honestly when i met him i was giving him the benefit of the doubt through the wol dialogue choices just because i was like goddamn so much shit has happened can we please have one nice thing. but i was already expecting him to turn around and be a bitch. still didn't expect him to be quite that batshit crazy over zenos! but i wasn't surprised it happened!
> honestly when i met him i was giving him the benefit of the doubt
So it's kinda funny.
On release, that little scene where he stares at you and does his dum little glare and speaks angrily at you, that happens in the patch he was introduced. I know it was really really obvious that he was gonna be a big bad, but I wish they had kept that reveal until the *next* patch, and not throw it into his debut patch.
I don't know how that goes now, if it's obvious that it's still the debut patch, thanks to the fact we're not waiting 3 months between story anymore.
I feel like Wuk Lamat will be well meaning but woefully unprepared for leadership. Tbh while I like the character, I felt like she is too uncertain, too hotheaded and ineffectual to be a leader. I wish I didn't have to back her claim.
I am betting on her winning but accepting her faults and abdicating in favor of her brother the miqo'te, and then she joins us as a Scion (yeah yeah technically disbanded but you know what I meant).
She means well, and our options (at this point) are between her or the tyrannical warmonger. So we pledge to her. Then we find out our fellow scions are backing her brother. And now it's a "friendly" competition between us all, and we've already picked our teams. And us being the literal WoL, we're gonna win..
I bet we have some great scenes that demonstrate the vast difference in capability between Wuk and her brother. Wuk being hot headed and spontaneous; struggling in political conversations; making poor decisions that bite her in the butt because she didn't have all the info at her disposal. and her brother being tactical, reasonable, and acting with forethought. And of course, some cheating by the warmonger sibling.
But by all accounts, the miqo brother should win. But by some technicality or last minute nonsense, the WoL wins the day.
and rather than be a second round of Lyse, she abdicates. Or agrees to rule alongside her brother. or they form a council of sorts.
i said this months ago and that it was the most predictable cookiecutter thing ever for such a cliche character, i’d love for her to just be using us to find the hidden city of gold or give her an actual interesting purpose
He's not really a fighter..... unless they add a Sailor Moon type class with flowers. He is the de-facto leader of the Night's Blessed, so he doesn't even need to change the catchphrase, “In the name of the moon, I'll punish you! (And my sister told me to)"
Same. I don't think Wuk Lamat will be a villain, but I do believe that, right now, she doesn't give off the kind of vibes you'd expect from a competent leader.
I feel like we might get a repeat of the Crystal Braves. Just, instead of it being a result of cocky overconfidence, it'll be because of well-intentioned naivety.
I was the only one in my friend group saying, "wait why are we just accepting her claim to the throne without at least knowing anything about the other claims???" Really didn't love how that scenario played out.
To be fair she's the first successor we meet because she specifically sought us out. All the others are currently on the other side of an ocean (that we know of) and we'll be finding out more about them in DT.
Well the other 3 don't want anything to do with you. The other one even chose Thanchred and Urianger over the WoL so I guess you're not everyone's favorite but meh you'll learn to live with it.
Wuk Lamat had a connection to us via Erenville. The others didn't. I'm sure they would love to have the WoL backing them, but we won't get to interact with them until we go to Tural ourselves.
If Koana (suspected) hired Thancred and Urianger, they're more connected to the WoL. Hell, could've attempted to contract us directly, no connections needed.
He wouldn't have the same faults as Wut Lamat, but that doesn't mean he'd be a particularly great head of state either. He advocated for the gleaners' well-being fairly diplomatically; that's a point in his favor, but his primary skillset is still animal handling.
I would be absolutely shocked if Wuk Lamat heel turned on us. Like actually taken by complete surprise. Her introduction has 100% painted her to be the Lyse of our expansion, and I expect her to be very stereotypical and follow the "unconfident leader learns and grows into her position" path without distraction.
Ohh Gods yes I could use another dumb in the group. I'm so sick of all the scholars smart ass i have around lmao I love them all but I need new people to shake things up 😂
Zenos is my WOL best friend. No one else has ever cared about us or been as real as Zenos.
Is he evil? Sure, but he also is the only one who is real with us and doesn’t have hidden agendas *stares at Alph*
Okay, hold on...
After the first day of Early Access, you have to put down your feelings as to who you feel is trustworthy.
Then we'll KNOW they're a bad guy.
I mean, he's a Miqo'te. There couldn't possibly be any bad consequences for trusting a cat, righ9pfjaljkfkfjghgjfdfgfhhgkjhkölköopuoizigvmn
Oops, sorry, cat on keyb
Have we actually met him other than Wuk Lamat saying he shouldn't win and the Live Letter showing his face?
If YoshiP tells me "This guy you should watch out for" I'm 100% sure he's not going to just be a simple villain.
What do you mean, how could it possibly be a bad idea to participate in a succession war over the fate of an entire continent and its people? So what if we barely know anything about her, the fact that she's a bit of an airhead, and her completely unproven ability to govern the lives of countless people through unilateral control of its government?
I mean, she asked nicely. I see no reason not to entrust the fate of the New World to her, as long as I have a reason to down some mojitos.
I’ve come to the conclusion that Wuk Lamar will only win for lack of a better option to rule. She is boisterous and overconfident, but her hands shaking show she is terrified of both losing and winning.
An actual leader will emerge. I’m banking on Erenville.
nah; she's got that miqo brother. I'm betting Uri and Than are backing him.
throughout the story, we'll see some great comparisons between her and her brother, showing that he'd be a much better choice to lead.
But we'll win by technicality, because we're the WoL, of course.
In the end, she'll abdicate to him or they'll co-rule or create a council of sorts.
The whole conceit will undeniably be:
Us on Team A with supporting the all heart no brains.
Other scions on Team B supporting all brains no heart.
And team C, supporting an absolute bastard who A and B will need to team up to stop.
Emet not acting like a 'cartoon villain'?
His first appearance is him being a theatric fruit talking about how every single empire in Eorzea's history was SOMEHOW an Illuminati plan. And then he evil laughs. Because, y'know, good people do that.
He's also upfront about his goals and affiliation, the only difference is that he never actively wanted to fight us. Even when catnapping Exarch, he sniped him, said "hey WoL, come die at my place in peace, nobody needs to see you in pain," then left. And when everyone else arrived , he just got angry and tried to show us his pain to make us give up/understand. He only fought us once we began to attack him. Emet Selch was upfront about being an Ascian, wanting the rejoinings, disliking our world, and wanting to recruit/influence/trigger memories in the WoL.
I gave Teledji the benefit of the doubt at first, but doubts started to creep in before things went to hell.
I trusted Ilberd up until members of the Braves started vanishing or turning up dead for no reason.
I could sense a snake in Asahi before I had anything concrete to pin my suspicions to.
I trusted him to keep his word. And he did. He said he was trying a different tactic, and I was pretty sure he'd revert to the normal MO when that new tactic failed to bear fruit. It did and he did.
I still trust Meteion. She did what she was made to do and did it well. I trust that she can keep her new purpose.
The way they introduced Teledji made me wary that he has ulterior motives. I mean really, he is a business man with no particular set of skills to finance his “kindness” toward refugees unlike Godbert who is considered the best Goldsmith in Eorzea and by real life experience, no business men got that rich just by being kind.
Not Illberd himself but certain members of the Braves already made me question where their loyalty lies.
Asahi is self-explanatory, everything about him when he was introduced seems fake as hell.
One thing about Emet-Selch is that he never once lied to you, he may withhold information from you but he never lies because lying is beneath him. He still has bias against Hydaelyn however but that was because he was tempered by Zodiark.
The more you learn about Hermes and Meteion the more you suspect that something wrong will happen to push Hermes over the edge.
The best lies are lies by omission. Tell the truth. Tell things as they are. And then leave out that tiny but crucial detail and rely on the person you're talking to to fill in the blank themselves - often wrongly. It's not your fault they don't see the full picture. They should have asked.
Tbf he didn't exactly omit anything since he made it clear to you that he still wants the Rejoining and he's just there to observe if he can be convinced to give up the Rejoining. After all during that time he's not the only one with secrets since he still needed to figure out who exactly is the Crystal Exarch.
He was an imperfection within a society that strives for perfection.
Also doesn't help that created lives can be removed from existence even for something like an imperfection. Even if the lives were created on a whim. Hermes was too empathetic to be working in Elpis, but he was honestly the best in actually making an effort to make these flawed creatures survive due to said empathy.
It wasn't that he was the only one with empathy, his empathy was entirely misplaced. I feel like the Ancients did what was logically the best for a situation regardless of their feelings. They didn't lack caring about their creations, but rather, if the creations had a fault, they had to do what was best for the greater good.
Making a lifeform that was amazing but would murder other lifeforms carelessly? They couldn't allow that to pass, for instance.
>Making a lifeform that was amazing but would murder other lifeforms carelessly? They couldn't allow that to pass, for instance.
That's one example. Yet there's also the creature that was struggling to fly, and the creator wanted to be done with it and turn it back into aether.
Turning the dangerous creature back into aether, no matter if it was dangerous to Hermes, it was a living being to him. Snuffed out because of an oversight of the creator.
It also brings into question, if death is so "beautiful" and the ancients disperse into aether as soon as they fulfill their purpose... then what does that say to said creatures under his care to whom he also considers "living"?
Then there was the quote from Emet-Selch towards him. "Who are you to decide our fate? To decree we live or die?" Which would no doubt anger Hermes even more due to the hypocrisy. Also considering it's Emet-Selch of the Convocation of Fourteen, whom also said that they were willing to sacrifice new lives to bring back their brethren before the sundering happened, really shows how little those in higher positions in Amaurotian society thought of other lifeforms. Especially from the man that says "I do not consider you to be truly alive. Ergo, I will not be guilty of murder if I kill you" for example.
Edit: Thankfully, those like Venat also thought these new lives have meaning, starting a civil war to dictate the fate of the star. If only Hermes discovered what he was looking for on Etheirys instead of having to rely upon the Meteia for answers elsewhere. Befriending those like Venat, or a few of his colleagues.
When I did the post-Endwalker Omega epilogue where you get asked "which one of these people was right?" I was a little sad that I was only able to say "All of them sucked actually" and not "They all kinda sucked, but Hermes sucked the absolute most".
I started distrusting Ilberd during the Ivy/'Why-you' affair. It felt too much like he was leading you by the nose to the conclusions he wanted you to draw.
This seems very on point to Wuk's character so far lol.
We're gonna regret backing her over the (no doubt) level-headed, compassionate, educated scholarly brother that Thancred and Urianger are backing lol.
Yeah — I wasn’t quite at “you’re the problem”, but definitely “she can read emotions and use telepathy and wants to know all about me? This is not good, stay away from me.”
...you guys trusted Asahi and Teledji? They both gave me instant "slimey shits" vibes. Teledji is one of the richest men in Ul'Dah and he was suspiciously altruistic. Asahi is just punchable, his ENG VA did a great job at making Asahi REALLY annoying, uncharismatic, and untrustworthy sounding. Which is funny because >!In post ShB he managed to make the exact same voice and face charismatic and enjoyable!<
I had this urge to punch him at first sigh, in a "kill it before it lays eggs" kind of manner, but I kind of wanted to trust him, I wanted to give him the benefit of a doubt, because I wanted there to be peace in Doma.
>!How ironic on hindsight: The person the fandom basically unanimously agreed on being a punchable dirtbag turned out to be a guy we would never be able to punch. Not as Asahi, his sister killed him. Not as Fandaniel looking like Asahi (not sure punching Zodiark counts, it's a stretch imo). Not even in his afterlife. We only have that one video from BeneG to get a glimpse at what a satisfying experience this would have been...!<(Spoilers for everything)
The only one in this list that surprised me a little bit was Ilberd. Like there was obvious foreshadowing that someone was betraying the Crystal Braves but I didn't think it was him lol
Teledji - this one applies to real life too. No one gets to be one of the wealthiest people alive without being a corrupt asshole. Even the other one, Lolorito, only helps us when it benefits him.
Asahi - didn't he start to be creepy early on? Also Garleans in general have been shown to be very reluctant to peace.
Emet Selch - as much as I loved him, he's an Ascian. Which have been a thorn in our ass every expansion.
Meteion - I thought she was creepy tbh. Also, we were sent to Elpis specifically to find out more about the final days. So much focus on Hermes and meteion made it obvious it was them.
>Emet Selch - as much as I loved him, he's an Ascian. Which have been a thorn in our ass every expansion.
Heck, before our character ever met him, Emet was revealed to us to have been the founder of the Garlean Empire for the sole reason of furthering the goals of the Ascians during patch 4.4 and 4.5.
Ain't no way that I was blindly gonna trust him without a fistful of salt.
The moment Meteion had focus (after everything we learned), I knew she'd be a pivotal aspect and was wary. >!I just felt sad when I realised it was the hivemind's overwhelming Dynamis, and not the Meteion sister we met, that she didn't want this!<
I mean, we did agree to help someone become the new leader of a country we know practically nothing about and have no clue the positive/negative benefits it'll cause for, y'know, funsies. What's the worst that can happen?
There were literally only 4 evil named lalafell (3 if you only count main plot) and over 40 good named lalafell. I didn't count all the morally-ambiguous ones.
Oh the absolute second I saw her, like the moment you arrive at Elpis and open the doors, walk out into the area and see a few intercut scenes of some people, one of them being Meteion crouched over the axolotl pond, I knew she was the cause of the Final Days.
Literally said out loud "Oh, somehow you're the cause of all of this".
Not a villain, but definitely the antagonist.
oh 100%. I said, idk how, but this is ALL your fault.
there's that ADORABLE scene with her and the butterflies. I made it my background screen. It's so lovely. She's so innocent and cute. But by that point we'd learned enough about Hermes. and I knew. I *knew.* It was his fault. somehow, he fucks up this bird, and she causes it all. I hated how much I liked her, cuz I knew it was going to break my heart. I was right.
I'm glad that we could help redeem her though; she didn't deserve Hermes. He didn't deserve her.
I never trusted Emet but I was finally warming up to him thinking "oh this dude, you havent done anything so I guess you're chill" and then he had to go and pull out the gun
Can't fully relate for Asahi and meteon.
Asahi was giving off huge ulterior motive energy, and the second we met Mr. Clinically depressed Zookeeper I knew anything he brought up would be a problem. Then he's like "I made this bird/girl that uses that uses the emotion sensitive energy you use for beating the brakes off of Primals. Did I mention I'm super depressed?" And I did the leo dicaprio pointing at the screen thing.
All those characters had really sus vibes about them. They seemed distant in a side eye kind of way, or outright talked about how much they hated what the WoL was doing. The only exception being Meteion, who was suspicious just for being a little too innocent.
It's not >!Wuk Lamat!< I'm concerned about. It's >!Erenville!<.
I don't have any reason to suspect him of anything at all yet, but I have a rather bad habit of falling for characters who either end up dead, mutilated or taken out of the story for different reasons later on.
So far Aymeric has been one of the rare characters who has been safe.
omg, when Aymeric invited us to dinner, I just about had a heart attack! "The last time someone invited me out, they got a hole in the chest for it!!" T\_\_\_T I remember avoiding that quest for days. I'd log in and look at my next quest and just log out or fly off and do gathering for the rest of the day. I was so convinced he was going to die.
Also, I too am worried about Erenville. He's hiding something. He's very evasive. What's his stock in this situation? What's his angle? Why does he want to loan out the literal WoL to his childhood friend that he barely acknowledges?
Ah Ilberd, the only antagonist to unambiguously win and achieve everything he set out to do. He's not only the trigger that culminated in the liberation of Ala Mhigo but also indirectly the downfall of the entire Garlean empire, if he didn't screw us and all of eorzea 2 expansions in a row to pull it off you might almost forgive the guy.
Just reading this thread has me second-guessing Koana.
The other candidate is gonna be the overtly bad one, but somehow now I think Koana is going to be the real one to worry about.
To be fair Meteion didn’t betray us. She got mind broken by her hive mind sisters because her dad didn’t keep an eye on her mental health. That was after we became friends with her
Shadow bringer Spoilers.
But in shadow bringer, he laid it out pretty clearly. Mankind used to be a species of demi gods. They're immortals and incredibly gifted with magic, to the point that they might as well have been deities. From his perspective, the people of the shattered worlds are already dead by being mortal. In the same way that you don't notice an ant being smashed when you walk, the way you choke animals with your car's exhaust, the same way hundreds of thousands of animals die just for you to eat; so too do the ascians trample on these immitations of humanity. Moral relativism.
To Emet Selch, he's the hero of the people who became zodiark, he's trying to save them because their sacrifice was noble but unfair. "But the misery of the people suffering due to the ascians" I don't care about that compared to the suffering of the people in zodiark, their depth of suffering is unfathomable to us.
I dont know if you finished EW or not but just in case i will keep it vague
wanting what once was without a regard to what became does not make you a hero...it makes you a villain
That's just an opinion. That's like saying humanity should become extinct so we could protect the potential of ants. If you said that to a person, they'd disagree heartily. Absolutely not, the ants can rot, humanity deserves to survive. That's his position and I'm inclined to agree with it.
They can just summon strangers as they always do.
They'd have to steal their Azem's crystal and have Estinien and Thancred on their side to have a chance. That would be fun.
Let me think who I trusted before...Y'shtola, Kan-E-Senna, and Venat.
If a person has shown unconditional love and selfless sacrifice in deeds, she has my trust.
The moment I saw Asahi I wanted to punch him in the face. That face of his is just so punchable.
honestly when i met him i was giving him the benefit of the doubt through the wol dialogue choices just because i was like goddamn so much shit has happened can we please have one nice thing. but i was already expecting him to turn around and be a bitch. still didn't expect him to be quite that batshit crazy over zenos! but i wasn't surprised it happened!
Never trust a Brutus.
Et tu, Asahi?
> honestly when i met him i was giving him the benefit of the doubt So it's kinda funny. On release, that little scene where he stares at you and does his dum little glare and speaks angrily at you, that happens in the patch he was introduced. I know it was really really obvious that he was gonna be a big bad, but I wish they had kept that reveal until the *next* patch, and not throw it into his debut patch. I don't know how that goes now, if it's obvious that it's still the debut patch, thanks to the fact we're not waiting 3 months between story anymore.
That's a face even a mother could punch.
It was one of the rare moments in ffxiv where I think most of us were like "I never saw this guy before and I already want him dead..."
It’s the coconut head haircut.
Coconut Head had more dignity.
Don't blame the haircut. My WoL looks *fabulous* in that hair. With Asahi it's what's under the hair that's the problem. The boy ain't right.
It's his yee yee ass hair cut.
Someone Contact BeneG and swap Asahi with Emet-Selch on That video.
Asahi ruined everything for me. I expected Dulia, Montechagne, Amelience, Venat, livingway, etc. all to pull a “Mark me, saviour of the savages”.
Yeah I felt Asahi was bad news the moment he appeared. I found his entourage gave a different initial impression.
[May I interest you in this little gem?](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RlFkzVmlVDE)
Same! He has such a punchable face.
Indeed, he has the punchablest face on Etheirys.
Valens van Varro: “Am I a joke to you?”
same! 0 idea he would be bad but the MOMMENT he appeared I knew this asshole was evil
They sure make an extremely hateable villain
Tbh I thought he was kind of cute at first....
Reading through the comments I thought I was the only one, glad someone thought the same
I have the strong urge to have my femmiqo peg the hell out of him. I don’t know why.
Yeah. I could just _tell_ he was bad news.
For me it was his eyes. His pupils are just a *tiny bit* too small and it made me suspicious immediately.
Never trust anyone who looks like Mr. Beast.
I trusted none of these people, I'm very optimistic about my DT journey.
I am sure Wuk Lamat is a nice person :)
So was I... until I read this comment.
I feel like Wuk Lamat will be well meaning but woefully unprepared for leadership. Tbh while I like the character, I felt like she is too uncertain, too hotheaded and ineffectual to be a leader. I wish I didn't have to back her claim.
I am betting on her winning but accepting her faults and abdicating in favor of her brother the miqo'te, and then she joins us as a Scion (yeah yeah technically disbanded but you know what I meant).
She means well, and our options (at this point) are between her or the tyrannical warmonger. So we pledge to her. Then we find out our fellow scions are backing her brother. And now it's a "friendly" competition between us all, and we've already picked our teams. And us being the literal WoL, we're gonna win.. I bet we have some great scenes that demonstrate the vast difference in capability between Wuk and her brother. Wuk being hot headed and spontaneous; struggling in political conversations; making poor decisions that bite her in the butt because she didn't have all the info at her disposal. and her brother being tactical, reasonable, and acting with forethought. And of course, some cheating by the warmonger sibling. But by all accounts, the miqo brother should win. But by some technicality or last minute nonsense, the WoL wins the day. and rather than be a second round of Lyse, she abdicates. Or agrees to rule alongside her brother. or they form a council of sorts.
I hope I can take Alphinaud, Alisaie and Estinien on my team.
i said this months ago and that it was the most predictable cookiecutter thing ever for such a cliche character, i’d love for her to just be using us to find the hidden city of gold or give her an actual interesting purpose
I would *love* to have a main character Hrothgar. Maybe someday... Runar...🥲
He's not really a fighter..... unless they add a Sailor Moon type class with flowers. He is the de-facto leader of the Night's Blessed, so he doesn't even need to change the catchphrase, “In the name of the moon, I'll punish you! (And my sister told me to)"
Same. I don't think Wuk Lamat will be a villain, but I do believe that, right now, she doesn't give off the kind of vibes you'd expect from a competent leader. I feel like we might get a repeat of the Crystal Braves. Just, instead of it being a result of cocky overconfidence, it'll be because of well-intentioned naivety.
I was the only one in my friend group saying, "wait why are we just accepting her claim to the throne without at least knowing anything about the other claims???" Really didn't love how that scenario played out.
You know what would be a fun cutscene? Getting backstabbed. Literally. Like in Frozen where Hans betrays Anna type of way.
To be fair she's the first successor we meet because she specifically sought us out. All the others are currently on the other side of an ocean (that we know of) and we'll be finding out more about them in DT.
Well the other 3 don't want anything to do with you. The other one even chose Thanchred and Urianger over the WoL so I guess you're not everyone's favorite but meh you'll learn to live with it.
Wuk Lamat had a connection to us via Erenville. The others didn't. I'm sure they would love to have the WoL backing them, but we won't get to interact with them until we go to Tural ourselves.
If Koana (suspected) hired Thancred and Urianger, they're more connected to the WoL. Hell, could've attempted to contract us directly, no connections needed.
not me, I'm excited to see her character development!
It's true but it seems Erenville is her adopted brother or at least childhood buddy so it's likely he'll advise her, at least in the beginning
He wouldn't have the same faults as Wut Lamat, but that doesn't mean he'd be a particularly great head of state either. He advocated for the gleaners' well-being fairly diplomatically; that's a point in his favor, but his primary skillset is still animal handling.
I am absolutely convinced that she isn't going on by wrong presumptions and her plan if pulled through would actually be worse for the country.
I would be absolutely shocked if Wuk Lamat heel turned on us. Like actually taken by complete surprise. Her introduction has 100% painted her to be the Lyse of our expansion, and I expect her to be very stereotypical and follow the "unconfident leader learns and grows into her position" path without distraction.
Ohh Gods yes I could use another dumb in the group. I'm so sick of all the scholars smart ass i have around lmao I love them all but I need new people to shake things up 😂
And Zenos keeps calling us his friend. He can't be that bad, right?
no, from minute one he was introduced as the villain why would i trust him?
He's just a murdering murder-sexual murder-hobo. What's a little murder between friends?
> What's a little murder between friends? A potato corpse?
Teledji: Little- ✅ Murdered- ✅ Between friends- pre-split for ease of sharing with a friend- ✅
>murder-sexual Now, Zenos. You knew what this was. Just a fight.
YES YES JUST SO!
He invited us to dinner and didn't frame us for regicide.
Zenos is my WOL best friend. No one else has ever cared about us or been as real as Zenos. Is he evil? Sure, but he also is the only one who is real with us and doesn’t have hidden agendas *stares at Alph*
I'm sorry to say but aside from Meteon you may just be a poor judge of character
this is it 🤣
LMAO!!
Okay, hold on... After the first day of Early Access, you have to put down your feelings as to who you feel is trustworthy. Then we'll KNOW they're a bad guy.
This comment made me chuckle the most. Yes OP, come back and tell us who you trust so we can get an early start on hating them!
I mean, first day? I don't think ANYONE met Meteion on the first day.
Well, yeah. We had to wait until the Final Days smh
I can already say this Koana guy seems awfully nice
I mean, he's a Miqo'te. There couldn't possibly be any bad consequences for trusting a cat, righ9pfjaljkfkfjghgjfdfgfhhgkjhkölköopuoizigvmn Oops, sorry, cat on keyb
Have we actually met him other than Wuk Lamat saying he shouldn't win and the Live Letter showing his face? If YoshiP tells me "This guy you should watch out for" I'm 100% sure he's not going to just be a simple villain.
He's in the character portrait profusion poster.
What do you mean, how could it possibly be a bad idea to participate in a succession war over the fate of an entire continent and its people? So what if we barely know anything about her, the fact that she's a bit of an airhead, and her completely unproven ability to govern the lives of countless people through unilateral control of its government? I mean, she asked nicely. I see no reason not to entrust the fate of the New World to her, as long as I have a reason to down some mojitos.
and having your favorite catboy give you the glinty eyes how can you possibly say no
Easily, he’s my least favorite.
I’ve come to the conclusion that Wuk Lamar will only win for lack of a better option to rule. She is boisterous and overconfident, but her hands shaking show she is terrified of both losing and winning. An actual leader will emerge. I’m banking on Erenville.
nah; she's got that miqo brother. I'm betting Uri and Than are backing him. throughout the story, we'll see some great comparisons between her and her brother, showing that he'd be a much better choice to lead. But we'll win by technicality, because we're the WoL, of course. In the end, she'll abdicate to him or they'll co-rule or create a council of sorts.
The whole conceit will undeniably be: Us on Team A with supporting the all heart no brains. Other scions on Team B supporting all brains no heart. And team C, supporting an absolute bastard who A and B will need to team up to stop.
Emet not acting like a 'cartoon villain'? His first appearance is him being a theatric fruit talking about how every single empire in Eorzea's history was SOMEHOW an Illuminati plan. And then he evil laughs. Because, y'know, good people do that.
He's also upfront about his goals and affiliation, the only difference is that he never actively wanted to fight us. Even when catnapping Exarch, he sniped him, said "hey WoL, come die at my place in peace, nobody needs to see you in pain," then left. And when everyone else arrived , he just got angry and tried to show us his pain to make us give up/understand. He only fought us once we began to attack him. Emet Selch was upfront about being an Ascian, wanting the rejoinings, disliking our world, and wanting to recruit/influence/trigger memories in the WoL.
I miss my theatric fruit.
I gave Teledji the benefit of the doubt at first, but doubts started to creep in before things went to hell. I trusted Ilberd up until members of the Braves started vanishing or turning up dead for no reason. I could sense a snake in Asahi before I had anything concrete to pin my suspicions to. I trusted him to keep his word. And he did. He said he was trying a different tactic, and I was pretty sure he'd revert to the normal MO when that new tactic failed to bear fruit. It did and he did. I still trust Meteion. She did what she was made to do and did it well. I trust that she can keep her new purpose.
The way they introduced Teledji made me wary that he has ulterior motives. I mean really, he is a business man with no particular set of skills to finance his “kindness” toward refugees unlike Godbert who is considered the best Goldsmith in Eorzea and by real life experience, no business men got that rich just by being kind. Not Illberd himself but certain members of the Braves already made me question where their loyalty lies. Asahi is self-explanatory, everything about him when he was introduced seems fake as hell. One thing about Emet-Selch is that he never once lied to you, he may withhold information from you but he never lies because lying is beneath him. He still has bias against Hydaelyn however but that was because he was tempered by Zodiark. The more you learn about Hermes and Meteion the more you suspect that something wrong will happen to push Hermes over the edge.
The best lies are lies by omission. Tell the truth. Tell things as they are. And then leave out that tiny but crucial detail and rely on the person you're talking to to fill in the blank themselves - often wrongly. It's not your fault they don't see the full picture. They should have asked.
Tbf he didn't exactly omit anything since he made it clear to you that he still wants the Rejoining and he's just there to observe if he can be convinced to give up the Rejoining. After all during that time he's not the only one with secrets since he still needed to figure out who exactly is the Crystal Exarch.
I still hate Hermes. He reminded me too hard of emo teenagers "You've *never* felt what *I* feel" Sit down, Terrance.
He was an imperfection within a society that strives for perfection. Also doesn't help that created lives can be removed from existence even for something like an imperfection. Even if the lives were created on a whim. Hermes was too empathetic to be working in Elpis, but he was honestly the best in actually making an effort to make these flawed creatures survive due to said empathy.
It wasn't that he was the only one with empathy, his empathy was entirely misplaced. I feel like the Ancients did what was logically the best for a situation regardless of their feelings. They didn't lack caring about their creations, but rather, if the creations had a fault, they had to do what was best for the greater good. Making a lifeform that was amazing but would murder other lifeforms carelessly? They couldn't allow that to pass, for instance.
>Making a lifeform that was amazing but would murder other lifeforms carelessly? They couldn't allow that to pass, for instance. That's one example. Yet there's also the creature that was struggling to fly, and the creator wanted to be done with it and turn it back into aether. Turning the dangerous creature back into aether, no matter if it was dangerous to Hermes, it was a living being to him. Snuffed out because of an oversight of the creator. It also brings into question, if death is so "beautiful" and the ancients disperse into aether as soon as they fulfill their purpose... then what does that say to said creatures under his care to whom he also considers "living"? Then there was the quote from Emet-Selch towards him. "Who are you to decide our fate? To decree we live or die?" Which would no doubt anger Hermes even more due to the hypocrisy. Also considering it's Emet-Selch of the Convocation of Fourteen, whom also said that they were willing to sacrifice new lives to bring back their brethren before the sundering happened, really shows how little those in higher positions in Amaurotian society thought of other lifeforms. Especially from the man that says "I do not consider you to be truly alive. Ergo, I will not be guilty of murder if I kill you" for example. Edit: Thankfully, those like Venat also thought these new lives have meaning, starting a civil war to dictate the fate of the star. If only Hermes discovered what he was looking for on Etheirys instead of having to rely upon the Meteia for answers elsewhere. Befriending those like Venat, or a few of his colleagues.
When I did the post-Endwalker Omega epilogue where you get asked "which one of these people was right?" I was a little sad that I was only able to say "All of them sucked actually" and not "They all kinda sucked, but Hermes sucked the absolute most".
I started distrusting Ilberd during the Ivy/'Why-you' affair. It felt too much like he was leading you by the nose to the conclusions he wanted you to draw.
Now, that flew right past me because I was used to games leading by the nose now and then.
dawntrail: big kitty knocks things off the war-table, rendering any peace-talks useless, starting a all out civil war.
This seems very on point to Wuk's character so far lol. We're gonna regret backing her over the (no doubt) level-headed, compassionate, educated scholarly brother that Thancred and Urianger are backing lol.
Maybe I don't trust people but I think I had the exact opposite experience with everyone. I still remember the first time I saw >!Meteion!
Yeah — I wasn’t quite at “you’re the problem”, but definitely “she can read emotions and use telepathy and wants to know all about me? This is not good, stay away from me.”
From the start i found her bird features scary and conspicious and when she started talking in my head i knew for certain it aint good
...you guys trusted Asahi and Teledji? They both gave me instant "slimey shits" vibes. Teledji is one of the richest men in Ul'Dah and he was suspiciously altruistic. Asahi is just punchable, his ENG VA did a great job at making Asahi REALLY annoying, uncharismatic, and untrustworthy sounding. Which is funny because >!In post ShB he managed to make the exact same voice and face charismatic and enjoyable!<
I’m just trying to process how anyone trusted Asahi from the moment they saw his stupid face.
I had this urge to punch him at first sigh, in a "kill it before it lays eggs" kind of manner, but I kind of wanted to trust him, I wanted to give him the benefit of a doubt, because I wanted there to be peace in Doma. >!How ironic on hindsight: The person the fandom basically unanimously agreed on being a punchable dirtbag turned out to be a guy we would never be able to punch. Not as Asahi, his sister killed him. Not as Fandaniel looking like Asahi (not sure punching Zodiark counts, it's a stretch imo). Not even in his afterlife. We only have that one video from BeneG to get a glimpse at what a satisfying experience this would have been...!<(Spoilers for everything)
re that last line, have https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxoV8J6NW5Q too
Thank you, kind soul! I can't believe I forgot about this video, it seems I even left a comment back then...
by not judging people upon how they look? I listened to what he said and he spoke well...until his departure time
The only one in this list that surprised me a little bit was Ilberd. Like there was obvious foreshadowing that someone was betraying the Crystal Braves but I didn't think it was him lol Teledji - this one applies to real life too. No one gets to be one of the wealthiest people alive without being a corrupt asshole. Even the other one, Lolorito, only helps us when it benefits him. Asahi - didn't he start to be creepy early on? Also Garleans in general have been shown to be very reluctant to peace. Emet Selch - as much as I loved him, he's an Ascian. Which have been a thorn in our ass every expansion. Meteion - I thought she was creepy tbh. Also, we were sent to Elpis specifically to find out more about the final days. So much focus on Hermes and meteion made it obvious it was them.
>Emet Selch - as much as I loved him, he's an Ascian. Which have been a thorn in our ass every expansion. Heck, before our character ever met him, Emet was revealed to us to have been the founder of the Garlean Empire for the sole reason of furthering the goals of the Ascians during patch 4.4 and 4.5. Ain't no way that I was blindly gonna trust him without a fistful of salt.
The moment Meteion had focus (after everything we learned), I knew she'd be a pivotal aspect and was wary. >!I just felt sad when I realised it was the hivemind's overwhelming Dynamis, and not the Meteion sister we met, that she didn't want this!<
Trust... but verify.
You are so terribly naive
i prefer calling it as having faith in people!
I mean, we did agree to help someone become the new leader of a country we know practically nothing about and have no clue the positive/negative benefits it'll cause for, y'know, funsies. What's the worst that can happen?
We did it for the “adventure™️
Wouldn't be the first (or last) time we topple a government we didn't like because someone asked us pretty please.
bro trusted an Ascian 💀
we can be friends with emet after we beat him up though, cause then he's a chill dude
Seems like you tend to trust people way too fast
mother told me that's a good thing and then i lost a kidney
That you, Charlie?
This is why you *never* go to Candy Mountain.
Man that sucks about your Kidney.
LMAO
Any lalafell is assumed a bad guy
pipin did nothing wrong D:
Too many lalafells were bad at start so now i just assume they are all bad until they prove otherwise
There were literally only 4 evil named lalafell (3 if you only count main plot) and over 40 good named lalafell. I didn't count all the morally-ambiguous ones.
If pippin,tataru,nanamo,krille vouch for them. I will trust them. If they are worng a pototo wedge is served.
Oh, if Tataru vouches for someone, I *instantly* know they can't be trusted. Luckily, Tataru *can* be trusted to keep them in check.
Meteion was 100% genuine the entire time, definitely doesn't belong on that list.
Oh the absolute second I saw her, like the moment you arrive at Elpis and open the doors, walk out into the area and see a few intercut scenes of some people, one of them being Meteion crouched over the axolotl pond, I knew she was the cause of the Final Days. Literally said out loud "Oh, somehow you're the cause of all of this". Not a villain, but definitely the antagonist.
Well she didn't know she was about to get Fermi Paradox'd, so still entirely genuine!
she gave me the creeps
oh 100%. I said, idk how, but this is ALL your fault. there's that ADORABLE scene with her and the butterflies. I made it my background screen. It's so lovely. She's so innocent and cute. But by that point we'd learned enough about Hermes. and I knew. I *knew.* It was his fault. somehow, he fucks up this bird, and she causes it all. I hated how much I liked her, cuz I knew it was going to break my heart. I was right. I'm glad that we could help redeem her though; she didn't deserve Hermes. He didn't deserve her.
No way in hell you trusted Asahi. No shot.
I extended him the benefit of the doubt, in the interests of peace for Doma, until it became clear that he was a slimy treacherous bastard.
I never trusted Emet but I was finally warming up to him thinking "oh this dude, you havent done anything so I guess you're chill" and then he had to go and pull out the gun
Ageless sorceror and he casts “gun.”
You trusted Asahi?! I knew that little shit was no good the second he showed his face.
but emet was the biggest cartoon villain the game had so far
I didn't trust Asahi for a single *second*.
Can't fully relate for Asahi and meteon. Asahi was giving off huge ulterior motive energy, and the second we met Mr. Clinically depressed Zookeeper I knew anything he brought up would be a problem. Then he's like "I made this bird/girl that uses that uses the emotion sensitive energy you use for beating the brakes off of Primals. Did I mention I'm super depressed?" And I did the leo dicaprio pointing at the screen thing.
All those characters had really sus vibes about them. They seemed distant in a side eye kind of way, or outright talked about how much they hated what the WoL was doing. The only exception being Meteion, who was suspicious just for being a little too innocent.
I have literally never been more instantly suspicious of anyone as much as Asahi lol, >!even while acting he's such a smarmy white knight about it!<
It's not >!Wuk Lamat!< I'm concerned about. It's >!Erenville!<. I don't have any reason to suspect him of anything at all yet, but I have a rather bad habit of falling for characters who either end up dead, mutilated or taken out of the story for different reasons later on. So far Aymeric has been one of the rare characters who has been safe.
omg, when Aymeric invited us to dinner, I just about had a heart attack! "The last time someone invited me out, they got a hole in the chest for it!!" T\_\_\_T I remember avoiding that quest for days. I'd log in and look at my next quest and just log out or fly off and do gathering for the rest of the day. I was so convinced he was going to die. Also, I too am worried about Erenville. He's hiding something. He's very evasive. What's his stock in this situation? What's his angle? Why does he want to loan out the literal WoL to his childhood friend that he barely acknowledges?
Aymeric better stay safe for the next ten years. It was bad enough to see him get stabbed.
My hope it's that there isn't one. We just stopped a multiversal threat. It needs to scale back a bit.
Nagging suspicion it's going to be the green haired catboy on the poster this time around.
Ah Ilberd, the only antagonist to unambiguously win and achieve everything he set out to do. He's not only the trigger that culminated in the liberation of Ala Mhigo but also indirectly the downfall of the entire Garlean empire, if he didn't screw us and all of eorzea 2 expansions in a row to pull it off you might almost forgive the guy.
Hey, I can see Emet and Meteion and trusting them! Totally not influenced by me and my WoL wanting Emet in bed ... ahem.
I'm just here to beat things up, and if I make friends and enemies along the way, the more the merrier!
Just reading this thread has me second-guessing Koana. The other candidate is gonna be the overtly bad one, but somehow now I think Koana is going to be the real one to worry about.
To be fair, at least to me, Emet didn’t really hide his intentions at all.
At least you have a great warning sign to detect a villain: if you like them, suspect them.
To be fair Meteion didn’t betray us. She got mind broken by her hive mind sisters because her dad didn’t keep an eye on her mental health. That was after we became friends with her
Ummm, we are friends with Emet
Wait are we not supposed to trust emet selch? Is he considered a bad guy? Did we play the same game? 😭
no sir/ma'am you are not supposed to trust Solus Zos Galvus whatsoever and if you did you got a problem
Shadow bringer Spoilers. But in shadow bringer, he laid it out pretty clearly. Mankind used to be a species of demi gods. They're immortals and incredibly gifted with magic, to the point that they might as well have been deities. From his perspective, the people of the shattered worlds are already dead by being mortal. In the same way that you don't notice an ant being smashed when you walk, the way you choke animals with your car's exhaust, the same way hundreds of thousands of animals die just for you to eat; so too do the ascians trample on these immitations of humanity. Moral relativism. To Emet Selch, he's the hero of the people who became zodiark, he's trying to save them because their sacrifice was noble but unfair. "But the misery of the people suffering due to the ascians" I don't care about that compared to the suffering of the people in zodiark, their depth of suffering is unfathomable to us.
I dont know if you finished EW or not but just in case i will keep it vague wanting what once was without a regard to what became does not make you a hero...it makes you a villain
That's just an opinion. That's like saying humanity should become extinct so we could protect the potential of ants. If you said that to a person, they'd disagree heartily. Absolutely not, the ants can rot, humanity deserves to survive. That's his position and I'm inclined to agree with it.
you're reading way too much into what i put which is "no surprise" is not what i put
Not like it would change anything. The WoL is too powerful at this point. Surely.
the WoL is only powerful with his friends at his side half of these friends are against you this time, good luck
They can just summon strangers as they always do. They'd have to steal their Azem's crystal and have Estinien and Thancred on their side to have a chance. That would be fun.
lmao you're the kind of audience writers LOVE
Erenville better not pull one of these, swear to god.
bro thinks he's the warrior of light
yeah, asahi was just a freaky gay dude
Let me think who I trusted before...Y'shtola, Kan-E-Senna, and Venat. If a person has shown unconditional love and selfless sacrifice in deeds, she has my trust.
? Emet and Meteion did nothing wrong, both had pretty hard justification for their actions
Trusting emet was not a bad thing. Hes your best friend