Emet-Selch Is Not That Tragic

[Theodric]

And if you only look at the perspective of the characters themselves then someone like Zenos is a hero too! Seeing how he sees life, he quite right in what he does and is not evil at all. And no he was never meant to be seen as tragic hero. Even Yoshida made it clear afterwards that the Ascians are still the bad guys. Just now bad guys with at least some motives.

I think you're deliberately missing my point, given that Zenos has never been presented as a sympathetic character or a hero. Emet-Selch had actual motives and plenty of tragedy in his life. He simply wanted to bring back his loved ones and restore his homeland - no matter the cost. I think a lot of characters would do the same in his position and of those who claim otherwise, a significant portion would be lying to themselves.

[Alleo]

I think you're deliberately missing my point, given that Zenos has never been presented as a sympathetic character or a hero. Emet-Selch had actual motives and plenty of tragedy in his life. He simply wanted to bring back his loved ones and restore his homeland - no matter the cost. I think a lot of characters would do the same in his position and of those who claim otherwise, a significant portion would be lying to themselves.

And it does not matter because there are people out there who feel sympathetic to him. So if they look at it from his perspective alone then he is right, which is exactly your argument. (Which means people can never have a true discussion because most characters always believe that they are right) One cant just go around and suddenly say that it does not count for character x just because they are not shown in a great light. If you are allowed to argue in this case for one character, then its possible to do so for everyone.

And no I would not and I am also not lying to myself. I have people that I lost to death but as most people do, we learn to live with it. I would feel horrible getting those loved ones back by sacrificing others. Because I understand that these people that died also have loved ones..and I am not sure if those that came back would be fine with it..I would not be fine with living again, while knowing that this meant unknown amount of death..

Emet is also a bit blind in that regards because he just simply only cares about the 75% that are in Zodiark..but not only are those that sacrificed themselves those who survived the original attack but it was also only one city..Emet is only caring about those..not those that died in Amaurot from the calamity itself, not of those that survived it all and got split, not of those much higher amount of ancient ones that had no chance at all because Amaurot only did something when it was at their door step. We are from Amaurot and thus its quite clear that the souls of those ancient ones are reborn again..which means that probably a lot of people that are living on the source and shards are ancient beings. He does not care about those. His plan was not to bring the souls together and then at least let other Ancient and Amaurotines survive. No his goal will include his people too, one of them (us) even being someone he really knew and yet was ready to even go so far as to destroy our whole existance so that we would have never been born again.

And SE made it clear with the stances of the Scions, with showing Thancreds resolve in letting Minfilia go and giving the new life Ryne a chance at having a life, that they are on the side of letting go of the past. Hades is slain in a brutal way with the scions coming in and Thancred splitting the crystal so that Hades is hit with who knows how many shards which will probably hurt quite a bit. He is the monster in that stiuation, Ysthola calls him a being from hell and the whole scene is shown as us being the good ones. Only we listen to him when he finally understands and let go, the rest only cares if we are alright. This is not the sign of someone being shown as a tragic hero.

[Lersayil]

I think you're deliberately missing my point, given that Zenos has never been presented as a sympathetic character or a hero. Emet-Selch had actual motives and plenty of tragedy in his life. He simply wanted to bring back his loved ones and restore his homeland - no matter the cost. I think a lot of characters would do the same in his position and of those who claim otherwise, a significant portion would be lying to themselves.

They kinda tried to pull a... sympathy (?) card on us before the last battle. Turns out he is just... a nihilistic, thrill seeking, bored and lonely psychopath. I can see how people didn't warm up to that excuse.

...personally it resonated with the mmo murder-hobo within me just enough to offer to be his friend, but they reeeally didn't do much with him until that point.