which is that Emet-Selch is 100% adamantly convinced that you could never possibly understand him, that you are intrinsically worth less than him and his grief; he's lived thousands of lifetimes among humans and he still can't - or isn't willing to - see you as anything more than disgusting misshapen fragments, like cut up worms
the moments between the telling blow and his actual death were the first and only time he hasn't had to be thinking constantly about Amaurot and how to bring it back
he is convinced you're not real people but also he's incredibly lonely and Amaurotines were social animals. he can't help forming emotional attachments no matter how much he says we're fakey fake fakeness
I just can't get over how the entirety of Amaurot, both the area and the dungeon, are one loud and anguished cry of PLEASE, UNDERSTAND ME, UNDERSTAND MY FEELINGS, CONNECT WITH ME
I disagree that he went against you to die. But I do think he realized you were strong enough that dying to you was... possible. And I mean it's canon as hell that he's extremely depressed.
But he did very much want to connect with us while also being like, all that baggage in the way. Tempered. Not seeing us as people. But really wanting to. Maybe actually being able to but in denial about it
I certainly HOPE we're not tempered because I like the misery of that idea as a thought experiment but ultimately the point of our story has never been misery
I think by the time he fights you he's aware in some level that just him and elidibus without lahabrea aren't hung to make it. And he's known a long time they weren't going to make it anyway because lahabrea has been going batty for years. But i do not think at any point he was ready to give up until we proved strong enough to take over for him. S
"the only way i'll believe in you is if you kill me", maybe? or even an unspoken even to himself "i don't want to die but if i'm going to die then let it be at your hand or else i won't have it be at anyone else's"
i think there's a case to be made that there's a part at the end where you could argue he "throws" the fight, if you want to take it that way. but outside of that one moment in time the only way he could ever bring himself to let go, in the first place, is if someone else stopped him, and like
But yeah he might be willing to entrust the future to us specifically if we prove we're better than he is convinced we are. And he was a little prepared for that. But at no point do I think he was trying to die on our sword.
Since we're strong enough to take over as stewards of the star, then fine. But if we hadn't been he'd have murdered us and gone and tortured time travel secrets out of the exarch
like i do think he's testing us. i do think he wants to like. specifically see if we're capable. because if we are then he can finally lay down and rest. but the only way we can prove we're worth it is if we meet him where he's at, force forforce, burden for burden
Like, he arguably made the fight fair(er) given that recreating both Amaurot and the Final Days would have taken a hell of a lot of aether? But he's still coming at the WoL with all he has
they can possess a body if it has no soul but not a body with a living occupant, not without preemptive exposure to one of those black soul crystals like thancred got his hands on
i don't think i'd want to touch that with a ten foot pole personally i'm just like looking at that idea like "that's a bug-zapping third rail thought experiment of the kind someone is going to have a bug-brain for"
my brain is full of things like this that i would gladly foist on another's shoulders in a heartbeat, if only because i know i'm not the person who wants them to exist enough to make them but i know there are people that would very much like it if they did
that cutscene lasted an entire ingame day, I met Hien in the morning and the sun was setting by the time I had recovered from emotions enough to finish the dialogue
get the WoL to eat the lightwardens, take the corrupted Light from her once it got too much, make himself look like a villain so nobody would miss him, peace out to the rift and die, which would also release his summoning spell so everyone could go home
right i was gonna say before a duty queue popped that i don't think chechey would summon an emet-like as her reaper's shade even by accident because she knows too much about the void, but she has DRKed her way into summoning up a shade of him via the myste trick to yell and get advice a few times
Re: Emet-Selch: Tomorrow and Tomorrow, the ubiquitous and versatile Shadowbringers theme that plays in one variation or another over practically everything in the expansion, has lyrics. They're in English, and whether they sound like waffling, platitudinal nonsense or punch you hard in the gut is a function of whether you've seen the full story reveal.
-- you know, for someone who has said I don't actually care about the release timetable for hrothgals and that I'm content just knowing they WILL happen
that whole part of DRK was always the part that sat worst with me, not like as a story but because it felt bad to think of myself-as-Keimgeim acting the way you do there, saying the things Fray says for you there - you know, basically the same kind of regret this guy had
--this. this slots so perfectly into the accidental arc I've had of Keimgeim continually having moments of "I should have picked up conjury", and my vague plans to, in fact, pick up CNJ next
so is it common for Elezen kids to be really short for a long time until they suddenly shoot up into lanky giraffes? asking for a tall friend and her short Elezen maybe-girlfriend.
iirc urianger gets a line in some quest or something abt how moenbryda used to tease him frequently about it because he didn't see his own growth spurt until he was almost twenty summers, or something to that effect
it's such a deeply solid characterization detail that sid just refuses to engage with elezens on a cultural level whatsoever even as his entire worldview is hopelessly ishgardian anyway due to it being basically where he actually grew up
I'm trying to remember if something comes up now or if it doesn't kick in until later: have you talked to the Crystal Exarch since finishing the last Shadowbringers quest?
PLEASE, UNDERSTAND ME, UNDERSTAND MY FEELINGS, CONNECT WITH MErinoaryne andsquallgaia are girls"because SE hates femroesI wish you were less right
i am no longer baby i want power