Who knew the 6.15 Omega Quests… (Spoilers)

[Lyth]

I think it's worth looking at the events leading up to the showdown on the First.

• Igeyorhm wrecks havoc on the Thirteenth, killing off nearly all of the inhabitants of that world with the resulting Flood of Darkness and turning them into aether-starved voidsent, a state that their souls have been stuck in for the past 10000 years.
• Elidibus recruits a couple of survivors and attempts to use them to manipulate Ardbert's crew on the First. Ardbert spares Cylva and kills Mitron and Logrif, causing the Flood of Light and turning Mitron into Eden.
• Elidibus tries to manipulate Ardbert's crew into causing havoc on the Source. After listening to their story, Minifillia voluntarily returns with Ardbert's and friends as the Oracle to help them hold back the Flood of Light.
• Stymied by Minfilia's efforts over the next 100 or so years, Emet approaches the then leader of Eulmore, and infuses his unborn son Vauthry with a lightwarden's essence, so that Eulmore could speed up the process of aetherically corrupting the people on the First into lightwardens.
• Elidibus makes a plan to augment Emet's efforts on the First by unleashing a deadly chemical weapon, the Black Rose, to annhilate millions of Eorzeans as well as his own Garlean people.
• Elidibus is foiled when Zenos shows up as an unnamed Garlean soldier, and literally stares the Ascian down until he flees in panic, leaving both the body and his pride behind. Zenos destroys the chemical weapons.
• Emet hatches a plan to aetherically corrupt his long lost friend, the player character, into a Lightwarden in order to trigger the Eighth Umbral Calamity. It backfires when Emet is impaled with extreme prejudice by that selfsame light.

I can understand if you want to root for the villains. They're really entertaining characters. But I don't think that you can use moral indignation to justify their actions. You can sympathize with Emet. You can understand why he did what he did. But you can't really say that it was anything other than self-serving and evil. He's a fallen hero, and Endwalker was his redemption arc of sorts.

The only way that you can try to justify what they did is by trying to distract as much attention away from the Ascians' actions as possible. But why bother? Just embrace his villainy. It's what makes him fun.

[LordGiggles]

The Ea as individuals can choose as they wish. As a collective however deciding that life isn’t worth living for any future generations is the failure. Their children can be mortal, and informed by their mistakes can blaze a better path.

Their unborn children don't actually exist, and nobody is obliged to reproduce if they don't want to (assuming the Ea even can). They are, as individuals, choosing as they wish.

Many species did everything right, that’s Meteions point in her argument. It does not change the answer however, that one still can find a reason to keep going even if faced with that inevitability.

This reason being? Why should they have to live in effectively unending torment, adrift in a universe that is entirely dead? Sure, they could hang around and kill themselves later on, but what's the point if nothing is going to actually change in the meantime? It's easy to talk about finding a way or choosing a different path, but it's not worth much without saying what that is, or how it avoids all the other dead ends.

I would love to see more about what happened between them reaching the conclusion they did and reaching the state they're in at the moment though, I think it's the most interesting of the dead ends we saw.

The 'heat death' of the universe that's being referenced here as a 'popular science concept' is not a cataclysmic event.

Not quoting the full message for reply size purposes, but this is pretty misleading. It's not a literal immediate apocalypse, but for a being that cannot die outside extremely specific mechanisms, the inevitable end of all things is absolutely equivalent to a cataclysmic event. It's an ongoing succession of cataclysms over an enormous period of time, assuming it does indeed occur in this universe, which we have no reason to believe otherwise.

As for your interpretation of the philosophical question being asked, this "And the resolution to this conflict is in Y'shtola's response. It's about the journey." does not at all work as a counter. How do you think the Ea got to this state in the first place?

The Ea are in a situation where they are permanent in a universe where effectively everything else is not. If you don't follow the path they have, you're eventually going to succumb to another fate. If you're not supposed to follow the aforementioned journey to its end, and not supposed to push too hard to improve your life, how are you any better than any of the innumerable other civilisations that wiped themselves out over time? What do you do when the problems you're allowed to solve are all solved? How do you stop people trying to solve them anyway?

Nihilism is not a sustainable philosophical stance. It's just a temporary place, a bus stop for lost souls.

I don't think that you believe this, it's a nice sounding quote but it's clearly not true. "Sustainability" is also pretty irrelevant to topics surrounding existentialism. Philosophy isn't designed around making people feel good, and there's nothing within nihilism that stops them from doing so in the first place.

And I do agree regarding the hive mind aspect, but it's not super applicable to the Ea, we see and hear of some very different reactions they have. The dragons are pretty bad this way though, guess it's just a limitation of trying to show several radically different outcomes in a single zone?

[Lyth]

That's not what the Ea are saying, though. Let's have a closer look.

'If you understand this - understand aught of our tale - you will abandon your quest for knowledge. Ignorance is truly bliss. If you would cling to your illusory happiness, remain primitive and pure. It is the only way.'

The Ea believe that if they hadn't have discovered the truth, they could have been happy. The central ideal around which they built their society on was the pursuit of knowledge. Their despair was that their ideal was meaningless.

And Y'shtola's counterpoint to that is:

'As you yourself said, the subject matter is beyond my comprehension. And that, I accept, is true. I do not possess the knowledge to prove or disprove your conclusion. In my mortal years, I doubt that I could even approach the wisdom of the Ea. But of one thing I am absolutely certain: I would not be happier in ignorance.

The most important lesson I've learned... is that learning isn't simply passing one's eyes over words. Nay... 'tis when understood for oneself that knowledge attains its true value. And that is what has sustained me. Driven me onward in joy and wonder, in anger and sorrow. The universe may end, and may all be for naught. But I will live as I always have.

I will always seek out new knowledge. And no conclusion of yours, no matter how grim, can dampen my desire.'

And this latter point personally resonates with me.

I find it strange that you'd hold an opinion at all about what any of my beliefs are. Existentialism and Nihilism do force us to confront some interesting questions and assumptions about our belief systems. But you can always find the answers for yourself.

[LordGiggles]

[I]'As you yourself said, the subject matter is beyond my comprehension. And that, I accept, is true. I do not possess the knowledge to prove or disprove your conclusion. In my mortal years, I doubt that I could even approach the wisdom of the Ea. But of one thing I am absolutely certain: I would not be happier in ignorance.

The most important lesson I've learned... is that learning isn't simply passing one's eyes over words. Nay... 'tis when understood for oneself that knowledge attains its true value. And that is what has sustained me. Driven me onward in joy and wonder, in anger and sorrow. The universe may end, and may all be for naught. But I will live as I always have.

Yes, and this does not work as a counter, because they have already spent almost certainly a huge, huge amount of time living as they always had, driving onwards to find out more about the universe and reality. It's the entire reason they're in the state they are, they didn't just pop into reality with an understanding of the universe so incredibly more advanced than any other species we see or even hear of.

Y'shtola saying that she's just going to keep being curious anyway is really easy to say when she'll almost certainly be dead within the next century, and has no actual reason to care about the end of the universe. Like she's what, 30? Forgive me if I don't think "well I still want to know stuff though" is a particularly compelling argument against a race of beings that already know more than anyone we've seen, and that will live on forever.

She's really just not even trying to understand the difference between the sundered and the Ea, despite saying she knows she'll never come even close to their wisdom.

"The universe may end, and may all be for naught." has an extremely different impact when you will personally exist and live on beyond the end of the universe, compared to a situation where you could multiply your expected lifespan by a million and still never come close to seeing it. There's just not really much of an argument in this quote at all, it's barely more than a "nuh uh".

I find it strange that you'd hold an opinion at all about what any of my beliefs are. Existentialism and Nihilism do force us to confront some interesting questions and assumptions about our belief systems. But you can always find the answers for yourself.

I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, that you don't actually think a belief we've seen people hold across hundreds and hundreds of years and that is an incredibly influential one in any discussion of existential topics, is somehow not sustainable. It's not really something that is influenced by how people feel about it, it's either correct or it is not (of course nihilism isn't a single claim or argument, but I'm being reductionist for etiquette reasons). With regards to existential nihilism in particular, life either has an intrinsic meaning or it doesn't. Finding your own reason to go on doesn't go against any of this really.

[Lyth]

Everyone's experience is unique. Just because someone older than you tells you something isn't worth doing doesn't mean that you might not decide to see it for yourself. The Ea decided that their lives weren't worth living, but that's really their call. But I do think that the acquisition of knowledge for its own sake is something that many people find enjoyable, myself included, even purely for the challenge of it. So I can personally understand where Y'shtola is coming from, even if the Ea have lost the 'magic' of discovery themselves.

Nihilism is the philosophical equivalent of being a teenager. It's momentous for its time, but most people eventually move on past the angst to bigger and brighter things. It's a fantastic starting place, though, and well worth experiencing at least at some point in one's life.

[Veloran]

Hydaelyn was nearly dry of aether

Clearly not.

There’s nothing indicating that Minfilia wished to not be the Word of the Mother or that she was going to die if she didn’t say yes,

She was drifting in the aetherial sea. If she didn't say yes, she would have died or at least suffered permanent injury. Ultimately, Minfilia being made Word of the Mother wasn't even hugely relevant to the story, because there's not much she did that Venat shouldn't have been able to do on her own regardless.

[*]Emet hatches a plan to aetherically corrupt his long lost friend, the player character, into a Lightwarden in order to trigger the Eighth Umbral Calamity. It backfires when Emet is impaled with extreme prejudice by that selfsame light.

It's kind of funny to think that even at this point anybody can legitimately be so confused about Emet's motivations.

Nihilism is the philosophical equivalent of being a teenager. It's momentous for its time, but most people eventually move on past the angst to bigger and brighter things.

Almost a million people kill themselves every single year, to say nothing of the countless millions more that suffer from persistent depression or conditions which will never improve, and philosophies about the inherent lack of meaning in existence go back thousands of years. To characterize the idea of not finding value in life as nothing more than a passing phase of teenage angst is frankly just ignorant.

[EaraGrace]

I wouldn't consider it to be a 'strawman'. Each and every single one of Venat's victories are built upon the demise of other people. The vast majority of them completely without consent at that. To say nothing of the artwork for the patch where Minfilia's fate was first revealed:



Furthermore, people are perfectly free to come to their own conclusions regardless particular characters - especially if their actions are controversial.

Yes, generally when two groups fight one group loses and that sucks for that group.

And I have a question. You yourself have argued that the Scions, the Sundered and just in general those who can be considered part of Hydaelyns group, haven’t suffered enough to justify their later victories in the story. So explain this to me, how is it possible that simultaneously Hydaelyns allies suffer so terribly due to her actions as to make siding with her unadvisable or even immoral, and that those in her group are apparently not “earning” their victories by virtue of their lack of suffering?

There’s a contradiction here I believe.

And always with that artwork. It’s literally the only thing you can use to argue that now.

Clearly not.

She literally burnt through her soul. How was she not lacking in aether. This is stated consistently since the end of ARR.

[Lyth]

?

Having a nihilistic philosophical viewpoint doesn't automatically make you depressed. Take moral nihilism, for example.

[Theodric]

Yes, generally when two groups fight one group loses and that sucks for that group.

And I have a question. You yourself have argued that the Scions, the Sundered and just in general those who can be considered part of Hydaelyns group, haven’t suffered enough to justify their later victories in the story. So explain this to me, how is it possible that simultaneously Hydaelyns allies suffer so terribly due to her actions as to make siding with her unadvisable or even immoral, and that those in her group are apparently not “earning” their victories by virtue of their lack of suffering?

There’s a contradiction here I believe.

I wouldn't consider it to be a contradiction, especially since I - and various other posters - have consistently asked for a balanced narrative rather than suffering for suffering's sake or conveniently having a situation where the antagonists stand to lose absolutely everything that they care about whilst the protagonists walk away with barely a scratch by comparison. I'm also not inclined to pay much heed to sophistry stemming from video game characters of all things, especially not those who preach about overcoming 'despair' whilst being exposed to very little of it in a direct capacity.

You're free to come to your own personal takes and conclusions, of course - just as myself and others are perfectly happy to do the same. Especially since there is no obligation for players to like or root for Venat or any other character for that matter.

[EaraGrace]

I wouldn't consider it to be a contradiction, especially since I - and various other posters - have consistently asked for a balanced narrative rather than suffering for suffering's sake or conveniently having a situation where the antagonists stand to lose absolutely everything that they care about whilst the protagonists walk away with barely a scratch by comparison. I'm also not inclined to pay much heed to sophistry stemming from video game characters of all things, especially not those who preach about overcoming 'despair' whilst being exposed to very little of it in a direct capacity.

You said

Each and every single one of Venat's victories are built upon the demise of other people.

In reference to the costs of victory for Hydaelyns ally’s, costs that include people losing loved ones and friends.

So are they suffering for sufferings sake or are they walking away with barely a scratch? Asking for a balanced narrative is fine, but I don’t think you can criticize a story for having characters sacrifice too much and not enough at the same times. Just feels like an odd criticism.