Zodiark's Codex entry what do we think about it?

[Cleretic]

Personally, I constantly argue that Emet was wrong about intelligence, for the simple example of 'every time an Ascian died, it was because they were outsmarted by sundered people'. That's not exactly the most scientific measuring criteria, but in a story it speaks volumes more than if someone produced, like, the Etheiryan equivalent of IQ scores.

If I were being generous, Emet might be falling for a fallacy that I wish had an actual name: the belief that 'less advanced' civilizations must have less intelligent people in them. In the modern day it manifests as variants of 'people in the past were stupid' (see: 'ancient Egyptians couldn't have built the pyramids, it must've been aliens'), and of course, it's a backbone of a whole lot of racist outlooks on the world (see: 'colonialism was good because it brought 'modernity' to other countries'). It's a view usually born of a combination of not recognizing that human intelligence is built on a mountain of previous discoveries, having a selective and self-centered view of 'knowledge' in the first place, and drawing your own criteria for 'success' to put yourself on top. Basically, from Emet's perspective, the sundered people must be less intelligent, because a real intelligent society could've come up with skyscrapers, Elpis, and the cubus, and he's just ignoring or belittling the advancements they actually are making.

...and as a sick addition to that: remember that the big reason the Source has lost a bunch of information they can't easily learn from and build on is because the Ascians keep forcing their advanced civilizations to blow themselves to smithereens.

[Lurina]

Amaurot's beliefs around conformity and governance aren't overly important, because everyone has their own cultural preferences and biases around these things. Unfortunately, there's no guarantee that the leadership of a democratic system need intrinsically be less corrupt and self-serving than a nation led by a self-selecting group of oligarchs. Even if the Convocation's rule was absolute, at the very least you could come to see them as benevolent dictators prior to Zodiark's influence. Conscription into public service is just a practical consideration that can occur in any society.

The real question is simply whether you unironically take Emet's beliefs that his people were 'superior' to ours at face value. I think if you do want to artificially elevate the Amaurotines to be 'superior' to the rest of us, then you are in fact depriving them of their humanity. How could mere mortals like ourselves attempt to relate to the whims of 'the gods'? If, on the other hand, you recognize that Emet's claims are strongly influenced by his jingoism, then you're humanizing Amaurot. We've seen plenty of empires through history that have claimed to be 'the greatest nation that ever was', even when they're well past their prime. What's to say that Amaurot is any different from the likes of ancient Rome?

I don't think anyone in the current conversation is arguing the Ancients are intrinsically superior people than modern ones in the setting. They seem more peaceful and to have more communal values, but that's more a product of circumstance than nature. Even if the real world, people who don't have to contend with scarcity much tend to (with a strong emphasis on those last two words) be more educated and less prone to conflict, but it's a reactionary perspective to think this is evidence of them being somehow less "savage" on any kind of fundamental level. It's easy to emotionally disarm oneself and get used to thinking about the big picture when life is comfortable and you're not constantly competing to survive.

That being said, while Emet is a racist (even if it's more of a coping mechanism than a sincerely held belief, as Y'shtola points out explicitly at the end of Ultima Thule) I think it's a mischaracterization to say he's an Amaurotine-supremacist in specific. Let's look at his dialogue from The View From Above:

What? You thought ancient beings like us incapable of crying? Well, rest assured that if your heart can be broken, then so can mine! Back when the world was whole, we had family, friends, loves... Men knew peace and contentment, and with our adamant souls, we could live for an age. There was no conflict born of want or disparity. Our differences paled into insignificance next to all we had in common. And then there was Amaurot... Never was a city more magnificent. From the humblest streets to the highest spires, she fairly gleamed..."

Emet singles out Amaurot and obviously holds a special affection for it as his home, but he doesn't idolize Amaurotines as superior from other Ancient humans. In all his dialogue, he only compares ancient mankind in totality with modern mankind in totality. He's less a jingoist nationalist - if Garlemald and Allag are good examples, he regards jingoism as an exploitable flaw with Sundered humanity more than anything - and more an extremely stubborn version of the protagonist of I Am Legend, killing what he regards as undead abominations born of the "real" human race.

Still, it's frustrating how the text talks about Amaurot because it feels like the writers can't decide if they wanted it to be the only real culture of the Ancients (how EW and the grapes short story seems to lean) or just one of many (as ShB seems to lean). The Codex entries in particular seem to treat "Ancients" as synonymous with "Amaurotines" and the Convocation as some sort of global government in defiance of Debate and Discourse's worldbuilding, which is something I find extremely annoying - my headcanon is that Amaurot became the global government by virtue of being the last one standing, but that's a stab in the dark. So it's difficult to say what their relationship was to other nations, and whether they really were "provinces" or if Amaurot was just the Sharlayan of the time and a little conceited about itself.

[Cleretic]

That said, it's frustrating how the text talks about Amaurot because it feels like the writers can't decide if they wanted it to be the only real culture of the Ancients (how EW and the grapes short story seems to lean) or just one of many (as ShB seems to lean). The Codex entries in particular seem to treat "Ancients" as synonymous with "Amaurotines" and the Convocation as some sort of global government in defiance of Debate and Discourse's worldbuilding, which is something I find extremely annoying - my headcanon is that Amaurot became the global government by virtue of being the last one standing, but that's a stab in the dark. So it's difficult to say what their relationship was to other nations, and whether they really were "provinces" or if Amaurot was just the Sharlayan of the time and a little conceited about itself.

I never actually read it as implying other nations. I think the main thing you're thinking of in Shadowbringers, by your mention of it, is this one?

Loquacious Amaurotine: As to the matter of what subject we shall debate today, I propose the recent calamity which has befallen our friends across the pond. What say you? The singular point of contention is, of course, whether or not Amaurot should intervene on their behalf. I believe we should. The scale of the disaster which threatens that distant metropolis is of a scale heretofore unseen, and so equally considerable resources must be committed to counteracting its effects.

Amaurotine Firebrand: I disagree. The scale concerns me less than the nature of the proposition itself. Who are we to unilaterally intervene in the affairs of those half a world away? Are we to be the saviors of one and all? Such arrogance may well lead to our own downfall.

The main thing here that suggests 'different nation' is just raw distance; it feels fairly unlikely that a city 'half a world away' could be in the same nation. However, that's not only completely valid in certain contexts, it's also been true in the game's setting; the Garlean and Allagan Empires both had pretty far-flung colonies, and while I can't imagine either having that conversation because of their worldviews, I could see them talking about those further-out colonies in a similar way. (Also, if Emet did indeed design Allag to be reminiscent of his homeland, as suggested in a couple areas, we can therefore at least assume Amaurot to be a very large nation.)

All that said, I think in the overall view of the narrative from a Doylist perspective, we can definitely recognize Amaurot as the only relevant Ancient culture/nation. It's the only one we hear about and the only one we have any clear, non-circumstantial evidence of; whether they were a one-world government or not doesn't really change any part of the story as presented to us.

[Brinne]

Emet singles out Amaurot and obviously holds a special affection for it as his home, but he doesn't idolize Amaurotines as superior from other Ancient humans. In all his dialogue, he only compares ancient mankind in totality with modern mankind in totality. He's less a jingoist nationalist - if Garlemald and Allag are good examples, he regards jingoism as an exploitable flaw with Sundered humanity more than anything - and more an extremely stubborn version of the protagonist of I Am Legend, killing what he regards as undead abominations born of the "real" human race.

Yeah, to be honest, the push towards a filter of seeing some kind of IRL racism analogue onto the situation with the Ascians and the Sundered has always felt a little bizarre to me. (It was the furthest thing from my mind when I got to Amaurot. What I immediately thought was that, 'ah, I see, this is some kind of fascinating metacommentary - something like real people versus video game characters, isn't it?') There is no actual context for racism that matches up to the Sundered versus Unsundered situation - the dramatic, objective physical differences to the point that it's confirmed they should be seen as different species altogether, and the historical context of "one 'race' being literally made of the bones of the murdered members of the other 'race'," or one race undeniably having to exist at the expense of another. If you try to apply this to any situation with racial tensions we have here on Earth, it gets real gross real fast.

I think it's better regarded as a fantasy-laced thought experiment, like your example of a flipped perspective of someone dealing with what would normally be considered 'zombie abominations'. If you really wanted to compare it to a form of prejudice in reality, ableism, as you mentioned, would probably be more fitting.

But to be blunt, the way it often keeps getting forcefully pushed - into conversations and discussions that had nothing to do with the topic, and via soft browbeating anyone who expresses potential sympathy on any level towards the Ascians as therefore sympathizing with racial supremicism or what have you - and the way it so often goes hand in hand with denigrating the Ancients themselves as a people and a culture, it comes across like it's less about actually opposing racism in principle and more about nursing a really deep-seated grudge about feeling personally insulted by Emet-Selch, especially in the context of a video game power fantasy.

For me, as a thought experiment, Shadowbringers (very gently) actually challenging the power fantasy was why it was so memorable. To ask the question, point blank, "if it isn't a given that we, the assigned protagonists, are the ones who are 'superior' by whatever measure, and who 'deserve to live' more, then what? How do we respond? What do we do?" And I absolutely loved Shadowbringers's answer for it. I don't have a problem, personally, acknowledging that there are individuals even within my own species who are better or superior than me in certain respects - athleticism, gaming skills, what have you. What many able-bodied people are able to do that I struggle with at the best of times. And sometimes, yes, even the capacity to make moral decisions, rather than self-interested ones. But that doesn't mean I don't have a right to live, just as much as anyone else.

Shadowbringers was compelling for asserting, and presenting a situation where, the only way to "win" against the question asked by Emet-Selch is to throw out the entire framework altogether. Hence why the Scions don't - can't - present any meaningful arguments against his claims of "superiority" in one realm or another - Alphinaud simply asserts that it doesn't matter in terms of being allowed to exist, and he was absolutely right.

It meant, and still means, a lot to me.

[Lunaxia]

The real question is simply whether you unironically take Emet's beliefs that his people were 'superior' to ours at face value.

Objectively they were superior, from both a physical and intellectual standpoint. The story demonstrates this endlessly. Whether they were fundamentally morally superior is much more of a grey area, and the answer isn't so easily ascertained. But it was never about whether Emet-Selch's assertions about mortals were true or not in the first place, but how they deserved to live in in spite of those flaws - and the advantages said flaws may have even given them over the Ancients to better enable them to survive in the context of the story.

I think if you do want to artificially elevate the Amaurotines to be 'superior' to the rest of us, then you are in fact depriving them of their humanity. How could mere mortals like ourselves attempt to relate to the whims of 'the gods'?

Amaurot, Elpis and the Ancients we've seen thus far in both the MSQ and Pandaemonium manage to do this quite well, actually, because despite our differences we are also constantly shown to possess an abundance of similarities on both a personal and emotional level. It's basically one of the key driving points of the narrative from Shadowbringers onwards.

If, on the other hand, you recognize that Emet's claims are strongly influenced by his jingoism, then you're humanizing Amaurot.

"The only way to truly humanise the Ancients is to disregard accepted lore and accept my bad faith argument that the they were inherently racist." I'm sorry, but do you realise how ridiculous this sounds?

This sort of thinking opens up avenues for a wider range of story possibilities, rather than tying all stories and historical developments back to an isolationist Amaurot ruling over the 'provinces' from on high. It also opens up Azem's origin story as well, because they need not be tied down to one specific culture by birth or upbringing.

Fans of the Ancients already ask these sorts of questions, and I wasn't under the impression anyone did think Amaurot was the sole form of governance in the Ancient world. The debate on sending foreign aid to their neighbours effectively put paids to that theory, no?

Edit: The shades in Amaurot refer to this other nation as a "metropolis", so by that we can definitively infer that at least one, if not more societies similar to Amaurot did exist.

[Lunaxia]

I think the Ascians for sure frequently underestimated the resilience, resourcefulness and intelligence of the sundered. I don't think you're wrong there. It's a common trait in "mastermind" villains, and such arrogance is more often than not what leads to the downfall of such characters in the majority of stories they feature in. But I'm not inclined to think they threw that in amidst other qualities the sundering did have an effect on just to illustrate Emet-Selch being an ass, lol. I mean, the Scions are comprised of some of the brightest minds in Eorzea, and as Vyreus pointed out it took an entire group of them plus the strength of possibly the most powerful/ skilled warrior living to collectively overcome a single Ascian who had maintained a large degree of his powers, and even then it was close, even if they did triumph in the end. The only Ascian we have come close to defeating in a one-on-one battle has been remarked upon as being severely cracked and weakened from years of body-hopping resulting in a steady slide into insanity (...or an alien space rock, if you buy into that.)

Though for the record, I'm also not asserting there's a clear boundary between Ancient intelligence and sundered intelligence - I imagine there's an overlap at the extreme ends of both spectrums, nor am I suggesting that higher levels of intelligence automatically correlates with the ability to apply it effectively. It's no secret smart people can be really dumb; such intelligence isn't an adequate substitute for emotional intelligence, common sense or poor judgement, which we can often see in the real world, and I don't think the Ancients are any exception to that. Some of the quests in Elpis demonstrate this pretty well.

As for Emet-Selch, I think what pissed him off regarding the sundered isn't their inability to reach technological milestones (especially since as you say, such progress was frequently trashed by their side anyway) but the way they allow their base instincts of greed, selfishness, malice, and violence to dictate their actions and create widespread destruction and tragedy. It's basically anathema to what the Ancients believed in and how they operated, so his disdain isn't really surprising.

[Cleretic]

As for Emet-Selch, I think what pissed him off regarding the sundered isn't their inability to reach technological milestones (especially since as you say, such progress was frequently trashed by their side anyway) but the way they allow their base instincts of greed, selfishness, malice, and violence to dictate their actions and create widespread destruction and tragedy. It's basically anathema to what the Ancients believed in and how they operated, so his disdain isn't really surprising.

First of all: Again, their fault. Like, if that were truly his point, he's weakened it by intrusion. Real 'stop hitting yourself' energy there.

Second of all: Our trips into Elpis and (especially) Pandaemonium have shown that Ancients can absolutely be greedy, selfish, malicious and violent, and in fact, I would argue that every single Ascian we've met was all four of those. You could argue perhaps that Amaurot was better set up to counteract those, but I would argue otherwise and point to Pandaemonium; they were pretty ripe for a bad actor to do some real damage.

Honestly, with this point I've never seen anything resembling evidence that Ancients were actually smarter than sundered people (and the writers can write 'smarter species than humans' fairly convincingly; the dragons, the Omicron and the Ea come to mind, although they had their own problems), but I have seen ample evidence that Emet would lie to both us and ourselves to make the Ancients look better and like more of a tragic loss, and us as worse.

[Brinne]

I have seen ample evidence that Emet would lie to both us and ourselves to make the Ancients look better and like more of a tragic loss, and us as worse.

I mean, they were. They were absolutely a tragic loss.

Putting aside things like how inherently absurd it is to blame three ghost wizards for the totality of mankind’s vices, it continues to be very strange to me how much of a sticking point pointing at one of the sole survivors of what was a total eradication and erasure of his people (who is now four years real-time dead himself) and yelling “your dead race wasn’t as smart as you think they were!” I mean… okay, I guess. Are the Ancients less worth mourning if they weren’t as super smart as he claims, somehow? Are the Sundered less worth defending if they were?

The important thing to understand about Emet (it somehow always returns to Emet, even following a patch where he wasn’t even mentioned…) is that his rationalizations don’t even matter that much in the end, because none of it is the actual core reason he’s doing what he is, which is simply love and duty. The rest is fluff he layers on top to make it easier for himself because he hates it.

[SpectrePhantasia]

First of all: Again, their fault. Like, if that were truly his point, he's weakened it by intrusion. Real 'stop hitting yourself' energy there.

What do you think Emet-selch meant by 'measured your worth?' Him having a hand in Calamities doesn't take away from his point about the Sundered's nature. Unless you're about to tell me the Ascians are behind every catastrophe that's ever occurred in Sundered history. If anything, he has *more* of a point, because the strategies that he used to cause Rejoinings-- that of forming governments that collapse under the corruption of the Sundered who participate in it, worked both of the times he did it. It's quite literally the fact they are so easily exploitable in causing violence that he has a problem with.

The "Ascians" as we know them are hollowed out husks who've endured 12,000 years of suffering and obsession. Why would you use them, of all people, to judge what Emet is saying about their society in it's prime? People like Athena were dangerous *because* they were exceptional. The Ancients were ill prepared for the kind of person who would cause widespread destruction, because its not something that they oft contended with in their society. For the Sundered, that is Tuesday.

[Cleretic]

The important thing to understand about Emet (it somehow always returns to Emet, even following a patch where he wasn’t even mentioned…) is that his rationalizations don’t even matter that much in the end, because none of it is the actual core reason he’s doing what he is, which is simply love and duty. The rest is fluff he layers on top to make it easier for himself because he hates it.

Well, the thing with Emet in these discussions is that he's such a huge part of the framing of Amaurot. All of our learning about Ancient society in Shadowbringers either came directly from him, or were very directly connected to him (namely, Anamnesis only coming up because it wasn't Emet-curated), and his presence casts a shadow over what we learn in Endwalker, not just by way of him literally being there in Elpis, but through us inevitably comparing what we see to what he's said before. Even the parts unrelated to Emet become related to Emet, because he's our big initial touchpoint for them, so the inevitable thing we compare it to is 'what Emet said'.

And when Emet is not the most reliable source for several reasons, I find it important to interrogate his stated perspectives rather than just take it as a given. Emet always worked an angle, he was never just giving the unvarnished truth, so when he's the only source for a claim I think it's fair to call it into question. There's plenty of other sources I'd give similar scrutiny, but when it comes to Amaurot, Emet's the one that always comes up.

What do you think Emet-selch meant by 'measured your worth?' Him having a hand in Calamities doesn't take away from his point about the Sundered's nature. Unless you're about to tell me the Ascians are behind every catastrophe that's ever occurred in Sundered history. If anything, he has *more* of a point, because the strategies that he used to cause Rejoinings-- that of forming governments that collapse under the corruption of the Sundered who participate in it, worked both of the times he did it. It's quite literally the fact they are so easily exploitable in causing violence that he has a problem with.

I should say that I don't judge the Ancients as a society by the Ascians circa the Seventh Astral Era; that's absolutely in bad faith, and if you thought that was my intention, I misrepresented my own views. I more meant that, if Shadowbringers-Emet thought that about the sundered people (that sentence was more just an example by Lynaxia than text, though), he was at that point very hypocritical given both his own actions and those of his colleagues.

But I think Emet claiming he 'measured our worth' is more post-hoc justification on his part than actual reasoning. He and the other Ascians were going to perform the Calamities regardless, and maybe at some point early on they felt bad about that, but by the time we meet him in Shadowbringers he's well and truly too far down that road to be swayed. His way of testing us (as in, the WoL and Scions) was an inherently rigged game we couldn't have possibly won, and by the developers' own admission in interviews he had no plan for if we succeeded; he wasn't truly looking for us to prove him wrong, he was fishing for evidence he was right.