Zodiark's Codex entry what do we think about it?

[Cleretic]

The important thing to understand about Emet (it somehow always returns to Emet, even following a patch where he wasn’t even mentioned…) is that his rationalizations don’t even matter that much in the end, because none of it is the actual core reason he’s doing what he is, which is simply love and duty. The rest is fluff he layers on top to make it easier for himself because he hates it.

Well, the thing with Emet in these discussions is that he's such a huge part of the framing of Amaurot. All of our learning about Ancient society in Shadowbringers either came directly from him, or were very directly connected to him (namely, Anamnesis only coming up because it wasn't Emet-curated), and his presence casts a shadow over what we learn in Endwalker, not just by way of him literally being there in Elpis, but through us inevitably comparing what we see to what he's said before. Even the parts unrelated to Emet become related to Emet, because he's our big initial touchpoint for them, so the inevitable thing we compare it to is 'what Emet said'.

And when Emet is not the most reliable source for several reasons, I find it important to interrogate his stated perspectives rather than just take it as a given. Emet always worked an angle, he was never just giving the unvarnished truth, so when he's the only source for a claim I think it's fair to call it into question. There's plenty of other sources I'd give similar scrutiny, but when it comes to Amaurot, Emet's the one that always comes up.

What do you think Emet-selch meant by 'measured your worth?' Him having a hand in Calamities doesn't take away from his point about the Sundered's nature. Unless you're about to tell me the Ascians are behind every catastrophe that's ever occurred in Sundered history. If anything, he has *more* of a point, because the strategies that he used to cause Rejoinings-- that of forming governments that collapse under the corruption of the Sundered who participate in it, worked both of the times he did it. It's quite literally the fact they are so easily exploitable in causing violence that he has a problem with.

I should say that I don't judge the Ancients as a society by the Ascians circa the Seventh Astral Era; that's absolutely in bad faith, and if you thought that was my intention, I misrepresented my own views. I more meant that, if Shadowbringers-Emet thought that about the sundered people (that sentence was more just an example by Lynaxia than text, though), he was at that point very hypocritical given both his own actions and those of his colleagues.

But I think Emet claiming he 'measured our worth' is more post-hoc justification on his part than actual reasoning. He and the other Ascians were going to perform the Calamities regardless, and maybe at some point early on they felt bad about that, but by the time we meet him in Shadowbringers he's well and truly too far down that road to be swayed. His way of testing us (as in, the WoL and Scions) was an inherently rigged game we couldn't have possibly won, and by the developers' own admission in interviews he had no plan for if we succeeded; he wasn't truly looking for us to prove him wrong, he was fishing for evidence he was right.

[Lurina]

But I think Emet claiming he 'measured our worth' is more post-hoc justification on his part than actual reasoning. He and the other Ascians were going to perform the Calamities regardless, and maybe at some point early on they felt bad about that, but by the time we meet him in Shadowbringers he's well and truly too far down that road to be swayed. His way of testing us (as in, the WoL and Scions) was an inherently rigged game we couldn't have possibly won, and by the developers' own admission in interviews he had no plan for if we succeeded; he wasn't truly looking for us to prove him wrong, he was fishing for evidence he was right.

Emet was looking for victory or suicide-by-WoL. Yoshi-P outright suggested that he set up the situation so they'd be cured of the light if they overcame him.

Like Emet himself said earlier, at any point he could have just left. He was there for his quest to be vindicated or to be over.

[tokinokanatae]

Emet always worked an angle, he was never just giving the unvarnished truth, so when he's the only source for a claim I think it's fair to call it into question.

So what is the end result of this supposed "angle" you keep bringing up as self-evident? If you think he's deliberately obfuscating something about Ancient society, then what is he hiding and what are his goals in doing it?

[Cleretic]

So what is the end result of this supposed "angle" you keep bringing up as self-evident? If you think he's deliberately obfuscating something about Ancient society, then what is he hiding and what are his goals in doing it?

I actually wouldn't call it 'deliberate obfuscation', because that's not the main thing he does. Emet's more in the game of selective divulging of information, choosing what he reveals, how, and when to have the most dramatic and emotional effect while just... quietly dancing around the things that don't help his case.

In regards to Amaurot and the Ancients int his respect, 'what he's hiding' is, I think, actually just more of the general imperfections of Ancient society rather than any greatly damning smoking gun. When he discusses Amaurot he wants to paint them as essentially 'perfect angel' victims, both materially and morally, to really accentuate that whole 'we didn't deserve what happened to us' element. This might also be why his retelling of the events around it casually skips over everything between Zodiark's first summoning and Hydaelyn's summoning, and doesn't really bring up any dissent; he wants to ignore the parts that don't look so good for him, and also paint Hydaelyn as essentially an illegitimate rogue faction, or at least one whose reasonings don't matter enough to talk about.

One could argue he doesn't need to do that, and the facts stand on their own; an unfortunate death is always an unfortunate death, even if the victim wasn't a perfect angel. And that's not wrong; remember that the Garlemald zone in Endwalker was by and large a tragedy, and if Ul'dah exploded tomorrow, only the most heartless response would be 'good riddance to the Syndicate'. But, well, that's what Emet did, and Elpis and Pandaemonium showed it; he glossed over a lot, partially because of knowledge gaps but largely because some of those facts didn't look great for him. And from an out-of-game storytelling perspective it was probably the right move, too; we're ultimately people reading a story, and if a big-time villain is telling us about where he and all his other big-time villain friends came from, the writers have to work a little harder to make those people sympathetic and tragic than they would if, say, Y'shtola told us about her family.

All that said, I'd hardly say that I just described all of Emet. Something that really adds to his complexity is that he works so many angles over the course of Shadowbringers; it would be very possible (and perhaps not even a bad idea if you had the time) to go scene-by-scene for him and ask 'what is Emet trying to accomplish in this scene', because that actually changes constantly and yet he's never really contradictory in doing so. In some scenes he's trying to be conciliatory, sometimes he's trying to get information, or sometimes he's genuinely trying to help; in other times he's going raw scare tactics, or trying to sow doubt and distrust, or even, as Lurina said, trying to goad us into killing him.

So yeah, asking 'what's Emet's angle' actually requires very complicated answers, especially if we're talking about something that gets elaborated on across multiple scenes. Not because he's lying or hiding the truth in any of them (although he might be personally misinformed or in denial sometimes), but because he's choosing his words and what cards he reveals every single time; we need to constantly take the source of the information into account.

[Brinne]

Well, the thing with Emet in these discussions is that he's such a huge part of the framing of Amaurot. All of our learning about Ancient society in Shadowbringers either came directly from him, or were very directly connected to him (namely, Anamnesis only coming up because it wasn't Emet-curated), and his presence casts a shadow over what we learn in Endwalker, not just by way of him literally being there in Elpis, but through us inevitably comparing what we see to what he's said before. Even the parts unrelated to Emet become related to Emet, because he's our big initial touchpoint for them, so the inevitable thing we compare it to is 'what Emet said'.

It was four years ago. Yes, Emet was a major character in Elpis's MSQ, but personally speaking, I didn't really have a problem doing the majority of content in the zone that didn't involve him, interacting with the actual Ancients doling out quests and NPC text, and coming to my own conclusions. My reasons for enjoying the Ancients and the vast majority of Ancient characters has essentially no relationship with the framework Emet-Selch laid out, other than the very basic starting point of "this (extremely flawed, to put it mildly) guy loved these people a lot."

Likewise with Pandaemonium. I like Emet-Selch a great deal, but I somehow managed to thoroughly enjoy that questline and its characters without quietly obsessing over how to compare their every word and deed against Emet-Selch's Grief-Fueled Words From Four Years Ago in a storyline that doesn't involve him whatsoever. To me, it was obvious Pandaemonium especially was indifferent and uninterested in that entire conversation. So no, I thoroughly disagree that literally everything about a fictional race of people becoming a referendum on him is 'inevitable.' Someone's personal fixation, maybe, sure.

It just seems rather grim to put forth that it's 'inevitable' that any content related to this whole broad fantasy civilization, that's wildly popular with the fanbase at that, can't be experienced without it primarily becoming about finding Ammo to never, ever stop sticking it to one expansion villain.

One could argue he doesn't need to do that, and the facts stand on their own; an unfortunate death is always an unfortunate death,

Yeah, but. You're not doing that. Instead there's a priority towards shadowboxing a character who died years ago to keep picking at any tiny flaws you can find within the dead loved ones he spoke well of, for Reasons. In terms of "a little weird," not gonna lie, this is probably up there with "a littlest weirdest."

When he discusses Amaurot he wants to paint them as essentially 'perfect angel' victims, both materially and morally, to really accentuate that whole 'we didn't deserve what happened to us' element.

Uh. After all your comparisons to Emet-Selch and the Ascians to real-life instances of racism, are you really unironically invoking "they were no angels" rhetoric?