FFXIV is just FFTA from the other perspective

[Alleo]

I never played FFTA but did their decision in that game also include killing billions of real people and later sacrifcing their souls to a false god? I honestly read a summary and it sounds nothing like FF14. The biggest difference: FFTA was playing in a dream world, while FF14 is in the real world. Of course its easier to destroy something which is truly not real which in turn seemingly also saved those that got pulled into it. In FF14 the Ascians simply cant accept that their time is over and that the world has gone on.

The funny thing is: We once were an Ancient too and probably the 14th member. And yet even though we lived in that world and were part of the leaders of Amaurotine we still did not want to be part of the Zodiark plan. And other Ancient ones also were against the future plans of the Ascians..so much that they call this the first true conflict that their race had and that they called Hydaelyn to go against them.

So sorry "we" once were looking at it from their side and "we" even lived through that and still decided to go against them. Maybe because killing who knows how many new lifes to maybe get old life back (who sacrificed themselves on their own free will) is just bad? At that time they simply could have stopped and those that survived it all could have rebuilt their homes. The planet would be whole and the souls not shattered. But no the Ascians needed more. Could not accept the sacrifice either thanks to their tempering or maybe because of their inability to go on. And thus in the end the planet was split and their race gone.

I wonder how much the writers regret using the darkness metaphor for the Ascians initially since it plays so much into the hands of the absolutists. I guess they did their best to show us 'Light as evil' in ShB but an age-old trope is still an age-old trope.

Its not even the darkness metaphor. Its them being people that are laughing at destruction and death they have created. Building whole empires for the sole reason of causing another rejoining and thus genocide. Its Emet saying how he sees us as not alive (yet makes children with us..)..its not just a metaphor, its their whole actions. If they showed regret in doing it...but no Lahabrea loves it. He laughs when Bahamut is free to slaughter the world.

Its also kinda funny since Yoshida stated in an interview after the release of the expansion that people should not forget that the Ascians and Emet killed millions of people. He also pointed out that some are way too fast to fully believe Emets side of the story and thus see Hydealyn as bad and that we should wait until we get her view on it. I could be wrong but that does sound like we will get more reasons on why this is the right and good thing.

[Brightamethyst]

Of course its easier to destroy something which is truly not real which in turn seemingly also saved those that got pulled into it. In FF14 the Ascians simply cant accept that their time is over and that the world has gone on.

Which is exactly how the Ascians see the situation. To them the current world and the people in it aren't real, and destroying it will bring the real world and all the real people back.

[SannaR]

Which is exactly how the Ascians see the situation. To them the current world and the people in it aren't real, and destroying it will bring the real world and all the real people back.

Sure if you ignore the whole fact they're tempered. For all we know they got instantly tempered right after they summoned Zodiark. If they were then how would they know that the want of bringing back those who willingly gave up their lives plan isn't actually their idea, but Zodiark goin heeey I can get them to give me more stuff if i tell em I can totes bring their friends back. Like they seriously come off as a bunch of people who went yay our world is saved, but we don't know how to grieve properly so we felt it'd be fine to kill even more of the survivors and the new life. All because they just wanted their friends back cause I guess they mean more to them than those who were still alive.? So sure this world doesn't seem like the "real" world to those who couldn't even accept the one they were given presundering.

[YianKutku]

Which is exactly how the Ascians see the situation. To them the current world and the people in it aren't real, and destroying it will bring the real world and all the real people back.

Not quite.

Literally only three "real people" (by the standards of Emet-Selch) survived the Sundering. One of them died, and Emet-Selch seems contemptuous of their demise. One of them is off planning stuff, and Emet-Selch doesn't even bother learning what, choosing to isolate himself and hide whenever Elidibus is around.

The plan was to destroy thirteen shards (or however many it took), and the attendant loss of life on the Source, to prepare for Step One of the plan. As in, all the Rejoinings and destruction that entails are Step Zero, as mere collateral damage. After everything is Rejoined, the plan was to cultivate enough life, then sacrifice that to bring the Ancients back. (Exactly what they will have to sacrifice next to bring the sacrificed life back is left unstated.)

And apparently Emet-Selch thinks that he can do all of this alone.

Given his plans also implicitly destroyed the ruins of Amaurot on the Source (according to dev comments), he's evidently not as attached to the past as he claims to be.

[Alleo]

Which is exactly how the Ascians see the situation. To them the current world and the people in it aren't real, and destroying it will bring the real world and all the real people back.

But it is real (unlike the dream world in FFTA) and just because these handful of old beings want their old ways back does not give them the rights to do so! Heck even before the split at least enough Ancient ones were against their idea of just sacrificing new lifes (thus whole souls) and fought against them. Yet they still believed that they are in the right and nobody else..who are they to decide the fate of billions? They are ready to kill the reborn souls of their own people..to save a relative few amount of those that sacrificed themselves willingly..and they probably dont even know if they can be brought back..

In the end their old world is gone. Its over. They have no more right to live there than we do. Its like someone from ancient rome being thrown into our world and believing their city to be worth more and trying to kill us all to get it back..I am sure that most of us would be against something like that.

But ironically it's fine for G'raha Tia to do the same thing as the Ascians, right? Fine to wipe out all the current people as if they never existed in order to save the old people from a few hundred years ago, right? The point being made is that we base our moral judgement on the side of the argument that we represent.

If someone can present me with a convincing explanation of how G'raha Tia's actions are different from the Ascians, I'll be happy to accept it. I don't think anyone is disputing the necessity of putting an end to the Ascian machinations - much though I enjoyed the ShB story, I didn't expect us not to kill Hades - but some of us do think the moral hypocrisy is pretty bad. I believe that's the point the OP is making, and that's the point I'm agreeing with him on.

Lets pretend and say that what Graha did was exactly the same as the Ascians do: What would that even change? Sometimes you have to choose the lesser evil of both options (just like splitting the world was probably better for the life than it being completely sacrificed to Zodiark) but that makes Emets and the Ascians choices not less bad.

But there is still a difference: The world after the calamity (which killed another millions of people btw) was not recovering. After 200 years the world was still in a bad place and the short story seems to hint that it has not gotten better for those still surviving it. Graha changed a world that was dieing. He did not leave a world behind that has become better and that has rebuilt..no he only did it because that calamity messed up too much. (I wonder if even the Asicans were shocked about it...seeing how Emet did not know the consequences of the chemical weapon infused with Light) Going back and preventing this calamity has saved millions of people (a whole shard and all those that died on the source) and also made it so that new life will continue to live. These souls of the future people are also still save and can be born unlike when the Ascians are winning because they would be used as sacrifices. And at the end this was an decision which was done by the future people themselves. We dont know how many agreed but Cid only left them a plan.

This is in no way comparable to what the Ascians want to do..their world had been saved by Zodiark..they could have lived on and started anew with the survivors (and there should at least be quite few of those) and let the death be reborn over time to repopulate the planet. But instead they wanted to sacrifice the new lifes making the situation worse..heck at the end after all those rejoinings and sacrificing the rest of the source..would the world even be alive anymore? Suddenly the circle beginns again...because Zodiark would need to repair that huge damage.

Luckily Emet-Selch has proven to be a very popular character so I'm fairly confident in saying that the writers will very likely take that on board moving forward.

Yeah like Yoshida who pointed out that just because Ascians (including Emet) have reasons does not change the fact that they have done genocide. He also pointed out that he found it interesting how fast some accepted Emets explanation and suddenly see Hydealyn as the bad one while he (Yoshida) is more of a person that wants to see both sides before making an assumption. Honestly I was a bit surprised by that interview because he made it quite clear that the Ascians are the bad guys who are murdering millions and that Hydealyn might have a bit different of a story in that.

In fact this is not true. If you read the OMG short story, it's made very clear that large numbers of people did NOT support G'raha Tia and the Ironworks. In fact they went so far as to attack the Ironworks to try to prevent it happening.

Yes, it's true we don't know that the other timeline was wiped out. But that is the consequence that G'raha Tia expected. He thought he would die and was very surprised he didn't. He thought it was a noble sacrifice he was making, but a lot of the people who thought he was dooming them to stop existing absolutely did not agree. Life was a big struggle for them, but they still wanted to live.

People going against the plan was at the time when Cid was still alive. Where he only was doing the research while he hoped that the future generations might solve the problem.

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.
This again was when Cid was still alive and needed ressources for his research. In the short story there was never a hint on how the people thought about it 200 years in the future. But seeing how many generations after him they went with that plan there is quite a big chance that the world was simply not getting better.

[YianKutku]

To reiterate the main point - which really does seem to be going unnoticed, or ignored, or something - no one is asking anyone to say 'wow the Ascians are the good guys after all!'.

Literally in this thread:

After finishing the Shadowbrigners MSQ if this was a game where the player had branching choices like a lot of aRPGs I'd be joining the Ascians.