Raiding in The Arcadion: Our Heroic Hypocrisy

[Kaurhz]

Don't mind some of us, just following in the dear steps of our boy Emet Selch.

[Bright-Flower]

This doesn't really make sense. If your entire argument hinges on optional content, there is no "our hypocrisy". It's just yours. So a topic title adjustment seems appropriate here.

Secondly, there is hypocrisy in the raid story but it's moreso surrounding the apparent disgust at taking the WoL's soul. Isn't that kinda what their whole society is predicated around? Not just people who die of natural causes, but people who are killed by their army. This is kind of like feeling better about eating cow meat because didn't personally kill it. But that's not what Black Cat says, she's just weirdly being hypocritical.

Not that it matters because the raid itself is optional content. So ultimately I'm not sure what the purpose of the topic is. "You might be a hypocrite"??

But that's to be expected when your agenda is absolving everyone in the story except the protagonists.

I also don't have a strong recollection of relic quests but hunting beasts or otherwise antagonistic forces is false equivalency to something like plundering entire worlds of innocent people.

I don't agree with TC. But all quests in the game are 'canon' even if optional content. The WoL in the abstract 100% does all the raid storylines optional or not, and they're looking at the consistency of that character as presented in the full experience of the game.

I think some of this is intended though. Considering how against using souls the WOL is yet it being brought up in the raid storyline, this is likely being set up to explore things further in the story. Though we won't know for sure until it continues in later patches. But considering our explicit goal is to free all the souls held by the Arcadion organization it doesn't seem like a stretch to me to think regulator use is going to be brought up too, especially with the miqo kid asking us to wear one etc.

[DoomRyder]

I wanted an adventure that wasn't a retread of things i've done before but worse in every way. You know exactly what im talking about. So! A memory driven "trance" user fighters' tournament with an underbelly of corruption and exploitation? This sounds like an adventure i want to get to the bottom of. If you don't have this sentiment i'd imagine you are a failure to Azem's will.

[Voidmage]

I don't agree with TC. But all quests in the game are 'canon' even if optional content. The WoL in the abstract 100% does all the raid storylines optional or not, and they're looking at the consistency of that character as presented in the full experience of the game.

I think some of this is intended though. Considering how against using souls the WOL is yet it being brought up in the raid storyline, this is likely being set up to explore things further in the story. Though we won't know for sure until it continues in later patches. But considering our explicit goal is to free all the souls held by the Arcadion organization it doesn't seem like a stretch to me to think regulator use is going to be brought up too, especially with the miqo kid asking us to wear one etc.

Ever since the Ala Mhigo boss with the soul extractions it seems that the writers want to continue to explore it further.
We had the whole sundering of souls, echo users and their origin, got a deeper understanding of the voidsent and their practices and even had our own soul ripped out.
I agree and hope that the raid story goes further into detail because there is still the infos contradicting each other.
We learn that when a voidsent does the souls are set free and the voidsent is at risk to fall victim to its prior prey.
Solution 9 implies though that the souls after extracting the memory are used up to patch the users own one and Eutrope wants to use our soul too for that.

There is clearly still stuff to learn and I hope the devs actually care as much as we do for that.

I think the whole souls thing can be used for further plots and danger to our WoL.
The whole losing our soul risk in Arcadian is actually a pretty high risk for us and I wouldn’t be surprised if there would be some kind of WoL clone we fight later against (remember the add phase in the Nald’thal fight).

The whole soul lore could be it’s own thread with how fascinating it is tbh.

[TaleraRistain]

The whole Arcadion plot contradict the msq. "using a beast soul too much kills you"...

Meanwhile in the msq the queen explicitly explain that the regulators take care of that problem and purify the souls.
A much as she lies, that is the one thing that doesn't makes sense. She does care about her subjects, she should know ; either because victims never because endless or simply because it's been eons and she never saw one alive or dead again.
They can't really pulls a "the owner was the super-admin more powerful with all the secrets"

Another plot hole : every player in your team are dead, and their characters should be deleted at the end of the raid serie. That or they already harvested all the souls of WoLs across the multiverse.

I think when it gets to the point of transformation then that's when it becomes a problem. We saw that with Zoraal Ja. The hunter who used a feral soul got a light in her eyes but remained in her form. All of the fighters we faced changed their forms. And we know from what we know about tempering that it's when someone transforms that their aether has been changed beyond fixing.

[Gortys]

The whole Arcadion plot contradict the msq. "using a beast soul too much kills you"...

Meanwhile in the msq the queen explicitly explain that the regulators take care of that problem and purify the souls.
A much as she lies, that is the one thing that doesn't makes sense. She does care about her subjects, she should know ; either because victims never because endless or simply because it's been eons and she never saw one alive or dead again.
They can't really pulls a "the owner was the super-admin more powerful with all the secrets"

Another plot hole : every player in your team are dead, and their characters should be deleted at the end of the raid serie. That or they already harvested all the souls of WoLs across the multiverse.

I think Sphene sees becoming an Endless the same as saving people. This is why she doesn't care whether they wear the regulator or not. She doesn't care if reusing human or beast souls affect the person. When they are part of the cloud they are eternally saved to her. While they don't say people without regulators are "uploaded" I can only assume they are since this is obviously part of Sphene's idea on saving people. Basically when she says she wants to save her people, I believe she means it in the same way as when you save content to your computer. So how these people live or die doesn't matter to her as much since they will all be "saved" eventually.

If she cares so deeply about her subjects, then why doesn't she encourage the boy with the sickness to leave? Not being constantly exposed to lightening would be a great help to him I'm sure. But then she can't "save" him to the cloud after he dies so she would not encourage this.

[Basteala]

Is it really hypocrisy if Adbert consented to rejoining his soul to you to save his world, and yours? Ignoring that the stakes are far higher than cheering crowds, and Ardbert was a shade in a cursed existence where none other could even perceive or interact with him, isn't consent kind of an important difference? I doubt any of the Feral Souls gave the "a okay" to be used like this, and the gladiators certainly didn't consent to having their souls extinguished and dying alone and in pain.

[Vyrerus]

Ardbert was a shade in a cursed existence where none other could even perceive or interact with him, isn't consent kind of an important difference?

Ardbert's will was to feed into Minfilia to help stop The Flood of Light along with his fellow Warriors of Darkness. He was denied this, because she knew he had to be fed to the WoL in order for the WoL to kill Emet-selch thanks to Hydaelyn knowing about the time loop.

He was denied this without explanation, essentially forcing him to watch and move along with the WoL throughout Shadowbringers after 100 years of being a lonely shade, not allowed to return to the lifestream.

Yes, he offers himself willingly in the end, but there's quite enough there to argue that he was forced to do it as his only other choice was to let the WoL die. This is more or less coercion by authority. Ardbert's volition was disregarded 100 years prior to SHB.

And this particular story beat saw most of the playerbase coming to exclaim that the new expansions should feature us going around to the shards, gobbling up Azem's other soul shards, shard people be damned.

[CamuiKushi]

The way I see it, experiences have caused our WOL to see things differently than they did before. Growing and learning isn't hypocrisy unless there's no change in behaviour.

If the WOL once again does something that uses souls as a commodity after this, then yeah. That's when the hypocrisy starts.

Edit: You have to keep in mind that with DT the writers seem to want to ignore past lore and there will absolutely be inconsistencies like this. Do I like that fact? No. But I've started the process of making peace with it.

[GTK0HLK]

Ardbert's will was to feed into Minfilia to help stop The Flood of Light along with his fellow Warriors of Darkness. He was denied this, because she knew he had to be fed to the WoL in order for the WoL to kill Emet-selch thanks to Hydaelyn knowing about the time loop.

He was denied this without explanation, essentially forcing him to watch and move along with the WoL throughout Shadowbringers after 100 years of being a lonely shade, not allowed to return to the lifestream.

Yes, he offers himself willingly in the end, but there's quite enough there to argue that he was forced to do it as his only other choice was to let the WoL die. This is more or less coercion by authority. Ardbert's volition was disregarded 100 years prior to SHB.

And this particular story beat saw most of the playerbase coming to exclaim that the new expansions should feature us going around to the shards, gobbling up Azem's other soul shards, shard people be damned.

So is it Coercion when people are in situations that needs be done, regardless of complete knowledge.

Why are you so intent to make others/npcs situations into dire or grim outlooks.

While one can see certain situations as so.
(And the idea of being stranded without interaction. Almost Limbo as one)

That's just simply devoid of all that happened.

It's under the impression that all of it was done with Malice.

We Know even the "Eldest Primals" had their energy waning. (Though Zodiak coming out on top with each rejoining. as she didn't want to use up any of the world's Aether but her own when possible.)

Also, your logic is under the impression that there was time to even act.

Lore wise, they ended up causing the Calamity themselves with their unfortunate lack of knowledge, doublecross and trust in the schemes plotted by ascians.

All the players had, is that they returned to the 1st since heavensward 3.x and immediately set off to forestall the Flood of Light.
(it was, after all their reason they came to the source. despite still being mislead by the Ascians til their communion with Hydaelyn-through minfillia)

There was no real time, the time disparity made sure of that. And their desire to right their failures is the original driving factor.

(If anything, Azem is the one being used without knowledge. Not only Ardbert. and the WoL/D who was mostly just there to offer muscle til more and more attention was given in Shb and EW.)

edit:
Also, idk who these people who wanted to become "Whole"
but they sound like a minority. and a bunch of "Zodiark Trancers" or whatever the FK they were called back when. when "some" people still doubted Hydaelyns/Venats intent.
Despite the necessary division between people's past and future. (Their Civil War, our outcome.)

And they clearly don't sound like they understand lore.

But then again, Trancers/Rejoiners are mostly a Shb thing. since they are all but forgotten in EW and DT.
(Except for a few who still have their AU posts/signatures)