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

[SannaR]

The thing is we don't know how many didn't result in a rejoining calamities were of our own doing and had no Ascian involvement. As we do know they are capable of doing a slow burn/long con as that's what Bahamut ended up becoming. Course the destruction of knowledge probably was a necessary evil in that if anyone had started to pick up on the pattern they settled on for the rejoining calamities or signs of Ascian involvement would need to be wiped out. Or I doubt we'd of had seven successful rejoinings. Heck the fact that the 7th barely happened is probably proof that someone did. Course we wouldn't have a game to play if that didn't happen. Or at least not the one with the same set up. I would love to see past civilization architecture in game just to see which ones were the ones being manipulated as they seem to not be able to help themselves in adding some unsundered aesthetics. Which you only start to notice in places you know were influenced by them.

[tokinokanatae]

In regards to Amaurot and the Ancients int his respect, 'what he's hiding' is, I think, actually just more of the general imperfections of Ancient society rather than any greatly damning smoking gun. When he discusses Amaurot he wants to paint them as essentially 'perfect angel' victims, both materially and morally, to really accentuate that whole 'we didn't deserve what happened to us' element.

Ok, putting aside the idea of how on earth you can think a recreation of Amaurot where we have to wait in the DMV for several hours is somehow Emet-Selch’s version that is supposed to tug at our heartstrings and make us realize the innate superiority of his people, you do understand that it’s not nefarious for Emet-Selch to put forth that his people didn’t deserve to die, right?

Of all the things he could possibly be doing, showing us what amounts to old pictures of his home that no longer exists—and now has no chance of ever existing again—is about as diabolical as my mom getting weepy over old Christmas pictures from when I was a kid.

Venat literally speaks of the Ancients in similarly glowing terms! Do you think she has an angle when she talks about the people she loves so much?

[tokinokanatae]

I think a lot of this ‘perfect angels’ talk also missed the meta context in which we are introduced to Amaurot and the concept of Ancients.

Namely, that it’s after three games worth of material where the most prominent remaining representations of their culture are masked evildudes that alternately hang out in a random jail cell or a purple and black void, muttering about their evil plans.

Bad is the default way of looking at Emet-Selch and his fellow Ascians before we get to Amaurot. The entire reason Amaurot has power is because it’s a gut-punch of a twist, a poignant illustration of a time when the Ascians were just people, who loved, and argued, and lived. The game is making the case they deserve to at least be remembered in that context.

[Lunaxia]

And to circle the topic back around to the OP: for what it's worth, I got my hands on a Japanese translation of the codex text, and unsurprisingly it made no mention of the Convocation ordering anyone to sacrifice themselves to Zodiark. All it said was:

"To summon Zodiark, approximately half of the survivors of the Final Days offered up their lives as sustenance, while the representatives of mankind, the Convocation of Fourteen, performed the ritual [lit. art/ magic."]

So there you go.

[SannaR]

And to circle the topic back around to the OP: for what it's worth, I got my hands on a Japanese translation of the codex text, and unsurprisingly it made no mention of the Convocation ordering anyone to sacrifice themselves to Zodiark. All it said was:

"To summon Zodiark, approximately half of the survivors of the Final Days offered up their lives as sustenance, while the representatives of mankind, the Convocation of Fourteen, performed the ritual [lit. art/ magic."]

So there you go.

So is this a case where English doesn't have a proper word or where they felt like adding some flavor?

[Kozh]

So is this a case where English doesn't have a proper word or where they felt like adding some flavor?

I would say this is the case of EN localizer pushing their agenda to make the Ancients "scary". The same as previous "improvisations" people have been pointing out.

For example, y'shtola's line of "We have seen the havoc it may wreak" in 5.4 when speaking about Zodiark, which happens before EW and therefore doesn't make any sense. Meanwhile that part doesn't exist in other languages

[KageTokage]

I think that idea is coming from Ericthonios' remark about "defying the will of the Convocation" by not offering his soul for Zodiark at the end of Pandaemonium.

I can understand why some would think it sounded like they were forcing people to do it, but the way saw it was more he simply didn't show up when they were looking for volunteers, not that they were forcing specific individuals to participate.

It's not like they really had a choice in the matter given the gravity of the situation.

[Roselin]

Ableism and racism are two things that actually tend to be quite linked with one another, as an example my people were decreed to be mentally disabled on a racial basis and subjected to forced sterilizations during the eugenics period.
But I do indeed agree that the dynamic between sundered and unsundered reads more like ableism than racism, specifically because, while both terms focus a lot on bio-essential traits, racism is almost always laced with a culture, religion, and language element too, which is completely absent from Emet's framing of the sundered vs unsundered (the impulsivity he criticizes the sundered for is more connected with neurodivergence than culture).

Now the dynamic between the playerbase and the unsundered however, that one reads like unintentional racism to me (please keep in mind I am not trying to say people are being racist here). Everything from the "they were no angels" rhetoric, to the "evil savages" rhetoric, to the "they were biologically inferior due to dynamis" argument, to the "it was a necessary evil/it was for the greater good" argument, to the "they were doomed anyway so it's fine" argument. It is all rhetoric and arguments that the settlers use to justify what they did to my people, which is quite uncomfortable to me since the ancients read almost like an indigenous-coded people to me.

To explain a bit more. On the "they were no angels" one, every time my people try to point out and celebrate the positives of our culture, the settlers come along to remind us of all the bad parts, as if to blunt the horror of the genocide they committed against us.
We're not allowed to ever, ever just talk about the positives as a way to lift ourselves up after the endless demonization and dehumanization we're subjected to.

For the "evil savages" one, it's the "harsher" so to speak of the above one, actively putting us down by claiming we were evil, murderous, degenerate savages who simply needed to be "civilized" or outright removed for both our own and the rest of mankind's sake (in case you are wondering how this applies to playerbase criticisms of the ancients... I have seen an immense amount of "they deserved it cause they were evil/callous/uncaring" arguments).

I don't think I even need to say much on the "they couldn't use dynamis" argument, because that's literally just unfiltered eugenics.

As for the "necessary evil/greater good" argument, yeah I've heard that one before so many times as well, we simply had to go because our genes were polluting mankind and it was weakening mankind to a point where we were a threat to the future of the world, that or our "primitive ways" would stifle their beloved "progress" by "occupying" so much land that could be "developed" so therefore us and our culture simply had to be removed "for the greater good".

And finally for the "they were doomed anyway" argument, this one is literally just "I don't consider you alive therefore it's not murder", because truth is we're all doomed, we're all gonna die one day, every breath you take is just you "delaying the inevitable", every culture, every species, will go extinct one day in the future. But that is no reason to abandon the present, every moment of every life that is currently alive is precious and irreplaceable, they deserved to live out their lives and meet whatever natural doom would come to them one day.

[Brinne]

snip

Thanks for sharing your perspective. Although I’m a racial minority where I live, I’m not indigenous, so I never felt it was appropriate for me to try to talk about - but the line where the Ancients are referred to as “the first people” immediately struck me as I was playing. Coupled with the rhetoric used against them, it’s, yeah. It starts getting to be an uncomfortable reminder of how amenable a lot of people still are to those kinds of arguments, unfortunately, especially if there’s plausible deniability.

[RyuDragnier]

snip

Did...you really just call everybody in the playerbase a racist?