Can we get choices that really matter and have a effect?

[AnimaAnimus]

I would never choose genocide. If my people had been destroyed, I would have mourned their loss, erected a memorial and moved on.

But if the souls of your people were shattered and you were able to reconstruct them, is it really genocide? Hydaelyn was more the perpetrator of genocide than the ascians in this situation. And wouldn't undoing that genocide be the actual good thing to do? Isn't that what we should be rooting for?

I look at the souls of the ascians as vases that zodiarc was in charge of keeping safe after an earthquake nearly knocked them over. Hydaelyn, however, pushed him out of the way and smashed all the vases with a hammer, missing only a few, then locked zodiarc outside. She then rearranged the shards to serve her own purpose,, but how is breaking back into the room, pushing her out of the way and reconstructing those pieces back into a whole vase again, be akin to or even worse than, their initial destruction?

The ascians do not want to destroy the world, they simply want to put the pieces of the world back together after a complete psychopath barged in an smashed it.

[Iscah]

I look at the souls of the ascians as vases that zodiarc was in charge of keeping safe after an earthquake nearly knocked them over. Hydaelyn, however, pushed him out of the way and smashed all the vases with a hammer, missing only a few, then locked zodiarc outside.

You're assuming Hydaelyn deliberately shattered the worlds with malicious intent. We don't know that for sure.

We have no idea of the details of how it happened, or what Her intent was. She might have believed She was acting correctly and only intended to push out Zodiark, only for that act to have a run-on effect. Maybe it was deliberate to prevent a greater disaster, whether genuine or perceived.

Whatever the reason, it's not fair to judge until we have at least heard both versions of the story. There is still a lot we don't understand.

[AnimaAnimus]

You're assuming Hydaelyn deliberately shattered the worlds with malicious intent. We don't know that for sure.

We have no idea of the details of how it happened, or what Her intent was. She might have believed She was acting correctly and only intended to push out Zodiark, only for that act to have a run-in effect. Maybe it was deliberate to prevent a greater disaster, whether genuine or perceived.

Whatever the reason, it's not fair to judge until we have at least heard both versions of the story. There is still a lot we don't understand.

If it was an unintended effect, you would think she would also be trying to undo what she had done. But instead she is trying to prevent the rejoining from happening at all costs. There is no reason given other than "because I want you to, you are my chosen". You would think that if the consequences would be more dire than her just being dethroned, she would have mentioned it at some point. If nothing else it would just make us try harder if we knew that rejoining the shards would mean the end off all existence.

The shatter happened tens of thousands of years ago, I think the "wait and hear the reasons from the thing that destroyed us" approach to why we shouldn't try to recover from genocide went out the door many millennia ago and isn't really a reasonable option to begin with

[Iscah]

If it was an unintended effect, you would think she would also be trying to undo what she had done. But instead she is trying to prevent the rejoining from happening at all costs. There is no reason given other than "because I want you to, you are my chosen".

There is a reason: to the best of our ability to understand right now, barring any complete reversals of Her apparent personality, Her responsibility is to protect life and act as a benevolent mother-goddess.

Once the shards are split, perhaps She sees each one as equally 'alive' and worthy of protection?

There's a vast difference between actively shattering the worlds for the sake of it, and doing it accidentally but then seeing it as more important to maintain these multiple lives than to forcibly collapse them back into each other.

Or perhaps there's some underlying greater evil that would result if the world was made whole again, but splitting the shards keeps them safe.

We just don't know. But I do know that the concept of "malevolent Hydaelyn" remains at odds with everything I have seen so far. There are reasons to raise questions and approach any further interaction with Her warily - but there is just as much reason to doubt the exact detail of how Emet regards Her. There is reason for him to portray those events negatively, regardless of whether they were truly negative or positive.

[LolitaBansheeMeru]

You're assuming Hydaelyn deliberately shattered the worlds with malicious intent. We don't know that for sure.

We have no idea of the details of how it happened, or what Her intent was. She might have believed She was acting correctly and only intended to push out Zodiark, only for that act to have a run-on effect. Maybe it was deliberate to prevent a greater disaster, whether genuine or perceived.

Whatever the reason, it's not fair to judge until we have at least heard both versions of the story. There is still a lot we don't understand.

expect we already know how that will go with Hydaelyn saying her story which wil be I did what was needed blah blah and of course our characters will believe it no matter what and side with her because the the other one is big bad darkness. That is really the way they will write it.

not even counting the fact of its a female character well kind of, its a light holy type design character so they are not going to make that up to be wrong in anything that she does even if it was on purpose.

[Iscah]

expect we already know how that will go with Hydaelyn saying her story which wil be I did what was needed blah blah and of course our characters will believe it no matter what and side with her because the the other one is big bad darkness. That is really the way they will write it.

After an awful lot of JRPGs which go the opposite way and have the benevolent goddess turn out to be evil all along, I'm quite looking forward to (I hope) having Her turn out to be genuinely benevolent. It will be a pleasant change for once.