What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[Lauront]

I think the quest where you tour the facility and get to respond that you see them as gods, not too different to you or inscrutable is probably the best way to describe them. They clearly had strong human elements to them, including in their affections and emotions, but at the same time they're similar to beings like elder dragons in that they're nigh immortal and possess great natural talents and powers, including that to contribute to creation through their very imaginations. The important thing here is that they're not trying to cast them as lacking in fundamental human traits, like emotions, various anxieties, aspirations, etc. Their common societal goal does not strip them of individual goals and motivations.

Didn't the Player Character use/wield/shift Dynamis when they fought Endsinger? Pretty sure she's actually very surprised we can, and we manage it perfectly even though we're 9/14ths. Also, why do you assume the rest are not multiple times rejoined? I've seen so many conflicting answers to this question online with people claiming that EVERYONE on the Source is now 8 times rejoined and others saying that only those with the Echo, who are presumably the ones with the souls of the murdered Ancients are 8 times rejoined and that everyone else just has a new soul. What is the correct answer?

The correct answer is that it's everyone on the Source. See question 4.

[PawPaw]

The correct answer is that it's everyone on the Source. See question 4.

Thanks for this, so this means that all of the Scions are 8/14ths except for G'raha (and us, of course) who is 9/14ths, yes? So much for needing all that thinning out.

[Lauront]

*snip

*snip*

*snip*

Very well said to all three of these posts.

It's interesting, in SHB Emet even states their palette of emotions may be broader than that of the sundered:

[16:00] Emet-Selch : Allons... Pensais-tu que nous autres Asciens étions incapables d'avoir des sentiments ?
= “Come now… Did you really think us Ascians were incapable of having these sentiments?”

[16:00] Emet-Selch : Je suis vexé ! Notre palette d'émotions est aussi riche que la vôtre, si ce n'est plus !
= “I am vexed! Our palette of emotions is just as rich as yours, if not more!”

Thanks for this, so this means that all of the Scions are 8/14ths except for G'raha (and us, of course) who is 9/14ths, yes? So much for needing all that thinning out.

Yup. The Rejoinings restore the star to its pre-sundering state. We've learnt two things since EW - 1) souls are persistent and don't get sliced and diced in the Aetherial Sea, rather they're reborn and carry with them some innate propensities and 2) the sundered races were the direct result of the sundering of the remaining ancients on the Source. I suspect the star will have 'forged' some new souls since then but we need to bear in mind that the entire star is being reinforced with its original aether, so those souls will also be denser and denser as time progresses.

[Rulakir]

the funeral quest alone made me tear up because I was happy to have been able to share something new with them and see how excited they were to use it in the future, only to remember that these people would be killed soon, there was no future.

This is why I don't understand Pandemonium. We're saving them from what exactly only for them to still perish in the Final Days (or by our hand in the future)?

To then completely 180 on that and try to imply that the Ancients were doomed from the start and there was no way they ever could have survived due to this contrived unwillingness to change, well it left a very bad taste in my mouth. "Humanity wins because humanity" is a very tired message and given the scope of the world we have here, it felt pretty self-serving. Some of that nuance I loved so much was sadly diminished.

It doesn't make any sense. Ishikawa wanted to "humanize" the Ascians. Rather than Echo flashbacks, we're sent to mingle among the Ancients of Elpis. The whole experience is orchestrated to connect us to them and then we're supposed to believe the strawmen group in Venat's cutscene were representative of their entire civilization as a whole?

Watching the end of dungeon cutscene with Hermes, he says: "If he can learn to value all life and retain his will to live, even should his end be justified, he will surely find a way to avert his demise." First, the Ancients did that, they averted their demise. Second, the sundered don't value all life, not even close. The people who arguably passed the test were still failed by Venat. The people who didn't thematically pass the test are lauded as the winners.

This game has an unpleasant trend of blaming the victims of awful circumstances whilst praising those who have every advantage as 'heroes' when they barely endure any similar or meaningful struggles in their own lives by comparison.

What would we do without rich teenagers telling us how we should be living our lives though? :P

It's interesting, in SHB Emet even states their palette of emotions may be broader than that of the sundered:

I still love his line in ENG: "Well, rest assured that if your heart can be broken, then so can mine!"

[Ixon]

The correct answer is that it's everyone on the Source. See question 4.

This is just the theme to Jet Li's "The One". That would have been an interesting take, someone who knew of the sundering, and was for the rejoining for personal power gain.

[Brinne]

This is a bit more cringeposting than even is typical for me, so apologies beforehand:

Something I've said a few times when discussing this in my own spaces is "I don't hate Endwalker, but I absolutely hate what Endwalker brings out in people." I think I've mentioned before that the way EW leans into encouraging and leaving room for people to Other the Ancients really got under my skin, when I would say the main thing I loved and appreciated Shadowbringers for was that it seemed to actually stand in open, fierce defiance of that temptation, shouting from the rooftops to Humanize and Empathize instead.

Shadowbringers--"Jet-Black Villains," the point ultimately of which was an interrogation of the very concept of "villain"--resonated with me as a shockingly wonderful balance between acknowledging the inherent harshness and unfairness within the world, and also encouraging compassion and empathy even so. The "sides" we end up on, who may wind up competing for resources, existential or otherwise, are largely arbitrary. The entire premise of asking "who is more worthy to live" is flawed and self-serving from the onset, and often only gets asked by the "side" who feels self-assurance that they'll come out on the winning end of that question. That's why I loved the Scions having no answer to Emet-Selch, and being forced to concede the point to him, when he frames the matter in that way - because for the once, the "humans" as we know them come out losing. And then they assert they have the right to live anyway. Because life, once it exists, doesn't have to justify itself.

I never faulted Emet-Selch for his goals or his love or his desire to save those he saw as depending on him (and by all evidence we're seen, he was right - the souls trapped in Zodiark were in "anguish", lamenting about "how long" it had been, wishing for their world and their souls to be made whole again...), but where I do think where he went wrong - where he faltered in terms of the "moral superiority" position compared to the WoL - was him resorting to fairly typical mental gymnastics to attempt to justify his violence committed against the Shards. It was cowardly to desperately try to tell himself "you're not really alive," and other such obvious lies, because he was too soft-hearted to deal with the full impact of what he was doing to save people who did deserve to be saved. He didn't have the emotional fortitude to fully gaze into the genuine humanity of those he "had" to condemn, and so fell back onto the temptation of Othering. He succumbed to the framework of "hero and villain."

The true moment of heroism, the actual moral triumph, in Shadowbringers, for the WoL, was overcoming that temptation by nodding in respect to Emet's dying request - and the acknowledgment in the journal that, by killing him and saving the Shards while simultaneously snuffing out the hopes of the Ancients, "you have done a great and terrible thing." Yes, the WoL had to do what they had to do. But they could still recognize it as a tragic thing. And they could still show kindness to the person to the other side in the capacity they were able.

So it's always been frustrating for me to see others completely miss or reject that idea, and actively look for ways we didn't actually have to feel bad about putting the nail in the Ancients' coffin. Searching for ways the Amaurotine society was obviously creepy and alien, even though it was clearly framed - just listen to the music! - to be a gentle, kind place, filled with all manner of human beings. Some more gentle, some stricter, some more passionate, some more relaxed. Some utterly terrified at the news of the Final Days, and some having firm faith in the Convocation to find a solution. Claiming that, well, we take priority because we're the present and the Ancients are in the past - when the entire premise of Shadowbringers depends on a person rejecting their present/our future, and seeking to change it and restore things to how they were because of a calamity. Arguing that, and actively searching for evidence that, well, they MUST have done this to themselves somehow, therefore we have no culpability in our choices regarding their fate.

There's also an inherent sense of "there is no winning for the Ancients," rhetorically, built within a lot of these arguments. You also see people speaking for the Ancients and saying that they wouldn't want all his death and misery inflicted to save them - how would you know? - but the feeling is that, well, obviously, if they're "good" they wouldn't want to save themselves, and if they do, then they're not "good," so there's no need to feel a desire to save them anyway. Because the goal, fundamentally, is justifying what has happened and our own actions, and trying to make that weight lighter on ourselves - as Emet-Selch was doing through his nonsense. If they're different from us, and something bad happened, well, there must have been a reason for it, right? Right?

It's a little harrowing for me sometimes - the reminders of how easy it is to get swept up in Othering propaganda, to fall to victim blaming and just universe fallacies, to sadly nod and agree there was "no other way" but to massacre an entire population if it's to our own benefit and just presented in the correct way (sweeping, beautiful music and leaning on ~symbolism~ instead of the raw reality of what is happening helps, it seems!) and by a charismatic, likable person. Sometimes bad things happen for no reason to good people, and sometimes a "good" result for some comes of it, and there's no rationalizing it. Even so, I think Shadowbringers argues, you can still choose kindness, trying to understand others' perspectives, and love. (You can still choose Zenos. <_<) But you can only do that with the understanding that the just world fallacy is, in fact, a terrible, terrible fallacy.