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Jetrauben posted:The pixies are also children with effectively zero introspection, to the point that when their friends are about to die they basically shrug and go "well that's a bummer, who wants lunch?" Not really? Like there's an obvious undercurrent of her inheriting from Titania but the final culmination is Tyr Beq is invoking the memory of Titania to say she wants to help this new person, An Lad, who is suffering. An Lad isn't Titania she basically just has magic pixie clinical depression. Y'shtola inherits Matoya's name (and obvs some life experience due to being tutored by her) but is not Matoya. Ryne inherits a lot of Minfilia's abilities and even initially her appearance, but she is Ryne. The WoL and Ardbert inherit fragments of Azem's soul, but they're not Azem. The source and thirteen shards inherited their world from the Amaurotines but they're not the Amaurotines. Which ties neatly into one of the other major narrative threads in Shadowbringers - that the new have a right to their existence and the old don't have a right to take that away from them.
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Oct 21, 2021 17:54
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The idea that the new worlds' existence is itself valid doesn't at all require a linear separation though. And some of those examples are just weird - Matoya and Y'shtola aren't remotely related in terms of essential nature, just in terms of mentorship and de facto parentage. And Ryne is conceptually "the same person" as Minfilia having been basically spiritually fused, which is why she has that whole conversation with her predecessor about whether she wants to submit to the older and wiser original Minfilia who is just tired and miserable, or take the lead. They are the same spiritual person, it's about a more squishy notion of self-conception. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Oct 21, 2021 |
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Oct 21, 2021 17:55
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Memory, body, soul are the three distinct aspects that make up a person in FF14 lore. Y'shtola inherits Matoya's memory in a way, Ryne inherits the physical appearance and abilities of Minfilia, and the WoL inherits (part of) the soul of Azem. And while the idea that the new's existence is valid doesn't require linear separation, that is a large part of how the story goes about establishing that. By illustrating all the ways characters inherit things from the people that came before them without just being them nor being beholden to them. Also Minfilia directly compares herself to an Ascian. She isn't spiritually fused with Ryne unless you think Thancred was spiritually fused to Lahabrea.
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Oct 21, 2021 18:06
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the major theme of ShB, to the point where they recently called it out in an interview as a major part of the entire ARR-EW narrative overall, is 'inheritor to the soul'. Not rebirth of the soul or ascension to the soul or any other term that would mean sublimating yourself to a greater identity, but 'inheritor'. You're the next in line, a part of a chain but not the same, just like you and Ardbert are part of the same soul but distinct people with distinct lives. We 'are' Azem in the sense that our soul was made with Azem's fragmented soul but we are not 'Azem'. That's the reason Emet gets so emotional with our character, he sees his friend in us but knows we very much are not them and it disgusts him. Same with the guy we talk to at the waiting room who calls out Ardbert as part of our soul, two parts of a whole but the parts are independent and unique, he never acts like we're Azem, in fact he calls the thing Emet sees in us a 'part of her/him'. Inheritance is not identity, that's the entire point of...*gestures vaguely to the entirety of the ShB MSQ from 5.0 to literally the end of 5.55*. Ryne is her own person, Gaia is her own person, our characters and Ardbert are their own people, An Lad is their own...pixie...that is literally the entire storyline.
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Oct 21, 2021 18:06
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The whole theme of shadowbringers is that the past matters a whole whole lot, but the direction of the future is completely up to the currently living people. To that end, any established heritage/history/ancestry/whatever you want to call soul shenanigans isn’t supposed to be determinative of poo poo, and people who are lost to the past are doomed (because the WoL might kill them).
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Oct 21, 2021 18:07
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sexpig by night posted:the major theme of ShB, to the point where they recently called it out in an interview as a major part of the entire ARR-EW narrative overall, is 'inheritor to the soul'. Not rebirth of the soul or ascension to the soul or any other term that would mean sublimating yourself to a greater identity, but 'inheritor'. You're the next in line, a part of a chain but not the same, just like you and Ardbert are part of the same soul but distinct people with distinct lives. We 'are' Azem in the sense that our soul was made with Azem's fragmented soul but we are not 'Azem'. That's the reason Emet gets so emotional with our character, he sees his friend in us but knows we very much are not them and it disgusts him. Same with the guy we talk to at the waiting room who calls out Ardbert as part of our soul, two parts of a whole but the parts are independent and unique, he never acts like we're Azem, in fact he calls the thing Emet sees in us a 'part of her/him'. I think that's a comfortable oversimplification of what is inherently a very squishy topic. TGLT posted:Memory, body, soul are the three distinct aspects that make up a person in FF14 lore. Y'shtola inherits Matoya's memory in a way, Ryne inherits the physical appearance and abilities of Minfilia, and the WoL inherits (part of) the soul of Azem. And while the idea that the new's existence is valid doesn't require linear separation, that is a large part of how the story goes about establishing that. By illustrating all the ways characters inherit things from the people that came before them without just being them nor being beholden to them. Minfilia achieves a total fusion that Lahabrea and Emet never even attempt. And again, we're given multiple explicit scenes where the WoL is given an opportunity to reject their prior life and explicitly does not do so - much to the frustration of people who inexplicably hate the Azem plot beat and just want to be someone with PC Glow. jokes posted:The whole theme of shadowbringers is that the past matters a whole whole lot, but the direction of the future is completely up to the currently living people. I don't see how that has anything to do with an observation of a person's essential nature. Trying to force someone to be like they were in the past is, itself, wrong without needing any "well memory is what's really important you see."
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Oct 21, 2021 18:11
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besides for us to be azem we would have to be selected for the seat once more
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Oct 21, 2021 18:12
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Every single story beat in ShB revolves around the complexities of being an 'inheritor', from the very literal sense like Ryne getting Minfilia's legacy forced upon her and Gaia basically being assaulted with her past lives to the more metaphorical like the citizens of Eulmore inheriting the legacy of oppression they, in many cases, were active parts in and having to rebuild their society better, or G'raha's entire journey ending in him getting to get everything he wanted but only by being reborn as a hybrid of 'our' G'raha with the exarch's memories and such. Every single time it comes up the moral is the same, the past matters, you can't completely ignore history either personally or in the grand historic sense, but the only way forward is by acknowledging the history and evolving into something new and hopefully better. That's what we are to Azem, the new, hopefully better, part of that story.
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Oct 21, 2021 18:12
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Jetrauben posted:The idea that the new worlds' existence is itself valid doesn't at all require a linear separation though. Hell you even see this with Estinien who spent the whole time slappin' spears with Gaius on the Source. Look at how he addresses his magic spear.
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Oct 21, 2021 18:13
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sexpig by night posted:Every single story beat in ShB revolves around the complexities of being an 'inheritor', from the very literal sense like Ryne getting Minfilia's legacy forced upon her and Gaia basically being assaulted with her past lives to the more metaphorical like the citizens of Eulmore inheriting the legacy of oppression they, in many cases, were active parts in and having to rebuild their society better, or G'raha's entire journey ending in him getting to get everything he wanted but only by being reborn as a hybrid of 'our' G'raha with the exarch's memories and such. Yeah, I just don't see that this is really contradicting "somebody is their reincarnation" at all. That's kind of core to most systems of reincarnation, in fact, the idea that a reincarnation both is the prior life and is a movement forward. Nessus posted:I think the analogy with Matoya makes perfect sense, Shtola clearly shares many traits with Matoya and you can see how Matoya had a huge influence on her (even if she isn't just trying to literally be Matoya.) Oh yeah, Estinien clearly IS, on some level, partly Niddhogg now, that's why he puts on his Niddhogg Voice talking to Tiamat - he's not speaking just as an aggrieved outside party but as her angry brother demanding she stand up for herself. Because having been possessed by him for a while and literally taking on his aether, he partly is. Identity is squishy.
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Oct 21, 2021 18:15
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Nessus posted:I think the analogy with Matoya makes perfect sense, Shtola clearly shares many traits with Matoya and you can see how Matoya had a huge influence on her (even if she isn't just trying to literally be Matoya.) Estinien feels obligated towards legacy of Nidhogg, just in a more constructive way.
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Oct 21, 2021 18:17
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Jetrauben posted:Yeah, I just don't see that this is really contradicting "somebody is their reincarnation" at all. That's kind of core to most systems of reincarnation, in fact, the idea that a reincarnation both is the prior life and is a movement forward. It's not contradicting that it's in some way a reincarnation, a soul being reborn in another body. It's that each reincarnation is a new person, because a person is more than a soul.
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Oct 21, 2021 18:20
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TGLT posted:Not really? Like there's an obvious undercurrent of her inheriting from Titania but the final culmination is Tyr Beq is invoking the memory of Titania to say she wants to help this new person, An Lad, who is suffering. An Lad isn't Titania she basically just has magic pixie clinical depression. the pixies are all they, not he or she
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Oct 21, 2021 18:22
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Orcs and Ostriches posted:It's not contradicting that it's in some way a reincarnation, a soul being reborn in another body. It's that each reincarnation is a new person, because a person is more than a soul. I just think "soul" pretty concretely encompasses the essential nature of a person, not just a weird bit of magic anatomy - even if each reincarnation is a new chance to move forward, it does seem like an essential nature is preserved. It's the only way treatment of reincarnation as meaningful continuity or "another chance" (as both flavor text and in-universe narrative beats do) works; the alternative is like saying somebody is reincarnated because their cells rot and then the biomass get reused. It is of course complicated by how FF14's various cultures very clearly believe in an afterlife independent of or somehow related to the Lifestream. If anything, to be honest, I borderline think Shadowbringers uses the pixies as an example of what not to be. They're explicitly called out as purely living in the moment and unable to meaningfully grow or change as people, a quality which irritates Feo Ul specifically and renders most pixies devoid of most actual empathy. Shadowbringers is deeply concerned with honoring and drawing strength from the past, and the pixies reject that wholesale. They're not exemplars of wisdom, they're a failure state. That's why the Warrior of Light's last temptation before the Tempest is the offer to become the Fairy King and reject the possibility of growth forever. You can't grow if you don't have any soil to plant yourself in. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Oct 21, 2021 |
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Oct 21, 2021 18:25
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Xad posted:the pixies are all they, not he or she Yeah that's my bad, I forgot they're all non-binary.
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Oct 21, 2021 18:31
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Jetrauben posted:I just think "soul" pretty concretely encompasses the essential nature of a person, not just a weird bit of magic anatomy - even if each reincarnation is a new chance to move forward, it does seem like an essential nature is preserved. It's the only way treatment of reincarnation as meaningful continuity or "another chance" (as both flavor text and in-universe narrative beats do) works; the alternative is like saying somebody is reincarnated because their cells rot and then the biomass get reused. The whole thing about rejecting growth is also Emet-Selch's issue to an extent. He doesn't believe (or at least desperately convinces himself not to) that it is possible for the sundered to regain or learn from their history and achieve the heights of Amaurot and it's society. He's wrong, we can learn from them and move forward, instead of clinging to and trying to return to that past, but to learn from a past means to know it and embrace it as your past, or a past, the past, not deny it as what was and no longer can be.
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Oct 21, 2021 18:39
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Jetrauben posted:I would also note that most of the information on supposedly How Ghosts Work is both semi-contradicted by other material in the lore and coming from Sharlayan, who are Stupid Rationalists in the glorious Victorian tradition of "we know all the answers!" And that really reaches the crux of this discussion- that we have a lot of disparate information from in-universe lore, a lot of which is itself speculative and/or philosophy presented as fact.
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Oct 21, 2021 18:45
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Lord_Magmar posted:The whole thing about rejecting growth is also Emet-Selch's issue to an extent. He doesn't believe (or at least desperately convinces himself not to) that it is possible for the sundered to regain or learn from their history and achieve the heights of Amaurot and it's society. Yeah, I think you're correct here. And of course Emet knows that the Sundered can learn and grow and be more than Amaurot once was - and the knowledge both clearly excites him and hurts him. Excites him, because he is the Architect, the builder of nations and dreams, and even in his hosed up doom empires you can see the Architect at work building things he finds beautiful - in Garlemald's flowering of culture and prosperity or Allag's age of ease and plenty - and hurts him, because that would mean letting go, letting Amaurot-as-it-was fade and letting the deaths of his people and his world become irrefutably real. It's not fair that these Sundered "reflections" get to become more, it's not "fair" that Amaurot, a place of such virtue and altruism, has to die so this flawed and fallen world can thrive. He's so obviously resentful. He's a leader of his people, and he'd be letting them down if he let them die. That's the particular torment of the Zodiark Solution - as long as the prospect of Bringing Back the Dead is dangled before the Ascians, how can they not try? How can they let their people die when they have the option to make things right? It'd be so much easier if it was impossible or all a lie. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Oct 21, 2021 |
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Oct 21, 2021 19:04
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Jetrauben posted:That's the particular torment of the Zodiark Solution - as long as the prospect of Bringing Back the Dead is dangled before the Ascians, how can they not try? How can they let their people die when they have the option to make things right? Because genocide is wrong, even if you think what you're genociding is "lesser"?
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Oct 21, 2021 19:20
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Kyrosiris posted:Because genocide is wrong, even if you think what you're genociding is "lesser"? I mean, obviously! I'm talking more in terms of emotional logic, not in terms of morality. Emet-Selch's plan is evil. That goes without saying. It relies on the idea that the present world is merely a debased and maimed version of the true world, not a natural evolution. But particularly given that Emet can literally see the Ancient someone "used" to be, and from his perspective whom they should be, it's understandable - if not acceptable - that he sees the present world as basically his own world shattered and horribly maimed, in need of repair. There's a reason they call omnicides the Rejoining. Like the central quandary of Shadowbringers' emotional dilemma is one of an existential conflict. Only one version of the world can exist, through no moral fault of either version - Alphinaud explicitly says that he understands why Emet is doing what he's doing, and that the Scions are doing what they're doing for the same reason: for the sake of their loved ones. It doesn't work if you apply real-life morality of genocide to it because it doesn't actually resemble any real-life genocide in either motives or material conditions. Real-life genocides are not existential struggles, they're pointless murder on a vast scale. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Oct 21, 2021 |
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Oct 21, 2021 19:24
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See, that's the thing, I don't think I'll ever be able to grasp it as "understandable" in the slightest. That's why I call him a megalomaniac with a god complex (because he has a soul-eating, reality-warping god figure on speed dial). He is so obsessed with things being Precisely His Way, The End that he cannot see any other avenue as valid and to hell with anything that isn't Amaurotine that stands in his way.
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Oct 21, 2021 19:31
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I’m loving the whole “Estinien is Nidhogg’s legacy” characterization. Estinien has always been a wrathful dude, and fusing Anti-Dragon Man #1 with Anti-Man Dragon #1 is just great. I’d love a reveal that Nidhogg is doing what Middy did to us, and is secretly watching/testing Estinien do poo poo while commenting. Like a sitcom
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Oct 21, 2021 19:49
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jokes posted:I’m loving the whole “Estinien is Nidhogg’s legacy” characterization. Estinien has always been a wrathful dude, and fusing Anti-Dragon Man #1 with Anti-Man Dragon #1 is just great. Kinda wanna see a FF14 Abridged now where Nidhogg is actually providing running commentary inside Estinien's head
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Oct 21, 2021 19:55
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Kyrosiris posted:See, that's the thing, I don't think I'll ever be able to grasp it as "understandable" in the slightest. Would you be willing to sacrifice a pig in a ritual to bring back a person who died saving someone's life? That's basically what he's doing.
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Oct 21, 2021 19:55
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jokes posted:I’m loving the whole “Estinien is Nidhogg’s legacy” characterization. Estinien has always been a wrathful dude, and fusing Anti-Dragon Man #1 with Anti-Man Dragon #1 is just great. And somehow, Anti-Dragon Man + Anti-Man Dragon = One Relatively Chill Dragon-Man who's basically at peace with himself.
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Oct 21, 2021 19:57
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CJ posted:Would you be willing to sacrifice a pig in a ritual to bring back a person who died saving someone's life? That's basically what he's doing. No, he's sacrificing every pig, every dog, every animal, everything that is not a human being to maybe bring people back. That's the other thing that removes all the "you'd do the same thing" angle from it to me - there's not even any proof it'll work.
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Oct 21, 2021 20:01
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jokes posted:I’m loving the whole “Estinien is Nidhogg’s legacy” characterization. Estinien has always been a wrathful dude, and fusing Anti-Dragon Man #1 with Anti-Man Dragon #1 is just great. I’d rather Nidhogg be fully dead/sublimated by Estinien, because I’m not a huge fan of characters coming back from the dead.
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Oct 21, 2021 20:02
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Jetrauben posted:And somehow, Anti-Dragon Man + Anti-Man Dragon = One Relatively Chill Dragon-Man who's basically at peace with himself. hordes of dragons and militarized city-state run by the Catholic Church pale in comparison to a certain pink-haired lalafell accountant. Powerful enemies make strange friends.
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Oct 21, 2021 20:04
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thetoughestbean posted:I’d rather Nidhogg be fully dead/sublimated by Estinien, because I’m not a huge fan of characters coming back from the dead. How did you feel about *breathes in deeply* Minfilia Yshtola Ascians Yshtola Midgardsormr Zenos Ardbert
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Oct 21, 2021 20:05
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Jetrauben posted:And somehow, Anti-Dragon Man + Anti-Man Dragon = One Relatively Chill Dragon-Man who's basically at peace with himself. At that moment, Nidhogg rumbled out, HA HA, RAD
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Oct 21, 2021 20:07
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That’s my secret, WoL I’m always Nidhogg
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Oct 21, 2021 20:08
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Also we straight up know that Estinien can become Nidhogg with the right ingredients. The fact those ingredients no longer exist does not stop it from being true. Nidhogg is probably living in the spear though, given Estinien talks to it and it seems to respond.
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Oct 21, 2021 20:13
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Kyrosiris posted:No, he's sacrificing every pig, every dog, every animal, everything that is not a human being to maybe bring people back. That's the thing, we know what happens when a primal tries to bring back the dead. It isn't pretty.
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Oct 21, 2021 20:15
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sweet geek swag posted:That's the thing, we know what happens when a primal tries to bring back the dead. It isn't pretty. I’m pretty sure Hades’ plan is to use his own powers to revive the dead Ancients, alongside Zodiark. Hades after all specifically calls upon them in his fight, and is stated to be a master of the Lifestream. He takes it as a personal mission to resurrect his lost people. Zodiark rebuilds the world, Emet-Selch revives it’s people. He’s also depressed and avoidant, because if he’s wrong, he’s smart enough to know he’s the world’s greatest monster for what he’s done. Throw in that tempering means he cannot escape the trap of whatever thought patterns Zodiark enforces and the tragedy is that Emet-Selch could never have changed at the point he reached. For he had already fallen too far. All he has left are the memories of the people he somewhere deep knows are lost forever, and one last “debate” with his best friend. Let the victor’s write the tale indeed. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Oct 21, 2021 |
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Oct 21, 2021 20:20
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apologies if this was posted already https://v.redd.it/pxers48tiqu71/DASH_720.mp4
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Oct 21, 2021 20:28
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multijoe posted:Kinda wanna see a FF14 Abridged now where Nidhogg is actually providing running commentary inside Estinien's head I don't know if Nidhogg proper is in there, but from some of Estinien's comments that certainly sounds like how he's reconciling the remnants of his possession. Like when dealing with Tiamat he talked about Nidhogg's brotherly affection and how he saw her through that lens. I wouldn't want to see them somehow divided, or Nidhogg in control again, I think that would be a worse story for both, but I like the idea of the two of them in one body figuring out how to get along and forced to act out the Ishgard/Dravanian whole reconciliation thing on a personal level.
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Oct 21, 2021 20:28
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sweet geek swag posted:That's the thing, we know what happens when a primal tries to bring back the dead. It isn't pretty. Do we? Zodiark has all the Ancient souls in him. Is there an example of that failing? The snake people was a different situation because her daughter was already dead when they summoned Lakshmi. I don't think you are meant to think that the Ascian plan is stupid and won't work, the characters would have probably brought that up if that was the case. It's that it's wrong to sacrifice the new generation for the old. It's a much more interesting story when you have that moral dilemma rather than Emet just being an idiot with a stupid plan that won't work.
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Oct 21, 2021 20:48
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CJ posted:Do we? Zodiark has all the Ancient souls in him. Is there an example of that failing? The snake people was a different situation because her daughter was already dead when they summoned Lakshmi. And it makes it that much cooler that emet-selch saves you from elidibus - he wasn't saving you because he realized zodiark wasn't likely capable - he saved you despite his old dream being within grasp. edit: although I'm personally unclear if the emet-or-shade-of-emet that saved you really understood what was happening Ruzihm fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Oct 21, 2021 |
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Oct 21, 2021 21:05
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Ruzihm posted:And it makes it that much cooler that emet-selch saves you from elidibus - he wasn't saving you because he realized zodiark wasn't likely capable - he saved you despite his old dream being within grasp. It's in the short story about him - he willingly and knowingly provided that last bit of assistance.
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Oct 21, 2021 21:13
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Not sure how i feel about that moment. It was a cool reveal to find out he's helping you but it kind of takes away from the finality of murdering the last living Ascian when he's just chilling as a ghost.
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Oct 21, 2021 21:20
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