What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[Nilroreo]

Glad to see even after all that’s happened the devs can’t stop trying to shame the ascians for things Hydaelyn herself did…

I still find the statement from the devs about how we weren’t ‘meant’ to read her as a villain a bit amusing. It's a fair enough point and all but given the recent revelation that she might've purposely missed Emet during the sundering, I can’t I help but be reminded of the Bahamut reveal from episode Ardyn.

Bahamut playing god of causality ensured that both Noctis and Ardyn wouldn’t veer off the paths preordained for them. Similarly, I can’t rationalize why Venat would spare Emet, subjecting him to 12K years of misery and essentially forcing him to play his role as villain for any reason other than to recreate the exact conditions that led to our history as we described it to her. Whether you determine her to be good or bad, it’s hard to ignore now that the Ascians are a monster of her making.

This also unfortunately vindicated my theory that the rejoinings couldn’t have been failures as she claimed back in HW since most of them were likely orchestrated by Emet himself anyways. Calling them failures at this point is like someone setting free a serial killer who threatens to kill their child, then acting surprised when they kill their child.

[Lauront]

Aye, and it's something the Codex is quite silent on. It'd raise an eyebrow or two otherwise.

[RoroCookies]

Her description. Notably missing: the fact that Zodiark restored the star, that he was the one shielding it and required for her plan to even work and was more than just the manifestation of some "ill-fated" (because of her) wish, the fact that she withheld information from her people, the fact that only a sliver of mankind met her "test"... No, it's just all about Her luv 4 Her childrunz...



Same.

This was painful to read. I understand Venat wanted to scrub ancients from history but jeez this is just a whole new level of perfect crystal mommy did nothing wrong.

[KageTokage]

If there is something that bugged me about the story bits in 6.1...

Role quest safety spoilers

it's that they seem to have swept the whole blasphemy threat under the rug like I was fearing despite it being explicitly acknowledged that there's still enough residual fallout from the Final Days to allow people to turn.

It also feels like they basically defused the whole Corvos situation offscreen with it being stated that the second legion's forces were utterly decimated by the Final Days by the time the Eorzean Alliance arrived.

Hopefully the remaining Garlean legions will be handled in a more interesting manner and the blasphemies might still resurface later.

[KizuyaKatogami]

If there is something that bugged me about the story bits in 6.1...

Role quest safety spoilers

it's that they seem to have swept the whole blasphemy threat under the rug like I was fearing despite it being explicitly acknowledged that there's still enough residual fallout from the Final Days to allow people to turn.

It also feels like they basically defused the whole Corvos situation offscreen with it being stated that the second legion's forces were utterly decimated by the Final Days by the time the Eorzean Alliance arrived.

Hopefully the remaining Garlean legions will be handled in a more interesting manner and the blasphemies might still resurface later.

Based on the role quests,the garlemald story is basically done. They all went to the moon lul

[RyuDragnier]

If there is something that bugged me about the story bits in 6.1...

Role quest safety spoilers

it's that they seem to have swept the whole blasphemy threat under the rug like I was fearing despite it being explicitly acknowledged that there's still enough residual fallout from the Final Days to allow people to turn.

It also feels like they basically defused the whole Corvos situation offscreen with it being stated that the second legion's forces were utterly decimated by the Final Days by the time the Eorzean Alliance arrived.

Hopefully the remaining Garlean legions will be handled in a more interesting manner and the blasphemies might still resurface later.

I'm not so sure about that.

They outright mentioned that people were able to still turn, and IInd Legion in Corvos was taken out, meaning the region is currently out of control. Since we have 2 of our (sadly) unimportant Scion friends going to take care of it, we may get dragged into there for the new relic area in order to bring stability to the region. And since people can still turn into blasphemies...that means they aren't quite done with that plot thread just yet. In short, look forward to Corvos stuff.

[PawPaw]

Uhhh I'm not done yet but what are the chances the people that screamed "Ancients are mean and lacking in empathy look how they treat their familiars!!" are going to see the irony of-

Y'shtola creating two familiars purely for the purpose of sending them into the Void to test how messed up one would become without a scale. I'm sure there will be an excuse made, right?

As Lauront mentioned earlier, it's fine when we do it.

I hadn't read Lauront's post yet but yep, good to see they're still keeping their strict adherence to "rules for thee and not for me" alive and kicking.

[Rulakir]

irony

My very first thought as well. At least Zepla commented on how they didn't deserve that, but no connection was made to Elpis. As Lauront mentioned earlier, it's fine when we do it.

[MoofiaBossVal]

That begs the question: do all familiars or magically created beings have souls? Up until Endwalker, it seemed that familiars were at best just animals, not sentient beings. But then Endwalker introduces a familiar that looks and acts like a human, and is practically unable to be distinguished from such, with the only noted difference being her low aetheric density and that she was created by a wizard. So if we recognize Meteion as a person, then do we not recognize other familiars as people because they appear and act inhuman? Would they have rights if they had a human appearance and could speak?

Do Mammets have souls? Are the mammets we see working in workshops in Ul'dah and the library in Sharlayan... are they slaves? Or what about magitek automatons? What would we consider that magitek mecha from the end of ARR that was fond of the WoL?

If darn near everything has a soul, then what doesn't have a soul?

Should regular dogs have been sent through the portal? Or should convicted prisoners awaiting execution have been sent through the portal for the test?

[KageTokage]

I think familiars/arcane constructs are generally distinguished from living things by the fact that while they can have minds, they don't possess any of the other traits typically required for something to be considered "alive" like a functioning biological anatomy (Meteion being mentioned as not being able to eat as requiring sustenance would've been a detriment to her purpose of traveling the stars), which is also one of the requisites for something to possess a soul in the first place.

It still raises an icky question of morality if those beings are still able to feel pain physically or emotionally, though...