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I'll admit to having only been reading this thread for about a month, so I'm just going off the limited context I have. Maybe I just am way quicker to put people on ignore than most 
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Nov 27, 2021 19:06
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When the basis of someone’s arguments and theories against a character is ultimately “They annoy me” then it’s just kind of pointless to talk about it or engage because it’s always going to end up in the same place. If you start with “character bad” and work backwards from there you’re probably not going to end up anywhere interesting.
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Nov 27, 2021 19:39
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Emet-Selch bugs me as well. In hindsight, with time, I think I understand his place in the story, but that doesn't mean I like the guy. I'm really annoyed that some fans want to equate "an understandable motivation for evil" with "good", or turn acceptance of his failure into "actually he wanted you to win." He spends 90% of Shadowbringers not as an antagonist but as "snarky jerk you're not allowed to punch while he brags about being a monster for thousands of years", gets one zone in the spotlight, and that's it.
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Nov 27, 2021 20:12
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It's simple, every lore thread needs a MisterBibs and a Shadowlyger. We have Cleretic and Moofia.
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Nov 27, 2021 20:13
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i mostly lurk this thread or make """"funny"""" one-liners but it always feels weird when people talk about Cleretic like she isn't in the same proverbial room. idk
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Nov 27, 2021 20:14
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Countblanc posted:i mostly lurk this thread or make """"funny"""" one-liners but it always feels weird when people talk about Cleretic like she isn't in the same proverbial room. idk Yeah be nicer to Cleretic imo, she's cranky in a completely harmless way and it's kinda hosed to be this publicly nasty to someone over bad lore readings
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Nov 27, 2021 20:18
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stolen from reddit but I'm kicking myself for not putting this together with EW's platinum color theme 
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Nov 27, 2021 20:19
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I think we also need to mentally separate people going "I want to gently caress this evil rat man" with "this evil rat man is correct in his actions"
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Nov 27, 2021 20:23
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wizardofloneliness posted:When the basis of someone’s arguments and theories against a character is ultimately “They annoy me” then it’s just kind of pointless to talk about it or engage because it’s always going to end up in the same place. If you start with “character bad” and work backwards from there you’re probably not going to end up anywhere interesting. Without jumping on Cleretic, yeah. No matter what else if someone doesn't like a character they don't like a character. How she interprets some things can be interesting. SirSamVimes posted:It's simple, every lore thread needs a MisterBibs and a Shadowlyger. We have Cleretic and Moofia. Basically.
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Nov 27, 2021 20:25
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That comparison is really mean to Cleretic. As much as I've disagreed with her in the past (occasionally with hostility) she's still a good poster who makes a lot of good points on non-Emet Selch related topics like her lore videos and isn't an endless cycle of transparently trolly bad faith arguments like Moofia.
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Nov 27, 2021 20:28
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Blockhouse posted:That comparison is really mean to Cleretic. As much as I've disagreed with her in the past (occasionally with hostility) she's still a good poster who makes a lot of good points on non-Emet Selch related topics like her lore videos and isn't an endless cycle of transparently trolly bad faith arguments like Moofia. Hard disagree on both points. She's done the same shtick on a lot of topics in game.
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Nov 27, 2021 20:30
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In the interest in avoiding being mean-spirited, I will clarify that that post was a joke. Cleretic has some interesting takes and a lot of actual knowledge mixed in with her more wild takes, and is not comparable to Moofia or either of those WoW Lore thread posters.
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Nov 27, 2021 20:30
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Yeah like half a page of poo poo talking some one for a lore take is weird. Honestly I don't even think it's a particularly weird take - poo poo it's my guess. The end of days was an event that radically altered the nature of their planet such that they could no longer support their civilization. Being worried that the writers might also trip over their tendency to want to soften bad guys isn't really out there. That's kind of Sorrow of Werlyt and "see Fordola's dad was a nice dad who got hit by a rock" Also making Zodiark evil wouldn't really undercut their story. Nidhogg was evil, Varis was evil, Emet was evil, and Zenos is evil. Having a bad thing happen to a character once doesn't really change that. Hell the primals are pretty consistently cruel. Maybe they won't, but making Zodiark bad will let them fit in pretty nicely with Garuda, Ravana, Sophia, and Lakshmi. edit: God Sephirot's song is the most edgelord "I am bad" poo poo. He's called the Fiend! TGLT fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Nov 27, 2021 |
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Nov 27, 2021 20:32
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I hope in Endwalker they finally explain why the WoL's theme is called The Maker's Ruin
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Nov 27, 2021 20:32
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Zodiark being evil would be lame
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Nov 27, 2021 20:35
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multijoe posted:I hope in Endwalker they finally explain why the WoL's theme is called The Maker's Ruin I mean if you count 1.0 the WoL theme goes "Nail of the Heavens" "Torn from the Heavens" and "The Maker's Ruin". Clearly we're Lucifer.
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Nov 27, 2021 20:35
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yeah, the light bringer
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Nov 27, 2021 20:38
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All I can say is I never mistook Emet-Selch for anything but an antagonist. I think he works perfectly as a tragic anime villain, and you can understand and even sympathize with his motivation without condoning it. It does raise the question of "If I were in his place, would I have done the same thing?" and that's an uncomfortable thing to think about, but it seems likely to me that Endwalker is going to contrast this by giving us flashbacks to some Ancients who were in the same place and chose to not become anime villains.
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Nov 27, 2021 20:40
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Bruceski posted:Emet-Selch bugs me as well. In hindsight, with time, I think I understand his place in the story, but that doesn't mean I like the guy. I'm really annoyed that some fans want to equate "an understandable motivation for evil" with "good", or turn acceptance of his failure into "actually he wanted you to win." He spends 90% of Shadowbringers not as an antagonist but as "snarky jerk you're not allowed to punch while he brags about being a monster for thousands of years", gets one zone in the spotlight, and that's it. I think there's a lot of people who conflate a "good" character as in one that is well-written/interesting with "good" in the moral sense of the word. Same with bad. Or liking a character means you approve of their actions while disliking them means you disapprove and vice-versa. So when someone's like or dislike of a character doesn't match up with how moral they are, it causes issues. This applies just as much to people who hate Emet because he did bad things in the story as people who like Emet and now must come up with reasons for why he's actually a good person. I don't even know how this happens or where it's coming from, this seems like basic literacy to me so who even knows. When I'm talking about liking or disliking a character it has absolutely nothing to do with how moral or good of a person they are. Personally, the only bad characters are the boring ones like Lyse.
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Nov 27, 2021 20:41
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TGLT posted:Yeah like half a page of poo poo talking some one for a lore take is weird. Honestly I don't even think it's a particularly weird take - poo poo it's my guess. The end of days was an event that radically altered the nature of their planet such that they could no longer support their civilization. Being worried that the writers might also trip over their tendency to want to soften bad guys isn't really out there. That's kind of Sorrow of Werlyt and "see Fordola's dad was a nice dad who got hit by a rock" Making them evil would infact, undercut the entire point of the game. Zodiark was a primal of Salvation. This is explicitly stated. Wanting it to be "he was secretly evil and did the bad stuff on purpose" is a terrible loving idea. Same with making the end of days something the ascians did cuz they were too drat stupid or haughty or whatever the gently caress.
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Nov 27, 2021 20:50
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Waffleman_ posted:I think we also need to mentally separate people going "I want to gently caress this evil rat man" with "this evil rat man is correct in his actions" e: Thinking about this makes me consider that Asahi, from a certain perspective, basically pops up to soak up all of Yotsuyu's residual heat and kick her into the trash, even if the 4.3 trial is surely a satisfying ending. Fandaniel could have used HER dead body almost as well. Of course at that point Yotsuyu would have soaked up a truly ridiculous quantity of tragic misfortune. Nessus fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Nov 27, 2021 |
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Nov 27, 2021 20:52
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I look at it from the perspective of: I can feel bad for the person they were while thwarting the person they became.
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Nov 27, 2021 20:57
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Gearhead posted:I look at it from the perspective of: I can feel bad for the person they were while thwarting the person they became.
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Nov 27, 2021 21:01
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Ibram Gaunt posted:Making them evil would infact, undercut the entire point of the game. Zodiark was a primal of Salvation. This is explicitly stated. Wanting it to be "he was secretly evil and did the bad stuff on purpose" is a terrible loving idea. I don't think the god that requires human sacrifice to be secretly evil. He's the primal of keeping their status quo - and it would not be surprising that, if like basically every primal we've ever met, the Ascians wished on a monkey paw and got something that satisfied the letter of their request while making a mockery of the spirit of it. And people loving up their environment isn't some terrible idea. poo poo that's Mhach and Amdapoor. One could even point out that's kind of the situation that we're all in. Sometimes even great space wizards make mistakes.
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Nov 27, 2021 21:03
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Zodiark required the sacrifice because he requires an astronomical amount of aether to do his thing. He isn't demanding sacrifice like some sort of blood god. It's a pretty big distinction! If you could theoretically have generated enough aether through other means, he still would have functioned.
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Nov 27, 2021 21:04
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Was it that Zodiark demanded sacrifice, or that Zodiark was a machine that took aether in and spat out world-altering transformations, and the most compact and concentrated source of aether the Ancients could readily manipulate and throw into the jaws of their god WERE people? As the first true Primal, this was the first time they had created something unable to actually support itself without external support. efb: The Ancients created something larger and more terrible than themselves by a wide margin, and the people in charge of running it had been brainwashed by it into its service unwittingly. Consider that, before this, nobody had been Tempered before EITHER.
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Nov 27, 2021 21:05
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Gearhead posted:I look at it from the perspective of: I can feel bad for the person they were while thwarting the person they became. I think that's how the game is wanting you to view it anyway. They make the point over and over that it absolutely sucks what happened to him and his people but killing everyone to bring them back is extremely not okay. And that's not just from our currently alive characters that don't want to die, an entire portion of the Acians felt that was hosed up as well. Emet is a really tragic character who is shown the entire game slouched over because of the burden he feels he has to carry, you're definitely supposed to feel bad for him and how he lost all his friends and family to what seems to be something that happened to them for no reason. It's actually pretty sad when he goes to make his final stand after the trial, when he shouts about "what will become of our hopes, our dreams, our triumphs?". But he wants to kill us all to bring everyone he knew back and that's not ever gonna be okay.
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Nov 27, 2021 21:07
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Zodiark required the aether to reinforce the laws of reality to whatever they were. It might have required more to keep things going, I forget. Emet's plan was to feed it everyone else to liberate the souls of the Amaurotines so it's probably not above doing more chowing down, assuming those souls can even be liberated and Emet wasn't just completely deluded. It would not be unexpected if, like nearly every other primal, Zodiark sought to grow and expand it's influence - a process which would probs require more sacrifice. It ought to be extra unexpected since we just had a whole expansion that associated darkness with activity and change.
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Nov 27, 2021 21:10
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Yeah Zodiark the entity seems to be morally neutral and I would not be surprised if Zodiark is literally some inert dark crystal in the moon now that Elidibus is out of him and also dead. One possibility is that there will be someone, probably a sundered Ascian, guarding Zodiark for exactly this reason, even if this was SUPPOSED to be a ceremonial role. Fandaniel presumably can't just swing his dick and beat that guy down the way Emet presumably could. That's a possible big twist, we go to 'destroy Zodiark' and end up opening the door for Fandaniel. TGLT posted:Zodiark required the aether to reinforce the laws of reality to whatever they were. It might have required more to keep things going, I forget. Emet's plan was to feed it everyone else to liberate the souls of the Amaurotines so it's probably not above doing more chowing down, assuming those souls can even be liberated and Emet wasn't just completely deluded. It would not be unexpected if, like nearly every other primal, Zodiark sought to grow and expand it's influence - a process which would probs require more sacrifice. It ought to be extra unexpected since we just had a whole expansion that associated darkness with activity and change. If he had done that and the restored ancients had responded with revulsion and death-lasered him, he would have probably only defended himself long enough to say something cool. Nessus fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Nov 27, 2021 |
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Nov 27, 2021 21:11
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Nessus posted:If he had done that and the restored ancients had responded with revulsion and death-lasered him, he would have probably only defended himself long enough to say something cool. Honestly, the thing I may be looking forward to the most is the idea that Hades is, somehow, going to be our narrator for this. I'd love to hear the thoughts and opinions of Hades, unvarnished by Tempering, and his reflections on how severely hosed everything became when he and his pals lost a chunk of their agency to Zodiark.
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Nov 27, 2021 21:21
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I'm excited for more René Zagger.
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Nov 27, 2021 21:22
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I hope there is a lot more of that poetic musing that opens the launch trailer.
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Nov 27, 2021 21:27
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I can't wait for Emet-Sech to be dead forever, and we get introduced to our new friend who just runs a bakery named René Sulk. He's very sad the batch of cookies he spent forever on got burnt.Nessus posted:It seems like Emet has preserved a lot of the 'memories and knowledge' of the Ancients, probably in a big box of job crystals, and I imagine his plan is to restore everyone's spiritual essence; make new bodies for at least the core 13 and key support personnel with creation magic; put the relevant soul in the relevant body; hand them the soul crystal to restore their memories. (Final step, everyone comes in for a HUGE Ancient party.) I mean yeah I'm not saying he would have failed, but part of his plan was to sacrifice to a primal and the last time we saw a primal "resurrect" anyone it was Lakshmi.
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Nov 27, 2021 21:27
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I'm not sure if the resurrection plan would have worked, but there's a magnitude of difference between the abilities and energy powering Zodiark vs. Lakshmi. It's not really a fair comparison.
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Nov 27, 2021 21:31
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Orcs and Ostriches posted:I'm not sure if the resurrection plan would have worked, but there's a magnitude of difference between the abilities and energy powering Zodiark vs. Lakshmi. It's not really a fair comparison. e: vv Yeah I figured since his specific namesake power was control over the souls of the dead, Emet would be able to fish out the relevant souls from the rejoined lifestream. He might have had to settle for 13 out of 14 but he might have figured that was good enough, or at least, at that point restoring the void is everyone's rehab project. Nessus fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Nov 27, 2021 |
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Nov 27, 2021 21:38
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Maybe! But it also just may not be possible. Resurrection in the game has so far been 0 for 2, at least as far as I know. To be fair both of those instances involved people who had moved on to the lifestream while Zodiark might be holding on to the Amaurotine's souls. And at least living people can move in and out so even if he doesn't have them tucked away somewhere he might be able to retrieve them where others can't.
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Nov 27, 2021 21:38
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Lakshmi is a lesser primal made of random aether, and with no special link to the lifestream. So her "resurrection" was just creating a doll, and she couldn't source the actual desired soul. The theory behind the Ascians' plan is that the souls used to create Zodiark's form still exist inside him, and we have evidence of that with Elidibus managing to separate himself back out. Therefore they want to take the other souls back out of him too, but also trade new souls into him so he can continue to exist as well. Plus natural reincarnation of dead people and Ascians restoring their memories of a past life is also a demonstrated thing. So I really see no reason why their plan shouldn't be possible. The issue is really just their desired targets are trapped inside something that's essential for the current existence of reality.
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Nov 27, 2021 21:42
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Gruckles posted:Lakshmi is a lesser primal made of random aether, and with no special link to the lifestream. So her "resurrection" was just creating a doll, and she couldn't source the actual desired soul.
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Nov 27, 2021 21:44
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The Convocation wasn't sacrificed to Zodiark, it was a bunch of other people. The Convocation (and the rest of the surviving Amaurotines other than those three) got sundered. edit: I think it's Minfilia's power point presentation that goes into how primals hold on to the stuff that gets sacrificed to them until they get dispersed.
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Nov 27, 2021 21:45
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I've been thinking of Zodiark and Hydaelyn as sort of blank slates, aether-fueled creation machines, and they had to fuse Elidibus with Zodiark to give it some sort of will to do what they wanted. Why else would the primal need a "heart"? And if that's true of Zodiark it must be true of Hydaelyn as well. The primals' actions have been driven by the people involved.
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Nov 27, 2021 21:50
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