Pandæmonium story

[Lepus_Aetherius]

......
吉田: Although we were trying to give players more of a taste of the horrors of the Ancients, we didn't expect many people to think they were good. "It's a beautiful and wonderful thing to return to aetherial sea at the end of the duty....or to be able to create beings with souls at your own discretion and just destroy them if they're slightly problematic and bring them back to the idea." We depict a lot of this kind of difficulty in judging right from wrong, but if you think about it dispassionately, I think it's actually very scary. I would have liked to have seen a few more perspectives on this, but it's also possible that Emet, Hythlodaeus, and Venat shine too brightly.

Hermes' statement "I will judge mankind in the name of Hermes." This statement is, in a sense, extremely fair. In fact, in the 5.0 version of the story, Emet has carried out this so-called "judge" several times, being betrayed many times and killing countless people each time, and Emet, wanting to redeem his divided companions and loved ones, makes his final judge with straightforward emotion. From this point of view, Hermes' judge is relatively objective. So it was surprising to me that Emet's 'judge' was accepted by everyone, while Hermes' 'judge' was resented by everyone.



石川: Hermes is fair, but he's not driven by emotion like Emet is ...... It's probably hard for players to relate to him.



吉田: Yes, for us Emet is much easier to empathize with.



石川: After all, wanting to get your companion back is the most direct human emotion

[Lauront]

......
吉田: Although we were trying to give players more of a taste of the horrors of the Ancients, we didn't expect many people to think they were good. "It's a beautiful and wonderful thing to return to aetherial sea at the end of the duty....or to be able to create beings with souls at your own discretion and just destroy them if they're slightly problematic and bring them back to the idea." We depict a lot of this kind of difficulty in judging right from wrong, but if you think about it dispassionately, I think it's actually very scary. I would have liked to have seen a few more perspectives on this, but it's also possible that Emet, Hythlodaeus, and Venat shine too brightly.

Hermes' statement "I will judge mankind in the name of Hermes." This statement is, in a sense, extremely fair. In fact, in the 5.0 version of the story, Emet has carried out this so-called "judge" several times, being betrayed many times and killing countless people each time, and Emet, wanting to redeem his divided companions and loved ones, makes his final judge with straightforward emotion. From this point of view, Hermes' judge is relatively objective. So it was surprising to me that Emet's 'judge' was accepted by everyone, while Hermes' 'judge' was resented by everyone.



石川: Hermes is fair, but he's not driven by emotion like Emet is ...... It's probably hard for players to relate to him.



吉田: Yes, for us Emet is much easier to empathize with.



石川: After all, wanting to get your companion back is the most direct human emotion

He can call them "scary" or refer to "horrors" as many times as he likes, I just don't see them that way based on all the lore they've established, and I have never cared about how “objective” Hermes’s spite-driven decision (not driven by emotion? our resident most saddest boi evur? lmao) to subject the universe to some test out of some weird sense of revenge compares to Emet’s decision to restore his world and his people, which he saw inexplicably torn up, nor even Venat’s own logic, even if I disagree with a lot of what she did. It's never even factored as a consideration to me as compared to the motives... so yes, their words are controversial and I doubt I will ever be on the same page as them on these points, I'm afraid to say - particularly not in Yoshi's case.

Our/Emet's Lahabrea was known for his use of fire magic and his masterwork was the finalized phoenix concept. P3's boss was the penultimate attempt at making a phoenix and right before the fight Eric and Themis have a conversation about Lahabrea, Eric's dad, semi-recently completing the final phoenix. Between this establishing the timeline of Emet's sidestory + Lahabrea's near exclusive use of fire magic in every fight we have against him...Eric is not our Laha, his dad is.

Wouldn't be surprised if Claudien ends up being Eric's sundered shard. I thought the below person's comment on this was a good find on the mask branding on the form Eric took:

https://twitter.com/Igeyorhm/status/...FHSycpYGlJLW8Q

[Rokke]

......
吉田: Although we were trying to give players more of a taste of the horrors of the Ancients, we didn't expect many people to think they were good. "It's a beautiful and wonderful thing to return to aetherial sea at the end of the duty....or to be able to create beings with souls at your own discretion and just destroy them if they're slightly problematic and bring them back to the idea." We depict a lot of this kind of difficulty in judging right from wrong, but if you think about it dispassionately, I think it's actually very scary. I would have liked to have seen a few more perspectives on this, but it's also possible that Emet, Hythlodaeus, and Venat shine too brightly.

I think they are loved so much is largely because characters/beings that tread the line of "relatable human" and "coldly divine" are/historically have been immensely popular in fiction.

A couple years ago the Hades game was all the rage (Your extended godly family loves you!... But when you make them mad, they will tear you limb from limb because you need to learn a lesson) and right now Genshin has a similar thing unfolding (Your friends are demigods like beings! Its fun to drink tea and go on shopping trips while learning about their cultures, the olden days of their cities, and their possible complicity in the destruction of multiple human civilizations across thousands of years amongst other fun Hwuh??? moments). In both cases, these characters in their respective games and fandoms are still seen as "good" despite inhumane interactions/ideals because they aren't like us and cannot be wholly held to our mortal morality.

[Lauront]

I think they are loved so much is largely because characters/beings that tread the line of "relatable human" and "coldly divine" are/historically have been immensely popular in fiction.

A couple years ago the Hades game was all the rage (Your extended godly family loves you!... But when you make them mad, they will tear you limb from limb because you need to learn a lesson) and right now Genshin has a similar thing unfolding (Your friends are demigods like beings! Its fun to drink tea and go on shopping trips while learning about their cultures, the olden days of their cities, and their possible complicity in the destruction of multiple human civilizations across thousands of years amongst other fun Hwuh??? moments). In both cases, these characters in their respective games and fandoms are still seen as "good" despite inhumane interactions/ideals because they aren't like us and cannot be wholly held to our mortal morality.

Yep, I can certainly confess to enjoying that sort of thing in a game.

[Theodric]

Yep, I can certainly confess to enjoying that sort of thing in a game.

Likewise.

I play fantasy games to interact with the fantasy elements. It's a real shame that the game has a weird habit of eroding away many of the classic fantasy features and tropes that the genre is known for.

[Skyborne]

Ishikawa/Yoshida

Thanks for the translations, though the interview itself is not new, the wording is different and a bit interesting in its connotations. To me it didn't come across as any more "horrifying" than the Sundered, or irl where lab animals could be treated pretty horrifically. Elpis was a research facility rather than just a city where people lived like Amaurot... it seems the animals there lived it up fairly well before they would be "un-made" or successfully released into the world (the worst case scenario iirc was that plant hydra that was grouchy from not having meals big enough for its liking... and Meletos, of course). Hard disagree with Yoshida there, and I'm not the only one... if so many people like me "missed the point", could it be an issue with the writing itself? For me... yes.

Also it's a shame we learned nothing of the original mankind's history/past, other than Hythlodaeus saying it was once rough and untamed, and Venat stating that humanity only managed to avoid the sting of suffering for "a time". Since they seem to be done with all this, it's all just guesses and fan-headcanon forevermore.