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

[kpxmanifesto]

Hermes specifically says that their entire society is like this. He felt this way long before he came to Elpis, furthermore, neither Emet-Selch nor Hythlodeus are scientists. Nor are the guys who want to sacrifice the non-Ancient lifeforms to Zodiark.

We are outright shown that being a scientist has nothing to do with this mentality.

I mean, sure, it's definitely a possibility. How's Hermes to know that information though? That dude is just another scientist. Emet and Hythlodaeus are already familiar with Elpis so it's not too hard to imagine that they became desensitized to these sort of things. Are the guys sacrificing non-Ancient lifeforms truly morally gray though? I'd do the same if it meant saving the entire civilization.

[CrownySuccubus]

I mean, sure, it's definitely a possibility. How's Hermes to know that information though? That dude is just another scientist. Emet and Hythlodaeus are already familiar with Elpis so it's not too hard to imagine that they became desensitized to these sort of things. Are the guys sacrificing non-Ancient lifeforms truly morally gray though? I'd do the same if it meant saving the entire civilization.

Again, I'm saying that the story presents as morally-grey. Like I said about the butterflies, it comes across as weird that our WOL is stated to be "shocked" by their callous attitude towards death. And this comes up again when they are explaining to the WOL about the concept of returning to the star. Hyth and Emet treat it like it's no big deal, Hermes becomes depressed about it, and Venat dodges the question when one of her fellow Ancients asks about when she'll finally do it, and then tells you that she probably never will. We're also told that returning to the star when one's purpose is fulfilled is seen as normal by the Ancients, and a choice to be celebrated. They said this applies to their society as a whole, not just scientists.

It's not unique to social media, though the world is a big place and not everybody is interested in entertaining the demands of those who ordinarily would never even interact with them in any way, shape or form if not for the presence of social media.

People have always cared about the scrutiny of other people, even if they never met them. As I stated, the fact that things such as the Cult of Domesticity, the Victorian Age moral system and other things exist demonstrates that people don't need to directly interact with other people to form opinions.

Also, Hermes wasn't always a scientist. Ancients clearly have children and live in more residential areas.

[kpxmanifesto]

Again, I'm saying that the story presents as morally-grey...We're also told that returning to the star when one's purpose is fulfilled is seen as normal by the Ancients, and a choice to be celebrated. They said this applies to their society as a whole, not just scientists.

I see. Yeah, I suppose that's an interesting analysis about how they could be seen as morally grey. Why is fulfilling one's purpose and returning to the star perceived as morally grey?

[Brinne]

There's a difference between intent to portray something as negative, from an author's perspective, versus the execution of that portrayal and whether it actually aligns with the manifested details within the writing. There is actually no question that the writers were hoping/anticipating we'd be disturbed by aspects of the Ancient society. We weren't, and many of us, for many reasons described, found the methods they used to achieve that either ineffective, unconvincing, or actually doing the opposite in making their society more appealing. So I feel like people are sort of having two different arguments here.

In that long Famitsu interview, there's a bit that wasn't translated directly where Yoshida actually goes into how he thought players would leave Elpis thinking the Ancient society was "scary" - listing all the reasons he figured they'd be a little disturbing - but that instead, most people came away with thinking they were just "good people" instead.

EDIT: Here's the relevant part of the interview, if anyone whose Japanese is better than mine wants to correct me:

[Lauront]

Potentially, but I think you could also have a midway scenario, where you have entities which could be guided in that direction amongst the more straightforward cases of fauna and flora, like the forebears of what are now the 'beast tribes'; bearing in mind we don't know what the WoL told her in precise terms, and some of the creations do exhibit some potential for sapience, even if the star generally does not deem them fit to stick a soul into in the case of familiars. Nonetheless, it seems like a plausible scenario to me.

Also, it really comes down to the degree to which that was just to get them to stop going down that route, to avoid her true concern, which was the Plenty, and to embrace "suffering". Again, all the language around those scenes is very pragmatic in nature, suggesting any division over the sacrifices connected more with whether they were in the best interest of the star. Given what Emet-Selch said in Elpis, I think their overarching concerns may have been whether those souls in Zodiark would've approved of them taking such an action, or whether they'd deem it insulting. There is also the question of could it be done? I'd suggest from there that Elidibus's return probably answered those questions.

There's a difference between intent to portray something as negatively, from an author's perspective, versus the execution of that portrayal and whether it actually aligns with the manifested details within the writing. There is actually no question that the writers were hoping/anticipating we'd be disturbed by aspects of the Ancient society. We weren't, and many of us, for many reasons described, found the methods they used to achieve that either ineffective, unconvincing, or actually doing the opposite in making their society more appealing. So I feel like people are sort of having two different arguments here.

In that long Famitsu interview, there's a bit that wasn't translated directly where Yoshida actually goes into how he thought players would leave Elpis thinking the Ancient society was "scary" - listing all the reasons he figured they'd be a little disturbing - but that instead, most people came away with thinking they were just "good people" instead.

I think it just goes to show he and I (and I suspect some others here too) are on entirely different wavelengths. Not to mention how the Elpis sidequests don't really seem geared to eliciting that kind of reaction.

[KizuyaKatogami]

There's a difference between intent to portray something as negatively, from an author's perspective, versus the execution of that portrayal and whether it actually aligns with the manifested details within the writing. There is actually no question that the writers were hoping/anticipating we'd be disturbed by aspects of the Ancient society. We weren't, and many of us, for many reasons described, found the methods they used to achieve that either ineffective, unconvincing, or actually doing the opposite in making their society more appealing. So I feel like people are sort of having two different arguments here.

In that long Famitsu interview, there's a bit that wasn't translated directly where Yoshida actually goes into how he thought players would leave Elpis thinking the Ancient society was "scary" - listing all the reasons he figured they'd be a little disturbing - but that instead, most people came away with thinking they were just "good people" instead.

This has me so curious on what exactly was supposed to be scary in regards to them. It cant be their treatment of creations because the sundered are far worse in that regard. Cant be the whole relinquishing their title and returning to the lifestream because they viewed short lived lives as sad and tragic.

[Brinne]

Roughly, from the interview (I want to emphasize again that my Japanese is not great, so please, anyone feel free to smack me if I'm getting something drastically wrong), what he lists is: seeing the "return to the star" as beautiful, taking it upon themselves to create beings even with souls, feeling it's better to erase creations that are slightly flawed. He thought all of these would paint a picture that was "very scary," but acknowledges that that isn't what happened among the playerbase.

[Theodric]

I'm just not sure what is meant to be 'scary' about the Ancients when compared to people canonically being at risk of being eaten by monsters the moment they leave the safety of a settlement. For slavers to be actively kidnapping people and selling them. For a race of people typically unable to wield aether being persecuted and forced out of fertile lands and forced to live in the bleak, frozen wastes to the north. For poachers to hunt species to actual or near extinction.

There's numerous examples of the Sundered being far crueller and more callous than the Ancients. I rather suspect that the original plan was to have Venat consider the Sundered to be a failed experiment and try to Sunder them again - because they in no way passed the ridiculous 'test' she sought to enforce on them. Nothing they achieved was done without significant outside aid and with that in mind...she could have just had a conversation with the Convocation back in the Ancient world to attempt to resolve the Meteion predicament.

I am just as baffled by this as I was at hearing that he was surprised at people liking Emet-Selch while not liking Hermes and that being something he couldn't wrap his head around.

Given that he was also confused by people wanting stubble for male characters...I honestly believe he isn't getting any meaningful feedback from the official forum.

[CrownySuccubus]

This has me so curious on what exactly was supposed to be scary in regards to them. It cant be their treatment of creations because the sundered are far worse in that regard. Cant be the whole relinquishing their title and returning to the lifestream because they viewed short lived lives as sad and tragic.

Again, given that the game has the WOL specifically question the Ancients on both of those points, I believe that those were exactly what we were supposed to find "scary". They went out of their way to have our PC react in a specific way, with no regard for how the player would actually react or whether the narrative leading up to it was cohesive.

As I said, the moment Hyth said my WOL was "shocked" by how he killed butterflies to make my robes, it brought me out of the story and made me wonder what the hell he was talking about. I've murdered hundreds of things just to sell their body parts.

[Skyborne]

Again, given that the game has the WOL specifically question the Ancients on both of those points, I believe that those were exactly what we were supposed to find "scary". They went out of their way to have our PC react in a specific way, with no regard for how the player would actually react or whether the narrative leading up to it was cohesive.

As I said, the moment Hyth said my WOL was "shocked" by how he killed butterflies to make my robes, it brought me out of the story and made me wonder what the hell he was talking about. I've murdered hundreds of things just to sell their body parts.

My lvl 90 LTW WoL: "Wow, very efficient! Cutting out the middleman."