[Spoilers] I’m irrevocably Unimpressed

[Daralii]

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.

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

[Lersayil]

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.

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.

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

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.

[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.

[Edax]

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.

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.

[MomomiMomi]

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..

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

[Katie_Kitty]

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

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?

[Kallera]

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?

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.

[Savagelf]

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

[Vahlnir]

"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.

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.

[Edax]

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.

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.