*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[Alleo]

Correct me if i’m wrong but the souls sacrificed we’re stuck inside Zodiark were they not? So they weren’t able to return to the Lifestream which is where the honorable death stemmed from. In regards to the Emet thing, it just goes to show the extent someone is willing to go to save and protect their loved ones. We see this same thing with Ironworks and Graha who were willing to sacrifice people to save others.

They seemingly were quite fine with being part of Zodiark, because after all they could save and guide there star that way. So I get the feeling that this was honorable for them too. Even the Elpis Emet says that he would honor those and not make a mockery out of it by recreating Amaurot and the shades which is why he did not want to believe that we are telling the truth about his future behavior (which imo says alot how he and the others probably changed)

Graha Tia and the others were only able to do the plan because a lot of people supported it after they said it was to save us. So its not like they went against the majority of people. And it was from a future that was seemingly not getting much better anyway. So in that regards Graha and the Ancients are similiar if you only take the two sacrifices into account. Both sides done it to save a world that was bascially lost. And I honestly have nothing against the first two sacrifices. Ancients were willing to do that and if they had not done that all would have died. Its the third one were it gets bad. The planet was save again. They could just honor their lost people and go on, rebuiling it completely afterwarts. But as we see in Endwalker it was just not the perfect paradise anymore. Thus now suddenly other lifeforms should die so that they can get their paradies back. And this is bad. This goes against their goal to be the blood of the planet, its stewards.

Also there is a big difference between eating an animal to survive and sacrifing a huuuge mass of life for a selfish desire. The Ancients after all (according to the side quests) did not even need to kill animals for meals. They could just create their meal. So they have even less reasons for killing them. Yet somehow before they were quite fine with letting nature do its things (see the Volcano incident - also seeing the amount of monsters they would surely eat other creatures and people when they are leaving Elpis) and destroy cities yet when its about their paradise that they want back they would be ready to destroy all that was built by others before them by sacrificing the lifeforms? And we cant just ignore that Emet and the other Ascians were ready to then sacrifice the whole souls at the end anyway...so no its not just about chickens.

(The sundered need animals to eat too, they also need their skin and other stuff to survive. Unlike the Ancients were a not able to simply create stuff out of their own aether. And poachers are seen as a blight among their society so its not like sundered people are alright with it too)

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.

And the sending with the flowers was created by us because they questioned us what we do to the death. So before they just returned them to aether. I do like the quest chain because we are able to question their belief. When the one Anient talks about the isle where they grow vegetables the "normal sundered" way, she says that she finds it useless because the results are not perfect. We are able to ask if only a perfect being is allowed to exist and then she realized that we as familiar would also fall under the not perfect and things about it. That shows that they are of course able to change but that even someone as nice as her is still stuck in the "everything perfect way".

The quest chain is still just one side of Elpis. The rest still dont have any problems with just disposing of the creatures. And its quite shown in just the MSQ. After all Hermes would not have such a negative outlook in life if most people were like the ones that at least gave them a sending. I mean he himself also still creates creatures to send out on his behalf.

I guess one can say that if they would have created less perfect beings that would even do some really bad things outside of Elpis they might have had been more used to grief. Maybe then they would have not planned that third sacrifice and life would have gone on.

[Garnetiferous]

And the sending with the flowers was created by us because they questioned us what we do to the death. So before they just returned them to aether. I do like the quest chain because we are able to question their belief. When the one Anient talks about the isle where they grow vegetables the "normal sundered" way, she says that she finds it useless because the results are not perfect. We are able to ask if only a perfect being is allowed to exist and then she realized that we as familiar would also fall under the not perfect and things about it. That shows that they are of course able to change but that even someone as nice as her is still stuck in the "everything perfect way".

The quest chain is still just one side of Elpis. The rest still dont have any problems with just disposing of the creatures. And its quite shown in just the MSQ. After all Hermes would not have such a negative outlook in life if most people were like the ones that at least gave them a sending. I mean he himself also still creates creatures to send out on his behalf.

I guess one can say that if they would have created less perfect beings that would even do some really bad things outside of Elpis they might have had been more used to grief. Maybe then they would have not planned that third sacrifice and life would have gone on.

The whole thing about "being used to grief" or death is very weird for me in the context of the ancients because several of their actions suggest they should know about it quite well but then they apparently don't? For example, the entire reason visitors to Elpis have to remove their masks is because the creations there can hurt them. That might just be excellent foresight on their part but other quests confirm that the ancients can and do get hurt by their creations with one guy even saying that he sends familiars to do dangerous work so he doesn't have to risk himself. Erichthonios mentions mercenaries, which is weird if allegedly there was no war, and expanding on that point, Emet-Selch and Venat have tanking abilities which also seems weird if the whole world was mostly peaceful. It seems like dying from an accident or some other way other than "returning to the star" is fairly rare but then given the existence of what I mentioned, seems like random deaths should be more common and more people should have been used to grief and sorrow than it seems like.