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

[Iscah]

Thinking on it, there's one of 4 possible people for the 4th/final story. Hythlodaeus, Varshahn/Vrtra, Ahewann...and Azem.

As much as I'm hoping that we won't get another story about the ancients, I would definitely like Hyth to be the focus character if we do get one. Maybe instead of extended focus on Endwalker events, we could get a wild day at the Bureau of the Architect or something.

I think there's something to be said about a society so demanding of conformity and blissful acceptance that someone can repress thier pain so hard that it emerges catastrophically generations later.

The game already touched on the "emerges generations later" but it was something to do with the erased memories specifically getting etched deep in his soul and emerging later – which of course was his darkest and most nihilistic moment and a degree of despair he could barely cope with.

[Cilia]

It kind of feels like a stealth critique of Japanese society, though I don't think that was intended. I may also be reading into that too much.

*looks at Yotsuyu, a character from a Japanese-patterned nation whose character arc centers entirely around how she was expected to conform to society's standards and keep quiet about her pain so as to not upset social harmony, did so until it broke her; shares Hermes' author*

... maybe.

[Cleretic]

These short stories are rarely pure lore pure dumps of new information,

Actually, most of them kinda have been, although some of them were growing out of 'stuff we knew happened'. Going back to the ShB and pre-EW leadups, we have...

Shadow #1: Thancred getting recruited by Louisoix, and him rescuing First Minfilia/Ryne from Eulmore. Both scenes that we had no real details on before, but knew must have happened.
Shadow #2: Tataru and Krile blackmailing Estinien. We were specifically told this happened, but not the context or means.
Shadow #3: Omega in G'raha's timeline. Outright new info, from a character we didn't even know was there before.
Shadow #4: Emet and Hyth dealing with the Phoinix, with a flash-forward to Emet as Solus dealing with Varis. The former is all outright new info, the latter is filling in a relationship only implied before.
Shadow #5: The fall of Voeburt. While ostensibly taking place around the flashbacks in the ShB tank role quest, is entirely new scenes and mentioning characters and actions we didn't know about before.
Shadow #6: Seto and Ardbert. We knew full well they had adventures before then, we just hadn't seen them.
Shadow #7: Azem Versus the Volcano. Outright new info, the first glimpse of a character we'd only heard discussed. Also has a bit of Emet and Elidibus around Lahabrea's death, in the category of 'we weren't told it happened but assumed it did'. (Also the first Lodestone short story referred to in the game itself.)
Shadow #8: Future Biggs with G'raha and Midgardsormr. The former is 'we knew this happened', the latter is outright new.

Twilight #1: Yugiri during the war, with Gosetsu. Like the Seto story, we knew they had adventures but never saw them.
Twilight #2: Merlwyb and her father. I think this was entirely new information, I don't remember this coming up before.
Twilight #3: Fordola and Yda. Outright new information, we didn't know they'd met. Also technically a situation like Azem; this is the only writing about Actual Yda, we've only heard about her before.
Twilight #4: The Sennas form the new Gridanian government. Outright new info, we never knew they pushed for this.
Twilight #5: The Ishgard one. Mostly 'we knew this must have happened', although we never heard about Ishgard's children under Thordan before, so there's that.

This is just something I've noticed across this particular batch; rather different than the Shadowbringers stories, every story so far has actually been an event that we've either already been explicitly told about before now, or in Erenville's case 'the scene that happened right after the scene we were actually there for'. There's still new information mostly in the side details, but other than Krile and Erenville collaborating we haven't yet actually had a story about something we didn't already know fairly well.

Neither approach is bad, but it's definitely contributing to my Ancient fatigue to not only get half the year's short stories about them, but to not even have either of those stories be about something new.

[Kozh]

I think there's something to be said about a society so demanding of conformity and blissful acceptance that someone can repress thier pain so hard that it emerges catastrophically generations later.

It's called getting kairos'd (then later sundered). Current fandaniel being extra is also due to mix of hermes and amon persona.

[thegreatonemal]

It's called getting kairos'd (then later sundered). Current fandaniel being extra is also due to mix of hermes and amon persona.

Other than the recurring dreams and desire to lift their respective people out of stagnation Amon has nothing to do with Hermes. He makes that point very clear over and over. That's typically how reincarnation works in media.

[tokinokanatae]

Amon is very obviously lying to himself about that, otherwise he would have just laughed it off when you brought up Meteion/Elpis in the Aetherial Sea.

[thegreatonemal]

Amon is very obviously lying to himself about that, otherwise he would have just laughed it off when you brought up Meteion/Elpis in the Aetherial Sea.

He straight up tells you he doesn't know who that is when you pick that option.

[Iscah]

Amon is very obviously lying to himself about that, otherwise he would have just laughed it off when you brought up Meteion/Elpis in the Aetherial Sea.

I can't remember the conversation, but there's going to be a difference between (1) Amon while alive, who has scraps of knowledge about Hermes from recurring dreams; (2) Fandaniel the Ascian who has received more information about Hermes as the unsundered Ascians recall him, but does not identify with that past life and asserts his own identity over it; and (3) the soul of Amon/Hermes in the aetherial sea, with Amon's memories and personality presumably still dominant but maybe dissolving away or melding into the ongoing identity of that soul.

I really dislike that Asahi of all people got to come back and somehow claim dominance over Amon's fate while we were still trying to talk to him.

He straight up tells you he doesn't know who that is when you pick that option.

Whatever exactly is going on, he certainly should be aware of Meteion because she would have been a key part of the scene he dreamt of over and over. Whether he feels the same affection for her as Hermes is another question (which, again, I haven't rewatched the scene to see).

[Cleretic]

Amon is very obviously lying to himself about that, otherwise he would have just laughed it off when you brought up Meteion/Elpis in the Aetherial Sea.

I hardly think he's lying to himself, because at the end of the day Amon is a scientist, he's a guy who does a lot of analysis and thinking. He holds Hermes' memories at a distance from himself and took VASTLY different things from them, essentially using them as proof of his own outlook more than anything else, but they aren't nothing. When we come down and call him Hermes, he reacts, but less in the sense of this really hitting home and more like if someone brought up something you didn't know anyone remembered from second grade; it knocks him off-kilter and gets him to talk, but it's very clearly (even directly stated to be) not something he holds too closely.

We never saw a pre-Ascians Amon, so it's impossible to say how much the full perspective of who Hermes is changed him if at all, but it's definitely not that it created a new gestalt entity. It's more that the Amon afterwards was 'Amon with a stock of Hermes' memories, which he mostly just took some REAL bad ideas from'.

[Cilia]

We can get a few bits of information about pre-Ascian Amon; he was a genius Allagan scientist who was disgusted by his fellows' wanton cruelty and casual disregard for others' lives and the Empire's decadence leading to stagnation, and sought to break it out of the slump by resurrecting Xande. He wasn't what Amon was expecting though (wrong / no soul probs) and just went on a nihilistic war against the world. In Allag's minutes to midnight he learned that Emet-Selch set Allag up to fall, meaning regardless of his efforts it would fall one day or another. Allag's decline, Xande's nihilism, and Emet-Selch's manipulations all served to drive him to madness... and that was before Hermes' memories.

That said his soul is definitely Amon and not Hermes. He says so himself, shows little and less resemblance to his Ancient persona, and his Triple Triad card even says verbatim that he is wholly Amon. Personally I feel he identifies with Hermes more than he'd like to admit, but sees him as an identity he discarded a long time ago.