*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[Jandor]

Oh, I've run the numbers: if it weren't for the Ascians, barely any of the major primary or secondary storylines of the game would exist.

Yeah I did find that it rung a little hollow in Shadowbringers when Emet was lecturing us on our petty warlike nature, and Elidibus was lecturing us on terrible record-keeping of the past. Like c'mon guys, you two are the cause of at least 80% of those problems.

Maybe we'd have done a lot better if we hadn't had a bunch of melodramatic boomers spending all their free time skulking about in the shadows stirring the pot and moaning about how 'things were better back in mah day.'

[Loggos]

Maybe we'd have done a lot better if we hadn't had a bunch of melodramatic boomers spending all their free time skulking about in the shadows stirring the pot and moaning about how 'things were better back in mah day.'

The Ascians are clearly to blame for the particular events that happened in Aldenard and they are not the morally superiour people that they want to see themselves as. I'm not pro Ascian. But I just don't agree with the line of reasoning quoted here either.

It idealises the sundered way too much. I don't think we have any reason to believe that the sundered would really have been significantly more peaceful if it weren't for the Ascians. The whole message of the game is that there is no true perfection. So if not even the almost godlike unsundered can claim any moral highground - because they are just as capable of incomprehensible cruelty and disregard of life - then why would we believe that the sundered are suddenly so special that they would have done "a lot better". I don't buy that, at all.
Just look at the real world (and I'm going to make the bold assumption that we are not influenced by Ascians), we are perfectly fine at committing the most horrible acts of violence and oppression against each other and drive our planet into ruin.

The people of Aldenard would probably have fought wars, conquered countries, subjugated certain demographics of people, committed genocides and destroyed the environment even if the Ascians wouldn't have been around. They might just have done so in less technologically advanced ways than say the Allagans or the Garlean Empire.
I think the reason why the Ascians were so successful with their manipulation is because their offerings fell on the very fertile ground of the sundered's imperfect nature, that is just as flawed as the nature of the unsundered.
If they were so much more peaceful, that without the Ascians the suffering on Aldenard would have been 80ish% less throughout 12k years of history, then I don't think the Ascians would have been able to unleash wars and hatred on such a large scale to begin with. Too many sundered people acted too consistently on their hatred across history and geographic locations: the average people, who weren't directly tempted by the Ascians' proposals and offers of power, and not just singular mighty rulers like Varis.
(Also, I believe the game shows us several of examples of suffering caused by the sundered that are not caused by Ascian intrigues.)

I don't want to demonise the sundered compared to the Ascians either. I see them exactly as I see humans in the real world. Of course, we are capable of good things and of love, and concepts like respect and human dignity are crucial. But there is no point in denying that we have the capacity to act like absolute monsters.
The sundered are just as susceptible to hatred and cruelty as the unsundered. The Ascians only used this to their advantage to pursue their particular agenda.

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(Note: I'm using "sundered" here to refer to everyone who lives in a sundered world. I know, not everyone is actually a sundered fragment of an unsundered's soul. But I make my argument for both types of mortals - "actual sundered" ones and mortals without any ties to an unsundered's soul.)