[Spoilers] I’m irrevocably Unimpressed

Troll thread. It's all just bait

Leave it to the pseudo-intellectuals of FFXIV to think that sacrificing all life on a planet to a malevolent god is a-ok because someone misses their hometown that died out ten thousand years ago..

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Originally Posted by Katie_Kitty

You don't have to be a moral "absolutist" to think thay murdering entire planets is wrong. What utter nonsense.

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People can sympathise with and even support a character's shady actions in a fictional setting because it isn't real. It is in no way equivalent to supporting such atrocities in the real world. Stop trying to project malicious behaviour onto other posters because they like and support different characters to you. It's pretty concerning!

It's not as deep as you're trying to make it out to be. It's just a matter of personal preference and it shouldn't bother you in the slightest that different people have different tastes.

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Originally Posted by Lersayil

Hah, funny that! Emet made pretty much the same argument.

As for others likening this scenario with real world events... there is a convenient line to be drawn. Emet is not human. He is very clearly superior to us in almost every way. At the very least 14 times so than the average shard dweller. That is why people are bringing up the chicken analogy. Its not perfect, but its easy, and gets the point across how he sees us.

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If we're going to go into this argument, Zodiark has been split into pieces and banished, thus is inferior to Hydaelyn, therefore the Ascians worship the inferior "religion" in almost every way. And now there's only true Ascian left, the rest of them are probably just shards.

https://i.imgur.com/wv15zKK.png

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Originally Posted by Katie_Kitty

Leave it to the pseudo-intellectuals of FFXIV to think that sacrificing all life on a planet to a malevolent god is a-ok because someone misses their hometown that died out ten thousand years ago..

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To be fair, we know nothing of Zodiark's personality. We know what 13 members of the Convocation were willing to do to summon him, restore the world, and planned to do to bring back those lost in doing so, but nothing of if He even wanted it at all.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

To be fair, we know nothing of Zodiark's personality. We know what 13 members of the Convocation were willing to do to summon him, restore the world, and planned to do to bring back those lost in doing so, but nothing of if He even wanted it at all.

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Well, there's that and the simple fact that it was apparently a necessity to make the sacrifice in order to secure a future - something which Hydaelyn prevented by destroying Zodiark and shattering reality, which put a complete end to the Ancients and the society. The worst part is she lied about doing so and gave no indication that there was more to the story.

By virtue of being Primals rather than actual deities, they'll very likely need to both be eliminated somehow. It's just a matter of finding a way.

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Originally Posted by Katie_Kitty

You don't have to be a moral "absolutist" to think that murdering entire planets is wrong. What utter nonsense.

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Flew over your head, did it?

You... kinda just proved my point. It's all a matter of perspective, and you only consider ours. You state as fact that his act is outright evil, no matter the perspective or situation. Well, to him, its not. To him its like crushing a few ant hives. And he's not even doing it out of self interest, but the continued survival of his race.

AND if one of those ants proves worthy / living / sentient enough, he even gives them a chance to join him, or defy their plan.

Naturally to the ant, it's all horribly wrong (or evil if you prefer more black and white terms), and it should by all means do everything in its power to thwart their extinction.

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Originally Posted by Lersayil

Flew over your head, did it?

You... kinda just proved my point. It's all a matter of perspective, and you only consider ours. You state as fact that his act is outright evil, no matter the perspective or situation. Well, to him, its not. To him its like crushing a few ant hives. And he's not even doing it out of self interest, but the continued survival of his race.

AND if one of those ants proves worthy / living / sentient enough, he even gives them a chance to join him, or defy their plan.

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Yeah this here I agree with. Emet was a great villain because his cause is something it's possible to sympathize with - from his perspective, his ultimate goal is virtuous. He wants to restore his home, bring back his friends and family and loved ones. He wants to erase what he sees as a pale imitation, a mockery of everything he loved and fought and watched his people die for. He wants to undo the events of the past, which is exactly what we're trying to do by fighting to stop him - to stop the calamity that ended us.

I very much disagree with him, and don't think that his ends justify his means. The slaughter of billions is, from my (and my WoL's in character) perspective, an unacceptable atrocity. But from Emet's point of view, he was very much in the right. It's exactly like he said before the final fight - the winner writes the history, and the loser becomes it's villain. So it goes.

Honestly, in the end, I got the impression he was genuinely hoping we'd prove him wrong. That we'd prove ourselves worthy, whole enough to be worth his attention, his alliance even. He was hoping we'd turn out to be worthy inheritors of his star, worthy of becoming its new stewards. And he was disappointed, angry, that we weren't.

Until we won the fight, at any rate. Him asking us to remember his people felt, to me, like him acknowledging us - not as a lesser life form, but as someone that could keep his people's memory alive, even if he couldn't anymore.

Of course, I also know the story isn't finished yet. So who knows what'll happen after this. :P

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Originally Posted by Lersayil

Flew over your head, did it?

You... kinda just proved my point. It's all a matter of perspective, and you only consider ours. You state as fact that his act is outright evil, no matter the perspective or situation. Well, to him, its not. To him its like crushing a few ant hives. And he's not even doing it out of self interest, but the continued survival of his race.

AND if one of those ants proves worthy / living / sentient enough, he even gives them a chance to join him, or defy their plan.

Naturally to the ant, it's all horribly wrong (or evil if you prefer more black and white terms), and it should by all means do everything in its power to thwart their extinction.

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There's a big difference between wiping out a few ant hives and wiping all ants from existence. If you set your life goal with making ants extinct, you better believe your going to get pushback from Humanity in the real world.

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Originally Posted by Avidria

Honestly, in the end, I got the impression he was genuinely hoping we'd prove him wrong. That we'd prove ourselves worthy, whole enough to be worth his attention, his alliance even. He was hoping we'd turn out to be worthy inheritors of his star, worthy of becoming its new stewards. And he was disappointed, angry, that we weren't.

Until we won the fight, at any rate. Him asking us to remember his people felt, to me, like him acknowledging us - not as a lesser life form, but as someone that could keep his people's memory alive, even if he couldn't anymore.

Of course, I also know the story isn't finished yet. So who knows what'll happen after this. :P

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Yes! You get it! I think a previous poster kept on trying to say I was wrong about this, but this is exactly what I got from it too. His fight as Hades was out of desperation, you could see him struggling to let go until you finally defeated him. He literally had a whole thing about it during the battle. In the end he deemed us worthy. In defeat he was finally at peace. There was only one way this could end.

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Originally Posted by Lersayil

Flew over your head, did it?

You... kinda just proved my point. It's all a matter of perspective, and you only consider ours. You state as fact that his act is outright evil, no matter the perspective or situation. Well, to him, its not. To him its like crushing a few ant hives. And he's not even doing it out of self interest, but the continued survival of his race.

AND if one of those ants proves worthy / living / sentient enough, he even gives them a chance to join him, or defy their plan.

Naturally to the ant, it's all horribly wrong (or evil if you prefer more black and white terms), and it should by all means do everything in its power to thwart their extinction.

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But simply by acknowledging that those ants are alive, you're placing them higher than Hades places fractured life.

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Originally Posted by Edax

There's a big difference between wiping out a few ant hives and wiping all ants from existence. If you set your life goal with making ants extinct, you better believe your going to get pushback from Humanity in the real world.

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And the Hydaelyn group did protest! After a fashion. Humanity would protest it... unless their existence was a detriment to them. Not to mention if the races survival depended on their death. Look up the argument around that mosquito gene therapy extermination argument that's going around nowadays. Not a great many arguments are made on moral ground against it there.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

But simply by acknowledging that those ants are alive, you're placing them higher than Hades places fractured life.

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Eeehh true. It's hard to come up with a good and simple analogy for this situation. Its hard to come up with a semi-sentient living example that is basic, miserable, and morally as abhorrent to us, as mortals are to Emet.

Anyways, its (at the risk of sounding like a broken record) a matter of perspective. In the game we only have his word to go on. They don't look so incredibly different from us (aside from being extremely powerful and utopian), but time and again they are stated as such, and no one really pointed it out... so I guess its a writing issue? It's hard to write such superior beings without them being utterly alien.

"Reflection" is not the right word for the new life forms made from fragmented Ascian souls, it's very misleading. We do exist. We're not like the ghosts in Amaurot who don't even know they've been dead a long time. (I think they put Amaurot there so people won't miss this point.) Emet's a very lonely psychopath who can't get/grow past the sacrifices of his fellow Ascians, as if he died along with them. So, I wouldn't be surprised if he really wanted WoD to put an end to his misery all along.

So what makes Emet a villain? Let's say a bunch of people I care about sacrificed themselves to save our world, and the way to get them all back is to kill entire species of dogs. Would I do it? Would I do it after living among generations of these dogs, some of which I even gave names to? I'd be a monster to say yes.

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Originally Posted by Lersayil

Eeehh true. It's hard to come up with a good and simple analogy for this situation. Its hard to come up with a semi-sentient living example that is basic, miserable, and morally as abhorrent to us, as mortals are to Emet.

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Perhaps the killer bee. Just as the Ancients created all the races on the Source and the Shards, we humans created the killer bee. The responsibility for the existence of the killer bee rests on humanity for creating them in a lab and I am sure there are some who wish that killer bees be unmade. Nevertheless, the bees themselves are not a sentient civilization. The problem with Emet's philosophy is that he judges living civilizations as not being alive, which is pure self-serving delusion.

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Originally Posted by Katie_Kitty

Leave it to the pseudo-intellectuals of FFXIV to think that sacrificing all life on a planet to a malevolent god is a-ok because someone misses their hometown that died out ten thousand years ago..

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There's nothing that states that Zodiark was in any way malevolent. He saved the world from being destroyed. If anything, that's good.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

There's nothing that states that Zodiark was in any way malevolent. He saved the world from being destroyed. If anything, that's good.

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Hydaelyn can speak to humanity, so could zodiark. If he didn't condone human sacrifice in his name then why did they keep doing it?

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Originally Posted by Katie_Kitty

Hydaelyn can speak to humanity, so could zodiark. If he didn't condone human sacrifice in his name then why did they keep doing it?

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The major reason being that Zodiark is not in any state to communicate today. There has not been one line spoken by the being, nor any inferred to be His words.

Furthermore, the actions that were being requested of Him were world changing events. And primals do not turn down willing sacrifice, just about none are exempt from this, at best are those that communicate that there is price to be paid for their request to be served. Seeing that the amount of sacrifice done was a precise number suggests that his summoners had at least that much information with regards to what it would take.

have grandparents that fought in one those ww I agree with Kidalutz. I think concept of gencide even in fictional one is disgust at best and remind that aleast have the comman grace of know it wrong

I believe the being of Zodark and Hydaelyn are different because they battle against each other and who creative them design them to fundmental oppose to each other remember hydaelyn exsist in a sea of aether so I believe she creative it and in turn create life through it.

it is interesting how we discuss a birth of a fictional unverse but enjoyable at as well

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Originally Posted by Jellybums

"Reflection" is not the right word for the new life forms made from fragmented Ascian souls, it's very misleading. We do exist. We're not like the ghosts in Amaurot who don't even know they've been dead a long time. (I think they put Amaurot there so people won't miss this point.) Emet's a very lonely psychopath who can't get/grow past the sacrifices of his fellow Ascians, as if he died along with them. So, I wouldn't be surprised if he really wanted WoD to put an end to his misery all along.

So what makes Emet a villain? Let's say a bunch of people I care about sacrificed themselves to save our world, and the way to get them all back is to kill entire species of dogs. Would I do it? Would I do it after living among generations of these dogs, some of which I even gave names to? I'd be a monster to say yes.

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Yeah. His methods were something we couldn't stand for. However, from his perspective (and likely any remaining Ascian) the worlds that came to be as a result of the Sundering weren't truly real, nor were the beings inhabiting them alive. They were just parts of a greater whole that was fractured. The Rejoining was/is the Ascians' plan to fix that by making all things whole again. So yeah, I don't necessarily agree with him or the Ascian agenda but it's all pretty much 2 sides to the same coin...and so I can't help but sympathize with them a bit. From Emet's perspective, we are the villains and he's fighting to preserve what we knows and holds dear. From our perspective it's...basically the same thing. The Warrior of Light just goes about it a different way.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Yeah. His methods were something we couldn't stand for. However, from his perspective (and likely any remaining Ascian) the worlds that came to be as a result of the Sundering weren't truly real, nor were the beings inhabiting them alive. They were just parts of a greater whole that was fractured. The Rejoining was/is the Ascians' plan to fix that by making all things whole again. So yeah, I don't necessarily agree with him or the Ascian agenda but it's all pretty much 2 sides to the same coin...and so I can't help but sympathize with them a bit. From Emet's perspective, we are the villains and he's fighting to preserve what we knows and holds dear. From our perspective it's...basically the same thing. The Warrior of Light just goes about it a different way.

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It's not the 2 sides of the same coin. One is attempting necromancy. The other is trying to save the living. As much as we can sympathise with the loss of loved ones, morality itself tends to look down on raising the dead using non-consensual blood sacrifices. He's the villain in his own story. He's chosen to stain his hands with every evil in the world in order save the dead.

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Originally Posted by Edax

It's not the 2 sides of the same coin. One is attempting necromancy. The other is trying to save the living. As much as we can sympathise with the loss of loved ones, morality itself tends to look down on raising the dead using non-consensual blood sacrifices.

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And as I said, from THEIR perspective we aren't even alive. We are indeed fighting for the living, but to them we are fighting for fragments of a shattered past...a past they wish to see restored, people and all. We have the moral high ground though. The Ascians are simply doing whatever it takes, and that is why Emet and his fellow Ascians needed to be stopped. We really do share 2 sides of the same coin, in that we want to preserve our ways of life. We just have a bit better of a moral compass on ours. There are things we simply wouldn't do, like sacrificing entire worlds.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

And as I said, from THEIR perspective we aren't even alive.

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Alive or not, he's destroying consciousness and civilizations to raise the dead. It is still an act of extreme evil. If say I were to encounter a city of ghosts or undead that had conscientious and morality and I wiped them all out anyway for my own selfish goals, I would still be the villain.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017...ebookJumbo.jpg

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Originally Posted by Edax

Alive or not, he's destroying consciousness and civilizations to raise the dead. It is still an act of extreme evil. If say I were to encounter a city of ghosts or undead that had conscientious and morality and I wiped them all out anyway for my own selfish goals, I would still be the villain.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017...ebookJumbo.jpg

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I agree that it is evil. But good and evil is also a matter of perspective. That was a point that the story was trying pretty hard to make.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

I agree that it is evil. But good and evil is also a matter of perspective. That was a point that the story was trying pretty hard to make.

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Like I said, from his own perspective, he's still the villain. He's not heroic, he's not making any self-sacrifice to reach his goal (he's sacrificing others for him) and he's not saving anyone (because they already died long ago). He's not on the Hero's Journey.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ourney.svg.png

From his own perspective, he's on a Negative Character arc.

https://i.imgur.com/h33VD05.png

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Originally Posted by Edax

Like I said, from his own perspective, he's still the villain. He's not heroic, he's not making any self-sacrifice to reach his goal and he's not saving anyone. He's not on the Hero's Journey.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ourney.svg.png

From his own perspective, he's on a Negative Character arc.

https://i.imgur.com/h33VD05.png

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We can go back and forth like this all day if you want. I would rather not. All I was really saying was Emet was doing it wrong...but I get why he was doing it. That's all.

I mean I see no problem with people finding the bad guys interesting or like them more than the good guys, but what I dont understand is when people try to spin it as if these villians are suddenly good and any other good character is suddenly evil and needs to be killed because they are not perfect..like what you want but accept that these are the evil ones.

I found Emet to be an interesting well written character. In one part I could understand him, because loss of your loved ones is horrible and at least he seemingly gave us a chance..but seeing how he is tempered to Zodiark and his mission was to start civiliations that should bring calamities, I wonder if he was ever truly free of any bias.

In the end I just see his and the ascians actions as wrong. Dont forget that even when the souls were still complete and the planet whole, did they talk about mass sacrifice of the new lifes. The lifes that other ancient ones sacrified themselves for. They are not only ready to kill billions of lifeforms which probably included lots of sentient life too, but are trampeling on the wishes of those that made the sacrifice at the start. Their race (what was left of it) could have easily started again. They could have rebuilt their cities and in a far away in the future they could have had their new utopia. Yet instead of honoring the sacrifice of the death and look forward, they tried to recreate the past no matter the cost. And it were Ancient ones that went against the Ascians. It were Ancient ones that created Hydaelyn in an act to defend the lifes that their kin has sacrificed themselves for. So it was a part of their race that decided that our lifes should continue to live on. The ascians are in that matter going against so many wishes of their own people and over the bodies of billions. So why should they win? Why should these 13 Ascian have the right to decide what will happen, when another part of their race decided that it was fine on how it was? How many of those that had sacrificed themselves to create a future for the rest would be utterly disgusted by what the Ascians are doing?

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Originally Posted by Alleo

I mean I see no problem with people finding the bad guys interesting or like them more than the good guys, but what I dont understand is when people try to spin it as if these villians are suddenly good and any other good character is suddenly evil and needs to be killed because they are not perfect..like what you want but accept that these are the evil ones.

I found Emet to be an interesting well written character. In one part I could understand him, because loss of your loved ones is horrible and at least he seemingly gave us a chance..but seeing how he is tempered to Zodiark and his mission was to start civiliations that should bring calamities, I wonder if he was ever truly free of any bias.

In the end I just see his and the ascians actions as wrong.

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Well said. Personally, I could never defend the actions of the Ascians (though it seems like some have taken it that way, and I apologize for any misconceptions) but Emet gave people some insight as to why were doing what they were doing. It was nice being able to understand their rationale, and I found it interesting that I could sympathize with the villain on multiple levels while still being unable to defend him. The end goal simply couldn't be allowed to happen, and so it turned into an "us vs them" scenario. Could there have been a better way? Who knows. But Emet forced out hand.

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Originally Posted by Insertcoins

So you want your character to be deleted? Cause that's what'll happen if they win. You'll get deleted. So no game for you. So no... besides... why?

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Why do I have to think of Yoko Taro now? lolz

it turn out life versus death in a way. through if one the leader who stood up to them was warrior of light but yet in stead allow her or him to remain dead hydialyn restore her/him brought about place holder for your character rebirth. what better way to face against the ascain the one they own enemy who help create Hydialyn in first place. seem Hydialyn knew what she was doing and seem an ability to think for her self in same way Zodark does. even have ascain are destroy we will be have still fight Zodark and those he temped to evil.

I figure that that your soul was also separate into 13 shade aswell. I wonder if you regain all 13 will you be able remember piece of that life. hmmm I smell an expansion in the works

11 piece part of the soul to go

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Originally Posted by Savagelf

it turn out life versus death in a way. through if one the leader who stood up to them was warrior of light but yet in stead allow her or him to remain dead hydialyn restore her/him brought about place holder for your character rebirth. what better way to face against the ascain the one they own enemy who help create Hydialyn in first place. seem Hydialyn knew what she was doing and seem an ability to think for her self in same way Zodark does. even have ascain are destroy we will be have still fight Zodark and those he temped to evil.

I figure that that your soul was also separate into 13 shade aswell. I wonder if you regain all 13 will you be able remember piece of that life. hmmm I smell an expansion in the works

11 piece part of the soul to go

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7 calamities have already happened. If I remember correctly? Idk, but with each calamity and rejoining to the source this strengthened our soul. Minus the void because the WoL in the void isn't dead and has been salvaged by the Ascians, but we don't know why they did this. So, apart from the Ascians, we are the closest to being complete.

So, that's technically 7 fragments of our soul that have already become apart of us from the start of the game. We started the game, half complete.

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Originally Posted by Gwenorai

7 calamities have already happened. If I remember correctly? Idk, but with each calamity and rejoining to the source this strengthened our soul. Minus the void because the WoL in the void isn't dead and has been salvaged by the Ascians, but we don't know why they did this. So, apart from the Ascians, we are the closest to being complete.

So, that's technically 7 fragments of our soul that have already become apart of us from the start of the game. We started the game, half complete.

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Should be more than that. 7 Calamities = 7 rejoinings. So 7/14th added to 1/14th would put us at 8/14th at the start of A Realm Reborn. So we were slightly over half.

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Originally Posted by mario710

Someone please help me understand why the bad guys are never allowed to win?

Something seemed awfully wrong about the way Emet-Selch was taken out. By all accounts, he should have won.

I mean, are Ascians even evil?

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Shades of grey are far more interesting than a black and white narrative.

I wish we didn't kill Emet-Selch, or at least kill him this soon. SE really strays far away from making villains that are sympathetic or that have noble goals with just evil execution, they always made a black and white villain except for here. Good god, did they get it right with Emet-Selch.

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Originally Posted by CarnivalNights

I wish we didn't kill Emet-Selch, or at least kill him this soon. SE really strays far away from making villains that are sympathetic or that have noble goals with just evil execution, they always made a black and white villain except for here. Good god, did they get it right with Emet-Selch.

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Noble is a matter of perspective. People are leaving out the part where the ascians needed to keep sacrificing half their population to give Zodiark the aether it needed. Also that the ascians ultimate plan was to do a rejoining and then sacrifice all life on the Source. They were chasing after a world whose time was over trying to recreate a past that was gone. As Alisae said they can’t bring back the dead.

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Originally Posted by Delily

Noble is a matter of perspective. People are leaving out the part where the ascians needed to keep sacrificing half their population to give Zodiark the aether it needed. Also that the ascians ultimate plan was to do a rejoining and then sacrifice all life on the Source. They were chasing after a world whose time was over trying to recreate a past that was gone. As Alisae said they can’t bring back the dead.

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I literally did say noble goals with just evil execution.

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Originally Posted by Zazay

Why do I have to think of Yoko Taro now? lolz

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Because like it or not, he's coming.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DyZEk4xWsAA_wX8.jpg

Also worth noting something which I'm not sure if it's been mentioned in this thread (too much to read lol):

Originally Emet didn't have the "you're not actually alive so genocide isn't actually evil" excuse, he straight up just wanted to kill everyone born after the summoning of Zodiark to bring back the people who sacrificed themselves to stop the end of the world... so he was definitely willing to kill more than 'mere reflections' just to bring back his old friends.

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Originally Posted by Delily

Noble is a matter of perspective. People are leaving out the part where the ascians needed to keep sacrificing half their population to give Zodiark the aether it needed. Also that the ascians ultimate plan was to do a rejoining and then sacrifice all life on the Source. They were chasing after a world whose time was over trying to recreate a past that was gone. As Alisae said they can’t bring back the dead.

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Both sides were trying to recreate the world and bring back the ones they have lost. Though I’m starting to wonder just how much of The 8th Umbral Calamity as portrayed by Urianger was true.

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Originally Posted by Kallera

Both sides were trying to recreate the world and bring back the ones they have lost. Though I’m starting to wonder just how much of The 8th Umbral Calamity as portrayed by Urianger was true.

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...Uriangier portrayed the truth as a vision at the behest of the Crystal Exarch, who aokej by the survivors of the 8th Umbral Calamity 200 years after we died to Black Rose.


The information Uriangier told us was from the Exarch, not a vision.

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Originally Posted by Ameela

Also worth noting something which I'm not sure if it's been mentioned in this thread (too much to read lol):

Originally Emet didn't have the "you're not actually alive so genocide isn't actually evil" excuse, he straight up just wanted to kill everyone born after the summoning of Zodiark to bring back the people who sacrificed themselves to stop the end of the world... so he was definitely willing to kill more than 'mere reflections' just to bring back his old friends.

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Though he only referred to "life" not necessarily "sentient life".
It may very well possible that he was referring to flora and fauna in the general sense as an aether source and not necessarily developed civilizations.
At least in the original plan.

Later on, apparently civilizations developed and that's when the inner Ascian conflict came to be because eradicating sentient life would go against their ethics. Hence the "this world should belong to the newly formed life" and subsequently the summoning of Hydelyn as protector of said life.