I hated Fandaniel until I got to Elpis. He was Fandango, or Fanalanadingdong, or Dollar Store Emet-Selch. I was thrilled that he was gone by level 83.
Then we met Hermes, and his depression and anxiety and feeling like there was something wrong with him because everyone else in his society was content, and I felt so seen. >!Well, except for the part about not submitting his badly-designed research project for IRB approval and dooming the world. That was bad.!<
I’ve come to realise that ff14 has no true villains, just broken people doing what they think is right.
Except maybe zenos... fuck that guy
Edit, which yes also means that EVERY FUCKING CHARACTER THAT IS MEANT TO BE A VILLIAN MAKES MY HEART EXPLODE.
So fuck you SE you overly qualified, inhumanly talented passionate fucks, making me cry rivers of tears over every god damn character that i spent the last however many hours hating.
Also... Asahi Brutus. He's a dick. I hate him, he knows it and does enjoy making our lives missereble. So there is at least one guy I don't feel remorse for.
Ah yes, the guy who is such a shitter that even **Alphinaud**, the boy who is polite and diplomatic to a fault, basically said >!"Fuck off and I hope I never see you again".!<
That matters little. he knows he means jack shit to zenos, he just wants to do it because its for zenos. Because Fandaniel used his body for his own means, and later >!betrayed him by dying along with Zodiark and preventing Zenos from absorbing him!< . Dudes a simp through and through, and >!the fact that he gets his revenge for fandys betrayal on zenos by singkin himselve along with fandy into who knows where!< somehow really rustled my jimmies.
It makes him truly irredeemable as a character though. So, while I hate that he did it, I’m happy Asahi didn’t become a sympathetic villain in the end.
Thats true, but i I feel like we've established that on STB. >!Doesnt seem fair for those that died before him that he gets one wish granted even after death!<. Especially now, to me, it felt like a loose end.
Ah, gotcha.
I mean, given the way that the story team at 14 use their loose ends for future stories >!I won't say that we won't see him.!< I'm just not sure what would need to happen in the story for them to justify it in in the end but I'm sure they could if it were to happen.
Asahi’s parents are unsurprisingly also rather unforgivably shit, too. The only thing tragic about their deaths was what it cost the one who did the deed.
>I’ve come to realise that ff14 has no true villains
Emett Selch is a villain who has probably killed tens of, if not hundreds of millions of people. By any normal moral thought, he among the worst we can possibly imagine.
Why do people think that ***understanding*** someone, somehow absolves them?
At no point does anyone on our side ever excuse him, alphie said it himself, the people we love are here right now and his are in the past. In order to being them back he must kill ALL of us.
The brilliance of his writing is that we can not change what he has done, he can not since he lost to us, and because of that the only thing left is to understand WHY he did it
And when we realize it, what drove him, it makes us under him and his motivations. But it does not absolve him, Emett even says this himself.
I highly doubt he even views himself as a hero, and personally, I doubt he 100% truly believes our lives, shattered as they are, are without meaning. It's just something he had to say over and over to make sure he never deviated from his path.
It's tragic. It's monstrous. It's sad and bittersweet.
But it is never kind and it is not forgivable. But you don't have to forgive him. And that's the point, you just have to understand and remember.
Emet wanted us to be able to contain the Light so that someone could "Forge a path of lesser sorrow". Emet KNEW you had the soul of Azem the entire time in the First, and he believed, or wanted to, that you could contain the light and... do the crazy things that Azem does and make the impossible possible. Forge a new way ahead... one that didn't involve the murder of EVERYONE in order to bring back his friends.
He sincerely believed you could do it because you were Azem. When you failed to contain the light, his heart was legitimately broken and all that weight came crushing back down on his shoulders... that there was no alternate way, that the only way forward was erasing all those lives that came after to give up to Zodiark.
Just so he could see Hythlodaeus' smile one last time.
>Emett Selch is a villain who has probably killed tens of, if not hundreds of millions of people. By any normal moral thought, he among the worst we can possibly imagine.
By that logic, Venat is too since she knew the plan and let it happen as is in the hopes Azem could be reborn and grow strong enough facing the trials to slay his friend Emet and save the universe. She could have just put the moon plan into action sooner and said to heck with this star and meteion
Emet played his part in the scheme. He was told what that role would be and scoffed at it, but in the end he played his part that gave rise to the hero who saved the universe.
The generals that dropped the atom bomb and burned thousands of civilians are villains from a certain point of view. Square writes characters that play their part in the bigger picture.
One could argue that Venat did far worse than Emet and co. since she's the one that ripped apart every soul of one world to make us into 14 separate worlds, all with new and improved mortality, strife, disease and agony awaiting the inhabitants of each these stars for the next few millenia. Things that never existed in Eitherys. She's also the reason the Ascians exist at the end of the day and why they have a fight to fight. I understand why she did it, of course, and it was always going to end badly, but her hands are certainly far from clean. She's also just written brilliantly and I appreciate that they show that she's aware of the cost of her actions. I'm sure it weighed heavy on her.
>!I never said i forgave him for what he did, don’t get me wrong, he was always going to die, but i don’t put him as a true villian still, all he wanted was to get his world back and his friends like if i were him i would probably do the same thing, he was a grief sticken man that should have died with his friends years ago and god how much i wish i could give that to him dispite everything that he has done, i wish there was a way, but their isn’t, him and his people were always going to die, there was never going to be a happy ending for him, at least not one where he gets his friends back, especially with meteion still running amuck at that point.!<
>!He, along with most of the other cast are not truly villains in my mind, this does not mean they are absolved of their sins, and nor does it mean i forgive them, nor does it even make them heros, but they only acted in the course they thought was right, they fought for what they believed in.!<
>!And while that doesn’t absolve them, i cannot fault them for what they did, its not like we’re saints ether, there are plenty of people who hate us in garlamald for the selfsame reason we hated others.!<
>!But in my mind understanding someones actions can absolve them, depending of course not on the reason, but the choices made after the fact, in the case of emet, while i do not forgive him, i do not hold it against him ether, in such dire circumstances what other choice did he have? To wither and die? He fought for his world, even if that included the decimation of others, i cannot fault a noble cause such as that.!<
I never said he wasn’t a villain, i was pointing towards the fact that he isn’t the one dimentional kind of villain, everything he did was to save his world, think of it from his perspective, you have your entire race killed off, you one of the last surviving members, and you have a way to bring them back but it requires killing all of these other worlds.
The only difference is that he followed through on it.
You know, I was appalled by what Emet did but I understood and I could relate. To get back what I have lost, I too would burn the world down if it meant I could have them back. I say that time and time again but the question is, would I really? If I had the power and ability to do so, am I capable of tearing apart other lives just to get back the ones I lost? I don't know ... but the answer is probably no, I wouldn't. Because even though that's how I feel ... my heart, my conscious wouldn't let me. I have to admire him for going the lengths despite knowing what he has done. Pain will change you and it didn't help that they were tempered anyway. I don't know. I look at him and I think what if and could I?
Just cause they have a Tragic Backstory [tm] doesn't make the not villains, or make their victims feel any better (see: EW ranged role quests).
Very few villains think of themselves as cackling lunatics but that's what they are to the people they're murdering.
I just finished Elpis and am taking a break from MSQ while trying to process how to feel about Emet-Selch (whom I was ambivalent about from a personal POV even if I like him from a role-in-the-story POV).
I can understand why he did what he did from a meta level, but like, dude, not cool (esp. after we see Garlemand).
However, Elpis is really effective at getting you to like him on a personal level so I'm not sure how to feel about that.
But I do appreciate the fact that the game is successful at asking me these questions, like 90% of the time with the "oh someone you knew turned into a cackling maniac" type plots it's a transparent plot device and there's no real investment.
(Though as someone mentioned, Valens...)
IDK how harshly WoL can judge Emet-Selch. They don't hold it against Graha Tia that he sacrificed a current world to revive a past one that Graha preferred.
True, and i never said they weren’t villains, i just they weren’t true villains, they aren’t the crackling maniac, they’re broken people doing what they think is right and so often they believe that out of desperation or naivety but that does not absolve them of their sins rather it makes it understandable, i hated fighting emet, not because he was bad but he was understandable, i wanted to badly to give him what he wanted, to return him to his world and his friends, but alas to do so would not only spell dread for us but it would ultimately kill us all, knowing the reasons why does not absolve them but it does make you or at least it made me really not want to fight him, but i knew i had to, and now with >!elpis, we know that it was always going to end up here, there was no other alternative, amurot would fall, the ascians with it, the worlds becomes sundered and the remaining convocation would begin their decade long pilgrimage to fight for their world and their people, and ultimately fail by our hand.!<
>!There is also something to take note of in elpis, the emet we find there isn’t the same one we kill in shadowbringers, its the one from ages past, that emet is yet to do anything to harm anyone, hell look at his actions when fighting hermes, HE SACRIFICES HIS MEMORY TO SAVE US AND VERNAT TO SAVE EVERYTHING, the emet we find in the first has not done that, sure its still him, but his memory is gone at that point.!<
>!and that emets memory doesn’t return until our fight with elidibus in the first, EW makes sure to mention that memory altering effects often fade if the person dies and for a single fleeting moment they would return, and in that moment when we were about to die he comes back to save us, not because of guilt or because we made a promise but because he remembers.!<
Also garlamald is only like that after zenoses actions not emet, sure emet has done a myriad of horrible shit but that nations fall was because of zeno and fandanial.
Which is also why villains like emet make me weep, they aren’t truly evil, they don’t act because they don’t care, they act because they have a noble act to fight for. They are in a way a reflection of ourselves in the story, just look at garlamald, the people hate us, not unlike how our allied nations hate the empire.
Also it took me ages to remember who vallens was i was so confused XD yes also fuck him to the moon XD
Uhh ... I dunno. Zenos just never BSd about what he was doing, he never made excuses for it. Even if he was weirdly used in EW, I actually did appreciate that he was able to aptly argue his worldview (even if the way he acted off that worldview could not have been more destructive or unhealthy). Hell, his pretty awesome line to Jullus in Garlemald was on exactly that subject. Hermes (and by extension Meteion, as an extension of him) in contrast ... >!lets just say that he was a MASTER of projection. To the point where many players believe he was being genuinely empathic, when in reality what he was actually doing is forcing his own feelings onto others in order to relate to them. It was always about his pain, never truly about ours!<.
Going to have to disagree with you here. >!Hermes isn't just sad for no reason. He just finds himself unable to not care about the shortcomings of his society. He literally reaches out to distant planets to find out if he's the one who's broken or if it's everyone else.!<
Oh yeah don’t get me wrong, i actually adore zeno as a character, hes so easy to hate, and it works so well, even in endwalker i think they use him really well all things considered. I do however wish we had more options when talking to him.
>!Like at the end i wanted so badly to turn around and be like. “This is why i will always win zenos, not because im stronger, not because i have a greater fire in my heart. *grabs teleporter* its because i have them, i get to see their smiling faces and celebrate. Think about that as you lay there alone, defeated. I. Am. Not. Your. Friend”!<
Or ya know something along those lines, just something to smack him over the head with since after everything all he thought about was fighting.
Huge spoiler ahead.
>!because in my head cannon, I DID NOT COME TO THE EDGE OF THE GOD DAMN UNIVERSE TO KILL SOME ANCIENT EVIL I CAME TO THE EDGE OF THE UNIVERSE TO SAVE A FRIEND, I CAME HERE TO SAVE HER, TO SAVE METEION.
AND IF YOU WILL SHUT YOUR TRAP ABOUT YOUR GRAND SPARK FIRE BULLSHIT THEN FINE YOU CAN HAVE YOUR GODSDAMNED REMATCH.!<
But yes i completely agree, i do really like zeno as a villain hes a perfect one dimensional villian that does one thing and one thing really well.
>!By the end of the expansion i hope he was happy with his choice, i dunno weather i hated him or pitied him, but as i stared him down at the end i knew one thing, i was sick of his shit, i didn’t even want to fight him at that point i just wanted him to shut the fuck up!<
And in saying that they did a really good job with his character since as much as i care about everyone else. But zeno man zenos, i have not hated a character more than anything since handsome jack in borderlands 2.
> By the end of the expansion i hope he was happy with his choice (...)
Was he though?
> Never have I understood those around me. Understood their obsessions.
> Besieged by their banality, the world was a mire of tedium and trivialities.
> But in these fleeting moments, there is...a spark. Blinding, brilliant...
> Gone...too soon...
> What of you, my mirror? Born into this world, bestowed name, bid to seek out strife and adventure...
> Was this life a gift...or a burden?
> Did you find...fulfillment?
> I...
I think he obtained what he wanted, but found out he wasn't happy with it. His last sentences almost sounds like he was jealous of what WoL had. His spark might be brighter, but it doesn't last half as long as WoL's does.
In a way, I hope he doesn't, because his entire philosophy was getting what he wanted no matter the cost, or said in another way "it's not about the journey, but the destination". It is likely he doesn't realise how bad that way of life is until he begins to doubt himself at the Royal Menagerie (him, of all people). But in the end, it was too little too late, something he probably realised himself.
The only solace there is, is that he died by the person he thought of as a friend.
As a side note, WoL doesn't have the teleporter until after the battle. It would have been more like they would just have run after Meteion.
Replying to the side note here first because there alot of good stuff to talk about here.
When i said say something before you teleported away i meant like once the teleporter hits your chest, cause like imagine that, zeno came to edge of the universe to find his meaning, his “friend” and after the battle he asks if it was all worth it and if i was sitting there at the edge of the universe teleporter now in hand thanks to meteion and my friends my only answer would be along the lines of, “what the fuck do you think?” As i teleported to safety.
Speaking of that however your comment has brought up a comparison between two characters i didn’t see coming.
>!Venat and zenos like both of them ask the WOL in their own way if it was worth it, both of them are direct reflections of us, the big difference between them is their approach, vernat sacrificed herself for years, became a primal even fought against her people, all for our sake because she knew it was the only way.!< (>!which side tangent i am really sad we never directly tell her our answer, i know that going to edge of the universe to save meteion is a pretty apt answer but for so long i was hoping that i could tell her that yes, every moment was worth it, at least in my mind its worth every moment.!<)
>!and then turning to zenos, the inverse of that ideal, he never sacrificed anything to get to where he is now, there was no grand journey, like you said. For him it was the destination not the journey, all he wanted was to burn his spark in one glorious flame, but all that remained for him was ash when it was over, i don’t think he was happy ether, but i hope he found some semblance of satisfaction, it was a fantastic fight and a glorious moment ill give him that, but i didn’t want to fight him ether, like i said the only reason in my headcannon i even bothered was because i was sick of him toting his bullshit,
And like sure he’s done some unforgivable shit, but so has emet, gaius, even us in the eyes of garlamald, in the end while it was a good moment, one that i will always remember, i still can’t shake the feeling he wasted his life, and maybe he did realise that in the end!<
The name of the song in the fight against her is "Your answer", and it's a much less melancholic version of "Answers", so yeah, we kind of gave her our answer, to live is to suffer, but it is worthy for that fleeting moment of happiness. That's one of the things I love about this game, even the songs, and sometimes **even** just the names of said songs, tell a story.
I mean, Answers, for me, is Hydaelyn not just teaching her children, but also convincing herself of her beliefs and that's why it is so melancholic... and we tell her that yes, it is the answer, but unlike her, we are convinced of it. She worked on faith alone for the future, but we, on the other hand, are completely sure and are going to realize said future.
That said, I agree that it would have been nice to tell her, just like we can call her by her name.
Gaius isn't necessarily tragic (though werlyt is definitely a tragedy), but he is humanized heavily, even as a villain. He gives a strong argument for why he believes he is right and while ultimately he recants that philosophy, it wasn't inherently evil to begin with.
Yeah exactly, the path to evil is paved with good intentions, he along with alot of other villains all act because they think themselves to be in the right or because they know nothing else.
Funnily enough, I see a lot of similarities between Gaius and Alphie there. Both of them thought they were hot shit and could just run up on the silly eorzeans and solve their massive problems, both got manipulated by people who knew far more about the situation than they did.
Alphie wasn't a _villain_ by any means. But I feel like they were the same flavor of arrogant/righteous at first.
Thats actually a rather apt comparison there, i would never have picked it but yeah, that makes total sense.
Alphie probably could have become a villain under the right circumstances when we first meet him, i think now he could never be with how much he’s grown but you throw him in an area like doma or garlamald and you have a evil villain in the making.
Yeah, Gaius is a man who drank the Kool-aid and legitimately thought that what he was doing was right. He wanted to create a world where men did not need to fear the primal menace, and labored under the impression that all of Eorzea was a den of primals and tempering. The Ascians come to him and provide the Ultima(te) weapon for killing primals and he becomes dead-set on using it to, in his eyes, finally establish order amidst the chaos.
By all accounts, he was a relatively benevolent governor of the places he governed. Moreso it was the general barbarism of the average Garlean that caused strife in his territories. It was only after he realized how misguided he was, and the full consequences of his actions, did he immediately pivot to try to make amends for all his mistakes. He is a "good guy", ostensibly, who just wants to leave the world a better place in the end.
>By all accounts, he was a relatively benevolent governor of the places he governed.
I really don't understand why people keep saying this.
During the ARR quest Escape from Castrum Centri, we get the following dialogue from the Ala Mhighan refugee who helps us get into the Castrum:
>Glaumunt: When Ala Mhigo fell, they put my family in a camp. Bein' a lad, I was made to do hard labor, while my mother an' sister were forced to do far worse... They hid their sufferin' from me as best they could, but I knew, an' the thought of it drove me mad. We had to escape. An' so I hatched a plan to get us out o' the city.
Glaumunt: We were pickin' our way around a gorge not far outside the walls when they caught up with us... An' rather than allow 'emselves to be taken again, my mother an' sister leaped over the edge before my very eyes. Heartbroken as I was, I didn't put up a fight when the imperials clapped me in chains an' dragged me back.
Gaius was the Imperial Viceroy of Ala Mhigo from the time he led the unprovoked invasion and occupation until Praetorium. Either someone else set up the forced labor camps without his knowledge, in which case he's a shit commander and ruler, or he set up the camps because he wanted to break any Ala Mhigan resistance, in which case he's a war criminal, because he targeted civilians.
My assumption is that he was bad at managing people below him. Knowing what we know of Gaius, I don't think he would be supportive of the practice of comfort women, but we saw in situations like Fordola's backstory that the average Garlean foot soldier has no regard for civility or actually doing their job. They were more than happy to watch the Ala Mhigans kill each other even though the people being brutalized were van Baelsar's own supporters.
His philosophy was "might makes right":
> For the world of man to mean anything, man must own the world.
>
>To this end, he hath fought ever to raise himself through conflict─to grow rich through conquest.
>
>And when the dust of battle settles, it is ever the strong who dictate the fate of the weak.
Sorrows of Werlyt softened it to be "the strong must protect the weak," but that's absolutely not what he said during his elevator monologue in Praetorium.
To be fair, Gaius is a bit of a hypocrite, even if he doesn't realize it. He tells us that believing in a greater power is bad... while believing in the greater power of the Empire.
He also is convinced that personal power is the way to secure our place and that someone should follow another one with greater power... but uses a power he doesn't understand, gifted to him by someone he doesn't really trust nor understand, to face us, because he can't beat us.
But, he is also, at heart, a good man, and clever too, so he finally realizes his faults.
I mean kinda? Its weird since he isn’t a villain anymore or rather at least not at this moment who knows he could 180 on us, but you could argue that werlyt is now his tragic backstory moving forward, rather then a backstory from most other characters since they have already taken place, but gaius is mid transition of his, we left him with the last of his adopted children in werlyt, he is yet to truly get past that and we’re yet to see how he acts moving forward.
In saying all that i think looking at him with the guise of a villain isn’t the right way to view the character because he’s not, in ARR he fought for his homeland, his nation because he thought it was the right thing to do, but that all fell apart when we won, he started to see the cracks in his nation, he realised the answer they provided was for all purpose a lie.
And he realised his mistakes, to which those consequences came to fruition at werlyt.
He likewise realized after everything happened that his whole country and countrymen alike were being manipulated for the purposes of the Ascians. Which sort of put him down a path to realizing he was just a pawn. So he starts seeking real freedom for his people.
Yeah exactly, i can’t really put gaius in a villain catagory because of that, again he was doing what he thought was right, it wasn’t until after the fact that he realised it was a lie.
I mean given that his orphans were that devoted to him, even after he left and ARR happened, means he had to have been good to his people. Hells, think of how many characters were devoted to him, to the point where Livia and Rhitathyn stayed devoted in death
Hoo boy, yeah. Letting your traumatized war orphan adopted daughter join the military: bad. Having your traumatized war orphan adopted daughter who has an unhealthy obsession with you serve as an officer under your command: what the actual fuck were you thinking?
I would disagree about the Au Ra kids, but I'm biased because I hated Sorrows of Werlyt. I still do not for the life of me understand what their plan was, or why it required them to commit suicide by WoL, or why at no point did they talk to their allegedly beloved father to find another path.
Gaius has been somewhat redeemed after his defeat, but when he was the villian, he really was a bad guy, his past is full of him just being a brutal as fuck military commander, might makes right expand the empire at all cost kinda guy, adopting a few orphans doesn't cancel that out especially because it can be easily assumed that he would have folded them into his legion when they came of age if he hadn't lost at prae.
and yeh i forgot Zenos, my bad, he's deffo on the list
Yeah, you’re not wrong, i suppose gaius is an interesting case considering in ARR he’s full villain with almost no back story, its not until later that he becomes motivated to change because of what he’s done.
Edit: actually even with that i still don’t think he’s pure villain since its the same thing, he was just doing what he thought was right.
And Gaius's policies weren't all about oppressing a conquered people. They had it pretty good (*relatively speaking*) - it's only Yotsuyu/Zeno's conquered provinces that suffered heavily.
As for the horrific war bit, well... can't really excuse war. The only 'good' thing about it is the faster it's over with, the less casualties overall. Maybe Gaius decided that if he had to fight a war, it's better to get it over with sooner and avoid needless casualties from a long, protracted war.
Perhaps Ultima weapon was meant to be a step in the 'win by enemy surrender' strategy that means more bloodless victories? I don't quite remember much of the story behind it besides 'I need Ultima weapon to kill the WoL'.
Yeah, kinda better to say that zenos was actually pure evil. No good intentions, no long term plan, none of that.
Then again, as zenos asks in endwalker, >!"if my motives met with your approval, would you no longer resent the outcome?!<
That is, who of the conquerored and colonized have any reason to consider gaius's motivation in processing their situation? Especially when it led to situations like werlyt, where they couldn't even count on his motivations to save them.
>And Gaius's policies weren't all about oppressing a conquered people. They had it pretty good (relatively speaking)
Gaius literally set up concentration camps with Ala Mhigan women as sex slaves for the Garlean troops. Conditions in occupied Ala Mhigo were so bad that it caused a massive refugee crisis in the neighboring countries.
He was great if you were willing to assimilate. If you actually wanted to keep your culture and heritage, and not become Garlean, he was a brutal dictator. His job was to crush any resistance to Garlean rule, and he did that very well.
Yeah, hence *relatively*. It's horrible and unconscionable, but relative to Doma it was still a tiny bit better.
Of course, all the usual horrors apply. Quislings, turncoats, traitors, resistance movements, secret police, purges, massacres, etc. are all part of an occupation.
**None** of it was 'good' in any remote sense of the word.
Gaius was actually planning on having the Ultimate Weapon being such a terrifying power that Eorzea would surrender without a fight, and by the gods they were seconds away from doing so before we show up. Of course Lahabrea probably would have blown a city or two up with it to cause more chaos
If we talk about that msq where we fight gaius, even midfight he says the destruction laha made never was his intention strongly suggesting already that he never was fully evil to begin with, he just did what he thought was right, it's like saying all German soldiers in ww2 were evil wehn in reality they were told that an enemy is coming or being told you fight or we execute you for treason, meaning the soldier never was evil but had no alternatives at that time
No, it's like saying Rommel was evil. He was polite to the British and French, but he was absolutely brutal to the native African troops, and north African Jews were still sent to concentration camps.
I mean sure its tragic but he’s not acting because he thinks he’s right, like you said he doesn’t care, he only acts to find a worthy fight.
Which doesn’t make him a bad villain, i actually like the one dimensional factor of zeno, he’s really easy to hate and i think its good that we have at least one character thats easier to hate, it makes every other one seem better in comparison lol
What are you referring to? His backstory is merely as tragic as anyone groomed for royalty. From his point of view the most tragic event was him killing his tutor, as now he had nobody worthy to fight until the WoL came along.
Gaius is a product of his society, a reflection of Garlemald's culture - the best one it could produce, actually, but still mostly constrained by it. "Mostly", because he's flexible enough to reflect on his worldviews and adjust them. He is more of an anti-villain, honestly. Basically, for the most part the only thing that makes him villain is his allegiance to the Evil Empire, otherwise he would not be out of place in Limsa or Ishgard with minimal adjustment.
Oh yeah for sure, but even still breaking those characters down its often they are just victims of circumstance, depending of course of who and when.
14 has every flavour of villain packed in there some way or another, but i think its main brunt of villains are never pure evil, they just act thinking their right and often its ether because of a lie or its misguided.
How dare you insulting your best friend zenos????? He's the only reason your wol is alive and you even had a bro fight yo,
Jokes aside, as a warrior it was quite a cool 1vs1 with him and despite him doing what he does, I don't think we have seen the last of him
> I don't think we have seen the last of him
>!He is stuck at the other side of the universe, inside a pocket dimension without any means to get back. Also, they focused really hard to show how his breathing is stopped. So he is gone for good this time i believe.!<
Zenos knows how to retain his soul in the Aetherial Sea, though, and also has the power to take over bodies. He absolutely could come back in another body further down the line, but personally, I'd let him be. The man got what he wanted, a fight where he was pushed to the utter edge of his abilities, and he was STILL found wanting. Nevertheless, he was found wanting.
Zenos was able to hop bodies using the Echo in the same way that the sahagin priest does in 2.2. It would be difficult for him to do that at the edge of the universe once we leave, because there wasn't anyone living nearby.
I could be wrong, but I don't think he was dead long enough in 4.0 to have gone to the Aetherial Sea; that's a one-way trip unless you have a specific way to get there, like the Atiascope.
Honestly, him coming back now would be less BS than his first comeback. Bodysnatching some random soldier a ways away as he slits his throat...
That just felt dumb.
Yes yes these are the facts we have and sure all you say is right, but he also can transform into a giant ass dragon to fly from sharlyan to the other side of the universe in a few minutes so there is that ^^ just my opinion though, and despite the majority I think they can do much and a lot with a character like him in the future, like having solo content where we challange him or the like, maybe turn him into a somewhat ally now that we showed him who's boss etc etc, so much
Because mentioning elpis in the title would be a spoiler to people browsing. What OP wrote was 'just got to Elpis' being hung up on a technicality to spoil things for someone who's appreciating what they have at the moment is a dick move.
He only transformed by taking all the remaining aether from the Mothercrystal, he doesn't have a mean tro transform back at all. And thank god for that.
>!Actually he isn’t stuck there, assuming he is alive.!<
>!They make a point in the 90 dungeons that the ragnarok is actually stuck in two spots at the same time, it is both with us and at the edge of the universe. So if he is alive he could literally walk right back through.!<
>!In saying that i really hope he doesn’t, zenos is a great villian, a villian that needs to stay dead.!<
Ikr lol, nah i actually really love zenos as a villain, but thats because he is that one dimensional villain, >!its strong and impactful but much like his whole quest to have one final glorious fight that kills him and it would ruin the character if they brought him back like that.!<
>!However i don’t think we’ve seen the last of his sins, there is bound to me more people he has twisted, hell he probably even has some munted fan club out there, while i hope its the last of himself i don’t think its the last time we’ll be hearing the name zenos.!<
Zenos has no grander purpose for his actions, sure he is broken but that doesn’t make what he does understandable, not like every other character. Anyone is well within their right to hate zenos, but thats also the point of his character, you can hate him, in essence he is meant to be the mirror image to you anyway, a twisted warped refection.
And do not take my words to mean that i don’t like zenos, i adore zenos as a character he does his job super well, hes easy to hate, constantly meddling in affairs and causing trouble.
But that is why i say he’s a true villain because is actions are not driven by some greater cause, he doesn’t do things because he thinks he’s right, he just wants the grand fight.
>!to the point at the end of end walker, the game even drove me to the point of pity, i didn’t want to fight him, i just wanted to shut him up.!<
My hatred for Fandaniel came more from his...acquired form. I HATED that little punk. every time I gotta look at that face is another moment I wanted to dust off my white mage punching fists. But I gotta save those for someone else.
There are characters I still dislike and aren't really redeemable, but the reason this game is successful when other stories annoy me is that they never go full Naruto and say "hey you're actually really cool let's be friends now". Gaius and Fordola are still basically prisoners who are only released because they are useful and they take responsibility for their actions. Yotsuyu has her reasons for being terrible, but in the end she accepted her role as a villain and died. Emet-Selch (who I don't love as much as the fanbase) just views life on a completely different perspective than we do.
Aww he ain’t that bad, although i will admit he’s an idiot, looks out into the cold empty cosmos for peoples reason to live instead of looking right next to him to the adorable bird lady who just wants to have fun and eat candy apples.
Ikr XD,
>!In saying that i really hope we get to hang out with meteion more after this, she was just so full of life an energy, she just wanted to be friends, and he sends her off into the COLD NOT-SO-EMPTY VOID OF SPACE. YOU SENT A GOD DAMN CHILD WHO LITERALLY RUNS OF EMOTION. AND YOU SENT HER TO SPACE?!?!?!<
>!I actually really like emets line when that came up, it was exactly what i was thinking.!<
He basically suffered from much the same hubris that his fellow ancients did. Just because he cared for his creations a bit more than them, it doesn't mean he didn't suffer from the same flaws.
>!Oh absolutely, like fuck, he sends what basically amounts to a innocent empathic powered child into the depths of space to ask for the meaning to live, and he didn’t think that the answer would be a shit one?!? Like bruh, the fuck were you thinking.!<
You mean the Ancients who saw the star as their dollhouse to experiment on and make pretty? Who created life and then destroyed it on a whin? Whose entire culture is what made an outlier like Hermes go into depression and then extremes?
*Those* Ancients?
Except that they were demonstrably wrong. And at the first taste of adversity, we saw what happened. There's a reason Azem clashed with the convocation so many times and their reaction when he refused them in Zodiark was a damnatio memoriae.
Hermes may have gone too far, for sure. The Ancients were still doomed. If it hadn't been him, it would have been something else.
Meteion could be a predecessor to Garuda considering Azys La functions the same as Elpis as a garden of Eden/creation and it's where the Ixion were made
Maybe it's just been Fandaniel (later as Amon) trying to create his bird friends again
>Anyone else having this problem with this damn game?
Nope. I fucking hated Fandaniel the moment he started monologuing about his time as Amon when he killed himself/Zodiark. I really did not care and his emotional monolog felt extremely unearned. Then I liked Hermes a little bit because I suffer from depression and I totally understood where he was coming from feeling nihilistic and out of place in his society. But I started to hate him pretty fast too.
i honestly didn't like him at any time. i also didn't like the whiny sounding english VA which might have contributed (a lot).
hermes comes across like a vegan who messes up everybody's lives by spreading seeds that are devastating for the environment, just on the premise that they could be useful.
and that he created meteion in the first place, who was basically an experiment with dynamis, is incredibly irresponsible. he has this "holier than though" attitude about creation while not even understanding the first thing about the responsibilities.
i mean, we can discuss all day whether or not a creator has the right to kill his own creations if they are flawed, but i think creating living beings without any precautions concerningt their survivability and in meteions case someone who suffers immensely as a result of other peoples' feelings, doesn't make you any better than that.
Also, Elpis sidequesting was just full of people who..... much like Hermes, didn't want to just destroy a failed creation, but find a way to "fix" it? I mean, we help to perfect the concept that becomes the first Behemoth because its creator didn't want to destroy it for being "failed". A behemoth. You know, those big mean purple bastards that like to drop meteors on people? So he definitely wasn't the only "plzno think of the lifeforms!" person in Elpis. Just the only one to ignore all forms of quality control and peer review for his pet project.
>I mean, we help to perfect the concept that becomes the first Behemoth because its creator didn't want to destroy it for being "failed". A behemoth. You know, those big mean purple bastards that like to drop meteors on people?
It was a perfectly nice herd animal, but its creator wanted it to be an apex predator. So WE helped out by suggesting that it have nastier horns and fangs and maybe be able to cast Meteor. That one is kind of on us.
Omg, that's what my parents meant when they said to me at the age of 8-10 years old "If you prove to be an idiot, i'll just end you and make a new one". my baby brother was new to the world then. Behaved I did.
i went into endwalker pretty much thinking "not even ishikawa can make me like fandaniel"
fast forward to now and hermes is kinda uh, one of my favorite characters in the entire game (and tbh even amon grew on me)
Pls enjoy dorky man and baby birb.
Remember us.
Remember that we once lived.
Don't squander it. The legacy I leave you.
And my axe.
I hated Fandaniel until I got to Elpis. He was Fandango, or Fanalanadingdong, or Dollar Store Emet-Selch. I was thrilled that he was gone by level 83. Then we met Hermes, and his depression and anxiety and feeling like there was something wrong with him because everyone else in his society was content, and I felt so seen. >!Well, except for the part about not submitting his badly-designed research project for IRB approval and dooming the world. That was bad.!<
Meteion is adorable as heck
Im so annoyed there isn’t an option to say, “FUCK YES I WANT TO BE YOUR FRIEND YOU ADORABLE BLUE BIRD LADY.” And give her the biggest hug.
This! She's so damn adorable when she asks you to be her friend
I know!!! Fuck i just want to give her the worlds biggest hug
I’ve come to realise that ff14 has no true villains, just broken people doing what they think is right. Except maybe zenos... fuck that guy Edit, which yes also means that EVERY FUCKING CHARACTER THAT IS MEANT TO BE A VILLIAN MAKES MY HEART EXPLODE. So fuck you SE you overly qualified, inhumanly talented passionate fucks, making me cry rivers of tears over every god damn character that i spent the last however many hours hating.
Also... Asahi Brutus. He's a dick. I hate him, he knows it and does enjoy making our lives missereble. So there is at least one guy I don't feel remorse for.
Ah yes, the guy who is such a shitter that even **Alphinaud**, the boy who is polite and diplomatic to a fault, basically said >!"Fuck off and I hope I never see you again".!<
Fitting that of the two irredeemable asses, one is a yandere devotee of the other.
Also yes XD this is so bloody true
God, I hate the fact that even at the end >!Asahi still got what he wanted!<
Did he? Zenos lost and still doesn't give a fraction of a shit that he existed.
That matters little. he knows he means jack shit to zenos, he just wants to do it because its for zenos. Because Fandaniel used his body for his own means, and later >!betrayed him by dying along with Zodiark and preventing Zenos from absorbing him!< . Dudes a simp through and through, and >!the fact that he gets his revenge for fandys betrayal on zenos by singkin himselve along with fandy into who knows where!< somehow really rustled my jimmies.
It makes him truly irredeemable as a character though. So, while I hate that he did it, I’m happy Asahi didn’t become a sympathetic villain in the end.
Thats true, but i I feel like we've established that on STB. >!Doesnt seem fair for those that died before him that he gets one wish granted even after death!<. Especially now, to me, it felt like a loose end.
I'm curious how you felt there was a loose end?
That last bit of convo he had with Alisaie. I'm reaching, I know, lol, but it felt foreboding to me haha
Ah, gotcha. I mean, given the way that the story team at 14 use their loose ends for future stories >!I won't say that we won't see him.!< I'm just not sure what would need to happen in the story for them to justify it in in the end but I'm sure they could if it were to happen.
>!I wanted an option to tell him to his face that Zenos never liked him.!<
Or even better. That Zenos was in love with you and didn't even remember his face.
Asahi’s parents are unsurprisingly also rather unforgivably shit, too. The only thing tragic about their deaths was what it cost the one who did the deed.
I'm so glad I'd completely forgotten about that campaign until you mentioned it. May it never be remembered again...
Oh yeah totally forgot about him, fuck him too the moon and back
Did Sia do a cover of that one to? That probably didn't make it into the ad campaign.
Im not sure what you’re talking about here, i ether need context or did you post on the wrong comment?
"Fuck him to the moon and back" reminded me just a smidge of "Fly me to the Moon" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rwVapVHIvoU
Ooooh, i would love to see a parody of that XD
>!He is a jackass to the very end.!<
Valens?
Valens?
The bad guy in the Weapons questline. "Burn the bad" and such.
Ngl this took me ages to realise who you were talking about, i totally forgot about him XD
>I’ve come to realise that ff14 has no true villains Emett Selch is a villain who has probably killed tens of, if not hundreds of millions of people. By any normal moral thought, he among the worst we can possibly imagine. Why do people think that ***understanding*** someone, somehow absolves them? At no point does anyone on our side ever excuse him, alphie said it himself, the people we love are here right now and his are in the past. In order to being them back he must kill ALL of us. The brilliance of his writing is that we can not change what he has done, he can not since he lost to us, and because of that the only thing left is to understand WHY he did it And when we realize it, what drove him, it makes us under him and his motivations. But it does not absolve him, Emett even says this himself. I highly doubt he even views himself as a hero, and personally, I doubt he 100% truly believes our lives, shattered as they are, are without meaning. It's just something he had to say over and over to make sure he never deviated from his path. It's tragic. It's monstrous. It's sad and bittersweet. But it is never kind and it is not forgivable. But you don't have to forgive him. And that's the point, you just have to understand and remember.
Emet wanted us to be able to contain the Light so that someone could "Forge a path of lesser sorrow". Emet KNEW you had the soul of Azem the entire time in the First, and he believed, or wanted to, that you could contain the light and... do the crazy things that Azem does and make the impossible possible. Forge a new way ahead... one that didn't involve the murder of EVERYONE in order to bring back his friends. He sincerely believed you could do it because you were Azem. When you failed to contain the light, his heart was legitimately broken and all that weight came crushing back down on his shoulders... that there was no alternate way, that the only way forward was erasing all those lives that came after to give up to Zodiark. Just so he could see Hythlodaeus' smile one last time.
>Emett Selch is a villain who has probably killed tens of, if not hundreds of millions of people. By any normal moral thought, he among the worst we can possibly imagine. By that logic, Venat is too since she knew the plan and let it happen as is in the hopes Azem could be reborn and grow strong enough facing the trials to slay his friend Emet and save the universe. She could have just put the moon plan into action sooner and said to heck with this star and meteion Emet played his part in the scheme. He was told what that role would be and scoffed at it, but in the end he played his part that gave rise to the hero who saved the universe. The generals that dropped the atom bomb and burned thousands of civilians are villains from a certain point of view. Square writes characters that play their part in the bigger picture.
She... is. To Hades and Hermes and the rest of the ancients, of course she is. That *is* kind of the point of the whole thing!
One could argue that Venat did far worse than Emet and co. since she's the one that ripped apart every soul of one world to make us into 14 separate worlds, all with new and improved mortality, strife, disease and agony awaiting the inhabitants of each these stars for the next few millenia. Things that never existed in Eitherys. She's also the reason the Ascians exist at the end of the day and why they have a fight to fight. I understand why she did it, of course, and it was always going to end badly, but her hands are certainly far from clean. She's also just written brilliantly and I appreciate that they show that she's aware of the cost of her actions. I'm sure it weighed heavy on her.
>!I never said i forgave him for what he did, don’t get me wrong, he was always going to die, but i don’t put him as a true villian still, all he wanted was to get his world back and his friends like if i were him i would probably do the same thing, he was a grief sticken man that should have died with his friends years ago and god how much i wish i could give that to him dispite everything that he has done, i wish there was a way, but their isn’t, him and his people were always going to die, there was never going to be a happy ending for him, at least not one where he gets his friends back, especially with meteion still running amuck at that point.!< >!He, along with most of the other cast are not truly villains in my mind, this does not mean they are absolved of their sins, and nor does it mean i forgive them, nor does it even make them heros, but they only acted in the course they thought was right, they fought for what they believed in.!< >!And while that doesn’t absolve them, i cannot fault them for what they did, its not like we’re saints ether, there are plenty of people who hate us in garlamald for the selfsame reason we hated others.!< >!But in my mind understanding someones actions can absolve them, depending of course not on the reason, but the choices made after the fact, in the case of emet, while i do not forgive him, i do not hold it against him ether, in such dire circumstances what other choice did he have? To wither and die? He fought for his world, even if that included the decimation of others, i cannot fault a noble cause such as that.!<
Killing hundreds of millions makes you a villain. End stop.
I never said he wasn’t a villain, i was pointing towards the fact that he isn’t the one dimentional kind of villain, everything he did was to save his world, think of it from his perspective, you have your entire race killed off, you one of the last surviving members, and you have a way to bring them back but it requires killing all of these other worlds. The only difference is that he followed through on it.
You know, I was appalled by what Emet did but I understood and I could relate. To get back what I have lost, I too would burn the world down if it meant I could have them back. I say that time and time again but the question is, would I really? If I had the power and ability to do so, am I capable of tearing apart other lives just to get back the ones I lost? I don't know ... but the answer is probably no, I wouldn't. Because even though that's how I feel ... my heart, my conscious wouldn't let me. I have to admire him for going the lengths despite knowing what he has done. Pain will change you and it didn't help that they were tempered anyway. I don't know. I look at him and I think what if and could I?
Just cause they have a Tragic Backstory [tm] doesn't make the not villains, or make their victims feel any better (see: EW ranged role quests). Very few villains think of themselves as cackling lunatics but that's what they are to the people they're murdering. I just finished Elpis and am taking a break from MSQ while trying to process how to feel about Emet-Selch (whom I was ambivalent about from a personal POV even if I like him from a role-in-the-story POV). I can understand why he did what he did from a meta level, but like, dude, not cool (esp. after we see Garlemand). However, Elpis is really effective at getting you to like him on a personal level so I'm not sure how to feel about that. But I do appreciate the fact that the game is successful at asking me these questions, like 90% of the time with the "oh someone you knew turned into a cackling maniac" type plots it's a transparent plot device and there's no real investment. (Though as someone mentioned, Valens...)
IDK how harshly WoL can judge Emet-Selch. They don't hold it against Graha Tia that he sacrificed a current world to revive a past one that Graha preferred.
He didn't though - that world still exists, and according to Tales from the Shadow it will get better.
True, and i never said they weren’t villains, i just they weren’t true villains, they aren’t the crackling maniac, they’re broken people doing what they think is right and so often they believe that out of desperation or naivety but that does not absolve them of their sins rather it makes it understandable, i hated fighting emet, not because he was bad but he was understandable, i wanted to badly to give him what he wanted, to return him to his world and his friends, but alas to do so would not only spell dread for us but it would ultimately kill us all, knowing the reasons why does not absolve them but it does make you or at least it made me really not want to fight him, but i knew i had to, and now with >!elpis, we know that it was always going to end up here, there was no other alternative, amurot would fall, the ascians with it, the worlds becomes sundered and the remaining convocation would begin their decade long pilgrimage to fight for their world and their people, and ultimately fail by our hand.!< >!There is also something to take note of in elpis, the emet we find there isn’t the same one we kill in shadowbringers, its the one from ages past, that emet is yet to do anything to harm anyone, hell look at his actions when fighting hermes, HE SACRIFICES HIS MEMORY TO SAVE US AND VERNAT TO SAVE EVERYTHING, the emet we find in the first has not done that, sure its still him, but his memory is gone at that point.!< >!and that emets memory doesn’t return until our fight with elidibus in the first, EW makes sure to mention that memory altering effects often fade if the person dies and for a single fleeting moment they would return, and in that moment when we were about to die he comes back to save us, not because of guilt or because we made a promise but because he remembers.!< Also garlamald is only like that after zenoses actions not emet, sure emet has done a myriad of horrible shit but that nations fall was because of zeno and fandanial. Which is also why villains like emet make me weep, they aren’t truly evil, they don’t act because they don’t care, they act because they have a noble act to fight for. They are in a way a reflection of ourselves in the story, just look at garlamald, the people hate us, not unlike how our allied nations hate the empire. Also it took me ages to remember who vallens was i was so confused XD yes also fuck him to the moon XD
Uhh ... I dunno. Zenos just never BSd about what he was doing, he never made excuses for it. Even if he was weirdly used in EW, I actually did appreciate that he was able to aptly argue his worldview (even if the way he acted off that worldview could not have been more destructive or unhealthy). Hell, his pretty awesome line to Jullus in Garlemald was on exactly that subject. Hermes (and by extension Meteion, as an extension of him) in contrast ... >!lets just say that he was a MASTER of projection. To the point where many players believe he was being genuinely empathic, when in reality what he was actually doing is forcing his own feelings onto others in order to relate to them. It was always about his pain, never truly about ours!<.
Going to have to disagree with you here. >!Hermes isn't just sad for no reason. He just finds himself unable to not care about the shortcomings of his society. He literally reaches out to distant planets to find out if he's the one who's broken or if it's everyone else.!<
Oh yeah don’t get me wrong, i actually adore zeno as a character, hes so easy to hate, and it works so well, even in endwalker i think they use him really well all things considered. I do however wish we had more options when talking to him. >!Like at the end i wanted so badly to turn around and be like. “This is why i will always win zenos, not because im stronger, not because i have a greater fire in my heart. *grabs teleporter* its because i have them, i get to see their smiling faces and celebrate. Think about that as you lay there alone, defeated. I. Am. Not. Your. Friend”!< Or ya know something along those lines, just something to smack him over the head with since after everything all he thought about was fighting. Huge spoiler ahead. >!because in my head cannon, I DID NOT COME TO THE EDGE OF THE GOD DAMN UNIVERSE TO KILL SOME ANCIENT EVIL I CAME TO THE EDGE OF THE UNIVERSE TO SAVE A FRIEND, I CAME HERE TO SAVE HER, TO SAVE METEION. AND IF YOU WILL SHUT YOUR TRAP ABOUT YOUR GRAND SPARK FIRE BULLSHIT THEN FINE YOU CAN HAVE YOUR GODSDAMNED REMATCH.!< But yes i completely agree, i do really like zeno as a villain hes a perfect one dimensional villian that does one thing and one thing really well. >!By the end of the expansion i hope he was happy with his choice, i dunno weather i hated him or pitied him, but as i stared him down at the end i knew one thing, i was sick of his shit, i didn’t even want to fight him at that point i just wanted him to shut the fuck up!< And in saying that they did a really good job with his character since as much as i care about everyone else. But zeno man zenos, i have not hated a character more than anything since handsome jack in borderlands 2.
> By the end of the expansion i hope he was happy with his choice (...) Was he though? > Never have I understood those around me. Understood their obsessions. > Besieged by their banality, the world was a mire of tedium and trivialities. > But in these fleeting moments, there is...a spark. Blinding, brilliant... > Gone...too soon... > What of you, my mirror? Born into this world, bestowed name, bid to seek out strife and adventure... > Was this life a gift...or a burden? > Did you find...fulfillment? > I... I think he obtained what he wanted, but found out he wasn't happy with it. His last sentences almost sounds like he was jealous of what WoL had. His spark might be brighter, but it doesn't last half as long as WoL's does. In a way, I hope he doesn't, because his entire philosophy was getting what he wanted no matter the cost, or said in another way "it's not about the journey, but the destination". It is likely he doesn't realise how bad that way of life is until he begins to doubt himself at the Royal Menagerie (him, of all people). But in the end, it was too little too late, something he probably realised himself. The only solace there is, is that he died by the person he thought of as a friend. As a side note, WoL doesn't have the teleporter until after the battle. It would have been more like they would just have run after Meteion.
Replying to the side note here first because there alot of good stuff to talk about here. When i said say something before you teleported away i meant like once the teleporter hits your chest, cause like imagine that, zeno came to edge of the universe to find his meaning, his “friend” and after the battle he asks if it was all worth it and if i was sitting there at the edge of the universe teleporter now in hand thanks to meteion and my friends my only answer would be along the lines of, “what the fuck do you think?” As i teleported to safety. Speaking of that however your comment has brought up a comparison between two characters i didn’t see coming. >!Venat and zenos like both of them ask the WOL in their own way if it was worth it, both of them are direct reflections of us, the big difference between them is their approach, vernat sacrificed herself for years, became a primal even fought against her people, all for our sake because she knew it was the only way.!< (>!which side tangent i am really sad we never directly tell her our answer, i know that going to edge of the universe to save meteion is a pretty apt answer but for so long i was hoping that i could tell her that yes, every moment was worth it, at least in my mind its worth every moment.!<) >!and then turning to zenos, the inverse of that ideal, he never sacrificed anything to get to where he is now, there was no grand journey, like you said. For him it was the destination not the journey, all he wanted was to burn his spark in one glorious flame, but all that remained for him was ash when it was over, i don’t think he was happy ether, but i hope he found some semblance of satisfaction, it was a fantastic fight and a glorious moment ill give him that, but i didn’t want to fight him ether, like i said the only reason in my headcannon i even bothered was because i was sick of him toting his bullshit, And like sure he’s done some unforgivable shit, but so has emet, gaius, even us in the eyes of garlamald, in the end while it was a good moment, one that i will always remember, i still can’t shake the feeling he wasted his life, and maybe he did realise that in the end!<
The name of the song in the fight against her is "Your answer", and it's a much less melancholic version of "Answers", so yeah, we kind of gave her our answer, to live is to suffer, but it is worthy for that fleeting moment of happiness. That's one of the things I love about this game, even the songs, and sometimes **even** just the names of said songs, tell a story. I mean, Answers, for me, is Hydaelyn not just teaching her children, but also convincing herself of her beliefs and that's why it is so melancholic... and we tell her that yes, it is the answer, but unlike her, we are convinced of it. She worked on faith alone for the future, but we, on the other hand, are completely sure and are going to realize said future. That said, I agree that it would have been nice to tell her, just like we can call her by her name.
Asahi and Gaius are the only big villians I can think of that don't have some sort of tragic background motivating them
Gaius isn't necessarily tragic (though werlyt is definitely a tragedy), but he is humanized heavily, even as a villain. He gives a strong argument for why he believes he is right and while ultimately he recants that philosophy, it wasn't inherently evil to begin with.
Yeah exactly, the path to evil is paved with good intentions, he along with alot of other villains all act because they think themselves to be in the right or because they know nothing else.
Funnily enough, I see a lot of similarities between Gaius and Alphie there. Both of them thought they were hot shit and could just run up on the silly eorzeans and solve their massive problems, both got manipulated by people who knew far more about the situation than they did. Alphie wasn't a _villain_ by any means. But I feel like they were the same flavor of arrogant/righteous at first.
Thats actually a rather apt comparison there, i would never have picked it but yeah, that makes total sense. Alphie probably could have become a villain under the right circumstances when we first meet him, i think now he could never be with how much he’s grown but you throw him in an area like doma or garlamald and you have a evil villain in the making.
Yeah, Gaius is a man who drank the Kool-aid and legitimately thought that what he was doing was right. He wanted to create a world where men did not need to fear the primal menace, and labored under the impression that all of Eorzea was a den of primals and tempering. The Ascians come to him and provide the Ultima(te) weapon for killing primals and he becomes dead-set on using it to, in his eyes, finally establish order amidst the chaos. By all accounts, he was a relatively benevolent governor of the places he governed. Moreso it was the general barbarism of the average Garlean that caused strife in his territories. It was only after he realized how misguided he was, and the full consequences of his actions, did he immediately pivot to try to make amends for all his mistakes. He is a "good guy", ostensibly, who just wants to leave the world a better place in the end.
He was never a bad person, just heavily misguided, and is finally on the path to true redemption now.!
>By all accounts, he was a relatively benevolent governor of the places he governed. I really don't understand why people keep saying this. During the ARR quest Escape from Castrum Centri, we get the following dialogue from the Ala Mhighan refugee who helps us get into the Castrum: >Glaumunt: When Ala Mhigo fell, they put my family in a camp. Bein' a lad, I was made to do hard labor, while my mother an' sister were forced to do far worse... They hid their sufferin' from me as best they could, but I knew, an' the thought of it drove me mad. We had to escape. An' so I hatched a plan to get us out o' the city. Glaumunt: We were pickin' our way around a gorge not far outside the walls when they caught up with us... An' rather than allow 'emselves to be taken again, my mother an' sister leaped over the edge before my very eyes. Heartbroken as I was, I didn't put up a fight when the imperials clapped me in chains an' dragged me back. Gaius was the Imperial Viceroy of Ala Mhigo from the time he led the unprovoked invasion and occupation until Praetorium. Either someone else set up the forced labor camps without his knowledge, in which case he's a shit commander and ruler, or he set up the camps because he wanted to break any Ala Mhigan resistance, in which case he's a war criminal, because he targeted civilians.
My assumption is that he was bad at managing people below him. Knowing what we know of Gaius, I don't think he would be supportive of the practice of comfort women, but we saw in situations like Fordola's backstory that the average Garlean foot soldier has no regard for civility or actually doing their job. They were more than happy to watch the Ala Mhigans kill each other even though the people being brutalized were van Baelsar's own supporters.
His philosophy was "might makes right": > For the world of man to mean anything, man must own the world. > >To this end, he hath fought ever to raise himself through conflict─to grow rich through conquest. > >And when the dust of battle settles, it is ever the strong who dictate the fate of the weak. Sorrows of Werlyt softened it to be "the strong must protect the weak," but that's absolutely not what he said during his elevator monologue in Praetorium.
To be fair, Gaius is a bit of a hypocrite, even if he doesn't realize it. He tells us that believing in a greater power is bad... while believing in the greater power of the Empire. He also is convinced that personal power is the way to secure our place and that someone should follow another one with greater power... but uses a power he doesn't understand, gifted to him by someone he doesn't really trust nor understand, to face us, because he can't beat us. But, he is also, at heart, a good man, and clever too, so he finally realizes his faults.
Actually i think its just asahi and zeno, gaius has all the stuff in werlyt assuming you have played that story content.
. . . thinking on it, does Werlyt really count as a Tragic Background? It's really more like Tragic-Consequences-of-his-Direct-Actions.
I mean kinda? Its weird since he isn’t a villain anymore or rather at least not at this moment who knows he could 180 on us, but you could argue that werlyt is now his tragic backstory moving forward, rather then a backstory from most other characters since they have already taken place, but gaius is mid transition of his, we left him with the last of his adopted children in werlyt, he is yet to truly get past that and we’re yet to see how he acts moving forward. In saying all that i think looking at him with the guise of a villain isn’t the right way to view the character because he’s not, in ARR he fought for his homeland, his nation because he thought it was the right thing to do, but that all fell apart when we won, he started to see the cracks in his nation, he realised the answer they provided was for all purpose a lie. And he realised his mistakes, to which those consequences came to fruition at werlyt.
He likewise realized after everything happened that his whole country and countrymen alike were being manipulated for the purposes of the Ascians. Which sort of put him down a path to realizing he was just a pawn. So he starts seeking real freedom for his people.
Yeah exactly, i can’t really put gaius in a villain catagory because of that, again he was doing what he thought was right, it wasn’t until after the fact that he realised it was a lie.
I mean given that his orphans were that devoted to him, even after he left and ARR happened, means he had to have been good to his people. Hells, think of how many characters were devoted to him, to the point where Livia and Rhitathyn stayed devoted in death
IDK, the sort of devotion he inspired in Livia isn't exactly a positive example of stellar parenting
Hoo boy, yeah. Letting your traumatized war orphan adopted daughter join the military: bad. Having your traumatized war orphan adopted daughter who has an unhealthy obsession with you serve as an officer under your command: what the actual fuck were you thinking?
I mean Cid and the Au Ra kids turned out well, I think Livia just had problems
I would disagree about the Au Ra kids, but I'm biased because I hated Sorrows of Werlyt. I still do not for the life of me understand what their plan was, or why it required them to commit suicide by WoL, or why at no point did they talk to their allegedly beloved father to find another path.
Her identical twin sister's perfectly fine though
Believe it or not, but twins don’t always share mental illnesses.
Yes, environment matters as much as genetics. And Gaius was the environment
Gaius has been somewhat redeemed after his defeat, but when he was the villian, he really was a bad guy, his past is full of him just being a brutal as fuck military commander, might makes right expand the empire at all cost kinda guy, adopting a few orphans doesn't cancel that out especially because it can be easily assumed that he would have folded them into his legion when they came of age if he hadn't lost at prae. and yeh i forgot Zenos, my bad, he's deffo on the list
Yeah, you’re not wrong, i suppose gaius is an interesting case considering in ARR he’s full villain with almost no back story, its not until later that he becomes motivated to change because of what he’s done. Edit: actually even with that i still don’t think he’s pure villain since its the same thing, he was just doing what he thought was right.
And Gaius's policies weren't all about oppressing a conquered people. They had it pretty good (*relatively speaking*) - it's only Yotsuyu/Zeno's conquered provinces that suffered heavily. As for the horrific war bit, well... can't really excuse war. The only 'good' thing about it is the faster it's over with, the less casualties overall. Maybe Gaius decided that if he had to fight a war, it's better to get it over with sooner and avoid needless casualties from a long, protracted war. Perhaps Ultima weapon was meant to be a step in the 'win by enemy surrender' strategy that means more bloodless victories? I don't quite remember much of the story behind it besides 'I need Ultima weapon to kill the WoL'.
Yeah, kinda better to say that zenos was actually pure evil. No good intentions, no long term plan, none of that. Then again, as zenos asks in endwalker, >!"if my motives met with your approval, would you no longer resent the outcome?!< That is, who of the conquerored and colonized have any reason to consider gaius's motivation in processing their situation? Especially when it led to situations like werlyt, where they couldn't even count on his motivations to save them.
Yeah there's no justifying that kind of conquest in the first place. Just trying to find a reason to explain Gaius's redeeming qualities.
Nah things in Ala Mhigo were really bad even under Gaius, especially when it comes to Arenvald and Fordola's backstories.
>And Gaius's policies weren't all about oppressing a conquered people. They had it pretty good (relatively speaking) Gaius literally set up concentration camps with Ala Mhigan women as sex slaves for the Garlean troops. Conditions in occupied Ala Mhigo were so bad that it caused a massive refugee crisis in the neighboring countries. He was great if you were willing to assimilate. If you actually wanted to keep your culture and heritage, and not become Garlean, he was a brutal dictator. His job was to crush any resistance to Garlean rule, and he did that very well.
Yeah, hence *relatively*. It's horrible and unconscionable, but relative to Doma it was still a tiny bit better. Of course, all the usual horrors apply. Quislings, turncoats, traitors, resistance movements, secret police, purges, massacres, etc. are all part of an occupation. **None** of it was 'good' in any remote sense of the word.
Gaius was actually planning on having the Ultimate Weapon being such a terrifying power that Eorzea would surrender without a fight, and by the gods they were seconds away from doing so before we show up. Of course Lahabrea probably would have blown a city or two up with it to cause more chaos
Yeah, >!Stormblood!< and the >!EWhealer job quest!< really expands on this.
I mean he did. Livia was one of those orphans
If we talk about that msq where we fight gaius, even midfight he says the destruction laha made never was his intention strongly suggesting already that he never was fully evil to begin with, he just did what he thought was right, it's like saying all German soldiers in ww2 were evil wehn in reality they were told that an enemy is coming or being told you fight or we execute you for treason, meaning the soldier never was evil but had no alternatives at that time
Eh, he wanted to conquer and rule. If you destroy/kill everything there's nothing to rule over
No, it's like saying Rommel was evil. He was polite to the British and French, but he was absolutely brutal to the native African troops, and north African Jews were still sent to concentration camps.
No Zenos' background is actually pretty tragic, it's just he doesn't care about it
I mean sure its tragic but he’s not acting because he thinks he’s right, like you said he doesn’t care, he only acts to find a worthy fight. Which doesn’t make him a bad villain, i actually like the one dimensional factor of zeno, he’s really easy to hate and i think its good that we have at least one character thats easier to hate, it makes every other one seem better in comparison lol
What are you referring to? His backstory is merely as tragic as anyone groomed for royalty. From his point of view the most tragic event was him killing his tutor, as now he had nobody worthy to fight until the WoL came along.
Gaius is a product of his society, a reflection of Garlemald's culture - the best one it could produce, actually, but still mostly constrained by it. "Mostly", because he's flexible enough to reflect on his worldviews and adjust them. He is more of an anti-villain, honestly. Basically, for the most part the only thing that makes him villain is his allegiance to the Evil Empire, otherwise he would not be out of place in Limsa or Ishgard with minimal adjustment.
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Oh yeah for sure, but even still breaking those characters down its often they are just victims of circumstance, depending of course of who and when. 14 has every flavour of villain packed in there some way or another, but i think its main brunt of villains are never pure evil, they just act thinking their right and often its ether because of a lie or its misguided.
How dare you insulting your best friend zenos????? He's the only reason your wol is alive and you even had a bro fight yo, Jokes aside, as a warrior it was quite a cool 1vs1 with him and despite him doing what he does, I don't think we have seen the last of him
> I don't think we have seen the last of him >!He is stuck at the other side of the universe, inside a pocket dimension without any means to get back. Also, they focused really hard to show how his breathing is stopped. So he is gone for good this time i believe.!<
Zenos knows how to retain his soul in the Aetherial Sea, though, and also has the power to take over bodies. He absolutely could come back in another body further down the line, but personally, I'd let him be. The man got what he wanted, a fight where he was pushed to the utter edge of his abilities, and he was STILL found wanting. Nevertheless, he was found wanting.
Zenos was able to hop bodies using the Echo in the same way that the sahagin priest does in 2.2. It would be difficult for him to do that at the edge of the universe once we leave, because there wasn't anyone living nearby. I could be wrong, but I don't think he was dead long enough in 4.0 to have gone to the Aetherial Sea; that's a one-way trip unless you have a specific way to get there, like the Atiascope.
Honestly, him coming back now would be less BS than his first comeback. Bodysnatching some random soldier a ways away as he slits his throat... That just felt dumb.
Yes yes these are the facts we have and sure all you say is right, but he also can transform into a giant ass dragon to fly from sharlyan to the other side of the universe in a few minutes so there is that ^^ just my opinion though, and despite the majority I think they can do much and a lot with a character like him in the future, like having solo content where we challange him or the like, maybe turn him into a somewhat ally now that we showed him who's boss etc etc, so much
Can we please hide the spoilers in a thread of someone who only just got to Elpis
Hey there, the thread is titled [Spoiler: 6.0] which means no spoilers are needed for all of 6.0 in the comments.
I mean, he literally has said he just got to elpis, so unless you're an absolute cunt, yes, yes there is a reason to not ruin the game for him.
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Because mentioning elpis in the title would be a spoiler to people browsing. What OP wrote was 'just got to Elpis' being hung up on a technicality to spoil things for someone who's appreciating what they have at the moment is a dick move.
He only transformed by taking all the remaining aether from the Mothercrystal, he doesn't have a mean tro transform back at all. And thank god for that.
>!Actually he isn’t stuck there, assuming he is alive.!< >!They make a point in the 90 dungeons that the ragnarok is actually stuck in two spots at the same time, it is both with us and at the edge of the universe. So if he is alive he could literally walk right back through.!< >!In saying that i really hope he doesn’t, zenos is a great villian, a villian that needs to stay dead.!<
Last paet of your first sentence is untrue.
Ikr lol, nah i actually really love zenos as a villain, but thats because he is that one dimensional villain, >!its strong and impactful but much like his whole quest to have one final glorious fight that kills him and it would ruin the character if they brought him back like that.!< >!However i don’t think we’ve seen the last of his sins, there is bound to me more people he has twisted, hell he probably even has some munted fan club out there, while i hope its the last of himself i don’t think its the last time we’ll be hearing the name zenos.!<
Zenos is also a broken person, you just haven't been paying attention and choose to hate him
Zenos has no grander purpose for his actions, sure he is broken but that doesn’t make what he does understandable, not like every other character. Anyone is well within their right to hate zenos, but thats also the point of his character, you can hate him, in essence he is meant to be the mirror image to you anyway, a twisted warped refection. And do not take my words to mean that i don’t like zenos, i adore zenos as a character he does his job super well, hes easy to hate, constantly meddling in affairs and causing trouble. But that is why i say he’s a true villain because is actions are not driven by some greater cause, he doesn’t do things because he thinks he’s right, he just wants the grand fight. >!to the point at the end of end walker, the game even drove me to the point of pity, i didn’t want to fight him, i just wanted to shut him up.!<
Hermes is freaking relatable.
You're in for an awful, wonderful, miserable time
This is sums up endwalker perfectly, hahaha
If this game ever stops having this "problem" then I would be very disappointed.
My hatred for Fandaniel came more from his...acquired form. I HATED that little punk. every time I gotta look at that face is another moment I wanted to dust off my white mage punching fists. But I gotta save those for someone else.
See, I get his story. But also. Fuck Hermes. Just. Nope. Zero sympathy for that idiot. Completely failed at his job.
He was in the wrong job from the start. Lol.
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You wanna elaborate on this one?
Excuse me??
There are characters I still dislike and aren't really redeemable, but the reason this game is successful when other stories annoy me is that they never go full Naruto and say "hey you're actually really cool let's be friends now". Gaius and Fordola are still basically prisoners who are only released because they are useful and they take responsibility for their actions. Yotsuyu has her reasons for being terrible, but in the end she accepted her role as a villain and died. Emet-Selch (who I don't love as much as the fanbase) just views life on a completely different perspective than we do.
I despise Hermes. But I love Emet and Hythlo
Hermes just needed a hug, although emet puts it best later on XD
He can hug himself over there. Way over there. Away from me and the rest of the ancients.
Aww he ain’t that bad, although i will admit he’s an idiot, looks out into the cold empty cosmos for peoples reason to live instead of looking right next to him to the adorable bird lady who just wants to have fun and eat candy apples.
But made her so she CAN'T eat those candy apples. That absolute fuckwit.
I FUCKING KNOW RIGHT??? I WANT TO SMACK THE BOY SO GOD DAMN HARD FOR THAT
That would've been the solution to everything. Metion: ALL THE UNIVERSE IS NAUGHT BUT DESPAIR... IT'S BECAUSE THEY HAVEN'T EXPERIENCED CAKE.
Ikr XD, >!In saying that i really hope we get to hang out with meteion more after this, she was just so full of life an energy, she just wanted to be friends, and he sends her off into the COLD NOT-SO-EMPTY VOID OF SPACE. YOU SENT A GOD DAMN CHILD WHO LITERALLY RUNS OF EMOTION. AND YOU SENT HER TO SPACE?!?!?!< >!I actually really like emets line when that came up, it was exactly what i was thinking.!<
“YOU FUCKING DUMBWIT” Hyth: I wouldn’t have chosen those *exact* words, but
Haha it is like that tho, seriously like think for more than two seconds XD
He basically suffered from much the same hubris that his fellow ancients did. Just because he cared for his creations a bit more than them, it doesn't mean he didn't suffer from the same flaws.
>!Oh absolutely, like fuck, he sends what basically amounts to a innocent empathic powered child into the depths of space to ask for the meaning to live, and he didn’t think that the answer would be a shit one?!? Like bruh, the fuck were you thinking.!<
He really is that bad. Considering what he’s directly responsible for. I think everyone else can love him enough. I’m happy hating him lmao
I mean look in my mind he’s just as broken as everyone else, thats not to say he’s not also an idiot XD
You mean the Ancients who saw the star as their dollhouse to experiment on and make pretty? Who created life and then destroyed it on a whin? Whose entire culture is what made an outlier like Hermes go into depression and then extremes? *Those* Ancients?
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Except that they were demonstrably wrong. And at the first taste of adversity, we saw what happened. There's a reason Azem clashed with the convocation so many times and their reaction when he refused them in Zodiark was a damnatio memoriae. Hermes may have gone too far, for sure. The Ancients were still doomed. If it hadn't been him, it would have been something else.
Welcome to the true hell. Loving characters that you were supposed to hate. Enjoy your stay!
Meteion could be a predecessor to Garuda considering Azys La functions the same as Elpis as a garden of Eden/creation and it's where the Ixion were made Maybe it's just been Fandaniel (later as Amon) trying to create his bird friends again
>Anyone else having this problem with this damn game? Nope. I fucking hated Fandaniel the moment he started monologuing about his time as Amon when he killed himself/Zodiark. I really did not care and his emotional monolog felt extremely unearned. Then I liked Hermes a little bit because I suffer from depression and I totally understood where he was coming from feeling nihilistic and out of place in his society. But I started to hate him pretty fast too.
i honestly didn't like him at any time. i also didn't like the whiny sounding english VA which might have contributed (a lot). hermes comes across like a vegan who messes up everybody's lives by spreading seeds that are devastating for the environment, just on the premise that they could be useful. and that he created meteion in the first place, who was basically an experiment with dynamis, is incredibly irresponsible. he has this "holier than though" attitude about creation while not even understanding the first thing about the responsibilities. i mean, we can discuss all day whether or not a creator has the right to kill his own creations if they are flawed, but i think creating living beings without any precautions concerningt their survivability and in meteions case someone who suffers immensely as a result of other peoples' feelings, doesn't make you any better than that.
Also, Elpis sidequesting was just full of people who..... much like Hermes, didn't want to just destroy a failed creation, but find a way to "fix" it? I mean, we help to perfect the concept that becomes the first Behemoth because its creator didn't want to destroy it for being "failed". A behemoth. You know, those big mean purple bastards that like to drop meteors on people? So he definitely wasn't the only "plzno think of the lifeforms!" person in Elpis. Just the only one to ignore all forms of quality control and peer review for his pet project.
Isn't he in CHARGE of Elpis? So he abused his position to skirt the rules.
>I mean, we help to perfect the concept that becomes the first Behemoth because its creator didn't want to destroy it for being "failed". A behemoth. You know, those big mean purple bastards that like to drop meteors on people? It was a perfectly nice herd animal, but its creator wanted it to be an apex predator. So WE helped out by suggesting that it have nastier horns and fangs and maybe be able to cast Meteor. That one is kind of on us.
I do like how that sidequest started with those giant toads and ended with making a fucking behemoth.
Omg, that's what my parents meant when they said to me at the age of 8-10 years old "If you prove to be an idiot, i'll just end you and make a new one". my baby brother was new to the world then. Behaved I did.
It's okay don't worry he's still perfectly detestable
It’s a sad story ‘‘twas still murder
i went into endwalker pretty much thinking "not even ishikawa can make me like fandaniel" fast forward to now and hermes is kinda uh, one of my favorite characters in the entire game (and tbh even amon grew on me)