Tale of Emet [FF14 x Nier Reincarnation event story]

[Slatersev]

You’re avoiding the elephant in the room. What’s your excuse for Ironworks then? You’re exact words were, “Trying to undo it involves murdering people.” You’re saying that regardless of circumstance, trying to undo something that involves killing people is negative and wrong and villainous. Well that’s exactly what Ironworks was prepared or do and were praised for it. So if we’re going to praise them for that, and praise Venat as a hero for doing what she did(who btw, consumed the souls of 12 people to summon Hydaelyn, i guess she’s wrong for that and we should all petition to have her minion of being named a hero renamed), then we shouldn’t be framing an ascian as wrong or villainous for doing the same as them except on a much smaller scale.

I'm not avoiding anything, I have stated that the Ironworks planning to put themselves among the sacrifice, to not reap any of the theoretical rewards changes the calculus on how to judge them, to you it doesn't to me it does.

I have also never called Venat a hero. Liking the direction they took her and thinking some of the arguments against her and pro Convocation are silly (Arguing she secretly isnt popular using antidotes from a popularity poll she came in third in, people treating the Supreme Deity line as some gleeful boast and not a call to prove that normal mortals have surpassed her, etc)

And the main point is your claim that it would be bad to depict Ascians still trying to rejoin as villainous. I think thats silly, not because its never okay to kill, or make morally "bad" decisions, but because "This character maybe doing something similar means it can never be depicted as a bad thing ever even if context changes" Especially in the context of where XIV's story is right now where the Sundered beings right to exist has been stressed so heavily in SHB. It would be incongruous to suddenly have somebody trying to use them as essentially a power up but have the story be like "Can't judge him though, he had a tough life"

[Rulakir]

Ardbert was 1/14 and he stood toe to toe with us.

As I'm currently playing through HW, I think you're giving Ardbert too much credit. He was getting winded just going toe-to-toe with Thancred. Plus, the fight with them later only went on as long as it did because they kept resurrecting.

[KageTokage]

Ran'jit is a better example of someone who was able to be a constant thorn in our sides despite being 1/14, though it seems implied that like Zenos the main reason he was able to threaten us initially was simply because of unfamiliarity, not because we actually got that much stronger in between battles.

[Rulakir]

Ran'jit also had that spirit bond with the serpent I never saw explained. A lot of the power levels in the game never are likely due to gameplay reasons.

[Cleretic]

Ran'jit and his bond with the dragon are a known technique from his people--his father had one, too, although it didn't end up saving him. (Ran'jit's father's dragon is Huracan, one of the Shadowbringers Rank A hunts.) He's basically a full-fledged job we just don't have access to, somewhere between a Monk, Summoner, and Reaper. So yeah, the fact he can go toe-to-toe with us even after we've learned all his tricks is evidence that being further fragmented doesn't actually make someone weaker.

Also evidence to the same conclusion is literally every single enemy we fought over the entirety of Shadowbringers. We found a whole bunch of enemies that were just regular animals with perfectly reasonable analogues in things we've fought before, and never once did we ever find them easier fights. Similarly, never at any point did the story say 'yeah, you're just objectively more of a being than everything in this world so you'll have an easy time fighting it', so we can reason that it's not just a gameplay conceit, and that the First's denizens are not just objectively weaker. Not one piece of the game's story or lore ever states that they are, so I have no idea why people think that.

[Vyrerus]

The thing about the Sundered on the Shards is that they all still have physical bodies. What's more is that they have physical bodies of the same size and shape as people of the Source.

This means on a physical level, they are just as much a being as any Sundered from the Source.


With what we learned from, "In from the Cold" was that a physical body matters a great deal when it comes to expressing power. Hell, we learned that from our battle with Hades. "I AM STIFLED BY THIS VESSEL OF FLESH!" In all the ways that a bigger soul matters, it seems that for the most part, at least via Aether power expression, a big whole soul cannot express 14/14ths power through a Sundered body.

And that's before we go into all the ways technique can matter. Like, hell, for as strong as the WoL is they still succumb to the effects of a roofie in Heavensward. Ultimate Godslayer, Popeslayer, Dragonslayer extraordinaire... laid low by a barmaid. It's little wonder there's a bit of confusion when it comes to power levels and power level expression.

When we went to The First, we went to a post-apocalyptic world where every being had been surviving for a century by whatever means necessary. We fought the physical creme of the crop, those who could take did. Those creatures that were strong lived. Leveling in Shadowbringers pre-stat squish felt to me like a formality. The Ran'jit battle was a poor expression of antagonist power if you played tank when SHB first dropped, particularly if you played DRK. Between The Blackest Night and the other tank cooldowns, it was possible to negate more than half the damage of Ran'jit's down for the count Raiton(his Fire and Thunder moves are rehashes of Ninja's Katon and Raiton, while his Snake's moves are Alte Roite moveset). With the regen from the solo duty buff, this meant you would be down for the count on DRK with full HP, not sweating at all.

Compare that to the Zenos battles where once Zenos flexes his crimson aura, your damage drops to double/triple digits and you miss thanks to level difference 25% of the time...

We then get Ran'jit's backstory, and he's been the head coach of Eulmore's military for like half of the century or however long it's supposed to have been for him to have raised half a gaggle of Minfilias and teach them how to fight. We can conclude that he had a very strong body and mastery level of the techniques he employed. All very impressive, but then we have Thancred able to fight him to a standstill as a Solid Light ghost employing shells charged by Ryne and a technique only available to him due to his ghostly state. This is Thancred fighting with a set of skills he's only had for less than half a decade with only his soul mimicking his physical body, which I suppose is still wearing aetherially enhanced garments.

All in all, everything is a big mess, but for as much of a mess as it is, it's nice to see that a lot of the small things like finesse, armor, drugs, temperature, and all that jazz still matter to some degree in this story about slaying gods and would-be gods and man-made gods. In this way, it's very much like reading Greek or Norse mythology wherein depending on whose account of a God you're reading, stuff like Zeus getting his tendons cut by an Adamant sickle causes him to lose his first bout with Typhon.

[Absimiliard]

Consider for a moment also how the shards were originally evenly spread - or at least as close to evenly spread as Venat could manage. We know there were some... errors, but that's a discussion for another thread. Since every shard began with essentially the same aetheric density and its inhabitants similar physical forms, it stands to reason even multiple rejoinings would not change the differences in physical parameters. Aetheric density is what rejoinings appear to improve, and we've already seen how little that actually matters most of the time.

As an aside, I might note the WoL is in fact holding back 99.9% of the time. Even against most primals.

[Cleretic]

As an aside, I might note the WoL is in fact holding back 99.9% of the time. Even against most primals.

You're gonna need to cite a source for that one, because that sounds like something I've never seen said anywhere in the story, by anyone, ever.

EDIT: And in fact, would be kind of a tremendous negative about the WoL if it were true. Do you mean they could've just dunked on Bismarck right away, thereby saving everyone in the Sea of Clouds a whole lot of trouble? That Haurchefaunt died protecting someone who at best would've been minorly bleeding from that shot? That they could've soloed the entire Twelfth Legion, but wanted the local resistances to feel like they contributed?

[Dikatis]

You're gonna need to cite a source for that one, because that sounds like something I've never seen said anywhere in the story, by anyone, ever.

EDIT: And in fact, would be kind of a tremendous negative about the WoL if it were true. Do you mean they could've just dunked on Bismarck right away, thereby saving everyone in the Sea of Clouds a whole lot of trouble? That Haurchefaunt died protecting someone who at best would've been minorly bleeding from that shot? That they could've soloed the entire Twelfth Legion, but wanted the local resistances to feel like they contributed?

The only thing I can remember is Ysayle mentioning that seeing WoL battle Ravana is the first time she's seen WoL bring their all to bear since their battle at Akh Afah Ampitheatre. Which speaks much more about the idea of breaking your limits via dynamis than WoL purposefully holding back even in life-or-death situations.

Never since we first fought have I seen you draw upon the full extent of your power...and never from afar till this day. You were a marvel to behold, [Player Name]. Well...'tis time we rejoined our companions. They will be eager to hear the tale...and to continue our journey.

[Alleo]

I suspect that the player character and Azem are possibly the same person, but by the reverse explanation. My prediction is that Azem will end up travelling forward in time sometime either during the events of Pandaemonium or shortly afterwards, which is why they seemingly disappear after stepping down from the Convocation.

But there is no indication ingame right now that says that Pandaemonium even takes place after the plan of Zodiark came forward. That plan only existed after many parts of the planet were already destroyed. I really doubt that any of the characters would be so relaxed if their planet was dieing right now.

Not only that but Azem had to be sundered too because we are the reborn sundered Azem. So they must have been there when Hydealyn did the attack on Zodiark.

The only thing I can remember is Ysayle mentioning that seeing WoL battle Ravana is the first time she's seen WoL bring their all to bear since their battle at Akh Afah Ampitheatre. Which speaks much more about the idea of breaking your limits via dynamis than WoL purposefully holding back even in life-or-death situations.

It could also speak to us trying not to outright kill everyone. After all Shiva was a human turned primal so we might have gone easier on her while Ravana was just a pure primal. Of course it could also mean that we simply got stronger since her fight.

But I guess it could also be Dynamis.