[Spoilers] I’m irrevocably Unimpressed

[Daralii]

They are more acting like beast men, sacrificing people (crystals) for aether to summon a primal. They aren't using us as livestock because they don't eat us. Also, we at least recognize our food is alive, and there are laws in place to make the livestocks lives at least decent enough, though I agree that not all places abide by these laws and they could be better.

But animal cruelty is a thing that is frowned upon. The Ascians have no one left to judge them on ethics and morals.

Beastmen sacrifice people to summon primals too. I think the group that the WoL was with when they first encountered Ifrit were sacrificed to summon him, and obviously the kobolds sacrificed their own to try and summon Titan back when Ga Bu was introduced. The Ascians are below them in that regard, as they don't even see those they're sacrificing as being alive. As far as they're concerned, fractured beings are just crystals that can beg for their lives.

[Lauront]

It's quite simple. They sacrificed themselves initially to bring about Zodiark to salvage their world, and then resuscitate it. They intended for one final act of sacrifice beyond that to revive those who gave their lives to salvage their world and bring about their god.

We don't know what the specifics were as to how Hydaelyn came to be or what happened after, and many other things (such as the nature of the Primals, tempering etc), but a good guess is that some saw the sacrifice as too much/didn't like Zodiark for whatever reasons. Whatever these were, I can understand why the Ascians would be pretty pissed at some other Primal coming along, gobbling up the aether they had given to their god - even if she received her aether from other willing participants, because she did not stop there - and then shattered the world into pieces and erased all memory of it amongst all but a handful. I can understand why they regard these lifeforms as illegitimate, and no, I don't see them as "below" beastmen, but rather as having come to the conclusion that these aren't lives on par with those they intend to restore, but worse yet, who subsist off aether they regard as stolen and who came about as an act which tore their world apart. "Below" in what sense, after all? We humans regard all manner of beings and lifeforms beneath us and have no qualms in slaughtering them to realise our ends. Some disagree with the ethics of it but when it comes down to it we've already accepted this premise, that not all living things - or even all sentient things (thinking of possible future AI advances) - are equivalent to a human life. Even those who dispute this still regard certain life forms as irrelevances.

So their perspective makes sense to me. Yes, one may call it a genocide (with the issue of what they consider to be a moral agent making that debatable), and I certainly would not want to be on the receiving end of it, but it serves as ample rationale for their actions without implying they're "evil". They stand in a predatory relation to our characters and that's what it ultimately resolves to, but there is the added element of the aether consumption and Sundering.

I do somewhat sympathise with the OP in that I wish this were a game with factions at times... I have a preference for factions like the Sith Empire, and could easily see the Ascian story being written in such a way (it's an idle wish, before anyone comments on things that would need to change anyway...), and would certainly join that side. However, it's not to be, but I still enjoy them as antagonists. Emet-Selch is one of my favourite characters to date in a FF game, and that final fight with him was awesome. I'll freely admit I care far less about the Scions than I do about the Ascians. His parting lines indicate to me he finally accepted his time was up and he probably came to understand that his eyes did not deceive him when he saw in you one of his own people.

Even if they end up adding elements that change what we know of them, I still will enjoy them, but I think the way SE has presented it has been very good and I hope they cast the summoning of Hydaelyn as being motivated by something other than generic "Zodiark bad".

Be that as it may, I am open to SE killing off both gods. I don't hugely care for Hydaelyn and if they want us to be rid of her, unlikely as that may seem for now, so be it. Would be more interesting a story to me than it just being some rather trite Manichean struggle that so many games indulge in. Perhaps even grant them both a tragic end.


On the topic of Emet-Selch's form, I took the first to be his true Overlord form and the second to be something of an Ascian Primal, given how he coalesced it, which is why it took so much exertion to overcome. He had commented on how Lahabrea weakened himself by jumping bodies too much, probably without taking a break to restore his aether, so it is likely what one of these Overlords can do when they put their minds to it... thus I wish for something similar if we must reckon with Elidibus. That said, Lahabrea could still form the powerful Ascian Prime with the help of even a much weaker Overlord, so he was still capable of great things, but yeah not quite the same as Hades. Would that we were given a glimpse of Lahabrea's true form. I hope they don't repeat the same with Elidibus.

And finally and most importantly. We should not be judging each other for enjoying the story in our own ways. There's nothing concerning about people enjoying an aspect of the story. In fact the very idea that every part of the story, hero, villain, and supporting cast has readers/players who enjoy them is a Good thing. People routing for Emet is a Good thing. That means the character has relateable emotions and desires that people can understand and resonate with. It doesn't mean people want to genocide in real life. It doesn't mean people want to hurt others if given the chance.

Fiction is Fiction.
Its not wrong to enjoy Villains.
It is wrong to judge others on their enjoyment of a story.

Well said.

[Edax]

I'd say it's far more like livestock. All that life that they're going to kill isn't just because they don't see them as people. They plan to use them as fuel (aether). It's very similar to eating, i.e., consuming them.

Again, they would cause all races to become extinct when they consume them, mass genocide. That's nothing like livestock. That's more akin the the holocaust and the slave labor camps.

[Avidria]

Don't forget Emet-Selch is looking through rose-tinted glasses, focused over thousands of years.

Why did their world get destroyed in the first place? How do we know his entire enchanted city wasn't sugar coated?

This is a big part of why I don't think anything Emet said should be taken at face value, and his claim that our lives are pale imitations with no value wasn't much more than a nasty petty jab whether he believes it or not.

I wrote like, a book that's more general than directed at you under here lmao oops

His society wasn't half as perfect as he claims, just from what we've seen ourselves. Even his recreation is flawed - showing how easy it is for one stray thought, one instant of distraction to make a creation go awry. Their attempt to save the world left their people divided, and that division was so great that it led to the sundering of their world. Their greatest strength was their undoing - even the monsters that tore their city apart were believed to be manifestations of their own fears, a whole pack of creations gone wrong.

From this and everything I've seen of his world, and of the Ascians themselves, they're every bit as flawed as the lives he deems are worthless. They're just as capable of malice, of arrogance, of short sightedness. Every bit as capable of making mistakes.

He judged us worthless because we're fragile mortals who seem pretty prone to violence and selfishness - at least, that's how I took his arguments. And you know what, he made some valid points.

But when he started going off on how our lives didn't matter, on how we're acting like WE get to decide what's good for the world (don't remember the exact quote but it was something like that), about how we were nothing...

Those are the words of a man who's lived a hundred lifetimes grieving. He's angry, he's hurting, and he's taken on the burden of preserving his entire people's history. He refused to give up, because in his eyes, if he does, all of their sacrifice, all of their pain and loss and lives amount to nothing. This is a man who\\'s desperate, a man who's carrying an unbelievable weight by choice, and a man who's disappointed that we weren't what we thought he could be. That we weren't worthy to take over as the new stewards of his home.

So to actually answer the OP's question, I don't think he's evil, not really, not deep down. His actions were. The deaths of millions are on the Ascians' hands. He's a sympathetic villain because of his motivation, his goals, but not because of how he planned to get there. He could never have won, because him winning would run counter to everything the WoL has been fighting for this whole time.

At least, that's what I took away from this story. Like I said earlier in the thread though, I'm sure there's a lot we still don't know. And these are just my thoughts. :P

[Mezzoforte]

Yeah, he says we don't exist because that's how he copes with doing mass genocide. It's pretty clear we do exist. A fragmented soul is still a soul.

Points towards WW2. Come on dude. Guess who also used the same philosophy.

There is a clear difference here you aren't understanding. Are you saying when you go outside to kill a nest of wasps are you committing genocide wrongfully? When you remove an anthill? When you use handcleaner to kill bacteria? The Ascians are a higher form of life on a level the "regular people" can't understand, grasp, or attain. So it isn't actually genocide from the Ascian side because we are no different than a lower form of existence. If you are the kind of person who would let the ants invade and nest in his house due to it being morally wrong to kill them since it is genocide or refusing to use hand sanitizer because it would be genocide then you have something to stand on.

Otherwise you are just being as conceited as the Ascians are themselves. To use your "comparison" you would be just as much a nazi as the nazi's were.

[Edax]

There is a clear difference here you aren't understanding. Are you saying when you go outside to kill a nest of wasps are you committing genocide wrongfully? When you remove an anthill? When you use handcleaner to kill bacteria? The Ascians are a higher form of life on a level the "regular people" can't understand, grasp, or attain. So it isn't actually genocide from the Ascian side because we are no different than a lower form of existence. If you are the kind of person who would let the ants invade and nest in his house due to it being morally wrong to kill them since it is genocide or refusing to use hand sanitizer because it would be genocide then you have something to stand on.

Otherwise you are just being as conceited as the Ascians are themselves. To use your "comparison" you would be just as much a nazi as the nazi's were.

The problem with your comparison is that the Ascians (or whatever they were called), created the very life they seek to destroy when the split the source into 14 pieces. Emet himself is not a "superior lifeform", his soul was split apart by Hydaelyn along with everyone else's. They are responsible for the life they created, which is fundamentally different with humans and ants. The Ascians are equals to the other sentient lifeforms of all the other worlds. That everyone used to be superior makes no difference, they were all equal before and after the Separation. The Ancients are only a legacy.

[Bright-Flower]

Also the ancient society doesn't strike me as being that far above us. In terms of what they could do sure they had fancy creation magic etc. But they lived in a city. Had a government and a society and standards of dress etc. The only way in which they strike me as being any magnitude greater than the current spoken races is just in their sheer power.

[WaterShield]

The problem with your comparison is that the Ascians (or whatever they were called), created the very life they seek to destroy when the split the source into 14 pieces. Emet himself is not a "superior lifeform", his soul was split apart by Hydaelyn along with everyone else's. They are responsible for the life they created, which is fundamentally different with humans and ants. The Ascians are equals to the other sentient lifeforms of all the other worlds. That everyone used to be superior makes no difference, they were all equal before and after the Separation. The Ancients are only a legacy.

I thought they made it clear that Emet Selk and Elidibus have their whole soul?

[Bright-Flower]

I thought they made it clear that Emet Selk and Elidibus have their whole soul?

They did. As did Lahabrea.

[Edax]

I thought they made it clear that Emet Selk and Elidibus have their whole soul?

I must have missed that, but how do they have their souls? And why do they not appear the proper size? And wouldn't death be impossible if they were still in their original forms?