Did the Ancient Amaurotians... (minor spoilers)

[sarehptar]

1. Their perspective is wrong. All those sentient beings are perfectly capable... and in general being every bit as good a person as anyone else.

2. Who said that I can't understand his reasoning? You can understand why someone does something, that doesn't make it justified.

3. Given your examples of villains being morally equivalent so far does not track and that a lack of understanding is the root of conflict relative to "don't cling to the past, live and pass on for the future, yada yada" I'm pretty comfortable with my stance. Feel free to pull quest text.

4. There is a huge, huge difference between the Crystal Exarch and the Ascians.

This conversation is going nowhere so I'm gonna call it quits after this but:

1. That's your opinion, your definition of wrong, and your definition of personhood. The Ascians clearly have different definitions of those things and if you don't personally want to acknowledge that the story gave them a differing perspective that's cool, but the rest of us who do recognize that the story asks us to at least look at things from that perspective will be over here enjoying the other half of the story.

2. Absolutely never said that the Ascians are justified from our perspective as players. Literally not once.

3. Did you miss the beast tribes who summon their gods out of fear that their territory will be stolen and their people massacred, a fear which is driven to ever more extreme heights by the WoL swooping in and murdering their gods in front of them? Did you miss the scene where Estinien realizes he and Nidhogg were parallels of each other, each driven to endless war by an unquenchable thirst for vengeance? Did you miss Lyse's decision to invite the Ananta to her peace talks even knowing the threat they posed because the only way to build a brighter future is through reaching understanding? Did you miss our efforts to actually parley with Emperor Varis--a talk which fell apart entirely because he refused to see any side but his own? Letting go of the past is a fine message, but complex stories can easily have more than one theme, and I really think you're missing a major point about building bridges with those of different perspectives in this game.

4. The Crystal Exarch is "different" because his actions were for us. If he were on the other side, there'd be no question of his actions being wrong. Imagine if he was an Ascian and used the tower to rewrite history to prevent Amaurot's fall instead of the Source's, erasing all the mortal lives of the shards. Would that be okay? Of course not, so why is it okay to do it to the people from the Source's bad future? Is he allowed to get away with erasing lives for the "greater good" because you happen to agree with his definition of good?

[Avidria]

Except it's not "let's kill every man, woman, and child on this planet" from the Ascians' perspective, it's "let's repair what was horrifically broken and save our world." They're not justified to us, the players, but they are certainly justified to themselves, and that you seem so fixated on the tiny details of Hydaelyn's motivation but entirely failed to notice the story going out of it's way to paint Emet-Selch as a direct foil to the WoL and a character whose motivations we are supposed to understand even while we recognize them to be abhorrent from our PC's perspective, that boggles the mind indeed.

Ah yes. Excellent logic. "The examples you gave are not accurate but my example is, promise." I'd bother to go pull actual quest text of I thought it would have any chance of affecting your opinion, but I can tell it won't so I'll just end with: I really wouldn't use anything the Crystal Exarch says as your "moral of the story, " given that, by traveling to the First/past and creating a paradox, he essentially wiped out an entire timeline and obliterated the lives of many people who would have been born in that timeline, rewriting history for what he deemed the greater good--the exact same thing the Ascians want to do.

My only comment on the end part there is I don't think it's actually confirmed what happened to the timeline the exarch left behind, and it actually seemed like it was implied in the short story that everyone there would be left to "live on in a doomed world" or something along those lines. Only way it makes sense without being a total paradox as well imo.

Not debating that it was every bit as morally gray as what the Ascians are doing, but the exarch also had the added benefit of it turning out that no, it's likely no one would have been born after a time in that world, because it was doomed to be the timeline where the Ascians win and eradicate everything to restore their civilization (likely hand picked to be those who supported their actions in the first place, or they'd likely end up where they started anyway imo). Perhaps not something he knew going in, but hey. Lucky him. Things were worse for his side in that world than he knew :P

[MirronTulaxia]

Snip.

1. It's a reasonable stance on all accounts. The Ascians having a different stance does not, somehow, make it justified.

2. Then your argument is completely missing mine.

3. Nope, didn't miss any of those. None of those are "and it's okay to kill everyone" which is the point you're missing. You can understand other sides. That doesn't mean that the actions the other side takes are justified, right, or in general correct.

4. No, the Crystal Exarch is different because his actions were for everyone. It wasn't just for the WoL. It was to create a future where many more people would be alive. Not to recreate the past like the Ascians. The world was doomed. They tried every other possible answer they could think of, and then tried to do that. And it was a cause supported by people in said doomed timeline to begin with. Ultimately, it saved more lives than it lost, especially when you factor in the First not being destroyed and all the other shards. The Ascians goal does not.