[FFXIV Shadowbringers] Emet-Selch in Amaurot (Loop) 

"I may have gotten a _little_ carried away, in my attention to detail. Added a few unnecessary flourishes..."

@@ApexGale "so like him a slave to ssentiment"

he almost looks like he's crying

Rebirth from a long lost memory of all the good time he once had. It is so meticulous crafted it spared not the finest details. That's why it is unbearable to look at. Because it taunts him for knowing at the beginning it would never be what he after even if he succeeds

Remind me to the story about a painter who made a beautiful painting of his late daughter. He can't stand the painting but can't bring himself to destroy it.

LOOOOL

I think it was that it was keyed to our fragment of a soul from Venat. He still cared about Venat even after all this time and it showed through in his creation of Amaurot and her special status.

@@mgshadow45 the WoL's soul is their own, not Venat's. She's Unsundered. The WoL is the combined fragments of Azem's soul, of those Reflections that have been Rejoined, plus the First's soul (Ardbert). Venat was the Azem before you, hers and your souls have no connection beyond her being your mentor and you having Hydaelyn's blessing.

@@mgshadow45 The WoL is the Sundered souk of Azem, Venat is not Azem. We were once Emets friend, they very one he's been working for all this time to restore

​​@@ReaperSigma venat, was the previous azem retired. Azem is just a title same as emet selch.

I played the whole story line, how is it Lahabrea's fault exactly?

@@Solarwolf64everything is lahabrea's fault

@@emerylafleur Can't argue with that

@@Solarwolf64 yeah Lahabrea was too direct and too much of a villain, it provoked the quick development of the WoL and hastened the need to use a rejoining

@@Axindoor I mean....stable timeloop rules apply. That if something happen, it was deemed to happen because it already happen.

I always felt like the ticking of the Clock was symbolized inevitability. Because all we see through Amaurot is an illusion and all those we see are just conjured phantoms of the people who once lived just before the end of days. So while we see them in this pocket of frozen time, doesn't change the fact of what still happened or what's to occur in the future. The tragedy of those who sacraficed their lives to save the others only for what remained to live a fractured existence. Our answer to Emet is we have that same strength in us save our world from the same destruction. Even though we are just a piece of those formerly great people. We can rise to the challenge.

@@NotTheWheel could also bee every second he has to go without his entire civilization. Just a constant nagging tic tic tic. Every second he is more of a faulifure

@@raoinshishiza152 also valid.

One way I've heard what the ticking symbolises was time ticking away for a city of people oblivious to the coming of the Final Days, which Emet knows and can actively count every second. A clock forever ticking within a city that is suspended moments before a cataclysm, which would make sense considering that the Amaurot dungeon depicts those final days as well.

@@F3N01 Aye as was my previous assertion. Sort of just gives this inevitable vibe. The whole zone does really. A Tragic Dread of lost hopes and dreams. Ones that Emet has had to carry.

EW is great, but ShB is still my personal best. In a sense that EW is like FF7CC, and ARR-ShB are like the main story of FF7.

I think his voice actor also did a phenomenal job with changing his tone and pitch. So much less hatred and depression back in Elpis. That sarcasm and irritable mood was still there, but it lacked that mocking bite to it. You could tell he was in a much better place mentally, just from his voice alone.

tempering, man. tempering.

@@corbeaudejugement not tempering. he lost everyone he loved. he lost his closest friend in Hythlodaeus and every waking moment was spent trying to get him back. i guarantee that Emet Selch would not have been nearly as evil, or evil at all, if Hythlodaeus had not been sacrificed.

@@maevekirkland9452 ok, not _just_ tempering, but it was a factor. remember that we did tell him everything that was going to happen, and he was still skeptical he would act that way.

its more than that, they didn't just want it back, they made solemn promises eons ago to do so.

He and his buddies committed genocide on world-scale several times...

He is absolutely a villain. Just a villain with his own reasons that on the surface...dont seem necessarily wrong.

@@Sultschiem We're the villians in his eyes~ the story is always written by those whom win not by the dead/ losers in history

@@Sultschiem Because they genuinely believed what they were doing was right. Emet-Selch wasn't evil, but his methods and justification were terrible.

@@razor6797 This is not true, Emet 100% enjoyed the evil things that he did, He shows and admits this many times. One of those scenes is when you first arrive in the Raktikka greatwoods. We feel for emet because he's fighting for his homeworld and his friends, But he's not the emet of that past and that's shown when we travel to elpis. Emet had corrupted himself through years and years of letting his obsession about the past push him to do worse and worse things. Like someone already said, He committed genocide on a massive scale. He and his group wiped out the 13th and turned it into what it is now. People will hark on Zenos all day for endwalker and stormblood, Yet those same people worship emet when regardless of emet's past, he's done much much worse then Zenos. You can weep for death of what Emet was, But shadowbringers emet was 100% a villian, He was just a villian with charisma which is what blinds some people.

The one thing I'll say about Zenos is that one of the stories they published during Stormblood showed that he was a monster made, rather than a monster born, which puts him closer to Yotsuyu (before she becomes Tsuyu) in terms of the tragedy of his character, but he's still a monster who only cares for the dopamine rush he gets in a life or death fight. For Emet, I once saw a great post describing his situation as if everybody in the world had been turned into dogs due to the actions of a group opposed to your efforts to save the world. And not just one dog, each person was turned into several dogs. It's you, a couple of others who survived the tragedy, and an endless sea of dogs. You tried to prevent one tragedy from happening, only to suffer another. And the question is, would you hate the dogs? Of course not, how could you? They're just dogs. They may not be as sentient as people are, but they live their own rich lives, they love their family and friends, and it's not like they chose to be born into this world. So maybe you try to fit in, you put on a dog mask, and try to live amongst them, barking and howling at the moon along with the rest, subsisting on the scraps and little animals they hunt down. All the while, working with the other survivors, trying to find a cure to turn everybody back into people. But eventually, you'd probably come to resent the dogs. Maybe it's when you get bitten one too many times for how loudly you grieve for your friends and family, or you see your best friend's eyes for a moment, staring back at you from a husky, and you blink and they're gone, just another dog amongst a sea of dogs. You'd resent them for every conversation that you would never have again, every conversation with a loved one, a friend, a coworker, every joke that's been replaced by their constant barking and whining, their constant killing of each other over scraps and garbage while you try to save them and find a cure, and no matter how much you beg and plead, they can't understand that you're doing this for their benefit too, that you're trying to SAVE THEM! But they can't understand because, after all, they're just dogs. Maybe you'd try herding the dogs, forming them into packs and leading them around in circles while you try to find a cure to turn the dogs back into people. Maybe you do this for years and years. The packs change, but the bickering over scraps is always the same. Eventually, you might stop caring about how many dogs die trying to find the cure, because if a thousand dogs have to die to bring back just a few more people, it will all be worth it. After all, their lives are so short, and they just won't stop killing each other for measly pieces of rotten meat and garbage anyways. Until, one day, you discover a dog that's different. Not by much, but this one is a little bit smarter and a little bit stronger than the rest. You watch as this dog inspires the other dogs around it to be better, to try better, in a way that you were never able to, and finally, for the first time in who knows how many years, there's some faint glimmer of hope. And so you try to cooperate with this dog, even though they look at you as if you're the devil, and in your time spent with them, you're shocked to see the face of an old friend in them, thought lost to time and the dog tragedy. A friend who didn't join you to try to save the world, or join the side opposing you, but left, disgusted by the loss of life on both sides, excommunicated and cast out for their decision. You try to deny it at first, after all, it's just a dog, there's no way they could be your old friend. But day by day, you watch them lead these dogs, and you see your friend reflected in them, more and more. You think, maybe this is it, the missing link, a way to bridge the gap, maybe we don't have to kill any more dogs. Maybe you can speak with your old friend, like you used to. Until the dog gets hurt. Hurt so bad, you're sure they're going to die. They got hurt, trying to protect these other short sighted dogs in their endless bickering over scraps and garbage, all because of a scheme you set up, in your efforts to find a cure, that you let them try to stop. And now you have to choose. Do you save this dog, your old friend, at the cost of finding the cure? You know you should choose the cure, but even if you do, this dog, your friend, will never come back, it's already too late for them. And this it, the last straw, the last hope that these dogs might be more than they appear. As you watch, you see yourself losing your old friend all over again, and losing them a second time hurts just as much as the first time. So you say, you knew it all along, they were just a dog, like all the others, because if they aren't, then that's your friend you're watching die right in front of you. But then, that dog gets up and looks at you. Not just looks through you, as so many dogs have before, but looks at you and says your name and _recognizes_ you. This dog, that just won't stop protecting the other dogs, no matter how many times they get hurt in the process, looks at you. And then that dog rips out your throat to save the other dogs. This ghost, a shadow of the person who symbolized everything you wanted to save, rips your throat out to protect creatures that will never understand what this dog did for them. And as you lay there and you realize that the fight is over, that there's no reason to deny it any longer, that you can admit that this dog is your old friend, you do the only thing you can muster the strength to do. You ask them, your old friend, this dog, to remember you. Because no one else will. No one else _can._

I really love both of your analogies. The broken vase and the dogs ❤

ecatly, ultimately emet from shadowbringers isnt the real emet but his tired obsession driven self after millenias of living over and over trying to find worth and common ground to allow this world to live on instead of fighting to get his past life back, we know emet is closely like WoL (secretly, shy boy after all) and cant help but help another, plus we are a shard of azem, its only fitting its by our hand that he finally give him a rest he long deserved such was a sad victory and not a thriumphant victory. thats why i think the end of the song answer is said to emet, you must live, die and know.

Wallpaper Engine, in fact the creator of this video made one, [3d Animation] Emet-Selch in Amaurot (Looped), it's in the description

I am currently the one in my friendgroup traveling through the story, and my friends eagerly watching my reactions. It's a fun journey. I just feel sad I cant do it again from the start. I aint done, but it's been an amazing ride so far.

I did not like this place. However I had this reaction when I reached Mare Lametorum. Best place that it was.

2:20 "in the rain, do light and darkness fade" Right and wrong are all well and good, but at the end of the day, pointless sophistry. In the face of a loss so all encompasing, what are petty morals but an excuse...? With enough tears to blur your sight, "good" and "evil" are just... words. The only thing that matters is action- and the ends justify the means. They have to.

I feel exactly the same - it really captures the depth of the story

Or is to the edge a faster version of amaurots theme

Not only that. A not insignificant amount of the playerbase would have joined the Ascians if allowed. It's crazy the amount of people who would have been on board with Team Genocide if given the chance. Kinda makes it obvious why he wants to wipe out the lot of us.

Spoilers ahead for those who haven't finished Shadowbringers as I would never want to deprive anyone of that feeling: It's because he isn't a viliain, the best villains tend to be the ones who once you look at the reasons they do what they do, you look and ask yourself "...Would I have done the same, or even similar?" He watched the death of his entire civilization bar a handful at the hands of a true catastrophe, only to find out and realize we are but a piece of a member of that same race, not just a member, but one of it's highest council, where he sat too, and one of the few close friends he had ever had, it's why we had the special identity in Amaurot, he realized who we were, the wandering of them, the final seat. He did everything, solely to bring back his home, his friends, his people, everything, nothing more, and had eventually steeled himself, consoling himself that he'd never see them again, even with the fellow remaining few who wised to bring them back as well, but much more fanatically, such as Lahabrea and our good friend the "old warrior of light" as he was at the time of his death. Who he also saved us from, may I add on top of it. He is withered down mentally, broken, and beaten. He merely wishes to keep those who he still cares about, and to Amaurot alive, even if it's only in his memories, he is far from a villain, an anti-hero at worst, and someone who we all if given the circumstance and same chance, would have most likely done the same in the face of emotion. As I said, in writing, the best "villains" that are perceived tend to be ones where you can't draw the line between bad and good, where you ask things about yourself after they are gone. And I LOVE Emet-Selch because of it. He is one of those characters to a TEE, not only that, unlike the other ascians, he is the only one who almost never directly interferes, and even checks up on you in person several times, showing his care. Although he did shoot our good boy, he realized that he was not meant to be there, just as we weren't and that was a threat to Amaurot to him, and he had to remove a threat to his home, or rather his memory of it. Emet was never a villain. At the worst upon looking at his deeds and why he did them, he is an anti-hero, and to saving to player and the realization he did everything he could solely out of the will to save what he had of his entire people and world, he is beyond a hero in the end, redeemed through the act of saving the player.

@@YGNX That's bs and you know it. He's *ABSOLUTELY* a villain. Just consider the amount of people he's directly killed himself. All the innocents who suffered and died simply because he couldn't move on from the past.

@@YGNXclassic apologist. Emet was one of the most unhinged villains of FFXIV. Other than mass genocide, remember what he said about the sundered life, and (excuse my paraphrasing) how killing us won’t matter as he doesn’t consider us to be truly alive? :D he’s a good villain, and the key word is *villain*

@@naif9464 nah

@@twizzlytwist understandable

Its said by the phantoms of Amaurot that one day an unexplained "cry" came from deep within the earth and started affecting life everywhere, the worst of which were the ancients themselves who lost control over their powerful creation magicks and started engendering twisted monsters from their unconscious fears and anxieties, this gradually absorbed the whole world and kickstarted what they called "The End Days"

that in a way to me sounds like he kept trying to embody Azem like "what would azem do in this situation? lay down and give up on all we worked for for everyone? no"

and i live for it

he was tired but he (probably, im HCin) made a promise to himself/azem to keep trying to get everyone back regardless of how done he felt

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Sure, just credit me ^^

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