Emet-Selch Is Not That Tragic

[TheMightyMollusk]

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

[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.