What lore do you ignore?

[Cleretic]

Because I assumed once the WoL was involved we'd save people. You know, like G'raha did one expansion earlier. But nope, we're just a useless pawn who stands there looking at their feet when kind, gentle people ask us about the danger coming for them. I was hoping for better because given the morals espoused even one expansion earlier, I wouldn't have imagined the necessity of culling to weak to be the next lesson for me to learn.

When Elidibus looks at us and says, "I know who you are. You are death." After Endwalker, I wanna be like, "Oh, so you do remember me?" Like you do get the WoL is now the direct cause for the Sundering? Had we not told Venat she did it, she'd likely have no motivation to do it. They put the death and suffering of millions, if not billions of people on our character...and I just wanted to fish, man.

For all this back and forth, I will admit, I envy those who can't see it. I wish I was oblivious to the many horrific implications of Endwalker. I could just fish, race my chocobo and wonder if my character would marry Aymeric or G'raha. Oh those halcyon days, I was so innocent.

I see what you see, I just don't agree with your take on it.

And with this one, I feel like for a lot of people, the example may be the people we couldn't save--Haurchefant, Moenbryda, Minfilia, Papalymo, Ysayle. That we aren't Superman: that sometimes, it's impossible to save everybody. And I don't think that's an invalid read, it's one that I'd certainly hear out an exploration of. But for me, the interesting echo comes from somewhere else.

I think the partner to the tale of Amaurot is actually the game's stories about necromancy: Edda's story, Palace of the Dead, Endwalker Caster, Stormblood Dark Knight, a 'weird it happened twice' amount of Alchemist stories. Bozja, in a strange form. Because no matter how many different forms of necromancy we find, the message is always the same: that death is tragic, that wanting to find a way to circumvent it is understandable and sympathetic, and that even that journey to find a way to fix death might bear important fruit, either personal or material... but that, at the end of the day, you can't bring back what was lost. That what is dead must lie, and that you have to move on. And that the living shouldn't pay the price for the dead.

To the game's timeline and characters, Amaurot is not a living friend to save: it's already dead. It's been dead for twelve thousand years. In a very real sense, the Ascians are game's biggest story about necromancy, willing to sacrifice everything to bring back what's lost. And the greatest tragedy of all is that you just can't; Amaurot will always be a graveyard, no matter if your means of necromancy is to try to change the timeline, or to sacrifice entire planets.

I don't see us as a useless pawn in someone else's game for the Ancient world. Because to me, that 'game' ended so long ago that nobody needs care about the score. And trying to replay it for a different result is only going to cause pain.