Thread: On Themis [6.4 SPOILER]

Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

The best kinds of tragedies in fiction are the ones you can't stop. They hit emotionally harder, and they make you develop feelings for the characters in a strong manner. Personally I think it's the best way to end his and Lahabrea's characters off. You understand them completely, know how they were as people, and helps you come to terms with why things had to end the way they did.

Perhaps you are correct in this assertion. If I might offer a counterpoint, however.... The best outcomes are when you prevent the tragedies of the past from repeating, or even outright preventing said tragedies in the first place. Visions of a time never to be, I suppose.

They are both my best friends.

So apparently I'm one of the few who found the whole patch a massive disservice to his character overall, then.

I genuinely hated it, I'm sorry to say. It's bad enough Emet-Selch's character was rewritten and toned down in order to give the writers' chosen narrative surrounding the events of the story a Villainous Seal of Approval, but apparently Elidibus and Lahabrea couldn't be left alone either?

I actually liked the way his arc ended in 5.3/ Endwalker. I like that he had little regard for our optional apology, that they all maintained their belief in their actions and chosen course to bring back those they loved. I like that they were fundamentally scarred, ultimately very different people from the ones we knew in our previous life owing not just to the effects of a lifetime of misery and isolation, but because they were still irrevocably tied to the past in away that we were not and could not hope to change. What made everything about their story so moving was the acknowledgement of all of that, and that we were not who we once were either, and never could be, and that the chasm between us, while tragic, could never hope to be crossed. It was good, emotional, powerful storytelling.

So I do not understand the incessant need the writers have to double back on what they previously established and consistently unmake everything that made 5.0 so great in order to loop everything neatly into a needless little bow for the sake of some cheap warm fuzzies at the end of the storyline. It's nonsensical how the characters that made a choice twelve thousand years ago to do everything they could to save the world so dear to them would suddenly be so accepting and at peace with what was done to them and how things ultimately turned out, and be borderline derogatory towards themselves for not playing ball and taking the sundering lying down. Elidibus did not need to view his actions in the scope of "saving mankind" to make them justifiable, because the whole point was that from the Ascian POV, they already were. It's just more garbage sundering apologism that drags down the entire experience.

Originally Posted by Lunaxia

So apparently I'm one of the few who found the whole patch a massive disservice to his character overall, then.

I genuinely hated it, I'm sorry to say. It's bad enough Emet-Selch's character was rewritten and toned down in order to give the writers' chosen narrative surrounding the events of the story a Villainous Seal of Approval, but apparently Elidibus and Lahabrea couldn't be left alone either?

I actually liked the way his arc ended in 5.3/ Endwalker. I like that he had little regard for our optional apology, that they all maintained their belief in their actions and chosen course to bring back those they loved. I like that they were fundamentally scarred, ultimately very different people from the ones we knew in our previous life owing not just to the effects of a lifetime of misery and isolation, but because they were still irrevocably tied to the past in away that we were not and could not hope to change. What made everything about their story so moving was the acknowledgement of all of that, and that we were not who we once were either, and never could be, and that the chasm between us, while tragic, could never hope to be crossed. It was good, emotional, powerful storytelling.

So I do not understand the incessant need the writers have to double back on what they previously established and consistently unmake everything that made 5.0 so great in order to loop everything neatly into a needless little bow for the sake of some cheap warm fuzzies at the end of the storyline. It's nonsensical how the characters that made a choice twelve thousand years ago to do everything they could to save the world so dear to them would suddenly be so accepting and at peace with what was done to them and how things ultimately turned out, and be borderline derogatory towards themselves for not playing ball and taking the sundering lying down. Elidibus did not need to view his actions in the scope of "saving mankind" to make them justifiable, because the whole point was that from the Ascian POV, they already were. It's just more garbage sundering apologism that drags down the entire experience.

Both Lahabrea and Emet-Selch never apologized for trying to bring back the unsundered world. Lahabrea admitted it was hypocritical for the Ascians to wipe out lives to bring back theirs but he said he'd do it without a second thought because it's his duty.

Originally Posted by Yuella

Both Lahabrea and Emet-Selch never apologized for trying to bring back the unsundered world. Lahabrea admitted it was hypocritical for the Ascians to wipe out lives to bring back theirs but he said he'd do it without a second thought because it's his duty.

They didn't apologise, no, but the characters' general handwaving of everything they endured owing to Hydaelyn's decision, up to and including the writers subtly implying Lahabrea jumped off a cliff harder than he might otherwise have owing to Athena/ the auracite's influence than anything else, and having Emet-Selch, a man previously destroyed by what the years since did to him suddenly turn around and go "oh lol Hydaelyn, you got me good! I guess your way worked best, huh!" just felt like an indirect way of affirming the protagonists' actions, and it is weird to me given what it put them through and what it cost them. Their whole background and how the events from the Final Days through to the present day shaped their characters felt thoroughly disregarded, and a token throwaway bit they toss in at the end of a long string of really bizarre writing didn't really mitigate any of that on my end. Like, their just... being very okay with the fact their world did not survive in the Aitiascope coupled with the WoL conveniently ducking any questions as to how that happened so we could have our Ancient allies on our side was just an expected suspension of belief pushed too far for me, especially when they do bother to go to such lengths to display their disgust at their future actions.

(Also, did past-Lahabrea actually know about the future?)

Originally Posted by Brinne

...the Warrior of Light at happily accepting the offered kindness at the expense of their own feelings and agency and skipping away untroubled, leaving them to their horrible fates.

The one thing we have learned, as observers to the story, is that there is no averting that fate. They have been through it, and the fact that we are here in the modern day of the story proves that they have already been through it.

It's even touched on here as a "well, it happened, we're here and now we need to pick up the pieces and save this world now" – and on our final visit to the past, are under direct instructions from Lahabrea to not tell his past self anything.

From the WoL's perspective, if they chose to interfere, they would not prevent that suffering from happening, but would create a second world that is going to have its own new array of suffering, while at the same time cutting themselves off from (and for all they know, potentially destroying) their original world and all their friends. And they still would have not actually saved the Ascians from what they went through.

It was – barely – acceptable to do that to the 8UE timeline when they genuinely thought the world was going to be destroyed and everyone would be wiped out either way. But doing that to a living world wouldn't be heroic at all.

Plus, we're simply locked into the game as well as a narrative. We can't abandon this game setting for a new timeline.

I'll admit, I did enjoy Erich's final moments with his mother. That was a nice finish to his saga, even if his sudden reconciliation with his father having a rod re-inserted somewhere personal back in the past was a little less so. When it comes to Lahabrea, I like him best when he's at his most obnoxious (I love the unapologetically no-nonsense, abrasive types, particularly in a cast as mild-mannered as we often seem to find ourselves) and sort of branching off of that, his most uncomfortable, and in that respect I feel kind of cheated by the lack of any real confrontation between him and Athena especially (though it being more of Erich's thing wasn't the worst trade-off, I suppose.) I'm also sad we never got to see him at his most capable a la a full on Hades moment, given the repeated call-outs across the story for a while now at how powerful he was supposed to actually be, so his writing this patch took a bit of a downturn for me overall.

Themis is... complicated. I do like him, but unlike Emet-Selch I find the link between present-day him and past him to be too tenuous to fully connect the two. I know what you mean in terms of giving him a little more presence as a leader making sense, but... I personally enjoyed his previous characterisation as being more earnest, softly-spoken and in awe of what was around him. I felt he ended up a bit too "Alphinaud'd" for my liking, and we already have enough precocious youngers in the story, as charming as he is. Perhaps seeing him amongst the ranks of Azem and Emet might have brought that forward a little more? Who knows. My biggest problem, though, was the immediate dismissal of where his character actually ended up in 5.3/ 6.0 and choosing to have his final farewell as his authentic "self" being more or less a copy of who he is in the Panda storyline. It goes back to my original post and wound up souring me on his appearance this tier, unfortunately. I just couldn't buy into it.

Originally Posted by Brinne

(Also, I think it's a little funny that even the Absolute Worst and Most Evil Ancient wouldn't have become a serious threat on a wide scale if not for the intervention of an Alien Space Rock, but you know, the society and its people are just fundamentally rotten and had to be put down, everything was for the best, etc, etc. Endwalker!)

I was always interested in the concept of an "evil" Ancient and what danger their powers might have posed in the hands of such a person, but I guess the answer is: not a lot?

It's kind of weird, isn't it, how they go out of their way to justify Venat's actions with these laboured, long-winded metaphors on perfection-induced existential apathy and societal stagnation when a much more solid basis for her argument was right there.