Alright lads, it's time to talk about Emet-Selch! What a phenomenal character, played his role
as a villain to perfection and an absolute icon within the FFXIV story! So, about 2 years ago, I made my first character
analysis video, which was basically the first actual video I made about FFXIV, which started
my passion to start making content around this game. Well, in the video I explain that what really
sparked me to do it was the success of Shadowbringers and specifically this Japanese poll that showed
Emet-Selch ranking at #6 of all time best Final Fantasy characters among half a million
Japanese voters. This was huge because for those of you who
only played XIV, there's a lot of really iconic characters from the series, so for FFXIV to
rank that high with this one character was honestly mindblowing. And that got me interested in making these
videos where I analyze these characters, and discuss what made them awesome. Given I said this, it might seem a little
strange that I never made a character analysis on Emet-Selch, given you could say that it
was basically because of him that I got into Youtube. The reason was that I wanted to wait until
I got better at making these videos until I would cover him. Cos I saw him as a really important character. Of course, I am still making an effort to
improve with each video so there's definitely tons of more room for growth for me still,
but I think I have become decent enough that I wish to tackle the character now. I'm also glad I waited because being able
to include Endwalker is huge. And yeah obviously this includes Endwalker
spoilers. This video will also be quite lengthy, and
significantly longer than my recent uploads, so I understand this will be a lot of work
for much less traction. My reasoning is that, quite frankly, I don't
think 15 minutes is justified for a character like Emet-Selch. There is SO MUCH to discuss when it comes
to him, I want to work without a time restraint. So in reference to the poll earlier, what
made Emet-Selch so popular as a villain? One could say, oh well it's simply that he
was well written, or people thirsting for him. I do think being well written is a condition,
and being hot... Honestly, that too, but things usually aren't
that simple. There are usually more factors to something
being successful than just the quality of it. A big factor here was the fact that Shadowbringers
was a very well received story and sold a lot. So we could say that Emet-Selch's success
can be attributed to Shadowbringers' success. But one might also wonder: what if Shadowbringers
was succesful because of Emet-Selch? Now, in my Shadowbringers analysis, I discuss
many of the broader points on what made that expansion successful, but if we move away
from those broader topics such as design philosophy and marketing, and look at things in a more
microscopic sense, we can definitely claim that yes, Emet-Selch being such a well written
villain most likely did help solidify Shadowbringers as one of the GOATs. I think the best evidence to support this
is to look at other stories. Quite often you'll find in that many of the
highest rating movies, video games, books, whatever, they tend to have strong villains
that make the story appealing. Usually when I hear people discuss a story,
they talk about the villain more than the main characters. I think this makes a lot of sense. They have the potential to be more interesting
than the heroes because the writer has much more liberty in making them interesting, thus
making them more entertaining. There's also the fact that as humans love
conflict in our stories. The really successful villains serve as great
obstacles for the hero to overcome, both thematically and literally. I think something huge that played in Emet-Selch's
favour, was that he was first Ascian character that was actually interesting. Up until this point, the writers basically
didn't know what to do with the Ascians, they were more or less just generic bad guys doing
bad and ominous things in the background. Our brains love patterns, so when we see a
certain group act in a certain way repeatedly, we come to expect that behaviour. So when we talk about a group, the Ascians,
our expectation was always "oh, generic uninteresting bad guys". This kind of an expectation isn't good but
they actually took that and used it to their advantage when it came to Shadowbringers. Because Emet-Selch was when they would shatter
that expectation, and it comes as quite a shock to the player, even if it's mostly subconsciously. It's like "woah, an Ascian that has real motivations
and purpose!?" This was a perfect subversion of expectations
and I think it helped immensely in making people love Emet-Selch. More importantly however, I think it was quite
simply because he was the first proper sympathetic villain. The ones from past expansions could definitely
be seen as sympathetic in certain ways, but what I mean in regards to Emet-Selch is that
he was the first one that was written that way from the get go. Having him be sympathetic was their actual
goal, instead of having the villain be a force of nature, misguided, or whatever, right? And this worked because people love sympathetic
villains. People love it when they get these minor hesitations
of "wait are they actually that bad?" or "I would do the same in their shoes" or
feelings of being uncertain as to who are actually the villains and heroes in the story. It's something that always appeals to people
which sold Emet-Selch as an amazing antagonist since that was the first time that FFXIV properly
offered that sensation. This is also paired with the fact that Emet-Selch
also had way more presence dedicated to him than any previous villain. I'm talking pure screen time, but even arguably
the amount of effort that went into him is much higher than what came before, if we get
into concrete things like the amount of voice acting, amount of screen time and so on, but
I do think that him being a sympathetic villain was essentially the key to his success. I also want to bring up a point regarding
Emet's popularity: you sometimes see in storytelling, an author kills a character, not realizing
how popular and loved by fans that character was until after the fact. This sometimes results in the author scrambling
for ways to bring them back, to varying levels of success. On my first playthrough of Endwalker, I thought
this was what was going on with Emet-Selch. That the writers were like, oh he was way
more popular than we expected, let's add him in there for some fan service! But I've later reflected on it and came to
the conclusion that Emet-Selch's involvement in Endwalker was definitely planned back when
the Shadowbringers arc was conceived. Because it's all so well structured that if
it was something they thought of on the spot, there would surely be blatant holes that we
could spot. But that's not the case. Moreover, I want to mention that Yoshida did
straight up confirm that it was always the intention. In fact, he even specifies that the reason
we never got an Emet-Selch minion was because his story was still on-going. So to summarize, Emet-Selch was successful
because he was well written, was part of a rather successful story and helped contribute
to its success, he surprised the audience by being the first interesting character in
that group of characters as well as him being a sympathetic villain. Since I brought up the sympathetic villain
point, let me address something I sometimes see going on whenever people discuss this
character. Emet's villainy becomes kind of a heated topic
whenever I see it brought up. This is the whole stance of people arguing,
"oh he did nothing wrong" "he's not really a villain" "he's just an anti-hero" or whatever. This tends to happen with villains that are
very sympathetic because as I said, people's image of who are really the bad guys in the
story get muddled. However, I personally disagree with this take. Let me explain what to me personally constitutes
a villain or an antagonist, and keep in mind this is just my personal take. So the first thing is what most people generally
use to associate a villain, and that's basically how "evil" the character is. A guy blows up an orphanage? Yeah that's a bad mofo, that's for sure someone
we could identify as a villain. But sometimes this may not be enough because
they might have justification for it, right? That's when I like to utilize these other
2 points of view. The first one is perspective. This one is really easy. From whose perspective is the story told? Find their opposition and you have the villain. A really good example I can use here is Breaking
Bad. In it, we follow the story of Walter White,
as he becomes more and more corrupted by the criminal world and by his own ego and greed,
and his actions over time become harder to swallow as he does a lot of bad things, tormenting
those around him and kills a lot of people. Does that make Walter White the villain of
the story, though? Because he did evil things? In my interpretation, no, he is still the
protagonist because the story is still very much from his point of view. That's exactly the point of the story, it's
a hero who goes through a negative change arc, which is when a character changes for
the worse. We can pair perspective with the theme of
the story, and from there figure out who is the villain. This is probably the most involved way because
you first must identify the core theme of the story, or multiple themes. But if you have, you can then look at which
character stands in opposition to this theme. Because villains are often written to be the
antithesis of the primary theme the story has going for it. Mind you, this may not always be the case,
but generally the villain does interact with the theme in some major way and that is indeed
often by being in opposition of it. So let's have a look at Emet-Selch from all
these points of view. First of all, the "evil" factor. He has murdered millions of people without
showing any remorse or signs of stopping so this one is a definitive yes. Most people would stop at this point but let's
go further. Let's talk about perspective in the narrative. The story is told from the point of view of
the WoL and the Scions. Does Emet-Selch stand in opposition of or
with this group? The answer here is obvious, because it's not
like Emet-Selch is even a case of someone indirectly opposing the group, he is quite
literally in direct opposition of the WoL and the party. And finally, thematically, he does very much
stand in opposition to the message the story tries to convey, and he is in full acceptance
of this after his defeat, but I'll discuss that more in detail later. So, by looking at all these 3 factors, to
me there is no doubt: Emet-Selch is a villain in this story. I know for many of you this is not news, I
mean duh, but I just wanted to bring this up because I've seen people get into pissing
contests over this so many times. There are essentially 2 versions of Emet-Selch. We have the one pre-sundering, which we get
to see during Endwalker in Elpis, and then we have the post-sundering image of him, which
we get to see during Shadowbringers. Luckily, we learn a lot about both of these
so let's get into it! The pre-sundering Emet-Selch is often described
as somewhat of a tsundere. Now, for those that don't watch anime like
me, you might be wondering "what the frick is a tsundere?", well as I understood it,
it essentially means someone who puts up an outwardly tough appearance to those around
them, to those they are fond of in particular. Emet-Selch is constantly moaning and pretends
to not be into stuff, yet he always follows Azem's lead and gives into Hythlodaeus's antics. And when I say outwardly tough appearance,
I mean it! He can be very hard on people and basically
doesn't have a filter. I remember being shocked at some of his comments,
like: Emet-Selch might need a little encouragement
but once he's commited to a task, he's commited. For instance, he wasn't initially too enthusiastic
about taking the seat of Emet-Selch, but Hythlodaeus implored him to go for it in his place, and
so once he took up the title he took to his duties in earnest. The awesome thing is that it was mainly thanks
to Azem and Hythlodaeus he got the job. Traveling with Azem made him known around
the world, and Hythlodaeus vouching for him was huge, since he was the original candidate. Emet-Selch is very serious about this duty,
both in a literal sense in his obligations to the Fourteen, but also in an abstract sense:
he considers it his duty to better and respect the lives of his brethren. He is also particularly fond of all the customs
of the ancients. For example, he advocates for returning to
the star aka killing yourself after you've fulfilled your duty to the Convocation, he's
infuriated about having to remove his mask, he hates transforming in public due to it
being shameful and he's irritated at his robes getting wet, which is also seen as shameful. In other words, Emet-Selch not only followed
the ancients' traditions but followed them fondly. This gives an excellent backdrop for how much
he actually loved said society. Emet-Selch also has an excellent ability to
gaze into people's souls and can thus easily detect people, plus he is extremely good with
magic, and Hythlodaeus even calls him the best there is. There is still more to discuss regarding Endwalker
Emet-Selch but I'll follow up on other sections. So let's move on to talking about the man
he would become after the world as he knew it, would no longer exist. The Sundering, as we know, is the event where
Hydaelyn split the world and everything in it into 14 reflections. This had a profound impact on Emet-Selch's
psyche. This is how he describes the effect: In the Nier crossover story, they actually elaborate on this single line of dialogue. See, one can easily infer he's simply saying
they are malformed in contrast to the ancients. And I think that was the writer's intent,
given that it's a huge part of Emet-Selch's character. You know, the whole him not accepting that
mankind is fit to succeed them as the stewards of the star, how he considers sundered people
as people that aren't truly living etc. However, what this Nier story reveals to us
is that Emet-Selch wasn't being hyperbolic. Indeed, his description was as laser accurate
as you can get. Those life forms were, initially, quite literally
malformed. They could not even communicate. Couldn't write, couldn't read, couldn't even
speak. Just mindless creatures flailing about with
next to no sentience. This is very interesting because it puts the
sundering in an even worse light than we had previously thought. Going from ancients to the regular people
we see in the game is bad enough. But it being this absolute reset button? Holy crap. I couldn't even begin to imagine what it would
feel like to go from a 100 to 0 like that. And this is something important to understand
about Emet-Selch: no one could have come out of this kind of a scenario unscathed, and
I do mean NO ONE. You would need such godly levels of mental
fortitude to brush off such a sudden, traumatic life changing event that it's just not possible. It's honestly a goddamn miracle that Emet-Selch
managed to remain functional after going through such a shock, because this kind of an incident
would easily destroy most people, like completely shatter their psyche. So that in itself is a testament to Emet-Selch's
iron will. But it also helps us understand how this disdain
towards the sundered people utterly poisoned and consumed Emet-Selch. This basically gives us a new version of Emet-Selch,
since the Emet-Selch we see post-sundering is noticeably different from the one we witness
in Elpis. His stature is very much that of a person
who is tired. Tired of everything. He's constantly hunched back, he walks slowly,
he's often sighing, one can hear the tiredness in his tone and he often even mentions his
fatigue. This tiredness is caused by millennia of solitude,
and his burden of carrying the entire legacy of his people weighed him down even more. Emet-Selch is quite fond of theatre and indeed
his dialogue reflects this at times, speaking like he is in a play. He was able to exercise this hobby during
his time as Solus zos Galvus, as he even had an entire theatre group playing his favourite
performances. It's likely this acts as a sort of a coping
mechanism. Given the awful experience he went through,
it's easier to pretend, even if for just a moment, that it's all just fiction, an elaborate
story. These moments are very fleeting though, as
it does little to satisfy his black heart. Indeed, while his dialogue suggests he's very
cheerful and talkative, it's all just a mask. That's just the coping mechanism of acting
like he's in a play. Underneath is the utterly exhausted man I
just described. He doesn't really have any interest in the
unsundered world, viewing the people and their doings as insignificant. Even towards his own allies, he even acts
downright condescending, another good sign of his coldness is leaving Mitron to his own
devices after Ardbert struck him with a blade of light. To Emet-Selch, the sundered Ascians are just
people with fake memories so he doesn't really care much about their lives. Another coping mechanism he likes to use is
denial. We see this crop up at random points. When accused of murdering millions, he denies
it, citing he didn't see those people as truly living. Even though he himself can clearly see his
dear friend's soul within the WoL, he is in denial about them sharing any resemblance
to them all the way until the end: In Endwalker, we find out this isn't something
he developed as a result of the sundering, rather it was something intrinsic to his character
all this time. When the WoL tells their story in Elpis, Emet-Selch
vehemently denies that he would ever create Amaurot. This is funny because when you meet Hythlodaeus
on the moon earlier, he says precisely the opposite, saying "Heh, that does sound like
something Emet-Selch would do." So he liked to always utilize this, it's just
that he became ever more reliant on it after the sundering. Though Emet-selch retains that strong sense
of duty, he does indulge in personal fantasies despite what kind of an image it has: for
instance, him recreating shades of those that sacrificed themselves to Zodiark, in a way
desecrating their noble deeds. He himself acknowledges in Elpis that this
is a pretty questionable act and indeed denies it, which goes to show how he had fallen from
grace. Emet-Selch's status as an unsundered leaves
him the de facto most powerful being in the world. He rarely makes use of this power, however. He more prefers to manipulate civilisations
to bring about their own downfall,.In addition, he often appears meek to the party, probably
to lure them into a false sense of security. In general, Emet-Selch is quite cunning, which
is aided by his extreme intelligence owing to his unsundered status and having lived
for thousands of years. He's a schemer, and even his unsundered brethren
describe him as unpredictable and hard to read. Something that really attests to this in game
is the fact that you spend most of the story slaying Lightwardens, thinking you are ruining
his plans but he's way ahead of you and you are actually just playing into his hands the
whole time. And of course, having pulled a lot of strings
in the background throughout these calamities, he has a rather deep understanding of human
nature. He can very easily manipulate people to play
to his tune, his biggest creations, Garlemald and Allag ,are a testament to that fact. So given all this talk about being tired,
depressed, basically just the sorrowful story of Emet-Selch, one might wonder: what kept
him going all these years? The past, of course. Now, when we think about motivation, it could
simply be described as the ability to hold a thought in your mind in the long term. You want to be healthy, so you hold that thought
in your mind over a long period of time which motivates you to exercise. If you can only hold that thought for a few
weeks, you lose interest in exercising, hence you've lost your motivation to keep doing
it. In this sense, Emet-Selch's only true motivation
was to bring back his people. He desperately clung to this thought for thousands
upon thousands of years, which motivated him to commit to the Rejoinings, and it was precisely
that thought which allowed him to keep going with life, to get up from bed every morning. The message behind Shadowbringers tells us
that we should reflect on the past to inform the future, but Emet-Selch as the villain
goes against this theme. For him there is no future, there is ONLY
the past, which is when it gets problematic and indeed, this is something that we generally
perceive of as a negative thing in our society. Think of, for example, that famous quote from
John F. Kennedy. "For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the
present are certain to miss the future." Which by the way is another interpretation
for what the ticking clock in the Amaurot theme and To the Edge represents: Change is inevitable; this mindset tells us that those who resist change are an obstacle
and go against the very rules of nature, and indeed that's what Emet-Selch is in Shadowbringers. But we nevertheless sympathise with him because
in his case, he got so thoroughly traumatized that there was no future in store for him,
only the past. The want to return to better times is often
rather alluring, especially if the future has nothing to offer. And it is precisely this that lead Emet-Selch
down a very destructive path. And this is where we get to talking about
what is in my opinion Emet-Selch's biggest character flaw. Now, I am sure many of you would agree that
it is the thing I just talked about: how he was unable to let go. However, that is merely a symptom. What is the actual cause for this behaviour? Which particularly powerful emotion leads
to the inability to let go? That would be indeed be resentment. A feeling that something was taken from you
too early, and unjustifiably, and then re-experiencing those past injustices over and over. Resentment is a very strong negative emotion,
and it's also one of the most dangerous emotions, because when you are very deep in resentment,
it will just consume everything within you. In that sense, I feel Emet-Selch as a fictive
character makes for a very good representation of just how dangerous resentment can be when
it's taken to its extreme. Now, why is Emet-Selch's case so severe? Well, let's stop for a sec to think about
what is something quintessential, something fundamental about being human: we are born
into this world and live our lives, and in the process of loving those around us, we
form attachments. But nothing lasts forever, and everything
must eventually come to an end. So, at the end of our journey, we have to
let go of all those attachments. Therein lies the problem, however. The bigger the attachment, the harder it is
to let go. But there comes a point when you have to accept
the loss. The acceptance MUST come at some point. Without that acceptance, you'll easily succumb
to resentment. So note the point about bigger attachments
making it harder to accept the loss. Think of Emet-Selch as a character. He was immensely attached to the ancients,
I mean he was on the Convocation of Fourteen! And as I had just described, he loved their
culture. Most notably, he had formed a deep bond with
Hythlodaeus and Azem. Then we have the, from his point of view,
completely unfair and unjustified destruction of his world by the sundering. The amount he lost is beyond comprehension. The sundering took EVERYTHING from him, and
did so in a most traumatizing way. And finally, we have the fact that he is now
the most powerful being in this new world. All these things combined make for a veeeeery
dangerous recipe. In Emet-Selch, this manifested by him being
unable to move on from the fate that befell the ancients, which is why he was so determined
in making that memory real forever and to never let it go, and why he was so goddamn
resentful. This is of course all internal, however we
do get to see him finally fully express this at the very end in scenes like this: You can feel the resentment in those lines. And sure, we can all picture it. Most of us have had something happen that
made us a bit resentful. But picture the worst case you had, what event
had you resentful the longest in your life, and then multiply that by like a thousand. That's Emet-Selch. That's all his mind has been focused on for
over 10 thousand years. Constant, gnawing, pure resentment without
cease. This is why Emet's case was so drastic. The more attached you are, and the more you
feel like what happened was unfair, the harder the resentment, and thus the stronger the
desire to act on those conceived injustices, to the point that you'll do ANYTHING to relive
that memory. All the suffering you see, as caused by the
calamities, the endless destruction of nature and human lives, is all because of one man's
resentment about the loss of the ancients and his inability to come to terms with it. Because this goes against our very human nature,
it could be said that this is exactly what caused Emet-Selch's loss of humanity. This is exactly why his assessment about co-existence
being impossible in the end, was spot on. The only way for Emet to be freed was for
him to be defeated, and once he does get defeated, that is indeed finally the moment he lets
go. He entrusts the burden that was crushing him
his whole life, the legacy of the ancients, and passes it onto the WoL, which finally
gave him peace, and in the process he also redeems his humanity. And that in itself can be a powerful message:
if Emet-Selch could let go, you can do it too. If you are feeling resentful, just know that
it will get better! Eventually you will find acceptance, move
on, and be able to direct your energy at more productive and healthier things. A note I do want to add on something I said
earlier. When I said all the suffering is caused by
Emet-Selch's resentment. Of course, we do know through the Omega quests
that the writers intended this to be a more complicated topic, that each person can decide
for themselves whether Emet-Selch, Hermes or Venat was to blame for all of this, or
if it was perhaps just nature playing its course or whatnot. But that wasn't my point. To use an analogy, I would describe Emet-Selch
as a gun. Whoever pulled the trigger is up to your own
interpretation but my point is, that he is still the source of all this suffering. In this section, I would like to briefly elaborate
a bit more on Emet-Selch's defeat and his subsequent redemption in the story. So as I briefly mentioned, Emet-Selch is powerful
beyond comprehension. And he may have indeed been the most powerful
opponent we ever fought. Now, one might of course say "well we defeated
him", but what you have to bear in mind that Emet-Selch's defeat didn't come easy. This is a classic case where the heroes are
able to prevail over the villain only through very special circumstances. In the case of Shadowbringers, we have a lot
of crucial things that played into the WoL's hand. First we have Ardbert's timely soul merge,
then G'raha Tia's timely summoning spell which, mind you, only a single person in the whole
universe knows this spell, then we have Hydaelyn's direct intervention, which is the first time
she did so since our fight against Atma Weapon and Lahabrea, and finally, all the Lightwarden
essence contained within the WoL that he was able to use to defeat Hades's darkness. In other words: yes, Emet-Selch was defeated,
but the amount of things that had to happen for the WoL to come out on top meant that
it was by no means an easy victory. Another thing I love, which echoes one of
my favourite villains, Kuja from FFIX, is that Emet-Selch's involvement doesn't end
with his defeat: rather, he continues on to repeatedly save you from dire situations. Like quite literally, he saves you on 2 separate
occasions, or even more than that if you want to count him bestowing Azem's constellation
crystal to you. This further sells Emet's graceful defeat,
because he actually held to his end of the deal, if you recall this line before the fight: This also goes back to what I said about Emet-Selch being very commited to his chosen course. Once he made that deal, and the outcome showed
him to be the loser, he truly honoured it. In a sense, you being able to defeat him showed
to him that you are a worthy succesor to his dear friend despite your fragmented state,
and that you are worthy to carry their legacy. Think about the significance behind those
words "Remember us", he's entrusting the memories and legacy of the ancients to you and you
alone. In Endwalker, he further shows respect when
he indirectly admits that he may have been wrong about the sundered people's capability
to be the stewarts of this star, when he acknowledges that you were able to come this far, which
his people wouldn't have been able to achieve. This is exactly why this line: Works so well. This line comes so naturally we don't really
think about it but this line actually needed a lot of setup to have that payoff. It works precisely because we saw Emet-Selch
act so graciously upon his defeat. I also love this line because it shows that
despite him acknowledging our path was the correct one, he still holds true to his ideals
to the very end. Such was his attachment to his people. I think this is also the way to go when you
wanna make a "redemption arc". You don't simply have those irreconcileable
differences disappear and it's all happy sunshine and rainbows, rather Emet-Selch simply comes
to accept the situation and helps the WoL despite their differing ideals. Because he nevertheless wants to see his dear
friend succeed. And in the process of wanting to save the
WoL and the star besides, he proved he was able to let go of his sorrow and his resentment,
which shows us what Emet-Selch truly was all this time underneath: a man who had a tremendous
amount of love for his dear friends and the star. That's how you redeem a character. Emet-Selch is an interesting character because
there are some interesting things going on in the background that maybe aren't as much
at the forefront but they can nonetheless be a topic of discussion when it comes to
his character. So the first factor we can look at is his
actual plan to cause the Great Rejoining and bring back his people. There is a certain sad aspect to this. Because whenever he speaks about it, he's
of course very convicted. Yeahh we'll destroy these shards, make Zodiark
whole and he's gonna bring back the boys and it's gonna be awesome! Of course Emet-Selch would be certain of the
plan. This is the only hope he can cling to, so
he naturally 100% convinced himself that it has got to work. But when we look at it from an outsider's
point of view, this plan is actually rather vague and has some issues. The first thing we have here is that people
in the Source will keep getting power increases with every rejoining. So far, the ascians' ability to cause calamities
have been contingent on two things. A) people are dumb and easily manipulated
and B) people are not strong enough to raise a hand
against them. Well, a key detail worth remembering is that
a rejoining makes you more intelligent, alongside increasing your strength. Not to mention that more people would likely
start awakening to the Echo and their Echo abilities would be more powerful. So the chances of people outsmarting and/or
overpowering the Ascians increases every time a rejoining happens. I mean heck, Thordan already outsmarted and
destroyed Lahabrea, and that was only after 7 rejoinings. And it's ironic that this was Varis's original
plan, to have people become stronger to defeat the Ascians. It's doubly ironic because Emet-Selch too
was defeated as a result of two people's efforts, who were both 8 times rejoined. So while I doubt that Varis would've been
the one, I do believe that eventually people in the Source would be able to destroy the
Ascians. Another big question mark is the 13th. Yeah, you messed it up and it can no longer
be used for a rejoining. What if you mess up another shard? What if Zodiark isnt strong enough after you
rejoin all the shards but the 13th? And this is not even getting into the question
of how Zodiark would actually manage to accomplish all of this, or if he indeed can even reverse
the state of the world at this point. And so on. Just to clarify, Im not bringing these up
as like plot holes or anything. No, these holes in his plans are very much
deliberate. Because they speak to the absolute desperation
of Emet-Selch and the Ascians as a whole. Another interesting thing the writers did
is they dropped this little hint in optional dialogue regarding Emet-Selch being tempered
by Zodiark. It then becomes a question of: how much agency
did Emet-Selch actually have over his actions? Was his reasoning or recollection warped by
Zodiark's influence? I even heard a theory once about how he purposefully
acted villainous to have the WoL defeat him so he would be untempered. I personally don't subscribe to these theories
nor do I believe it's at all what the writers intended but I bring it up because it really
goes to show how much people have thought about this part of his character. And this reminds me of the Sephiroth-Jenova
situation back from FFVII, where the game never goes out of its way to flat out state
who is in charge. My take on it is that yes, at some level,
Zodiark's tempering may have had some influence on his thoughts. But I'm not a fan of leaning too heavily into
it. First of all, this dialogue is purely optional
which already tells us it's probably not meant to be that major and secondly, I feel like
the more you lean towards the idea that everything he did was influenced by Zodiark and that
he had no free will, the less interesting it actually makes Emet-Selch's character,
because it'd simply turn him into Zodiark's puppet. There is plenty enough explanation and motive
for Emet-Selch's actions, that saying he was just a puppet is completely moot as far as
I'm concerned. This is without even mentioning that Endwalker
effectively debunked this theory, because if he was under Zodiark's spell all along,
surely he would have made mention of how he suddenly has agency over his actions. The next point is questioning the veracity
of everything that Emet-Selch tells you about the ancients. This too is something that isn't as relevant
anymore now that Endwalker is out, but I always found this to be a very interesting topic
to discuss with my friends. Basically, before Endwalker, the only source
of information you had on the ancients was from Emet-Selch. And to me, Emet-Selch always had this aura
of being a potentially unreliable narrator. I have a couple of reasons for this:
One is the character trait I described earlier. He is rather cunning. You hear from characters like Elidibus and
Varis how unpredictable he is, and he even says to your face things such as him scheming
24/7 or how you'd never be able to catch him in a lie. This kind of stuff then sorta just sits in
your subconscious and so every time you learn something about the ancients you are sitting
there like hmmmm, is that really it? The other element is the one I just discussed,
him being tempered by Zodiark. Again, I personally don't lean much into it,
but it's another potential thing to mention. But thirdly, and this was always to me the
most convincing, is simply the amount of bias. Emet-Selch has all the reason to speak about
the ancients fondly and only fondly. It's like when you talk to someone who is
really patriotic, they aren't going to tell you the negative side of things. They won't tell you about their country's
atrocities, the corruption or things like that. No, they'll only mention all the things that
are awesome about the country. It essentially makes you ask: were their society
really this perfect, or is it simply that that is how Emet-Selch perceives it due to
his rose tinted nostalgia goggles? In that sense, Emet-Selch could simply be
telling you a sort of a biased truth. So rather than falsifying information, he
simply omits it, whether consciously or not. I always loved this aspect of Emet-Selch's
character because it adds a certain complexity to the situation. And even with Endwalker out, it still works
because if one does question the reliability of Emet's narration, it keeps them in suspense
until they get to Elpis and find out for themselves. Obviously those who finished the story know
that yes, in the end, Emet-Selch's narration was reliable, but it's nevertheless a cool
thing that keeps you in suspense until you find out. The final element I want to bring up here
is Emet-Selch's relation to the sundered people. We can sort of infer that this thing of him
hoping that the sundered people would show themselves worthy wasn't something he thought
of for the first time in Shadowbringers. This was probably the most involved he was,
but it's likely this thought may have always been at the back of his mind. There's dialogue to suggest this: So yeah, it implies he has actually put in the effort to try and see if the sundered
people are worthy. However, due to that sheer resentment I described
earlier, I would assume his attempts were usually akin to him handing people the key
to a nuke and then is disappointed when they nuke each other. He's essentially instigating their destruction
by building these Empires that gravitate towards self-destruction and give people tools to
destroy each other, but while he is doing it, he's hoping that they wouldn't do it. Of course, there's two ways of looking at
this. One is to say, well it's completely fine,
because if these people could truly surpass the ancients, they would resist the urge to
do anything for their own greed. But on the other hand, he's basically rigging
the game that he himself sets up and then is upset by the results. I feel like there is an intentional parallel
here between Emet-Selch and Hermes. Because when Hermes wanted to test the ancients'
right to exist, he went out of his way to try and make the test as fair as he possibly
could. Emet-Selch is the direct opposite of that,
where he tests the sundered people's right to exist, and goes out of his way to make
is as unfair as possible. I think it would be folly to make an analysis
on Emet-Selch and not talk about some key figures that affected his character. A character this big naturally had many characters
that were a part of his story: Varis, Lahabrea, Elidibus, Venat, Hermes are a few that come
to mind. But I am sure we can all agree that the true
stars of this show are Hythlodaeus and Azem. So let's talk about these two individuals
and how they relate to Emet-Selch. Going into Endwalker, most of us knew there
existed a connection between Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus. There was the oddity of him being this strange
creation among the Amaurotines, who seemed to be conscious of the fact that it was all
a mirage. He spoke fondly of Emet-Selch, shared his
soul colour sight ability, and then we of course had the side story that further explored
their friendship. But Endwalker itself really blew it out of
the water when it finally came time to show their relationship. It was amazing. Stout Helm has a video on Hythlo, which you
guys should totally watch if you haven't already, titled "Why Hythlodaeus Is The Greatest Friend
Ever". This title sounds like clickbait, right? But it really isn't. Hythlodaeus really is the greatest friend
ever. Hythlo is one of those characters where the
developers really hit a home run. This dude is straight up simply loved by everyone. And I am in full agreement with that sentiment. Honestly, he is probably my favourite supporting
character of all time. What makes him so phenomenal? Well, first we have simply how well the devs
executed the whole "best friend ever" aspect. He's super friendly, charismatic, likeable,
selfless, funny, and has really strong chemistry with those around him. I think the person voice acting him and the
people writing his dialogue simply nailed it. He is essentially the ultimate friend. He himself even mentions how he wishes only
to serve as a supporting pillar to Azem and Emet-Selch, and he's completely content with
his existence and playing that role. Also, just like Emet-Selch, Hythlodaeus too
loved the ancients' way of life. He is the first one to step in to explain
to Hermes why returning to the star is such a beautiful thing. And this leads me into Hythlo's contribution
to the story. Hythlodaeus materializes why Emet-Selch became
so resentful. He's so pure that losing someone like that
is really tragic, someone that didn't deserve all of this. I've heard Hythlodaeus described before as
being to Emet-Selch what Haurchefant was to us and I think that's a spot on assesment. He plays a key role in selling Emet's downfall,
by adding that human element, and showing us exactly what were those attachments that
he couldn't let go of. Would you do the same if you had an absolute
chad of a friend like Hythlodaeus? I also like the fact that, often in stories,
the sympathetic villain's downfall is caused by them losing a loved one, and that loved
one is often either their lover or their child. I like the fact that Hythlodaeus and Azem
are simply his friends. It tells us that you dont need to be related
by blood or have a romantic attachment to have an extremely powerful bond with someone. Azem is an interesting character simply cos
of the fact that it's this super important, prevalent character, yet they don't even have
a model nor a single line of dialogue. But I think that's precisely why Azem works
so well. Tying the main villain to the blank slate
protagonist was a brilliant move. They give you these tiny snippets of their
relationship to Emet-Selch, like I love it when Emet-Selch first sees you in Elpis, he
gives you a quick gaze and then looks away. I bet he's thinking to himself "oh for the
love of what kind of a scheme is Azem setting up this time? Maybe if I ignore it I won't have to get involved"
and when they theorize it's Azem's familiar they don't even question it. It's like "yeah that's something they would
do." And from there, the player can self-insert
their WoL's behaviour into Azem and it works beautifully. The amount of fan art of people sliding their
WoL into funny stories with Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus is a testament to that. When the developers were asked what Azem was
doing all this time, their answer was basically "well, just picture what your WoL would have
been doing" I could see some people not liking it and wanting to see the actual Azem in game
but I think the way they did it was the absolute best way of pulling this off. And then we have of course Emet-Selch eventually
accepting you as Azem's successor. I adore the fact that he made a Constellation
crystal for you in secret just because he was that fond of you, and I think the way
they had Emet-Selch give you clues about all these places you've yet to visit is a brilliant
way to wrap it all up. He's basically giving you a nod of approval. The sentiment is essentially: "Yeah you earned
to stand on equal footing to my dear friend. As a parting gift, here's some pogchamp ideas
and places for you to explore" This also shows the amount of trust Emet has
for the WoL. Think about it. Emet is the only character in this whole setting
who has witnessed all of this stuff. If the WoL were to fail, all that knowledge
would be lost. So he's pretty much having full faith in you
being able to discover all of this yourself instead of needing him to pass on all that
information. Tying Azem/WoL into Emet-Selch also works
because of certain parallels so you have the classic connection between the hero and the
villain. I would say the most striking is the fact
that they both share an an insanely taxing burden that would break almost anyone. Alright, let's move onto talking about some
symbolism, cos there's quite a bit of it in Emet-Selch's design. To begin with the most apparent, let's talk
about his true name: Hades.This is the one that probably most of you guys catched onto. Hades is one of the gods of the ancient Greek,
and he's actually one of the 3 major Olympian Gods, or one could say he's one of the three
OGs! Hades was the invisible god of the underworld
that dealt with afterlife, as opposed to Zeus being the visible ruler of the heavens that
dealt with life. This is so on the nose in XIV that the ancients
even call the lifestream/aetherial sea the Underworld. So the connection is obviously Emet-Selch's
mastery over the lifestream, as demonstrated when he plucks Y'shtola with the snap of a
finger or just the fact that he's an insanely powerful mage, though one can also think of
other things such as how you enter the dark "underworld" aka the Tempest, into a city
of dead people that Emet-Selch commands. Now, despite its obviousness, I think this
one is nonetheless very clever with how it was executed. It's also worth noting that this was the first
time they namedropped an actual ancient Greek god, which in itself is meant to symbolize
Emet-Selch's status of being an ancient. Next, we have his Constellation crystal, the
Gemini. So, the Gemini is symbolized by the celestial
twins, and so a Gemini's personality is believed to have an intrinsic duality: this might lead
to them being misinterpreted as being two-faced, yet a Gemini rarely has a hidden agenda. This basically plays into how, for most of
Shadowbringers, we keep doubting Emet-Selch's intentions despite the fact that he's actually
laying his thoughts wide open. These were from Shadowbringers, now the next
two are from Endwalker, where we meet Emet-Selch as he was pre-sundering, and thus a new design. The most notable differences between the Endwalker
and Shadowbringers design are the eye colour and the hair. So as for the eye colour, when we are in Elpis,
each of the 4 major ancients have a distinct eye colour. Hythlo has purple, Venat has blue, Hermes
has green and Emet-Selch has yellow. This seems like a very deliberate choice so
most likely each of these colours symbolize something. Of course, colours have dozens upon dozens
of interpretations, but I believe that Emet's yellow eyes relate to remembrance. It is thought that the colour yellow stimulates
the left side of our brains and that the left side of the brain controls the verbal expression
of our long-term semantic memory, which is why, upon seeing an autumnal picture with
a lot of yellow shades, it can trigger nostalgia. Mind you, the science on this isn't exactly
proven but it is nonetheless known that the colour yellow is often associated with remembrance
and memories. This is of course very fitting to Emet-Selch,
which is what I believe his eye colour represents. Finally, his hair. Now, this is very interesting because Natsuko
Ishikawa was asked in an interview if there's a meaning behind the white streak in Emet-Selch's
hair. The interviewer proposes an interesting viewpoint,
that it's perhaps related to the light/dark motifs prevalent throughout Shadowbringers,
but Ms Ishikawa's response is interesting: "Maybe you will find out why and perhaps you
won't. Emet's hair is like that for a reason, though." This confirms that there is indeed a deeper
meaning behind it rather than just "oh hey this hair looks cool". I personally believe she was alluding to Endwalker
when she said that. In Endwalker, we see that his hair is fully
white before the sundering, but most of the white is gone in Shadowbringers, however a
tiny amount still remains. Therefore, it most likely symbolizes Emet-Selch's
fall from grace following the sundering. He was damaged beyond repair and his personality
became darker, hence most of his hair becoming of a darker colour. The white part of his hair could simply be
described as the amount of humanity in him. When we meet him in Shadowbringers, most of
it is gone. But when we summon him at the end in Ultima
Thule, he appears in his original form, indicating he has accepted his situation and regained
his humanity. In this context, you could replace humanity
with a lot of other things. Goodness, light, acceptance. Whichever strikes your fancy, but for me,
having the whiteness in his hair describe his humanity seems fitting. Emet-Selch is an amazing character and his
spot among the most liked characters in the franchise is well deserved. He's the perfect villain for FFXIV's story. He's competent, cunning, really charismatic
and overall just super entertaining to watch. His dialogue and the delivery of his voice
lines nail this tired, lonely, resentful old man with an unbearable burden weighing him
down for millennia. The dialogue and voice acting on this character
are nothing short of immaculate. The amount of effort from the devs show. Even things like his unique walking animation
or his unique emotes such as his wave and finger snap. I mean is there anything more iconic in FFXIV
than that snap? I would honestly liken it to something like
Kefka's laugh from FFVI, in terms of just being so freaking iconic. I love how the writers are even aware of how
memorable those animations are, which is why in 5.3 they had him appear in his ancient
form, and we relied on those hand gestures to identify him. Brilliant! Anyway, I want to wrap up here. I could ramble on about Emet-Selch forever
honestly, but I think I've done enough gushing. In summary, Emet-Selch is a core part of what
makes the Hydaelyn/Zodiark story so incredible. Now, as for the other ancients. I want to cover the other 2 unsundered eventually,
once we learn more about them through Pandaemonium. I would definitely be excited to talk about
Venat or Hermes as well but man, this video took ages to make, and I want to chill for
a while! So those guys will more likely be covered
in the lead-up to my Endwalker analysis. Well, that's been all. Hope you enjoyed the conversation and feel
free to subscribe for more in-depth analyses such as this in the future! Have a nice day!
