On Themis [6.4 SPOILER]

[Cleretic]

Themis (as opposed to Elidibus, who is sort of a different mashup entity) works as a character despite not really having many interesting flaws because he puts the other actors involved in the Sundering into relief, IMO. He is the one Ancient who espouses their ideology of caring for the world and its inhabitants above individuals or ideology with complete sincerity, and is first on the sacrifice chopping board. He's an idealist, which is even physically visible in his boss arena, showing Amaurot on a sunny day in contrast to the usual nighttime depictions.

You need an innocent to put the sins of others into context.

See, that does track as for why Themis is like that, especially for the first two legs of Pandaemonium (I'd argue Elpis itself was probably supposed to have Hythlodaeus in that role). I hadn't really thought about that before. I still don't find that character very interesting as a result, but I can respect that in some ways he's sort of the 'moral straight man' of that story.

It just makes me feel like he was even more of a missed opportunity in Anabeisos, though. In that he's not only serving a different role (albeit unwillingly) while the Sharlayan scientists generally fill his original role, but also that he's in a weird state where he's, to try to simplify his situation into something a bit more 'human', a good and moral person who's suddenly become conscious of the fact he did really terrible things. That feels far more interesting than him just being back to the way he was and brushing the Elidibus stuff aside; maybe P11 is instead fueled by his grief and remorse, but him getting to go back to 'how it used to be' to finish closing the Athena case, and maybe an off-screen word with the scientists while we're off seeing the Hegemone scene, gives him a space to better come to terms with it.

[Lurina]

(I'd argue Elpis itself was probably supposed to have Hythlodaeus in that role)

Between this and your above assessment of him, I think you've misunderstood Hythlodaeus's character. He's pleasant, but if you pay attention to the way he behaves, he's obviously only motivated by his intense love for specific people and is otherwise largely apathetic to what's going on around him. When he's planning to have Emet-Selch train the charybdis, he expresses no compassion for the animal or even for Hermes, only how it will be neat if Emet does it and how it'll make him happy since he always likes playing the hero in the long term. And then during the rest of the Elpis, while Emet is trying to reach out to Hermes in his unconstructive tsundere way, Hythlo still shows virtually no interest in him and just worries about Emet's feelings being hurt. He's even low-key mean a couple times.

He's also pretty clearly depressed. He constantly puts himself down and negatively compares himself to his friends, and one of this revival quotes is even "You shouldn't have. No, really."

I think he's the most interestingly characterized NPC during the Elpis arc, even more so than Hermes, because so much is unspoken.

[SannaR]

Between this and your above assessment of him, I think you've misunderstood Hythlodaeus's character. He's pleasant, but if you pay attention to the way he behaves, he's obviously only motivated by his intense love for specific people and is otherwise largely apathetic to what's going on around him. When he's planning to have Emet-Selch train the charybdis, he expresses no compassion for the animal or even for Hermes, only how it will be neat if Emet does it and how it'll make him happy since he always likes playing the hero in the long term. And then during the rest of the Elpis, while Emet is trying to reach out to Hermes in his unconstructive tsundere way, Hythlo still shows virtually no interest in him and just worries about Emet's feelings being hurt. He's even low-key mean a couple times.

He's also pretty clearly depressed. He constantly puts himself down and negatively compares himself to his friends, and one of this revival quotes is even "You shouldn't have. No, really."

I think he's the most interestingly characterized NPC during the Elpis arc, even more so than Hermes, because so much is unspoken.

He probably also puts himself down due to how strong his two closest friends are. He's seen Emet's showboating form a few times. His other friend goes around occasionally fighting things all the time. I'm sure everyone on the convocation is able to hold their ground if need be. Yet he claims he's just as bad as Erichtonios when it comes to most things creative. It's hard to not feel or think that what you make is rubbish when your best friends are on the levels of Morgan Le Fay or an Achilles.

[RyuDragnier]

Between this and your above assessment of him, I think you've misunderstood Hythlodaeus's character. He's pleasant, but if you pay attention to the way he behaves, he's obviously only motivated by his intense love for specific people and is otherwise largely apathetic to what's going on around him. When he's planning to have Emet-Selch train the charybdis, he expresses no compassion for the animal or even for Hermes, only how it will be neat if Emet does it and how it'll make him happy since he always likes playing the hero in the long term. And then during the rest of the Elpis, while Emet is trying to reach out to Hermes in his unconstructive tsundere way, Hythlo still shows virtually no interest in him and just worries about Emet's feelings being hurt. He's even low-key mean a couple times.

He's also pretty clearly depressed. He constantly puts himself down and negatively compares himself to his friends, and one of this revival quotes is even "You shouldn't have. No, really."

I think he's the most interestingly characterized NPC during the Elpis arc, even more so than Hermes, because so much is unspoken.

What I love most about this? It gives some reasoning for how Hyth, Emet, and Azem became friends. Hyth feels like he can't measure up to others and doesn't want people to worry about him, but at the same time wants them to succeed and do well. Emet comes across as somebody who has been hurt before (thus his attitude), but genuinely does care about others. This leaves Azem. While not much can be said about them, due to their inability to sit still and how they explore the world, I think they have a combination of genuine curiosity for the world and a Death Seeker vibe to them. They're not just fighting to help people (though that's likely a big thing for them)...they're looking for someone or something to kill them in battle. The Ancients do seem to come across as having a Martyrdom Culture.

Meaning Emet worries about Hyth and Azem, Hyth genuinely wants Emet and Azem to be well, and Azem...wants everybody to be happy.

[Dikatis]

This leaves Azem. While not much can be said about them, due to their inability to sit still and how they explore the world, I think they have a combination of genuine curiosity for the world and a Death Seeker vibe to them. They're not just fighting to help people (though that's likely a big thing for them)...they're looking for someone or something to kill them in battle. The Ancients do seem to come across as having a Martyrdom Culture.

Meaning Emet worries about Hyth and Azem, Hyth genuinely wants Emet and Azem to be well, and Azem...wants everybody to be happy.

I don't really get how Azem would be a death seeker in any shape or form. They're the disciple of Venat, someone who inherently loves life, living, and the world itself. Calling Azem a death seeker is like calling WoL a death seeker for plunging into life-or-death situations as an adventure junkie when WoL would very clearly rather live than die (if they wanted to die they'd just call Julyan old). I guess you can headcanon anything, but I cannot agree with your interpretation that Azem, and by extension the Warrior of Light as their reincarnation, is somehow looking for someone to kill them when they have so much and so many people to live for and clearly want to live for.

You could ascribe those kinds of feeling to Zenos, but even then it's more about the euphoria of being locked in combat with an equal because he does not know how to express his feelings outside of violence because of his upbringing and the nature of Garlemald. He only kills himself at the end of Stormblood because he couldn't imagine being happier than he was in that moment and wanted to go out with a bang rather than a whimper.

[Brinne]

Hythlo

Occasionally, when I see people sort of frame Hythlodaeus as some moral figure who would clearly disapprove or be outraged with Emet-Selch's actions as an Ascian, my reaction is basically "...what?" Because no. There's absolutely no way. Hythlodaeus is not malicious by any means, and all things being equal will generally do the benevolent thing, as he has no interest in hurting anyone excessively or pointlessly, but he makes crystal clear what he truly cares about and what he doesn't, and his pleasant polite quality is just as much as him also having no energy or interest in meaningfully engaging with anyone who isn't Azem or Emet-Selch beyond that "polite" surface level. He's an incredibly interesting character to me, and the dynamic of, once again, Hades perhaps being the figure in the friendship trio with the most pronounced morals and sense of empathy, and this in fact being the very thing that basically drove him to sink as low as he did, makes all of them all the more interesting and tragic.

In a way, I agree with Yoshi-P's assessment that Hythlo is in fact the "scariest" Ancient, though I entirely disagree with his reasoning behind it, but that comes down to finding the reasons Yoshi-P presumed the audience would find the Ancients "scary" as a whole generally laughable.

His VA ended up a bit of a hilarious fit for the original Themis, but I'll be damned if that "My duty! No! Not yet!" line in SoS still doesn't pull at the heartstrings.

The English voice casting obviously was done out of not knowing how Elidibus's true character would eventually manifest, but also, I will instantly piledrive anyone who says a word against Matt Stokoe and I can't tell you how immeasurably overjoyed I was that they managed to get him back in this patch. If Themis ever makes another return, if Stokoe doesn't come with him for voiced scenes, rioting from me will ensue.

[Lunaxia]

So my own thoughts on Hyth (forgive the length, I enjoy discussing my favourites and it's as much a mapping out of my thoughts as a general contribution to the topic): a few of us here were discussing him not too long ago and I touched on how I miss the intrigue and mystery that surrounded his original appearance, and the appeal of how understanding his true nature always felt just a little beyond our grasp back then (characterised by that faint yet tantalising idea he always saw and knew far more than he let on.) I basically resented how he was made into something of a footstool for showcasing the broad strokes of Azem and Emet-Selch's characters, and to that end he had a lot of what made him so interesting stripped away in favour of making his sole defining trait his affection for his friends.

...but turning that single-mindedness into a wilful apathy of everything and everyone else that doesn't concern him? I don't hate it. I don't know if I 100% agree that's what the writers were going for, but it's a fascinating interpretation nonetheless, and it does work. His English VA sells it pretty well to boot (though I couldn't properly tell if that dryness was a quirk of the actor himself or present across all languages) and I like how realistically that does make him pretty scary, as Brinne mentions, in an altogether different way.

What's notable to me though is how Hyth actually goes through a mini arc of his own if we approach the story from that perspective. He is very disinterested and unconcerned overall by what's around him to at times a frighteningly detached degree (that quip where he makes light of Emet-Selch's potential fate and his lampshading it by saying he prefers to look on the bright side of life was... um, interesting), and he's intentionally used in some cases as an example of the type of indifference Hermes struggles with; he is the one who offers the status quo for Ancients regarding "death" after all, and for being the CEO in charge of concepts and the like, he's as remarkably unbothered by the ethics surrounding it as all the other Ancients (human lifeforms like Meteion should invite some debate in an enlightened society, if we're being honest - it's a little funny how Hermes' qualms certainly don't stretch to himself in that vein, but that's another discussion entirely.) But then in Ktisis, we go on to see him pausing to acknowledge the destruction of the concepts there and wishing them well on their journey to the aetherial sea, in a way I actually find pretty moving. It's growth for his character, and shows it's not so much a cruel disregard as sheer ignorance, and he learns from it - which, thinking about it, then goes onto put Hermes' actions, and the justification behind... other plot points, shall we say, into an even worse light than they already are. Huh. (To think I was this close to giving the writers more credit.)

indeed

Hades being the mom friend was essentially canon for me from the day I finished 5.0, and I'm only ever overjoyed to see the story since further cement that each time we see him.

(And a +1 on his VA, I'm virtually incapable of discussing Eli without fangirling a tiny bit over how brilliant he was. Some of the English performances in this game really need more credit.)

[Brinne]

Yeah, I think at the very least it's clear that Yoshi-P and the writing's intent was to make Hythlo one of the primary figures demonstrating the supposed Ancient apathy, as you said. He's the closest thing in that group we have to meeting a "normal Ancient" who can speak for and represent their culture and viewpoints at large, but even under that pretext, Hythlo as the central example as to why everyone in his race needs to die falls apart very quickly for both the reasons you stated and because Hythlo is also paradoxically obviously designed to be a sympathetic and lovable figure. Basically all the individual Ancients we get to know meaningfully are, which is why Venat's montage becomes very transparent to me in terms of subbing in manipulative and generic strawmen in place of literally any actualized, living, breathing Ancient character we've encountered.

I often think that one of the critical mistakes the creative team made going into Endwalker was thinking that they could throw the Ancients as a whole under the bus so long as they properly uplifted the fan-favorite individual characters that happened to be Ancients, with Emet-Selch being the most obvious and perhaps gratuitous case. Endwalker obviously, at the same time it's insisting the Ancients were just emotionally hopeless and had to be put down, is absurdly (and I'm saying that as an Emet-Selch lover you have debated with on those grounds, Lunaxia!) propped up as an Incredibly Good Person. But that doesn't work. Speaking for myself, I truly fell in love with the Ancients and Amaurot themselves, and instantly feel much more outraged at attempts to malign them than any towards Emet-Selch individually. I love his character dearly, but he has certainly pulled enough utterly horrible things that I basically shrug and go "totally valid" at people who dislike them and him, because anyone certainly has absolute right to. I'd go as far as to say that what ultimately sold me on Emet-Selch as a character was his emotional context in relation to the Ancients as the primary source of pathos, not the other way around. So for me, Endwalker was doomed from the start, in a way, because they were trying to thread the needle upside down and backwards at the same time.

You could arguably even say they're probably still making that mistake, given Yoshi-P's aside that he figures that the attempt to make the Ancients "scary" rather than "good people" to most of the audience ultimately failing could be ascribed to the individual charisma of Emet, Hythlo, and Venat. No, Yoshida. I - and most of the others I know - genuinely, honestly, simply love the Ancients, and the arguments Endwalker tries to make to paint them as alien and irredeemable mostly come across as ridiculous and insulting at best.

Which ties back to what you said about Hythlo at least beginning to learn that emotional lesson - I think part of what makes Hythlo compelling to me is that while he himself holds that general indifference and disinterest, his love for his two friends is intense, true, and absolute (if at times a bit unconventional, as reflected in the remark you referenced, lmao. oh hythlo) - and I think that part of what fuels that genuine, absolute love is admiration not just of their power, but of their goodness. Hythlo himself is not particularly compassionate, but he truly loves and admires Emet-Selch's compassion, and we can see him therefore enjoying himself greatly in pushing Emet-Selch past his tsundere barriers to act upon his kinder impulses. In some of the cracks, there, I think is the capacity for him to learn that you described, and that he shows potential signs of moving in that direction by the end of Ktisis. (And honestly, it's fine if Hythlo is never the most empathetic or kind person in the world. It takes all types, and I love seeing all the different kinds of very human people who number among the Ancient population. Part of what charmed me immediately, even back in phantom Amaurot, was exactly that.)

But I also want to note that the Ancients always obviously showed that capacity, and the willingness, to learn and grow even if you could make an argument (that I'm sympathetic to and would even agree with) that they naturally had room for improvement in their society. Doing the side-quests in Elpis where the majority of the Ancients are practically eager to listen to the feedback of a familiar, get excited about the perspectives they offer, and start incorporating them into how they go about things was enough to show me the inanity of the argument Endwalker tries to convince of us regarding Hydaelyn's decision as necessary and righteous, and every piece of canon material released since then has done nothing to assuage that feeling. Quite the opposite, in fact.

I guess that's risking treading a little close to that argument, but really, I genuinely think Hythlo is a great character even with Elpis, and a lot of his nuance goes a bit underappreciated because it's a bit more subtle and less in-your-face than others. There's a lot more going on with him than simply being "the nice one," as I think a lot tend to write him off a bit as.

...and on an unrelated note to That Argument, have I mentioned I love Athena? Man, she is great. Can't get enough of her.

... <_<

[Lunaxia]

Yeah, I think at the very least it's clear that...

I didn't actually know Yoshi had said that - if I'm being blatantly honest I don't pay a whole lot of attention to his commentary on the story compared to the likes of Ishikawa and Koji, who I feel are much more invested and in tune with what's being put out and how it resonates with the community. But if it is true, and what he says is a general sentiment shared by the team, that's... certainly something. I suppose it does help add up for me why they are so happy to nonchalantly cast the Ancients to one side while at the same time throwing bland NPCs in my face I'm supposed to care about when they might as well be pieces of cardboard for the emotional investment I have in them, even as I'm perplexed that's the conclusion I should apparently be arriving at. I was similarly quickly charmed by Amaurot and the NPCs there, and even as far as zone quests go (which I admit I often enjoy anyway - I find them charming and full of colour) I really, really loved Amaurot's world-building. I mean, I've never been so entertained by a discussion on foreign policy in my life as watching the scene at the Hall of the Rhetoric and I was a bit in awe how they managed to have such a simple moment offer such a succinct but thorough snapshot of the Ancients' mindsets. Elpis was a joyful continuation, and I was giddily skipping everywhere trying to soak up all the lore I could. I found myself really caring about these people.

...and you know, on reflection, I don't think that is an error or a total matter of taste on the fans' part, because surely the intention was, or should have been, to sell me on why this world meant so much to the villain in ShB, at least? You did your job! Would my indifference to their plight not be a failure of the writing? Were they counting on the brevity of their stay in their story to lose to my time spent in Hydaelyn? If so, I guess that failed rather spectacularly. As you say, Emet-Selch was lifted and made sympathetic by his love for these people in the first place; they were not made interesting by a connection to him, and it's a sign of what little they understood about ShB's success to see the assumptions they made and where they took things in EW.

As far as Hyth is concerned, I do think his character suffers from Emet-Selch being the sun around which other characters tend to orbit in his cutscenes. There are these curious little asides with him, to be sure, but the only meaningful interaction we have with him outside of reading between the lines of extraneous dialogue overlooks him entirely in favour of throwing a spotlight on his friends, so his nuance can sneak under the radar, and, well... I've said as much before, but I am highly critical of the main scenario writers given past experiences, and I'm more inclined to smell a rat in terms of the intentions for a character than use it as an opportunity to appreciate possible hidden depths. That's very much a me problem, as they say, though, and I appreciate reading what others may have seen that I did not.

Yeah, in these scenarios I'm not so much attempting to justify why the Ancients deserved survival - they were fundamentally deserving of that in my eyes, no matter how strict the interpretation of them you might run with - but I like to point out where the argument falls in on itself within the confines of the story itself, considering the opposing argument makes liberal use of "but look what the story intended!" as if it's iron-clad gospel and not based on a foundation that frequently and shamelessly contradicts itself (as evidenced by your exchange with Iscah, to which I hmm very meaningfully over and struggle not to comment on.)

I feel like I can sense your twitchy fingers over - ahem, wanting to express your love for Athena, and to that end I nod my head towards That Thread if you ever felt compelled to do so. I'd definitely like to read it.

*shrug* Yoshida's comments about the Ancients rang true enough to me.

I mean, I could not disagree you with more on practically any of those points, but more power to you for that potent collection of hot takes, which you are more than entitled to. I'm curious what turns you off the Ancients so much, though.

[Denishia]

I'm curious what turns you off the Ancients so much, though.

*shrug* Subjective taste.

Starts when Emet, a character that was obnoxious instead of funny or charismatic, directly responsible for the horrendous Allag and Garleans Empires & Vauthry's Eulmore, spews dehumanizing lines reminiscent of irl bigotry that Sundered aren't human because lack of magical power. Obvious how that could be an insurmountable hurdle. Nothing else about Emet hit for me except voice fit character and writing wasn't flat. Galling and false when the people of the First weren't lesser in any way to the Source's inhabitants. Ryne her own person, theme repeated with Gaia. Azem-related tropes dislike goes here if fit.

Emet called his world a paradise; of course it wouldn't be. Allag and Eulmore thematic mirrors heralded what it would really be. Plus as long-time fantasy fan, the "Highly Advanced Precursor Civilization" can be mostly misses for me.

Load into the Tempest: zone is dark, ugly and BGM - Not a fan of piano jazz in general, but that tune and variations except for "To the Edge" are the only tracks in the game I immediately hated.

Sighed because I knew Atlantis was down here. My Tolkien friends know I have little interest in Fall of Atlantis retreads.

We get to Amaurot itself. No fan of densely urban skyscraper city-scapes - prettiest part of this place was trees. Everything obnoxiously oversized when I'm playing a Roe for a reason. Sent to wait at fantasy DMV. Ascian robes a design choice I found lame but slightly better than the Kingdom Hearts version - but now every NPC is in a less visually interesting robe with masks (Woodwailers ew).

And the Amaurotines themselves even in ShB? Not convincing me of the paradise claims - feels like every other imperfect city the WoL arrives to and starts fixing. A taste of all the reasons to dislike the Sharlayans. An emphasis on the appearance of a monolithic culture where lives only had one defined purpose that needed to be contributed in the prescribed way. Echoes of theocratic Ishgard and especially Garlemald to which Nanamo refuted back in 2.0. Not even ghost!Hytholeaus was charming me to be interested in the people of this city the way that virtually all other NPCs and their culture and politics in various XIV locations would. The most interesting tidbit was the suggestion of other cities and places that weren't Amaurot - did they agree with Amaurot's assessment as the knowledge/power hub and use the same creation magics the same way? The paradise it was describing wasn't one that sounded like I would be happy in or philosophically agreed w/ and I was predicting someone like Hermes and already feeling sorry for them.

Come 7.0 Elpis gave even uglier robes, overdosed on Greek names. Thankfully zone is unlike Amaurot except for spirals on buildings and has new theme. Re-enforced the Sharlayan Forum/Eulmore but worse vibes. Already hating that Emet was the MSQ narrator, now more of him.