Tales from the Dawn

[YianKutku]

@Yiankutku that is also how I've read how the Ancients to be when it comes to strong emotions. They don't deal with them. If they do they seem to deal with them in an unhealthy fashion. I have thought this ever since meeting Hermes. I feel that part of the reason they do such is because of the sociality pressures on everyone to be the same. To not stand out as standing out in the wrong ways could be seen as bad. As a way to show some form of individualism. The Ancients remind me of the governments in a Clockwork Orange or in how everyone acts towards individuality in the game We happy few. Where even the slightest deviation from what is perceived as what is normal or socially acceptable gets treated with a lot of contempt and in need of fixing. It's why at least what I think is why Lahabreha warns Elidibus not to spend too much time around or get too close to Azem. As our past self, Venat and probably all other Azems are the ones that allowed to be different to an extent. And that different-ness is what makes them so "corruptible" of others.

Hermes was an interesting case, because while it was clear he was depressed (and acting like a textbook example of mild depression), he didn't know what he was feeling, and could not put it into concrete descriptions. Which is kind of realistic for many cases of RL depression, so I didn't really think much of it at the time.

Also back during the Eden raids, Mitron was being way too clingy to what he believed Loghrif "should be", but again that's a (unfortunately) common thing in RL, so again I didn't think it was especially Ancient-specific.

But Pandemonium made me think further, because how Erichthonios acted, like he was guilty for having emotions about how his father Lahabrea had been treating him. And then there was Hesperos, who went way further with his envy and jealousy than was in any way reasonable. Erichthonios wondered if this was how Hesperos was actually like, and Hesperos confirmed it, but at the time of the Asphodelos raids I thought Hesperos was being influenced to be crazy.

And then the Abyssos raids happened, and Lahabrea literally ripped out his emotions to avoid having to deal with them. And Lahabrea also criticized Erichthonios for being angry at his father, like the anger itself was a weakness. At that point, suddenly I recalled all the previous examples, and while they are not definitive evidence, there is a lot of circumstantial evidence.

Ancients can be cheerful. They can be inquisitive. They can be playful. They can be irritated. They can be melancholy. But they apparently cannot be too much of any of those emotions, into exuberant joy or obsessive curiosity or chaotic rebellion or furious anger or despairing sorrow, because either they will be censured and criticized by their fellows (as we saw in Amaurot with the Ancient shade who scolds us for our individualized clothing), or they will end up hyperfocusing on that emotion to the point where they cannot return to reason on their own. I strongly suspect these two possible reactions are related; there may be a culture among the Ancients to expect the suppression of strong emotions, because it might be actually dangerous.

Given the Creation Magics of the Ancients, and what happened during the Final Days, and now what we see mentioned in this short story (Venat having to stop an out-of-control creation from a child), this cultural suppression of emotion may be justified, since it's obviously more dangerous than any loss of control that a Star Trek Vulcan might undergo.

The speculation then follows that because the Ancients had been suppressing their stronger emotions for so long, they have lost the institutional and societal knowledge of how to handle those strong emotions. Which led to the Dynamis Final Days, through Hermes not being able to find therapy (or more precisely, had friends around him who recognized what was happening and could then point him towards help), and now the whole mess with Pandemonium.

Even further speculation: this sheer outpouring of emotion was what led to Elidibus being spat back out of Zodiark, since it looked on the surface like another usual disagreement, but in this case strong emotions were being involved, and so the "Emissary" whose role was to resolve disputes could not succeed.

Wild linking speculation: the Ancients had to be careful with their emotions, or they could end up being Ara-Mitama-ed.

[SannaR]

snips due to posting limitations that are dumb.

That makes a lot of sense really. That at one time or another might have known how to deal with said emotions. Yet felt that as a society they needed to repress said emotions due to their ability to use creation magics and how even the smallest things such as a stray thought or feeling could alter anything they created. To the point that over time they forgot how to deal with such strong emotions that some felt the very idea of seeking any kind of help or even dealing with them could in a way get "Big Brother" to crack down on you. Or if you were an Edwardian woman in need of a fainting chair at best. At worst sent to a sanitarium and most likely lobotomized. Or how many a generation of men got told that it's not manly to show certain emotions and that the best thing to do is to shove em down and hope they go away. The wild linking speculation also makes sense.

[Vyrerus]

Hermes was an interesting case

He knew what he was feeling. He was just so sure that none of his peers felt the same way, due to the Elpis Flowers. As if he'd brought the whole of society to them, to see.

Lahabrea wasn't just ripping out his emotions. He was ripping out Athena's tendrils, too. For it was his love for her that swayed him into attempting the soul merge in the first place, in an effort to redeem his abuser.

It's obvious that emotions are dangerous for the Ancients, but why you use the qualifier, "Actually" for said danger is strange. Emotions to real people and to the Sunder are just as actually dangerous. In the real world, strong emotions lead to crimes of passion, namely murder. In game, in the Sundered world, the same thing goes. It was emotion that lead Ilberd to summon Shinryu. It was emotion that lead Severian to try and resurrect his lover in the Alchemist questline. There are many other examples both negative and positive.

There don't seem to be any institutions in the modern era for dealing with any of that, either.

With great power comes great responsibility.

[EaraGrace]

He knew what he was feeling. He was just so sure that none of his peers felt the same way, due to the Elpis Flowers. As if he'd brought the whole of society to them, to see.

I think if your society doesn’t speak on them, and all around you never show their impact, feeling unique about your emotions isn’t as illogical as some claim it to be. He doesn’t need the whole world to visit the Elpis flowers, just enough different people for a representative sample.

Lahabrea wasn't just ripping out his emotions. He was ripping out Athena's tendrils, too. For it was his love for her that swayed him into attempting the soul merge in the first place, in an effort to redeem his abuser.

But we can’t understate how it important it was to him in that moment to separate himself from his emotions. He describes his capacity for love as a weakness, “that let this wickedness fester.” However necessary it might of been to remove Athena’s influence, the manner in which he went about it tells us much.

It's obvious that emotions are dangerous for the Ancients, but why you use the qualifier, "Actually" for said danger is strange. Emotions to real people and to the Sunder are just as actually dangerous. In the real world, strong emotions lead to crimes of passion, namely murder. In game, in the Sundered world, the same thing goes. It was emotion that lead Ilberd to summon Shinryu. It was emotion that lead Severian to try and resurrect his lover in the Alchemist questline. There are many other examples both negative and positive.

While I think it true that emotions can be dangerous to both the Ancients and the Sundered, the degree is obviously different. The short story mentioned a child creating a horrible concept out of fear that they needed Venat to defeat. Then there’s Hermes and Athena/Lahabrea, all of whom nearly single-handedly brought ruin to the world by themselves. The extent to which this is a threat cannot be understated, and while the Sundered world does have similar moments, they rely heavily in external circumstances in order to match that level. The Allied tribes needed large quantities of crystal and the knowledge of the Ascians, Ilberd needed the Eyes, the Alchemist questline ended in failure and so on. These aren’t equivalent when all it takes for an Ancient to destroy the world is sit and think.