Sundering stuff established in the Q&A

[tokinokanatae]

You can see the obvious emotional disconnect between Emet and everyone else present when he smilingly exclaims that killing millions of sundered people doesn't really count as murder, because he views them all as 'malformed creatures'. He can read the room well enough to be aware that he's just said something very offensive from the awkward silence and shocked reactions, so he quickly changes the topic after, but he still doesn't actually seem to 'get' why his statement was so poorly received.

Ah yes, Emet-Selch, well known for his...emotional disconnect?

[Brinne]

Ah yes, Emet-Selch, well known for his...emotional disconnect?

You additionally have Hythlodaeus describing Emet as a "slave to sentiment," and Ishikawa saying that what led to Emet's downfall was his kindness. Meanwhile, we have Venat acknowledging her actions had no kindness. Clearly, what we must take from this is that kindness and human feeling is for losers; ice-cold ruthlessness is the way to victory. (Joking! ...or am I?)

EDIT: Thinking about it, it's sort of oddly perfect that Emet-Selch tanks as a DRK and Venat tanks as a PLD, isn't it? The DRK questline establishes that being a DRK means being powered by emotions, the desire to protect your loved ones, and struggling with the internal conflict that results. PLD's questline is about single-mindedly chasing the abstract symbolization of an ideal that revolves around establishing one's strength over others.

[Tehmon]

I would have loved to see more of that internal conflict in any shape of form in ShB, but he was truly delirious and mad to the bitter end even if you could understand his motives, that's how he was portrayed to me.

He is so similar to Solas from Dragon Age, whom I detest, but at least Solas is very clearly shown to be remorseful for having to essentially destroy the world as it is to get his people back. And the entirety of the game you can make it very, very clear to him through your own heroic actions that perhaps his opinions on mankind being massively flawed, incomplete beings, are unfounded. But Emet really gives me nothing, even in our final encounter with him in Endwalker, he seems more or less convinced that would he be living and breathing, he would continue where he left off in ShB. His values, his beloved past, all greater things than our failure of existence. But not to completely rag on him, he does give us a little bit of credit for what we have accomplished so... there's that.

[Alleluia]

He is so similar to Solas from Dragon Age, whom I detest, but at least Solas is very clearly shown to be remorseful for having to essentially destroy the world as it is to get his people back.

Just want to say that I agree 1000% and have thought so since ShB came out, though I actually like Solas. I am glad someone else brought their similarity up. Whenever I've done it, I seem to just get blank looks and a change of subject. lol

Emet, if I understood him right, did really disappoint me in the end with the continued "my ideals are inviolate" If those ideals included killing everyone and bringing back their brethren that way, I don't see the point of the ancients being tempered being mentioned as a plotline. Just bite the bullet and have no ambiguity about the state of their free will at that point. I mean, its alreayd clear that if tempering effected anyone, it was narrowed to only the unsundered anyway. Fandaniel certainly had no compunctions about screwing over Zodiark and his salvation-focused aims, afterall.

[Dragonexx]

This might be a bit out of nowhere, but I've been doing some thinking in regards to the relations between The Ancients and The Plenty, and the similar fate that may await them, and how that ties into the theme this expansion of suffering being just a fact of life (as well as what seem to be some dropped/retconned/contradicted elements in regards to ShB). Granted some of this relies on Death of the Author, but whatever.

While the plenty looks beautiful (at least before the end of the dungeon), if you look past the golden fields, you realize that this place is a series of floating islands, and if you look down you can see a rotted, crumbling waste of a world beneath, which carries interesting implications, and links to the ancients. As stated, strife is unavoidable, and it is in it's overcoming that we grow. When the Plenty tried to eliminate sorrow, they may have done so through sacrifice. But such a thing is impossible to truly attain, and every time something went wrong, they would offer more sacrifices, eating up more and more of their world until there was almost nothing left. With such an easy button to push to eliminate problems, regardless of the long term cost, the people became shiftless and indolent, eventually drifting into full on nihilism with Meteion's question. "Joy lost its savor" as Meteion said.

This is what at least I interpreted it as, and that being the link to the ancients, with Zodiark as their Ra-La. Of course the circumstances and outcome wouldn't have been exactly the same, but the fundamental point is that no matter what, something would have gone wrong, whether from within (like Hermes or whatever the hell is going on in Pandemonium) or from without with things like the Endsinger. Or maybe Ultima shows up or the Omicron decide to invade*. The case of sacrifices seemed to be the conflict in Shadowbringers with the point of it being unsustainable, which is what the Plenty seems to demonstrate. That being said Endwalker just feels so bizarrely disjointed and shoots itself in the foot at points. If they wanted moral ambiguity, they already had it there, what with the new life vs. Ancients, but then they had to do the whole stable time loop nonsense, ruining that. Why was it necessary to contradict how this shit had already been established? Honestly, if i were in charge I would focus more on that whole sacrifice angle, and if I ever get around to continuing my fanfic [Shameless Plug], I'd write it like that.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

*As an aside, Alphatron invading Eitherys sounds like an interesting what if? scenario to think about.

EDIT: Apparently I've been Ninja'd while writing this. Ah well, still ties in.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Just want to say that I agree 1000% and have thought so since ShB came out, though I actually like Solas. I am glad someone else brought their similarity up. Whenever I've done it, I seem to just get blank looks and a change of subject. lol

Emet, if I understood him right, did really disappoint me in the end with the continued "my ideals are inviolate" If those ideals included killing everyone and bringing back their brethren that way, I don't see the point of the ancients being tempered being mentioned as a plotline. Just bite the bullet and have no ambiguity about the state of their free will at that point. I mean, its alreayd clear that if tempering effected anyone, it was narrowed to only the unsundered anyway. Fandaniel certainly had no compunctions about screwing over Zodiark and his salvation-focused aims, afterall.

To me with Emet,i actually liked that he stuck to his ideals. In the end the Sundered were living at the expense of the Ancients lives. The Ancients themselves didn’t have a choice, or outside help like the Sundered did. In the end though it just comes down to genocidaelyn making all the wrong decisions and the ancients sadly had to pay for it. In terms of the sacrifice the Ironworks were fine with sacrificing all the people in their timeline to being the WoL back. The ancients were doing no different.

In regards to some other calamity eventually befalling the ancients, this can be argued about any civilization. Doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have fought through it and been able to prosper. I’m fairly certain the sundered aren’t the only people in the entire universe that can succeed with things like that.

[Lucida3b]

To me with Emet,i actually liked that he stuck to his ideals. In the end the Sundered were living at the expense of the Ancients lives. The Ancients themselves didn’t have a choice, or outside help like the Sundered did. In the end though it just comes down to genocidaelyn making all the wrong decisions and the ancients sadly had to pay for it. In terms of the sacrifice the Ironworks were fine with sacrificing all the people in their timeline to being the WoL back. The ancients were doing no different.

There is also the argument to be made that once again metieon spoiled the results of the plenty via her dynamis manipulation amplifying any issues to the point they made a primal type being to kill them all.

To touch upon some of what has been said, I feel like part of the issue is that it's easy to sympathize with 'do terrible things for the sake of family/loved ones' that Emet is motivated by, vs the 'do terrible things for the sake of a ideal/fiat' that Venat has if that makes sense. On the whole writing elsewhere, I feel like I could agree with the idea of writer bias for the simple reason of the end of elpis cutscene, that scene makes no sense outside of it being metaphorical but then the question becomes, 'Why was it metaphorical' and the only reason I can think of is either budget or to make Venat look better by underselling the horror of what she was doing.



Anyone got the source of a second expansion being cut after Shadowbringers launched? I would like to see that.

[jameseoakes]

To touch upon some of what has been said, I feel like part of the issue is that it's easy to sympathize with 'do terrible things for the sake of family/loved ones' that Emet is motivated by, vs the 'do terrible things for the sake of a ideal/fiat' that Venat has if that makes sense. On the whole writing elsewhere, I feel like I could agree with the idea of writer bias for the simple reason of the end of elpis cutscene, that scene makes no sense outside of it being metaphorical but then the question becomes, 'Why was it metaphorical' and the only reason I can think of is either budget or to make Venat look better by underselling the horror of what she was doing.

I think you touch on a big part of it, but then it makes it feel very strange that they went for the arc they went for with Venat. It doesn't feel like she was meant to be a malevolent figure but then the sundering seems to have written in such a way there there is no reason for it other that an act of spite by her towards the people of Etheryis as she just condemns to thousands of years of suffering and most likely the fate of the worlds Meition visits where the populations destroyed there own worlds

[Alleluia]

What? There's nothing spiteful about Venat sundering people. That's not in her reasoning at all. She does it b/c she feels they can't overcome despair unless they're subjected to it. You can argue about whether she's right or not, but her reasoning is pretty clear and its not spiteful.

[Kozh]

Actually, we know that Endwalker was largely stencilled out before Shadowbringers launched. We have heard before that they plan two expansions in advance

I believe it\\'s two years in advance, not two expansion. Shadowbringers was planned roughly one month after SB was released, and endwalker started in 2019. However, ShB is also a bit special case as it\\'s actually planned to be an expansion following HW, but since yoshi-p thought we going to the First while Garlemald is still invading eorzea is strange, he made SB first.

That being said, having expansion largely outlined few years in advance doesn\\'t mean it will use all the plot points they initially planned. Things were added and removed during development. Iirc, eureka was supposed to be included in ShB and eden was supposed to be the final boss instead of emet.

After the devs remarks about how they initially planned to finish hydaelyn-zodiark saga in 7.0, I doubt EW was written before ShB.

Fair point about nanamo though, I didn\\'t count on how short between 2.5 and HW is.

But I have to disagree with dancer quest line foreshadowing dynamis, since emotion and memory etc influencing aether has always been there since ARR.

I believe yoshi p did even make the comment that part of the community response to Emet did affect some things regarding him in the story which…very clearly shows lol.

I don\\'t remember comment about emet, but I definitely remember about g\\'raha. I think it\\'s shortly after 5.3 when they said that they made two scenarios, one where g\\'raha survived and one where he didn\\'t.