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I would say that by the point she actually chooses the sundering she’s also in a position where the Convocation are no longer able to be convinced of a path other than sacrifice for miracles from Zodiark. As by that point Elidibus is out and about and I’m definitely thinking he tempered the convocation, probably by accident mind you. I think the game does take a clear stance that relying on Zodiark to make miracles from sacrifice after the initial one, which I consider closer to a mass transformation along the lines of Hades and Hermes becoming divine figures to fight, is an unnecessary step that is leading the Ancients down the path of self destruction, either by sacrificing until there’s nothing left to save, or making a perfect world the way that The Plenty had. Hence the myriad souls in Zodiark talking about being the Martyr, saving the world, protecting their brethren. They’re doing what they can to keep the world safe until such time they can return to the Star when their duty as Zodiark is no longer required.
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Dec 14, 2021 06:47
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ImpAtom posted:It seems unlikely that Venat's group was a "significant minority" considering they had enough to create the second most powerful Primal of all time, second only to the one which took literally half of the remaining Ancient's lives to summon. They only mention it was a lesser sacrifice which it would have to be because their entire race had been halved and not everyone was onboard. The entire point is that it was a genuine conflict, not "Venat is mean." Likewise she didn't set out to Sunder with no other choice. It's explicitly described in game as "a desperate act" and they repeatedly cite the fact that she wasn't strong enough to destroy Zodiark, merely imprison him. (And destroying him would have restarted the End of Days.) Venat posted:You know as well as I that but few support our cause. Far fewer than they who place their faith in Zodiark.
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Dec 14, 2021 06:50
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The time travel stuff is needlessly messy but I think the entire point of it is that nothing could be changed. Whatever actions Venat took she took because she had prior knowledge. Us giving her that knowledge didn't change anything because she already had the knowledge. No timeline we are a part of has the Final Days which isn't already the end results of her taking the actions she took based off her prior knowledge. Nothing has changed and nothing can change. We didn't change the past, we just created a stable time loop. Ergo Venat never told us any of that stuff because she had already never told us any of that stuff. Yeah it's loving confusing but so are basically any stable time loops.
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Dec 14, 2021 06:51
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It's been long enough that I'm already beginning to forget but iirc even Venat questions why she would do what she did (in vague terms) when you reveal your origin to her in Elpis, as if she doesn't even believe the ancients would choose to sacrifice so many people. Knowledge of the future is always going to be iffy but I'm going with her not telling them because summoning Zodiark and then the subsequent sacrifices are such an extreme non-logical reaction in the first place that it wouldn't have changed their minds in the end. The final days traumatized the surviving ancients so much that they basically abandoned many of their core principles in hopes of just going back to better days. Edit: Non-logical in that a lot of small parts of Zodiark are well-thought out, but creating a physical god to reassert the world's natural rules via aether manipulation is kind of a wild "what are you smoking?"
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Dec 14, 2021 06:53
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Which is kinda 'eh' because with G'Raha Tia they very much had a 'Oh yeah, you absolutely CAN change things around' thing. But I feel that Square Enix uses the Chrono Trigger theory of Time Travel. Don't worry too much about it, do cool stuff with it, when you're being inconsistent sprinkle some fancy words on it.
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Dec 14, 2021 06:55
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Argas posted:It's been long enough that I'm already beginning to forget but iirc even Venat questions why she would do what she did (in vague terms) when you reveal your origin to her in Elpis, as if she doesn't even believe the ancients would choose to sacrifice so many people. It's basically the opposite. You tell her everything, sacrifices included, and she goes "I still don't understand why I did what I did and opposed the Convocation. There must be another reason." Which is why people turn to stuff like 'closing the time loop' and 'gotta grind dynamis' because that's the only thing that makes sense, despite what the game presents thematically, as to the 'additional reason' she found to Sunder.
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Dec 14, 2021 06:56
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Shogeton posted:Which is kinda 'eh' because with G'Raha Tia they very much had a 'Oh yeah, you absolutely CAN change things around' thing. But I feel that Square Enix uses the Chrono Trigger theory of Time Travel. Don't worry too much about it, do cool stuff with it, when you're being inconsistent sprinkle some fancy words on it. Honestly I think the only way that makes sense is if you consider there are two different types of time travel. Elidibus basically came up with his own method but you were explicitly sent back as a random shade unable to interact with the world, not a whole-rear end tower like Graha. It's only Emet pumping you full of aether that allowed you to interact with the past world. So you effectively had a second kind of time travel created that allows for stable time loops but it involves such a random-rear end series of events that you can't easily replicate it.
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Dec 14, 2021 06:58
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PoorWeather posted:I can't speak for other people, but this isn't really where I'm coming from with it at all. Most of the reasons I felt uncomfortable with plot beats in EW are personal and, like I said, come from my experiences with abuse. The problem to me isn't the message about suffering itself being unavoidable, it's a moral universe that portrays creating additional suffering as sometimes the righteous thing to do. Hey I just want to say that I understand where you’re coming from even if I disagree. I know it can be super frustrating when you feel like people aren’t listening to what you’re saying and it seems like this is what’s happening a bit. Anyways everybody wants to talk about Hermes and Hydaelyn but I want to talk about Quintis. What a bastard. Just absolutely awful
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Dec 14, 2021 06:59
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ImpAtom posted:The time travel stuff is needlessly messy but I think the entire point of it is that nothing could be changed. Whatever actions Venat took she took because she had prior knowledge. Us giving her that knowledge didn't change anything because she already had the knowledge. No timeline we are a part of has the Final Days which isn't already the end results of her taking the actions she took based off her prior knowledge. Nothing has changed and nothing can change. We didn't change the past, we just created a stable time loop. Ergo Venat never told us any of that stuff because she had already never told us any of that stuff. Also, something worth remembering is that when they hear the whole story, while Emet categorically refuses to believe he would ever do what we describe, Venat's perspective is more that she's stunned that she would have to do these things. There is no denial of facts to get over with Venat. She doesn't actually need the information we're giving her, she knows that she would do these things if she has to, she just doesn't like the notion that things would come to that, that there would be no alternative. So ultimately she leaves Elpis that day without knowing anything important that she wouldn't know if we weren't there, and still makes the same decisions either way. Cleretic fucked around with this message at 07:04 on Dec 14, 2021 |
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Dec 14, 2021 07:00
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ImpAtom posted:Honestly I think the only way that makes sense is if you consider there are two different types of time travel. Elidibus basically came up with his own method but you were explicitly sent back as a random shade unable to interact with the world, not a whole-rear end tower like Graha. It's only Emet pumping you full of aether that allowed you to interact with the past world. So you effectively had a second kind of time travel created that allows for stable time loops but it involves such a random-rear end series of events that you can't easily replicate it. No it’s explicitly the same kind of Time Travel that G’raha used. Just much weaker, that’s why Elidibus warns you against changing the past. Change it too much and like G’raha you won’t be able to go back to the timeline you came from, at least not as easily. G’raha is intentionally trying to change the past, so he never expected to go back, but that timeline still exists. If we’d changed too much from the original timeline we would have been stuck in the new timeline until we found a way back, instead of being able to return as we left it. I think the time loop didn’t always exist, and Hydaelyn has memories of both versions, but the end result is the same because it only effected Venat and she still ended up making the same choices. Notably though the timeline we came from would have still existed and now without a WoL. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 07:05 on Dec 14, 2021 |
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Dec 14, 2021 07:03
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I'm surprised Kairos never came up again considering how dramatic and threatening it was. Did I miss Hermes actually planning to demonstrate it to Emet and Hythlodaeus or was that a completely fake story? Because I like to imagine their reaction to Hermes showing off his insanely creepy secret memory-wiping machine. "The cheery bird girl seemed promising, but I must say I'm much less enthused about the mind destroyer".Lord_Magmar posted:No it’s explicitly the same kind of Time Travel that G’raha used. Just much weaker, that’s why Elidibus warns you against changing the past. Change it too much and like G’raha you won’t be able to go back to the timeline you came from, at least not as easily. It honestly could be that Hermes actually ended up saving our world by keeping the timeline from diverging too much. Pigbuster fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Dec 14, 2021 |
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Dec 14, 2021 07:04
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ImpAtom posted:The problem here is, and I'm not trying to phrase this in a mean way but there's no way around it, I don't feel like it is being engaged with in good faith. It is in fact a very similar problem to The Good Place where I never felt like people were genuinely interacting with the text, they were responding negatively to the idea that eternal immortal happiness wouldn't be the be-all-end-all of being and backtracking from there. I feel like you have a peculiar idea of the concept of "bad faith". Like, I think it's perfectly fine to dislike the message of a work because it doesn't comply with your personal outlook and values so long as you're self-aware about those feelings. Many people who are fundamentally nonspiritual and individualistic, and/or have certain life experiences surrounding suicide and the way suicidal people often think of behave, are going to find a story that posits - even unintentionally - that destroying ones own consciousness willingly is a good and noble thing uncomfortable. And no, that's not what the writers of The Good Place meant to say. Like in the scenario we're discussing in FFXIV now, the scenario is far more fantastical and infused with lots of other coding. But some people are going to zero in on that implication and just not like it. That's not bad faith, it's the psychological equivalent of disliking a dish with cilantro because you have the gene that makes it taste like soap. I don't even know what you're trying to say to me by leveling that accusation - we're talking about a JRPG plot here, I have no reason not to be forward with my feelings - but I guess I'll respond that I think your attitude betrays a bit of a lack of empathy yourself. You said "(I) seem to be saying that it is worth mass killing of innocent have-nots in order to preserve the power and life of the haves. If you can't see why I don't have any empathy for that position in 2021 then I'm not sure what to say," so obviously your response to the story is informed by your emotional response too - you've zeroed in on specific notes in the narrative and seen a reflection of the circumstances of our own world, specifically in the realm of class struggle and imperialist genocide. I have also zeroed in on specific notes in the narrative and seen a reflection of reality, but in my case, it was language and coding regarding Venat that reminded me of my experiences with abuse. I could reiterate various points that contributed to that - the fact that Hydaelyn kinda did a genocide herself by my interpretation of the story's logic, how much the idea of hurting people for their 'own good' upsets me, my own experiences with death, the narrative never really clarifying what the Amaurotines even intended to sacrifice - but in the end, all of that is fluff. What matters is that my gut reaction was strong enough that it drowned out anything else the story might've been saying, intentionally or otherwise. For me, it tasted like soap. The difference between us here is that you're the only one here framing what you took away from the text as absolute - something which, if other people didn't respond to the same way as you, they're being disingenuous or lacking compassion. You assume the moral core you read in the story is not only the absolute intent of the writers, but the self-evident truth of the sum total of the script itself, and that anyone who doesn't see it is just pretending. And then go on to pass a little judgement on that basis. I deeply cannot relate to how a lot of people have responded to this part of EW, but I don't think there's anything deficient about them, or you, on that basis. We're just different people.
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Dec 14, 2021 07:06
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Completely fake, it's only mentioned once with the steps they took to try and get the one set of animals to be less murderous.
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Dec 14, 2021 07:06
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PoorWeather posted:I don't even know what you're trying to say to me by leveling that accusation - we're talking about a JRPG plot here, I have no reason not to be forward with my feelings - but I guess I'll respond that I think your attitude betrays a bit of a lack of empathy yourself. lol
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Dec 14, 2021 07:09
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Pigbuster posted:I'm surprised Kairos never came up again considering how dramatic and threatening it was. Did I miss Hermes actually planning to demonstrate it to Emet and Hythlodaeus or was that a completely fake story? Because I like to imagine their reaction to Hermes showing off his insanely creepy secret memory-wiping machine. "The cheery bird girl seemed promising, but I must say I'm much less enthused about the mind destroyer". It was a fake story. Kairos is brought up earlier for how it's used to wipe test subjects clean rather than just making a new batch (I think it was for environmental adaptation), then it dives back beneath the surface until breaching in the dungeon. And they don't even remember Meteion. The three of them straight up forgot everything that happened from the moment they entered the story. ribbit; efb, ribbit
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Dec 14, 2021 07:10
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Oh come on, they’re trying to express themselves and have mostly been very polite. Don’t be a dick
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Dec 14, 2021 07:11
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There's kinda a difference between passing judgement on a person based on their video game take, and passing judgement on a person because they passed judgement on you for your video game take, I think. Like, I'm not the one who opened by calling the other poster weird and then saying they were arguing in bad faith.
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Dec 14, 2021 07:11
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thetoughestbean posted:Oh come on, they’re trying to express themselves and have mostly been very polite. Don’t be a dick So has ImpAtom. They're basically doing the exact same thing but with more words to try and dance around it. Hence the lol. Like no ImpAtom really hasn't been all that harsh or rude when discussing poo poo she's just...discussed poo poo instead of just stating her opinion and nothing more. This hand wringing about what's barely even a ruffled tone of discussion is dumb, even if they're stating their honest opinions about it. ZenMasterBullshit fucked around with this message at 07:15 on Dec 14, 2021 |
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Dec 14, 2021 07:13
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Lord_Magmar posted:No it’s explicitly the same kind of Time Travel that G’raha used. Just much weaker, that’s why Elidibus warns you against changing the past. Change it too much and like G’raha you won’t be able to go back to the timeline you came from, at least not as easily. I don't know. Elidibus tells you that you can't change the past when he sends you back. (The journal even refers to it as 'forewarning' you.) It isn't a case of can/shouldn't but literally can't. It isn't until you get an Aether infusion that you're able to interact with the past because they took your insubstantial shade and made it solid. I don't think we're supposed to take it as the same as G'raha since G'raha was using Alexander and Omega and all sorts of poo poo and we specifically shut down Alexander. PoorWeather posted:The difference between us here is that you're the only one here framing what you took away from the text as absolute - something which, if other people didn't respond to the same way as you, they're being disingenuous or lacking compassion. You assume the moral core you read in the story is not only the absolute intent of the writers, but the self-evident truth of the sum total of the script itself, and that anyone who doesn't see it is just pretending. And then go on to pass a little judgement on that basis. I absolutely don't think I have the sum total of the script or the only valid interpretation, but neither do I feel comfortable just shrugging and going "that is your opinion" when it comes to saying things I find pretty awful myself. The problem I have with the Venat narrative isn't criticism of the character but the fact that it almost universally seems to go hand-in-hand with trying to whitewash the Zodiark group's actions, thus why you have people arguing that actually Venat was a mean bully who forced her will on the star and the Ancients didn't actually intend to sacrifice people or anything they can to avoid having to actively say "I think the Ancients should have been able to murder the lesser races because that is a less serious crime than sundering the star."
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Dec 14, 2021 07:18
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ImpAtom posted:I don't know. Elidibus tells you that you can't change the past when he sends you back. (The journal even refers to it as 'forewarning' you.) It isn't a case of can/shouldn't but literally can't. It isn't until you get an Aether infusion that you're able to interact with the past because they took your insubstantial shade and made it solid. I don't think we're supposed to take it as the same as G'raha since G'raha was using Alexander and Omega and all sorts of poo poo and we specifically shut down Alexander. My understanding of the game's time travel mechanics is you can NEVER change you own past, you either create a time loop or spin off a new timeline entirely if it can't work. But either of the latter are possible depending on what you change or don't change. Edit: Venat calls the time loop a "convergence" and acts like it may or may not happen. Clarste fucked around with this message at 07:24 on Dec 14, 2021 |
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Dec 14, 2021 07:20
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ImpAtom posted:I don't know. Elidibus tells you that you can't change the past when he sends you back. (The journal even refers to it as 'forewarning' you.) It isn't a case of can/shouldn't but literally can't. It isn't until you get an Aether infusion that you're able to interact with the past because they took your insubstantial shade and made it solid. I don't think we're supposed to take it as the same as G'raha since G'raha was using Alexander and Omega and all sorts of poo poo and we specifically shut down Alexander. He definitely says that if you change it too much you'll be stranded.
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Dec 14, 2021 07:21
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One thought I had when I was turned from 'vague spirit without any way to influence people' to 'Oh yeah, here you go, influence away, my good WoL' is that suddenly there's the question about avoiding the Final Days. Because I thought initially that they were going to do the thing where the WoL would only be able to watch, learn things but be otherwise helpless to avoid the coming disaster. But instead, they absolutely were put in a 'G'raha Tia' position. And yes, if they somehow HAD managed to pull a G'raha and avoid the final days... they would have prevented immeasurable amounts of death... on a galactic scale in turns out. But they'd have given up everyone they had ever known. None of them would ever have existed. And it's not really an ethical question but man, I can imagine that a Warrior of Light being 100% super stressed when they're made to spill the beans.
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Dec 14, 2021 07:22
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Kazy posted:He definitely says that if you change it too much you'll be stranded. Yeah he says that, but also admits you probably can’t change anything anyway because of how the travel will send less than a shade of you into the past. Shogeton posted:One thought I had when I was turned from 'vague spirit without any way to influence people' to 'Oh yeah, here you go, influence away, my good WoL' is that suddenly there's the question about avoiding the Final Days. Because I thought initially that they were going to do the thing where the WoL would only be able to watch, learn things but be otherwise helpless to avoid the coming disaster. But instead, they absolutely were put in a 'G'raha Tia' position. And yes, if they somehow HAD managed to pull a G'raha and avoid the final days... they would have prevented immeasurable amounts of death... on a galactic scale in turns out. Also that timeline would still have existed anyway, the WoL just would not have been able to go back to it. So the Scions would have been abandoned to their fate with none of the knowledge from Elpis necessary to solve the Final Days.
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Dec 14, 2021 07:23
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Lord_Magmar posted:Yeah he says that, but also admits you probably can’t change anything anyway because of how the travel will send less than a shade of you into the past. Well yeah, but the shade thing gets nixed about 20 seconds in. So I feel that you ARE in a G'raha Tia situation and if things had gone differently you could have created an alternate 'No Final Days, No Sundering' timeline.
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Dec 14, 2021 07:25
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ImpAtom posted:I absolutely don't think I have the sum total of the script or the only valid interpretation, but neither do I feel comfortable just shrugging and going "that is your opinion" when it comes to saying things I find pretty awful myself. The problem I have with the Venat narrative isn't criticism of the character but the fact that it almost universally seems to go hand-in-hand with trying to whitewash the Zodiark group's actions, thus why you have people arguing that actually Venat was a mean bully who forced her will on the star and the Ancients didn't actually intend to sacrifice people or anything they can to avoid having to actively say "I think the Ancients should have been able to murder the lesser races because that is a less serious crime than sundering the star." No one has said anything of the sort. If anything, people have pointed out that the planet as it exists now deserves to keep on existing, even IF it objectively doesn't live up to the post-scarcity society the Ancients originally had. Something doesn't have to be superior in order to be allowed life and happiness. A key part of that is understanding that just like the Sundered shouldn't have to die for the sake of the Ancients, so too the Ancients shouldn't have had to die so that the Sundered can exist. That complexity being of interest to me doesn't mean that I'm a bad person. Someone else taking issue with how Venat was handled doesn't mean they are discussing things with you in bad faith. It's a video game; the only thing you know about me personally from my opinions posted here is that I like playing FFXIV--as do you, I assume. musouka fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Dec 14, 2021 |
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Dec 14, 2021 07:25
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Kazy posted:He definitely says that if you change it too much you'll be stranded. I must have misremembered then. Time travel is confusing.
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Dec 14, 2021 07:25
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Shogeton posted:Well yeah, but the shade thing gets nixed about 20 seconds in. So I feel that you ARE in a G'raha Tia situation and if things had gone differently you could have created an alternate 'No Final Days, No Sundering' timeline. Oh I’m aware, I’m explaining where the confusion is plausibly coming from.
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Dec 14, 2021 07:27
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Shogeton posted:One thought I had when I was turned from 'vague spirit without any way to influence people' to 'Oh yeah, here you go, influence away, my good WoL' is that suddenly there's the question about avoiding the Final Days. Because I thought initially that they were going to do the thing where the WoL would only be able to watch, learn things but be otherwise helpless to avoid the coming disaster. But instead, they absolutely were put in a 'G'raha Tia' position. And yes, if they somehow HAD managed to pull a G'raha and avoid the final days... they would have prevented immeasurable amounts of death... on a galactic scale in turns out. I wanted nothing more than to stay in the past. Even after the memory wipe. I just wanted to stay, to help save those people, to prevent all that horrible poo poo. Give me that
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Dec 14, 2021 07:28
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Eimi posted:I wanted nothing more than to stay in the past. Yep. Though try not to think about the original timeline where the Warrior of Light went to check out something in the First... and never came back.
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Dec 14, 2021 07:30
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musouka posted:No one has said anything of the sort. If anything, people have pointed out that the planet as it exists now deserves to keep on existing, even IF it objectively doesn't live up to the post-scarcity society the Ancients originally had. Something doesn't have to be superior in order to be allowed life and happiness. A key part of that is understanding that just like the Sundered shouldn't have to die for the sake of the Ancients, so too the Ancients shouldn't have had to die so that the Sundered can exist. Many people have said things of the sort, which is the entire reason for the whole "We don't actually know what the Sacrifice was even" discussion. That's the entire point though. It was an either/or choice. Part of the Ancients were willing to make a sacrifice of lives in order to bring their own back. The other part believed those lives had the right to exist without being sacrificed. There was no middle choice because the sacrifice crew were dead set in their ways and unwilling to bend and the no-sacrifice crew were unwilling to let that happen. The end result is that yes, the Sundered had to die for the Ancients or the Ancients had to die for the Sundered because that is how the situation ended up. The only way to argue for "The Ancients should have kept existing" is to acknowledge that would have gone hand-in-hand with the destruction of other lives. It didn't need to but for that not to happen the society would have needed to not be utterly wrecked by trauma to the point they threw away their entire society's previous purpose in life. And maybe there's an argument for that in a vacuum. (Within the context of the game we know that it would have been a temporary measure since the Endsinger was still out there but that isn't really relevant.) But the point of the story is that there isn't a middle ground here. It was one or the other.
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Dec 14, 2021 07:33
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:So has ImpAtom. They're basically doing the exact same thing but with more words to try and dance around it. Hence the lol. To be clear, I don't think they were being some huge jerk or anything. But I feel like once someone moves the discussion to making small digs at someone else's character, it's not hypocrisy to like, respond to that? I don't mind people disagreeing with me, but for me this stuff instantly feels different the moment someone insinuates my opinion is due to some personal flaw, which has happened a lot. Sorry for being too much of a delicate flower weirdo or whatever idk. ImpAtom posted:I absolutely don't think I have the sum total of the script or the only valid interpretation, but neither do I feel comfortable just shrugging and going "that is your opinion" when it comes to saying things I find pretty awful myself. The problem I have with the Venat narrative isn't criticism of the character but the fact that it almost universally seems to go hand-in-hand with trying to whitewash the Zodiark group's actions, thus why you have people arguing that actually Venat was a mean bully who forced her will on the star and the Ancients didn't actually intend to sacrifice people or anything they can to avoid having to actively say "I think the Ancients should have been able to murder the lesser races because that is a less serious crime than sundering the star." Well, I don't think I've ever tried to whitewash the Ascians myself. I think both them and Venat did a bunch of murders, and neither justifies the other whatsoever. If the writers did intend for the third sacrifice to be killing sentient creatures, which is not explicit but seems more likely than not with the framing, then that was unforgivable and they had to be stopped. But writing a scenario where the only way for them to be stopped was the mass-murder and of not only the perpetrators but a vast number of completely unrelated people, and then inflicting far more misery on the world indefinitely following, and then practically sainting the person who went through with it... In tandem with everything, it's really uncomfortable to me. And if you don't get it or feel like I'm reading the text disingenuously, then so be it. But that's how I felt. thetoughestbean posted:Hey I just want to say that I understand where you’re coming from even if I disagree. I know it can be super frustrating when you feel like people aren’t listening to what you’re saying and it seems like this is what’s happening a bit. Thank you for this btw. PoorWeather fucked around with this message at 07:44 on Dec 14, 2021 |
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Dec 14, 2021 07:35
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It probably doesn't help that there are a couple of lines from other NPCs that are like "well, this doesn't make sense if time travel works the way we know it did before with G'raha...." But we have actually seen this kind of time travel before: in the Alexander raid quests. This is how Mide ends up being one of the founders of her own tribe in the end, and Alex itself is stuck in a time loop. All the time travel throughout that whole story is this kind of deterministic thing, anything that gets changed in the past was always that way, no timeline splitting. So it's not unprecedented , it's just not clear/explained why it works this way, sometimes.
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Dec 14, 2021 07:36
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ImpAtom posted:I must have misremembered then. Time travel is confusing. What trips me up is that he says something like "for the world facing the Final Days, the world to which you must return, you cannot change anyone's fate." and that could either mean "the world you must return to if you want to save people" or "the world which you're coming back to whatever happens" and which interpretation you pick changes how it seems time travel works.
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Dec 14, 2021 07:44
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Clarste posted:My understanding of the game's time travel mechanics is you can NEVER change you own past, you either create a time loop or spin off a new timeline entirely if it can't work. But either of the latter are possible depending on what you change or don't change. That's echoed by Elidibus before you go to Elbis that more or less, our fight is in the here and now in this timeline, and there's nothing that you can do in the past to change what is currently happening. Its a good dodge for the themes of EW because it sidesteps getting into dumbass time travel arguments to say like "no you actually need to face reality, you can't avert suffering by running away from it in a time machine" homeless snail fucked around with this message at 07:52 on Dec 14, 2021 |
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Dec 14, 2021 07:47
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PoorWeather posted:To be clear, I don't think they were being some huge jerk or anything. But I feel like once someone moves the discussion to making small digs at someone else's character, it's not hypocrisy to like, respond to that? If I came across that way then I apologize. It can be difficult to keep track of people sometimes so if I pointed to something someone else said and attributed it to you I'm sorry. As far as the second part goes: FFXIV is very clear about the fact that heroes and villains are determined by those who view them. The Warrior of Light is viewed as a horrific mass murderer who did unspeakable crimes to the Garleans. You talk to people who talk about how you killed their friends or treat you like a beast and a demon. The people who view Venat positively are people who she sacrificed, fought and suffered to save. They are going to view her positively because she fought for their side and for their lives. The Ascians on the other hand talk of her like a parasite and a cancer because they are on the other side. There is a moral grey in the story because that's innate to the story, but at the end of the day the game almost universally chooses to side with those who act in the preservation of life over taking it for personal gain. Like Endwalker brings this up explicitly. Your actions cost lives. The Garleans even argue (though I doubt I agree) that you cost more lives in the long run than a Garlean victory would have. The reason you were willing to fight is because the cost and the sacrifice was abhorrent on a level that mattered more. It is two different viewpoints and it can't be boiled down to raw numbers because the end goal was something more for both sides.
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Dec 14, 2021 07:50
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Also, there is this guy Decimus who's like 'Even now, the words of Lord Quintus serve as an inspiration' and I'm like... What? Like, that kinda bothers me more than anything with Hydaelin and Zodiark, the fact that Quintus is made to be 'oh well, not so bad'. What did Quintus do or say that gave him any redemptive value? He sacrificed his own people's wellbeing on a stupid, pride filled and treacherous attack on the people that were trying to help them, and what that turned out to be impossible, but he could still be there to be a unifying force to help rebuild, decided to gently caress off.
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Dec 14, 2021 07:51
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Shogeton posted:Also, there is this guy Decimus who's like 'Even now, the words of Lord Quintus serve as an inspiration' and I'm like... What? He really wished he was Gul Dukat.
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Dec 14, 2021 07:56
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Bruceski posted:What trips me up is that he says something like "for the world facing the Final Days, the world to which you must return, you cannot change anyone's fate." and that could either mean "the world you must return to if you want to save people" or "the world which you're coming back to whatever happens" and which interpretation you pick changes how it seems time travel works. This reads to me like he’s warning you not to change the fate of the Ancients because if you do you will not return to the world you want to save. I think the clear deal with Time Travel is it works two ways. Either you change things enough that you create a new timeline, at which point you are stuck in that timeline. Or things remain the same enough that you create if not a time loop, a parallel timeline that is attached to your own without changing it. Venat as Hydaelyn is an Omniscient Deity, so it’s possible she remembers both timelines and that’s why she mentions the timeline convergence, she’s guiding you to make a time loop because it’s how she thinks you can learn what you need to either fight the Endsinger or flee the planet safely.
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Dec 14, 2021 07:57
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Shogeton posted:Also, there is this guy Decimus who's like 'Even now, the words of Lord Quintus serve as an inspiration' and I'm like... What? Garlemald is a broken nation with broken worldviews. Rebuilding Garlemald isn't just a matter of giving them back a bunch of houses to live in; it's getting them to not view everyone that isn't them as an impending menace. That's gonna take a goddamn while, and Quintus is going to stand up as an ideal for quite a while, because to the loyalists he's going to stand as something like 'the last true leader of Garlemald'; to them, his plan didn't fail because of him, it failed because everyone else gave up.
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Dec 14, 2021 07:59
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Shogeton posted:Also, there is this guy Decimus who's like 'Even now, the words of Lord Quintus serve as an inspiration' and I'm like... What? Quintus is interesting I think because based off what he says and does he's one of the pre-empire Garleans and that colors his viewpoints extremely hard. He is likely old enough to have remembered what it was like when they were the only people on the entire planet who couldn't use magic and where effectively at the mercy of every other living being and forced to live in a wretched cold hopeless hellhole because they literally did not have the ability to fight back. He's traumatized because he spent (x) amount of his life being a victim and absolutely refuses to go back to that. He (rather understandably) believes that if the Garleans have really lost then all that awaits them is suffering and misery and he chooses to die rather than face that again. It also plays well into the themes of the story. It's an interesting viewpoint and one I do hope the patches deal with because... yeah, the Garleans are in a reallllly lovely position right now. Their worldwide empire failed, their armies are in ruins, they made enemies of almost everyone, and they are effectively the weakest and most helpless people in the world. They have good reason to believe that they are going to be wiped out to the last man by the vengeful people of the world. Alphy is of course trying to salvage something that doesn't lead to more mass murder but it's understandable why Garleans would respect Quintus because to them he was a hero who fought against people they fully expect to murder them in their sleep now.
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Dec 14, 2021 08:00
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