On Themis [6.4 SPOILER]

[Anonymoose]

Some rough thoughts that could probably be organized a little better, but are at least hitting the notes I'd like:

As soon as I saw Themis's Pandae speech, I had a feeling that this conversation might start anew (on account of the whole "no regrets" angle).

My big picture:

By SE's own admission the Ascians were originally just supposed to be "doing bad stuff in the background" until they figured out what to do with them, so it was probably never a safe bet to root for them being vindicated as wholesale doing the right thing while the protagonists, the people who are supposed to feel heroic for playing the game, were revealed to have been making bad decisions and supporting the wrong ends for multiple successive expansions. That said, we were supposed to question it, of course, and they provided us many opportunities to do that.

Based on that, I'm sympathetic that some latched onto those in combination - "I like the antagonists, we're supposed to question ourselves" - and really believed in a narrative where that would turn things completely upside down to favor their favorite characters. And I'm sympathetic to the disappointment there. However, the are some issues where we're just beating a dead horse back and forth over whether people did or did not get what they expected/wanted, especially whereby some players act like having a different perspective is the same thing as the story itself being inconsistent or wrong. (Which is not to say it never is, either.)

And for the record, I loved these characters (at least, the complex, sympathetic people they are in retrospect), I just didn't expect a reversal of the narrative arc coding in the final act. I didn't expect them to win or be seen as having made the right call. I just liked them for the complex, well-meaning, flawed people they started as.

We saw the people of Amaurot desperately try to save their world. We saw the way Themis was warped by becoming Zodiark, by the prayers and desires of those who manifested him, by being re-manifest through that primal deity. We saw the way it inadvertently and tragically led to the Emissary, who was supposed to arbitrate and find the best path forward, uncompromisingly pursuing one flawed plan from one flawed perspective. We saw how the Convocation were inadvertently tempered to the same page. We saw broken Elidibus callously disown Emet-Selch and call him unworthy of being an Original for the implications behind "remember us", and yet the post-battle "restored self" Elidibus embrace this. As of Pandaemonium, Emet-Selch, Elidibus, and Lahabrea have ALL recognized, in that order, and in different ways, the flaws in the plan and execution and acknowledged that it was doomed from the start. Emet-Selch's final monologue in Endwalker, especially.

We saw Venat tell the Warrior of Light she wouldn't take their story for granted and would try to change the fate of the ancients, only to fail. We saw her agonize over who to bring into the fold, terrified that alienating Hermes from the convocation or allowing him to find out that his own "unbiased test" had become compromised would lead to the entire society finding out the results of Meteion's survey and not only undermine her mission to save them, but create conditions that would destroy even the Warrior of Light's one chance to defeat Meteion (which was itself set in motion by her future self) in the future.

Unfortunately we skip right from there to post-failure. We skip from there to 75% of the ancients being dead, the Convocation being tempered, and the society forsaking its way of life to sacrifice more and more to the primal to deny sorrow and restore paradise. We skip to it being too late, and we only see even that through Venat's metaphorical walk down memory lane, and that gap lets people deny the rest of this and make assumptions that better fit with what they wanted. (And yes some make assumptions here to support hating on the ancients more than the story backs up as well.)

But, in my humble opinion, that doesn't mean it's inconsistent for Themis to say he's glad to see life goes on and that he is unburdened by regret. Emet-Selch also gave Venat credit for her foresight, but says he wouldn't change his actions, too. He played his part and was true to himself, as was Elidibus, and Lahabrea recognizes his arrogance and hypocrisy as just that - and now we understand why he was broken in some ways even before the Final Days. Venat doesn't get fully vindicated, either, they dedicated a whole cutscene to her recognizing that, "I breathe fire and torment. I birth a world of suffering to mire and plague."

They all did the best they could to give us - however imperfect by their standards - a future. They all made difficult decisions that had good and bad outcomes along the way. It's understandable that some people identified more with the more-immortal, more-beautiful, more-perfect-society ancients than the short-lived, squabbling sundered, who stand in for the players - imperfect people with imperfect lives full of struggle and sorrow in equal measure to their success and joy. It's understandable that when the story let them fill in the gaps with interpretations and perspectives, they chose ones that fit that identification and desire. It's understandable the story didn't go that way, and understandable they're disappointed.

And I understand 6.4 Themis is going to bring up some of that old disappointment for some people, but is it that new or noteworthy or inconsistent with the transition from the broken Elidibus who told us there was no common ground to ever be found between himself and the sundered and disowned Emet in 5.1 to 5.3 vs. the restored Elidibus who understood Emet-Selch and recognized his hopeful naivete and the ways it went sideways at the end of that arc?

[Aneshda]

Louisoix summoned The Twelve and they turned him into the phoenix primal. This was explained in Coils.

Yes but why do they say then that it was not them who helped Louisoix?

[jameseoakes]

We saw her agonize over who to bring into the fold, terrified that alienating Hermes from the convocation or allowing him to find out that his own "unbiased test" had become compromised would lead to the entire society finding out the results of Meteion's survey and not only undermine her mission to save them, but create conditions that destroyed the Warrior of Light's one chance to defeat Meteion (which was itself set in motion by her future self)

Where do we see this, we don't see anything of Venat trying to mitigate the end of days we just seem to get her wilfully withholding information so they have to suffer the full horrors of the end of days and allowing the insane monster that caused this to enter high office. The game seems to show very little on her effort to evert the End of Days

[Anonymoose]

We saw Venat tell the Warrior of Light she wouldn't take their story for granted and would try to change the fate of the ancients, only to fail. We saw her agonize over who to bring into the fold, terrified that alienating Hermes from the convocation or allowing him to find out that his own "unbiased test" had become compromised would lead to the entire society finding out the results of Meteion's survey and not only undermine her mission to save them, but create conditions that would destroy even the Warrior of Light's one chance to defeat Meteion (which was itself set in motion by her future self)

Where do we see this, we don't see anything of Venat trying to mitigate the end of days we just seem to get her wilfully withholding information so they have to suffer the full horrors of the end of days and allowing the insane monster that caused this to enter high office. The game seems to show very little on her effort to evert the End of Day

I'm not even paraphrasing, to be honest, I'm directly quoting in-game text. It just goes by quickly and people who want to ignore it...do. It's all from the same speech, directly after the memory wipe.

She says, "You may find your world to be very different. Or perhaps the erasure of our friends' memories has sown the seeds of a conjunction between us. We cannot know until the moment is at hand. So shall I strive to do my best, taking naught for granted as I walk my path." If you read the different languages, she specifies in some that the WoL's story of what will come to pass is one of the things she will take as not-guaranteed in her attempt to change things.

She says, "Ordinarily, I wouldn't hesitate to call upon the Fourteen. However, it was the desire for a fair determination that drove Hermes to attempt to erase our memories; were he made aware of his actions, there is no telling whether he would remain a friend or become a foe. Alternately, we might try to alienate him from the Convocation. Yet in doing so, we would deprive ourselves of a brilliant mind who would be invaluable in the crises to come. Quite the dilemma... Which is why I must work independently of the Convocation." Again, reading the different languages highlights different specifics in each, with her saying that the results of Meteion's survey led one man to make this mess, so the whole society knowing will almost surely cause the situation to spin out of anyone and everyone's ability to influence and play right into Meteion's hands. And, moreover, since he has experience with dynamis and (whether he ever discovers it or not) the problem is dynamis, he may be of value to the altered course if she can alter it. And he is uniquely qualified to be Fandaniel in the first place, so it might be worse to rob the Convocation of a competent Fandaniel in the other respects he is qualified for.

Is that all convoluted writing that probably exists just to justify having an arc of the story take place in Elpis hanging out with the ancients at all? Probably.

Do we blow by her justifications very quickly? For sure.

But is it "not trying to mitigate the end of days" and "willfully withholding information so they suffer the full horrors of the end of days"? I would disagree with you there.

Addendum: In retrospect, given the convoluted nature of the whole arc, my personal question would probably be "Why didn't she lie more?" Why didn't she give some information, withhold some, and do everything she could to prevent them from finding out the whole situation, hoping they got everything they needed to create a better outcome, but none of the stuff that would risk it going out of control? She did that to the Warrior of Light for the whole game. (Granted, Hydaelyn couldn't have told you anything SE didn't t know.) But maybe that's a lot harder to do when you're up against the combined intellectual and investigative might of the Convocation of Fourteen. Even if she were to encourage them to use the Echo to prove some of her claims, it would also reveal the things she's afraid would undermine not only her efforts to change her people's course, buy ALSO the one known future where Meteion's defeat is possible.

[Lurina]

Some rough thoughts that could probably be organized a little better, but are at least hitting the notes I'd like:

As soon as I saw Themis's Pandae speech, I had a feeling that this conversation might start anew.

Big picture:

By SE's own admission the Ascians were originally just supposed to be "doing bad stuff in the background" until they figured out what to do with them, so it was probably never a safe bet to root for them being vindicated as wholesale doing the right thing while the protagonists, the people who are supposed to feel heroic for playing the game, were revealed to have been making bad decisions and supporting the wrong ends for multiple successive expansions. That said, we were supposed to question it, of course, and they provided us many opportunities to do that[...]

I don't want to be rude, but this post, while well-written, kind of comes across as trying to make a point to a strawman. A lot of it doesn't even really feel relevant to the discussion that was being had in this thread.

At the risk of becoming a broken record, the disagreement most people still posting about this stuff have isn't that they're unhappy the Ascians cause was wrong or that they lost; obviously they were only ever going to be sympathetic villains at best, and even Shadowbringers made that clear.

The problem is that the writers created a scenario that was predicated upon lionizing the wholesale destruction of a group of people. Whatever they were trying to do thematically with that destruction is kind of irrelevant. Obviously this wasn't done with malicious intent - they wrote themselves into a corner by having to justify the Sundering post-hoc without, like you say, making the player feel foolish or like a villain, and through the subplot about the WoL and Venat's relationship across time. But it still comes across as morally dissonant. Or to put it more simply, the issue is not that the Ancients died or that the Ascians were bad, the issue is why, or rather how those elements of the plot were framed by the text.

Whether or not you agree that element is problematic is another matter, of course.

[Denishia]

Yes but why do they say then that it was not them who helped Louisoix?

In Coils it explains (having not played 1.0 I'm not sure how clear this was back then or not; someone else can chime in) that Louisoix didn't want to actually summon the Twelve as Primals to stop Dalamud/Bahamut, either out of religious taboo, that such a primal summoning would be Alex-level bad, or thinking the Twelve wouldn't be summonable like the gods of the beast tribes were. What he did land on was a loophole- his plan wasn't to summon the Twelve themselves but the concept of their power and how Eorzeans believed the Twelve were magically stronger than anyone else. Hence the ARR trailer showing the Twelve as abstract white 'swords' and the circle of their symbols instead of actual god-forms

[Anonymoose]

I don't want to be rude, but this post, while well-written, kind of comes across as trying to make a point to a strawman. A lot of it doesn't even really feel relevant to the discussion that was being had in this thread.

At the risk of becoming a broken record, the disagreement most people still posting about this stuff have isn't that they're unhappy the Ascians were wrong; obviously they were only ever going to be sympathetic villains at best, and even Shadowbringers made that clear.

The problem is that the writers created a scenario that was predicated upon lionizing the wholesale destruction of a group of people. Whatever they were trying to do thematically with that destruction is kind of irrelevant. Obviously this wasn't done with malicious intent - they wrote themselves into a corner by having to justify the Sundering post-hoc without, like you say, making the player feel foolish or like a villain, and through the subplot about the WoL and Venat's relationship across time. But it still comes across as morally dissonant. Or to put it more simply, the issue is not that the Ancients died or that the Ascians were bad, the issue is why, or rather how those elements of the plot were framed by the text.

Whether or not you agree that element is problematic is another matter, of course.

I think there's a big gap between "having different perspectives" and "being rude", no worries. I actually hate just as much when people who share my perspective are rude about different perspectives.

I think this matter is just a lot more or less of an issue to people based on what they wanted, which causes the two to become entwined a bit. For one example, several Final Fantasies include a historical society that collapsed and made way for the way things are now. If you didn't identify with them, that's just part of history. In FFXIV, they accidentally made them too identifiable, I think. Especially by introducing time travel and first-person interactions.

If you don't identify with them, it becomes more of a case of "we live now, they lived then, they're dead, we're not, they want us to die to undo our world and everything we know and love, and we don't want that" and from that perspective a lot of the story looks different.

I don't mean to dismiss people who see it differently, they're entitled to that perspective. It's just that I also believe that the writers are entitled to not go in that direction. The writers are entitled to their perspectives. And I'm entitled to mine. We all get a free opinion, I'm just not on board with "my opinion is correct, and your opinion means you can't read" posts - or people who present any expression of different perspective as it necessarily being an example of that binary.

And that's where a lot of the dead horse beating comes in. It's not everyone, not by a long shot. But it's enough to keep the pattern recurring.

Very Clumsily Worded Addendum:

I think another part of the problem is that people tend to make assumptions about who (dis)agrees with who over what and why. I think that contributes. I think some people who share my perspective are cherry-picking and dismissing info. I think some people who have a different perspective do, too. I think some are supporting their different perspective quite well. It's possible to come to a conclusion I agree with using support I think is unsound, and vice versa. I think people assuming this of each other also keeps the convection current a-churnin'.

[Cleretic]

But maybe that's a lot harder to do when you're up against the combined intellectual and investigative might of the Convocation of Fourteen. Even if she were to encourage them to use the Echo to prove some of her claims, it would also reveal the things she's afraid would undermine not only her efforts to change her people's course, buy ALSO the one known future where Meteion's defeat is possible.

Yeah, this is exactly it. A lot of the story around Venat, including the question of 'why didn't she lie to them', is answered by the Convocation (and Ancients as a whole, really) having really, really good tools for fact-checking each other. Post-sundering, both she and the Ascians can and do lie to us pretty readily (mostly through lies of omission), because our tools to verify them are pretty poor, but the Ancients have both really reliable recording devices and a very refined Echo that lets them sniff out this stuff pretty well. So Venat's only option at first is basically silence and secrecy; she can't risk the public at large hearing the truth and having a freakout, and she can't tell anything to the Convocation because Hermes needs to remain both in his seat and in a healthy state of mind.

Going by the Anamnesis scene, those fell away over time, either out of desperation or knowledge that's no longer a relevant concern. But that's why her plan is how it is from the jump.

[Lurina]

I think this matter is just a lot more or less of an issue to people based on what they wanted, which causes the two to become entwined a bit. For one example, several Final Fantasies include a historical society that collapsed and made way for the way things are now. If you didn't identify with them, that's just part of history. In FFXIV, they accidentally made them too identifiable, I think. Especially by introducing time travel and first-person interactions.

Yes, I think this is it exactly. It's all about the framing.

I feel what makes the Ancient plot not work compared to something like - I dunno, the Terrans in FF9? That's kinda a similar situation...? - is that we're actively encouraged to get to know and empathize with them on a personal level, and not only the key actors on both sides of the event leading to their destruction, but random NPCs just going about their day-to-day lives. This destroys the ability for a lot of people to perceive it as some distant fable of the setting's background, and not judge it from the same lens as any other event in the contemporary setting. The entire plotline is, to a tremendous degree, a victim of its own success.

Anyway, it's not like I expect the writers to change anything, though it was nice of them to extend what felt like an olive branch to a degree with the Omega quests. At the risk of being pretentious, I think the flaws in fiction are ultimately their own consequence.

I think another part of the problem is that people tend to make assumptions about who (dis)agrees with who over what and why. I think that contributes. I think some people who share my perspective are cherry-picking and dismissing info. I think some people who have a different perspective do, too. I think some are supporting their different perspective quite well. It's possible to come to a conclusion I agree with using support I think is unsound, and vice versa. I think people assuming this of each other also keeps the convection current a-churnin'.

I agree. I think one of the reasons this discussion is so toxic is because of the assumptions people make to try to sort everyone into Zodiark-fan and Hydaelyn-fan tribes, when it's not really that simple at all. I find a lot of the sentiments from people who didn't like Endwalker or the Sundering plot point miss-aimed or frustrating, as I'm sure a lot of fans do about its other defenders too. And I'm certain a lot of disagreement is predicated on assumptions about what the person they're talking to actually believes.

Edit: Sorry, I realized after a little while that I likely missed your point here. To be clear, I responded that way to your post because it came across as a sort of general address to the thread, and the content felt a little out of tune in that respect. But of course I can't know your actual intent, so my mistake if I had the wrong idea.

[Brinne]

Based on that, I'm sympathetic that some latched onto those in combination - "I like the antagonists, we're supposed to question ourselves" - and really believed in a narrative where that would turn things completely upside down to favor their favorite characters. And I'm sympathetic to the disappointment there. However, the are some issues where we're just beating a dead horse back and forth over whether people did or did not get what they wanted, especially whereby some players act like having a different perspective is the same thing as the story itself being inconsistent or wrong.

This seems a very reductive and, honestly, disingenuous characterization of the reasons many people have elaborated on why they have a problem with the story writing.

It's understandable that some people identified more with the immortal, beautiful, perfect ancients than the sundered, who stand in for the players - imperfect people with imperfect lives full of struggle and sorrow in equal measure to their success and joy.

Uh huh.