Raelle posted:

I don't think the decision of whether or not you should intervene in the natural workings of the planet when nobody is going to die, and their needs will almost certainly be taken care of (scarcity did not seem to be a Thing in the old world) is one taken as necessarily lightly and easily as you suggest, from the Amaurotines' perspective, and as long-lived as they are. I mean, volcanic eruptions are necessary for the functions of our planet, too. I don't think Azem did wrong, but neither am I willing to just write the response of Amaurot as a whole off as "callous."

Raelle posted:

I mean, I understand being attached to Azem as a shining moral figure,

Badger of Basra posted:

“Lost control of our magic” is pretty explicit

thetoughestbean posted:

Not caring that people have to leave their homes because of a natural disaster is actually very callous. Even if they have the ability to rebuild elsewhere, it’s an incredibly stressful event to go through. (And the “let nature take its course” view is pretty similar to Sharlayan’s “let history take its course” view)

quote:

Also, the WoL was being chastised for reckless heroism, which is fundamentally different than being a character who goes and does things on the whim of liking shinies

quote:

Please don’t make assumptions about me. I don’t actually like that Azem exists as a character, I think the reveal that we’re the reincarnation of a member of the Convocation sucks rear end

Raelle posted:

I'm not sure I'd say it's as clear-cut as you're making it out to be. The story is being told from Emet's perspective, who knows Azem better than almost anyone else, and his reaction to the news of grapes is that he needs to lecture Azem on their priorities. Why would he do that if he didn't think it was likely the grapes were at least a legitimate part of the motive? If he wasn't used to Azem being driven in part by shiny, silly poo poo, just like the Warrior of Light? Emet's reaction consistently to Azem through both of his short stories is "fond exasperation", and the framework of the short story also implies that he's used to bailing Azem out of trouble constantly. That both of his friends are known for being irrepressible and irresponsible.

And, as others have said, the story is presented as lighthearted - Azem being a weirdo who's stealing Lahabrea's stuff for the sake of a landmass where no one is actually in danger. In addition to Azem being weird, the point is brought up to begin with because the Convocation has to convene to consider the matter of the volcano in the first place. They meet to discuss these matters and how to approach them, not take it as a given that everything non-Amaurot is "not their problem." As for the Warrior of Light, they are consistently characterized as benevolent and well-meaning, but also, at times, thoughtless and reckless as to the bigger picture. They've been called out on not understanding they're being used more than once, not thinking things through. Those things are not incompatible for Azem also being concerned for people, but people were not in danger - their traditional way of life, their produce, perhaps. That is worth considering. But if the people are safe, is that worth the Amaurotines taking the liberty of loving around with a natural process on their Star? That's a different conversation to have.
"clear that the game parallels Amaurot and Sharlayan", "Amaurot barely interacts with the rest of the world," "other things," are the things that are put forth to support the conclusion of "Amaurot was callously isolationist and is a condemnable flaw" that would need sourcing, in this case. A lot of people have put forth citations showing that Amaurot does, in fact, have multiple processes in interacting with the world and was working on multiple fronts to deal with the Final Days - and the parallels between Amaurot and Sharlayan seem to mostly come down to "They both know a lot of things. They are wise people in robes." Which seems to be jumping to conclusions.

Is there a connection? A lot of visual evidence says yes, probably. But "Sharlayan is bad, and is clearly Amaurot 2.0, therefore Amaurot is bad" is super leaping to conclusions at this stage.

Sharlayan is denying that the Final Days is even happening, and refuses to get involved even if "the world falls into ruin." Amaurot was fully aware the Final Days were happening, were scrambling to figure out what to do about it, and cared very, very deeply about the world at large. They have multiple monologues about how MUCH they love the world, enough for masses of them die for it, versus Sharlayan putting their own survival explicitly above everything. If anything, doesn't it make more sense if they're contrasts?

Raelle posted:

Raelle posted:

It sucks when an element of the story doesn't work for you! I don't like Gaius or the idea/approach towards him getting redeemed, so a lot of Werlyt was pretty painful for me too. I will happily embrace reading most things about him as uncharitably as possible, whether it was intended or not. Take that FFXIV writers!

Rand Brittain posted:

Uh, police? What?

He said we ought to wear a robe and mask because desiring to stand out from the crowd is childish and a little tacky.

thetoughestbean posted:

Obviously he meant the fashion police

Its Rinaldo posted:

Wark wark that's The Sound of the Fashion Police

Its Rinaldo posted:

Given how much the writers want players to have warm fuzzies for Emet "Builds Atrocity Factories to Genocide Planets" Selch, making Gaius more heroic is unsurprising.

Algid posted:

"It was grapes because that's what the text literally said" is like saying "a smile better suits a hero" is literally about the charcter smiling.

If Azem is meant to be a narrative parallel to the WoL which scenario do you think it's more likely for the WoL to encounter:

1. The WoL somehow personally finds out about an imminent volcano eruption on a deserted island and attempts to prevent it to save some grapes.

2. The WoL finds an isolated island village where a dude with a yellow exclamation mark tell him/her about the imminent volcano eruption, which he/she prevents, and receives grapes from the islander as a reward.

The narrative position of the WoL/Azem is someone who helps others while traveling the world. If the natives didn't desire the preservation of their homes, Azem (who visited and spoke with them) would not have acted just because of grapes he/she personally wanted to preserve.

quote:

The debate quest was also obviously meant to draw parallels to Sharlayan because one of the dialogue options was literally the same Louisoix quote we used in this latest patch against nerd-dad.

quote:

It was just one of the details painting the place as a real society instead of the literal paradise Emet remembered it as. Remember the dude telling us to put on our robes and masks before the police came for us? None of this suggests they "deserve" to be destroyed, or that their hubris caused their downfall or whatever. But they had real flaws, and acted and saw things through their own perspective, which is all very natural. You're the one deliberately ignoring all this because it doesn't fit with your head canon.

Cleretic posted:

I suspect that the End of Days didn't just start from any variety of the interpretation of 'heard a sound, then poo poo got weird'. If it was, Fandaniel would've emulated that. I suspect that, maybe, something less chaotic happened. Possibly just something a little more linear and focused than that, but... maybe something more organized.

Moofia Boss Val posted:

Given that Lahabrea is coming back in the 6.X patches and will probably get the warm and fuzzy treatment, it's only a matter of time before Teledji gets vindicated too.

Orcs and Ostriches posted:

Fandaniel can't emulate that. There's no one around that has that unfiltered creation magic.

Orcs and Ostriches posted:

Fandaniel can't emulate that. There's no one around that has that unfiltered creation magic.

Orcs and Ostriches posted:

Fandaniel can't emulate that. There's no one around that has that unfiltered creation magic.

thetoughestbean posted:

Not caring that people have to leave their homes because of a natural disaster is actually very callous. Even if they have the ability to rebuild elsewhere, it’s an incredibly stressful event to go through. (And the “let nature take its course” view is pretty similar to Sharlayan’s “let history take its course” view)

Its Rinaldo posted:

Given how much the writers want players to have warm fuzzies for Emet "Builds Atrocity Factories to Genocide Planets" Selch, making Gaius more heroic is unsurprising.

Endorph posted:

i hope we rebuild garlemald and make gaius god-king-emperor and he keeps the uniforms and the magitek and poo poo but its all just vaguely nice, cause thats almost literally what we did in ishgard. like imagine how many dragons aymeric brutally murdered as a temple knight. i prefer moral consistency in my games.

Moofia Boss Val posted:

The current Imperial uniforms will probably be kept for budgetary reasons. The devs said in a Shadowbringers interview that they had concept art for more sin eaters, but their art team was stretched thin and they couldn't make all of them. The uniforms might be recolored to not be black and red as before, but that color scheme is really iconic. Not worth the effort to establish a new look as it is doubtful we will see much of post-war Garlemald. The devs are in a rush to axe/rush/handwave all away all current story threads and wipe the slate clean to get on to their fresh new 7.0 stuff.

Raelle posted:

edit: all other unnamed atrocity committers (ie, hraesvelgr, yotsuyu, misija, gabranth) fall into a hidden "hm yeah that existed" category.

Dabog Field Notes posted:

In the IVth Imperial Legion, testing is only permitted upon living men when their safety is absolutely assured, and be it friend or foe, all individuals are to be treated with compassion. Thus has the legatus himself decreed. Perverting his commander's noble intent for his own ends, Sicinius reasoned that he was saving a man's life, and proceeded with his testing in secret.

Moofia Boss Val posted:

Wait, what atrocities did Gabranth commit? Are you talking about Dabog? Sicinius did that behind Gabranth's back and in secret.
And ofcourse, Gabranth never ordered Misija to temper people or to warp their bodies into the trinity monsters. That was all Misija being spiteful.

Waffleman_ posted:

Ah, another lovely day in Amaurot. I hope I do not make some hosed up giant caterpillar covered in mouths today.

Hey, what was that noise?

Jetrauben posted:

Point of order: Moore's Utopia, which Amaurot is a reference to, explicitly has its inhabitants periodically moved around so they won't get too attached to any one place. So, you know, "it's just a village, move and we'll make a new home" is entirely appropriate.

Amaurot is a gentle and utilitarian society of basically-for-all-extents-and-purposes-gods, who live incalculably long lives in harmony with nature and one another. A village is nothing. The idea that Amaurot just didn't care and was secretly a society of cruel monsters does kind of feel like people wanting to Stick it to the Precursors.

Jetrauben posted:

Point of order: Moore's Utopia, which Amaurot is a reference to, explicitly has its inhabitants periodically moved around so they won't get too attached to any one place. So, you know, "it's just a village, move and we'll make a new home" is entirely appropriate.

Amaurot is a gentle and utilitarian society of basically-for-all-extents-and-purposes-gods, who live incalculably long lives in harmony with nature and one another. A village is nothing. The idea that Amaurot just didn't care and was secretly a society of cruel monsters does kind of feel like people wanting to Stick it to the Precursors.

Captain Oblivious posted:

I wouldn’t necessarily assume anything he’s doing is based on a crystal clear understanding of the final days.

Blockhouse posted:

I feel like in a world where you can just fart out magic beings "losing your house" is at worst an inconvenience

Nessus posted:

I didn't get the impression that Amaurot ruled the world, either, although they obviously had a very nice city there. Which does potentially complicate things - because the people of Amaurot wouldn't have been aware that they were in some uniquely cosmic privileged position. The King of Carcosa or whatever might want them to butt out. (Azem, like Cuno, doesn't care.)

Raelle posted:

that our first instinct on seeing a people that consistently gentle towards children and lacking in personal malice doesn't necessarily have to be "nope, that can't exist, bet they're secretly jerks, can't wait to dig out their DIRTY SECRET FLAWS."

Cleretic posted:

Not really, actually. Like, if I lost control of a car, that could mean a lot of things based on context. They probably all end in crashing, but how they get there is very different, and might be very important to making sure it doesn't happen again. If I lost control of a horse, what that means depends on the horse; it might charge into a river, but it might also just go gently caress off and eat apples. Which could also be bad depending on why I'm on the horse.

'Losing control of magic' might mean they can't stop doing the magic, sure, it might be like losing control of a fire hose or cutting someone's brakes. But it might also be 'I keep trying to summon a weapon to fight this giant mouth-monster, but everything I try to summon is made of teeth and bites me', essentially the equivalent of loving with someone's steering instead; still in charge of 'stop' and 'go', but can't control beyond that. Which, again, is still a big problem for a society of people who solve all their problems with that magic.

We know how them losing control of their magic ends, we saw that part and there's no questioning that. We don't know exactly how it started. And maybe that won't matter, but you might be leading yourself down a wrong path by assuming that you do. Which could be an issue if it does end up mattering, like if the Sound happens again and so those currently-unclear early stages reoccur.

ZenMasterBullshit posted:

It isn't they just lost control. The dialogue is exixitly The Sound Took Their ability to control it away. This isn't your hands slipping off the driving wheel its you losing the ability to touch it.

This is just you trying to will text into existance that doesn't exist.