Tales from the Dawn #3: "A Question of Life" (Hermes)

[Carin-Eri]

Carin, there is an option in the top-right hand corner of the page that allows you to change the WoL's gender in the story to suit your character (all stories that mention or hint at the WoL have that function).

Ah - missed that! Thank you, and apologies!

[Thenightvortex]

No, the resident sadboy is still not sympathetic.

Moving on.

[Cleretic]

Because we’re trying to apply an understanding about existence that is completely antithetical to the one the Ancients were operating on. To them life was a joyous thing, meant to be experienced and then relinquished happily without the kinds of extreme emotions that characterizes our own experiences. They couldn’t accept that the answer would be bad, because they have no reason to believe that’s a possibility.

That doesn't honestly help, because as you might remember, it's also an Ancient that pinpointed the root of the problem when it happened. It honestly doesn't feel like 'the Ancients were too pacified by a rad life to consider a negative' and more like 'we need to give Emet-Selch the chance to point out the problem so he can seem like the smartest Ancient'.

In retrospect, if anything this feels like it would've been an opportune time to use the fact there's a certain person in the room that isn't an Ancient at all. We've seen VERY negative outcomes and answers, it would've been completely in-keeping for us to notice and voice it. Hell, I can even think of a few side stories that would've been able to provide great optional lines for that; we've walked a LOT of depressing ruins, after all.

[Ayche]

Don't yall go blaming it on the psychologically vulnerable.

[Iscah]

More alluding to the Sundering without actually wanting to describe what happened. They really either needed to decide on it or somehow not pin so much of the drama around it in the first place.

Unlike a number of people, I do find Hermes sympathetic, I just don't think there's a convincing connection through to Amon/Fandaniel. Especially when they want to round off with pretty talk about defying oblivion and confronting difficult answers, because that's not at all how the rest of his story arc goes.

[Enkidoh]

I do have sympathy for Hermes too, but I'm not blind to his major flaws - my dislike of him particularly comes from his big rant about his reasons for what he did as just sheer hyprocrisy being that he thought the Ancients mistreated their creations, where side quests in Elpis showed that was very much not the case at all - Hythlodaeus after all during Ktisis lamented "having to put down the creations" and regretted doing so (and after defeating Lyssa immediately offers a prayer, wishing it's soul "would find peace in the Aetherial Sea"), and most of his researchers treated their charges with compassion and not as objects like he thought they did (I mean, they even hold funeral services for them).

Of course, there are still a few jerks among the staff on Elpis who regard them as tools, but they're not exactly shown in a good light, so it just goes to further paint Hermes as a complete hypocrite, effectively dooming his world and it's people (and the life he supposedly cares so much for), to destruction, death and worse just because he didn't like how creation magic was being used. Pot meet kettle in that regard.

[Cleretic]

I actually really like Hermes' story and totally sympathize with all of it; he's perhaps the worst Ancient morally and qualitatively (except for Athena and that one recurring Elpis FATE guy), but he's also the best Ancient in terms of compelling writing, I totally get both not being in step with the world around you and grappling with the worst kind of brainworms. His interesting relationship to Amon helps a hell of a lot, too, I like that he both is and isn't the guy that kick-started the problems in our time.

I just wish we'd gotten a story about any other part of Endwalker instead. I am not interested in the Ancients even if you focus a story on the most interesting one, every single other society we went to in Endwalker would've been more compelling to me. Especially because the overall approach to these stories has been to underline existing events and beats, rather than add new ones; nothing wrong with that approach, but it makes over-focusing on one corner of the setting even more obvious.

It's especially bad because whoever's getting left out in this batch (either Thavnair or Garlemald, possibly both) is gonna face even stiffer competition in the batch next year. By then we'll have more on the Void, more on the Twelve, and more on Ultima Thule through the Omicrons; that's a pretty crowded field to all give fair shares, so doubling up on one of the settings this early is a really disappointing turn.

[EaraGrace]

That doesn't honestly help, because as you might remember, it's also an Ancient that pinpointed the root of the problem when it happened. It honestly doesn't feel like 'the Ancients were too pacified by a rad life to consider a negative' and more like 'we need to give Emet-Selch the chance to point out the problem so he can seem like the smartest Ancient'.

I mean it can be both can it not? By the time Hades speaks the group has already learned that what Meteion has found is horrific, any of the Elpis gang could’ve spoken up. The writers likely felt Hades natural cynicism lended to making that point, while still emphasizing the general inability of the Ancients to foresee negative futures.

But perhaps even more convincing is that Hades was actually wrong in his criticism. Looking at it like a study, the true flaw was Hermes personal stake in the results, which potentially could’ve skewed things. But that’s not what happened. Meteion returned with her message, and it was exactly not what Hermes hoped for, and he accepted it. Rejecting something that disproves your hypothesis because it disproves your hypothesis or goes against your priors would be the true mistake, and that’s what Hades is advocating for. The right criticism would be “why isn’t there a way to bring them back easily?”

[Vyrerus]

Biggest thing I got from this story was the Dynamis lore. A planet out there with a will of its own? A freakin' Unicron of Dynamis? What answer did it give?!

A bit sad about no details given on just how he created Meteion. Mentions of planning. Mentions of what she could do. No mention about how he manipulated Dynamis to be part of her being. Was the named assistant in this story someone we met in one of the quests?

As far as relating to Hermes goes... ehh... It's kind of hard to believe his character is real within the setting of The World Unsundered. Particularly within Amaurotine society. I say that because he's relatively young by Ancient standards, and it's not like he'd ever known any other society. Why would he think his society was a lie without any massive activist groups or individual radicalizers? Especially when it pretty much gives him free reign to do what he wants, think what he wants, and even lash out occasionally, apparently.

Not saying that I can't believe in him, but it's pretty clear from other characters living lives outside of the norm that such a thing doesn't really put someone beyond acceptance in Amaurotine society. The idea that he just feels this way driven entirely by his own internal workings is farfetched to me.

[Lurina]

I love Hermes. He sucks.