Pandæmonium story

[GrizzlyTank]

The Pandemonium story so far is a let down. It is painfully obvious we are going to see the original Lahabreha as one of the bosses, and see Lahabreha Jr. take up his role.

Feels like it's more likely for his son to somehow end up conspiring with Venat in dealing with Zodiark seeing how he is good at chaining things down.

Alternatively he might sacrifice himself trying to imprison the Beast that brought forth the scream within the planet.

Also have a hunch that the last act of pandaemonium is going to happen in present time with us putting whatever remains of the beast down.

[GrizzlyTank]

Uh, yes, they did make Hermes look like a sociopath. Guess what? It might be because he sorta was

Complete disregard to the rules and regulations, which resulted in the death of multitude of planets...

[xxmiamorecadenza]

The only thing I gleaned from the plot is ‘vampire daddy hot’ - and that’s it. And this is coming from someone who doesn’t skip any cutscenes. I was just bored going through it.

[KageTokage]

I'd like to hope this story will have some meaningful implications for the future and isn't just giving Elidibus and Lahabrea more time in the spotlight so we can feel worse about the hand they were dealt.

[Lustre]

I was a lot more interested before I found out it's in elpis and involves time travel. No more time travel plots please.

[redheadturk]

Our primary issue with Hermes is the same primary issue we have with Venat. The betrayal of your own is utterly vile and both Venat and Hermes did just that.

[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

[GrizzlyTank]

I was a lot more interested before I found out it's in elpis and involves time travel. No more time travel plots please.

But even the first final fantasy had time-travel!

Although the only iffy one is the sending of the crystal tower to the first, since it's the only time-travel situation which leads to infinite realities, compared to the loop from alexander and elpis.

[redheadturk]

But even the first final fantasy had time-travel!

Although the only iffy one is the sending of the crystal tower to the first, since it's the only time-travel situation which leads to infinite realities, compared to the loop from alexander and elpis.

I for one prefer branching timelines, screw stable time loops.

[Rulakir]

Frankly, from what I've seen Yoshi-P has some of the worst takes on the story and characters. He was surprised by Emet's popularity. He was surprised players didn't forgive Hermes like they did Emet despite Ishikawa saying she figured 80% of players would hate him.

The quests outright state that a creation obtaining a soul is rare and they have no control over it, so I don't even know where he's getting this bit about they were creating and destroying beings with souls on a whim. I have no idea what's "scary" about deciding to end your life when you're nigh immortal and feel you've given all you're able. I can say they failed in their intent to depict the Ancients as dispassionate to me and apparently many others.

I'm also endlessly perplexed by their statements on Hermes. Are they oblivious to what he and Venat did being exponentially worse than Emet? How is Hermes being wrong even a question? How is thinking that the near extermination of not only Etheirys, but the universe considered a "first step" for anything? Part of the reason people sympathized with Emet is because the Ancients were victims, first of the Final Days and then of the sundering, and they had no idea why. Hermes and Venat are perpetrators. They both knew the outcome of their actions, the billions of deaths it would cause, and both went ahead with it. Hermes, in particular, wasn't impartial at all. Regardless of what their vision of him was, he came across as hitting the kill switch purely out of spite.

I've seen plenty of people say that the EW storyline made them feel gross, like it was genocide apologism, and interviews like these certainly aren't helping. I am just stunned at the lack of awareness. It's not much of a stretch to say that the message of EW is if you're a good person living a nice life violence against you is justified if someone thinks you're undeserving.