Hades was the gift that kept on giving. Post ShB completely re contextualized the "remember us" smile. He wasn't just smiling to a respected enemy. He was bidding farewell to an old friend.

I think endwalker hades is still pretty great to show the "unbroken" version of him. He pretty much leads the charge in trying to stop the future events despite saying that he doesn't believe it and he has so much energy to do what he believes is right. It's great

"A villain can't be deeply compelling or well fleshed out in only a single expansion" - The Jailer, probably.

The simple thing to see it, he's litterally bearing the weight of the burden on his shoulders, until we kill him and stand straight finally. EW allowed us to see normal Emet-selch, before being destroyed by the loss of his friends, it was particularly beautiful for me. Especially the fact that for him, becoming so disrespectful of life was against his nature at the time. I think that, despite missing his life before, he spent his life trying to find the sundered worthy. I wonder if he tried to find Azem's shards on every world to see if his quest was finally over, continuing with the rejoining when he find us lacking ...

I think the reason Emet-Selch is so fondly remembered is a combination of factors. Partly his generally quirky nature, partly the reveal that he's fond of empire-building(and damn good at it, too), but primarily that he's the first Ascian we meet that actually feels like a real person, contrasting moustache-twirling supervillain Lahabrea and stoic, mission-minded Elidibus.

I believe that Emet is a deeply hurt man. When I saw Amaurot in the Tempest, my little Au Ra stood on a ledge which showed the Skyline of the city he wove from Aether. When I realized that he *made* a reflection of this city, built on memory, to walk on those streets he loved so much once again, to see reflections of his people once again, even though they were nothing but mere memories, I realized he manifested his pain with the tip of his fingers, weaving the aether and the force that gives life into that what he misses most: Home. If we look at it, the Unsundered lost everything. Their family, friends, their loved ones, lives, jobs, the mere ground they walked on, all gone. To endure this pain for over 9000 years, holding on onto hope and the deity they created in despair to bring back what they lost has left a mark on all of them. Lahabrea became dark and cynical, Elidibus was losing his memories - he didnt even remember who he promised to help, and Emet became depressed, homesick and ultimately, lonely. He has seen death in all its forms. Calamity of Lightening, people being swallowed by waves of electricity. Calamity of fire, people burning alive. Calamity of Earth, people being swallowed by the ravenous earthquake and crushed by boulders. Calamity of Light, warping all beings caught into the flood painfully into mindless monsters deprived of aether. The list goes on: War, pestilence, torture, murder, rape, violence. He has seen it all. Nobody stood out. And then, in this one era, there is this one little WOL person that managed to withstand and even fight back. Was this the clue he was hoping for? The glimmer of hope that life can persist as it is? The complexity of this character is unmatched and it is one of the reasons that Shadowbringers is still my favorite expansion of the entire game.

Yoshida actually explained the whole thing with Emet Selch in a radio mog station broadcast (around the 30:00 - 35:00 minute mark) where they were talking EW spoilers; a lot of people thought that Emet was brought back in EW because of fan service but it was planned since ShB. Elpis Emet is the "pure" Emet whereas after experiencing the Final Days, tried to love the new people, or rather, only fragments of the people he loved, of the sundered world and ended up being betrayed many times resulted in the ShB Emet. The same reason why Elidibus was only absorbed in 5.3 and his aether was not destroyed is because the writers needed a way for us to get to Elpis and Elidibus was the one who was given that role long before EW released. P.S. Completely irrelevant to the text above, the reason why Krile is not in the EW art with all of the scions is because Yoshida didn't notice she was missing in his sketch when ordering the artwork and when he noticed that she was missing, it was to late. xD

The writers deserve awards above those of mere gaming awards for this story. Emet is flawed, complex, and beautiful. Doesn't get much more relatable than that.

I feel like there was still some bad blood between Emet-Selch and Azem when Zodiark was summoned. Mostly in the fact that the title of "traitor" in Garlean is Latin for "traveler".

Just speculation, but one thing that might have dampened E-S's enthusiasm for rejoinings was the corruption of the 13th. That's one shard worth of souls permanently destroyed. His people could never be truly complete again. Zodiark could never be truly complete again. Even if every other shard was rejoined there's no guarantee that the people would be the same, or that Zodiark would have the power to fix everything again. More likely than not his entire quest was doomed, but he was compelled to keep at it anyway. Facing down another ten thousand years of committing mass murder with no reason to believe the reward he sought was still attainable. That would wear anyone down.

I find it really interesting that Hades is a perfect parallel to G'raha Tia : Both are soft boys turned cloaked and stoic immortal beings, both recreate the image of their home in a world that feels foreign to them (the Amaurote illusion and the Garlemald empire on one side and Cristarium on the other, the latter being a recreation of Sharlayan from Raha's memories), and both keep struggling across generations - and slowly lose themselves in the process - to bring back the time where their beloved friend and hero was alive (that hero being the same person in both cases, although the WoL is like 8-9/14ths of Azem). You can really tell that behind the scheming and attitude, Hades is just a sad and lonely guy that's desperate and willing to sacrifice anything just to see his hero again, and I think that if G'raha Tia had gone on to live as the Crystal Exarch without success for as long as Hades has been Emet-Selch, he would've turned to despair as well.

hate on time travel all you want. Elpsis was great. as for Emet him self. or Hades rather. I'd never even considered part of him being so burnt out and done with the Rejoinings was his regular killing of Azem. It makes sense now that it's brought up, as I recall a lot of his lines on 'worth Stuarts of the star' being more focused on 'what he lost' in terms of his friends.

His last words brought me to tears. He's a horrible person, but you saw what drove him to such horrors. Remember... Remember us... Remember that we lived. He did not want the Ascians, his friends, to be forgotten. They will not be. They created such devastation and horror. They will never be forgiven. But it is good to understand him, at the very least, a little better.

Honestly EW just showed us a slightly "happier" Emet who is still the sarcastic grump but he shows us his kindness, the life he lived with his friends, the reason he was fighting so hard for so long for the rejoining. It drove home the bitter-sweetness of his story, really the entire story, of hydaelyn, zodiark and everyone else. On a different not,e did anyone kinda laugh at the Emet/Hythlo CS at the end in ultima-thul? Hythlo is being all dramatic and like flourishing his arms about while mono-logging and it's like "best boi you cant do any creation magic!" Emet is probably over there a bit embarrassed rolling his eyes.

I'd never thought about the fact that he may have realised he was killing a friend over and over. Though really you have to wonder if a person sundered and a person reincarnated are really even equivalent. There was a sundered Azem long ago but they died and were reincarnated . A succession of people that shared their soul were born from it fall making their own memories and each becoming their own person. A person is as much their memories as they are their soul - perhaps more so. This means that even if Emet really was driven by the desire to reunite with one of his closest friends it was a hope that was doomed to fail from the start , the warrior of light is not Azem - they're a new person writing a new story and borrowing the same soul Azem once borrowed themselves to do so. No matter how many rejoicings that soul has or will go through Azem will never be brought back. At best assuming he planned to use the Azem crystal to give Azems soul to their current reincarnation they'd get a new person that can also remember Azem's life and there is no telling how that person could take this, best case scenario, by the time they're done rejoining all the worlds you might get a person similar enough to the person azem once was that hasn't suffered so much that they develop any major issues, your middle ground might be someone like our own warriors of light who clearly have baggage but seem at least better at keeping afloat than someone like ardbert who coincidentally was ripped from the same cloth as well and we had better hope ardbert is the worst case scenario. Imagine what someone who can fully remember the final days and - the possibility of a remembered failure to save his people coupled with early shadowbringers ardbert who had failed and failed and failed again to save his world and was rewarded for their good deeds by becoming the reason their world fell. That could easily break a person. now onto the hurting his friend over and over again part, they'd absolutely need to cause significant suffering to practically everyone that was sundered enough times to rejoin all the worlds but that's not the half of it. Emet would have to aid in the rise and fall of civilisations - empires. how many wars- battles the causes and their consequences did he set up and work towards? how many orphans starved on the street only to be reborn again into an equally bleak life because of the wars and injustices he would have had to encourage. given the fact that he knew he was doing this it's no wonder he said the sundered aren't truely alive because to admit otherwise would be to admit the magnitude of the crime he committed on the people he had lived amongst for so long.

I’m a sucker for antagonists that accompany you throughout the game

I didn't realize how much Emet-Selch was hurting. I started in ShB and kinda burned through the storyline so it was nice to hear some details I missed!

FFXIV story = Hades (Emet-Selch) redemption. One the many reasons why I love FFXIV...is Emet. The complexity and depth of his characterization is an epic tale. I appreciate your POV.

My hope is that at some point in FFXIV, no matter in which expansion, we are able to see Emet, Hyth and Azem again. Together, as Emet wanted. Or at least being able to see them in a more happy context.

You mentioned that Emet-Selch lost his motivation. Perhaps. But, I think he turned to the fail safe of the true failing of the Ancients....DUTY with little consideration of anything else. This is apparent when Hythlodaues tells us of the various reworkings of the Shark by concept submitters. Bizarre constructs that ironically reflect the perverted amusements that Amon created to entertain the subjects (another failed civilization). We see this to a greater extent with Elidibus. It was civilization in decline having little diversification or passion. Hydaelyn recognized this when she points out that there need be shade in every paradise. Emet-Selch (the position) seems to be akin to Human Resources. He recruits to fill positions on the Convocation. We saw that with Hermes, and then with Amon. He even presents us with our duty at the end of Endwalker. My take on Emet-Selch is that he is torn on some level. He's angry at the end of Shadowbringers because subconsciously I think he knows he is wrong, and that all this time and effort was for naught and is running on fumes (duty). I think the biggest tell is when he says , "If I kill you I don't consider it to be murder, because I don't recognize you as being alive." Yet, to kill something...it MUST be alive. He contradicts himself in that very statement. He's further lost and angry in consideration of the Scions who reflect the best of us. Instead of debate, he passes it off as sophistry. But, internally, he's crushed.

"Endwalker nonsense"? What nonsense? I loved him in Shb and EW, and I haven't really heard anyone complain about how he is in EW. What am I missing here?

I've done of lore for warhammer, and it's gotten me thinking of doing vids for other games, specifically the music of 14, and more specific then that the songs "who brings shadow" and "to the edge", and how they're masterpieces of story telling music composition

It's not that he wanted to stop, It's that he wanted it all to end, his suffering, the loss of it all. He wanted his painful journey to finally end.

I really got interested in him at the end of Stormblood... it was the music in the cutscene, Bedlam's Brink that caught my attentio and made me pay attention to the scene and having him come back was just the gift that kept on giving.

I considered Hades to be a tragic broken man who had lost in the people he once called his own. Also considering what we learned end walker Ancient summoning magic didn’t temper it tempering was a modification of summoning to make rejoinings easier as it was intention to assimilate one into one’s faith. The last of the unsundered simply went insane as anyone in their circumstances would

Man I always love your videos

One of my favourite things about how Emet-Selch is written is... the dual meanings in his speech in the Capitol lobby (or at least the ones I saw in it, which... it's all subjective opinion in the end) Throughout the story, he seeks you out when you're alone to talk to you, and those are the moments when he's the most sincere, emotionally. (He never lies, but there are degrees to how guarded he is). But that speech... he's going between being the genocidal villain that the Scions expect, and want, him to be... and *asking* you, his friend, to kill him. That "Look at me!" line really stood out to me because... behind it, I just see someone who *knows* what he's become, knows he's in for another eternity of misery, and... yeah, wants to stop. But can't, literally does not have enough free will to stop. He tells you he's tempered, and by this point everyone knows what being tempered means. So he turns to the one person he can trust. Or what's left of them. And hopes that they can still hear him.

Personally, while i think the thought may have crossed his mind that he was killing our lives. He also fealt we were incomplete. That we werent ourselves. I may be wrong, but if i recall correctly, he said something along those lines. And he had to follow along with his plan, and be held down with such a burden for so long. It broke him. He lost his family and friends. And had only went half way through with the plan they had. I see him as a broken man. A man who has done all he can to relive an unobtainable past. and thats one of the reasons i love his character. You see why he does what he does, You understand some of the things that he says. He may not be in the right at the end of the day, But you understand. You understand Him, The why's, The what's. And that i think, is what matters. Its not always black and white. And to have such a multifaceted character was amazing.

This is why I love you content not only to Learn the lore of the game I love but now you are Teaching me something I didn't realize and I think you for it❤

Why I love Shadowbringers: Emet-Selch. Why I wanted to stay in Elpis: Emet-Selch. Why I want an AU where Hades is part of the Scions so I can romance him....

Well done. I've never even considered things this deeply. It just makes a great character all the better. In my opinion, one of the best antagonist and all of fiction.

One of the things id like to hear your thoughts on is this. We know at this point, that Hades has now since returned to the Aetherial Sea. One day he shall be back. Well his soul will be anyway. How do you think coming back with an Unsundered soul would affect his new life. And as a side note. I feel this question would extend to all those who gave their life to Zodiark. SInce we were able to summon Hythlodaeus, it to me means that his soul was in the Sea. So it stands to reason that the others would be too. If this is the case, In the near distant future, we are gonna run into souls who potentially have the capabilities of the Ancients.

Very indepth video! Some of the things you mention I wasn't aware of or had forgotten. I loved him instantly but didn't know why. I guess because I was Azem. :)

hands down one of my favorite characters

He's also been in love a few times, since he did love Solus' son.

As I walked in the recreation of Amaurot, a city I never knew but felt achingly familiar, I understood. This was a man that did not want to upend good for evil, light for dark. He was a man that sought to restore his home. His live. His life. As I talked to a new old friend, I knew his weight and I understood why. And yet I knew he had to be stopped. He was a man consumed and far more clever and dangerous than Archduke Thordan, or Nidhogg, or a god-infused Xenos. With the Exarch he had the path to upend everything and reduce all life to his will. Such a man as Hades would win in perpetuity, and that would lead to the death of all things and any other plot against the Aciams. I wanted to count Hades as a friend. I’m another life, perhaps we could have. But now, in the ends of this world only one truth held: Emet-Selch must die. Each step was heavy and hollow as I slow walked to the capital and faced this: our final conclusion.

The best way I heard it put is, both Hades, and another whom we fight in Endwalker, both fights are essentially an Ancient telling you, “Prove to me that you are strong enough to relieve me of my burden.”

What always gets me is his reaction to Alisaie's speech in 'Amaurot'. He agrees. He looks down and away, and shows *a moment* of hesitation in striking her away.

It's a fine theory, but it's unlikely he's bothered much by killed the shards of Azem. He views not only the sundered plebs with contempt, but even the sundered convocation members as well. Even Mitron admits that Emet Selch didn't care about him enough to bother going through the trouble of saving him from where he was trapped on the 1st as it'd be less effort to just leave his shard to rot and raise another one of his shards to his seat instead. An Emet Selch that cares about his sundered peers would have moved mountains to save him, no matter how much of a bother it was.

I doubt Emet-Selch realized the WOL was Azem until his cutscene of surprise at the end, but I suppose that is irrelevant because he would know what he was doing to that soul regardless. It is interesting to think of how Emet might have grown to hate the pain a rejoined soul might still carry and the thought of him worrying on if he could be forgiven should he succeed.

Hades is such a wonderful character, even though he was our enemy for so long, I came to view him as, almost a friend.. I think, the same kind of friendship, that Zenos saw in the WoL. Extraordinary writing

Gosh... are you trying to make me cry? 😪

He lived a thousand thousand of our lives... this would suggest several millions of years.

There’s sign of Halone as well as the sign on the shield on Adventurer Guild banner on his palms for some reasons….

Great perspective of him been trying to cause a calamity for 9000yrs. That’s pretty wild 😧

One theory I really like is that one of the things that really broke Emmet-selch was the fact that we were broken before the power of the light... And then suddenly, in a flash of light and force, stood up to our full height and challenged him, and won. We rejoined with ardbert of our own free will, from a mutual agreement between the fragments of the same soul, and proved that all of his crimes were for nothing. One of the easiest ways for a person like Hades to justify crimes against humanity is through the idea that "there is no other way." Hades truly believed that the rejoinings were the only way to make ethiris whole again, so even if his conscious was screaming at him about all the lives he was exterminating and torturing with every rejoining, he resigned himself to the shelter of his duty and told himself that it was the only way to see the world and his people restored. But then we challenged him, and proved that he was wrong the whole time. There was another way the entire time, we just proved it right before his eyes, we rejoined ourselves without committing a genocide in the process. Which is why he's happy when he dies, because we just proved to him that the world is in good hands. Hands that are probably better suited for sheparding the star than his. Because we were able to find a way to restore the world and its people without destroying billions of lives in the process. We found a way to restore the people, and have the people genuinely happy for the experience. We had proven him wrong, and he had never been more happy to *be* wrong.

HeavensWard's MSQ wrecked me ... and so did ShadowBringers >.< ... I haven't done EndWalker Yet ... I will soon

I can't watch cause I've never met this guy in game, so uh . . . Yeah. My mom did not sign the permission slip for this feels trip

you going to cover emet again after they release the next encyclopedia?

I wouldn't call his part in Endwalker nonsense, Endwalker was amazing and Emet was absolutely incredible throughout.

Do we know for sure that the ascians were tempered by zodiark ? I thought Souls of the caliber of emeth selch or elidibus were above that, especially considering that they weren’t trying to grow and perpetuate their primal like normal tempered, more in the contrary they were using it as a mean to get back the paradise of they lost civilization.

I’ve seen this many times that zodiark tempered the unsundered ascians but where was this confirmed or implied. As far as I know in Endwalker they said it was the ascians that invented tempering for the beast tribe primal. Can someone point me to a source please?

there is also the brutal honest fact that they admitted they messed up the 13th world, as in even if the rest of the shards all rejoined according to plan, in the end their wish would never come true, it'd only be 12/13 pieces at max

You also have to respect a man who can snap his fingers with gloves on. That is not easy.

Lol just brushing off emet's part to play in ew is a little harsh. If its the time travel i mean at least they tied it up so it didnt ruin the story. And elpis was prolly the most interesting part of the whole expansion so im cool with it. Emet being at the forefront of an investigation he doesnt believe was a really great way to show his character. Of course its not the height of his character but he had his time to shine now he was there to give us familiarity in an alien place.

It makes you wonder, though. See, the names "Azem", "Emmet-Selch", "Lahabrea", aren't personal names, they're titles of office. Like, Venat was "Azem" before the person who the WoL is supposed to resemble. So, how would Emmet-Selch know his friend from the person the WoL resembles, or Venat? How do we know the Lahabrea we meet in Pandaemonium and Erichthonio's father isn't the same Lahabrea we fight with after the Ultima Weapon?

One thing I love pointing out when people talk about how bad Emet Selch was, was that G'raha and the Iron Works team were no better. They intended their timeline to disappear. A time line which existed for a further 200 years. 200 of years of lives and the rebuilding of civilization wiped out because they wanted to remake the world the way it used to be because they saw it as a morally better world. I'm glad we got the short story showing they were wrong, but that was in no way their intention. Its 200 years vs 12000 years, makes you realise that for the Ascians at first they probably thought the same was Iron Works did

Re: tempered ascians. Can we even still claim that considering what we now know about the summoning of primals? Namely that what we know as tempering primals are just flawed/modified versions of actual primal summons. Implying that summons in general aren't tempering as a basic instinct, considering the ascians had to teach the beast tribes how to summon, and they taught them to summon *specifically* the tempering kind.

I hope we see Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus again, sooner rather than later. "If not in this life, then maybe another."

So If/When Hades and Hythlodeus reincarnate will they be able to do creation magic since their souls weren't sundered?

When did it mention he was tempered by zodiark…i thought the tempering only happened to the later primals due to the ascians teaching us the wrong way to summon on purpose

I don’t know how people can not like Emet in all honesty he is the best

I miss him, bros...

Lyse wasn’t even a one note character

Emet-Selch did nothing wrong. I said it.

100% disagrees with your view on EW, but its a very good in depth video regardless :)

2:20 ''But before we move forward, I want it to be known that i'm gonna address this character without all the Endwalker nonsense that involve Emet-Selch. And anyone who has played the expansion, you know exactly what I mean'' What none sense? I've played Endwalker and I don't even have the slightest clue what you mean. Can you or someone perhaps care to explain?

One thing I don’t get - why are all the regular people in the reflections the antithesis of the ancients? They’re all a portion of the soul of an original ancient, why don’t they share any of the views and values of the ancients? The WOL comes close but they are just one person. Their society does not reflect that of the ancients at all. It reminds me of Genesis where an “original sin” has corrupted everyone and made them subject to death, and the only way to be made whole is come “come back” to the source, God, whatever you want to call it. I also don’t understand what makes the ascians believe that everyone will suddenly behave like ancient when they are made whole.

for the love of god let me come fix your house. this.... this hurts me.

I wonder how much of his plan was his own, and how much was Zodiark's tempering compelling him.

And this is why you can't look at it in a vacuum. Yes, if you take EW out of the equation, what you say makes sense, but the fact that even afterwards, he believed that his way was the right one, shows that he wasn't tempered by Zodiark, he truly believed in it. Which is a big reason why he refuses to be brought back, the world we cherish is not the world he loved. He did truly belief in his cause, but that doesn't mean that he wasn't exhausted, two things can be true at the same time. He did not regret his actions, he regret having to leave Elidibus behind, who in the grand scheme of the ancients was basically a child... A lost, confused child who was all alone and left with a momentous task, the weight that Hades had to hold for so long... so he helped us put him to rest. And let us not pretend like their plans had no merit at all, considering that Emet's evaluation of us was correct, we are weak, we are petty, we are monstrous beasts, most of which would rather stab each other in the back then sacrifice themselves for the other, We and the Scions and our friends are the exceptions to this rule. Heck, even the Grand Companies were guilty of this until we came along and hand-held them to the correct conclusions. And if not for them, we would have not even been able to STALL the Final Days, we all would have perished had simply Elidibus or Hades told us to go fuck ourselves... which they had every right to. 'You think yourself worthy to replace us, to become the true stewards of the star? Then deal with the Final Days the way we had to, blind. Figure it out on your own.'

I regret to inform you that the feeling is not mutual, mortal.

"Remember us." "I will." "I will remember the folly of you and yours." "I will remember the deaths. The potentially billions of innocent people you subjugated, enslaved... the people you murdered." "I will remember the blood on your hands, red as the mask you hide behind. A stain for each star you destroyed." "I will remember how you and your ILK were too frightened, too insecure to face the fact! That when all was said and done, your high and mighty civilization destroyed itself!" "I will remember, and I will see to it *personally* that our history makes no mention of yours." "I will bear the *burden* of this knowledge alone, so no one else has to." "I will be glad to know that my death will mark the end of your people's story." "Now, join your brothers in oblivion... and be forgotten." When that scene played out before my eyes in Shadowbringers, I had to pause it and say my piece. I remember thinking that Emet and it's brethren could have put their vaunted power and knowledge to GOOD use. To help the new worlds thrive, but instead they killed so many. Such a waste. All of the above was my sentiment then... and after Endwalker, it is *still* the way I feel. Back then, I had suspected that the Ancients destroyed themselves, and it was gratifying in a macabre sort of way, to find that I was right. The Ancients' callous disregard for the sanctity of life lead one of their own to create the means of their civilization's end... Oh, and not JUST their own end, but their creation brought about the end of almost all life in EXISTENCE! As far as the supposed "friendship" that Emet had with Azem... I just don't see it. Emet and it's enabler, Hythlodeus weren't at all the kind of creatures that I would associate myself with. Emet's foul attitude, flippant remarks about the animals in Elpis, Hythlodeus' constant defending and excusing his friend's behavior-- The whole dynamic between the two was jarring and seemed more like an abusive relationship more than anything. I get that some people might find that endearing, but frankly... I found them both insufferable. Indeed, thanks to the way their "friendship" was portrayed in-game, my Azem (Baphomet) was always going off to other places around the globe, not *entirely* because of his position, but just to stay the hell away from.... those two. In this character, I see a beautifully written, *masterfully* performed (Wow, these facts cannot be understated. Well done, Rene Zagger!), but still very much, horrific monster. It gets no sympathy from me. It gets no redemption. It deserves no happy ending. It is simply, *the best villain* ever written for a Final Fantasy game. A monster with a diseased mind that must be put down in a most brutal fashion. And that makes me very happy. *That* is what I enjoy about Emet-Selch. :-)

Yea... that was a lot of BS... sorry

You lost me at EW hades "nonsense" and "bad". What?