I'll admit, I did enjoy Erich's final moments with his mother. That was a nice finish to his saga, even if his sudden reconciliation with his father having a rod re-inserted somewhere personal back in the past was a little less so. When it comes to Lahabrea, I like him best when he's at his most obnoxious (I love the unapologetically no-nonsense, abrasive types, particularly in a cast as mild-mannered as we often seem to find ourselves) and sort of branching off of that, his most uncomfortable, and in that respect I feel kind of cheated by the lack of any real confrontation between him and Athena especially (though it being more of Erich's thing wasn't the worst trade-off, I suppose.) I'm also sad we never got to see him at his most capable a la a full on Hades moment, given the repeated call-outs across the story for a while now at how powerful he was supposed to actually be, so his writing this patch took a bit of a downturn for me overall.

Themis is... complicated. I do like him, but unlike Emet-Selch I find the link between present-day him and past him to be too tenuous to fully connect the two. I know what you mean in terms of giving him a little more presence as a leader making sense, but... I personally enjoyed his previous characterisation as being more earnest, softly-spoken and in awe of what was around him. I felt he ended up a bit too "Alphinaud'd" for my liking, and we already have enough precocious youngers in the story, as charming as he is. Perhaps seeing him amongst the ranks of Azem and Emet might have brought that forward a little more? Who knows. My biggest problem, though, was the immediate dismissal of where his character actually ended up in 5.3/ 6.0 and choosing to have his final farewell as his authentic "self" being more or less a copy of who he is in the Panda storyline. It goes back to my original post and wound up souring me on his appearance this tier, unfortunately. I just couldn't buy into it.

Quote Originally Posted by Brinne View Post
(Also, I think it's a little funny that even the Absolute Worst and Most Evil Ancient wouldn't have become a serious threat on a wide scale if not for the intervention of an Alien Space Rock, but you know, the society and its people are just fundamentally rotten and had to be put down, everything was for the best, etc, etc. Endwalker!)
I was always interested in the concept of an "evil" Ancient and what danger their powers might have posed in the hands of such a person, but I guess the answer is: not a lot?

It's kind of weird, isn't it, how they go out of their way to justify Venat's actions with these laboured, long-winded metaphors on perfection-induced existential apathy and societal stagnation when a much more solid basis for her argument was right there.