Emet-Selch *Major Spoilers*

[MirronTulaxia]

The Ascians A) don't really regard people as people, because Eorzeans are the broken, twisted remnants of a more evolved earlier race. If the entire human population suddenly devolved into Homo habilis, and you were one of like 20 people left, you would almost certainly view the bulk of "new humanity" as an abomination beneath you. And B), the Ascians were willing to step up and sacrifice themselves (voluntarily to empower Zodiark twice. So I think it's understandable that Emet-Selch and co. feel like they have paid their dues.

This is what makes good - re: not Zenos - antagonists compelling: because we can empathize and understand-with their motives, even if we might not necessarily agree (honestly, I'm at the point now where I will not rule out Hydaelyn being a cleverly-disguised foe; the ultimate 'great threat' to all existence). It's an issue that Final Fantasy games have struggled with as long as Squaresoft has existed, and they have a pretty spotty track record on it from game to game.

1. The Ascians don't regard them as people, but that doesn't make for a compelling argument because they are still very clearly people.

2. For all that the Ascians claim to be better than everyone else, the "lesser" race accomplish things they hadn't expected, like G'raha Tia pulling off his Crystal Tower thing. Other than a denser soul/bigger battery they haven't really demonstrated anything that makes them "better" than others.

3. I most certainly wouldn't feel like they're an abomination. Especially when I can talk with them, reason with them, and in general have no real means of saying they're different from me in a meaningful sense.

4. Emet-Selch and co... didn't pay their dues. They didn't make any sacrifices. It was others who made sacrifices. And then they want to kill unrelated people to try and rewrite those sacrifices. Committing genocide is, generally, a bad thing.

5. I'm not saying he isn't a compelling antagonist. But at the end of the day, he's still very much a monster, and not the same thing as the Exarch. You can argue there are parallels, but the difference is one is trying to save the future, the other? Not so much. Emet is trying to commit genocide to unwrite others sacrifices.

[Gojin]

I find it weird how people glorifying a villain who wants to genocide people.

[Elladie]

G'raha Tia isn't trying to save the future. He's trying to destroy the actual future so that he can have the future HE wants, a completely different future which doesn't contain the actual people from the actual future he doesn't want. Hence why the majority didn't support the Ironworks plan.

The beastmen are very clearly 'people' too, but the WoL apparently doesn't have a problem with killing them. You can't have moral values be applicable to only one side. But then we get the 'oh but ....' arguments. If the 'oh but the Ascians had a reason for considering others not people' doesn't count, neither does any other 'oh but' argument. It's either a moral absolute or it isn't, and if it is, you can't pick and choose who it applies to.

As for not wanting to do something about it if humanity was almost wiped out .... well, congratulations on your high-minded and saintly stance. Personally, if my parents, friends, siblings and children had sacrificed themselves to save the world and I had a chance to bring them back, I'd be seizing it with both hands. But I'm old and I'm a mother and grandmother, I'm not naive enough to kid myself I'd take your stance in those circumstances.

In other words, I can empathise - even sympathise - with Emet Selch. But he wasn't going to change his mind about the Rejoinings because he was tempered, and so there was no other option but to fight and hopefully destroy him. Fortunately for G'raha Tia, he is on the same side as us, so stopping him isn't something we consider necessary, although the WoL in the future that he ended may well have felt differently.

It's a matter of perspective. If you're not able to switch perspective and see things from another point of view, you are sadly lacking in empathy

Edit: I'm not sure where anyone has glorified Emet Selch. Perhaps you'd like to point that out?

[TeraRamis]

I find it weird how people glorifying a villain who wants to genocide people.

Hi, welcome to fiction. You can check the triggered morality at the door. Thanks!

[Avidria]

The future G'raha doesn't want is the future where most of the world, including people he cares about deeply, are dead. A doomed post apocalyptic world which, whether he fully knew it or not, was doubly doomed to ultimate destruction by the Ascians. His goal was to prevent a horrible future and to create a better one for everyone, a world that isn't defined by suffering in the wake of a cataclysm. From their decision making standpoint, really they were acting on the assumption the world as it was was doomed - from the opposition, it may have seemed like there was a chance to eventually mend the world, and make things better again. Only speculation, but of course people would want to believe that. Rewriting the past wouldn't heal their world, it would eliminate it, and any chance of proper healing along with it. So why would they support a plan like that?

I do think there are a lot of shades of gray here, and I wouldn't call G'raha and the Ironworks folks' choice morally "good" or "bad" at the end of the day - though it's certainly good for everyone in opposition to the Ascians, since it means we all get to continue to exist.

What was interesting about Emet to me is that I kind of got the impression he didn't fully believe what he was selling. The Ascians see us as inferior and unworthy, clearly, but it really seemed to me like he wanted to believe that wasn't true. I think on some level he wanted to be proven wrong. Whether he did or not, though, he was too deeply committed to his cause, had shouldered the burden of his peoples' memory for too long, and there really was no going back for him.

Bit of a tangent, but the WoL doesn't seem to have many problems killing anyone or anything, and imo there's a lot of gray morality in what they and the city-states do too. The city-states' hands are not clean in the dealings with the beast tribes, and part of that is from the same mindset that they are "lesser" even though they're clearly not.

[Razard]

Hi, welcome to fiction. You can check the triggered morality at the door. Thanks!

Oh hi Pot, you're looking awfully black today as well.

[Edax]

Let me make my own position clear, I'm not saying we shouldn't have killed Emet Selch. Given the parameters of the story, we had no choice. But it is nonsense to argue that G'raha is a good guy, he does exactly the same thing as Emet Selch; he destroys entire world/s to save the people in the past who are already dead and gone.

You're engaging in semantics by saying G'raha wants to save life and Emet destroy it. Or you didn't actually pay attention to what was happening in the story. G'raha travelled back through time to prevent the 8th Calamity from happening and in doing so, wiped out everything and everyone in the future.

Did G'raha "wipe out everything and everyone" when he went back in time? Is that how time travel works in FFXIV? If he travels back in time 5 minutes, did he just commit genocide and wipe out the previous world?

[SamRF]

Did G'raha "wipe out everything and everyone" when he went back in time? Is that how time travel works in FFXIV? If he travels back in time 5 minutes, did he just commit genocide and wipe out the previous world?

It's kind of mind bending to think about. Reminds me of the Swampman thought experience or Star Trek teleportation (body in location A gets killed and a copy is made in location B, is that still you?). What is "you"? Does it even exist? Are we dying every second and being reborn as cells replace themselves? Is this idea of a consistent self in time simply an illusion?

So if you travel trough time, are you killing all those previous existing consciousness (from the future)? That's what got to be happening I guess, unless a seperate timeline is made each time you time travel.

[Elladie]

It's kind of mind bending to think about. Reminds me of the Swampman thought experience or Star Trek teleportation (body in location A gets killed and a copy is made in location B, is that still you?). What is "you"? Does it even exist? Are we dying every second and being reborn as cells replace themselves? Is this idea of a consistent self in time simply an illusion?

So if you travel trough time, are you killing all those previous existing consciousness (from the future)? That's what got to be happening I guess, unless a seperate timeline is made each time you time travel.

It's not the travelling, per se. You could - theoretically - zoom backwards and forwards as much as you want. It's what you do when you get there. G'raha deliberately set out to destroy the future where he was awakened by Cid, by taking actions to try and stop the 8th Calamity from ever happening

[Edax]

It's kind of mind bending to think about. Reminds me of the Swampman thought experience or Star Trek teleportation (body in location A gets killed and a copy is made in location B, is that still you?). What is "you"? Does it even exist? Are we dying every second and being reborn as cells replace themselves? Is this idea of a consistent self in time simply an illusion?

So if you travel trough time, are you killing all those previous existing consciousness (from the future)? That's what got to be happening I guess, unless a seperate timeline is made each time you time travel.

I mean it depends how time travel works. If you're just reversing time (as in all the atoms and molecules are just moving backwards), your not destroying the previous world, it's just been altered. The previous consciousnesses will still be there, just altered.