*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[Garnetiferous]

Not all of them, some get really annoyed at your presence, others ask you to risk yourself in combat and are explicitly fine with it if you die. One even asks to make sure you let the monster kill you if it comes to that because its more valuable then you.

And how is this different from how the modern, sundered world treats us? It's even worse for them because in a lot of cases we literally save them and still several people treat us poorly. It's a major aspect of the DRK 30-50 questline actually.

Coming from the perspective of Emet claiming they're "perfect" then yeah things like that are clearly a point against them but some of the standards used on the ancients, not even the sundered would pass.

[KariTheFox]

Alpha didn't hold conversations with us and didn't have a soul at first. Like Omega, the Ancients would have seen no problem in unmaking him.

And it was doing both the MSQ and various side-quests in Elpis, where we as the WoL are treated as a thing, that stuck in my craw. Do they have zero regard for life? No, but I don't like their standards for it, and I think Alisaie's retort to the Garlean philosophy about 'What if we don't live up to your standards of perfection/we all have a stake in this world' is actually a retort towards the Ancients of Elpis as much as it is towards the Garleans. Same with the Scions distaste for the Forum deciding who got to load into the Ragnarok and who didn't.

This seems like a pretty consistent theme throughout all of FFXIV, even back in ARR when the original three city-states lack of regard for the beast tribes and thier place in the lands they lived in.

They even hold ceremonies for the creations they get rid of.

Do they? I know Hermes said a prayer for the lykaones he unmade. But Hermes was strange by the standards of the ancients. Everyone else seemed to regard the unmaking process as at most, regretable, as sad as having to abandon an artistic project because it isn't bearing fruit. Not something worthy of prayer or ceremony.

[Garnetiferous]

Do they? I know Hermes said a prayer for the lykaones he unmade. But Hermes was strange by the standards of the ancients. Everyone else seemed to regard the unmaking process as at most, regretable, as sad as having to abandon an artistic project because it isn't bearing fruit. Not something worthy of prayer or ceremony.

If you complete both sidequest chains it leads to another sidequest where the observers feel bad for the creations the lykaones killed and they perform a sending for them.

[QT_Melon]

These conversations have gotten weird lol

1. We get people trying to "end" the debate with "even Venat admits what she did was terrible" but had to be done
2. We have people having a hard time reconciling with "events can't be changed" but still think it would be better if we could.
3. We have people saying "look even Emet admits her plan was better"
4. We even had someone admonishing the creation of Zodiark in the first place as a Ponzi scheme
5. Sundering isn't as bad as murder... man that's a REAL can of worms to take that standpoint.

Just to get my standpoint out of the way. I was pretty much team "neither primal" because I felt that we had to survive on our own. So both sides had my suspicions in all honesty and even though I am entertained by the Ancients I still felt both primals were bad in the long run.

1. People pretty much KNOW Venat said she admitted to doing something terrible. If someone went up and shot up a bunch of people and just said "oh I know what I did was terrible" That's going to drop it because that person admitted it was terrible? That's not gonna end the debate :P

2. I get it, story wise this is supposed to be a closed loop. But time and time again people will want something better if the loop had been a bit more polished in presentation there would be less bickering about it.

3. Yes, okay great he says her plan was better and admits that Zodiark wouldn't have worked out as the final solution. But I'm going to be repeating myself here that it actually took BOTH parts of these plans to make a better solution. Ironic isn't it? Even Elidibus being somewhat "all over the place" in the spectrum of Ascians was right for the most part? A balance of light and dark.

4. No matter how you look at it- Venat's plan would not have worked without Zodiark. After all if she's not to change the future. What WOULD have been her plan? Was she just gonna make everyone still for eternity? We also don't know if per say if her plan would have worked with 1 shard of our being instead of subsequent rejoinings. I guess we can debate about it - but to me our story is told that we're partially rejoined. So Venat was WELL aware that people had to die for this - so either you get mad at people STANDING BY to allow death and destruction between parties to occur AS much as getting mad that the Etheriyans were possibly gonna cull more life. Either way both parties were just about death as much as they "cared for life"

We the WOL had to sort out the mess :P Even if at times we just seemed rather complicit.

5. This goes back into without Zodiark, there would be no other plan. We'd just be dead apparently since certain groups are so adamant about how Zodiark is bad, evil and the Ancients didn't care

Again, not saying Zodiark is the great guy, or Hydaelyn was the big evil. One over the other cannot happen because without one the other could not actually exist in either opposition or held up the planet on its own.

[QT_Melon]

Also adding on to 5. in my post above. I really really am hesitant to put that in some morally grey with "better for everyone" I'm not saying Sundering itself for the plan to work out is bad, but I really question the easy morality of saying if it's not "murder" then it's better

It's like people don't know or remember the whole history of lobotomy. I mean we're basically mind wiped, possibly put into immediate danger/death in sundering. Had our bodies messed without consent. If someone said "well at least you were raped instead of murdered" that person would get a swift punch in the face and baby maker :P

[Slatersev]

And how is this different from how the modern, sundered world treats us? It's even worse for them because in a lot of cases we literally save them and still several people treat us poorly. It's a major aspect of the DRK 30-50 questline actually.

Coming from the perspective of Emet claiming they're "perfect" then yeah things like that are clearly a point against them but some of the standards used on the ancients, not even the sundered would pass.

Oh, no that's exactly my point the way they treat us isn't noticeably better then random sundered Sidequest givers. Which is fine, doesn't make them evil but them not being noticeably better then Sundered about it goes back to Emet's justification being really flawed on its face.

[EaraGrace]

You seem to be confused…

Spare me the condescension. My point is that using those three as a baseline is ridiculous, given they were clearly exceptional individuals. Using their reaction doesn’t tell us anything.

Why could she not have left and enacted a plan against Meteion…

Venats plan A was the defeat of Meteion, based on my read. The Mothercrystal, as well as the reserve of strength she kept for our trial make that clear. And why couldn’t she just leave? To where? To a plant unprotected by Zodiark where Meteion would find a weakened, separated group of Ancients and immediately kill them? It seems obvious why that wasn’t in the cards.

It's obvious that they are not the same, my point is only that a very vague line of distinction is made purely for the purposes of narrative convenience.

That’s your subjective take.

You're wrong. Flat-out. People do so every day without even thinking about it. WoL has done it on countless occasions.

What a dim view of people.

Venat does not say that they would specifically need Hermes "expertise" for anything…

Okay this is not logical. If you genuinely believe that what she means is that he’s generally a smart guy, and not that he is an expert in a field that will be invaluable come the Final Days then I’m done. The Convocation, a group of smart people brought together as experts in their field, do not need another “smart guy” and he certainly wouldn’t be “invaluable in the crises to come.” Come on.

Not only is the entire thing a godawful contrivance with little logic behind it, what Venat is talking about with Hermes there is her MO to a T - Withhold knowledge from someone and try to manipulate them into aiding your cause, even when revealing the truth of the situation to them might make them your enemy...

You’re letting your distaste for a certain character cloud the reality of what happened.

They didn't buy her arguments regardless. Either way she was predicating them on lies.

Assumptions.

That was quite literally their plan with the third sacrifice.

This does not sound like animals being sacrificed to me.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Oh, no that's exactly my point the way they treat us isn't noticeably better then random sundered Sidequest givers. Which is fine, doesn't make them evil but them not being noticeably better then Sundered about it goes back to Emet's justification being really flawed on its face.

I don’t think this one example makes Emet’s justification flawed, especially when there’s numerous other examples to look at. They are pretty noticeably better at it though because again, they do hold ceremonies for them, and i don’t see any poachers around Elpis so… yeah.

[KariTheFox]

If you complete both sidequest chains it leads to another sidequest where the observers feel bad for the creations the lykaones killed and they perform a sending for them.

Huh, I wonder if that's standard for all the creations they unmake, or if the fact that they were killed created a special circumstance. That being said, I don't think anyone here thinks the ancients didn't value life. Just that they valued it in a way that was paternalistic and a bit arrogant. Especially with how they treat the WoL.

[Garnetiferous]

Oh, no that's exactly my point the way they treat us isn't noticeably better then random sundered Sidequest givers. Which is fine, doesn't make them evil but them not being noticeably better then Sundered about it goes back to Emet's justification being really flawed on its face.

Fair enough then.

I think with Emet-Selch, he knew for a very long time that he was wrong but was so overcome by grief and sorrow that no matter what he did, he couldn't accept it. And one of the tales from the shadow, he did almost give up the whole rejoining thing. The line about the Ancient society being perfect, well, of course, he thinks that, his society was indeed perfect for him. Like a pair of the ultimate rose-colored glasses. So yeah, clearly he's bias.