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

[Iscah]

It's all the vagueness surrounding basically everything that happens between the end of Elpis and the Sundering the that makes it hard for me to feel completely for/against either faction's course of action, though perhaps that was precisely the writer's intent.

It's a poor way of making it morally ambiguous though. It's one thing to present all the facts and saying "you can see from this that neither side was right", and an entirely different matter to withhold the facts that will let people decide which-if-either side is right.

Oh, and uh... unrelatedly to the most immediate topic: Nier Re[in]carnation's sundering lore says hello.

Yeah, about that. I did Hades EX for the first time the other day and he's still calling us "malformed creatures" there, so I don't think we can conclusively know how he's using it in that story either. It's just more ambiguity on top of ambiguity.

[Absimiliard]

Minstrel's Ballads aren't the canon versions of the fights, merely their embellished retellings. That said, it is most certainly a phrase Hades tosses around over the course of the game. With the benefit of hindsight, we know why; he was trying to convince himself more than anyone. Dude knew all along he was harming living things, and it bothered him pretty much from the word go.

As for NieR Re[in]carnation, we do have a good bit of information provided for us. What remained following the sundering was quite literally malformed, bearing no resemblance to much of anything and so far gone that even the unsundered couldn't communicate with them anymore. It took a very, very long time for the sundered to become anything recognizable or even be capable of communication.

[EaraGrace]

The Scions -- Alphinaud especially -- have a bit of a record of getting things wrong, and what they do as a result of their incorrect conclusions is not always the most helpful thing. Just throwing that out there.

There not perfect for sure. But given Emet confirms they are 100% correct five minutes later, I’d say this isn’t one of those times.

Emet-Selch: I may have gotten a little carried away, in my attention to detail. Added a few unnecessary flourishes...

Weeell, there's no point trying to hide it. Yes.

Once the rejoining of worlds is complete, Zodiark will regain His full strength and shatter His prison.

Then we shall offer up the Source's remaining inhabitants in sacrifice, that we might resurrect our brethren who died to bring Zodiark into existence.

But what was it that you came here to do, exactly?

So we once again have to conclude that either they are right or they were written to be wrong on the facts but got lucky and ended up with the correct conclusion. The latter again makes no sense from a writing perspective.

As for NieR Re[in]carnation, we do have a good bit of information provided for us. What remained following the sundering was quite literally malformed, bearing no resemblance to much of anything and so far gone that even the unsundered couldn't communicate with them anymore. It took a very, very long time for the sundered to become anything recognizable or even be capable of communication.

They’re stated to not be able to form words, which can happen when you lose a lot of your memory. It’s also stated in that same event that Emet was repulsed and viewed them as “misbegotten husks” and “wretches” in our current time, so I’m disinclined to believe he can be trusted to give accurate descriptions. Even less so after he said Varis’ body was “wrong” and that the WoL was a broken husk.

Not to mention, Emet himself stresses that the Sundering does not touch flesh, and uses an exact copy of Ryne as an example. “Identical in appearance” is the term he used.

[KariTheFox]

Isn't the Nier game narrated from the perspective and viewpoint of the focus character? Emet-Selch's initial revulsion and abhorrence of the newly sundered people can't be taken at face value imo.

I mean, we see that they are capable of forming communities that had paintings, scriptures and songs that communicated half-remembered visions of Amaurot, the Final Days, and the Sundering.

If they were just shambling husks incapable of communication, why did they end up doing all that instead of you know, starving to death?

[Absimiliard]

There not perfect for sure. But given Emet confirms they are 100% correct five minutes later, I’d say this isn’t one of those times.



So we once again have to conclude that either they are right or they were written to be wrong on the facts but got lucky and ended up with the correct conclusion. The latter again makes no sense from a writing perspective.



They’re stated to not be able to form words, which can happen when you lose a lot of your memory. It’s also stated in that same event that Emet was repulsed and viewed them as “misbegotten husks” and “wretches” in our current time, so I’m disinclined to believe he can be trusted to give accurate descriptions. Even less so after he said Varis’ body was “wrong” and that the WoL was a broken husk.

Not to mention, Emet himself stresses that the Sundering does not touch flesh, and uses an exact copy of Ryne as an example.

A couple thoughts. Firstly, if we choose to disregard other in-game conversations and take this one purely at face value, nothing in there indicates the sacrifices to be limited to sapient life. He appears to be speaking of all life, and any kind of assumption otherwise would indeed be mistaken on part of the Scions. However, this is decidedly not what the original Ancients had planned. Conflating the two is disingenuous.

We are informed rather clearly their original plan was to cultivate life in the world, then sacrifice that life to bring back those sacrificed to Zodiark. The Ancients, and by extension Zodiark, were at no point shown capable of willfully creating sapient life -- or granting a new organism a soul, for that matter. Both of these things were dictated not by them but by the planet itself. Even the Meteia were produced only after an absurd amount of experimentation, with all involved acknowledging the one Meteion's full sapience as a fluke. If the Ancients were not able to create sapient life or grant souls, then that does rather limit their choices when it comes to intended sacrificial lambs.

Now on to the second point: It isn't merely that they couldn't form words. They were quite literally incapable of any form of communication, even that facilitated by the Echo (or whatever you want to call the remaining power the unsundered had). Communication was an impossibility. We're also given a far more detailed description of their forms than simply the labels Emet-Selch applied to their condition. The amount of body horror that took place was honestly a bit impressive.

Isn't the Nier game narrated from the perspective and viewpoint of the focus character? Emet-Selch's initial revulsion and abhorrence of the newly sundered people can't be taken at face value imo.

I mean, we see that they are capable of forming communities that had paintings, scriptures and songs that communicated half-remembered visions of Amaurot, the Final Days, and the Sundering.

If they were just shambling husks incapable of communication, why did they end up doing all that instead of you know, starving to death?

These various structures and art pieces arose later on. You will note that even in FFXIV proper certain individuals yet retain trace memories of the world's original state, though most are limited only to recalling bits and pieces through dreams about the Final Days. The subconscious mind is a powerful tool, and many artists draw a great deal of inspiration from their dreams. These individuals no doubt had zero idea what they were creating, only than it was something that evoked strong emotion in themselves and some others.

As for starving to death? Seeking out food is a primal instinct. Even the least intelligent animals have never had any difficulty doing that. Why would the sundered be unable to feed themselves? Being reduced to a shambling mass of incoherent blubbering and body horror does not preclude the ability to meet one's basic needs.

There not perfect for sure. But given Emet confirms they are 100% correct five minutes later, I’d say this isn’t one of those times.

Isn't the Nier game narrated from the perspective and viewpoint of the focus character? Emet-Selch's initial revulsion and abhorrence of the newly sundered people can't be taken at face value imo.

I felt compelled to revisit this briefly. Curious that Emet-Selch's words should be taken at face value at certain times yet handily dismissed at others even when context should indicate he's being truthful at a given time. We're to immediately accept everything he says about the Ascians' grand plan and him willingly going along with it as fact, yet his descriptions of the state the sundered are in directly after the act are inherently suspect.

[KariTheFox]

As for starving to death? Seeking out food is a primal instinct. Even the least intelligent animals have never had any difficulty doing that. Why would the unsundered be unable to feed themselves? Being reduced to a shambling mass of incoherent blubbering and body horror does not preclude the ability to meet one's basic needs.

But we're not talking about animals, we're talking about people. If a bunch of people became shambling masses, incapable of communication, they would not be biologically equiped to go out and feed themselves, especially in the fantasically dangerous world of FFXIV. They'd just get killed.

So either Emet-Selch - who reguarly calls us hideous, malformed creatures to this day, is biased against life that he sees as lesser, or somehow mankind survived being incapable communication for a few generations, despite communication being kind of necessary for survival when you no longer have creation magic.

[Absimiliard]

But we're not talking about animals, we're talking about people. If a bunch of people became shambling masses, incapable of communication, they would not be biologically equiped to go out and feed themselves, especially in the fantasically dangerous world of FFXIV. They'd just get killed.

So either Emet-Selch - who reguarly calls us hideous, malformed creatures to this day, is biased against life that he sees as lesser, or somehow mankind survived being incapable communication for a few generations, despite communication being kind of necessary for survival when you no longer have creation magic.

You are grossly underestimating the ease with which food can be acquired. Not every lifeform in FFXIV is fantastically dangerous. In fact, the vast majority of them are perfectly harmless and often quite defenseless. The plethora of life we routinely fight in-game is only a portion of what's actually there.

Regarding Emet-Selch; we are told, not through implication but direct statement, that he did not really believe the majority of what he said about the sundered. That was one of his coping mechanisms, and it did not stop him from becoming a quasi-suicidal ball of self-loathing. His duty to his people kept him going, but he did understand the wrongness of his mission. He even tried to abandon it at different points, but something would always go wrong each time. He even loved his mortal son.

Additionally, as pertains to the point of view offered by the NieR Re[in]carnation content, he was legitimately horrified and upset by what became of his people. He didn't begin at "these lesser things are terrible," and attempts were made to interact before they functionally written off.

[Lyth]

The Amaurotine Convocation sacrificed countless millions of lives in the name of their dark god and destroyed seven worlds to try to resurrect their dead nation. All under the false pretext of racial superiority, under the mistaken belief that they were somehow more entitled to life than the other peoples of the planet. We had to personally put them down in order to bring an end to their cruelty. What makes you think that they were any less prepared to do the same back then?

We know for a fact that there were other advanced civilizations on Etheirys during the Ancient times. What makes you think that the Amaurotine leadership was remotely capable of drawing an ethical distinction between 'sapient' and 'non-sapient' life, when they already failed that test with us?

No, it wasn't about ethics. They had the power to get what they wanted, so they tried to take it. We had the power to stop them. It is what it is.

[Absimiliard]

The Convocation most certainly did not sacrifice millions of people to gorge their "dark god." The number of Ancients sacrificed to Zodiark was far lower than such a lofty number. Now if you mean the Ascians sacrificed millions and destroyed seven worlds, you'd at least be getting warmer. It's more likely they sacrificed billions, however. Etheirys is far too broad a place to only house millions, so the number would definitely be way higher.

Now, this distinction is important. The Ancients created Zodiark using only willing subjects and fully planned to bring them back as soon as it was feasible to do so. Nowhere in the game or anywhere else is it indicated even a single individual within Zodiark got there against their will. The Ancients were desperate, but they weren't so desperate as to completely throw away their societal standards. Incidentally, you may note the developers as well often make a distinction between Ancient and Ascian when discussing them.

As Ascians, on the other hand, they were utterly desperate. They were the last of their kind as far as they knew. The only options they had to were to abandon their people to what was essentially oblivion or to begin the rejoinings. To this day no other method of restoring Etheirys and its people to their former state has been put forward in any content. No one's going to say what they were doing was necessarily "right," but to dismiss them as lolevil simply because they had a responsibility to right what they perceived as a great wrong committed against their people is some very shallow thinking.

Now, regarding the other civilizations on Etheirys during their age: no material indicates the Amaurotines regarded other groups of Ancients as expendable or what have you. We are, however, told rather directly that they do regularly engage in meaningful relations with their people from all around the world. Theirs was a global civilization. Amaurot was merely their greatest city and seat of power, not a country unto itself.

Virtually every shred of information we have regarding Ancient civilization seems to strongly indicate their methods and moral statutes differed greatly from what we saw from the Ascians. It seems fairly evident their own people would consider what they're doing to bring them back abhorrent if somehow made aware of it. Indeed, Emet-Selch's past self was absolutely revulsed by what he learned of his future. There is no indication anywhere in or out of game in any official materials the Ancients were anything more than our interactions with them (Note: them being the Ancients, not the later Ascians) made them out to be. They were just... people. Some good, some bad, but on the whole they definitely come off as upstanding.

[Lurina]

I've seen many quote Alphinauds line, but what of the rest of it? Its clear that the Scions are concluding that the humans on the Source will be sacrificed, based solely on what fake Hyth told us. Concluding that this is an incorrect reading of that conversation, that they were intending to sacrifice anything but human beings, is to say the Scions are also wrong, which is nonsensical writing. So we are left with two choices. Either the writers were telling us the initial sacrifice were intended to be humans, or the writers of ShB and EW lost the plot several years ago.

I'm kinda confused about where you're coming from with this argument, because by definition there weren't any non-Ancient humans prior to the Sundering. The modern races are descended from their Sundered versions. The text is pretty clear that it's specifically the 'new life' going on the chopping block as opposed to more Amaurotines, so by definition the original third sacrifice couldn't have consisted of the same beings as the Ascians planned sacrifice that Emet and Alphinaud talk about at the endgame. It shows he was willing to kill sapient beings, but doesn't clarify if that was going to happen or, if so, what those sapient beings were (assuming they existed yet, which Raelle said isn't exactly a given).

By the way, I don't mean any ill in saying this, but I kinda wish you'd structure your arguments as comprehensive rebuttals instead of bullet points where you quote isolated components of someone's post and make a bunch of micro-replies. I wanted to respond to your post to me from earlier, but not only does that style kinda distort people's broader points and lead to arguing over minutia, it's also really time-consuming to engage with. I either have to meet you on your terms and go point-by-point in quoting and replying - which is kinda a pain in the butt and tends to lead reply chains growing bigger and bigger until they're out of control - or I have to make assumptions about your general thinking and reply with a summary, which feels very loose and unsatisfying and often causes misunderstandings. It takes a lot more energy to even tackle in a way that feels fair.

It's a bit worrying how quick we are to dismiss the Convocation's proposed sacrifices as 'unintelligent' life. That's the exact same party line that the Ascians used to justify the horrific atrocities that they committed against our societies over the past twelve thousand years - by claiming that we were somehow less than human.

Lyth, this is a bonkers thing to say, and you know it. This is not a diagetic conversation. People unsure if the sacrifices were sapient or not aren't unsure because they're indulging in in-universe moral relativity about issue in line with the Ascians, they're unsure because Natsuko Ishikawa, the real-world human being, literally hasn't written it down.