Are the Ascians truly wrong?

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

I haven't played in a few months, so my memory is a bit fuzzy. If I remember correctly, the Ascians are trying to cause an event known as the Rejoining which is suppose to fuse each individual realm back into one. From our perspective, that is to say the PC's, the Rejoining would destroy our home and take innumerable lives. However, I think we're missing the bigger picture here.

Keep in mind, I've only made it as far as the Rak'Tika Greatwood portion of the story, and my memory is fuzzy as previously stated. Wouldn't the Rejoining possibly bring about a whole, and thus possibly more stable, world for whatever creatures take up residence on the new world? That alone could mean so much more, like less hostile flora and fauna, a greater abundance of food, greater population growth, etc. This is just conjecture on my part, but I always try to look at things without bias.

In Skyrim, Alduin was to eat the world so the next could be born. While Alduin himself is a douche, that isn't because of his title as World Eater. In WoW, Sargeras wanted to wipe out all the planets because there was no way to know which planets had been corrupted by the Void Lords. However, he knew another universe would be born soon after the destruction of the current one. I'm sure there are other games with similar stories that I haven't thought of, but you get the point.

So let's discuss this shall we, in a civil manner please. Are the Ascians wrong for wanting to bring about the Rejoining?

I believe the Ascians are wrong.

Just because their society was destroyed...through their own doing no less, doesn't give them the right to arbitrarily destroy the civilizations that emerged afterwards just so they can have their old world back... and likely end up in the same boat again at some point.

I personally believe that the incidents which led the Ascians to summon Zodiark for the first time were of their own making due to the fact that they were such aether dense beings. It's possible that their collective subconscious started summoning the nightmares that led them to Zodiark. It's also possible that the Ascians who summoned Hydaelyn realized this and intended for the fracturing of the world to happen to diffuse their people's aetherial density among several reflections so that such a calamity could never happen again.

The Ascians trying to restore their old existence are wrong because they would wipe out countless civilizations to achieve their goal with little regard for all that would be lost because they don't even see the reflections as real enough to be worthy of existence. They are arrogant and prideful, and their pride was their downfall. Even now the Ascian hubris knows no bounds, even though us "mere reflections" have permanently killed more than one of them now.

Bottom line? Killing entire worlds just so you can have your old life back is wrong.

[Jandor]

Are the Ascians truly wrong?

Yeah, the Ascians are truly wrong. Far as I can see it, the main thing "wrong" with the new races that they want to wipe out is that they're far less powerful.

That's really all it comes down to, Ascians don't across as significantly smarter or more emotionally well developed or anything, maybe a bit but so would anyone if they had a 1000+ years of experience to draw on.

The big thing that's supposed to set them apart, the big sacrifice, just makes them seem a bit dumb and naive to me.

Emet: "we're going to create a uncontrollable super being that should solve all our problems, you just have to kill yourselves bro"

Ancients: "ok sounds good, guess I'll die now."

Emet: "ok that didn't quite pan out how we thought it would, can some more of you suicide?"

Ancients: "sure bro np."

Emet: "it's really unfair that we're basically extinct, but if I keep getting people killed I'm sure it'll all work out. "

I mean, ok, it's not exactly like that... it's a bit like that though.

[KalinOrthos]

The Ascians, through Emet-Selch, are sympathetic. We know, have felt that longing for a better time, a time where things were just better. And what they do, they do because they think it's right. Machiavellian posturing and decidedly evil laughter aside, they know, not think, but know their cause is just and right, and because of that, for them, the ends justify the means. And that's what makes them evil. Every single person will convince themselves that what they are doing is right, and that conviction, in the Ascian's case, leads to innumerable atrocities and near genocides of entire civilizations. "Cool motive; it's still murder."

Moreover, we're getting called "incomplete"; lesser, part of the sum of the whole. In Emet's eyes, we aren't even whole beings: we're closer to pets, or animals, or savages in his mind. This is why the Ascians are wrong. We are fully realized beings, with our own consciousness, morals, memories, lives, souls. It's an interesting question of "What makes a soul?" that is posed through the latter part of the expansion, and is answered by "The lives we touch, the memories we share, the emotions we feel, the love we give", and Emet doesn't get this, leading to his eventual downfall. He treats us like dirt, sees us as dirt, and cannot comprehend how such lesser beings could challenge him, until it's far too late.

[testname]

it's same as asking if Hitler was truly wrong ?

How a massacre of millions of people is any Good ? ... Stupid

[WrenElessedil]

it's same as asking if Hitler was truly wrong ?

How a massacre of millions of people is any Good ? ... Stupid

It's not even close to the same thing. Both sides here are fighting to avoid the extinction of their own species. We are as much the villains for the Ascians as they are the villains for us. The bigger issue is that they won't consider trying to find some alternative way to bring back their world and people, but we aren't exactly trying to help them do that either.

[Tlamila]

It's not even close to the same thing. Both sides here are fighting to avoid the extinction of their own species. We are as much the villains for the Ascians as they are the villains for us. The bigger issue is that they won't consider trying to find some alternative way to bring back their world and people, but we aren't exactly trying to help them do that either.

Those who died did so willingly. It's not like WE killed them, or anyone else.
Killing every other form of life to bring back those who sacrificed themselves would be not only horrible, but also a huge slap in the face to those same persons you're bringing back, since you're destroying what they believed in and died for.

[Alleo]

It's not even close to the same thing. Both sides here are fighting to avoid the extinction of their own species. We are as much the villains for the Ascians as they are the villains for us. The bigger issue is that they won't consider trying to find some alternative way to bring back their world and people, but we aren't exactly trying to help them do that either.

They could have lived on. After Zodiark restored everything and brought back new life, there were enough Ancient ones alive to go on. They just had to accept the sacrifices that the rest did willingly..but they did not. And thus people of their own race went against the Ascians and summoned Hydealyn.

After the split their race is kinda extinct. Of course there are the three unsundered but the rest of their race is gone. Or more: they became part of the new species.

Now we are talking about three people wanting to get back those that are inside Zodiark thus right now are "death". While the other side just lives their lifes completely without fault for the situation. This is not about survival of two sides, this is survival of one side because the other side cant accept that their time has been over for thousands of years...a side that still believes that their sacrificed people can be restored..even though Zodiark used them as battery.

[MOZZYSTAR]

I haven't read the rest of comments, and I haven't played the games OP mentioned... But from the story itself (in FFXIV), I honestly think the Ascians represent us humans. We (general we, not individualistic we) consider ourselves perfect beings. We're at the top of the food chain, blahblahblah, and we would basically do anything to survive, to keep our fellow man alive, et cetera, even if it means the destruction of lands, the extinction of many species, global warming, and so on and so forth. So, in that regard, I think the writer(s) were deliberately getting us to question ourself if we could relate to the Ascians, if we could see our image in the Ascians, and so on.


I think it's only natural instinct to want to survive, so no I don't think the Ascians are wrong. Just as our WoL/D group wants to survive, so, too, do the Ascians. It just so happens that their desires for survival conflict with one another... for the moment. (On a side note: the way they questioned some IRL philosophies, mindsets, happenings in this story reminded me of older FF games, like in FFIX. Anyone else get that vibe? I really appreciated it.)

[LineageRazor]

One of the big arguments Emet gives for why what he and the Ascians are doing is okay, is that the life forms he's wiping out barely even count as "alive". Essentially, that we are lesser beings, that our very existence is a mockery of what true life really is. It might even be considered a mercy to bring death to creatures whose lives are brutish, short, and full of pain.

It's notable, however, that he's explaining this point of view TO such a life form. He's having a meaningful discourse with one of these "lesser being". He's speaking to them, reasoning with them. He wants them to understand his viewpoint, and to agree with him. Why, if these creatures are so inconsequential? Why should he care?

There is some line above which all sapient beings stand, a point at which they can be considered thinking beings. I think Emet himself realizes this, deep down. His pontification about "not really alive" and "lesser beings" are deceptions he tells himself in order to justify what he's doing. He, himself, admits that he gave mortals a chance, at first, that he tried to connect with them as equals. In his side story, too, he thinks about how he hoped and prayed that the son he sired as Solus would somehow be different from other mortals - that his son would be someone he could regard as an equal. He holds mortals to an ideal they could never possibly match - but he KEEPS TRYING. He knows they are not insignificant. He knows they have merits in their own right. But he just can't let go of what he's lost, so he keeps making excuses as to why his genocide is just.

It's not clear just what motivates Lahabrea and Elidibus, but for Emet, it seems to be loneliness. He misses the companionship of others of his kind (and apparently Elidibus and Lahabrea did not fill that void sufficiently). He's not doing this because it's the right thing to do. He's doing this because he's suffering from grief and pain - and those are not good pillars for a moral foundation.

On the topic of Thanatos - while he could be considered to be a morally complex character, what it boils down to is that he saw a problem (there's too many people in the universe, and not enough resources for them all), and decided that the solution was to kill a lot of people. So, he collected this glove with the powers of a god, and used it to do just that. However, the franchise doesn't really delve into whether Thanatos ever considered other options. Could the powers of the glove not have been used, for example, to PROVIDE the resources the universe was short on? Maybe even expand the size of the universe so there'd be more room? We know for a fact that the Infinity Gauntlet can be used for more than murder (it was used to UNmurder everyone, after all). I can't say for certain that it could have solved the overcrowding problem in another way, but it's a question the movies never even asked.

As it stands, even if it supposedly causes him pain to "do what must be done", it's never clear that Thanatos ever considers other options. For him, the only tool to solve a problem is death, and the only question, then, is how to obtain a tool capable of inflicting the proper amount.

[Vahlnir]

I think their goal of wanting to restore the world to its initial state was understandable. It was their methods which were questionable at best, and why we couldn't let it happen. They had their time, and like all things nothing lasts forever. They didn't have the right to decide the fate of countless innocents who's only crime to the Ascians was existing and "not being whole".