What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[MikkoAkure]

I feel like this fanbase has collectively absorbed the superficial detail that Thomas More's Utopia is a satire and assumed it's a satire of the concept of utopias, when that's not really the case at all.

Thomas More’s Utopia was designed as a contrast to contemporary European society just as FFXIV’s Amaurot does the same to Eorzea, but from a modern lens it is by no means perfect. In More’s Amaurot, individualism and privacy do not exist and everyone owns slaves.

At the end of the book, More disagrees with much of Amaurot’s society but wants to learn more about it and implement parts of it despite thinking it’ll never happen.

Much of what More actually meant is still up for debate and unless FFXIV’s writers told us the intention and the angle they were going with the references, we’ll just end up in circles.

That we are too reactionary and defensive regarding our own customs and values to rationally envision a completely different kind of society from the ground up.

This could also apply to the pearl-clutching reaction people have to Venat’s actions and labels of evil and genocide.

Elpis established that they believed everyone back then was in service of the Star and an intrinsic part of it while at the same time being so powerful that they felt they had the right to make extreme decisions on behalf of everyone else.

Would they consider it genocide? Or would they consider it just a continuation of their souls being recycled? This never comes up and these questions are never asked.

While an immediately bad thing that breaks everyone and everything into 14, it’s never treated by the story as a genocide and also not treated as a maliciously heinous act of evil. Venat never gets a dressing-down from Emet-Selch or Hythlodeus and the story continues to treat her as good.

[Lurina]

Since this thread is kind of hell, I'm not really interested in diving into the actual discourse here (though I'm not sure how you could play Shadowbringers and get the impression that at least Emet didn't essentially consider the Sundering a war crime; he condemns the heck out of Hydaelyn there, to the point that his final EW scene comes across as sort of a forced happy resolution), I just wanted to confront the idea that merely by referencing More's Utopia, FFXIV could only have been foreshadowing the Ascians utopian society as a "farce", since his work - irrespective of its sometimes dated values - largely presented the society positively. Even at the end of the book, his concerns are more about the impracticality of its implementation than it being bad for its own sake.

[MikkoAkure]

More specifically says that parts of their society and culture are absurd.

The very last sentences are also:

I cannot perfectly agree to everything he has related. However, there are many things in the commonwealth of Utopia that I rather wish, than hope, to see followed in our governments.

But people have also been disagreeing with what More actually intended with all of this for 500 years. We’re not going to come to a consensus here.


As far as Emet goes, I was more specifically talking about EW Emet at the end, not him during ShB. Of course he’d be against Venat/Hydaelyn during his time as an Ascian actively fighting against her.

Instead we get a “I admit your plan was the one that worked but I regret nothing”.

[Brinne]

Did you not notice how hermes and eric were suffering? People like them existed back then but their suffering was ignored. No one tried to understand them.

These two examples are kind of insane, to be blunt. Well, okay, let me amend: the example of Hermes is kind of insane, the example of Erich is completely insane.

Hermes is someone who is noted, when you talk to the NPCs around Elpis, to be pretty distant and keep people at arms' length; none of his subordinates know much about him personally, although they respect him. Hermes's short story in Tales from the Dawn goes further into how people did want to help him and tried to reassure him, but Hermes had made his mind up about how they were just patronizing him and that the words and sentiments they offered weren't good enough. You can have a discussion about how relatable Hermes's frustration about what he felt were others' platitudes may or may not be to you, but to say they simply ignored his suffering is weird. It wasn't ignored when Hermes chose to share it; people just didn't quite immediately get where he was coming from, which isn't a crime or a sign of any moral deficiency.

And frankly, you have a direct, onscreen example playing out right in front of your eyes about an Ancient being sympathetic to and open to hearing out Hermes's thoughts, even if he doesn't immediately, intuitively understand where he's coming from: Emet-Selch, who keeps breaking protocol or helping Hermes out personally when he evidences distress in spite of himself, and whose thoughts continue to linger on Hermes's distress after Hermes shouts him down, and who felt so badly for his pain he offered him a top level government position to extract him from it. Emet's response to Hermes wasn't perfect by any means, but he was trying his best with the best of intentions, and Hermes was not playing ball because the attempts to understand and help weren't exactly the kind that he was looking for - since he was looking for agreement and unconditional validation on his unusual, for their society, response to and extreme fears about death.

You'd be better off making the argument that Hermes felt isolated because he was suffering badly in a world where not many people suffer badly, necessitating the hard work of two-way connection and actually explaining himself, than suggesting that people just ignored his problems or were callous to him.

Erichtonios, on the other hand, just kind of flat out blows my mind that you'd hold him up as an example of someone whose suffering was "ignored" when we had a whole arc in Pandaemonium about Lahabrea's stress and internal conflict about what he put Erich through, and an entire scene therewithin where he and Agdistis discuss, onscreen, before our eyes, the stress that Lahabrea's decision to protect him is going to put Erich through and how it still isn't right - to the point that Agdistis's dying action is trying to address the problem and forcing Lahabrea to do the same. The actual opposite of "sweeping it under the rug."

You have Erich only speaking in the most glowing terms about his coworkers - Hesperos, before his transformation, the aforementioned Agdistis, everyone else who Erich is so passionate about saving. Everyone seems to have treated him well and he doesn't harbor any ill feelings towards them at all. Erich specifically talks about how kind they are and how much they care about the people working under them.

And then there's Themis, Elidibus himself, who is also nothing but utterly sympathetic to Erich's plight, consistently takes his side both emotionally and in passionately defending him against anyone who might slight him. Themis who never once speaks down to him, and who Erich counts as one of the dear friends whose support has let him overcome Athena's brainwashing. Themis, who recognizes that fact that, and expresses that he's glad for, that Lahabrea and Erich look like they're on the road to reconciliation (even if it will take time, and won't be easy) and a better future for themselves - incredibly, something apparently actually possible for Ancients, overcoming their problems and their suffering, when we start defining them into actual characters and situations instead of thematic vagaries and symbols.

And frankly, Erich is an Ancient himself. He's not portrayed as exceptional, either. Erich's introduction is panicking and being frantic to save his coworkers to the point that you fight him. At no point does Themis make an aside that, boy, it sure is weird and gross in their society that Erich feels so much for the people around him - Themis immediately takes a shine to him because of it, and then even takes his side against Lahabrea!

This speaks back to, again, how while it's easy to talk in sweeping platitudes or paint with a broad brush, it gets squeamish fast when the vague generalities are narrowed down into actual specifics, actual pictures. The Ancients were beyond hope, doomed people who had to die, culturally poisoned and spoiled and a dead-end. Erichtonious is a dead end, an Ancient so far gone culturally he needs to be put down? Agdistis was a dead end? Themis was a dead end? These people just simply couldn't be saved, weren't and aren't worth trying to save from what awaits them? That starts becoming a very staggering claim.

It's once again a case of what Endwalker actually wrote completely undermining what Endwalker then steps back and tries to say about what it wrote. Honestly, the sheer amount of "don't give a fig" Pandaemonium has so far about Endwalker's themes and how it tried to shoehorn the Ancients to fit into it in favor of just showing them to be people, struggling and suffering in their own ways, but doing their best to do the right thing, is kind of hilarious.

To me it sounds like you argue under the idea that a perfect utopia is infact possible. I disagree and (caution: very judgemental statement following) and think you need to stop huffing lethal amounts of copium.

Not expecting you to have looked through my post history or read the tedious walls of text within, but suffice it to say: nope! Incorrect!

What it means is that instead of settling for nothing less than perfection (and growing more and more desperate in the search of it) you should strive for improvement. That striving is what is being celebrated in the game. This cannot make sense if you cling to the idea that a perfect utopia can exist (or worse if you think it already exists).

But enough about how the Ancients were good people!

[Teraq]

Since this thread is kind of hell, I'm not really interested in diving into the actual discourse here

A mood of significant proportions. For the sake of my mental balance, I try not to dive into the war zone too often. The fact is, I would much rather be in my Art Deco metropolis, having tea with all the other (charitable, not patronizing) wizard scientists in my big comfy snuggie… Regrettably however, this isn't that kind of role playing game, so the playable character I personally do not particularly identify with is stuck in this rather middling and boring fantasy world, with all these sundered protagonists I've never felt particularly attached to but have been willing, so far, to suffer to catch a glimpse of the far more interesting antagonists.
Speaking of… …sort of… I enjoyed Rubicante; it's just a bit of a shame he was more or less a one scene wonder. Now I feel like the only interest in the story I have left is the prospect of Deep-Voiced Final Fantasy Villain In Big Bad Armor name dropping Zodiark. Just name dropping will do. Endwalker in general has trained me to lower my standards. (Also, loud shout-out to the French localization team for having Golbez refer to the "Ascians" who told him of the 13 other worlds as actually singular and female, alluding to Igeyorhm in all but name. For once, this is not me dunking on the EN localization (wow?!), because the original JP also talks of "Ascian", unspecified. I just wanted to acknowledge these French guys and gals sure can ascian, and they have my respect for that!)

Anyway, I look forward to the next instance of this thread being called an echo chamber, even though it seems as liable as ever to turn overnight into what can only be described as the terrible, cursed lovechild of the lore subforum and /r/ffxivdiscussion's story threads, babysat by The Balance's lore channel. Mercifully, it does not have nearly enough horny fan art of female WoLs and average screenshots of in-game scenery to be taken to the daycare by /r/ffxiv.

In the meantime, I had thought we all agreed on time travel being a very risky plot device that can go horribly wrong at the drop of a hat, and yet here we are, transported right back to July 2019 by FirstGearFirstGear. Peculiar! I suppose she also used the second bad plot device, Kairos, to wipe from her memory the responses to those musings she probably got for the past three years and a half. Personally I am quite baffled that anyone would call these arguments "a breath of fresh air", because to literally every Ascian fan since patch 5.0, they smell rather stale. Are you guys excited for the first tier of Eden to drop? I hope the remix of Force Your Way slaps! (It did, thank you Soken)
While I personally disagree that the Unsundered had a better reason to exist than the Sundered, I see the point of players who think they do by virtue of the former being the original whole and the latter being the broken result of a… sigh… intended and purposeful planet-wide extermination of their people, culture, history and civilization (sorry, some people don't like it when we use the G-word to speak of an act done by a good guy!), but I don't reason that way myself. Whatever. I'm not particularly offended by other people's takes on complicated moral matters as long as everyone involved in the discussion is respectful, especially when the subject matter is ultimately fiction.
In an in-universe context however, I have always interpreted the situation in Shadowbringers as one where both sides deserved the right to fight for their existence, in tragic circumstances where it didn't look like both sides could feasibly coexist – though it wasn't for a lack of trying on Emet-Selch's part, as he makes a point of, both in-game and in his first short story. I perfectly understand however where the Unsundered are coming from, as both Emet and Elidibus make very clear that they were simply unable to relate to the Sundered and consider them "human" from their PoV, owing to the massive cultural differences resulting from the Ancients' immutable biological characteristics. It does not matter how human you think the Sundered are. To the Unsundered, things seemed so different as to be irreconcilable, and to consider their stance, you also need to take into account that they were governmental officials of the highest level, supposed to oversee the planet and represent their people. The former is, to their eyes, unambiguously broken into pieces, and the latter are either 1) locked up and expressing a wish to be made whole again and go back home, or 2) shadows of their former selves living very short (again – to them) and cruel lives.
Back in 5.0, anti-Ancient people used to argue that Emet's account of his society was too rose-tinted and that it was actually a not-so-secretly dysfunctional dystopia, ergo not nearly perfect enough, thus the Ancients were Wrong™. Now, after 6.0 (which, To Be Fair, You Must Have A Very High IQ To Understand…), it is apparently also a valid argument to say that the Ancients' society was too perfect, thus the Ancients were Wrong™. That's the brilliant thing with Endwalker, you see: no matter how you look at it, you can ALWAYS say the Ancients were Wrong™ and feel good about yourself being on the side of Good™! Marvelous. This story was almost threatening to be morally complex at one point. Aren't we all glad Endwalker put that to rest? I sure am wiping the sweat off my brow!
But the thing is, Ancients being simultaneously too perfect and not perfect enough should have never even mattered in the first place. Because who are we to judge them when the Sundered have such marvels as the pirate rape cave, Doman pimps being given a slap on the wrist, magic-capable people chasing the magicless out to cold inhospitable lands, the Xaela and some of their frankly ridiculous customs existing, racist wood people ruled by weirdly obtuse spirits, and rampant pint-sized capitalism? Emet throws what amounts to this argument in the Scions' faces, and Alphinaud doesn't have much to answer to this plain truth. Regardless, it still feels justified for the Sundered to fight him and Elidibus, and of course it does. You don't have to justify your existence. Neither the Sundered nor the Ancients should.

…except, of course, when you ineptly introduce, right in the last episode of your arc, a plot device that you can very conveniently point to and say "B-bb-but look! The Ancients were literally biologically incapable (and culturally, and emotionally as well, because why the hell not? Might as well throw it all in!) of manipulating The Power Of Friendship IN SPACE™! They were doomed! TEAM HYDAELYN WINS!". Dynamis is so terribly-written that it appears to act literally like the well-established Power System that already existed in-universe for years, with somewhat loosely defined rules that we the audience were gradually learning about, except it kinda tosses these rules out the window, so the writers can sort of make things up as they go. What does it do that Aether cannot? Well… Nobody's really sure. It can transform people into grotesque monsters, but so can Aether. It can create things, including living and self-aware things, but so can Aether. Limit Breaks are Dynamis, except they've always been defined as Aether before, and surely some LBs must be Aether still, otherwise surely the literal Unsundered Ancient juiced up on sweet Elder Primal Aether shouldn't be able to spam LBs at us?? The alliance raid tells us the Twelve are given their shape by the prayers and emotions of people, and so, ohhhh, could it be DYNAMIS?!?! But this sounds just like what Aether has always done with Primals?…
Not content with merely being a useless addition, it also does a number on the world building. So, apparently, it was largely under-researched by the immortal scientist wizards with an insatiable thirst for knowledge (of course, otherwise the writer's fave wouldn't be A Very Special Boy as required by this convoluted plot). Well, makes sense, because they were so uninterested in space, right? Ah, except they apparently knew enough about space for Venat to conjure up a whole bunch of spaceship-building, space-faring familiars, which we can surmise she based off the Anamnesis Anyder archives on space Simpeus of Anyder gave her in his short story. Well, all right. Let's just accept anyway the immortal scientist wizards were totally uninterested in this thing they were aware made up two thirds of a universe they had not even begun to explore yet. What of the Sundered and their science, then? If the Elpis flowers survived all the way to 12,000 A.S., then we can surmise they also existed before then, with all their tantalizing mood-ring mystery that isn't Aether. So, I suppose even the incredibly technologically advanced Allagans were also terribly uninterested in this mysterious energy. Even though they were also interested in space! Everything back then was also made of 4/14th density Aether, so logically Dynamis should have had more of a presence then than during our 8/14th density Aether era prior to Zodiark's death, during which Thavnairan alchemists were aware of the concept. There is apparently no trace of it ever being researched before Thavnairan alchemy. Nope. I guess everyone in this universe simply found the thing too boring to ever be properly researched at all and passed down history before Endwalker suddenly introduced it to us.
Dynamis is poorly introduced, fits awkwardly into the lore, and doesn't seem to do anything much that Aether could not do. It has no good reason to exist in the story.
I kid. Of course it does, and that good reason is palatable justification for genocide, effectively undermining what made Shadowbringers and the Ascians' struggle so poignant in the first place.


But I digress and am off-topic. This is, after all, What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Thomas More's Utopia? Silly me!
SPOILERS for the latest installment of Thomas's magnum opus

It does not matter how smart you think you are for citing Utopia (at least before you got told by a lit major who actually read the thing). This is Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker we are talking about. That a JRPG makes a reference does not imply its story even has to follow the same moral and point. It could very well subvert it, or it could also just be a shallow reference you aren't supposed to give too much thought to – and Final Fantasy XIV has never exactly been a stranger to things you aren't supposed to give too much thought to. (Case in point, I think I've just given Dynamis far more thought than it actually deserves. Perhaps more thought than even went into creating it. This particular bar doesn't sound very high, if I can be honest with you all.)
Neither themes nor literary references make a plot good or well-executed. Imagine the makers of something pretty universally panned and/or disappointing like the final season of Game of Thrones, or Rise of Skywalker, saying that actually, you didn't get it, they really did their research and were referencing this old as balls work of classical literature, and that maybe if you weren't such a boorish, low-brow rube, you would appreciate their masterpiece. Is this supposed to make the story's weird change in tone, tired old plot devices or weirdly anticlimactic conclusion to years of build-up that apparently went nowhere more satisfying to the audience? What even is the point here? (Other than condescension on an online forum because you might frankly be more upset than you should be at people not liking a thing you like.)
It's not that deep. Especially not shōnen-trope-heavy Endwalker, of all things.

I also find it kind of funny that the example we have of Venat saving Ancient lives is just as bad as killing them apparently.

Now, we all know you simply couldn't be arguing this in good faith, for a couple of reasons:
1. "Saving Ancient lives" (from… from her own genocide??) absolutely was not the intent of Venat allowing Emet-Selch (and two really unlucky dudes, if I am to believe what this story and the Q&A told me) through the Rift. She did so out of the hope the time loop would eventually happen. As she knows, this entails the Ascians committing genocides. They have to for the loop to close and for her brave little spark to benefit from the Apple Tag she deftly threw on a flying target. She didn't just put a gun on a table and then the Ascians shot up planets with them. She was actively planning on them to do that.
2. Yes, allowing three people to live as survivors of a genocide and suffer for an eternity from loneliness and enough mental distress that one becomes depressed, another's identity devolves into a cackling villain, and the last willfully lets himself forget his human life because the alternative would hurt more, hanging onto the vague hope (that turned out to have always been futile, because it's a time loop, and it ends with them being killed by the broken remnants of their former colleague and friend that Venat groomed for the job. Cool.) that they will one day succeed and see their loves ones again and finally rebuild their home world… sounds kinda bad to me, honestly. Killing them with the rest would have been a mercy. But perhaps you were coming at this from the point of view of Endwalker's "life must continue at all costs, even if it means an eternity of suffering". In which case… well. This is your brain on Endwalker, I suppose.

Yes, please continue to completely miss the point.
Like I said, this is why I don't do this...

Oh! Well then. Be our guest.

[Rosenstrauch]

Dynamis is poorly introduced, fits awkwardly into the lore, and doesn't seem to do anything much that Aether could not do. It has no good reason to exist in the story.

I mean, Spiral Power Dynamis does have one obvious meta use aside from being an easy means of justifying the extinction of entire worlds because they can't git gud at using it.


After Shadowbringers firmly established that Dark and Light are the Active and Passive polarities for aether, there was a pressing, overwhelming need to simplify things so players would understand who the good guys and bad guys were. Enter Dynamis! The miracle power that... is exactly the same as aether in every way, as you've said. But unlike aether, it's explicitly coded to be Good or Evil depending on what sort of character is using it. Good Dynamis is always bright, shiny, and either colorful or white. Bad Dynamis is always icky, grungy, and purple or black. Good Dynamis creates Good People replicas of civilizations long dead, and can even create whole planets out of nothing more than wishful thinking. Bad Dynamis destroys planets and creates scary monsters that scream in despair as they burn down cities and eat people.


… So, how long do you think it'll be before the writers get bored with Dynamis and try to play with it in more interesting ways than just "Aether, but with color coded morality"?

EDIT: I should clarify that I don't dislike simplistic visual displays of moral alignment in fiction. Gods know I love me some Star Wars, where you can tell at a glance whether someone is good or evil by the color of their sword. But I will never not disappointed that the devs backslid into one of Fantasy's biggest comfort zones after taking a few baby steps away from it and inviting us to think a little more critically about it.

[Heroman3003]

snip.

I do think that the argument is rather off-the-rails. Venat's actions are NOT justifiable in relation to pre-Final Days Ancients. Plain and simple. Thing is... We only get briefest (and debatably very subjective) look at the Ancients during Final Days and exclusively second hand accounts for after the Final Days were averted. And while morality of her actions is very hard to reconcile, I think it is look at what Ancients as a society ended up becoming after summoning of Zodiark, which is the point at which Venat's opposition actually started gaining support and led to eventual summoning of Hydaelyn (which I believe is rather important, as neither her nor Emet ever imply she or her followers actually opposed the Convocation prior to Zodiark's summoning). So, question is, were there any changes to the way ancients and their world view as a society works? I say, yes. Very much so. Prior to Final Days, as we see first hand, Ancients do not believe that singular lives, be it their own, of their friends or their creations, matter not and only thing that matters is betterment of the star. That view is why both Hermes and Venat are treated as outsiders in such society, though in vastly different ways, as they actually do put value in individual lives, even if at that point Venat is not actively trying to change the society, but rather just adhere her own views personally in spite of others' disapproval, unlike Hermes who kept trying to change minds of others. But then come and go the Final Days, ancients lose most of their world and 3/4th of their civilization. And that society... Completely abandons principles of betterment of the star and instead of trying to get back to their work, now that they had more work than ever restoring the star after the Final Days, they start getting ready for a new plan - cultivate life on the star as sacrifice to get their lost comrades, who gave their lives for the star. And in other camp we have Venat and her desire to move on, to not worship Zodiark as saviour to give sacrifices in return for those who are lost, but simply overcome and move on. I can't argue if juxtaposition is intentional, but this 'morality swap' between Convocation and Venat pre- and post- Final Days seems very interesting. Again, I can't really judge how good Venat's plan was or how justified it was for her to choose to sunder Ancients to stop them from Zodiark sacrifice restoration paln. But, the important part is, what they were preparing to do was very much on scale of evil that Ascians ended up doing down the line. And the moral compass we're expected to follow, I think, is neither Venat nor Convocation, but... our own old self - Azem. Azem who opposed the plan to summon Zodiark AND refused to participate in plan to summon Hydaelyn.

[Lurina]

More specifically says that parts of their society and culture are absurd.

Alright, I won't argue about Endwalker, but I will argue about this five century old book purely to make a point! I won't stand for it being suggested I'm just looking at TvTropes! I wasted three years of my life going to college for English Lit, dying on pedantic forum hills is all I have!!!!!!!!

Firstly, the word More actually uses is "absurdus" (since the original text is written in Latin) which has a slightly different connotation than it does in modern English; we often use it to mean irrational and stupid, while in Latin it's sometimes retains the former meaning, but is generally applied to mean "bizarre" or "unlikely". An example would be Voltaire's popular phrase Credo quia absurdum, or "I believe this because it is absurd", a maxim of faith in the face of logic.

Having said that, let's take a look at some of the other contexts it's used throughout the work.

But though these discourses may be uneasy and ungrateful to them, I do not see why they should seem foolish or extravagant; indeed, if I should either propose such things as Plato has contrived in his ‘Commonwealth,’ or as the Utopians practise in theirs, though they might seem better, as certainly they are, yet they are so different from our establishment, which is founded on property (there being no such thing among them), that I could not expect that it would have any effect on them. But such discourses as mine, which only call past evils to mind and give warning of what may follow, leave nothing in them that is so absurd that they may not be used at any time, for they can only be unpleasant to those who are resolved to run headlong the contrary way; and if we must let alone everything as absurd or extravagant—which, by reason of the wicked lives of many, may seem uncouth—we must, even among Christians, give over pressing the greatest part of those things that Christ hath taught us, though He has commanded us not to conceal them, but to proclaim on the housetops that which He taught in secret.

In choosing their wives they use a method that would appear to us very absurd and ridiculous, but it is constantly observed among them, and is accounted perfectly consistent with wisdom.

Again, he's not talking about how Utopia is bad, he's explicitly (especially in the first entry) commenting on how it's alien character makes it impossible for us to reckon with rationally - with even he himself being unable to do so. This is true also for the instance that I assume you're quoting.

When Raphael had thus made an end of speaking, though many things occurred to me, both concerning the manners and laws of that people, that seemed very absurd, as well in their way of making war, as in their notions of religion and divine matters—together with several other particulars, but chiefly what seemed the foundation of all the rest, their living in common, without the use of money, by which all nobility, magnificence, splendor, and majesty, which, according to the common opinion, are the true ornaments of a nation, would be quite taken away...

The emphasis isn't on Utopia's merits, but how different it is European society; how many institutions held up as sacred are simply not present. Ergo More, who is meant to stand in for the reader, cannot accept them on that basis.

[KageTokage]

I can't really judge how good Venat's plan was or how justified it was for her to choose to sunder Ancients to stop them from Zodiark sacrifice restoration paln. But, the important part is, what they were preparing to do was very much on scale of evil that Ascians ended up doing down the line. And the moral compass we're expected to follow, I think, is neither Venat nor Convocation, but... our own old self - Azem. Azem who opposed the plan to summon Zodiark AND refused to participate in plan to summon Hydaelyn.

I feel a touch reluctant to call exchanging the lives of ill-defined lifeforms to spare the souls of those who gave themselves to save the world from languishing in purgatory "evil" without deeper context.

The Ascians crossed a line once their plan shifted to involve the lives of sundered mankind, but if we're talking strictly animals and other non-sentient life, they (And mankind as a whole regardless of the era or fiction vs. reality) were already okay with using those beings for their own benefit. In the end, it wasn't even the morality behind the decision that was being opposed but the ideology.

As far as Azem goes, all the evidence suggests that the former instance was simply a case of putting emotions before logic and reason as it's discussed that they had tried several alternatives, exhausted avenues of approach and that Zodiark was an absolute last resort because nothing else was working.

[Heroman3003]

I feel a touch reluctant to call exchanging the lives of ill-defined lifeforms to spare the souls of those who gave themselves to save the world from languishing in purgatory "evil" without deeper context.

The Ascians crossed a line once their plan shifted to involve the lives of sundered mankind, but if we're talking strictly animals and other non-sentient life, they (And mankind as a whole regardless of the era or fiction vs. reality) were already okay with using those beings for their own benefit. In the end, it wasn't even the morality behind the decision that was being opposed but the ideology.

As far as Azem goes, all the evidence suggests that the former instance was simply a case of putting emotions before logic and reason as it's discussed that they had tried several alternatives, exhausted avenues of approach and that Zodiark was an absolute last resort because nothing else was working.

Its very ambigous as to what matter of life they would be sacrificing. We know they treat familiars, who we know are perfectly capable of being completely independant and sapient living beings, as little different from animals already. And we know that primals hunger for richer aether and more of it. While it is very much an assumption, I would not say its a stretch they would populate the world with not just life, but sapient beings that they view as lesser, part of another sacrifice. And even if they didn't, ultimately, they'd still basically be abandoning everything they as civilization stood for prior to the Final Days, while very much wreaking great long-term havoc on star's aetherial state to return the paradise lost. I do believe that summoning Zodiark was a 'pragmatically correct choice', although game's morality fits not around pragmatically, but emotionally correct choices. However, after he prevented the Final Days and restored world to livable state, that should have been the end of it. And if it was, I do think that Hydaelyn would never be summoned and sundering would never have occured. The Ancients would start working on building new paradise, perhaps with brand new appreciation of individual lives imprinted upon them now and forevermore.