Emet-Selch Is Not That Tragic

[MomomiMomi]

I can already feel the ad hominems so I feel I should probably clarify that what a person argues does not necessarily reflect how they feel or what they believe. I could believe someone who is being genocidal is completely wrong and bad. But to his people, he might be a hero.

I can even disagree with myself on what is right and what is wrong. I believe it is wrong to kill animals. But if there's a pest, and I do not kill it, there will be even more of them. And they will have to be killed, if not by myself, then by someone else. What is the "good" choice to make, here?

[Qeilos]

So ive always felt the plan they had for reviving all of their civilization was not really thought out. We ARE the souls of the Amaurotines, fragments of them as theyve very plainly told us. If you feed our aether to Zodiark what exactly are you bringing back? You think hes just going to give up all the power he gains from souls and release them back? The sacrificed life forces originally are what allowed him to even take form and Emet wants ALL of them back. Now Emet admits that all the ascians were tempered if you talk to him in the Solar after one of the cutscenes so im not sure if this has some bearing on his ability to think of these angles because Zodiark would want resurrection and wouldnt want that kind of questioning.

[Gemina]

So ive always felt the plan they had for reviving all of their civilization was not really thought out. We ARE the souls of the Amaurotines, fragments of them as theyve very plainly told us. If you feed our aether to Zodiark what exactly are you bringing back? You think hes just going to give up all the power he gains from souls and release them back? The sacrificed life forces originally are what allowed him to even take form and Emet wants ALL of them back. Now Emet admits that all the ascians were tempered if you talk to him in the Solar after one of the cutscenes so im not sure if this has some bearing on his ability to think of these angles because Zodiark would want resurrection and wouldnt want that kind of questioning.

That was one of the things that bothered me about Emet's whole plan. I wanted to ask him so badly what guarantee does he have that Zodiark will give back all the souls that were sacrificed. I later realized the futility of that question though because Emet is so set in his ways that he is clearly willing to take that risk, and that it also doesn't matter if he's tempered or not because he represents the will of Zodiark either way.

Even if he acknowledges that our souls are scattered fragments of the civilization he once knew, he'll always live in the past and believe the ends justify the means. I believe he is full aware that the sacrifices of those on the source and remaining shards is costly. He's just willing to pay it.

One of the things I did find tragic about him brought me back to when we massacre the Heavensward guard. It was a resolve on par with our own. It creates a conflict where life and death determines who wins, and who loses. Later on during some questing we talk to people who were close to some of the members of the HW guard, and see that the influence the brought into their lives isn't a whole lot different than how some people talk about the WoL. They were heroes to them, much like how the WoL is to many others.

As was pointed out earlier, it is a clash of wills where the victor is the one who determines who's right.

[FedoraTheExplorer]

Do we really have people in this thread calling a genocidal rat 'innocent', 'a good guy, actually' and calling genocide 'moral absolutionism'? Goodness. This was the kind of stuff I was worried about ever since we learned more about Emet-Selch and the Ascians.

I completely agree with Puksi about how the writers are selective with who gets sympathy. We get to sympathise with the devil, but not his victims? Smh.

[Savagelf]

let suppose for second hydaelyn and zodarck were created for by the desire of they creators. Hydaelyn was created to protect life, so her desire is to protect life for those who seek to take it by her nature she doing everything to prevent the ascians to destroy life of Erozath. while Zodark was first creative out hubist believe that they can and should create they god as such after they created it he feed by live aether not once but twice. in return the world was able proceed life once more yet much of race was lost in process of it if they were their summon the summoner desire player roles Hydaelyn and Zodarck creation. if they gods they creators desire play role in they come into beings. as for G'raha action we two separate time line by his choice he creator them. the first time line is his own which may very well stop to exists at some point. yet by his action the source was spare the 8th umber ages all the people who attack ironwork and all the life that lost in 8th umber didn't lose they lives on the source. G'raha by his action created two separate time line one were he left to stop the first for rejoin and one were he remain being stop ever by a suppose attack on Ironwork. his choice created two separate time lines.

Emet-Selch called Zodarck and Hydaelyn summon I think the term Gods are better apply to them. one was creator out desire to protect lifes, the other out of hubist for ability to write the laws of unverise and give Zodarck the free will.

to be honest I enjoy this discussion with you. I know it isn't easy to understand me I have writing disability so I sometime skip words when write a sentence I will write what I going say in my head but when come to paper or typing it won't be there but in my head it there. I am for American mind so English is my first language

[SDaemon]

let suppose for second hydaelyn and zodarck were created for by the desire of they creators. Hydaelyn was created to protect life, so her desire is to protect life for those who seek to take it by her nature she doing everything to prevent the ascians to destroy life of Erozath. while Zodark was first creative out hubist believe that they can and should create they god as such after they created it he feed by live aether not once but twice. in return the world was able proceed life once more yet much of race was lost in process of it if they were their summon the summoner desire player roles Hydaelyn and Zodarck creation. if they gods they creators desire play role in they come into beings. as for G'raha action we two separate time line by his choice he creator them. the first time line is his own which may very well stop to exists at some point. yet by his action the source was spare the 8th umber ages all the people who attack ironwork and all the life that lost in 8th umber didn't lose they lives on the source. G'raha by his action created two separate time line one were he left to stop the first for rejoin and one were he remain being stop ever by a suppose attack on Ironwork. his choice created two separate time lines.

Emet-Selch called Zodarck and Hydaelyn summon I think the term Gods are better apply to them. one was creator out desire to protect lifes, the other out of hubist for ability to write the laws of unverise and give Zodarck the free will.

to be honest I enjoy this discussion with you. I know it isn't easy to understand me I have writing disability so I sometime skip words when write a sentence I will write what I going say in my head but when come to paper or typing it won't be there but in my head it there. I am for American mind so English is my first language

Zodiark was summoned to save The Star from oblivion. It was explained that some unknown force caused the creation magics used by the ancient people of Amaurot to run amok and threaten to tear the Star apart. To avert this they used their creation magic to manifest the will of The Star. That will became Zodiark who then used his powers to avert disaster. I'm not sure where you are getting they did it out of hubris or that they simply wanted to see if they could create a god.

[Elladie]

let suppose for second hydaelyn and zodarck were created for by the desire of they creators. Hydaelyn was created to protect life, so her desire is to protect life for those who seek to take it by her nature she doing everything to prevent the ascians to destroy life of Erozath. while Zodark was first creative out hubist believe that they can and should create they god as such after they created it he feed by live aether not once but twice.

I can agree with you that Hydaelyn was probably created out of an urge to protect life; whether that turned out the way her creators expected, we don't know. Speculation that Hydaelyn's act of shattering the star into fourteen actually destroyed all the life on it (in the sense that 14 bits of me are not ME - imagine what you would feel like divided into 14, all your skills and abilities 14 times less - and that's even presuming you can remember who you were. I'm not sure what's worse to be honest, remembering would be torture, but if you don't remember then the original, undivided you has ceased to exist). But I have no idea why you have decided Zodiark was created out of hubris. Zodiark was created out of the will and sacrifice of all the people of Amaurot bar one (the Fouteenth member of the Convocation) and he was created to save the star.

as for G'raha action we two separate time line by his choice he creator them. the first time line is his own which may very well stop to exists at some point. yet by his action the source was spare the 8th umber ages all the people who attack ironwork and all the life that lost in 8th umber didn't lose they lives on the source. G'raha by his action created two separate time line one were he left to stop the first for rejoin and one were he remain being stop ever by a suppose attack on Ironwork. his choice created two separate time lines.

If G'raha's timeline stops - which is what he imagines will happen if he is successful - then everyone in it CEASES TO EXIST at the point it stops. All those thousands, maybe millions of people, just go POOF. The grandchildren and great grandchildren - because generations had passed since the 8th Calamity - of Aymeric and Nanamo and Khloe and Jessie et al - all just disappear as if they were never born. Because they were never born. G'raha knows this will happen - it is precisely what he expects to happen - but he still does it. How is that any more morally acceptable than rejoining the shards and putting the shattered individuals back together to make a 'whole' individual again?

I am NOT saying Emet Selch is innocent or a nice guy or anything - despite what some people like to infer. I loathed him in SB, but I thought the writer did a fantastic job with his character in ShB; my WoL was saddened by having to kill him. I do find it VERY FRUSTRATING that people seem to want to attack players who were able to empathise with him, and the double standard being applied here is really quite terrifying.

I haven't read every single post in the thread but I haven't seen any that have expressed admiration or support of genocide or disagreed that the Ascians as a whole have made a whole raft of morally suspect decisions. I have seen people expressing their praise for the writer's skill in creating an antagonist who was both believable and sympathetic despite being bent upon our 'destruction' ( bearing in mind he didn't see it as destruction, he saw it as putting back together the bits of his friends and family)

Suppose G'raha had decided to go back in time to before Hydaelyn was summoned and try to persuade us (the 14th) not to summon her? None of the people we know - including ourselves - would survive that. We'd all go poof. But it would save millions of deaths. Do you think Merlwyb and Kan E and Raubahn and Aymeric and Hien and co would support that?

I really don't think so ....

[Avidria]

Please explain how that's any different to Zodiark/Hydaelyn/the Convocation/the Ascians actions? All of them chose a path to follow that saved one thing at the cost of another

I may be missing something or misremembering something but my understanding was that that alternate future was doomed anyway - all of those people were going to die no matter what G'raha did or didn't do.

And in the long run, that alternate future's existence meant the Ascians won - the first was destroyed, the calamity wiped out the WoL and company, which leaves very few people that I can think of who'd be remotely powerful enough to stop the Ascians from doing the same thing again and again until their final plan succeeded, and the final rejoining occurred. As far as I can tell, their options were to change the past or live out a doomed future.

What I like about this is that this isn't a black and white good vs evil situation - the difference is subtle, and lies in intent. G'raha didn't know if his actions would delete or branch off from that bleak future, but he had a chance to stop things from even getting that bad in the first place and he took it. Heck, I'm sure if the Convocation had known how, they may well have done the same thing instead of summoning Zodiark and rewriting reality. Both extreme solutions to catastrophic, world ending events. Both carried out with good intentions.

The Ascians don't know or care what the new world, our world, could be like if left alone. They've been set on deliberately destroying everything that's been built to bring back the past - they know for a fact their success means the death of every single living creature in all of the shards, and their motive is to save the lives they deem as worthy enough to exist. Whereas G'raha and co. want to save the worlds they saw spiraling directly to a grim and grisly end. I'd compare his actions more to the Convocation's when their world was ending than to the Ascians/Emet today really, and whether it was the right choice or not at least partly comes down to perspective - and may be impossible to know for sure.

[Gemina]

I may be missing something or misremembering something but my understanding was that that alternate future was doomed anyway - all of those people were going to die no matter what G'raha did or didn't do.

And in the long run, that alternate future's existence meant the Ascians won - the first was destroyed, the calamity wiped out the WoL and company, which leaves very few people that I can think of who'd be remotely powerful enough to stop the Ascians from doing the same thing again and again until their final plan succeeded, and the final rejoining occurred. As far as I can tell, their options were to change the past or live out a doomed future.

If I am recalling correctly, G'raha isn't even from the first. He is from an alternate timeline that took place on the source, where the 8th umbral calamity was responsible for killing the WoL and co. He is the one who was still powerful enough - or obtained the power anyway by junctioning his lifeforce to the crystal tower to still thwart the ascian's plans after they had won.

He also informs us of the stories people would speak about the WoL after his/her death, which leads us to believe that even after the ascian's succeeded in bringing the 8th, they still failed to expunge the light and hope, and apparently are still working towards a full rejoining. I think this is why the WoL was sooo pissed off at Urianger and the Exarch after becoming the ultimate light warden, and Emet was going to come out of this thing victorious: Prayers, hopes, and sacrifice used to summon the WoL from god's knows where so they can put an end to a threat. What does that sound like?

What I am confused about is how our actions on the first prevents the 8th on the source. Crystal kitty didn't go into a whole lot of detail about that that I can recall.

[Puksi]

What I am confused about is how our actions on the first prevents the 8th on the source. Crystal kitty didn't go into a whole lot of detail about that that I can recall.

If I understand correctly, for the Rejoining of a shard to be successful, there has to be an equally catastrophic shift on the Source. The First was tilted to Light too fast for the Ascians to balance out the destruction on the Source, so Vauthry was corrupted to be a stopgap until the conditions were ready. The Rejoining would have then brought about the Eighth Umbral Calamity.