Thread: I hope the Writing doesn't remain like it did from Post 5.0 to Now (post 6.0)

Originally Posted by Cassar

do you (and everyone else who dislikes Emet) dislike him because you think he's a bad guy, or because you think he's just not well written?

I dislike him because he's presented inconsistently, and the way he's written in some parts is at odds with others.

First impressions matter, and his early interactions with Varis show him to be cruel and manipulative, basically abusive to Varis, with the implication that this how "Grandfather Solus" has treated him all his life. (It had the seeds of sending Varis off in a more sympathetic direction, together with what unknown secret plans we thought he might have had at the time of the parley and the old plot thread of the Warring Triad storyline suggesting we might become allies with him in future, but the writers tossed it all aside to make him a total villain who wants to use Black Rose for the sake of it.)

Then, as I outlined earlier, most of Shadowbringers gave you reasons to not trust him, hinted at his involvement in so many atrocities, then suddenly throwing the "actually you were friends once" thing at me – which felt so jarring exactly because I couldn't picture my character ever having been willing friends with someone who was so casually cruel and ruthless.

His sudden appearance at the Seat of Sacrifice should have been the last of him. It was a perfect send-off. If they wanted to tie up loose ends of what happened to the real Hythlodaeus, my guess/headcanon at the time was that G'raha has his soul, which I think would have rounded things off nicely.

Instead we got first the Tales From the Shadows, which delved into his mindset a bit more but also reframed the whole Convocation as a comedy, and then Endwalker itself was complicated. (Somewhere around here I had resigned myself to the mindset that I will need to at least attempt to like Emet if he gets mentioned again, because the writers are dead set on writing from the perspective that you like him.)

The first thing with Endwalker was that it made Emet inherently less "tragic" by reframing the whole situation. Where the language had previously pointed to people "giving up their life energies" to form Zodiark, and the Ascians obsessed with the impossible prospect of reviving what was already dead and gone and beyond reclaiming, they were now genuinely working to rescue people who could be rescued (with that little forever-glossed-over detail of whether the whole plan involved replacing willing souls with unwilling ones). Again it seems to be intended to make you think Emet is a good person, at least from the world as he experiences it, but the ambiguity – to say the least! – of how it affects people around him still makes it hard to accept that reframing.

And then we have Elpis, where we really have to put aside all his future misdeeds and like him there if he's likeable, but... meh. He's just non-stop prickly and unlikeable, even if he does get some funny remarks in sometimes, and I still can't picture him being friends with my character or even "Azem as an independent character" from what little we know of them. Hyth and Azem and maybe Venat as a group, sure, but it sounds like they're all bent on making Emet's life hell and it's not clear what they actually get out of each other as reciprocal friends.

And finally Ultima Thule where he's this messy tangle of behaving like his Elpis personality but also still insisting that all the things he did in his life were the right things to do, while also being in "we're back to being friends now" mode and he gets a happy ending that is... well, in isolation and in the context of "your old friend who has suffered for years doing what he thought was right", a very nice send-off and I liked that he and Hyth finally got what they always wanted: finish their life's purpose and depart the world together by choice. BUT, once again, that immediate niceness jars with the wider picture of what the game showed me of him, particularly the element of him never showing regret for what he did in his long time as an Ascian.

Showing is a key point, I think. We got told a lot that he is (or was) actually a good and noble soul in harsh circumstances, but we never really saw it.

Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

You don't have to agree with someone to sympathize with them. Understanding doesn't automatically mean acceptance. You can feel sorry that he has a tragic backstory while still agreeing that he's a villain and needs to be stopped.

I still find it problematic that (particularly in Shadowbringers) the sympathy card was thrown in at the end, inbetween his story-long untrustworthiness and outright trying to kill you all. It just feels forced.

I do think emet would work way more if he had doubts and being troubled over killing so many people and effectively doing the same thing too other worlds as has happened with the ancients. Like he knows what he does is utterly vile and evil but it’s the only way for zoodiarc too bring back all his friends and people he cared about. His smug and holier than thou attitude plus his quote “I do not consider you to be truly alive. Ergo, I will not be guilty of murder if I kill you.” is the most villain thing you can do and then thing people feel bad about him. Like they had even the chance too make him light hearted and not a tsundere in Elpis and explain his shitty ass behavior in the future with this. Like from mildly grumpy too mega grumpy isn’t a good character arc.

Always interesting to read different perspectives on Emet, even if it was already talked about many times in the past and you guys are probably already tired of repeating yourselves.

I can definitely see it being annoying to have to deal with the story assuming you like a character when in reality you don't. I know a lot of people have this kind of issue with Zenos too and it was even mentioned in a QnA session I believe - when they were thinking of how to make the main character react to the mention of Zenos in 6.4.

I think everything you said is valid, there's not much that I can add or counter argue as it all comes down to opinion. As I said previously, it's just very unfortunate that this ended up happening with this character.

What I can say is what I personally feel, which is the fact that I never really cared too much about the intricacies of his character. I knew his purpose and motives, I put myself in his shoes and I thought "Damn, I probably would do the same thing". And in the end that's really all I need to appreciate the character.
When it comes to personality, I think I subconsciously cast that aside as a factor. Going back to the Asahi example: absolutely despicable personality, but I still like the character.
But of course, as always, to each their own.

Either way, still good to see different perspectives and here's hoping whoever's the next big evil man is enjoyable for everyone .

Originally Posted by Cassar

What I can say is what I personally feel, which is the fact that I never really cared too much about the intricacies of his character. I knew his purpose and motives, I put myself in his shoes and I thought "Damn, I probably would do the same thing". And in the end that's really all I need to appreciate the character.
When it comes to personality, I think I subconsciously cast that aside as a factor. Going back to the Asahi example: absolutely despicable personality, but I still like the character.
But of course, as always, to each their own.

In a character focused story, how much you like the character is invariably going to factor in to if that character's story is sympathetic.

Here's the thing about bringing in Asahi as a comparison: you're not supposed to like him. He's an absolutely detestable, loathsome and pathetic guy, and is absolutely designed to be, there's not a sympathetic bone in his body. He's designed for one purpose, and that purpose is 'make you want to give him a swirlie'; you not liking him is the character working as intended, and his intention is very simple. Hell, that purpose comes back when Amon takes his body; the fact he's got Asahi's body shortcuts how we're supposed to feel about him, you immediately kick off with the intended response of thinking this guy's kind of a dolt, a response that they build on in interesting ways.

Emet's a much more complex situation, because there's a few layers going on. But the ones relevant to this for me: he's a character who asks for sympathy to some degree, but has the personality and demeanor of some of the worst people I've met in my life. On a logical level I can engage with the facts of his story and recognize that those are probably sympathetic and land at one of the intended responses of 'I can get why someone would get themselves into this position, but I don't feel I would do that'. But Emet's personality is an undismissable element: he's too strong a personality, too impossible to divorce from his own story. And for me, and several others that frequently get drowned out in greater discussion, that personality does more to hurt his point than help it, both for directly related reasons of 'this person doesn't seem like he's trustworthy or genuine' and more unrelated reasons of 'I don't like this guy, so I'm less inclined to like his point'.

The inconsistency that people have noted in Emet's writing results from flanderization. His original story arc from late Stormblood through to the end of the 5.0 MSQ was enjoyable, and he was an interesting villain. He's ultimately an Ardyn expy, but a well executed one.

What him uniquely popular was Azem, and the last minute revelation that we were secretly friends all along from another life. Couple that with the transition from 'You will not inherit our legacy' to 'Fine, you can inherit our legacy' and you have a strong audience hook.

The end result of this popularity surge was that the Tales of the Shadows short stories and Endwalker flanderized him from ruthless psychopath to facepalming softy. It's a bit like trying to redeem Kefka or Sephiroth and turn them into your buddies at the end of their respective stories. It would make for a cute AU spin-off manga idea, but trying to actually work it into story canon makes for a bit of whiplash. I think that's what people take issue with in his writing.

It's perfectly fine for a villain to just be a villain.

Originally Posted by Lyth

What him uniquely popular was Azem, and the last minute revelation that we were secretly friends all along from another life. Couple that with the transition from 'You will not inherit our legacy' to 'Fine, you can inherit our legacy' and you have a strong audience hook.

That depends entirely on whether you actually like the whole "the WoL is Azem reborn" thing, which many people do NOT.

Personally, I almost laughed out loud at the audacity of the writing team when they pulled the "actually you're the secret extra special SUPER chosen one!" card, and spent most of EW unable to take anything seriously.

Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

Personally, I almost laughed out loud at the audacity of the writing team when they pulled the "actually you're the secret extra special SUPER chosen one!" card, and spent most of EW unable to take anything seriously.

I tend to resign myself to the whole "chosen one" narrative, since it's often par for the course in any remotely linear RPG (even if you aren't innately super ultra extra special, the player character is still often saddled with immense responsibility or even authority; they'll never get to be "just another adventurer"), and of course I wouldn't want to write that off because it obviously does well to heighten the stakes in any context where your character is the "main" character. And power fantasies like that, in general, are very broadly appealing. But man... I sure rolled my eyes at the Azem revelation lol.

In the same way that I took issue with the revelation that much of the fauna we've seen since the game's introduction are all or mostly descendants of Ancient creations... There's just something about things like that that both make the world feel smaller and also diminish its (and its characters) identities in my mind. It just feels so reductive and unimaginative.

I've already long distinguished my character from the WoL who we play in the MSQ, because of how simultaneously too-broad and too-limited their characterization is, how they interact with the narrative, etc. And I'm fine with that, I'm not really complaining; this isn't Pathfinder or Baldur's Gate or even Dragon Age (where at least you get to have the illusion of personality), that's not what we're here for. But indisputably Mary Sue-y elements like being Azem reincarnated -- for no other reason than that it ingratiates or at least elevates the WoL in the eyes of pivotal characters -- something like that makes the story, even on its own merits, less compelling to me. Especially when the WoL is already so painfully exceptional without it that it's practically inconsequential. And outside of the Ancient/Ascian stuff, it is (or has been) inconsequential, which is its one saving grace, while also making it that much more frustrating, imo.

But... c'est la vie, I guess! In light of its context, at least, I assume it won't play too much into future storylines. But it certainly chafed for a hot minute.