Emet-Selch *Major Spoilers*

[Lethros]

Because it's not real, and the writers/designers, as do most others it seems, still believe in conflict rather than love, forgiveness, and cooperation. Unconscious beings moving to dissolve each other like a game of chicken rather than concresce and to move in a way greater than their parts. I was disappointed with how it went. At least the dragons weren't all killed in Heavensward

[Arillyn]

Because it's not real, and the writers/designers, as do most others it seems, still believe in conflict rather than love, forgiveness, and cooperation. Unconscious beings moving to dissolve each other like a game of chicken rather than concresce and to move in a way greater than their parts. I was disappointed with how it went. At least the dragons weren't all killed in Heavensward

I'm not sure how they could move together in cooperation? The Ascians want all the sundered worlds recombined back into one whole world - what it was before. Those who don't remember the world as whole and only as their own sundered world/shard want to continue to live. It's like being pregnant - you are or you aren't - there is no in-between or compromise to be had there.

Snip

This is why I felt so moved by Emet and the ShB story, you just put it into better words than I could. We could be Emet in a JRPG - trying to heal our broken world and friends - not trying to commit genocide. I mean that is what he's doing and what we would be doing, but not seeing it for what it is.

[Edax]

I'm not sure how they could move together in cooperation? The Ascians want all the sundered worlds recombined back into one whole world - what it was before. Those who don't remember the world as whole and only as their own sundered world/shard want to continue to live. It's like being pregnant - you are or you aren't - there is no in-between or compromise to be had there.



This is why I felt so moved by Emet and the ShB story, you just put it into better words than I could. We could be Emet in a JRPG - trying to heal our broken world and friends - not trying to commit genocide. I mean that is what he's doing and what we would be doing, but not seeing it for what it is.

I mean you could draw parallels to Emet and John Marston from Red Dead Redemption. Marston just wants his family back to bring things back to the way they were and ended up committing mass murder as he shoots his down thousands of soldiers, bandits and renegades for the government. The key similarity is that even though John Marson is the protagonist, he's still not redeemed for the mass murders he's committed and is gunned down by the same agency that he worked for. Both John Marston and Emet had to account for the blood on their hands and they paid the ultimate price for it and I don't think either game was wrong to kill them both. We can sympathize with their motives but the good they do does not wash away the bad.

[Arillyn]

I mean you could draw parallels to Emet and John Marston from Red Dead Redemption. Marston just wants his family back to bring things back to the way they were and ended up committing mass murder as he shoots his down thousands of soldiers, bandits and renegades for the government. The key similarity is that even though John Marson is the protagonist, he's still not redeemed for the mass murders he's committed and is gunned down by the same agency that he worked for. Both John Marston and Emet had to account for the blood on their hands and they paid the ultimate price for it and I don't think either game was wrong to kill them both. We can sympathize with their motives but the good they do does not wash away the bad.

I never said it was bad to kill Emet, nor what he was doing was right. We had to do what we had to do - we had to stop him. I'm just saying I can empathize with his reasons of trying to bring back his world and friends.

[TeraRamis]

I'm not sure how they could move together in cooperation? The Ascians want all the sundered worlds recombined back into one whole world - what it was before. Those who don't remember the world as whole and only as their own sundered world/shard want to continue to live. It's like being pregnant - you are or you aren't - there is no in-between or compromise to be had there.

Again, you're arguing the narrative had to go a certain way because the narrative went that way.

This is fiction... and not particularly provoking fiction, as a general rule of thumb. The bad people are bad, and we - being the 'light aligned' good people - kill them. Should it come at any surprise that some of us are getting kind of bored with that (especially when it involves offing the occasional compelling character in the process? The treads of our mighty bulldozer of purity can broke no halting! All must be ground beneath DESTINTY© as brought to you by Square Enix).

If that doesn't work for you, how about this? I'm going to argue this from the perspective of the narrative, just like you are doing: the hero of light is responsible for billions upon billions of beings never being born, because the world that would exist if the Ascians managed to merge all the shards to the source is being denied. We're essentially pre-genociding untold magnitudes because we don't approve of the reality that they would exist in.

See how ridiculous that is?

[Lauront]

Again, you're arguing the narrative had to go a certain way because the narrative went that way.

This is fiction... and not particularly provoking fiction, as a general rule of thumb. The bad people are bad, and we - being the 'light aligned' good people - kill them. Should it come at any surprise that some of us are getting kind of bored with that (especially when it involves offing the occasional compelling character in the process? The treads of our mighty bulldozer of purity can broke no halting! All must be ground beneath DESTINTY© as brought to you by Square Enix).

If that doesn't work for you, how about this? I'm going to argue this from the perspective of the narrative, just like you are doing: the hero of light is responsible for billions upon billions of beings never being born, because the world that would exist if the Ascians managed to merge all the shards to the source is being denied. We're essentially pre-genociding untold magnitudes because we don't approve of the reality that they would exist in.

See how ridiculous that is?

It also ends up maintaining the status quo, where the souls are enervated and continue to grow weaker, plus the worlds are detached and their aether split across them... which, when you think about it, means it's also weakened relative to any other stars out there. We'll find out in due course what the real crux of Zodiark and Hydaelyn's disagreement was, but at least up to now there has been plenty of latitude in the story for making sense of the Ascian perspective. And as you say, it is in the end a writer's choice for it to go the way it has gone (or the way it will go) - it's not set in stone.

[TyrTry]

See how ridiculous that is?

It's a traditional archetype in literature: good vs evil; good always comes out on top. It's familiar and it is probably why you will always see that particular element in storytelling.

I guess the thing I liked the most about Shadowbringers is that...there were times I didn't feel like the hero. We didn't go around parading that we were "The Warrior of Light" in this world, because we would immediately be scorned and feared. We just...kind of went along with the plan; to save people (whether they were of dark or light). And EVEN THEN, I felt that my allegiance was in question. I was a fan of this expansion because it TOYED around with the idea of Light is NOT ALWAYS GOOD. I didn't feel like a "Warrior of Light"; simply just a warrior. It may have been "because the narrative went that way" when Emet-Selch said "Screw it. I'mma kill you all now.", but it didn't feel unnatural that he did. As the climax came to a close, it was pretty clear that he wasn't going to change and that (damned if you do or don't), only one of you was going to walk away alive.

[Arillyn]

Again, you're arguing the narrative had to go a certain way because the narrative went that way.

This is fiction... and not particularly provoking fiction, as a general rule of thumb. The bad people are bad, and we - being the 'light aligned' good people - kill them. Should it come at any surprise that some of us are getting kind of bored with that (especially when it involves offing the occasional compelling character in the process? The treads of our mighty bulldozer of purity can broke no halting! All must be ground beneath DESTINTY© as brought to you by Square Enix).

If that doesn't work for you, how about this? I'm going to argue this from the perspective of the narrative, just like you are doing: the hero of light is responsible for billions upon billions of beings never being born, because the world that would exist if the Ascians managed to merge all the shards to the source is being denied. We're essentially pre-genociding untold magnitudes because we don't approve of the reality that they would exist in.

See how ridiculous that is?

This is an MMORPG and these types of games typically have a good vs. evil motif. There is conflict of some kind.

Also, I wasn't arguing anything - just pointing out that the two sides are diametrically opposed. Even irl when that happens, it is extremely rare that those two sides will cooperate. You can dislike the story and that's your opinion. Others also didn't. A lot of people did enjoy it (I enjoyed it because it put the Ascians motives in play - they aren't just the big bad with no reasoning behind it even though I can't agree with their methods. It also made me ask questions about my character because Hydaelyn is a primal - am I tempered? Am I really the good guy?) But since you seem upset at the story - what would you have done differently? How would you have had Emet and the WoL cooperate?