On Themis [6.4 SPOILER]

[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.

... <_<