Free-camming around the p11 arena for an hour so you don't have to

for legal reasons, this title is a joke and I acquired these pictures from a secondhand source.

It's interesting to me that despite being the only unsundered that doesn't appear, Pandaemonium actually does show us a bit about how uniquely nasty Emet-Selch is as a person.

Like, he has his whole spiel about how the sundered are not even human to him, and how all the unsundered would agree with him if they saw us.

But then a rejoined-with-Hephaistos, from-right-before-the-summinging-of-Zodiark Lahabrea sees the unsundered and goes "Oh, there are people here! Surely this means my plan succeeded and we saved the star!" Like he not only doesn't have any issues with the sundered, he just immediately accepts that they're people.

Likewise Elidibus and Erichtonios also don't seem to have any issues whatsoever accepting the sundered as people, but Lahabrea is the one who talks about/interacts with them the most.

When he finds out what he ends up doing to the sundered as an Ascian, he immediately accepts it, and describes what he does as monstrous, and pushes the point that it was the right thing to do to oppose and kill him.

And yes, sure, they all get tempered and go mad in various ways, but Emet-Selch is constantly shown as the most complete, the one who is the most like his old self. And while the Amaurotines are shown to have a fucked up relationship to non-human life, Emet-Selch is really the only one of the Unsundered shown to view the sundered as Not Human.

I gotta say, I did not expect this particular post to get so much attention, nor so many replies. I guess saying that Gridania is an Ascian plot is less controversial than saying Emet-Selch is kinda mean!

(That's a joke, I do genuinely appreciate all of the replies and this is far from an Emet-Selch hate blog)

I want to add that I love Emet-Selch as a character, and maybe calling him "uniquely nasty" ended up sounding like far more of a condemnation than I intended.

I see a lot of people bringing up the unimaginable amounts of trauma that Emet-Selch has vis-a-vis the sundering and the sundered, and how that colours his view of them, and I'm not denying that, or trying to paint him like some kind of mega-hitler inherently predisposed to hating "non-humans" (even if -let's be real- he did found at least two genocidal totalitarian empires), I was just musing about how interesting it is that Emet-Selch's justification for his actions (That every "real human" would be disturbed by what has happened) is sort of debunked by the Speaker and Emissary of said "real humans", the representatives of their entire culture in a way, not only don't share his views, but indirectly condemn his (and their own) actions.

Especially since it pairs so well with one of his other major pieces of "pro-rejoining" propaganda: him returning Y'shtola from the aetherial sea and blithely playing off what he did like it was no big deal by the standards of his people, and that he's a little disappointed we're so awed by it, when we later find out that Emet-Selch was in fact The Guy In Charge Of Doing That Kind Of Thing, chosen for his prodigal skills at Doing That Kind Of Thing.

It blurs the line between what's The Truth, what's Emet-Selch's Rose-Tinted Glasses, and what's Emet-Selch Just Straight Up Lying to the WoL to try and convince them to join him.

This turned into a massive tangential ramble, but what I was trying to say is that I do think there's a reason that while Elidibus settled on "I am the hero trying to save the world and you are the villains, therefore everything I do is justified" and Lahabrea seemingly embraces his role as The Villain, complete with evil maniacal laughter and over-the-top evil monologues, Emet-Selch settles on "You are not even truly alive, therefore killing you isn't wrong" as his ultimate coping mechanism.

Like, yes, his mentions about consistently getting let down by the sundered explains his actions, and it's clear the death of his son hurt him deeply, but considering he was raising said son as heir apparent to the violent, expansionist,racist, revanchist, military dictatorship driven by war crimes and xenophobia that he himself built, maybe there's some deeper issues at hand, you know?

Again, I love Emet-Selch, he's an amazing character and one of my favourite villains of all time. I just feel like it's a missed opportunity not to examine whether the kind-of assholeish guy who 100% goes to bat for a deeply flawed and fucked-up society, and who -at least as far as I recall- defends said society the most, and is shown to take to extremely fucked-up measures (see aforementioned genocidal, slave-economy empires) to reach his goal, might actually be a little bit flawed.

Oooh, interesting comparison with Lahabrea. One of the reason Lahabrea, even in his ARR form doesn't need to go 'you are not really alive' is because Lahabrea even before the Sundering is VERY willing to kill Unsundered beings. One of his first acts on screen is 'we should destroy all of Pandemonium and everyone in it' and only Elidibus pulling rank prevents him from doing so. This is extremely odd for someone in a society where 'dying without choosing to' is a big deal. 

Compared to that, Pre-Sundering Emet Selch seems perhaps not super kind, but I’d be surprised if he had a body count, or would approve of the kind of measures Lahabrea takes.

You can also see that that Emet Selch, when faced with his Ascian future, denies it, won’t accept it. Lahabrea hears it, recognizes it as evil and then says ‘Yeah, if the cause was important enough, I would absolutely, 100% do this’

So I can imagine the Ascian lunch room where Emet Selch is telling everyone and himself how justified they are in doing it, and how it’s not REALLY killing anyone, etc. etc. while Lahabrea rolls his eyes and tunes him out and starts plotting his next atrocities.

Also, I imagine that Emet Selch might have some dreams that one day, after they succeed, he’d be able to return to things how they were and be friends with Hythlodaeus and Azem, etc. Lahabrea probably figures (and I imagine correctly) that the Ancients that sacrificed themselves to Zodiark would in general be pretty horrified by what the Unsundered got up to. And he knows that he’s got no place in that world any more.

I do think something important to remember about specifically Lahabrea's decision to destroy Pandaemonium is that he knows exactly what Hephaistos and Athena are doing/are planning to do: torture everyone inside until they're mind-controlled, monstrous husks of their former selves; he also knows that without rejoining with Hephaistos, he (held up as the most brilliant, powerful mage certainly of his age and perhaps ever) cannot fix it. To rejoin with Hephaistos is to start down the road of inevitably ending up doing exactly the same thing due to Athena fucking with his soul.

From his point of view, the choice is between prolonging the suffering and torment of his entire staff to perhaps at best grant them a false reprieve and an inevitable worse fate, or end it all now.

Hell, technically one could make the argument that us convincing Elidibus to "pull rank", thus resulting in Lahabrea choosing to rejoin with Hephaistos in order to save the survivors from Athena's control, is what lead to his fall into madness. If he had just nuked Pandaemonium to begin with, then none of Abyssos or Anabaseios would have happened in the first place, and the Ascian who caused all that chaos and death and suffering wouldn't even have existed!

But then again! Without Hephaistos, he probably wouldn't have had the power/mindset needed to invent Zodiark, and the Final Days would have just been the end!

And he does admit all the way in Abyssos that he is grateful that you convinced him not to do it, and that he was wrong! That his desire for control, and his inability to put his faith in the abilities of those around him blinded him to hope!

He isn't "very willing" to kill unsundered, he is well aware of the stakes and is used to being the one who has to make the tough decision. He is the head of Pandaemonium and the Speaker for the Convocation, and he is well aware of what that means.

The ancients all have their duties to the star, and his is to make the tough decisions and make sure that the fucked up shit in Pandaemonium doesn't Get Out or Hurt People, and all of that is happening at once.

Oh yeah. I’m not saying that Lahabrea’s choice was a sign that he was already evil then. His choice was a possible rational one, and in another genre, the fact that people didn’t listen to him would absolutely be the reason why everything went wrong. (See: Ripley)

It’s more that Ancient Society’s relation with death is so sanitized that ‘dying’ is an odd word to use rather than ‘return to the planet’. And the idea of ‘The end is beautiful’ is something that is voiced by everyone in Elpis. Hythlodaeus, all the people who happily and earnestly say that Venat has earned a return to the Planet, etc... When it comes to the lives of the Ancients, the thought that one of them would suffer a sudden, unwanted death seems distant and absurd. The thought of deliberately CAUSING such a death, even for the ‘sake of the Star’ it feels like there’s very few Ancient that could, or would make such a choice. During the MSQ, Emet Selch, also facing a serious threat to Ancient society, gets violent, but he never even brings up the suggestion of killing. (Alright, he also wants information of course, but he never seems to talk about killing. I feel Lahabrea would mention that the goal should be the eradication of all Meteions)

Lahabrea kills for the right reason. And he doesn’t even voice any kind of regret or doubt over it. Despite Emet Selch dealing with the Underworld, Lahabrea feels like he’s a lot more comfortable with death. And is also mentioned to be very much ‘once he’s decided, it’s hard to divest him from his course (Compare Emet Selch, who can often be coaxed in doing other things, says he’s done with this whole ‘Final Days’ story, then goes and investigate anyway.

So I could see, post-Sundering, when the enormity of the way they can rejoin the worlds, the moral price becomes clear, Lahabrea goes. ‘To do this we’ll need to kill countless of people. Only a villain would do that. But I find it’s worth it do it. That makes me a villain then. So be it.” While Emet Selch goes “To do this we’ll need to kill countless of people. Only a villain would do that. I’m not a villain but I desperately want to do it anyway. Wait;.. what if they’re not people! That works!”

Emet Selch lies to himself in order to handle the situation. And the fact that the shades of Ancients he created in fake Amaurot don’t see us as Familiars (as actual Ancients do) but as children also suggests he might not really lie to himself successfully. 

There’s a reason Lahabrea fights to the last, and Emet Selch ends up just inviting death after all.

Ah, apologies for misunderstanding and jumping the gun there! There's something very interesting about Lahabrea's decisiveness/stubbornness and his willingness to kill and his role as The Speaker, which unless I misunderstand basically makes him the public face and "head of state" of Amaurot.

So when he passes a decision, it's it's pretty damn final. It'd be a bad look for The Speaker Of The Convocation Of Fourteen to be indecisive after all. His choice needs to be the right one but more importantly it needs to be final. Because if it isn't then the convocation as a whole is fallible, and with how argumentative and almost perfectionist the Amaurotines seemed to be, that feels like a dangerous thing for them to be.

Although I do disagree that he'd bring up the goal of destroying the Meteia, since the goal at the time was to contain and review them. And act basically 99% guaranteed to result in their destruction, but considering how much of a stickler for procedure Lahabrea seems to be, that'd probably be quite the sticking point.

Of course, I may be reaching a little due to viewing Lahabrea as autistic and pretty low-empathy, but eh...

You do bring up a lot of interesting points! Especially the way both Emet-Selch and Lahabrea die being representative of their outlooks, I hadn't considered that before.

Well, we don’t know the role of the Speaker tbh, as that’s not been explained to us. We do know that Elidibus’s judgement is respected to the point that should someone disagree with Lahabrea’s decisions, Elidibus will have final say and Lahabrea will mostly abide by it as per Pandaemonium’s questline. So I don’t know about Lahabrea being ‘the final say’ per se.

I also don’t think Lahabrea knew for a fact what Hephaistos and Athena were planning (he didn’t even know she was still alive) - when he appears to us in Pandaemonium he only knows that something’s gone awry and he went to investigate due to his suspicions.

I don’t really agree with this interpretation.

Emet-Selch’s justification (as per his speech in Amaurot) is that the Sundered were not capable of preserving the legacy of his people (their history and the star). Keep in mind also that the Themis that we meet in the Aitiascope is still missing a huge chunk of his memories, and that simulacra of Lahabrea only has memories up until the Final Days. They do not have the context and painful memories that the Lahabrea and Elidibus we fought did, which in particular drove Elidibus to give us a whole gauntlet down in the Tempest. When we meet him in the Crystal Tower, Elidibus even calls us ‘malformed’. Those 12,000 years post-Sundering did breed bad blood there.

It's interesting to me that despite being the only unsundered that doesn't appear, Pandaemonium actually does show us a bit about how uniquely nasty Emet-Selch is as a person.

Like, he has his whole spiel about how the sundered are not even human to him, and how all the unsundered would agree with him if they saw us.

But then a rejoined-with-Hephaistos, from-right-before-the-summinging-of-Zodiark Lahabrea sees the unsundered and goes "Oh, there are people here! Surely this means my plan succeeded and we saved the star!" Like he not only doesn't have any issues with the sundered, he just immediately accepts that they're people.

Likewise Elidibus and Erichtonios also don't seem to have any issues whatsoever accepting the sundered as people, but Lahabrea is the one who talks about/interacts with them the most.

When he finds out what he ends up doing to the sundered as an Ascian, he immediately accepts it, and describes what he does as monstrous, and pushes the point that it was the right thing to do to oppose and kill him.

And yes, sure, they all get tempered and go mad in various ways, but Emet-Selch is constantly shown as the most complete, the one who is the most like his old self. And while the Amaurotines are shown to have a fucked up relationship to non-human life, Emet-Selch is really the only one of the Unsundered shown to view the sundered as Not Human.

Lahabrea in ARR very very much did not see the people of Hydaelyn as people. He has a twenty minute speech about it in old Prae.

I really like this analysis of "the ancients would be happy with sundered Etheirys" but I think the conclusion here leans toward "12000 years of violence, solitude and tempering will really fuck people up."

Because the unsundered have been tempered by Zodiark. Emet-Selch admits it himself. And zodiark's purpose was to restore Etheirys to how it was before the Final Days and no less is acceptable. Ergo, the tempering made the half measure of the sundered world not enough.

I do think that Emet-Selch from ancient times then time traveled to "modern" Hydaelyn would be far more judgemental than most, since he can see the lesser souls and is presented with their lack more immediately than the others (also keep in mind Themis Erich and old Lahabrea were scaled down to our size).

But I truly think his horrific perception of the sundered world is due to equal parts trauma and tempering. He's a classic tsundere and rejects the WoL's story in Elpis outright because he's insecure. He wasn't even the first choice for Emet-Selch, now he's told the world was ending, he tried and FAILED, then the world ended a second time (the sundering) and he went mad over it, building a false city in his grief.

Hades in Elpis severely lacks the emotional maturity of the Lahabrea memory ghost we me in the present and even the newly whole Lahabrea we meet in the past. Hades is so very very young and instead of having the space to mature the world ended twice and he blames himself.

So while I agree he definitely has a terrible reaction to everything, we're comparing apples to oranges.

I don’t think Emet rejected the WoL’s story out of insecurity, but because it was a very hard blow for anyone to take. While he doesn’t go straight to believing us like Hythlodaeus and Venat do, he comes round soon enough, and even accepts that he could entrust his legacy to us by the time we leave him in Ktisis.

Emet strikes me as someone who cares deeply and earnestly for his people, for his society; who believes in them strongly, even if he’s tsundere about it - the reason why he laboured for so long and so hard, why even knowing he would get memory wiped he believes that he would do his best to save his people. It would be difficult for him to accept at face value that his people would face such a fate as the WoL told him.

Emet was ‘young’ compared to Lahabrea for sure (in JP he refers to Laha as ‘old man’ when we first see him post-Stormblood - Laha is old as balls) but he is still an adult as of Ktisis (as per the answers in the recent Korean FanFest Q&A) and one chosen to be worthy of a seat of the Convocation.

(Heck, even ‘mature’ as he is, WoL has to call out Lahabrea on the way he’s antagonizing Erich in the Pandaemonium questline - Lahabrea may be more experienced than Emet, but he lived without half of his soul for a looong time. I wonder if he didn’t truly restart ‘personal growth’ until he takes back his half-soul later.)

anyway here is one. tag essays are welcome

(sorry for not putting this in the tags, it's fiddly for me to do so on mobile)

I voted for 'same way Shouyou-sensei is a performance', but I think it.. sorta also works both ways, in that Shiroyasha/corpse-eating oni may well be the performance (or rather, 'twisted image'), and 'Yorozuya' the original entity?

Gintama leaves some very large uhh.. occult? supernatural? paint swatches on both Gintoki and Shouyou/Utsuro, in ways that intersect with their identites and how they affect other characters in the story.

I'll try not to write a whole thing so this can be brief, but Sorachi makes several allusions to Gintoki fulfilling the 'role' of a kami, something Shouyou/Utsuro eventually becomes worshipped as. Both of them are tied into wishes and the granting or not granting of them (e.g; Shiroyasha honouring Shouyou's wish and denying Takasugi's, Utsuro's manifesting in others when they give into their own 'void', Utsuro 'granting' the Tendoushuu's desire for immortality, and Gin being a wish-granting Yorozuya etc).

Perhaps the characters we see as 'Yorozuya' and 'Shouyou' are nore alike the entities they were meant to be (perhaps kami, or kami-adjacent), before becoming twisted into Utsuro/corpse-eating oni?

In which case, rather than 'a performance of a new identity', Shouyou-sensei and Yorozuya Gin-chan are more akin to then casting off a fake identity they were saddled with.

This is especially interesting because there are actually a lot of hints throughout the show that show Gintoki as standing out from the narrative. His hair is silver, a color not traditionally found on the color wheel, unlike most characters within the series. His bokuto is just as powerful as a regular katana, if not more, and has a spirit residing within it. He has phenomenal strength, in line with Kintaro, the legend he's loosely based off of who later changes his name to Sakata no Kintoki. He was able to survive on his own before Shouyou, using a sword he didn't even know how to hold correctly. He is one of the Four Heavenly Kings - in Buddhism, one of four gods who watches over a cardinal direction. He is one of the few characters in the series who is not based off of a historical figure in one way or another. There is something so mythical about him that the many identities he has - disciple, Shiroyasha, Yorozuya Gin-chan, Savior of Yoshiwara, among others - don't fit him completely or encompass his true nature.

But isn't that the same for all of us?

We use identities to express ourselves. Some fit us better than others, and we discard the ones we don't use, need or want anymore. Sometimes we may even perform as a certain identity or cast off an identity that was fake or never ours to begin with. Gintama isn't just about building a fulfilling life through connection with others, but also about reconciling every identity you have ever been - the good and the bad, the ones you're proud of and the ones you're not - and defeating the Shadow by accepting all of yourself as you. None of Gintoki's identities are him, but he is all of his identities because all of them have made him the person we and the rest of the Gintama cast know him as.

That last paragraph right there is I think the key point that Shouyou was trying so hard to figure out how to do, that Katsura could - why he calls Katsura 'the genius'.

so u know how cats groom each other and then immediately start biting and fighting

https://twitter.com/has_kuma

This is a tough match up. After consideration, I went with Ancient Emet. While Solus!Emet would no doubt have picked up a few tricks, and likely be more cutthroat and vicious, the game is very clear that he's exhausted.

And the Nier Reincarnation crossover implies that Solus!Emet's been 'carving out' pieces of himself in order to stay as much himself as he could - this may or may not have affected his power, given how he can pull directly from the Underworld anyway (though it is sundered... hmm). The Tempering might also play a factor, given how it affects one's aether.

I made a post for the Vol.1 characters here (You can find Rion & 2P in the reblogs)

Thanks for the screencaps! 

Technically Elidibus was a Primal at that point, no longer a ‘man’.

….I never realized this before.

When Rukia was in Urahara’s gigai, she couldn’t sense the Hollows being drawn by Ishida’s Hollow Bait, when Urahara and Ishida could.

But once she was out of it, even surrounded by Sekkiseki she could sense Ichigo’s reiatsu

Even when it was putting an extreme drain on her spiritual power.

And once out of the walls, she could determine Renji’s reiatsu was Renji’s post-unlocking his bankai.

So… I don’t think it’s too strange to think she had shikai already at this time? There’s still the thing about not releasing when she first met Ichigo but… come to think of it…. are they allowed to release in the human world without express permission granted prior? Renji released, but he was being sent to pick up a wanted criminal that might resist. Rukia was just on Hollow patrol.

I don’t know if it’s ever been pointed out, but this Volume poem?

The English translation left out a whole other meaning.

So the English translation done by Viz only translate the furigana, not the kanji. Yes, I see the glaring references in symbolism here (Kaien’s heart speech, Ichigo and Renji swearing to save Rukia to their souls, THE RAIN, ‘the sun that locks heaven, the moon that eclipses the night’. Even the subtle mirroring of Rukia’s second poem about the heart unchanging being strength.)

[1] This kanji can also mean ‘sky’, but it’d be pronounced differently. The ‘ten’ reading is specifically for ‘heaven’, ‘deva’ (divine being of Buddhism) and ‘svarga’ (Buddhist term for a heaven-like realm visited as a stage of death and rebirth).

Given the connections to the entire setting of Bleach, I think ‘ten’ would be the reading used here.

KaiRuki + IchiRuki Thoughts

About things (mostly in the manga) that I find pretty interesting to think about, especially in relation to the ‘reincarnation theory’:

But from the moment he meets Rukia, he’s… very Ichigo-like. All scowly and sorta… loud…?

and the plethora of Ichigo-Rukia eye connections that are made since. (And also her defeating Kaiencarr/Aaroniero. I can definitely see how Nejibana and Shirayuki connecting them both could be referencing this scene.)

💜E R I S 💜

excellent names on the enemy team tonight

Yamadera Koichi (Utsuro/Shouyou VA) change his Twitter profile picture with the one that's been drawn by Sorachi Sensei in Gintama special Chapter for Ato no Matsuri 2023.

Hydaelyn in Endwalker

At the risk of looking stupid online I'm going to field my perplexions about Hydaelyn that've been bothering me for months lol This post is... a little Hydaelyn critical. But I do offer that in good faith, I LOVE the character and I'm not trying to just trash her, I'm genuinely interested to hear other perspectives about it. (But please be nice, everyone is entitled to their own take)

Also this is not in response to anyone else's post. I haven't even seen any Hydaelyn posts circulating lately. I'm not vagueing anyone or trying to start drama. Just trying to sort out my own feelings about this character.

So my main takeaway from MSQ was that love is, ultimately, what saves you. That humans (including Ancients!) aren't perfect, and cannot love perfectly, but the shared love of you and others is still what saves you.

And, also, that grief is a part of life. Mistakes are a part of life. Conflict and loss happen, but they need not destroy you. Stand for doing right as best that you can, forgive yourself and keep trying, keep loving - both yourself and others.

There was an incredible amount of emphasis on not judging or hating one's enemies, about accepting the humanity in all of us and coming together, which I really loved.

There was also, of course, a huge rejection of self-sacrifice and martyrdom.

I saw all those themes in the Dark Knight quests a LOT (especially before the English translation changed so many scenes), and I assume Ishikawa was continuing that theme from Shadowbringers onward.

So again! I don't hate Hydaelyn!

But I feel like... at least in the English translation, she is still treated with excessive reverence, like a goddess, by the Scions - even ones it didn't really make sense to after her origin came out, like Y'sthola.

And at least on my first playthrough, while I like Venat a lot and love the drama of the Final Days pushing everyone into points of desperation, to their breaking points, and her decision to sunder the world definitely did ultimately help (help!) make it possible for us to defeat the Endsinger... I dunno.

To me she was still subject to the same arrogance as the rest of the Ancients. Whether her decision paid off or not, she still took into her hands the fate of the entire Star, she still made a decision that would result in millions of deaths.

And if we're going by Hydaelyn's own assertion, that each reincarnation is their own person, not just a missing piece of a whole... then to achieve her goal of a better world, she killed all the remaining Ancients except those three.

She chose to create a world where death and trauma would affect generation after generation - and she can say that it was for the greater good, for the world to survive. But that was essentially the Convocation’s justification too, in creating Zodiark and orchestrating the Rejoinings. Committing genocide to prove that genocide is wrong… is not noble.

The cutscene with her sundering the world, where the people insist they'll return to a world free of sorrow underneath a burning sky, could also NOT be how it actually happened. It had to be representational of her feelings and conclusion. Becoming Hydaelyn took coordination with her followers and planning.

At least in English, idk about the original Japanese, Hythlodaeus's shade describes the time of the Sundering as if the world wasn't in utter ruin at that point. It was beginning to heal, they had restored some natural systems, but the Ancients were short in numbers. At that point, they were done sacrificing their own people, in time they were going to sacrifice other life - plants and animals, to restore those lost brethren.

At the very least, Hythlodaeus's completely different account shows that the two sects of people post-Zodiark were viewing their sacrifice and end goal in completely different ways. Ethics aside, whether the competing goal was achievable or not… we will never know, because Venat stopped it from happening.

But I don't think either recounting has a monopoly on the truth. There was no One Truth, there were just competing needs and perspectives. And though Venat insists that unity is necessary to avert the Endsinger - she perpetuates this division. Azem refused her followers call to help summon Hydaelyn, and I think that's significant.

But I'll also acknowledge that Azem didn't manage to save the Ancients, either.

And you could argue that the Ancients were their own worst enemy. They kind of were.

Hermes was a really, really great caricature of severe, untreated Depression. And he had the powers of a god. His creations were sent to find a specific answer in the world beyond, and like their creator, they didn't have the tools to process hearing an answer other than what they were expecting. They were trapped in their own perspective. He was looking for answers in the stars, instead of in himself. Their own pain and inability to engage with emotion in a healthy way overwhelmed every encounter they had and created the very reality he so feared.

He did not use the proper channels for peer review before sending them out on their mission. Those rules, those checks and balances, that community approach to design, existed to protect the Ancients from their own power, and he deliberately acted in secret. He isolated himself from society, convinced himself his pain was something nobody could understand, made an island of himself and doubled down on his own jaded beliefs.

I don't know what kind of mental health facilities were available to the Ancients - we just don't have that information. But I do know that he was treated with patience and forgiveness by a significant number of colleagues, and his quirks weren't held against him. People did try to help and accommodate him, even if they didn't always understand. He had been promoted to a powerful position. I don't know if it's fair to blame anyone in particular, or even their society, for what happened. Because again... everyone was doing the best they could with what they had.

If anything, the problem was that literally any Ancient could have made a similar mistake in the right situation. They were ALL that powerful. Eventually chaos would happen. Sundered souls can certainly create destruction, but not on the same scale.

I don't personally agree with Hydaelyn's decision not to reach out to the Convocation. I understand being careful, and thinking through what the next step should be before acting. But there's a LOT of "maybes" in this argument:

And ultimately, it's her doing the same thing as Hermes, putting the power of judgement over an entire people in her own hands. She's assuming that she is in a unique position to decide the fate of the entire Star. It's not evil. But it's arrogant. She wasn't special among the Ancients, gifted with some unique wisdom. She was doing the best she could from her own perspective.

Plus... if half your population, and then another half again are about to sacrifice themselves... what have you got to lose by outing Hermes and/or trying to work with the Convocation to avert that loss of life? We don't have all the details, I'm willing to accept that there were circumstances that made it impossible, or at least made Venat decide against trying it. But even so. What did you have to lose leading up to the summoning of Zodiark? There was already panic and destruction at that point.

Hydaelyn sacrificed a lot of people to accomplish her goals. She made a goddess of herself and manipulated people like Minfilia on that basis. She killed so many children and stole so many lives even just by reincarnating Minfilia over and over on the First. She misrepresents the nature of the Ascians to the WoL, keeps secrets, and essentially charges you with being a crusader in her Holy War.

It's Emet- Selch who tries to bridge the gap. Not Hydaelyn. It's him who's willing to consider trying to achieve his goals without bloodshed, if you, the WoL, are strong enough. He says this to himself, out of anyone else's hearing. There's no reason for it to be a lie.

And just before Mt. Gulg, you can see Emet starting to question his beliefs about humanity because of the WoL's accomplishments. Hydaelyn has nothing to do with that. It's all you. And Emet succumbs to his own weaknesses too, so we never get to know what that might have happened if you'd had more time with him. He's not better than her.

But I think it's significant that he's the one who reaches out. Who's willing to consider a compromise at all.

In war you make sacrifices, I get that. But she was not more heroic, somehow, than the Ascians. Both sides were doing terrible things and denying the agency of mortals in order to achieve their ideal world.

So to me... she was not a benevolent incomprehensibly wise mother figure. Much like in real life we go from being kids who trust our moms implicitly, to adults who realize our mother was human and made mistakes, I think we’re supposed to recognize that Hydaelyn didn't do everything right and its our job to carry the future forward for subsequent generations, to learn from what came before, and hope that our own children do the same and forgive us for our own mistakes.

I think its very important to note that the WoL is just as much the Convocation's creation as Hydaelyn's. Without being rejoined as many times as they were, the WoL wouldn’t have survived. She saves you from the Ultima Weapon, Emet-Selch saves you from Elidibus, and its their powers combined that save you and your friends from the Endsinger. You are the legacy of each side’s imperfect love, equally.

WHICH brings me to my point of perplexion. Hydaelyn continues to be venerated. NPCs who know what happened continue to emphasize her side of things. I feel I must be missing something, because to me, the finale of Endwalker essentially shattered any idea that this was a Light vs Dark kind of story. People made choices. People made mistakes. It wasn't good or evil. It was human. We survived in spite of our mistakes because love was more powerful than our imperfections.

The Scions sacrificed themselves one by one just like the Ancients. And got brought back using energy from the Star... not all that different than what the Ascians had planned to do with their own brethren. I just don't see much functional difference there in the sentiments between either side.

I don't think we're supposed to hate Hydaelyn. I don't think she was evil. But I don't think she was better than the Ascians.

So while I don't expect, or want, characters to be condemning her left and right in the narrative, it's still baffling to me that there's such consistent, explicit reverence for her.

Yeeeessss Hydaelyn discussion! :D

I agree with much of what you've said here, though with regards to what seems to be Hyaelyn's continued veneration... I've put it down to how the story is constantly being 'fed' to us via the conduit of the world's NPCs, and therefore it will largely be tinged by those characters.

And those characters have their flaws; they are in their own way unreliable narrators. Even characters that are supposed to be 'knowledgeable guides' like Y'shtola. Because they're also human.

Also, I think the game does give us the option to 'object', but is a bit subtle in showing us things that go against general NPC opinion (e.g; the resolution of Copperbell Mines, WoL's face when killing Thordan etc). Perhaps this is to keep the general fanbase that want the escapism happy? I think to some extent it also can't be helped because it is an MMO.

It's something I've noticed built in since ARR actually - for example, you are shown explicitly how each of the 3 nations are corrupt in their own ways, but you have to pick a Grand Company. Whatever reservations you may have about joining any of them at all, you.. you just gotta. Just like with joining the Scions. Or not kicking Asahi in the teeth. Because the player has to 'play' the part of the WoL, an actor on the stage of the game.

Personally I think the game's using an interesting way of exploring the 'mute protagonist' perspective by doing so - you don't just say nothing, you don't get to say some things. Even things you feel you should be screaming out, and that feeling of mild frustration is I think by design?

Like how after having gone through the whole ethical conundrum of Elpis, we get to see Y'shtola make familiars and send them off to their deaths. Combined with talking mammets that show signs of self-determination in the Island Sanctuary in almost the same breath as introducing Ameliance's Collector's Quests where you... basically use a mammet as a test subject. While remembering that Ul'dah's printing industry is sorta run on mammet slavery. And yeah, it feels like 'Hello?? We just had a whole thing about this?? Am I crazy??' (no, this is probably how Hermes and Emet felt, at a disjuncture with the world around them v_v ) but I think that's on purpose?

I think it brings more weight to the WoL's decision to save Eorzea and its people over and over again no matter how flawed we find them, at the least.

And... To live is to suffer. WoL is meant to be a traveller, and travellers are transient to the world around them - going from place to place, with a like-minded companion or without one... On the flip side of adventure is that that journey belongs to the one that walked it and them alone. Which can be lonely, and I personally think that kind of loneliness can be its own flavour of suffering.

Aaa thank you so much for this <33 Good stuff! I agree with you.

That's true the npcs are unreliable and subject to their own biases. And I dont usually take the npcs word as law, especially in this universe where those expectations are subverted time and time again! I love the game for the fact there's so many competing viewpoints at play in the narrative.

I guess it DID at times feel the Scions were being used as a vessel to push Hydaelyn-good-Ascians-bad back onto us, like the conversation with the Watcher:

Minfilia did not have any of this context when she served Hydaelyn as a mortal, and after being absorbed into the goddess and effectively merged with her consciousness, it's kind of questionable how much free-will or independent thought Minfilia actually had. Even if the Scions ultimately do favor their faith and still agree with her, they're SO quick to excuse Hydaelyn's actions, after everything that's happened and come to light, it almost seems out of character.

So I guess it still surprises me how much reverence the Scions as a whole still seem to have for her? There's not really any drawn out conflict or crisis of faith throughout all these revelations that I can think of. I would have expected more of that to come out. Which could also be MMO limitations, as you said.

As I think on it, it's also possible that faith is more important to Y'shtola than I previously imagined. She's got the strongest example of the reverence I'm thinking of (I apparently didn't screenshot back when I read it so I can't directly quote), she essentially continued to reference Hydaelyn in terms of giving blessings/looking after us after we take stewardship of the Star. It definitely felt jarring to me when I heard it the first time. (If someone else has a screenshot of that pls feel free to share LOL)

But I also recall her having a much stronger negative reaction to Emet-Selch's account of the Sundering, and of course the aforementioned dialogue with the Watcher she was adamant in her support of Hydaelyn. Y'shtola might just be very devout, you can definitely be science-minded and practical and still have a faith, still have biases, and maybe she just isn't wanting to examine the possibility of Hydaelyn being more human than divinity.

Also just adding on that I did review some of the other dialogue after writing this. In the end, at least, Hydaelyn doesn't present herself as a heroic figure. While I still think her choice and what biases/self-certainty led up to it is questionable, and I don't think acknowledging that just makes everything that happened and the ways she misrepresented herself go away, it does soften my opinion on her arrogance vs just plain desperation/fear a bit. I still think she was arrogant, but maybe not as much as I did before:

(And again! I don't hate Venat or Hydaelyn. I like them a lot as characters, I just feel the amount of veneration they get is odd)

Ohhhh this is a good conversation; I'm loving this.

I think so much about the post-6.0 Omega quest where you have the option of choosing who was justified… including either everyone or no one.

It shows that the game did want it to come off as grey morality, although for sure YMMV on whether they succeeded. But it's so important to me (especially given the way fandom gets) that they explicitly tell you it's okay to have different opinions about it.

I do also think it's a bit natural for the Scions to be biased toward Hydaelyn, especially given that it's their lives she's made possible. And I wouldn't ever expect the game (via the Scions) to say like "Well now we should regret everything we did to try and stop the Ascians this whole time." But yeah, I like that they open it up to interpretation more in other ways, like both in the Omega quest and in the more subtle ways you guys said.

There are a couple of your more specific points I want to dig into a little!!!

This is something I've been unclear on, actually. Do they definitely specify that it would be plants and animals? From what I saw when I last looked it up, they just said "new life"... which I'd initially interpreted to mean newborn souls, personally. People, just not the same people they already knew and loved and could mourn. I feel like it would have to be people in order to be a substantial enough sacrifice. it's easy enough for the Ancients to create a facsimile

(It does seem to me that it's not just the same souls recycling through the Lifestream that always have been? Hence why so few people get the Echo. But I haven't been able to find any real evidence either way.)

But from the Unending Codex: "When his/her dear friend and former Azem, Venat, labored to summon Hydaelyn, s/he did not take part in her plan. Though the circumstances and his/her reasons were unclear, to the end, Azem walked a path all his/her own."

I think it's more significant that it specifies that the circumstances and reasons were unclear? Especially considering (based on the EW raids) Azem seems to be aware of our existence, potentially implying Venat told them everything, I think it's easily plausible that they didn't denounce Venat's plan; they just had a different role to play. But mostly I just wouldn't draw any solid conclusions either way about the implications.

Good addition! Yeah, I am glad the Omega quest does offer a chance for the WoL and/or player, at least, to state their own opinion about it!

And yeah I mean I don't expect them to just completely regret everything or turn on Hydaelyn completely. The Ascians were committing mass murder on their own too and just letting them kill everyone to force the Rejoinings wouldn't have been right at all! Hydaelyn did play an important role in saving the Star. Just would have expected there to be a bit more questioning about decisions she made for them, secrets she kept, etc. and less trusting her implicitly all the way to the end and beyond as if everything she did was completely justified, like she's still divinity LOL

I definitely walked away from it thinking they meant plants and animals and... aether in general, based on the shade of Hythlodaeus's explanation! He just says living energy, not souls, and ofc in the Sundered world you don't need souls to cast magic or even summon Primals, you only need a healthy natural world around you and ample aether/belief.

I assumed restoring the souls that were integrated into Zodiark would take less energy than averting the Final Days themselves. Those souls aren't even back in the Lifestream, you see them wandering around outside Zodiark's prison, and Elidibus could physically separate himself from Zodiark, too.

But a lot of that does come down to interpretation and it's one of those scenes I could imagine having a lot of subtlety or slightly different meaning in the original language, so I'm really not certain, that's just my best guess based on what seems logical to me!

And also irl the concept of a "soul" versus "living thing" seems to be interpreted very differently depending on who you ask. I know in some animes like Wolf's Rain there's completely sentient characters like Blue who, because she's a half-breed, isn't even allowed into Paradise. And of course in some religious circles there's insistence that only humans have souls, not animals. Seems heartless to me! But not knowing the writer's stance on it, that could affect a lot.

But yeah! Throughout the game it seems pretty established that souls "recycle" and reincarnate over and over into new bodies bereft the memories of their previous lives, but I don't know if it's ever really clearly stated that new souls are created, even the lore in the Through His Eyes story just says that souls manifest into bodies born naturally, which could mean new ones or just that bodyless souls floating into the lifestream jump into them:

And though not everyone gets the Echo, a lot of people who didn't have it before manifested it when Elidibus created the star shower and images of Amaurot - people of course far weaker than the Warrior of Light.

I took Emet Selch's comments on your greater wholeness to mean that not every fragment survives the Rejoinings. I seem to recall (but don't have the source, unfortunately, so I can't 100% be sure) some dev stating that G'raha has been rejoined an equal number of times to the WoL, which is why he's also so strong... and either way, implies other Scions who also have the Echo are missing a greater number of soul pieces than you.

I know there must be more lore out there that I'm missing, I know vaguely some side quest stuff but not well enough to quote it or speak on it, which could definitely change things a lot! But you're right, at least as far as I know, it's not super duper clear on that LOL

I also feel like the conclusion of the Pandaemonium raids might actually clarify a lot of the uncertainties here. They've already set up a lot of parallels and inversions with the main story (I haven't run the 7th Circle yet at the time of writing this, also, so forgive me if I'm misguided here!) But it's made a few passing mentions of stuff that would be on-topic here if expanded upon, like souls and the Ancients relationship with grief:

And yeah, that's a good point about the Codex entry! I assume it's left vague for players to make up their own mind about their Azem and why they weren't involved. I was thinking of the scene in Anyder where they seem perplexed by Azem's lack of answer - implying Hydaelyn's followers, at least, didn't know of any accord between the two, and she didn't see fit to fill them in:

(Also way to speak like a cult leader Venat, some very strong 'only we know the truth, we will be isolated and hated by everyone else' language there LMAO)

(oooh gosh this is gonna turn into a weird branching hydra of reblog replies, I’m so sorry)

I think Endwalker leaves that open to interpretation (by deliberately not telling you whether or not Meteion has a soul) but also seems to have a strong argument that those without a soul are living beings (see the Gatherer Tribal Quests with the Omicrons & the beings made of dynamis pondering their own existence).

I think the closest the game touches on is the theory posited to us by Montechaigne that souls can be broken down and reassembled into new souls when in the Aetherial Sea. This may or may not happen - we see that there is harsh turbulence of aether in the sea, and we know that souls can be damaged/broken down (see: Hydaelyn, Elidibus, Lahabrea). It may well be possible.

I’m really curious if a dev did say this, because to my knowledge this is not the case?

From this Q&A with Banri Oda -

  A: 

WoL was no more rejoined that any one else on the Source up until their rejoining with Ardbert. In fact, the Crystal Exarch was more rejoined than WoL during the first half of Shadowbringers because he had survived the 8th Umbral Calamity. Hence Elidibus doing that soul-punch thing and being all “you chonky”.

That said, the denseness of G’raha’s current soul is a curious matter, since we transported both the Exarch’s soul and memories back to the Source. So is current G’raha like... “7/14 + 8/14′s of a soul”? Or something?

I've seen the idea around fandom that G'raha is 9/14ths, same as us, and I don't know whether anything I saw was based on dev comments, but I think it makes sense.

He was 8/14 when he locked himself in the tower, same as us (the Source shard + 7 Calamities). Exarch!G'raha gained the 9th piece before us, with the 8th Calamity, right. And I pretty much assumed we just took that 9th piece back to the Source with the rest of his soul/memories, and the merge combined the 8 matching pieces and then added the last one on top of that.

So having been rejoined an equal number of times to the WoL wouldn't necessarily indicate that pieces ever get lost, but that is an intriguing idea I've never considered. 🤔 Montechaigne spoke in terms of competing hypotheses; he wasn't even sure reincarnation was a thing at all, so we can choose whether to take anything he's said at face value or not. I don't think it would necessarily contradict the Q&A — if that piece of your soul exists then it definitely gets rejoined. But if it doesn't... then it doesn't?

One thing is that is the total number of souls is meant to be static, then we've got a hard cap on the number of people who can ever exist. Like... what if there's a population boom and all the souls are used up; what happens when one more person is born???

I agree it's open to interpretation... there are a lot of different examples in the game that complicate the "souls" vs "living things" distinction. My headcanon for the Omicrons in particular is that were kind of going through the same process Alpha had of gaining souls.

(I was going to say maybe the same was true of the Ixal, having been created artificially, but... rereading that passage from Through His Eyes, maybe just that first generation of Ixal wouldn't have had souls, and those born naturally afterwards would be born with them?)

Oh, that’s right, I forgot to count the soul shard you originally have by virtue of being on the Source. Welp, that’ll teach me to math in public XD

Montechaigne wasn’t sure, but the Dotharl were, and at that point so are we because Emet-Selch and the Eden raids pretty much confirms it for us. But more importantly, I think the ‘souls can be broken down, remixed and created somewhere down in the Aetherial Sea by some unknown mechanism’ bit can pretty much solve your question about ‘a soul cap’.

(This reminds me of how I came across some religious debates once and one of the questions people were talking about was basically this, but with regards to Christianity’s Heaven & Hell and how it worked - e.g; are Heaven & Hell constantly expanding in order to accommodate the new souls that come into existence.)

Since we know for a fact that entropy and the heat death of the universe is a thing (via the Ea), we have to surmise that there is a theoretical ‘cap’ - but I posit that it’s on the amount of aether (or energy) in the system, rather than the number of souls? That is, in the great balance of the universe there will be people born with souls (and arcane constructs formed without) in the number that fits within the energy available. 

Also taking into account the below:

- even non-living things like robes and crystals are made of aether, so some aether would be sorta ‘inaccessible’ for new-soul-making by virtue of being a mountain or something

- there appears to be transfer of aether between the stars? Astrologians pull energy from stars beyond Etheirys, so aether should technically flow between the stars, even if in a tiny trickle.

Source: this interview with Koji

Theoretically it should be possible for there to be souls made out of all the energy in the system such that no more could be made, but it’s so improbable as to be impossible? The planet might die of aether starvation first, or something.

Hydaelyn in Endwalker

At the risk of looking stupid online I'm going to field my perplexions about Hydaelyn that've been bothering me for months lol This post is... a little Hydaelyn critical. But I do offer that in good faith, I LOVE the character and I'm not trying to just trash her, I'm genuinely interested to hear other perspectives about it. (But please be nice, everyone is entitled to their own take)

Also this is not in response to anyone else's post. I haven't even seen any Hydaelyn posts circulating lately. I'm not vagueing anyone or trying to start drama. Just trying to sort out my own feelings about this character.

So my main takeaway from MSQ was that love is, ultimately, what saves you. That humans (including Ancients!) aren't perfect, and cannot love perfectly, but the shared love of you and others is still what saves you.

And, also, that grief is a part of life. Mistakes are a part of life. Conflict and loss happen, but they need not destroy you. Stand for doing right as best that you can, forgive yourself and keep trying, keep loving - both yourself and others.

There was an incredible amount of emphasis on not judging or hating one's enemies, about accepting the humanity in all of us and coming together, which I really loved.

There was also, of course, a huge rejection of self-sacrifice and martyrdom.

I saw all those themes in the Dark Knight quests a LOT (especially before the English translation changed so many scenes), and I assume Ishikawa was continuing that theme from Shadowbringers onward.

So again! I don't hate Hydaelyn!

But I feel like... at least in the English translation, she is still treated with excessive reverence, like a goddess, by the Scions - even ones it didn't really make sense to after her origin came out, like Y'sthola.

And at least on my first playthrough, while I like Venat a lot and love the drama of the Final Days pushing everyone into points of desperation, to their breaking points, and her decision to sunder the world definitely did ultimately help (help!) make it possible for us to defeat the Endsinger... I dunno.

To me she was still subject to the same arrogance as the rest of the Ancients. Whether her decision paid off or not, she still took into her hands the fate of the entire Star, she still made a decision that would result in millions of deaths.

And if we're going by Hydaelyn's own assertion, that each reincarnation is their own person, not just a missing piece of a whole... then to achieve her goal of a better world, she killed all the remaining Ancients except those three.

She chose to create a world where death and trauma would affect generation after generation - and she can say that it was for the greater good, for the world to survive. But that was essentially the Convocation’s justification too, in creating Zodiark and orchestrating the Rejoinings. Committing genocide to prove that genocide is wrong… is not noble.

The cutscene with her sundering the world, where the people insist they'll return to a world free of sorrow underneath a burning sky, could also NOT be how it actually happened. It had to be representational of her feelings and conclusion. Becoming Hydaelyn took coordination with her followers and planning.

At least in English, idk about the original Japanese, Hythlodaeus's shade describes the time of the Sundering as if the world wasn't in utter ruin at that point. It was beginning to heal, they had restored some natural systems, but the Ancients were short in numbers. At that point, they were done sacrificing their own people, in time they were going to sacrifice other life - plants and animals, to restore those lost brethren.

At the very least, Hythlodaeus's completely different account shows that the two sects of people post-Zodiark were viewing their sacrifice and end goal in completely different ways. Ethics aside, whether the competing goal was achievable or not… we will never know, because Venat stopped it from happening.

But I don't think either recounting has a monopoly on the truth. There was no One Truth, there were just competing needs and perspectives. And though Venat insists that unity is necessary to avert the Endsinger - she perpetuates this division. Azem refused her followers call to help summon Hydaelyn, and I think that's significant.

But I'll also acknowledge that Azem didn't manage to save the Ancients, either.

And you could argue that the Ancients were their own worst enemy. They kind of were.

Hermes was a really, really great caricature of severe, untreated Depression. And he had the powers of a god. His creations were sent to find a specific answer in the world beyond, and like their creator, they didn't have the tools to process hearing an answer other than what they were expecting. They were trapped in their own perspective. He was looking for answers in the stars, instead of in himself. Their own pain and inability to engage with emotion in a healthy way overwhelmed every encounter they had and created the very reality he so feared.

He did not use the proper channels for peer review before sending them out on their mission. Those rules, those checks and balances, that community approach to design, existed to protect the Ancients from their own power, and he deliberately acted in secret. He isolated himself from society, convinced himself his pain was something nobody could understand, made an island of himself and doubled down on his own jaded beliefs.

I don't know what kind of mental health facilities were available to the Ancients - we just don't have that information. But I do know that he was treated with patience and forgiveness by a significant number of colleagues, and his quirks weren't held against him. People did try to help and accommodate him, even if they didn't always understand. He had been promoted to a powerful position. I don't know if it's fair to blame anyone in particular, or even their society, for what happened. Because again... everyone was doing the best they could with what they had.

If anything, the problem was that literally any Ancient could have made a similar mistake in the right situation. They were ALL that powerful. Eventually chaos would happen. Sundered souls can certainly create destruction, but not on the same scale.

I don't personally agree with Hydaelyn's decision not to reach out to the Convocation. I understand being careful, and thinking through what the next step should be before acting. But there's a LOT of "maybes" in this argument:

And ultimately, it's her doing the same thing as Hermes, putting the power of judgement over an entire people in her own hands. She's assuming that she is in a unique position to decide the fate of the entire Star. It's not evil. But it's arrogant. She wasn't special among the Ancients, gifted with some unique wisdom. She was doing the best she could from her own perspective.

Plus... if half your population, and then another half again are about to sacrifice themselves... what have you got to lose by outing Hermes and/or trying to work with the Convocation to avert that loss of life? We don't have all the details, I'm willing to accept that there were circumstances that made it impossible, or at least made Venat decide against trying it. But even so. What did you have to lose leading up to the summoning of Zodiark? There was already panic and destruction at that point.

Hydaelyn sacrificed a lot of people to accomplish her goals. She made a goddess of herself and manipulated people like Minfilia on that basis. She killed so many children and stole so many lives even just by reincarnating Minfilia over and over on the First. She misrepresents the nature of the Ascians to the WoL, keeps secrets, and essentially charges you with being a crusader in her Holy War.

It's Emet- Selch who tries to bridge the gap. Not Hydaelyn. It's him who's willing to consider trying to achieve his goals without bloodshed, if you, the WoL, are strong enough. He says this to himself, out of anyone else's hearing. There's no reason for it to be a lie.

And just before Mt. Gulg, you can see Emet starting to question his beliefs about humanity because of the WoL's accomplishments. Hydaelyn has nothing to do with that. It's all you. And Emet succumbs to his own weaknesses too, so we never get to know what that might have happened if you'd had more time with him. He's not better than her.

But I think it's significant that he's the one who reaches out. Who's willing to consider a compromise at all.

In war you make sacrifices, I get that. But she was not more heroic, somehow, than the Ascians. Both sides were doing terrible things and denying the agency of mortals in order to achieve their ideal world.

So to me... she was not a benevolent incomprehensibly wise mother figure. Much like in real life we go from being kids who trust our moms implicitly, to adults who realize our mother was human and made mistakes, I think we’re supposed to recognize that Hydaelyn didn't do everything right and its our job to carry the future forward for subsequent generations, to learn from what came before, and hope that our own children do the same and forgive us for our own mistakes.

I think its very important to note that the WoL is just as much the Convocation's creation as Hydaelyn's. Without being rejoined as many times as they were, the WoL wouldn’t have survived. She saves you from the Ultima Weapon, Emet-Selch saves you from Elidibus, and its their powers combined that save you and your friends from the Endsinger. You are the legacy of each side’s imperfect love, equally.

WHICH brings me to my point of perplexion. Hydaelyn continues to be venerated. NPCs who know what happened continue to emphasize her side of things. I feel I must be missing something, because to me, the finale of Endwalker essentially shattered any idea that this was a Light vs Dark kind of story. People made choices. People made mistakes. It wasn't good or evil. It was human. We survived in spite of our mistakes because love was more powerful than our imperfections.

The Scions sacrificed themselves one by one just like the Ancients. And got brought back using energy from the Star... not all that different than what the Ascians had planned to do with their own brethren. I just don't see much functional difference there in the sentiments between either side.

I don't think we're supposed to hate Hydaelyn. I don't think she was evil. But I don't think she was better than the Ascians.

So while I don't expect, or want, characters to be condemning her left and right in the narrative, it's still baffling to me that there's such consistent, explicit reverence for her.

Yeeeessss Hydaelyn discussion! :D

I agree with much of what you've said here, though with regards to what seems to be Hyaelyn's continued veneration... I've put it down to how the story is constantly being 'fed' to us via the conduit of the world's NPCs, and therefore it will largely be tinged by those characters.

And those characters have their flaws; they are in their own way unreliable narrators. Even characters that are supposed to be 'knowledgeable guides' like Y'shtola. Because they're also human.

Also, I think the game does give us the option to 'object', but is a bit subtle in showing us things that go against general NPC opinion (e.g; the resolution of Copperbell Mines, WoL's face when killing Thordan etc). Perhaps this is to keep the general fanbase that want the escapism happy? I think to some extent it also can't be helped because it is an MMO.

It's something I've noticed built in since ARR actually - for example, you are shown explicitly how each of the 3 nations are corrupt in their own ways, but you have to pick a Grand Company. Whatever reservations you may have about joining any of them at all, you.. you just gotta. Just like with joining the Scions. Or not kicking Asahi in the teeth. Because the player has to 'play' the part of the WoL, an actor on the stage of the game.

Personally I think the game's using an interesting way of exploring the 'mute protagonist' perspective by doing so - you don't just say nothing, you don't get to say some things. Even things you feel you should be screaming out, and that feeling of mild frustration is I think by design?

Like how after having gone through the whole ethical conundrum of Elpis, we get to see Y'shtola make familiars and send them off to their deaths. Combined with talking mammets that show signs of self-determination in the Island Sanctuary in almost the same breath as introducing Ameliance's Collector's Quests where you... basically use a mammet as a test subject. While remembering that Ul'dah's printing industry is sorta run on mammet slavery. And yeah, it feels like 'Hello?? We just had a whole thing about this?? Am I crazy??' (no, this is probably how Hermes and Emet felt, at a disjuncture with the world around them v_v ) but I think that's on purpose?

I think it brings more weight to the WoL's decision to save Eorzea and its people over and over again no matter how flawed we find them, at the least.

And... To live is to suffer. WoL is meant to be a traveller, and travellers are transient to the world around them - going from place to place, with a like-minded companion or without one... On the flip side of adventure is that that journey belongs to the one that walked it and them alone. Which can be lonely, and I personally think that kind of loneliness can be its own flavour of suffering.

Aaa thank you so much for this <33 Good stuff! I agree with you.

That's true the npcs are unreliable and subject to their own biases. And I dont usually take the npcs word as law, especially in this universe where those expectations are subverted time and time again! I love the game for the fact there's so many competing viewpoints at play in the narrative.

I guess it DID at times feel the Scions were being used as a vessel to push Hydaelyn-good-Ascians-bad back onto us, like the conversation with the Watcher:

Minfilia did not have any of this context when she served Hydaelyn as a mortal, and after being absorbed into the goddess and effectively merged with her consciousness, it's kind of questionable how much free-will or independent thought Minfilia actually had. Even if the Scions ultimately do favor their faith and still agree with her, they're SO quick to excuse Hydaelyn's actions, after everything that's happened and come to light, it almost seems out of character.

So I guess it still surprises me how much reverence the Scions as a whole still seem to have for her? There's not really any drawn out conflict or crisis of faith throughout all these revelations that I can think of. I would have expected more of that to come out. Which could also be MMO limitations, as you said.

As I think on it, it's also possible that faith is more important to Y'shtola than I previously imagined. She's got the strongest example of the reverence I'm thinking of (I apparently didn't screenshot back when I read it so I can't directly quote), she essentially continued to reference Hydaelyn in terms of giving blessings/looking after us after we take stewardship of the Star. It definitely felt jarring to me when I heard it the first time. (If someone else has a screenshot of that pls feel free to share LOL)

But I also recall her having a much stronger negative reaction to Emet-Selch's account of the Sundering, and of course the aforementioned dialogue with the Watcher she was adamant in her support of Hydaelyn. Y'shtola might just be very devout, you can definitely be science-minded and practical and still have a faith, still have biases, and maybe she just isn't wanting to examine the possibility of Hydaelyn being more human than divinity.

Also just adding on that I did review some of the other dialogue after writing this. In the end, at least, Hydaelyn doesn't present herself as a heroic figure. While I still think her choice and what biases/self-certainty led up to it is questionable, and I don't think acknowledging that just makes everything that happened and the ways she misrepresented herself go away, it does soften my opinion on her arrogance vs just plain desperation/fear a bit. I still think she was arrogant, but maybe not as much as I did before:

(And again! I don't hate Venat or Hydaelyn. I like them a lot as characters, I just feel the amount of veneration they get is odd)

Ohhhh this is a good conversation; I'm loving this.

I think so much about the post-6.0 Omega quest where you have the option of choosing who was justified… including either everyone or no one.

It shows that the game did want it to come off as grey morality, although for sure YMMV on whether they succeeded. But it's so important to me (especially given the way fandom gets) that they explicitly tell you it's okay to have different opinions about it.

I do also think it's a bit natural for the Scions to be biased toward Hydaelyn, especially given that it's their lives she's made possible. And I wouldn't ever expect the game (via the Scions) to say like "Well now we should regret everything we did to try and stop the Ascians this whole time." But yeah, I like that they open it up to interpretation more in other ways, like both in the Omega quest and in the more subtle ways you guys said.

There are a couple of your more specific points I want to dig into a little!!!

This is something I've been unclear on, actually. Do they definitely specify that it would be plants and animals? From what I saw when I last looked it up, they just said "new life"... which I'd initially interpreted to mean newborn souls, personally. People, just not the same people they already knew and loved and could mourn. I feel like it would have to be people in order to be a substantial enough sacrifice. it's easy enough for the Ancients to create a facsimile

(It does seem to me that it's not just the same souls recycling through the Lifestream that always have been? Hence why so few people get the Echo. But I haven't been able to find any real evidence either way.)

But from the Unending Codex: "When his/her dear friend and former Azem, Venat, labored to summon Hydaelyn, s/he did not take part in her plan. Though the circumstances and his/her reasons were unclear, to the end, Azem walked a path all his/her own."

I think it's more significant that it specifies that the circumstances and reasons were unclear? Especially considering (based on the EW raids) Azem seems to be aware of our existence, potentially implying Venat told them everything, I think it's easily plausible that they didn't denounce Venat's plan; they just had a different role to play. But mostly I just wouldn't draw any solid conclusions either way about the implications.

Good addition! Yeah, I am glad the Omega quest does offer a chance for the WoL and/or player, at least, to state their own opinion about it!

And yeah I mean I don't expect them to just completely regret everything or turn on Hydaelyn completely. The Ascians were committing mass murder on their own too and just letting them kill everyone to force the Rejoinings wouldn't have been right at all! Hydaelyn did play an important role in saving the Star. Just would have expected there to be a bit more questioning about decisions she made for them, secrets she kept, etc. and less trusting her implicitly all the way to the end and beyond as if everything she did was completely justified, like she's still divinity LOL

I definitely walked away from it thinking they meant plants and animals and... aether in general, based on the shade of Hythlodaeus's explanation! He just says living energy, not souls, and ofc in the Sundered world you don't need souls to cast magic or even summon Primals, you only need a healthy natural world around you and ample aether/belief.

I assumed restoring the souls that were integrated into Zodiark would take less energy than averting the Final Days themselves. Those souls aren't even back in the Lifestream, you see them wandering around outside Zodiark's prison, and Elidibus could physically separate himself from Zodiark, too.

But a lot of that does come down to interpretation and it's one of those scenes I could imagine having a lot of subtlety or slightly different meaning in the original language, so I'm really not certain, that's just my best guess based on what seems logical to me!

And also irl the concept of a "soul" versus "living thing" seems to be interpreted very differently depending on who you ask. I know in some animes like Wolf's Rain there's completely sentient characters like Blue who, because she's a half-breed, isn't even allowed into Paradise. And of course in some religious circles there's insistence that only humans have souls, not animals. Seems heartless to me! But not knowing the writer's stance on it, that could affect a lot.

But yeah! Throughout the game it seems pretty established that souls "recycle" and reincarnate over and over into new bodies bereft the memories of their previous lives, but I don't know if it's ever really clearly stated that new souls are created, even the lore in the Through His Eyes story just says that souls manifest into bodies born naturally, which could mean new ones or just that bodyless souls floating into the lifestream jump into them:

And though not everyone gets the Echo, a lot of people who didn't have it before manifested it when Elidibus created the star shower and images of Amaurot - people of course far weaker than the Warrior of Light.

I took Emet Selch's comments on your greater wholeness to mean that not every fragment survives the Rejoinings. I seem to recall (but don't have the source, unfortunately, so I can't 100% be sure) some dev stating that G'raha has been rejoined an equal number of times to the WoL, which is why he's also so strong... and either way, implies other Scions who also have the Echo are missing a greater number of soul pieces than you.

I know there must be more lore out there that I'm missing, I know vaguely some side quest stuff but not well enough to quote it or speak on it, which could definitely change things a lot! But you're right, at least as far as I know, it's not super duper clear on that LOL

I also feel like the conclusion of the Pandaemonium raids might actually clarify a lot of the uncertainties here. They've already set up a lot of parallels and inversions with the main story (I haven't run the 7th Circle yet at the time of writing this, also, so forgive me if I'm misguided here!) But it's made a few passing mentions of stuff that would be on-topic here if expanded upon, like souls and the Ancients relationship with grief:

And yeah, that's a good point about the Codex entry! I assume it's left vague for players to make up their own mind about their Azem and why they weren't involved. I was thinking of the scene in Anyder where they seem perplexed by Azem's lack of answer - implying Hydaelyn's followers, at least, didn't know of any accord between the two, and she didn't see fit to fill them in:

(Also way to speak like a cult leader Venat, some very strong 'only we know the truth, we will be isolated and hated by everyone else' language there LMAO)

(oooh gosh this is gonna turn into a weird branching hydra of reblog replies, I’m so sorry)

I think Endwalker leaves that open to interpretation (by deliberately not telling you whether or not Meteion has a soul) but also seems to have a strong argument that those without a soul are living beings (see the Gatherer Tribal Quests with the Omicrons & the beings made of dynamis pondering their own existence).

I think the closest the game touches on is the theory posited to us by Montechaigne that souls can be broken down and reassembled into new souls when in the Aetherial Sea. This may or may not happen - we see that there is harsh turbulence of aether in the sea, and we know that souls can be damaged/broken down (see: Hydaelyn, Elidibus, Lahabrea). It may well be possible.

I’m really curious if a dev did say this, because to my knowledge this is not the case?

From this Q&A with Banri Oda -

  A: 

WoL was no more rejoined that any one else on the Source up until their rejoining with Ardbert. In fact, the Crystal Exarch was more rejoined than WoL during the first half of Shadowbringers because he had survived the 8th Umbral Calamity. Hence Elidibus doing that soul-punch thing and being all “you chonky”.

That said, the denseness of G’raha’s current soul is a curious matter, since we transported both the Exarch’s soul and memories back to the Source. So is current G’raha like... “7/14 + 8/14′s of a soul”? Or something?

Hydaelyn in Endwalker

At the risk of looking stupid online I'm going to field my perplexions about Hydaelyn that've been bothering me for months lol This post is... a little Hydaelyn critical. But I do offer that in good faith, I LOVE the character and I'm not trying to just trash her, I'm genuinely interested to hear other perspectives about it. (But please be nice, everyone is entitled to their own take)

Also this is not in response to anyone else's post. I haven't even seen any Hydaelyn posts circulating lately. I'm not vagueing anyone or trying to start drama. Just trying to sort out my own feelings about this character.

So my main takeaway from MSQ was that love is, ultimately, what saves you. That humans (including Ancients!) aren't perfect, and cannot love perfectly, but the shared love of you and others is still what saves you.

And, also, that grief is a part of life. Mistakes are a part of life. Conflict and loss happen, but they need not destroy you. Stand for doing right as best that you can, forgive yourself and keep trying, keep loving - both yourself and others.

There was an incredible amount of emphasis on not judging or hating one's enemies, about accepting the humanity in all of us and coming together, which I really loved.

There was also, of course, a huge rejection of self-sacrifice and martyrdom.

I saw all those themes in the Dark Knight quests a LOT (especially before the English translation changed so many scenes), and I assume Ishikawa was continuing that theme from Shadowbringers onward.

So again! I don't hate Hydaelyn!

But I feel like... at least in the English translation, she is still treated with excessive reverence, like a goddess, by the Scions - even ones it didn't really make sense to after her origin came out, like Y'sthola.

And at least on my first playthrough, while I like Venat a lot and love the drama of the Final Days pushing everyone into points of desperation, to their breaking points, and her decision to sunder the world definitely did ultimately help (help!) make it possible for us to defeat the Endsinger... I dunno.

To me she was still subject to the same arrogance as the rest of the Ancients. Whether her decision paid off or not, she still took into her hands the fate of the entire Star, she still made a decision that would result in millions of deaths.

And if we're going by Hydaelyn's own assertion, that each reincarnation is their own person, not just a missing piece of a whole... then to achieve her goal of a better world, she killed all the remaining Ancients except those three.

She chose to create a world where death and trauma would affect generation after generation - and she can say that it was for the greater good, for the world to survive. But that was essentially the Convocation’s justification too, in creating Zodiark and orchestrating the Rejoinings. Committing genocide to prove that genocide is wrong… is not noble.

The cutscene with her sundering the world, where the people insist they'll return to a world free of sorrow underneath a burning sky, could also NOT be how it actually happened. It had to be representational of her feelings and conclusion. Becoming Hydaelyn took coordination with her followers and planning.

At least in English, idk about the original Japanese, Hythlodaeus's shade describes the time of the Sundering as if the world wasn't in utter ruin at that point. It was beginning to heal, they had restored some natural systems, but the Ancients were short in numbers. At that point, they were done sacrificing their own people, in time they were going to sacrifice other life - plants and animals, to restore those lost brethren.

At the very least, Hythlodaeus's completely different account shows that the two sects of people post-Zodiark were viewing their sacrifice and end goal in completely different ways. Ethics aside, whether the competing goal was achievable or not… we will never know, because Venat stopped it from happening.

But I don't think either recounting has a monopoly on the truth. There was no One Truth, there were just competing needs and perspectives. And though Venat insists that unity is necessary to avert the Endsinger - she perpetuates this division. Azem refused her followers call to help summon Hydaelyn, and I think that's significant.

But I'll also acknowledge that Azem didn't manage to save the Ancients, either.

And you could argue that the Ancients were their own worst enemy. They kind of were.

Hermes was a really, really great caricature of severe, untreated Depression. And he had the powers of a god. His creations were sent to find a specific answer in the world beyond, and like their creator, they didn't have the tools to process hearing an answer other than what they were expecting. They were trapped in their own perspective. He was looking for answers in the stars, instead of in himself. Their own pain and inability to engage with emotion in a healthy way overwhelmed every encounter they had and created the very reality he so feared.

He did not use the proper channels for peer review before sending them out on their mission. Those rules, those checks and balances, that community approach to design, existed to protect the Ancients from their own power, and he deliberately acted in secret. He isolated himself from society, convinced himself his pain was something nobody could understand, made an island of himself and doubled down on his own jaded beliefs.

I don't know what kind of mental health facilities were available to the Ancients - we just don't have that information. But I do know that he was treated with patience and forgiveness by a significant number of colleagues, and his quirks weren't held against him. People did try to help and accommodate him, even if they didn't always understand. He had been promoted to a powerful position. I don't know if it's fair to blame anyone in particular, or even their society, for what happened. Because again... everyone was doing the best they could with what they had.

If anything, the problem was that literally any Ancient could have made a similar mistake in the right situation. They were ALL that powerful. Eventually chaos would happen. Sundered souls can certainly create destruction, but not on the same scale.

I don't personally agree with Hydaelyn's decision not to reach out to the Convocation. I understand being careful, and thinking through what the next step should be before acting. But there's a LOT of "maybes" in this argument:

And ultimately, it's her doing the same thing as Hermes, putting the power of judgement over an entire people in her own hands. She's assuming that she is in a unique position to decide the fate of the entire Star. It's not evil. But it's arrogant. She wasn't special among the Ancients, gifted with some unique wisdom. She was doing the best she could from her own perspective.

Plus... if half your population, and then another half again are about to sacrifice themselves... what have you got to lose by outing Hermes and/or trying to work with the Convocation to avert that loss of life? We don't have all the details, I'm willing to accept that there were circumstances that made it impossible, or at least made Venat decide against trying it. But even so. What did you have to lose leading up to the summoning of Zodiark? There was already panic and destruction at that point.

Hydaelyn sacrificed a lot of people to accomplish her goals. She made a goddess of herself and manipulated people like Minfilia on that basis. She killed so many children and stole so many lives even just by reincarnating Minfilia over and over on the First. She misrepresents the nature of the Ascians to the WoL, keeps secrets, and essentially charges you with being a crusader in her Holy War.

It's Emet- Selch who tries to bridge the gap. Not Hydaelyn. It's him who's willing to consider trying to achieve his goals without bloodshed, if you, the WoL, are strong enough. He says this to himself, out of anyone else's hearing. There's no reason for it to be a lie.

And just before Mt. Gulg, you can see Emet starting to question his beliefs about humanity because of the WoL's accomplishments. Hydaelyn has nothing to do with that. It's all you. And Emet succumbs to his own weaknesses too, so we never get to know what that might have happened if you'd had more time with him. He's not better than her.

But I think it's significant that he's the one who reaches out. Who's willing to consider a compromise at all.

In war you make sacrifices, I get that. But she was not more heroic, somehow, than the Ascians. Both sides were doing terrible things and denying the agency of mortals in order to achieve their ideal world.

So to me... she was not a benevolent incomprehensibly wise mother figure. Much like in real life we go from being kids who trust our moms implicitly, to adults who realize our mother was human and made mistakes, I think we’re supposed to recognize that Hydaelyn didn't do everything right and its our job to carry the future forward for subsequent generations, to learn from what came before, and hope that our own children do the same and forgive us for our own mistakes.

I think its very important to note that the WoL is just as much the Convocation's creation as Hydaelyn's. Without being rejoined as many times as they were, the WoL wouldn’t have survived. She saves you from the Ultima Weapon, Emet-Selch saves you from Elidibus, and its their powers combined that save you and your friends from the Endsinger. You are the legacy of each side’s imperfect love, equally.

WHICH brings me to my point of perplexion. Hydaelyn continues to be venerated. NPCs who know what happened continue to emphasize her side of things. I feel I must be missing something, because to me, the finale of Endwalker essentially shattered any idea that this was a Light vs Dark kind of story. People made choices. People made mistakes. It wasn't good or evil. It was human. We survived in spite of our mistakes because love was more powerful than our imperfections.

The Scions sacrificed themselves one by one just like the Ancients. And got brought back using energy from the Star... not all that different than what the Ascians had planned to do with their own brethren. I just don't see much functional difference there in the sentiments between either side.

I don't think we're supposed to hate Hydaelyn. I don't think she was evil. But I don't think she was better than the Ascians.

So while I don't expect, or want, characters to be condemning her left and right in the narrative, it's still baffling to me that there's such consistent, explicit reverence for her.

Yeeeessss Hydaelyn discussion! :D

I agree with much of what you've said here, though with regards to what seems to be Hyaelyn's continued veneration... I've put it down to how the story is constantly being 'fed' to us via the conduit of the world's NPCs, and therefore it will largely be tinged by those characters.

And those characters have their flaws; they are in their own way unreliable narrators. Even characters that are supposed to be 'knowledgeable guides' like Y'shtola. Because they're also human.

Also, I think the game does give us the option to 'object', but is a bit subtle in showing us things that go against general NPC opinion (e.g; the resolution of Copperbell Mines, WoL's face when killing Thordan etc). Perhaps this is to keep the general fanbase that want the escapism happy? I think to some extent it also can't be helped because it is an MMO.

It's something I've noticed built in since ARR actually - for example, you are shown explicitly how each of the 3 nations are corrupt in their own ways, but you have to pick a Grand Company. Whatever reservations you may have about joining any of them at all, you.. you just gotta. Just like with joining the Scions. Or not kicking Asahi in the teeth. Because the player has to 'play' the part of the WoL, an actor on the stage of the game.

Personally I think the game's using an interesting way of exploring the 'mute protagonist' perspective by doing so - you don't just say nothing, you don't get to say some things. Even things you feel you should be screaming out, and that feeling of mild frustration is I think by design?

Like how after having gone through the whole ethical conundrum of Elpis, we get to see Y'shtola make familiars and send them off to their deaths. Combined with talking mammets that show signs of self-determination in the Island Sanctuary in almost the same breath as introducing Ameliance's Collector's Quests where you... basically use a mammet as a test subject. While remembering that Ul'dah's printing industry is sorta run on mammet slavery. And yeah, it feels like 'Hello?? We just had a whole thing about this?? Am I crazy??' (no, this is probably how Hermes and Emet felt, at a disjuncture with the world around them v_v ) but I think that's on purpose?

I think it brings more weight to the WoL's decision to save Eorzea and its people over and over again no matter how flawed we find them, at the least.

And... To live is to suffer. WoL is meant to be a traveller, and travellers are transient to the world around them - going from place to place, with a like-minded companion or without one... On the flip side of adventure is that that journey belongs to the one that walked it and them alone. Which can be lonely, and I personally think that kind of loneliness can be its own flavour of suffering.

Aaa thank you so much for this <33 Good stuff! I agree with you.

That's true the npcs are unreliable and subject to their own biases. And I dont usually take the npcs word as law, especially in this universe where those expectations are subverted time and time again! I love the game for the fact there's so many competing viewpoints at play in the narrative.

I guess it DID at times feel the Scions were being used as a vessel to push Hydaelyn-good-Ascians-bad back onto us, like the conversation with the Watcher:

Minfilia did not have any of this context when she served Hydaelyn as a mortal, and after being absorbed into the goddess and effectively merged with her consciousness, it's kind of questionable how much free-will or independent thought Minfilia actually had. Even if the Scions ultimately do favor their faith and still agree with her, they're SO quick to excuse Hydaelyn's actions, after everything that's happened and come to light, it almost seems out of character.

So I guess it still surprises me how much reverence the Scions as a whole still seem to have for her? There's not really any drawn out conflict or crisis of faith throughout all these revelations that I can think of. I would have expected more of that to come out. Which could also be MMO limitations, as you said.

As I think on it, it's also possible that faith is more important to Y'shtola than I previously imagined. She's got the strongest example of the reverence I'm thinking of (I apparently didn't screenshot back when I read it so I can't directly quote), she essentially continued to reference Hydaelyn in terms of giving blessings/looking after us after we take stewardship of the Star. It definitely felt jarring to me when I heard it the first time. (If someone else has a screenshot of that pls feel free to share LOL)

But I also recall her having a much stronger negative reaction to Emet-Selch's account of the Sundering, and of course the aforementioned dialogue with the Watcher she was adamant in her support of Hydaelyn. Y'shtola might just be very devout, you can definitely be science-minded and practical and still have a faith, still have biases, and maybe she just isn't wanting to examine the possibility of Hydaelyn being more human than divinity.

Also just adding on that I did review some of the other dialogue after writing this. In the end, at least, Hydaelyn doesn't present herself as a heroic figure. While I still think her choice and what biases/self-certainty led up to it is questionable, and I don't think acknowledging that just makes everything that happened and the ways she misrepresented herself go away, it does soften my opinion on her arrogance vs just plain desperation/fear a bit. I still think she was arrogant, but maybe not as much as I did before:

(And again! I don't hate Venat or Hydaelyn. I like them a lot as characters, I just feel the amount of veneration they get is odd)

(I’m sorry if I miss anything, for some reason Tumblr decided that this is one of those posts that it will not notify me of reblogs of any kind djafidojfdisoa why is this blue hellsite like this)

I may be the minority on this, but my view of the Scions is that they are intensely biased due to their prior connections with Louisoix, with Thancred having a  heaping serving of connections to both Minfilias for good measure. Even before the revelations of the Acsians, if you played the Warring Triad questline, Y’shtola didn’t seem super strongly adverse to killing the Tempered of the Primals trapped there. At least, not by my estimation. The older, ‘original’ Scions (perhaps with the exclusion of Alisaie & Alphinaud) used to work in a framework where they executed people they thought ‘couldn’t be saved’, and that’s... that takes a certain frame of mind to be in any way ‘okay’ with those decisions, in my opinion.

They may be more inclined to go ‘well, can’t do anything about the past, and I guess I would not have done anything different when it comes down to it, so let’s just move on without rocking the boat/increasing any levels of my cognitive dissonance’ than one might think.

If I recall correctly, if you talk to Thancred after Emet’s exposition cutscene about the origins of Hydaelyn & Zodiark in Rak’tika, he does seem to be pondering on whether or not Minfilia was tempered. Ultimately, I don’t think this was answered - we can infer from Venat telling us our blessing prevents it & that Hydaelyn intended for humanity to make their own choices that she wasn’t though, I guess.

But given what Banri Oda said about tempering having different ‘degrees of done-ness’ & thinking about what Garlemald brought up with regards to what Tempering is (imo the people we tried to help who attacked Alphinaud were eerily similar to being Tempered - their faith in their nation was so strong they said they heard Varis’s voice through the radio, and well... guess what was used to actually temper them?)

Personally I don’t think that the Scions are ‘tempered’ in the way of the ‘stark raving fully-devout’ are, but perhaps... biased enough to ‘excuse’ things? (I mean, the initial plan to avert the 7th Umbral Calamity involved them praying hard enough to do so lol. So I don’t think the Scions are exempt from the sways of strong faith, up to & including defaulting to ‘slightly readjusting new information so it fits in better with my old worldview’ to some extent).

^ With regards to this, I think the correct answer to Y’shtola’s question is ‘none’ - at least, not in the timeline our story happened to take place in. Because we’re in the timeline where it was meant to be 7 and no more. (Time-travel shenanigans & fate, woo!)

Y’shtola is a Moon Cat yes? And iirc Keepers of the Moon are in general strong worshippers of Menphina, goddess of the moon. I think even with her interest in  knowledge, Y’shtola was raised amongst those with strong faith and may herself harbor some, given how intertwined religion & culture tends to be.

I don’t think Venat thought of herself that way either, tbh. I think her and Hermes are opposites in the story themes, and if you speak to her during the chase of Hermes, she mentions something like to that effect (I know I have the screencaps somewhere but I have GBs of screenshots from Endwalker so I don’t know if I can find it again).

Telling WoL Zodiark needed to be vanquished, omitting the truth/not talking with the other Warriors of Light... they are cruel actions, but I think she chose to take them so that the ‘streams of time would align’. It may well be that she did those things because we told her that in our time, she had done so, and it was her best bet to align her past with our present.

Btw, re: the questions about the original JP dialogue in the other reblogs - I have yet to replay Endwalker in JP (because that is An Endeavour, as you can imagine) but iirc from the cutscenes I watched, there were subtle but significant differences. 

For example when Emet talks to you in Ultima Thule in English he says like “not the past that I loved” but in JP he says “not the past that we loved”. And in JP one of the dialogue options has Amon directly referencing the line Hermes told the Lykaones. Little things like that.

Hydaelyn in Endwalker

At the risk of looking stupid online I'm going to field my perplexions about Hydaelyn that've been bothering me for months lol This post is... a little Hydaelyn critical. But I do offer that in good faith, I LOVE the character and I'm not trying to just trash her, I'm genuinely interested to hear other perspectives about it. (But please be nice, everyone is entitled to their own take)

Also this is not in response to anyone else's post. I haven't even seen any Hydaelyn posts circulating lately. I'm not vagueing anyone or trying to start drama. Just trying to sort out my own feelings about this character.

So my main takeaway from MSQ was that love is, ultimately, what saves you. That humans (including Ancients!) aren't perfect, and cannot love perfectly, but the shared love of you and others is still what saves you.

And, also, that grief is a part of life. Mistakes are a part of life. Conflict and loss happen, but they need not destroy you. Stand for doing right as best that you can, forgive yourself and keep trying, keep loving - both yourself and others.

There was an incredible amount of emphasis on not judging or hating one's enemies, about accepting the humanity in all of us and coming together, which I really loved.

There was also, of course, a huge rejection of self-sacrifice and martyrdom.

I saw all those themes in the Dark Knight quests a LOT (especially before the English translation changed so many scenes), and I assume Ishikawa was continuing that theme from Shadowbringers onward.

So again! I don't hate Hydaelyn!

But I feel like... at least in the English translation, she is still treated with excessive reverence, like a goddess, by the Scions - even ones it didn't really make sense to after her origin came out, like Y'sthola.

And at least on my first playthrough, while I like Venat a lot and love the drama of the Final Days pushing everyone into points of desperation, to their breaking points, and her decision to sunder the world definitely did ultimately help (help!) make it possible for us to defeat the Endsinger... I dunno.

To me she was still subject to the same arrogance as the rest of the Ancients. Whether her decision paid off or not, she still took into her hands the fate of the entire Star, she still made a decision that would result in millions of deaths.

And if we're going by Hydaelyn's own assertion, that each reincarnation is their own person, not just a missing piece of a whole... then to achieve her goal of a better world, she killed all the remaining Ancients except those three.

She chose to create a world where death and trauma would affect generation after generation - and she can say that it was for the greater good, for the world to survive. But that was essentially the Convocation’s justification too, in creating Zodiark and orchestrating the Rejoinings. Committing genocide to prove that genocide is wrong… is not noble.

The cutscene with her sundering the world, where the people insist they'll return to a world free of sorrow underneath a burning sky, could also NOT be how it actually happened. It had to be representational of her feelings and conclusion. Becoming Hydaelyn took coordination with her followers and planning.

At least in English, idk about the original Japanese, Hythlodaeus's shade describes the time of the Sundering as if the world wasn't in utter ruin at that point. It was beginning to heal, they had restored some natural systems, but the Ancients were short in numbers. At that point, they were done sacrificing their own people, in time they were going to sacrifice other life - plants and animals, to restore those lost brethren.

At the very least, Hythlodaeus's completely different account shows that the two sects of people post-Zodiark were viewing their sacrifice and end goal in completely different ways. Ethics aside, whether the competing goal was achievable or not… we will never know, because Venat stopped it from happening.

But I don't think either recounting has a monopoly on the truth. There was no One Truth, there were just competing needs and perspectives. And though Venat insists that unity is necessary to avert the Endsinger - she perpetuates this division. Azem refused her followers call to help summon Hydaelyn, and I think that's significant.

But I'll also acknowledge that Azem didn't manage to save the Ancients, either.

And you could argue that the Ancients were their own worst enemy. They kind of were.

Hermes was a really, really great caricature of severe, untreated Depression. And he had the powers of a god. His creations were sent to find a specific answer in the world beyond, and like their creator, they didn't have the tools to process hearing an answer other than what they were expecting. They were trapped in their own perspective. He was looking for answers in the stars, instead of in himself. Their own pain and inability to engage with emotion in a healthy way overwhelmed every encounter they had and created the very reality he so feared.

He did not use the proper channels for peer review before sending them out on their mission. Those rules, those checks and balances, that community approach to design, existed to protect the Ancients from their own power, and he deliberately acted in secret. He isolated himself from society, convinced himself his pain was something nobody could understand, made an island of himself and doubled down on his own jaded beliefs.

I don't know what kind of mental health facilities were available to the Ancients - we just don't have that information. But I do know that he was treated with patience and forgiveness by a significant number of colleagues, and his quirks weren't held against him. People did try to help and accommodate him, even if they didn't always understand. He had been promoted to a powerful position. I don't know if it's fair to blame anyone in particular, or even their society, for what happened. Because again... everyone was doing the best they could with what they had.

If anything, the problem was that literally any Ancient could have made a similar mistake in the right situation. They were ALL that powerful. Eventually chaos would happen. Sundered souls can certainly create destruction, but not on the same scale.

I don't personally agree with Hydaelyn's decision not to reach out to the Convocation. I understand being careful, and thinking through what the next step should be before acting. But there's a LOT of "maybes" in this argument:

And ultimately, it's her doing the same thing as Hermes, putting the power of judgement over an entire people in her own hands. She's assuming that she is in a unique position to decide the fate of the entire Star. It's not evil. But it's arrogant. She wasn't special among the Ancients, gifted with some unique wisdom. She was doing the best she could from her own perspective.

Plus... if half your population, and then another half again are about to sacrifice themselves... what have you got to lose by outing Hermes and/or trying to work with the Convocation to avert that loss of life? We don't have all the details, I'm willing to accept that there were circumstances that made it impossible, or at least made Venat decide against trying it. But even so. What did you have to lose leading up to the summoning of Zodiark? There was already panic and destruction at that point.

Hydaelyn sacrificed a lot of people to accomplish her goals. She made a goddess of herself and manipulated people like Minfilia on that basis. She killed so many children and stole so many lives even just by reincarnating Minfilia over and over on the First. She misrepresents the nature of the Ascians to the WoL, keeps secrets, and essentially charges you with being a crusader in her Holy War.

It's Emet- Selch who tries to bridge the gap. Not Hydaelyn. It's him who's willing to consider trying to achieve his goals without bloodshed, if you, the WoL, are strong enough. He says this to himself, out of anyone else's hearing. There's no reason for it to be a lie.

And just before Mt. Gulg, you can see Emet starting to question his beliefs about humanity because of the WoL's accomplishments. Hydaelyn has nothing to do with that. It's all you. And Emet succumbs to his own weaknesses too, so we never get to know what that might have happened if you'd had more time with him. He's not better than her.

But I think it's significant that he's the one who reaches out. Who's willing to consider a compromise at all.

In war you make sacrifices, I get that. But she was not more heroic, somehow, than the Ascians. Both sides were doing terrible things and denying the agency of mortals in order to achieve their ideal world.

So to me... she was not a benevolent incomprehensibly wise mother figure. Much like in real life we go from being kids who trust our moms implicitly, to adults who realize our mother was human and made mistakes, I think we’re supposed to recognize that Hydaelyn didn't do everything right and its our job to carry the future forward for subsequent generations, to learn from what came before, and hope that our own children do the same and forgive us for our own mistakes.

I think its very important to note that the WoL is just as much the Convocation's creation as Hydaelyn's. Without being rejoined as many times as they were, the WoL wouldn’t have survived. She saves you from the Ultima Weapon, Emet-Selch saves you from Elidibus, and its their powers combined that save you and your friends from the Endsinger. You are the legacy of each side’s imperfect love, equally.

WHICH brings me to my point of perplexion. Hydaelyn continues to be venerated. NPCs who know what happened continue to emphasize her side of things. I feel I must be missing something, because to me, the finale of Endwalker essentially shattered any idea that this was a Light vs Dark kind of story. People made choices. People made mistakes. It wasn't good or evil. It was human. We survived in spite of our mistakes because love was more powerful than our imperfections.

The Scions sacrificed themselves one by one just like the Ancients. And got brought back using energy from the Star... not all that different than what the Ascians had planned to do with their own brethren. I just don't see much functional difference there in the sentiments between either side.

I don't think we're supposed to hate Hydaelyn. I don't think she was evil. But I don't think she was better than the Ascians.

So while I don't expect, or want, characters to be condemning her left and right in the narrative, it's still baffling to me that there's such consistent, explicit reverence for her.

Yeeeessss Hydaelyn discussion! :D

I agree with much of what you've said here, though with regards to what seems to be Hyaelyn's continued veneration... I've put it down to how the story is constantly being 'fed' to us via the conduit of the world's NPCs, and therefore it will largely be tinged by those characters.

And those characters have their flaws; they are in their own way unreliable narrators. Even characters that are supposed to be 'knowledgeable guides' like Y'shtola. Because they're also human.

Also, I think the game does give us the option to 'object', but is a bit subtle in showing us things that go against general NPC opinion (e.g; the resolution of Copperbell Mines, WoL's face when killing Thordan etc). Perhaps this is to keep the general fanbase that want the escapism happy? I think to some extent it also can't be helped because it is an MMO.

It's something I've noticed built in since ARR actually - for example, you are shown explicitly how each of the 3 nations are corrupt in their own ways, but you have to pick a Grand Company. Whatever reservations you may have about joining any of them at all, you.. you just gotta. Just like with joining the Scions. Or not kicking Asahi in the teeth. Because the player has to 'play' the part of the WoL, an actor on the stage of the game.

Personally I think the game's using an interesting way of exploring the 'mute protagonist' perspective by doing so - you don't just say nothing, you don't get to say some things. Even things you feel you should be screaming out, and that feeling of mild frustration is I think by design?

Like how after having gone through the whole ethical conundrum of Elpis, we get to see Y'shtola make familiars and send them off to their deaths. Combined with talking mammets that show signs of self-determination in the Island Sanctuary in almost the same breath as introducing Ameliance's Collector's Quests where you... basically use a mammet as a test subject. While remembering that Ul'dah's printing industry is sorta run on mammet slavery. And yeah, it feels like 'Hello?? We just had a whole thing about this?? Am I crazy??' (no, this is probably how Hermes and Emet felt, at a disjuncture with the world around them v_v ) but I think that's on purpose?

I think it brings more weight to the WoL's decision to save Eorzea and its people over and over again no matter how flawed we find them, at the least.

And... To live is to suffer. WoL is meant to be a traveller, and travellers are transient to the world around them - going from place to place, with a like-minded companion or without one... On the flip side of adventure is that that journey belongs to the one that walked it and them alone. Which can be lonely, and I personally think that kind of loneliness can be its own flavour of suffering.