On Themis [6.4 SPOILER]

[Brinne]

I understand what you mean by Themis - I also appreciated he was allowed to go out on a mostly bitter note (while still upholding his duty to save the world) in 6.0. I'm sentimental and sappy enough, though, that after getting to know and fall in love with this exceedingly good, brave, wonderful kid, the thought of him dying alone in bitterness and pain now just kills me, so that his papering things over was also partially for his own sake - so he can go out telling himself that He Did Good, He Saved The World After All, even if it's affected and forced and the equivalent of an emotional bandage over a gaping wound - made me swallow it a little easier. As part of the larger whole, though, I totally feel the annoyance that everyone now just has to Approvingly Accept the state of the world's salvation being built on the mass corpses of undeserving people. Themis in 6.0 was a bit of the last holdout.

I still wouldn't have appreciated an argument that the Ancients were just too dangerous and powerful to be allowed to live - their powers are inborn, after all, and the Sundered are responsible for their fair share of Apocalyptic Innovations themselves - but yeah, it at least would have been much more straightforward than the vague backwards convoluted gymnastics that EW ultimately went with. I laughed a little in a sort of hysterical broken way, at Erich's righteous counter to Athena's argument - that her plans to ascend to godhood in order to erase her people, those gross and flawed Ancients, and remake them into something better was for the greater good - were still unacceptable to do at the expense of the currently living. Good lord.

EDIT: Ah, I also wanted to add, re: Themis, that I think his final final scene, after he's done talking to the Warrior of Light, and notes/summarizes what just happened: "history is written by the winners," also helped me with it a lot, because it still has that trace of acknowledgment that this entire situation is utterly awful and unfair. I don't know what the end of that bit with the light implies, but I do know that if that's the rule we're operating under in terms of this Resigned Acceptance, then what I want to do is to take Themis's hand and stand at his side to help smash that rule to pieces, but I'm not going to hold my breath (or hold onto anything in particular at all, lol) in terms of hope or faith in this writing team along those lines.