Pandæmonium story

[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.

[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.

[Lauront]

If we are going to be critical about it then wouldn't twitter just give him a pat on the back and say "chase those dreams!"? From what I gathered every ancient that found out what he was up to collectively told Hermes, "No, what you did was stupid." Hermes proceeded to throw a fit and chaos control nearly everyone's memories. Twitter would have given a big thumbs up as their memories were erased, lol.

Sure, just pointing out that the comparison stems from Yoshida himself.

[PawPaw]

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.

Really well said, I no longer feel the need to type out a reply of my own as this encapsulates my thoughts on this matter perfectly!

[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.

[EaraGrace]

My my Eara. Arguing in bad faith again are we? He did directly face it, in fact it’s what made him give up on the sundered after seeing how fragile they are. There’s nothing indicating he didn’t acknowledge his grieving whereas there are quite a few examples of the opposite.

I didn’t realize abusing your grandson wasn’t a maladaptive response to grief. The fact he couldn’t even look at Varis without being disgusted should say it all.

Or better yet let’s hear how Emet described it.

Yet in spite of himself, when he cradled the newborn in his arms and stroked that downy hair, he could not help but hope. For what, he could not be certain, but he hoped nonetheless. It made little difference in the end, for his son had succumbed to some absurd illness and returned to the Underworld long before his time. Not without leaving behind a legacy, however─a living, breathing, and ever-present reminder of that momentary lapse.

Now perhaps I’m being judgey, but I don’t think that looking at your affection for your dead son as a “momentary lapse” is facing and accepting grief.

[KizuyaKatogami]

I didn’t realize abusing your grandson wasn’t a maladaptive response to grief. The fact he couldn’t even look at Varis without being disgusted should say it all.

Or better yet let’s hear how Emet described it.



Now perhaps I’m being judgey, but I don’t think that looking at your affection for your dead son as a “momentary lapse” is facing and accepting grief.

Correct me if i’m wrong but it’s depicted that his son was the sundered’s chance of proving themselves to him. After his sons death it seemed to hit him with grief so hard he abandoned giving the sundered and chance and that’s when he fully decided to go along with the rejoining. Momentary lapse he’s referring to, to me at least seems to be the hope he had for the sundered. I don’t see that it has anything to do with grief.

[EaraGrace]

Correct me if i’m wrong but it’s depicted that his son was the sundered’s chance of proving themselves to him. After his sons death it seemed to hit him with grief so hard he abandoned giving the sundered and chance and that’s when he fully decided to go along with the rejoining. Momentary lapse he’s referring to, to me at least seems to be the hope he had for the sundered. I don’t see that it has anything to do with grief.

Yes that is why I said he didn’t know what grief was. He clearly didn’t understand why the event shook him, and instead deluded himself into thinking that he was making a logical conclusion about the Sundereds moral weight. The fact that not long after that he conjured up a magical city with the ghosts of his dead friends, and then seemed embarrassed by our noticing, points to someone who hasn’t clearly faced their grief.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Yes that is why I said he didn’t know what grief was. He clearly didn’t understand why the event shook him, and instead deluded himself into thinking that he was making a logical conclusion about the Sundereds moral weight. The fact that not long after that he conjured up a magical city with the ghosts of his dead friends, and then seemed embarrassed by our noticing, points to someone who hasn’t clearly faced their grief.

I don’t really think it had to do with moral weight. He did the same thing to us in ShB. He was looking for something in the sundered to prove themselves as capable of taking over the star. When his son dies he was struck with that grief of basically, “i had all this hope for these people and they die so quickly to the smallest of things?” No was is really rational in grief. I’m happy that you apparently can cope with it well but a lot of people don’t. Grief is one of the hardest things for people to get over and 9 times out of 10 some people don’t handle it rationally. It’s part of being human and he seemed to display this quite well. In comparison to Hermes who displayed this but to an inhuman extreme where he threw the equivalent of a temper tantrum and because of this was the catalyst in destroying civilizations and entire planets.