yes, you can be an "evil" class or one fuled by questionable means, you're still the "good guy" on the same story path as everyone else.

You also have to somehow have these players who took different paths coexist in the same world, how can you craft a story where you sided with the Scions and killed Emet, with the player who betrayed them and saved Emet but then have both doing the same quests next expansion, the only way that works is if you literally create two separate stories with their own locations and narratives and god help them if they let us make any other choices after that.