Quote Originally Posted by Brinne View Post
Endwalker, of course, flipped that entirely, and ran to the exact opposite conclusion Shadowbringers had, in deliberately attempting to paint the Ancients as so Other and Alien that it's actually natural, okay, and for the greater good that they all died, so that Hydaelyn could be justified in murdering them. After all, if they're not truly "alive" or "people" in the way we are, then if she kills them, Hydaelyn is not guilty of murder!

Othering the opposition so you are okay killing them is a long-standing staple of the fantasy genre, and I've rolled with it myself a number of times. I'm a longtime fan of JRPGs, after all. But after Shadowbringers's incredibly poignant and effective project of "humanizing," Endwalker suddenly backing up and going "dehumanize! DEHUMANIZE!" to justify the protagonists' side feels incredibly - well, yeah, "gross" is the best way I can think of to describe it.
I cannot fathom how you came to this conclusion from walking around Elpis. Their perspective on life was designed to be a little cold and alien, sure. The idea of making and unmaking life on a whim doesn't have the same shocking value it'd have to us as transient beings who'd be lucky to live to 100 when they could live for thousands of years. The Warrior of Light is visibly startled by Hythlodaeus' conversion of a petalouda into clothes on a whim, but that's because it could've belonged to someone else. But at no point are the ancients condemned as being "other" in the story.

But researchers of Elpis ARE human in all the way that matters. They're NOT the monolith of boundless compassion, wisdom, and benevolence that Emet-Selch made them out to be. They could be clumsy, forgetful, short-sighted, pompous, self-doubting, callous, compassionate, honorable, irritable, doting, vain and many many other things. They have many of the same virtues as well as the same foibles as we do. The sidequests and FATEs show this. The Warrior can even tell one of the researchers that, "I don't think we're so different."

At no point are the ancients dehumanized in the story. Venat's actions are self-righteous and at no point are they called "noble". It's only framed as a good thing because the alternative is the complete extinction of all life in the universe.

If anything, Elpis showed that the ancients are as human as we are. Maybe we don't see eye to eye on everything due to the vast differences in our lifespans, but if Endwalker did anything to the ancients, it humanized them and I appreciate it for that as it enhances the tragedy of the Final Days and adds additional moral complexity to the Sundering.