Why Erenville succeeded as a character where others did not

[LilimoLimomo]

Which is just insane to me. Did G'raha's speech in Endwalker just mean nothing? The Omicrons are just copies of a copy. An explicit illusion fabricated to hinder us based on a memory of a long-barren world. There was none of this apathy for their existence then.

My subjective interpretation was that G'raha's speech to the Omicron simulacra in Endwalker was a philosophical counterargument made with the literal intention of making the Omicron it was delivered to explode into a bird, thus unbarring the way for the rest of the group. It was a good and effective speech, but nothing about it suggested to me that G'raha thought he was making it to a living being that would benefit from this advice. On the contrary, he knew that if his speech hit the mark the Omicron he was speaking to would cease to be.

The game has repeatedly made its position on this sort of thing clear in the past: that people passing judgement on others and their lives for their own selfish benefit are the bad guys.

That's true, but who counts as "others"? Who counts as having "lives"? FF14 constantly dismisses some lives while championing others, constantly demonstrates how it believes that some lives are worth more than others.

In the MSQ, it's not uncommon for us to kill some animals. Sometimes we need them for a potion to save someone's life, sometimes for food, etc. It is unquestionable that these animals had lives, and yet we don't tend to see any conflict in ending them so that those we value more highly can live more comfortably. I remember that one of our interactions with the Chirwagur was interrupted when a large bird attacked them, and even though the Churwurgur were clearly preparing to attack us, Wuk Lamat defends the Chirwagur from the bird and fights it off. This was framed as a noble act. And yet...what about the bird? Was it defending its territory? Had the Chirwagur perhaps done something to warrant this treatment? The authors make it clear they're uninterested in the bird's side of the story, and we can only presume it's because despite being alive, the bird innately has less worth than the Chirwagur. We go on to kill that bird, the same as we have killed so many creatures whose natural habitats we have encroached upon.

To be clear, I'm not saying the authors are hypocrites; I'm saying that the authors clearly believe that different kinds of lives have different kinds of values. There's a difference between "being alive" and "being a person".

So, how do we determine what is alive, and what is a person? There is no objective answer; it will always be a judgment call based on incomplete information.

All of which is to say, the everyday subconscious act of categorizing what things deserve the labels of "alive" and/or "person" is itself a way that we pass judgment on others. To truly not judge other things, we would need to treat bacteria and plants and Tamagochis with the same personhood as humans.

As for what criteria we use to determine what goes in what category...that's a big enough topic for a separate and much larger post. But suffice to say, the judgment is always happening, and it's worth thinking about the fact that we do it and the way we do it.

EDIT: I wanted to make sure I unambiguously tied this back to the conversation. So in closing, we can't determine whether Omicrons or Endless or Chirwagur count as "others" without first running them through our personal criteria for "alive" and "personhood" and judging them based upon that. And depending on how they score, that's going to impact whether we see them as "others whose lives we shouldn't mess with for our own selfish benefit".

[Dikatis]

That's true, but who counts as "others"? Who counts as having "lives"? FF14 constantly dismisses some lives while championing others, constantly demonstrates how it believes that some lives are worth more than others.

I never got this impression. The game makes no bones about how you sometimes have to defend your ideals and the people you love with violence. We had to kill Nidhogg and Thordan in order to prevent them from perpetuating the Dragonsong War and end the status quo that will keep the battle raging forever. But it never calls anyone more inherently worthy of living than the other. That's our central beef with the Ascians, who believe that the World Unsundered is more "worthy" of existing than the inhabitants of the Source and reflections when they both have a right to live. But the problem was that our survival is dependent on the ancients having lived their lives to the end. And thus, while the ancients are no less worthy of living, we fight the Ascians to defend our right to live as the people existing in the present.

We don't know why the eagle attacked, but it certainly wasn't for "territorial" reasons given that the Chirwargur were at the foot of the mountain and the eagle's nest was miles above. I don't understand why you would condemn Wuk Lamat for backing up her ideal of mutual coexistence and peace by defending people who'd be out to kill her from a beast that attacked them without warning. The eagle aimed to kill so we responded in kind as self-defense. We did not "value" the eagle's life as being somehow "lesser" than the Chirwargur's. But we're not going to roll over and let the eagle kill us because we also have a right to live and it's in our rights to defend ourselves. So your example is faulty.

To be clear, I'm not saying the authors are hypocrites; I'm saying that the authors clearly believe that different kinds of lives have different kinds of values. There's a difference between "being alive" and "being a person".

But at no point do the Scions consider the Endless "not people". By all accounts, the heroes treat the Endless as they were when they were alive. But the Endless themselves acknowledged that they've lived and died already. A significant number of them also show doubts about the system perpetuating their existence, since their continued lives require others to die in order to sustain their physical forms. If the Scions considered the Endless "not people", then they wouldn't have been broken up about it, as we see with Erenville's and Krile's reactions, in which they offer to look for another way without shutting down the terminals but are gently pushed along by Robor, Alayla, and Cahciua.

Sphene's plan was the harvest all life on the Source for the sake of keeping the Endless running. There was no dissuading her from this path, particularly after she formatted herself to remove her conscience and doubts in order to stay the course. The Endless have a right to live, but so do we. Choosing to let the Endless live means sacrificing all life on the Source, since Sphene will stop at nothing to keep them alive. And so we invoke our right to self-defense by shutting down the terminals. It's a messy situation that could have potentially been cleaned up if Sphene hadn't pushed so hard and had been more amenable to reason. But we didn't have another option given the remoteness of Living Memory and the astronomical costs required to keep it running as well as the deadline imposed by Sphene. It was never about "others" and "not valuing their lives", but about whether the living should have to give up their futures for the sake of those who've already lived theirs.

Choosing to revive the dead at the expense of the living is an unconscionable act and stepping aside was never going to be an option.

Anyways, this has nothing to do with the topic of the thread, which is about the usage of characters within the story rather than the moral conundrum presented by the Endless.

[LilimoLimomo]

I don't understand why you would condemn Wuk Lamat for backing up her ideal of mutual coexistence and peace by defending people who'd be out to kill her from a beast that attacked them without warning.

I think you're misunderstanding me, to the extent that I'd like to ask that you give my post a re-read. Because I don't condemn Wuk Lamat, I simply cite that story beat as an example of a time when the narrative values the lives of "people" as being more important than "non-people".

I never got this impression. The game makes no bones about how you sometimes have to defend your ideals and the people you love with violence. We had to kill Nidhogg and Thordan in order to prevent them from perpetuating the Dragonsong War and end the status quo that will keep the battle raging forever. But it never calls anyone more inherently worthy of living than the other.

With respect, you're talking about self-defense when the examples I provided don't touch on that topic; the examples I start with are about using animals as resources.

Because if we considered animals to be just as worthy of living as humans, then we would not kill 3 animals (that were just peacefully living their lives) in order to make the medicine that saves a single human. And yet this is a thing we do in quests. To kill 3 to save 1 requires that the 1 be considered more valuable than the sum of the 3. We don't have to explicitly say that animals are of lesser value, because our actions clearly demonstrate it.

But we're not going to roll over and let the eagle kill us because we also have a right to live and it's in our rights to defend ourselves.

And yet this highlights more disparity in the rights that are afforded to different kinds of living beings. When dangerous animals wander too close to our townships, it's not uncommon for us to get quests to end their lives. We feel that we have the right to defend our homes and keep them safe. Okay, fair enough. But we never extend that right to animals. On the contrary, we regularly wander into their homes, and when they try to defend their home and keep it safe, we slay them. We expect our homes to not be intruded upon, and yet we intrude upon the homes of others and kill them when they dare to defend it. That's a very blatant double-standard...but it's one we don't generally think about because our idealogy (both in real life and in the game) is that animals deserve fewer rights — among those, the right to life — than humans.

But at no point do the Scions consider the Endless "not people".

I never said anything about whether the Scions did or didn't consider the Endless people; and whether they do or not doesn't impact the idea that whether we acknowledge it or not, we are always making judgments on what is alive and what is people.

[Dikatis]

I think you're misunderstanding me, to the extent that I'd like to ask that you give my post a re-read. Because I don't condemn Wuk Lamat, I simply cite that story beat as an example of a time when the narrative values the lives of "people" as being more important than "non-people".

I mean, yeah. It's a double-standard. But at the same time, what about it? The alternative is letting a wild animal do as they please, which can lead to a great deal of casualties. It's unfortunate, but people tend to value other people more than animals, whether it's using them for their meat, to earn a living, or to make medicine. To live is to die and to kill. It's just easier to do that to animals than other people because they don't talk or think like we do. But I don't really see how it pertains to the topic of the thread since, again, this topic came up because people are debating the moral quandary of the Endless.

[LilimoLimomo]

I mean, yeah. It's a double-standard. But at the same time, what about it?....But I don't really see how it pertains to the topic of the thread since, again, this topic came up because people are debating the moral quandary of the Endless.

Let me try to express the connective tissue a bit more clearly. I'm going to be pretty methodical, as I want to try to make sure I show my work and don't skip any steps.

When you see a boar, you judge it to be an animal. When you see a Midlander, you judge it to be a person. You treat these two things differently based on that judgment.

Assuming you aren't simply operating on habit or instinct, you probably have reasons for why you judge a boar to be an animal while you judge a Midlander to be a person. They are similar in ways, but they are also different in ways, and you have identified some of those differences to be meaningful enough to warrant a difference in judgment (which includes a difference in rights and treatment).

And of course, there are other labels you can apply via judgment as well. A flower is a plant, which is a living thing with less rights than an animal. A rock on the ground is an object, which has even fewer rights than a plant. A robot...what do we judge a robot as? It seems to depend on certain factors...

So, what does this have to do with the Endless?

The Endless are a new thing to us. So what should we judge them to be? Are they a person? Are they an animal? Are they even alive?

As readers of this fictional story, we're going to be taking into consideration the things we learn about the Endless to help us decide what judgment feels appropriate. The process is much the same as with the boar and the Midlander, it's just that we're not accustomed to doing it with the Endless.*

So when Oolong says "people passing judgement on others and their lives for their own selfish benefit are the bad guys", they seem to be overlooking the fact that they have already judged the Endless. For the Endless to deserve better treatment than an animal or a rock suggests that Oolong has already judged the Endless to be something akin to "people". This is the most important judgment in the entire process, and it is not being taken into consideration.

And we need to take it into consideration if we want to have a constructive dialogue, because it's fundamental to the discussions of the Endless. When readers of Dawntrail discuss the Endless, a major source of disagreement comes from the fact that different readers have judged the Endless to warrant different classifications. Some feel they are robots, some feel they are people, some feel they are more akin to ghosts, etc. And this difference of interpretation seems to be the focus of the majority of the discussion on the Endless. As long as we can discuss it constructively, that's great.

But when we simply assume our judgment is right and dismiss those of others, or if we fail to even realize that all of us are judging the Endless, then we won't be able to have a productive discussion.


*And notably, the characters in the story are going through the same process, and it's possible that they'll come to different conclusions than we do due to the subjective nature of this judgment.

[Dikatis]

But when we simply assume our judgment is right and dismiss those of others, or if we fail to even realize that all of us are judging the Endless, then we won't be able to have a productive discussion.

My issue is that discussion of the Endless is not the point of this thread. The original post was this:

I'm dropping this in the Lore category for multiple reasons, but primarily because it speaks to how Erenville and a few other MSQ characters were introduced and handled correctly in the storyline and sidequests over the various expansions.

Yoshi P apparently expressed the dev team's concerns over introducing new characters, versus keeping the old cast around.

We're not bound to immediately hate new characters! But I think they need to be introduced briefly, cycled out of MSQ, and left to cook a bit before being thrust into the spotlight again.

Characters that were introduced EARLY and then got turned into MSQ companions later that we love a bunch:

• Krile was name dropped by Minfilia during a linkshell call because of the disappearance of the Isle of Val in base ARR or early 2.X if I remember right.
• Yugiri was introduced during the ARR 2.X series but did not get her time to shine until Stormblood.
• The Warriors of Darkness were introduced in the 3.X series but did not get their time to shine until Shadowbringers. We love Ardbert!
• Erenville was introduced during Endwalker MSQ very briefly. We've had two and a half years to be intrigued by him.

My recommendation to Yoshi P, the development team, and the writing team, is to give us a brief introduction to a new character as early as possible in MSQ (NOT side content... don't make another mistake like G'raha - I love him but forcing new players to do CT was a ham fisted solution to that problem) before making them become a full time companion or the "main star" of their own expansion.

For example, a character that I'm genuinely intrigued by and would like to know more about that was only barely mentioned in MSQ so far is.... Shale. 10/10 character design, I'm guessing she's Ysayle's soul shard companion, and I'd like to get to know her better. (Make her the star of 8.0 as a hacker queen and it's justified IMO /s)

Any yet somehow it's circled back around to discussing the Endless just as 90% of the discussion in the past 4 years has been whether or not Venat's judgment was sound and if she should be condemned for causing the Sundering. This is complete and utter thread derailment. If you want to discuss the Endless, fine. Just do it in another thread.

[Banggugyangu]

That's probably because of the fact that the only time Erenville did anything the whole expansion was when he figured out his mother was an Endless.

[LilimoLimomo]

My issue is that discussion of the Endless is not the point of this thread. The original post was this:

Any yet somehow it's circled back around to discussing the Endless just as 90% of the discussion in the past 4 years has been whether or not Venat's judgment was sound and if she should be condemned for causing the Sundering. This is complete and utter thread derailment. If you want to discuss the Endless, fine. Just do it in another thread.

If you want to discuss whether Erenville's story was handled well, you're going to have to talk about his story.

If you're going to talk about his story, you're going to have to talk about Cahciua.

If you're going to talk about Cahciua, you're going to have to talk about the Endless.

Ergo, any reader's interpretation of Erenville's story will be reliant upon their interpretation of the Endless, which makes it quite understandable that the issue organically came up in the course of this thread.