Emet-Selch Is Not That Tragic

[Caitlinzulu]

I found his story tragic, but not sympathetic, considering that the Ascians' downfall came from their own reckless abuse of creation magic.

Dont mistake the race for ascians. Not all of those ancients became/where ascians.
Some of them didnt have creation magic to begin with or why else are there tools in place if you lack creation magic.

[Lauront]

I found his story tragic, but not sympathetic, considering that the Ascians' downfall came from their own reckless abuse of creation magic.

That's just head canon. Nothing has been confirmed to that effect. The way the entire phenomenon arose caught them completely off guard. If anything, Amaurot indicates they were very cautious in how they used creation magic. So where are you getting this from?

The short story with Hades implies something had gone awry with the Lifestream - we can but speculate whether this is linked to Amaurot's predicament and whether Creation magics were at fault in any sense.

If true I agree with you. I would also think that they made the story a lot more boring with it.

For now we can only speculate, since we didn't get many specifics about that post-Zodiark pre-Hydaelyn period. If Zodiark turns out to be a bad guy that brainwashed the Amaurotians, or the post-Zodiark Amaurotians just turn out to be selfish bastards, it would majorly undermine the sympathy they we're trying to build towards them sofar.

It's speculation on her part, as is throwing in the figure "billions". It's not known when the plan was formulated to add in a third stage which would restore their fallen - but the desire is nonetheless understandable, as they are the only reason the world still existed afterwards. If the departure from the Convocation as a result of this came before the summoning of Zodiark, tempering as an excuse makes no sense. If it was after, it might, but like you say, it significantly erodes the value of the story and just makes it "big bad god made me do it". It also does not jive with what we now know of darkness as a form of energy - it is not born out of negative or evil emotions, nor does it even stem from selfishness, but various elements in an energetic state. Thus, there isn't even really a reason Zodiark would need to be evil, simply as a result of being darkness aligned. There's always the possibility the beings in the world he was helping rescue somehow corrupted his nature but I doubt it. So it'd just reduce to tempering, "just because".

As matters stand, we don't really know how tempering affects the ancients, given their huge aetheric reserves, nor do we know how it'd affect someone with the Echo - or whether it somehow ties into it. Some people want this to be an awfully convenient story that resolves to Zodiark tempering the Ascians and somehow, Hydaelyn not tempering her summoners and her summoning having caused no resulting issues. Maybe it will be but like you, I'd find that boring.

I still wonder if there is something to Lahabrea's comments about how aetheric and physical laws will continue to be warped whilst Hydaelyn is there.

[MitsukiKimura]

I personally prefer him over Zenos any day. We may not feel bad for him personally but I will say I felt bad for what his people went through. The dungeon amarout and his quote "Remember us, remember that we once lived"

[Teraluna]

I personally prefer him over Zenos any day. We may not feel bad for him personally but I will say I felt bad for what his people went through. The dungeon amarout and his quote "Remember us, remember that we once lived"

Agree
I'm a little concerned with the whole it's Zenos AGAIN story arc. The character is one dimensional with a worn down 'gunfight at dawn' scenario in the making. Hopefully he'll be sidelined pretty quickly, although I fear we'll be faced with his boring narrative for quite a while.

[HyoMinPark]

I never interpreted Emet-Selch as a tragic character. I always interpreted him as an anti-villain. His motives are evil and it’s only natural for the heroes to disagree with him—but he came to garner our sympathies despite that. And I think that’s why we nodded after he told us to “remember us” and “remember that we once lived”.

The killer for me is his rueful smile as he’s dissipating.

[Selova]

His motives are evil[/size]

His motives are not what's evil, It's what he tried to do to make his motives a realization that is evil. I'm not sure why people claim that he's a tragic character, It's his plight that's tragic. The way they weaved Emet's story was to get the player to understand why he's doing the things he's doing. There is nothing wrong with the intention of wanting to save your own race, but the way he went about trying to do it was wrong obviously. I'm not sure why people keep trying to paint him as some tragic anti-hero.

[HyoMinPark]

His motives are not what's evil, It's what he tried to do to make his motives a realization that is evil. I'm not sure why people claim that he's a tragic character, It's his plight that's tragic. The way they weaved Emet's story was to get the player to understand why he's doing the things he's doing. There is nothing wrong with the intention of wanting to save your own race, but the way he went about trying to do it was wrong obviously. I'm not sure why people keep trying to paint him as some tragic anti-hero.

I already explained the snip you made in an above post, so I won't repeat them here. Tl;dr -- It's all a matter of perspective, but from the hero's perspective, his motives are evil. They may be to resurrect his race, but that's at the cost of our worlds and our lives. I did specify that I was speaking from the perspective of the heroes, not Emet-Selch.

I'm not sure either, because he's not a tragic character or an anti-hero. He's an anti-villain. Perhaps it's misunderstandings regarding how these concepts and character types are defined.

[Selova]

I already explained the snip you made in an above post, so I won't repeat them here. Tl;dr -- It's all a matter of perspective, but from the hero's perspective, his motives are evil. They may be to resurrect his race, but that's at the cost of our worlds and our lives. I did specify that I was speaking from the perspective of the heroes, not Emet-Selch.

I'm not sure either, because he's not a tragic character or an anti-hero. He's an anti-villain. Perhaps it's misunderstandings regarding how these concepts and character types are defined.

Yeah that was my fault, didn't see your earlier post.

[Miminming]

People gonna hate me for saying this but emet and hauchefrant?(i think i spell the name wrong) are kinda over rated IMO, and mostly probably because of fangirl fanarts... both of them are quite generic in term of story good in execution though i admit but not that good enough...

I cant even feel anything tragic about emet... the WOL in the first is far more tragic if you ask me

[Gemina]

Why do you get the impression that you're supposed to be sympathetic towards Emet, or with any villain? That's just something that happens when someone can relate to a villain's motives.

I don't relate to Emet at all. I see him and the other Ascians as beings totally and completely incapable of adapting, and the inability to do this is what leads to loss of entire civilizations as was the case with the ancients. However, I don't need to relate to Emet for him to be a good villain. I only need to understand what drives him, and why he does what he does.

Early on we see that he does not like to needlessly spend energy, and later on in the Tempest we see what he's capable of doing with it. In the middle we see an antagonist who antagonizes not with violence, but rather with a game of mental chess. I absolutely loved that why he was just letting us go and hunt down Light Wardens without any intervention was not exposed until the very end. He didn't need to do anything as he simply just had to fence off any turns on our paths to our own destruction.

It's things like that that go a long a way to creating an absolutely fantastic villain, which Emet hits on all cylinders. It also doesn't hurt that he is extremely charismatic, and those of us who love eccentricity in a villain will definitely be lured in. But it is understandable that he won't resonate with everyone.