#we know souls are made of aether and the aether gets recycled

[hydaelyns-silliest-jester]

Based on a conversation I had with my friends last night: I have to imagine an ascian possessing a human body to be uncomfortable. You have to push the other soul aside and then fit into a space that isn’t quite your own. You now have total awareness of a tongue, the way a jaw clenches, and then have to go about moving the damn body.

In the book Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett, there are these beings called The Auditors. Like Ascians, they do not possess a physical form. But they can make bodies for themselves. When they do this, they become more human since they have taken on a human shape. They start to become human because they poured themselves into a mold that represents humanity. What must it be like for an ascian? Can you even begin to differentiate between what you were and what you are?

My questions are basically what is a soul really and did I just give the ascians body dysmorphia

[autumnslance]

From the Dawntrail ask list, let's go with 11 'What was their initial impression of Sphene? How did this change as the story progressed?'

Hear more about Aeryn's empathic Echo and the Queen Eternal under the cut...

Borrowing from the Cahciua response:

In my interpretation of how Aeryn's empathic Echo works, it has to be the whole aetheric package; body/memory/soul, as we learned in Shadowbringers and Endwalker about how that all interacts to make a person, and how that aether is recycled to share a soul while the memories are cleansed by the Lifestream before rebirth. So it gets weird with beings of only part of those elements, missing the whole. Aeryn can't "read" Endless like she does others - which in some ways is refreshing, as she tries not to do so, but there's often some bleed through regardless. But it also let her know that Sphene wasn't "right" and Living Memory was a really odd place for Aeryn. Still quite affecting, though, with the hopes and dreams of its people preserved there, the things learned from its denizens.

And yeah, Aeryn and Krile spend a lot of time discussing the similarities in their gifts, as well as the differences. In Aeryn's wolverse, Krile isn't the only one hit with Zoraal Ja's Bad Vibes at points.

Anyway, so Aeryn noticed Sphene in Tuliyollal, but figured there it was the distance, though she could see the stricken expression on the strange girl's face.

But then they met her under the barrier, and Aeryn was immediately put off. She couldn't read Sphene; she just appeared, with no whispered sense of another being present. While it's possible to block out Aeryn's empathy, and she tends to block out others as much as possible, to not have any residual sense at all is generally unnerving. And Sphene more than most, given her long-running entirely artificial nature.

(Is she really the memories of Sphene, or what Preservation thought they were? Or just what they claimed to give the people hope?)

Also: WTF is up with that dress and hair? If nothing else points to her unnatural nature, it's whatever the hells Sphene's fashion program is, cuz the whole look is a study in "but why?!"

So "off put and suspicious for it" was Aeryn in Alexandria. Especially with all of Sphene's aborted attempts to tell them...something, and her non-answers as to Cahciua and how to find her. The queen was helpful only to a point.

One of the first things I noticed was how Sphene's model, mannerisms, voice direction (it is a different VA), and the camera work on her was very, very reminiscent of Meteion in a lot of ways. Everything screamed "here is your next apocalypse maiden" even as you want to like and trust her - just like Meteion.

So Aeryn noticed that sense of foreboding and carried it up to the aftermath of the confrontation with Zoraal Ja; she wasn't surprised when Sphene declared herself Enemy #1. She didn't like it, and wished there was another way. But it wasn't a shock.

By the end, stopping Sphene was something that simply had to be done to save countless lives and end an unsustainable (and to Aeryn's mind, horrific) cycle. She didn't like it, but that the queen was in truth a program made it...slightly easier. And even at the very end, Aeryn could only assure Sphene that she had tried to make her people happy. Because it truly was all that she wanted, and it wasn't really her fault that she'd been locked into a destructive course to try to meet that parameter.

Aeryn does wonder a little about the original, living Sphene, and what she could have, would have done instead. A sick girl who risked her flagging life to save a random citizen during the cataclysm, who opened her borders even to the enemy's civilians to aid them when things went entirely to hells, doesn't strike Aeryn as someone who would condone the deaths of countless worlds without seeking another way. But what we have isn't the original living Sphene, so who can say?

-

This is one of the ways where my playthrough on Dark first, for my own immediate reactions as I go in blind, helps me. It gave me a lot of time to consider how Aeryn would see and interpret the Endless, and Sphene especially, and how she would react as I took a more RP-like approach to playing the MSQ on her, rather than retroactively deciding on it. But that's just how I do it.

[yourfriendlyenby]

pls op drop the au i need to know

Okay so here's the somewhat short version of the beginning of the lore WITHOUT the Minecraft ccs first, then later y'all can ask where your favorite cc stands since this is a REALLY big AU and we need the groundwork first

Long time ago, there was nothing except the End. Soon, 4 beings (plus 1 later) emerged called Jeb, Entity, Alex and Steve. While they enjoyed each other's company, were lonely and bored so they made their own dimensions.

What they don't know is that they left a 5th being named Jean, who decides to guard the end.

Jeb created the Aetherial Plane and his intelligent creations were Angels (think biblical angels) and Valkyrie (think Western angels but each one has a different wing design)

Entity created the Netherial Plane and his intelligent creations were Daemons (just normal demons)

Alex and Steve stayed together since they were twins born from chorus fruit and created the Material Plane. And they went HAM on their intelligent creatures: think normal humans to elves to hybrids.

Keep this in mind: everyone's immortal, mortality hasn't been created yet. We'll get to that.

One day, Entity was a bit irritated that Daemons were lonely and pretty grumpy, so Alex and Steve took pity and let him have their pig hybrids who all went willingly.

Didn't work so well, there's lava everywhere and pig hybrids keep falling and experiencing excruciating pain, creating what's essentially zombie piglins

So Entity's all pissy that nothing's going his way so he blames it on Alex and Steve and they're like "Dude maybe don't have lava everywhere and take advice from your citizens"

So he's like "Screw you!" and turns unstable and into Herobrine.

This escalates with Herobrine turning all the lakes and oceans into lava pools and giving everyone in Matter mortality.

The instability of the dimensions causes mayhem and causes the End to split a little and create the outer End areas and for every Valkyrie and Angel to experience blindness accompanied with immense amounts of pain.

Obviously, Jeb is like "Dude" and helps out Alex and Steve, declaring war.

The war lasts a bit too long but they manage to stop him thanks to a Daemon named Kristen defecting to their side and the mix of Aether, Matter and Nether magic was enough to stop Entity, banishing him to the Netherial Plane.

But Alex, Steve and Jeb are exhausted and know that they're not going to be there for long, so they do a couple of things.

First, they create a dimension for the soon to be departed called the Twilight Plane and make Kristen the Overseer there.

(For a brief summary of what happens when you die, your being is separated into 3 parts: the body, the soul and the spirit. The body is left in the Material Plane, left to decompose. The spirit is then sent to the Twilight Plane, first judged and then sent to either Bliss or Abyss. The soul is then either recycled for new beings or used in necromancy.)

Next, Alex and Steve try and find survivors of the mortality curse.

They only find one. Under a golden apple tree.

They pretty much pass the torch to that person creating the First Material Overseer, instructing them to keep watch of the realm and to pass the torch every 500 years. They then turn into dust and are essentially dead but are still dreaming, and can be contacted by the Material Overseer via dreams.

Jeb does something similar, passing it to an Angel known as Sun and turns into a statue.

Currently Kristen and Sun are still their dimension's Overseers, but there are now 6 people who held the title of Material Overseer.

[gunnerpalace]

And I’m 💯 sure that you’re blocked and you can eat it.

But I would like to talk about this idea a little, actually. So, here are a couple of points:

The thing that a lot of modern-day “Bleach fans” don’t get is that as far as Japan is concerned, the only thing that really sells Bleach to the mass-market general audience is Ichigo and Rukia interacting. The hard truth those “Bleach fans” refuse to accept is that most of fights sucked, most of the mysteries sucked, and other than the two of them (and maybe Toushirou and Byakuya) most of the characters aren’t interesting to the average person. If you liked Bleach for any of those three reasons (or any other minor reasons), then you are in the absolute minority of nerds.

The cold, iron truth of economics is that you sell media properties in one of two ways: either by drilling down to a highly dedicated fanbase (e.g., moe-blob anime with extremely jacked-up Blu-ray prices) or by appealing to as wide and shallow an audience as possible (e.g., the Marvel Cinematic Universe). The interesting thing with Bleach is that those two audiences, by the numbers, are actually interested in the same thing: Ichigo and Rukia, and more particularly, IchiRuki.

Bold claim, I know. But you don’t have to look hard to see it. This is why the musicals were focused on them. This is why the LA movie was focused on them. And this is why both of those deemphasized other ancillary characters, especially Ichigo’s human friends like Chad—or Orihime: because they are essentially irrelevant to that largely singular fixture of the series and are forgettable other than to some hardcore nerd. (The only other thing that comes remotely close to being as iconic are the Soul Society fights, especially Ichigo vs. Byakuya.)

This is also why every time the property has been reinvented for a new market (again, e.g., the musical and the LA movie) the focus has always been on early Bleach: because it most showcases their interactions and establishes their foundational emotional connection. This is in large part why arcs that more and more deemphasized their interactions suffered increasingly worse sales, to the point that Bleach was consistently ranked 20th out of 20 in Weekly Shounen Jump’s ratings on a week-to-week basis. Less Ichigo and Rukia, and especially less Ichigo and Rukia together, means less sales. This is why TYBW and WDKALY sold abysmally, and I’m willing to bet that CFYOW’s numbers aren’t too great either considering it features neither of them at all.

This is furthermore why Studio Pierrot gave them so many moments, like the ice-skating and fireworks date that they used to send off the anime: because IchiRuki sells. And not much else does.

So, having established that, let’s talk about your idea.

Ichika and Kazui don’t make sense, because their existence in TYBW isn’t established. They simply appear, like the rest of the ending, with no buildup or explanation. In other words, there is no reason to invest in them as characters; they are simply designs walking and talking on a page. (And surprise, the only people who cared “about” them at all were people like you who were pleased as punch that it was evidence that Ichigo and Orihime, and Rukia and Renji, fucked. And even you lot don’t care about them, because there is nothing about them to possibly care about. You care about them as symbols and nothing more.)

However, what would make even less sense is to introduce them without having TYBW at all. For the anime to jump from Ichigo and Rukia having an ice rink not-date to having Ichika and Kazui running around in their places would be a bit like jumping from Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back in 1980, to Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens in 1983, instead of having Return of the Jedi. It really isn’t possible to overstate how much that big of a leap would lose an audience, whose reactions would be, “What the fuck is this? What happened?”

As I have previously calculated, animating TYBW would take about 4–5 seasons and about 3–4 years of production. So, unless you wanted to pull one of the strangest continuations ever in media history, you’d be waiting for that to wrap first, and presuming its financial success (which is dubious, for the above outlined reasons, and its relative historical print failure which got the manga cancelled).

Setting all that aside, Ichika and Kazui are not photocopies of Rukia and Ichigo; they are genderflipped photocopies of Renji and Orihime. There is a reason why, despite the best efforts of IH here on Tumblr Dot Com, the IR community has never warmed up to them: why would you take a cheap clone knockoff that can’t even trace the original properly when you could just have the original? This will likewise hold true for a general audience. If a random-ass person in Japan knows anything at all about Bleach, it’ll be Ichigo and Rukia. Going, “This isn’t them, but here’s the same great taste but less filling!” is going to get you a response of, “No thanks.”

Setting that aside, what exactly would be the premise? The Espada were retconned in from the aether and people were fine with them, since they were basically just the inverse and mirror of the Shinigami. But people didn’t much care when Xcution were retconned in from the aether. And they didn’t like it when Yhwach and the Sternritter were retconned in from the aether. And they really don’t care now that Tokinada, Hikone, and Aura were retconned in from the aether. Are you really going to have a fifth group of baddies we never even vaguely heard of before showing up? Or are you going to just recycle a set? “Oh, no, Aizen has escaped Muken and has made the Super Fullbringer Espada…” Please. The concept is tapped out: it either has to keep inventing new bullshit and pretending it was always around, or it has to recycle the same ideas but in a less exciting way. Or it has to be rebooted.

It is clear that something or other is happening with regard to Bleach for this “anniversary” event, but the evidence, in my eyes, doesn’t match what you would see for TYBW being animated, let alone for some kind of Boruto-style series.

The event has been marketed in a rather low-key fashion, which is weird considering the 2020 Olympics are a once-in-a-generation event which provide the perfect hype vehicle (and which Shueisha has been using to push other WSJ properties). If you were working on a large or risky project, you’d want a lot of hype—either to prepare the audience, or to maximize your initial buy-in and returns if it’s going to flop (e.g., Anthem). Being cautious indicates both the scale and risk are small.

The emphasis on the voice actors who are appearing at the event are all for classic and popular characters: Ichigo, Byakuya, and now Rukia. You know what fans don’t like? Having a bait-and-switch pulled on them where their classic faves are affiliated with something, only for them to be radically deemphasized in the actual final product. (Just look at the three recent Star Wars movies for some proof of that one.) It is far more likely to be something focused around them.

MegaHouse is making new Bleach figurines this year. But the designs they’ve chosen so far are… Fake Karakura battle Armored Yoruichi (who I’m excited for), and Hueco Mundo style unreleased Grimmjow. If you were going to make merchandise for TYBW or a next-generation show, it’d make a lot more sense for that merch to be… actually related to those events, rather than “classic” designs, now wouldn’t it? To go to the Star Wars well again, they weren’t trying to sell Qui-Gon Jinn or Lando Calrissian toys with The Last Jedi.

To me, all the evidence indicates that whatever it is will be some sort of “Greatest Hits” OVA or something like that, with a focus on the Aizen era of the series. Maybe a lot of the “best” battles redone in really high quality. Maybe a video game. Maybe a reboot of the series from the start. Hard to say. But it doesn’t look an awful lot like TYBW, let alone a next-generation effort.

Now, I’m not saying that either of those things are impossible. I’ve been wrong before in this life (for example, I didn’t think Putin would invade Crimea), and I will be wrong again. I could be wrong about this too. I can only speak in probabilities.

But what I will say with confidence is that committing to TYBW would be fairly dumb as a business decision given everything that is evident about what makes Bleach sell.

And committing to a next-generation series at this stage before doing TYBW would be even dumber.

And doing a next-generation series without doing TYBW would be even dumber still.

Now, stupid people are in ascendancy worldwide in all kinds of endeavors, so it’s not outside the realm of possibility that someone greenlit something so dumb. But if they did, I don’t think it’s going to do so hot.

So, good luck, I guess.

[thesilverwitch]

PENTAGRAM/PENTACLE DEFINED FOR BEGINNER WICCANS

Symbols are constantly recycled in society and religion. Their meanings evolve over time and can differ from belief system to belief system. A pentacle/pentagram is one of those symbols that has picked up a whole lot of baggage over the years. Beginner Wiccans often come to our religion having to ‘reprogram’ their own way of thinking about the pentagram. For years, pop culture, media hysteria and other religions have drilled the idea into our heads that Pagan symbols are bad, and the pentagram is evil.

Unfortunately, in a lot of books aimed at Wicca for beginners, more misinformation about the pentagram is spread. This time, it errs on the side of trying to make the pentagram look good, attaching to it all kinds of romanticized ideas that are just not factual.

What is a pentagram? What is a pentacle? Is there a difference? Let’s have a closer look at the history of this symbol, and the meaning of the pentagram today.

WHAT IS A PENTAGRAM?

A good place to begin anytime you’re trying to understand a word and its usage is to hit the dictionary and look up the entomology of the word. The word pentagram is rooted in the Greek.

Instead of giving you my own interpretations, I’ll take the meaning directly from the dictionary:

MEANING OF A PENTAGRAM: A BRIEF HISTORY

The earliest use of the pentagram we know of is from ancient Sumeria-- but it wasn't a religious Pagan symbol. It was a word in their language that meant a corner or angle (due to the 5 sharp angles in the figure).

In the 6th century BCE, Pherecydes of Syros used it to illustrate the five recesses of the cosmology. Pentagram figures occasionally turned up in the far East as well, due to the 5 Chinese elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, water.

Pythagoras went on to use the pentagram as the symbol of man. Partly it was because the shape represented a human standing with his arms spread wide (the top point being the head, the to outer points the arms, and the bottom two points the legs). It was also considered to represent the 5 elements that the Greeks believed made up the physical body: Earth (matter), Air (breath), Fire (energy), Water (fluids) and Aether (the psyche or soul). When Pythagoras’ school was driven underground, students used the pentagram as a secret symbol to identify each other.

In ancient Judaism it was a symbol found in mysticism, related to the top portion of the Tree of Life in the Kabbalah, it stood for the 5 books of the Torah (what Christians refer to as the Pentateuch in the Old Testament of the Bible) and the symbol was featured in a seal representing the secret names of God.

Early Christians into the middle ages used the pentagram heavily as a symbol for Christ’s five wounds. The star of Bethlehem that lead the wise men to the baby Jesus was believed to be the pentagram. In Authorial legends, you’ll often see the symbol of the Pentagram inscribed on knight’s shields and other things—these were actually Christian, not Pagan, references. Christians thought of the pentagram as a protective amulet, and it was the primary symbol of Christianity back then, even more common than the cross.

So the pentagram had a long, ancient history of uses as a Pagan symbol and Judeo-Christian symbol. It had no single meaning. It represented perfection in mathematics, the human body, words, and was also used in religious ritual and magic.

BUT WHAT ABOUT WITCHES, WICCANS, AND SATANISTS?

So I’ve mentioned that just about everyone had used the pentagram back then, except I haven’t mentioned Witches, Wiccans and Satanists. What about them?

The fact is, they didn’t really exist yet. The only “witches” at the time were the kind of folklore and rumor. Oh, don’t get me wrong—there were people who did magick, but they would not have identified with the term “witch”.

WHEN THE PENTAGRAM BECAME ASSOCIATED WITH “EVIL”

The 14th and 15th century saw the rise of occult practices that were rooted in Judeo-Christian symbolism and mysticism, and they borrowed liberally from many of the symbols, including the pentagram. They also borrowed from Gnostic and Paganism symbols. It’s no small surprise Ceremonial Magicians were accused by the Christian church of heresy. And heresy, to a medieval Christian, barrels down to Paganism, Satan worship and witchcraft.

Anything liberally used by Ceremonial Magicians became associated with anything considered heretical. If you don’t want to be associated with such things, you don’t use their symbols.

By Victorian times, the witch hunt craze was ending, and people started to forget how pentagrams were once very common, prominent Christian symbols. It’s now associated with paganism, Satan and witchcraft, and seen as an evil symbol.

The love of romanticized myth and history drive a new movement: the Pagan revival, and the pentagram gets turned around again. This is where it gets confusing, because misinformation and false histories begin to fly liberally from the late 19th to mid-20th century.

This is the time the Pagan Revival begins (mostly a re-invention than a re-construction of “Old Ways”). This is when Margaret Murray published her theories on ancient Witch cults being peaceful Pagan religions—though her works have been completely debunked since. This is when Gerald Gardner founded Wicca, and people came crawling out of the woodwork claiming to be ‘hereditary Witches’, or claiming their coven was ancient, or claiming some unbroken line to the Pagan religions of antiquity. This is also when a few ‘reverse Christian’ groups popped up, with practices specifically designed to mock and rebel against Christianity (those these groups were pretty rare and the NeoPagan community did their best to distance themselves from such groups).

One thing most of these groups have in common, though, is that they adopt the pentagram.

Hollywood – new on the scene in the mid-20th century – adopts the pentagram as well. Hollywood is not interested in accuracy; it’s interested in the shock value of things. They adopt it as a symbol for evil magic and reverse-Christian style devil worship and stick it into just about every horror movie conceivable. This fuels the antics of a lot of bored, rebellious people, particularly teens, who like to spray paint it on park walls and carve it into trees for the shock value.

By the late 20th century, the pentagram is being used and abused all over the place, but it is Hollywood who manages to make an indelible imprint on the social consciousness—and this is further driven by the media with sensationalized reporting during the 1970’s ��Satanic Ritual Abuse” hysteria (which has also been debunked).

It’s only the tail end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century in which the pentagram is finally gaining some understanding. Though mainstream society hasn’t completely lost the ‘kneejerk reaction’ to it, the growth of the Pagan Revival and the availability of information via the Internet have helped to quell some of the shock value and fears over it.

WICCAN SYMBOLS: PENTAGRAM VS. PENTACLE

More misconceptions abound, considering the Pagan community more commonly refers to the symbol as a ‘pentacle’ rather than a ‘pentagram’. Many books and websites have tried (and failed) to make the distinction clear. Some assertions I’ve read in passing are:

The pentagram is evil with one point down

the pentacle is good with one point up

The pentagram is just the star

the pentacle is the star with a circle around it

The pentagram is 2-D; the pentacle is 3-D

Actually, all of these answers would be technically incorrect. If you look at the definitions provided above, pentagram and pentacle are synonymous, and have nothing to do with which way the points face, or whether or not they have a circle around them.                           

A look at the dictionary's answer to pentacle and you see that the only real difference is one is derived from the Greek, the other from the Latin:

DICTIONARY MEANING OF A PENTACLE:

THE PENTACLE: NOT JUST A FIGURE, BUT A TOOL

A tool arose out of ceremonial magic. This tool was a flat, round disc or paper that was inscribed with protective symbols (a pentagram could be inscribed on it, but there were other symbols they used as well). It is used as an amulet of warding and power because a large part of Ceremonial Magic is invoking and commanding various entities from Judeo-Christian beliefs.

It was called the pentacle or sometimes pantacle. On the Tarot (a Christian-origin divination system), the symbol is used for the suit of coins, and it represents the Element of Earth.

Wicca and other NeoPagan religions borrowed this tool from Ceremonial Magic. They kept the name, but re-defined its purpose since Wiccans don’t believe in Judeo-Christian entities and is not concerned with calling or commanding spirits.

The pentacle (the disc) was adopted as an altar tool, and is used to symbolize the Element of Earth on the altar. It’s also used as a tool for placing sacred items upon it when cleansing, consecrating or charging them.

The Wiccan symbol of choice for this round disc was the pentagram/pentacle. To further confuse things, this tool does not have to be inscribed with a pentagram/pentacle.

TYPICAL MEANING OF A PENTAGRAM/PENTACLE IN WICCA

As far as Wiccan symbols go, the pentagram isn't a representation of good vs. evil. It’s a symbol of our faith, a symbol of the 5 Elements (one for each point), and the circle (the universe) contains and connects them all. No matter which way it’s facing, circle or no circle, there’s nothing ‘bad’ about it.

Another misconception about the pentagram in Wicca is which way it points. Again, you will find common misinformation that says the pentagram is “evil” if point down and “good” if point up. The point down is most commonly associated with Satanism, because the largest branch of Satanism (Church of Satan, est. 1966) adopted the inverted pentagram with a goat head inside of it as their symbol.

It’s traditionally used both point up and point down. Point up pentagrams are more common; but point down pentagrams are not considered evil at all.

The point-up pentagram represents the spirit ascending above matter. The top point represents the Element of Spirit, the other four points represent the four Spiritual Elements.

When a pentagram is point-down, it represents spirit descending into matter. This is most traditionally used in lineage covens during second degree initiations, because it’s at this point of one’s spiritual path that one turns “inward”. You face and challenge your ‘dark side’ – your base emotions, fears, ignorance, prejudices, etc., you deal with them and develop mastery over yourself.

[autumnslance]

Emet-Selch and Redemption

This started as a response to another post going around about Emet-Selch deserving redemption, but got long, so here’s my take on it:

Part of the tragedy to me is that he can’t be redeemed. Even if he could be convinced to see other lives as worthwhile, mortals as children to be shepherded to achieving the heights of Amaurot one day, instead of constantly having to start over after each Calamity…it’s not possible.

Not so long as the Ascians are enthralled by Zodiark.

More below the cut.

They did this to themselves, they are aware of it, and they continue on with their plans convinced this is what they want, when the insanity of sacrificing all rejoined life to “get their lost back”…how do they think that’s really going to work? That they weren’t just feeding their hungry new god back then, and it would be doing the same if they succeed in the present?

We’ve seen how this plays out on a smaller scale with Lakshmi and the Qalyana--the dead are dead, and even a god can’t return their souls as they were. At best, we get what we have--the Lifestream recycling that aetheric energy, and maybe shades of that soul end up reborn in someone else. What the Ascians cannot stand is how those souls are all in scattered pieces, seeing the same hue in multiple people across the Shards and knowing, at one time, they were one person they talked and laughed and fought with in those glorious days of Amaurot.

It’s interesting to me that while the other Ascians have been dismissive and refused to tell the protagonists anything (while claiming “if you only knew the truth!” Because they also know, deep down, we can never condone their methods and goals), Emet-Selch decided on a different path, and spent our entire time on the First teaching and imparting knowledge, actually wanting the Scions to understand. He wanted them to succeed and prove mortals had potential and worth--it’s part of his anger and disappointment in the end.

He spent much of his time masquerading as mortal men, living and having families, and claims he found it all lacking yet kept doing it through existence—yes, as his part of the grand plan, but interesting way to go about it, isn’t it? Like he had been trying to find such proof for centuries, and honestly likely found it, but his tempering made it impossible to change his course.

My own pet theory is that at the very end, standing there with a hole in his torso and aether fading out, Zodiark finally let him go, as Bahamut did his thralls in the Coils. Maybe it was just Emet-Selch finally resigned to fate, but I like to think in his final moment, for the first time in countless millennia, he was truly himself once more, and made the only request he could to those he could have, should have guided instead of fought.