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I would like to point out again that we did kill Emet-Selch so like, it’s not like we just gave him a talking to. Teledji is also just floating freely in the lifestream, we didn’t send him to extra double hell
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May 4, 2022 22:39
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Warmachine posted:There's a huge difference in attitude between killing with the power to make and unmake life at will, and killing as a normal boring mortal. It is the center of every fable about "playing God" in science fiction. You have free, infinite do-overs (kind of a branch off my time travel points from earlier) and can just remake the butterfly/cow/dragon when you're done with it. There's no consequence to it. Not even "I killed the bull for beef so now I need to raise a new bull." lol just magic up a new bull tomorrow. Maybe give it wings lmao why not? the difference is immaterial! the point of elpis is not "haha wow, hermes is so right about how bad elpis is, isnt it sad how sad he is?" its that hermes had a reasonable issue, but rather than try to meet people with understanding in an attempt to fix it, he indulged in his bad feelings and doubled down at every opportunity! it is literally theatrical (macbeth, not star wars) tragedy. the actions and choices he made make sense to us as things people could choose, but the consequences are unambiguously wrong. and they are unambiguously his. the sadness is both sadness for him, because of how misguided he was by his own humanity (something we all struggle with and have fallen to before), but also sadness for everyone he directly hurt and how clear as day that that they are worse off because of him. its complex! its meant to be! this is literally the power of media lol. come on.
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May 4, 2022 22:42
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Badger of Basra posted:I would like to point out again that we did kill Emet-Selch so like, it’s not like we just gave him a talking to. Teledji is also just floating freely in the lifestream, we didn’t send him to extra double hell That was reserved for Aledji
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May 4, 2022 22:42
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Orcs and Ostriches posted:I was a little down on them when I first went to Elpis for just nonchalantly killing those butterflies to use their aether, but yeah, the WoL does worse for far more mundane reasons. I have summoned Bahamut to wipe out a small population of monsters because they aggroed me while I was dealing with a level synced FATE. 
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May 4, 2022 22:44
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GiantRockFromSpace posted:Yeah, the only characters that the game doesn't really attempt to redeem are Asahi, Teledeji, Valens and more minor villains like the Bibliophile leader from AST who is also pretty much the reason behind everything that sucks about Sharlayan and gets scot free besides having to help with the spaceship. This game is big on redemption and understanding, even Ilberd gets a bit of that with his wish to free Ala Migho (even if literally everything else he does is terrible) I think Zenos' role in the fight is somewhat understated because thanks to his dumb fight himbo rear end turning into a dragon, which is normally not a good idea, we were able to just hit the road and chase the Endsinger instead of having to like drag rear end back to our ship and figure out what the gently caress we were doing there. Could we have figured something out? Possibly. Did we not have to? Yes. Thanks, Ilberd! Now back to your fire elephants.
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May 4, 2022 22:49
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I think there is generally both more wrong with Elpis than a lot of folks seem interested in acknowledging or conceding (even if Emet actually does see you as a person and is choosing his own death, the norms that unperson you that he is struggling against in that case come directly from the Ancients), and that Hermes is obviously walking himself into his spectacular failure and mental breakdown. The sanuwa thing is a particularly interesting example because I think a lot of people take away that Emet ultimately assented and you saved the sanuwa, but overlook the part where the premise of the sequence is that Emet is initially so tightly bound by ancient mores (and not even around life, but around whether or not transformation in public is uncouth) that he would rather simply kill the thing and be done with it, when we see that "fixing" the sanuwa takes all of thirty seconds. And he's also just kind of really being a normal-style prick by pulling rank on Hermes at his own job. It is, as people have often pointed out, almost literally just "Wizards: No Sense of Right and Wrong: The Society". Elpis is basically a zone where you wander around a mad science lab; it's fun, but there's a sense of weirdness to the proceedings the whole time. They even have a magic underground prison full of spikes and cages to underline the weirdness. I do think the game ultimately thinks Hermes extremely fucks himself (and, like, the literal entire universe) over, but I think a fair amount of that lies with ancient ethics and values, which is thematically nice and neat. That's not to say they "deserved" it or anything, just that the fundamental flaws in their society (chiefly, their tendency to devalue life and its attendant joy, whether that's in the form of banning personal expression or making enjoying food taboo, or, uh, making and killing life repeatedly just because you kinda can) are deeply linked to both the problem they face and the ultimately untenable solutions they attempt to use to address it. Valentin fucked around with this message at 23:11 on May 4, 2022 |
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May 4, 2022 23:01
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Valentin posted:The WoL doesn't make life just to kill it, Neither did the ancients until you know.. The whole villainous turn into ascians. Stop being a weirdo
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May 4, 2022 23:11
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Something to point out is that the whole weird parts of Ancient society seem more... society problems than personal. Sidequests in Elpis constantly have you interact with Ancients who care about their familiars, Ancients who feel sad about their masters dying, Ancients trying to fix their creations so they don't have to unmake them. The sidequest capstone is about giving a funeral to dead creations. Ancients do care about stuff, it's just that they are living in a society  ...also, it makes sense Emet and even Hythlo would be more callous with life than usual: they're high ranking government officials so they'd have more inclinations towards those opinions (well, Hythlo is probably numb from his job as Chief of the Bureau of the Architecth, seems like a job leading towards lots of unmade creations)
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May 4, 2022 23:17
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there is a whole fate chain about making the behemoth just because it kills things cool and a scene all about how there's way too many hosed up sharks because it was trendy and hyth thinks it's funny? sorry for being weird in the lore thread though I'll run it by you next time I have some post ideasGiantRockFromSpace posted:Something to point out is that the whole weird parts of Ancient society seem more... society problems than personal. Sidequests in Elpis constantly have you interact with Ancients who care about their familiars, Ancients who feel sad about their masters dying, Ancients trying to fix their creations so they don't have to unmake them. The sidequest capstone is about giving a funeral to dead creations. Ancients do care about stuff, it's just that they are living in a society This is true! We see a lot of people, from the ancient who shows you around who likes good food to the one feeling sad about her master's death, with perfectly normal sensibilities. One thing Elpis does that's really neat is to emphasize how much the people are like modern people even as the society is alien. I just think the game ascribes more thematic weight on the societal weirdness than many people think (which is, I think, also a product of the game itself; they chose in writing Elpis to have it be mostly Fun With Emet-Selch And Friends, even if I think it's a weak choice thematically, and contributed to a lot of the initial confusion around the sundering cutscene). Valentin fucked around with this message at 23:22 on May 4, 2022 |
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May 4, 2022 23:17
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Hythlodaeus didn't seem to find it actually funny that people were making all kinds of sharks, he was being a sassy bitch about how people were creating implausible sharkoids who were increasingly untenable and that sucked pretty bad for the sharkoids.
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May 4, 2022 23:19
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https://twitter.com/Rukaharu_kamo/status/1521963900668768256 World third, I think. So 1st: Team Neverland 2nd: Aether Group 3 3rd: Sleipnir
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May 4, 2022 23:19
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Thoughts Per Fourth
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May 4, 2022 23:21
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thoughts per twenty-second e: nice
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May 4, 2022 23:21
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Valentin posted:there is a whole fate chain about making the behemoth just because it kills things cool and a scene all about how there's way too many hosed up sharks because it was trendy and hyth thinks it's funny? sorry for being weird in the lore thread though I'll run it by you next time I have some post ideas That's still not 'making things just to kill them'. I mean you wanna talk about hte morality of making an ecosystem and stocking it with too powerful predators the game already talks about that and says "OH yeah we made a mistake and these things will just kill everything they can find." which is both bad for the ecosystem and things in general. Hell, killing such a beast since it's a threat to people is something we do constantly. Like it's sad it happens but it's not like they were making a wolf just to have something to kill.
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May 4, 2022 23:22
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:That's still not 'making things just to kill them'. I mean you wanna talk about hte morality of making an ecosystem and stocking it with too powerful predators the game already talks about that and says "OH yeah we made a mistake and these things will just kill everything they can find." which is both bad for the ecosystem and things in general. Hell, killing such a beast since it's a threat to people is something we do constantly. Like it's sad it happens but it's not like they were making a wolf just to have something to kill. I mean "just" in a sense of "only" or "immediately," not "for the sole purpose of." The ancients make life and unmake it in what seems like a matter of weeks due to, frankly, what usually seems like not enough time at the drawing board. They are careless in their creation of life, not malicious, which feeds into their apathy and lack of respect for created life, which underpins everything the Ascians go on to do. unrelated it is very funny to phone post in here because my phone always wants me to type Asians instead of Ascians. #stopascianhate
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May 4, 2022 23:27
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Valentin posted:I do think the game ultimately thinks Hermes extremely fucks himself (and, like, the literal entire universe) over, but I think a fair amount of that lies with ancient ethics and values, which is thematically nice and neat. ZenMasterBullshit posted:Like it's sad it happens but it's not like they were making a wolf just to have something to kill. Dwesa fucked around with this message at 23:37 on May 4, 2022 |
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May 4, 2022 23:30
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I would also observe that Emet is himself a fussy moralistic public scold who derives his authority from performing Good Conduct in public. He is also best friends and/or fuckbuddies with Professional Troll Hythlodaeus and Known Weirdo Azem, and neither seems to get much more than an "oh, ~you scamp~" rebuke officially. The former also refers to plays as a thing he experiences just as other Ancients talk about favorite foods even though there's some social pressure not to overindulge (cooking is still clearly a valued skill) and the fact nobody bats an eye at your combat gear during the Pandemonium quests suggests, along with mention of mercenaries and coinage, that there are things beyond just flowing robes and ascetic intellectualism. So although there's certainly some social pressures towards "why can't you just be normal?!" Ancient society is like ours. There's diversity and presumably subcultures and various levels of artistic and personal expression.
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May 4, 2022 23:31
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Jetrauben posted:I would also observe that Emet is himself a fussy moralistic public scold who derives his authority from performing Good Conduct in public. well I mean he derives it largely from being the strongest living mage, the rare gift of soulsight, and his public office. it's just that he enjoys being a fussy moralistic scold. generally agreed otherwise, though I think it's interesting the game never quite nails down what degree of pressure there is to conform in ancient society, which does feel like a weakness since that so heavily informs Hermes' whole deal. Your points go towards the idea it's somewhat looser than people let on, but the pressure is also constant and omnipresent, and we do see it affect even purely personal interactions like e.g. the woman who just wants to say goodbye to her mentor before she passes. Valentin fucked around with this message at 23:39 on May 4, 2022 |
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May 4, 2022 23:36
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Jetrauben posted:I would also observe that Emet is himself a fussy moralistic public scold who derives his authority from performing Good Conduct in public. And honestly I don't get why people are upset at the mandated robes thing, when it's pretty clearly there to stop people from trying showily one up each other with created clothing. Like I accept that for a society that can create things on a whim, the rules would have to be different from ours and that level of oh everyone wears this so we don't all go insane is sensible?
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May 4, 2022 23:38
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If Ancients were obsessing about fashion, maybe they wouldn't make morbols, depressed birds and other xenomorphs.
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May 4, 2022 23:41
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Eimi posted:And honestly I don't get why people are upset at the mandated robes thing, when it's pretty clearly there to stop people from trying showily one up each other with created clothing. Like I accept that for a society that can create things on a whim, the rules would have to be different from ours and that level of oh everyone wears this so we don't all go insane is sensible? Are we ever given to believe robes are mandated? I always got the impression they were a cultural thing.
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May 4, 2022 23:45
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Ironslave posted:Are we ever given to believe robes are mandated? I always got the impression they were a cultural thing. They aren't mandated by law but they're mandated in the sense that people will look at you funny for not wearing them.
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May 4, 2022 23:50
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A strong social more to be sure, but it seems unlikely a law.
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May 4, 2022 23:50
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To me, getting weird about the robes is like getting weird about clothes in general. How prudish and repressive of us IRL, not to show our genitals in polite society! Not wearing robes and wearing unique clothing is considering gauche and childish, much like how you can get away with wearing Superman pajamas 24/7 as a child but it's not socially acceptable in the office. Being gauche and childish are also not crimes. I don't think you get sent to fashion jail if your robes are pink or whatever.
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May 4, 2022 23:51
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musouka posted:To me, getting weird about the robes is like getting weird about clothes in general. How prudish and repressive of us IRL, not to show our genitals in polite society! hmmm yes tell me more about how the people with different opinions from yours must all be sex weirdos e: ironically "anyone who disagrees about all of us wearing identical robes must just want to get naked and show off their genitals" is a great demonstration of why some people feel weird about the robes (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 4, 2022 23:56
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Valentin posted:hmmm yes tell me more about how the people with different opinions from yours must all be sex weirdos I don't think there's anything weird about being naked, though? It's just not a socially acceptable thing to do in public.
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May 5, 2022 00:01
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Orcs and Ostriches posted:A strong social more to be sure, but it seems unlikely a law. Yeah. And for all we know it's a "look either share with the class or keep your awesome clothes and Bitchin' Monster OC Forms to the club and the theater." The Pandemonium outfits even show that there's a fair bit of diversity possible in Ancient clothes, and it can actually be quite stylish.
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May 5, 2022 00:03
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Valentin posted:hmmm yes tell me more about how the people with different opinions from yours must all be sex weirdos you like to do this thing where people say something reasonable you dont agree with and your response is to cast them as some psycho about it. it sucks rear end and you should stop doing it because it makes you an insanely bad poster.
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May 5, 2022 00:04
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If the intent was to ascribe "being naked in public should be fine" as a position to anyone who felt weird about the robes, that's kind of a straightforward accusation of weird sex poo poo. if the post was attempting to argue by analogy to nakedness, it did so phenomenally poorly given no one previously mentioned getting naked at all, and again analogizing someone else's position to "it should be okay to be naked in public" is a weird move. e: if you would prefer you can imagine I said "hold up, when did anyone bring genitals into this" in the quoted post. my experience online is that when someone starts putting words about wanting to be naked in public in people's mouths you can safely read it as an accusation of deviancy, but maybe i was insufficiently charitable. Valentin fucked around with this message at 00:15 on May 5, 2022 |
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May 5, 2022 00:07
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Valentin posted:If the intent was to ascribe "being naked in public should be fine" as a position to anyone who felt weird about the robes, that's kind of a straightforward accusation of weird sex poo poo. if the post was attempting to argue by analogy to nakedness, it did so phenomenally poorly given no one previously mentioned getting naked at all, and again analogizing someone else's position to "it should be okay to be naked in public" is a weird move. I'm sorry that I have to explain this to you, but my analogy was based on the idea that "restrictions of expression through the way we dress are bad" when we, as people that live in the real world, also have restrictions on the way we dress. It's fine if you don't like my analogy or think it was bad or whatever, but I also think it's in pretty bad faith to assume I was trying to call you a sex pervert through an example that is clarified by my following sentences if you really did find it that bewildering and offensive.
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May 5, 2022 00:12
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you could lead with the part where you think its a bad analogy and not jump immediately to sex weirdo accusations over a funny video game. or you could just not do this at all.
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May 5, 2022 00:13
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The obvious thing is that transforming in public is stripping. So yes Hades fought you shirtless in the rain. More seriously your god OC form is implied to be this weird mix of extremely personal and unfit for polite society outside extreme circumstances. So it is funny to imagine it as stripping down to fight.
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May 5, 2022 00:16
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Jetrauben posted:I would also observe that Emet is himself a fussy moralistic public scold who derives his authority from performing Good Conduct in public. yea we (thankfully, I like keeping Ancients fairly 'mysterious' in some ways) don't exactly get a big book called "HOW ANCIENT SOCIETY WORKS" but we see that there is at the very least a diverse group of people beyond the nerds. Like said, Emet and Hythlo are both terrible academics, Emet seems to be a powerful mage and Hythlo...has a bow...but they're both pretty distinct people who wouldn't fit in in some stuffy 100% erudite society and one of them is on the Super Senate or whatever, and is totally boyfriends with the other who you can't convence me isn't a slightly less hobo Diogenes when he's put in an academic setting. We know they have 'mercenaries' as a concept and arts and leisure and all, if anything they seem more functional and diverse than poor Sharlayan who needed one lone brave man and his burger stand to keep the entire nation from eating nutrient gruel
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May 5, 2022 00:18
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Lord_Magmar posted:The obvious thing is that transforming in public is stripping. So yes Hades fought you shirtless in the rain. Thus, Venat spent eons in the buff ready to fight you. Edit: also. Hythlodaeus can't transform because he doesn't think that highly of himself as to perfectly express his beautiful inner self 
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May 5, 2022 00:20
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sexpig by night posted:yea we (thankfully, I like keeping Ancients fairly 'mysterious' in some ways) don't exactly get a big book called "HOW ANCIENT SOCIETY WORKS" but we see that there is at the very least a diverse group of people beyond the nerds. Like said, Emet and Hythlo are both terrible academics, Emet seems to be a powerful mage and Hythlo...has a bow...but they're both pretty distinct people who wouldn't fit in in some stuffy 100% erudite society and one of them is on the Super Senate or whatever, and is totally boyfriends with the other who you can't convence me isn't a slightly less hobo Diogenes when he's put in an academic setting.
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May 5, 2022 00:22
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musouka posted:I'm sorry that I have to explain this to you, but my analogy was based on the idea that "restrictions of expression through the way we dress are bad" when we, as people that live in the real world, also have restrictions on the way we dress. It's fine if you don't like my analogy or think it was bad or whatever, but I also think it's in pretty bad faith to assume I was trying to call you a sex pervert through an example that is clarified by my following sentences if you really did find it that bewildering and offensive. I have to be honest I find your analogy incredibly poorly constructed (thinking that "it's weird to make everyone wear the exact same clothes in Amaurot" is analogous to thinking "it should be okay to be naked in public on Earth" doesn't make a ton of sense, not least because the proper clothes-based analogy for not everyone wearing the same clothes is...not everyone wearing the same clothes), and I think collapsing the distinction between "it should be okay to wear different clothes" and "it should be okay to be naked in public" is a fundamentally regressive rhetorical move, but I should have left room for the possibility of misinterpretation. I was unfair to you; my sincere apologies for leaping to conclusions. Valentin fucked around with this message at 00:32 on May 5, 2022 |
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May 5, 2022 00:23
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The best thing is Sharlayan apparently has people who study the culinary arts and compile all sorts of information on cooking techniques and spices, and fantastic foods... and then many of them just eat bland boring stuff because its efficient and they're all far too busy with their own scholarly obsessions to be much interested in food.Jetrauben posted:Edit: also. Hythlodaeus can't transform because he doesn't think that highly of himself as to perfectly express his beautiful inner self I've viewed Hytyhlodaeus' "ahh I'm just a nobody weakling" less as him being self depreciative and more just teasing Hades about his own power. Hythlodaeus seems quite competent and he does bust out some magic when functioning as a trust. As a comedy thing I sadly can't find roughly put it (paraphrasing) Azem: Hades please take of [thing] for us! Hades: Do it yourself! Azem: But I'm Azem! I'm soooo eccentric, can you really trust me to do it?!  Hythlodaeus: And I'm soooo weak and normal, only you, great Hades, can handle this!  Galaga Galaxian fucked around with this message at 00:28 on May 5, 2022 |
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May 5, 2022 00:23
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yea Hythlo is objectively skilled as an archer and magician, we see it in the trust, I think his 'oh I'm but a silly lil guy, just a silly lil birthday boy, you wouldn't be mad at a lil guy on his birthday' act is mainly to tweak Emet who is indeed the more powerful of the two. Plus yea I 100% subscribe to the headcanon that he and Azem use the 'oh but surely the great and mighty Emet Selch, most powerful of the convocation, can do this for us so much better' act just to be lazy
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May 5, 2022 00:35
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Hades liked Ancient society as it was and wanted nothing more than to complete a life of civic duty and comfortably retire (into the Lifestream). Those who went against the flow, like Venat not voluntarily taking the final step after passing the office of Azem on, openly rankled him, but mostly he just kept it to grumbling about formalities and appearances. In typical anime terms, he's the guy whose defining trait is wanting to have a "normal" life while surrounded by his weirdo friends who keep pulling him out of his comfort zone.
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May 5, 2022 00:49
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Galaga Galaxian posted:The best thing is Sharlayan apparently has people who study the culinary arts and compile all sorts of information on cooking techniques and spices, and fantastic foods... and then many of them just eat bland boring stuff because its efficient and they're all far too busy with their own scholarly obsessions to be much interested in food. Ah, San Francisco.
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May 5, 2022 00:52
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