The missing mood in the existential horror of the last zone of the game (spoilers)

[LittleArrow]

I couldn't disagree more with some of these responses. The reason why is because the narrative is at odds with the characters is at odds with the results. We're literally doing what Emet-Selch wanted to do. We're literally going into a world to kill everyone so that we may live. We're told to dehumanize these characters to feel better about it. This is wrong! Emet-Selch of all people had merit in his justification and yet we told him he was wrong, because yeah, genocide is wrong. The characters discuss amongst themselves how awful doing this is, then onto the next terminal! Oh and you're a hero for doing this!! Woo!! Celebration!! Cringey smile song activated!

We've dealt with pain and loss, sacrifice and gain. We've seen entire towns and squadrons obliterated from Garleans to resistance fighters to innocent citizens. Never was it handled as confusing, mixed, and without any sort of balance as this. Nor was your WoL the direct cause of it, and for good reason. If I'm going to have to obliterate an entire people, I would never agree to it. There are obvious plotholes that I had expected this game to explore - like the fact these facsimiles only require these vast amounts of aether to manifest. No backup, no let's incorporate them into our lifestream. No. Just shut it down because we're big boys and girls we have to make hard decisions - OH lava! It's fake let's go eat ice cream! Even with the ancients they went back to the lifestream to be made again. There was a resolution there. There is no resolution here, it's just awful.

I'm sorry, I hate this expansion. I'm a 1.x supporter. I've been here through the worst this game had. I watched Yoshida cry so many times I could count it on one hand, and even though that's not a lot it's still weird he's cried that much but w/e, I was there and supported him, and honestly cried with him. I'm absolutely emotionally invested in its success and failures.

Never has this game ever made me personally feel more let down than this. This last zone and the horrible emotional whiplash of being involved with a mass genocide of people, be it they're like our characters on the source or not, has sullied my character permanently.

If I knew this was the story, I wouldn't have bought this expansion or at least waited until the first patch to see what they were going to do with the story. It's shameful, imo.

[Loggos]

We're literally doing what Emet-Selch wanted to do. We're literally going into a world to kill everyone so that we may live. We're told to dehumanize these characters to feel better about it.

Ok I have to admit I strongly disagree with this one. I also thought the story was poop but it was not us who tried to Emet-Selch everyone, it was Sphene. She was an aggressor who tried to conquer new life. She came to our world with the intend to genocide everyone.
We were her victims and had to defend ourselves against her.
Emet didn't defend himself against us like we did against Sphene, we didn't act as aggressors against the Ascians. They attacked us like Sphene.

Coming up with new tech that leads to unnatural outcomes is all fine and good as long as it doesn't encroach on other people's right to live. But if you build something that inherently requires the continuous death of others to sustain itself then you have created a vampiristic system that exceeds the natural resources that exist and that Sphene has to share with everyone.
The endless in that scenario had at least already lived (vs. all the people living for the first time on Eytheris right now). They don't have any right to a prolonged life/eternal life at the cost of everyone else.

This also includes those who died prematurely in Alexandria. People in other reflections die prematurely too. Yet neither they nor Alexandrians have the right to extend their lives by stealing the lives of others.

Emet-Selch of all people had merit in his justification

I really disagree that Emet had merit in his justification but us defending ourselves against interdimensional invaders somehow has not. I thought the Ascians' fate was incredibly sad and I liked the Ancients and their civilisation but they didn't have the right to wipe out 14 worlds after theirs was gone.
(Edit: Sorry for making it sound like you thought Emet is right. I took it like you saying he was wrong but we could still understand his anguish/perspective somehow whereas our actions were wrong but in addition they didn't even warrant this type of understanding we could feel for Emet.)

[LittleArrow]

Ok I have to admit I strongly disagree with this one. I also thought the story was poop but it was not us who tried to Emet-Selch everyone, it was Sphene. She was an aggressor who tried to conquer new life. Like sorry, but she came to our world with the intend to genocide everyone.
We were her victims and had to defend ourselves against her.
Emet didn't defend himself against us like we did against Sphene, we didn't act as aggressors against the Ascians. They attacked us like Sphene.

Coming up with new tech that leads to unnatural outcomes is all fine and good as long as it doesn't encroach on other people's right to live. But if you build something that inherently requires the continuous death of others to sustain itself then you have created a vampiristic system that exceeds the natural resources that exist and that Sphene has to share with everyone.
The endless in that scenario had at least already lived (vs. all the people living for the first time on Eytheris right now). They don't have any right to a prolonged life/eternal life at the cost of everyone else.

This also includes those who died prematurely in Alexandria. People in other reflections die prematurely too. Yet neither they nor Alexandrians have the right to extend their lives by stealing the lives of others.




I really disagree that Emet had merit in his justification but us defending ourselves against interdimensional invaders somehow has not. I thought the Ascians' fate was incredibly sad and I liked the Ancients and their civilisation but they didn't have the right to wipe out 14 worlds after theirs was gone.

I don't think I did a great job with explaining myself. I do not agree with Emet-selch. It was genocide. He was a monster, but one I think we could all understand to some degree and still disagree with. What I'm saying is, deleting the entire memory database as an answer does not sit well with me in the slightest and in actuality disgusts me. We could've found a different way or at least attempted to. That is where the writing is lacking, to even acknowledge what's going to happen to these memories after they're gone. They live in us? Right so that's bs. Memories live MAYBE 2 or 3 generations if you're lucky. Not to mention it's hogwash when we're standing in front of these people and then going to delete them.

Emet-selch was wrong, and I still feel we're wrong too.

Like, it's literally a villain arc. Suffering is bad so just kill everyone. You're going to kill our world so we kill yours first so you won't need to kill ours anymore. It's stupid. It's really really stupid.

[SDaemon]

I don't think I did a great job with explaining myself. I do not agree with Emet-selch. It was genocide. He was a monster, but one I think we could all understand to some degree and still disagree with. What I'm saying is, deleting the entire memory database as an answer does not sit well with me in the slightest and in actuality disgusts me. We could've found a different way or at least attempted to. That is where the writing is lacking, to even acknowledge what's going to happen to these memories after they're gone. They live in us? Right so that's bs. Memories live MAYBE 2 or 3 generations if you're lucky. Not to mention it's hogwash when we're standing in front of these people and then going to delete them.

Emet-selch was wrong, and I still feel we're wrong too.

Like, it's literally a villain arc. Suffering is bad so just kill everyone. You're going to kill our world so we kill yours first so you won't need to kill ours anymore. It's stupid. It's really really stupid.

We could have found a different way? Sphene refused repeatedly to even entertain the notion of a different way, despite pleas to do so. What solution would you offer to someone who refuses to accept any alternative no matter? Would you try and force this alternative on her and hope your attempts somehow reach a peaceful resolution before the countdown ends and your home is destroyed?

"You're going to kill our world so we kill yours first so you won't need to kill ours anymore." Are people no longer allowed to defend themselves from aggressors bent on your annihilation? Do we simply sit there waiting for death to come because otherwise we'll be villains?

[LittleArrow]

We could have found a different way? Sphene refused repeatedly to even entertain the notion of a different way, despite pleas to do so. What solution would you offer to someone who refuses to accept any alternative no matter? Would you try and force this alternative on her and hope your attempts somehow reach a peaceful resolution before the countdown ends and your home is destroyed?

"You're going to kill our world so we kill yours first so you won't need to kill ours anymore." Are people no longer allowed to defend themselves from aggressors bent on your annihilation? Do we simply sit there waiting for death to come because otherwise we'll be villains?

Agreed. That's why I said OR at least attempted to. Sphene needed to be put down. She's a monster. However so was Zenos and we still went in to help the Garleans (this isn't a one to one, but I'm just stating the mood regarding our WoL to our enemies and their people), we went into save the very beast tribes that vowed to destroy everything we loved with summoning - it didn't always work out and sometimes there wasn't another way, we just had to aoe'em down.

I'm saying, I wanted to try - not with Sphene not with reasoning b/c that was stupid. I wanted to try our way, contact Cid, bring in an atmos, shoot I don't anything - we apparently had enough time to bring in an entire building force for the train and walk around eating fake food in the end. I wish my WoL could've used that time to back up their memories, or find a way to route them to our lifestream, or just try before instantly accepting - yep to the deletion for you.

[Edit] I understand and agree with the counterarguments that we need to defend ourselves. Yes. Do that. I was saying that to myself too, but the WoL is different. They're a hero. They'll defend, fight, and kill to protect their world and even other worlds like in ShB. I'm saying, Emet was defending his world too. He had a way to bring back his friends, his life, and his society - he promised them he would. Emet was defending a dream he had for those he loved. It was wrong, and he himself stated he lost because he was trying to bring back something he'd lost while we were defending what we now have - he couldn't accept they lost (very waterdown explanation). I don't think it was right to delete them without trying to do something else. We could've failed and seen there's nothing we could do. I'm not saying we shouldn't defend ourselves. I'm saying the writing was bad and drove me nuts to not even try and show us how there is no other way besides a literal ticking timebomb... but with time to get to know people. (besides the Krile stuff... which should've been the main focus of the entire zone and more of the MSQ imo)