Live Letter Thoughts

[Jojoya]

So in catching up with all the posts since I last read the thread:

While a few people are still trying to engage in discussion of things that happened in the Live Letter (mostly Island Sanctuary), most are intent on pursuing their personal agendas still.

aveyond-dreams has basically expressed the wish that for FFXIV to be a pure high fantasy game despite the Final Fantasy franchise having a history of being a mix of high fantasy and low fantasy.

The Team Zodiark versus Team Hydaelyn war continues with genocide back on the menu as one side submits a definition as evidence but in doing so reveals its hypocrisy.

At any rate, here's the official definition of genocide:



The Sundering fits every single criteria. So...yes, it's an act of genocide. Hide it behind fluffy language all you like though if the protagonists wouldn't accept such a thing happening to their loved ones then there's really no reason for anybody else to either.

By that definition, so do the actions of the Convocation of FourteenThirteen.

They had the intent to destroy a part of their own people for the sake of summoning Zodiark. They did so.

After they did that, they had the intent to destroy a part of their own people to repair the damage to Etheirys. They did so.

After that, they had the intent to destroy multiple forms of newly created life on Etheirys to try to bring back those who were killed the first time around. Venat stopped that via the Sundering.

So why do people want to venerate the group that succeeded in 2 acts of genocide and were about to commit multiple genocides while demonizing the individual that stopped that massive wave of genocide by sundering the world to create multiple copies of all life, which probably might be considered genocide since with the knowledge we gave her she knew that some would survive but many others would die though her intent was not to actually destroy everything but rather to try to preserve what then existed?

Something seems fishy, especially when the reality is none of these things happened. It's just a fictional story created for entertainment and a lot of people are taking it way too seriously to the detriment of their mental health.

[aveyond-dreams]

So why do people want to venerate the group that succeeded in 2 acts of genocide and were about to commit multiple genocides while demonizing the individual that stopped that massive wave of genocide by sundering the world to create multiple copies of all life, which probably might be considered genocide since with the knowledge we gave her she knew that some would survive but many others would die though her intent was not to actually destroy everything but rather to try to preserve what then existed?

Because Venat refused to tell people the truth, setting the stage for the Convocation to summon Zodiark and so on. We do not view her as a savior, and are unlikely to be convinced she is one. The official definition of genocide has already been stated, and it is applicable in the case of the ancients. Continuing to paint her as a herois while painting the ancients as evil and arrogant is tiresome to those of us who are fans of them. This doesn't make for a story that we want to see through to the end, and remains a source of concern about the upcoming raid questline.

She also did not create "copies" she reduced everything to this:



This is not a copy paste job. This is to date the sole depiction of the aftermath of the Sundering (canon, written by Ishikawa) and Yoship has already stated that Hyurs, Elezen and the like evolved from this into the respective races thus Venat is not their "mother." The fact that they are bringing both her and Meteion up again has us worried for how prevalent that will be in the MSQ, so forgive us we express our concern with how they've handled things thus far and may continue with in the future.

Fundamentally fans of the Ascians, Zodiark, Emet-Selch and all understand that yeah, they did some wrong things and indeed inflict a genocide on multiple planets. But so did Hydaelyn, and she is hailed as a herois for it, with the game intent on pushing that notion repeatedly. They raise her up at the expense of the antagonist faction that many came to love, so it is any wonder why maybe we feel like this a bit one-sided?

[TaleraRistain]

This is not a copy paste job. This is to date the sole depiction of the aftermath of the Sundering (canon, written by Ishikawa)

I feel like Ishikawa may have have made a misstep on this one. There's a problem with making anything crossed over into another game canon to the original game in the first place, but it's made more of a problem when it directly contradicts the canon of the original game. And this goes against what Emet himself described to us about the effect of Sundering in Shadowbringers.

I expect for characters to evolve in meaningful ways by way of growth, loss, change, or death.

It's incredibly hard to take this statement seriously when you complain that Estinien lost his "edge" so he's a bad character now. Not that he came from a painful and lonely background and grew and progressed as a person and was able to move past that pain so he could form deep and lasting connections with others in the world. It really does come off as many say that SE didn't write it the way you wanted so it's bad.

[hagare]

It's incredibly hard to take this statement seriously when you complain that Estinien lost his "edge" so he's a bad character now. Not that he came from a painful and lonely background and grew and progressed as a person and was able to move past that pain so he could form deep and lasting connections with others in the world. It really does come off as many say that SE didn't write it the way you wanted so it's bad.

I really like how estinien grew from making meaningful connections. How he's now more relaxed to be able to even make jokes. And how he trusts people more that he willingly sacrificed his life for them in UT.
Not every growth has to come from tragedy.

[TaleraRistain]

I really like how estinien grew from making meaningful connections. How he's now more relaxed to be able to even make jokes. And how he trusts people more that he willingly sacrificed his life for them in UT.
Not every growth has to come from tragedy.

I love Estinien's growth. I was pointing out the hypocrisy because aveyond has complained about the change in Estinien before and said he was better when he was gloomy and edgy. He had character growth. But it wasn't the "right" type of growth.

[hagare]

I love Estinien's growth. I was pointing out the hypocrisy because aveyond has complained about the change in Estinien before and said he was better when he was gloomy and edgy. He had character growth. But it wasn't the "right" type of growth.

I'm just glad SE didn't go the way he wants him to go.
God. That'd be terrible.