Emet-Selch *Major Spoilers*

[Morningstar1337]

snip

So in a way the Ascians are a deconstruction of certain types of JRPG narratives? That does explain a whole lot actually.

[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.

[DPZ2]

Emet dies, and we live. Otherwise, End Of Story. Period.

[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.

[Averax]

Mass genocide is bad

[Lauront]

The thing that struck me as interesting is that the Ascians are basically in a role which, looked at from a different angle, could 100% be the normal protagonist role of some JPRG. Imagine that you have a JRPG where there's a world-shattering cataclysm and the world is broken into several different 'shards'. Your hero survives, and now finds themselves traveling from shard to see, seeing pale and distorted reflections of people they know -- things that are just a part of them, not the whole. The story presents it as though none of these shards are real, as though all the people you meet are hollow fragments. So of COURSE the hero's arc is to find a way to combine all the shards and save all the people and bring back the world! It's the sort of storyline no one would even really think twice about in some traditional JRPG. It's not 'destroying these worlds', it's gluing the fragments of a vase back together. Sure, they stop being individual fragments, but their identity is "vase", not "random pottery shard", right? It's just repairing things!

The issue is that those 'pale echoes' and incomplete shards may disagree on whether they're just pale and lifeless echoes... and from that viewpoint -- our viewpoint in FFXIV -- the 'hero' of that hypothetical JRPG is a genocidal monster.

There's no way the WoL and allies can accept or support the Ascians' goal, but it's a goal that's almost alarmingly understandable. Because if it were the Source that were broken into pieces, and the WoL wandering between these pale echoes and seeing twisted, incomplete versions of their Scion family... can we say the WoL wouldn't find themselves in a similar place, trying to figure out how to glue their world back together?

I think that's correct, and it's a perspective I take, but I'd add one other thing just to piggyback off the above - they view the lives in terms of their souls, as the relevant measure of "personhood". They see the mortal lives as fleeting and temporary and the rebirths as ultimately just further wearing down the souls to which they're accustomed, souls which they see being reduced to tattered remnants of their former selves (the WoL is the closest to something they'd identify.) Same soul, lives another brief life after being recycled through the Lifestream, it dies and reset is hit, over and over and over - this is really underscored in the short story for Hades, and in particular with the pity he feels for the "phoenix" in the story, again reflected in his comments throughout ShB, e.g. when discussing enervation. Add to this their world being split into 14, the associated damage this has done to its aether and the cycle of rebirth, plus the ancient world passing into oblivion, and their perspective makes sense to me. Viewed thus, I could totally see why such a view would make sense for a protagonist in a JRPG.

I thought this interview was pretty interesting:

Joel Couture, Siliconera: What inspired the storyline of Shadowbringers? What interested you in exploring how fine the line can be between good and evil?

Naoki Yoshida: Even in modern-day life, people already hold different views on where to draw the line between good and evil. The same can be said when you look back on history, in which the claims of those who emerged victorious were deemed to be right, whereas those who lost were wrong. However, with developments in culture and education, everyone knows that the world doesn’t work in a simple “good is right and evil is wrong” sort of way—I believe the world of Shadowbringers is a representation of that very idea.

What thoughts went into creating Emet-Selch’s backstory and character? What feelings did you want the player to go through as they journeyed with and ultimately fought against him?

Yoshida: One big goal we had in this story was to have players understand the Ascians. In order to do so, Emet-Selch needed to be not just an enemy, but a character that tries to understand the protagonist, the Scions, and the masses.

During development, we never really anticipate or try to predict what kind of emotions players would feel towards certain characters or the story. We feel it is more important for us to think about what kind of ideas and principles to depict rather than what kind of emotions we would like to evoke through exploring said ideas.

Shadowbringers may leave players feeling emotionally conflicted at its end. What interested you about making players feel a bit unsure about whether they’re doing the right thing?

Yoshida: I touched on this in a previous answer as well, but I would be delighted if Final Fantasy XIV served as a catalyst for people to ponder about themselves, their surroundings, parents, siblings, friends, and society, instead of holding onto the idea that good is rewarded and evil is punished. That said, we are entertainers, not philosophers—our greatest joy would be for players to enjoy the game, one way or another.

[Anatha]

The only reason we are trying to stop them is because *we* are tempered.
Given what happens when Hydaelyns tempered execute her imperatives... this won't end well.

I don't think it's ever been implied that anyone's broken out of the tempered state before, it's always talked about as a terminal condition.

[Edax]

The only reason we are trying to stop them is because *we* are tempered.
Given what happens when Hydaelyns tempered execute her imperatives... this won't end well.

There's no evidence of that. There's plenty of evidence to suggest the WoL would have acted to save the Scions on his/her initiative rather than siding against the Exarch.

[BlitzAceRush]

There's no evidence of that. There's plenty of evidence to suggest the WoL would have acted to save the Scions on his/her initiative rather than siding against the Exarch.

To add to that, even if we are tempered we've no idea if it works the same way for them, as Ardbert and co would also be Tempered being WoL from the first, yet they were able to be manipulated and used by the Asciens to aid in their plot, if they had no will and could only do things in order to serve Hydaelyn they wouldn't have been able to be "duped" into helping them.