Pandæmonium story

[Lustre]

But even the first final fantasy had time-travel!

Although the only iffy one is the sending of the crystal tower to the first, since it's the only time-travel situation which leads to infinite realities, compared to the loop from alexander and elpis.

I only played 6-15, so I'm unaware of that. I just feel like time travel plots tend to overcomplicate things, and it feels a bit gimmicky and lazy to me. I will say that I've seen them handled way worse than they are in XIV, but I still dislike them.

[Lauront]

Frankly, from what I've seen Yoshi-P has some of the worst takes on the story and characters. He was surprised by Emet's popularity. He was surprised players didn't forgive Hermes like they did Emet despite Ishikawa saying she figured 80% of players would hate him.

The quests outright state that a creation obtaining a soul is rare and they have no control over it, so I don't even know where he's getting this bit about they were creating and destroying beings with souls on a whim. I have no idea what's "scary" about deciding to end your life when you're nigh immortal and feel you've given all you're able. I can say they failed in their intent to depict the Ancients as dispassionate to me and apparently many others.

I'm also endlessly perplexed by their statements on Hermes. Are they oblivious to what he and Venat did being exponentially worse than Emet? How is Hermes being wrong even a question? How is thinking that the near extermination of not only Etheirys, but the universe considered a "first step" for anything? Part of the reason people sympathized with Emet is because the Ancients were victims, first of the Final Days and then of the sundering, and they had no idea why. Hermes and Venat are perpetrators. They both knew the outcome of their actions, the billions of deaths it would cause, and both went ahead with it. Hermes, in particular, wasn't impartial at all. Regardless of what their vision of him was, he came across as hitting the kill switch purely out of spite.

I've seen plenty of people say that the EW storyline made them feel gross, like it was genocide apologism, and interviews like these certainly aren't helping. I am just stunned at the lack of awareness. It's not much of a stretch to say that the message of EW is if you're a good person living a nice life violence against you is justified if someone thinks you're undeserving.

Agreed with all this. Well put/said!

[gotaname1]

Nothing I can recall in the game tells about how ancients were in their emotional development. But in MSQ Hermes sticks out like a sore thumb in how underdeveloped he is emotionally. And this emotionally stunted character then proceeds to create a being that is sensitive to that very thing? After 10 years, we discover it was the invention of twitter that resulted in FF14's world to what it is today. Consider me disappointed in having this be the climax.

[GrizzlyTank]

...

Still kinda wish that Twitter accidentally summoned Jenova/"The Thing" to Etherys. But hey, at least it does mean that they can still use that horror show as a story later if they want, hopefully for when we head to the new world.

[EaraGrace]

Nothing I can recall in the game tells about how ancients were in their emotional development. But in MSQ Hermes sticks out like a sore thumb in how underdeveloped he is emotionally. And this emotionally stunted character then proceeds to create a being that is sensitive to that very thing? After 10 years, we discover it was the invention of twitter that resulted in FF14's world to what it is today. Consider me disappointed in having this be the climax.

No the sad part is that Hermes was actually further along in his emotional development than any of his peers. Emet still didn’t know what grief was until after Shadowbringers for Twelves sake.

And lol blaming Twitter.

[Lyth]

Back to the point: the ancients had the "most progressive" society, but on the other hand, the story of Pandæmonium absurdly shows us the typical pre-modernism side of this society, a single-parent family that is common in reality. -The mother raises her child alone and then dies, the son resents his workaholic father who doesn't care about the family, and then the ancients fight over trivial and personal matters blah blah ......
This is ridiculous and I think it overturns the portrayal of ancient civilization in the previous stories, I can't find any hint of the "progressiveness" of ancient civilization and the "divinity" that was supposed to be prevalent in ancient societies that is often mentioned in the 5.0 stories ...... and this makes Hermes, the main character, look like a depressed sociopath in the previous stories

I don't follow your statements on 'progressive' societies and single-parent families.

Whether or not you consider Amaurot to be a 'progressive' society depends on your personal views. Do you prefer a society where individuality and personal expression are sneered at, the 'will of the collective is constantly watching and weighing your worth', and where a group of self-selecting oligarchs dictate national policy without question? You might, but it comes down to personal preference either way. And we've known all this since Shadowbringers. And as many people pointed out already, their lofty claims about being 'Caretakers of the Planet' ring hollow as nationalistic rhetoric, especially when you see that only real difference the people in question had with the rest of us is that they just had too much power and free time on their hands.

From a storytelling standpoint, Amaurot's strength is also its weakness. I think that Ishikawa made the best of a bad situation in order to rescue the Ascian plotline from its Heavensward-era Saturday-morning cartoon writing. But in the process, it effectively turned everything into the Emet-Selch show, with every major event being tied back to Amaurot. Independent factions, like Garlemald and Allag, are reduced to puppet dictatorships installed under Emet's thumb. And between the three Ascians supposedly in charge, Emet is the only one who was ever actually compos mentis to make decisions, between Elidibus' progressing dementia and Lahabrea's mind being broken from his body-stealing proclivities. Don't get me wrong, Emet is a fun character, but charisma aside, people were bound to get tired of everything being linked back to the same puppetmaster.

I think the solution going forward is to rightfully move well away from Amaurot and find other, equally powerful and parallel forces capable of driving events. The shift to the First Brood vs. the Void is promising, but they need to explore new factions outside of that. The more you decentralize Amaurot from the plot, the more you get to expand out your storytelling options. It was nice while it lasted, but Amaurot's story is thankfully done. Let's see something fresh and more interesting.

[OhNooo]

No the sad part is that Hermes was actually further along in his emotional development than any of his peers. Emet still didn’t know what grief was until after Shadowbringers for Twelves sake.

And lol blaming Twitter.

The dude that had a meltdown over a creation that was going to decimate species after several failed trials of attempted rehabilitation? The dude who refused to follow protocol and was completely irresponsible with his own creations and then when said creation went rogue, instead of trying to figure out how to fix the mess he made, decided to “judge” everyone and give a trial that nobody knew about to basically everyone in the universe that would encounter his rogue creation?

He decided to stay in his own emo bubble like “nobody understands me mom!” basically isolating himself and not attempting to reach out to anyone else. Then he decides this is the perfect opportunity to take the whole world down. Yeah no screw Hermes. You’re saying there’s “more” emotional development in someone who obviously has “issues” from the very beginning and gets way worse later vs someone who has a sudden, unexplained, tragedy that completely devastates them and changes them later on in life…like what? No.

I didn’t realize this was the suffering Olympics. Like oh this person went through these devastating things from a very young age for years but this other person had a peaceful life until a tragedy hit later on. So?

[KizuyaKatogami]

No the sad part is that Hermes was actually further along in his emotional development than any of his peers. Emet still didn’t know what grief was until after Shadowbringers for Twelves sake.

I guess we’re just going to ignore his grief over his dying son or his grief over losing Hythlodaeus.

[Lauront]

And lol blaming Twitter.

lol indeed

[Raoabolic]

YOSHIDA: Even though he should be able to make the right choice himself, he ends up not being able to and seeks the opinions of others instead.

If we are going to be critical about it then wouldn't twitter just give him a pat on the back and say "chase those dreams!"? From what I gathered every ancient that found out what he was up to collectively told Hermes, "No, what you did was stupid." Hermes proceeded to throw a fit and chaos control nearly everyone's memories. Twitter would have given a big thumbs up as their memories were erased, lol.