Revelations from the Announcement Showcase

[Vyrerus]

Well, Emet-Selch makes it clear that every Ancient who gave up his or her life did so VOLUNTARILY. It's something he presents as another piece of evidence that his people have a more worthly claim to existence than the selfish, petty things that infest the planet now. The Convocation didn't just say, "Zodiark, go eat all these people." They asked the people in question if they would consent to be eaten, for the sake of the future of the star. And they did consent. I couldn't find the exact quote, but to paraphrase a question Emet poses to the Scions: "Can you even imagine such an act of altruism from your own people?" The Scions were not able to affirm.

The exact quote comes shortly before Amaurot dungeon, when he's going on his diatribe about having lived a thousand, thousand of our lives and sired children with our kind. It is spoken thus, "Let us imagine that the laws of reality are undone, and the world faces true annihilation. Do you honestly believe that half your number would sacrifice themselves to save the other?... Of course they wouldn't!"

[Vyrerus]

Which always struck me as author-fiat writing, since the Scions are demonstrations of that altruism

It's kind of not though, because as good as the Scions are, they kind of aren't just pure altruists, they are Sharlayan moral supremacists. That, and, the actual quote is in reference to the general populace. Since the Scions genuinely believe themselves to be better than the general populace, they bite their tongues. Alphinaud's response to Emet-selch is, "Emet-selch!... We understand, truly, but it makes no difference. The ones you love are in the past. While ours are here in the present. One day, we too will be ashes and dust, but not today. Our time is not yet finished. We share your conviction, and that is why we will not abandon our course."

[MrThinker]

"Let us imagine that the laws of reality are undone, and the world faces true annihilation. Do you honestly believe that half your number would sacrifice themselves to save the other?... Of course they wouldn't!"

"And if you had witnessed history unfold as I have, you would come to the exact same conclusion!"

I believe this part really nails that point home. Emet isn't pulling this viewpoint out of his rear, everything he's seen about the sundered life has given him no confidence. The Scions also know their history, they experienced the selfishness and greed of the vain first hand, first through Teledji and Lolorito, then Ilberd. The experiences of foes such as Fordola and Yotsuyu that turned them into what they are. The Scions are well aware that their contemporaries and their ancestors probably would not be possessed of such moral fibre as to willingly sacrifice themselves on such a scale.

[Alleo]

Well, Emet-Selch makes it clear that every Ancient who gave up his or her life did so VOLUNTARILY. It's something he presents as another piece of evidence that his people have a more worthly claim to existence than the selfish, petty things that infest the planet now. The Convocation didn't just say, "Zodiark, go eat all these people." They asked the people in question if they would consent to be eaten, for the sake of the future of the star. And they did consent. I couldn't find the exact quote, but to paraphrase a question Emet poses to the Scions: "Can you even imagine such an act of altruism from your own people?" The Scions were not able to affirm.

But I am not even talking about those voluntarily sacrificing their lifes, I am talking about the new lifes...the lifes that the tempered Ascians planned to sacrifice to get the ones back that choose to sacrifice themselves. Which is why I said that I find it strange that Zodiark never stopped them from doing that. Did he not want to stop that or could he not?

Also its funny how the scions never confirmed when the future source did exactly that. They believed that changing the future will destroy theirs and yet they still did that.

@Lauront: We have not seen much from Venat, maybe they simply did not know that they were tempered, after all they were the leaders of Amaurot, so who knows if they were not able to hide it. (Not everyone could read souls like Emet) Of course tempering from an elder primal could work out different but I right now just will assume that tempering works like tempering does to others. And its not like a lot of the tempered beast tribes are completely out of their minds either. They just worked towards achieving the goal that their primal has.

So yes I wont rule out any possiblity either but I still doubt that Zodiark is completely neutral at all. Not that I would be angry if he is.

"And if you had witnessed history unfold as I have, you would come to the exact same conclusion!"

I believe this part really nails that point home. Emet isn't pulling this viewpoint out of his rear, everything he's seen about the sundered life has given him no confidence. The Scions also know their history, they experienced the selfishness and greed of the vain first hand, first through Teledji and Lolorito, then Ilberd. The experiences of foes such as Fordola and Yotsuyu that turned them into what they are. The Scions are well aware that their contemporaries and their ancestors probably would not be possessed of such moral fibre as to willingly sacrifice themselves on such a scale.

A history the Ascians did have quite some hands in it. But lets not pretend that Ancients ones were perfect either. Even just in Amaurot the devs did not shy away from showing us that maybe these perfect beings (as Emet sees them) are not really perfect. And in the end it is admirable that they sacrificed themselves but lets not forget that most of the world was already consumed by that point...they only acted when it was at their doors. Heck even the Ascians seemingly only care about the people that are eaten by Zodiark and not all those reborn Ancient ones.

We of course have a lot of bad people in Eorzea and the rest of the world. But the story showed again and again that there will be good people too that will fight for what is right and do everything to save others. And the future source is bascially showing Emets words to be wrong. Because they did the sacrifice after all. And just like how they did it because their world was probably messed up, the same can be said to those Ancient ones. They did after all gave their lifes for others and should be held in high regards for this, but they did this when the world was ending and not doing anything would have meant death anyways.

[TheRod]

Personally, I suspect lots will end up disappointed with the history, much to the same reasons of the long threads we had complaining about Shadowbringers, be them here, Reddit, Gamefaqs or elsewhere (quick google and will find posts about people complaining we used even more light, there was no "blessing of darkness", plus, due that, the "Warrior of Darkness" title was a clever metaphorical one only, our character wasn't put into a position truly at odds with light and having to abandon it, but rather just worked as "regulator" of sorts or even helped again by it via the Oracle of Light).

If not mistaken, some even threatened to sue Square for "false advertising", lol - and this is real, can look for it in this very same forums.

In the end, the writing is pretty idealistic. Our character will always be the goody two shoes, who will be smiling and saving cats in trees: we will always be the Superman, Steve Rogers, Aragorn (whose may not be the coolest, but need to be there for the final strike, for the "good", "heroic" message) and never the Batman, Big Boss or a Geralt (operating more on the gray area if convenient) - I really doubt, after all these years, and in the final chapter of this season, that it'll change.

Especially, since it ends in the expansion itself. There'll be less time for more questions or more complex/demanding developments.

I expect even more on the typical idealism again. This imagery of the Paladin - bar all the Cecil parallels - displays exactly the imagery of the noble good knight clad in shiny armor to save the day - our typical heroic fairytale.

[Cilia]

Despite the setting being realistically dysfunctional, XIV has always leaned on the side of idealism. As a love letter to the franchise in general, it's only natural considering for all the faults and foibles of the worlds it's spawned and the characters to go along with them, the series is broadly idealistic (or at least always ends on an idealistic note). It might take sacrifices and pain along the way, but things will generally be better than they were before we started. (The one exception in XIV is the Tsukuyomi mini-arc in 4.2 - 4.3.)

Complaints about the lack of "grit" seem to come mostly from Ivalice fans, but... gentle reminder that while its influence is pervasive and the devs have affirmed multiple times it's an inspiration, this ain't Ivalice.

In regards to Emet-Selch's assertions on humanity... take it with a grain of salt. One of his major character flaws is holding a low opinion of others, setting them up to fail, and then moving the goalposts if they do succeed. He complains the Ancients are better not only because of their longer lifespans and greater powers, but that they had greater moral fiber, and this is what makes them the only ones deserving of the gift of life. At the same time, he deliberately engenders humanity's worst qualities both to advance the Rejoinings and to justify to himself why it's acceptable to murder countless millions of people (who, on some level, he does consider to be alive).

Case and point: after clearing the Amaurot dungeon, which he (re)created specifically as a test of the Scions' "worthiness," he just says their performance was lacking and they haven't convinced him. Assuming the star was as imperiled as during the Final Days and half of the population did offer their lives up in sacrifice, he'd just say something like "Yeah, but you didn't do it quick enough, so you're still not as good as we Ancients were." (Apocalyptic as Endwalker may look, I seriously doubt it's going to get quite as bad as what happened to Amaurot.)

I couldn't disagree with his assertion on humanity more, more for out-of-universe reasons (look up why inFamous: Second Son takes the Hero ending of inFamous 2 as canon) than anything displayed in-universe, but that's just me.

[Veloran]

I can't really say the story of XIV is so idealistic as you suggest. The Scions really just seemed to outright accept Emet's assertion and instead just pivoted to their right to live being superior to that of the Ancients who were already gone. That's not really idealism.

At best I'd call XIV's worldly outlook confused, or more generously intentionally contradictory, or maybe just "realistic". Take for example the recent holiday event. Towards the end there's this part where they talk about always following your dreams and keeping your hopes alive and if you just keep marching on you'll reach them eventually and everything will turn out right. That's certainly idealistic. But then I thought about all the cases where that wasn't true, like Dolorous Bear and Edda and their parties or Drest or the Waking Sands Scions or Wilred or Yotsuyu or the Zodiacs or or all the countless people that have died or been broken by conflicts throughout the game, and yes the likes of Emet and Elidibus who worked for 12,000 years to see their people saved but ultimately failed.
Basically it's not like idealism is specifically counterargued to the max or anything, it isn't a straight grimdark world and there are of course many happy endings as well, but the game makes it clear that it's an ideal and often not the reality. Something you can try to strive for, but sometimes no amount of effort and hope will make it real.

[Theodric]

I'm in agreement - the setting has never been overly idealistic. It's more bittersweet than anything.

Which puts it well in line with the Ivalice games that serve as significant inspiration for FFXIV. It's also similarly nuanced in that there's rarely a straight up 'good' and 'evil' to be found. With Zenos being the most obvious exception to that.

[Alleo]

Case and point: after clearing the Amaurot dungeon, which he (re)created specifically as a test of the Scions' "worthiness," he just says their performance was lacking and they haven't convinced him. Assuming the star was as imperiled as during the Final Days and half of the population did offer their lives up in sacrifice, he'd just say something like "Yeah, but you didn't do it quick enough, so you're still not as good as we Ancients were." (Apocalyptic as Endwalker may look, I seriously doubt it's going to get quite as bad as what happened to Amaurot.)

Yes this was one of the scenes that were quite telling. He gives us a test and we pass it, so because he has never truly intended for us to win he needed to move the goalpost.

Honestly for me it was always a bit strange how these powerful Ancient run away from their enemies, be it in this dungeon or later the one were some beasts got out of control. All we see is them running away in sheer panic. Everytime I run through them I wonder why? Arent the people from Amaurot the best? Yet here we are, uncomplete souls taking on the monster that they captures but seemingly cant defeat?

I am not sure if this what the devs were going for but for me these people felt so weak after these dungeons.

And it is also telling that one of the short stories show that the Ancients did not care that much about other regions. It was only Azem that went there to help so that nobody lost their homes and maybe their lifes.

[LineageRazor]

Honestly for me it was always a bit strange how these powerful Ancient run away from their enemies, be it in this dungeon or later the one were some beasts got out of control. All we see is them running away in sheer panic. Everytime I run through them I wonder why? Arent the people from Amaurot the best? Yet here we are, uncomplete souls taking on the monster that they captures but seemingly cant defeat?

The impression I got from the society of the Ancients is that they are so unaccustomed to violence in their society that it doesn't even occur to them to fight back. When these monsters started to hurt and kill them, they panicked and fled, even if they might have had the ability to counter them. It's also possible that some tried - and their new creations came out warped and evil, joining the other monsters to turn on their creators, as well... It's notable that modern-day Ascians do not seem to use Creation magic while fighting - at least, not to make creatures. Instead they fight using energy blasts and pools of darkness and stuff. These fighting arts may not have existed back in the days of the Ancients, and may have been developed later.

We, on the other hand, are used to conflict, used to fighting monsters. It's pretty much second nature by now. It's not that surprising that we'd charge in where Ancients fear to tread.