Falling Tears in the City of Gold
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- Опубликовано: 15 сен 2024
- I had a lot of fun with Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail. The part I've been thinking about the most has been the games last zone. The Living Memory, also known as the City of Gold. In this video I express some ideas I had about this place. Enjoy!
Music From FFXIV Ost songs in order of appearance
- Blade Exaltation
- A Trail Unending
- Tuliyollal Night Theme
- Lost in the Deep
- Morrows Might
- Bygone Serenity
Welcome to another addition of the bottom of the video description. Gotta say Dawntrail has been pretty sweet, I understand the criticism it gets and find myself agreeing with a good chunk of it. Though I'm really enjoying the raid series so far. Give it All sounds like it would be an anime opening when the tone shifts and I'm all for it! Happy with how the video turned out too. Thanks for watching, and until next time!
I noticed the parallels to Emet too! The idea that we're put into his shoes and are confronted with the same dilemma as him is such an interesting concept, especially since it comes from an expansion that was sold on how much more chill it's going to be then the rest. And to see people whine and moan about how "it's unfair that Square makes the WoL make such a difficult choice because their WoL wouldn't do that" really devalues a lot of the nuance this moment brings. It's perfectly in character that the WoL would end the endless, as it goes against every lesson they've learned in Ultima Thule; life has value because it's fleeting and short, and to remove all of the bitterness from life erases any kind of joy from it. This is to say that to experience joy, one must know pain. Though the endless aren't suffering, per say, they instead force that suffering onto those that fuel their paradise.
Love how you put that dude! Thank you so much for watching!
their WoL wouldnt do that.. and what they would do? just let Sphene plunder all worlds of aether?
The endless aren't suffering, but when they give more thought to their own existence they are of the opinion that they would rather pass on given the opportunity. Living Memory might be paradise, but perfection gets old eventually... which leads to a another point: The endless have no input on Sphene's decisions. They want to pass on, but Sphene won't allow them. They don't want her to perpetuate Living Memory by destroying worlds, but she will do it regardless.
Living Memory is something of a nursing home tailored to keep those interned there alive and happy at all costs, no matter how much they want to die - making the place a very ironic form of hell. And in that context, what you're doing is basically having a conversation with the interned so you know you have the consent to pull the plug on them, and every named character you came into contact with assured you that you have it. And this clearly extends to everyone else as when the terminals go down, almost everyone else passed on immediately. Not because they were simply cut short, but because they saw an end and accepted it with open arms. This was reflected in the few who stayed, none of whom were bothered by the end of Living Memory, having only some unfinished business before they too passed on.
lmao, no we aren't the emet selch in this case is sphene lol, the endless objectively aren't real people, unlike the sundered, and sphene wanted to genocide everyone just to keep them alive, like what emet-selch wanted to do.
both of them were fighting for people long dead, why we were fighting for the living in both cases.
this isn't that complex, ff14 fans really have bad media literacy
As someone stated in a comment section, "It reminded me of twilight town, followed by 5 moments of ugly crying."
EXACTLY😭
SAME
I was screaming twilight town
The difference between us and Emet-selch here is the same as the difference between us and Sphene: we will not sacrifice our living to save their dead. It brings us back to our motivation that drove us and our party since ARR;
For those that we've lost
For those we can yet save
Yup this exactly. The difference between us and the Endless is the Endless are actually dead. They’re ghosts who aren’t moving on to the aetherial sea. The simulation needed to come to an end so they could move on. I can only hope the souls powering Solution Nine will follow suit come the patch story.
I just got finished with my opinion on how it’s unfair to compare ourselves with Emet and it’s basically as you said. Emet and Sphene fought for the dead while we fight for the living.
This was a very professional and eloquent piece. I really enjoyed Dawntrail and the final zone and the emotions involved. played a big part. Thanks for the video.
I'm honored with such a nice comment, glad you enjoyed it!
This little essay was amazing.. and it earned you a sub, and a share to my FF groups. Thank you!
You have done me tremendous honor; glad you enjoyed it and thanks for the share!
Loved this story beat.
The Endless, and their existence in general, was really interesting to me as a sort of messed up reflection absent of what Hydaelyn's lessons to us were and what the Ascians failed to know: There is no such thing as life without suffering or sacrifice.
Like the Ascians, they strive to keep their utopia and pretty much ignore the 'costs' of it (Elpis basically buried emotional pain and devalued it, leaving Hermes with pain with no where to go, seeking solice in an answer he tasked Meteion with, resulting in ultimate misery... And the Endless literally burning through souls to never expirience loss at all which is unsustainable) while Hydaelyn's entire lesson she wanted us to learn was to come to peace with this and live knowing it.
The pain caused by her actions were important so our star doesn't shreik away from pain or try to reject it and make these terrible mistakes. Sphene's entire society fell into this same trap, and look what it's come to?
I like this expansion lol
Wow this was a really well put together comment, thank you for sharing it!
I think this is beautiful way to think about the concepts presented in Living Memory. Great video!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Your video essay was really well thought out! I loved Living memory i cried in this zone. Lol, like you said i'm so glad i finished dawntrail during my summer break and like you i found myself wanting to linger in eozrea as well!
To comprimise and show my caring for the people in living memory, I did every quest in the zone i could find, even the optional yellow quests. Granted, it wasnt many, but i wouldve done far more if there had been. That was the best gesture i could think of for my character to see them off.
This zone and the Endless hold special significance for me in a way that i think is unique to my circumstance. So i felt like i owed it to them.
I relate to the Endless, to this idea of choosing to exist in a fantasy rather than face reality. The right choice will always be to remove the fantasy, but that doesnt mean the fantasy was worthless or that the time spent within it shouldnt be remembered and cherished.
Beautifully put! Also, I didn't notice the parallel with Emet-selch before and seeing it now makes me appreciate this part of the msq even more.
Living memory is one of my favourite place at the moment, I did the side quest cause it just feels like the right thing to do for the remaining people in the area.
I see people do new game+ to return the Colors but I kept it dull cause keeping it bright is what Sphene would do and not letting the people go
I enjoy going back and forth. Sometimes it's nice to revisit a pleasant memory. It's unhealthy to live in the past, but it's never a bad thing to look back at it. Even if in the end you have to move forward.
dunno if you've watched "The Black Mirror" but Living Memory really gave me similar vibes to San Junipero. The people we meet there both are and aren't alive. When you remember their memory and what makes them who they are was uploaded into the cloud. Though the thing that I also remembered from that show (and similar end of life stories like The Good Place) was how dull existence would become for these people over time. With no real struggles or cares, all the joys around them would lose any real highs... not entirely unsimilar to the inhabitants of Ostrakon Deka-hepta in the Dead Ends.
It was difficult because I did sympathize with Sphene, and what she was fighting for. But ultimately I determined that allowing the endless to finally have an end and to rest would be best for them. My choice to turn off the terminals was motivated by the desire to save the people of Hydalen too of course, but it was something I saw as good for both groups.
To me, I was there the entire time at Living Memory saying that we were no better than Venat, we committed a genocide to ensure that life would continue. The Endless are alive, are people. I even quoted Emet Selch to my boyfriend when Cahciua tried to use an appeal to nature. That the Endless are unnatural is sophistry, and we all know it. They are still people, and I will not rely on the same lies Emet did to absolve myself of guilt. I'm firmly of the belief that, at least by the time of Shadowbringers, Emet does not believe his own lies, and he fully knows he's in the wrong. It's a great depiction of cognitive dissonance but that's neither here nor there. For myself, I'm of similar mind to G'raha. The Endless are a locust that will devour all in their path, and when they run out of food, die and leave the world barren. It's for a similar reason that Venat sundered the world, the Ancients couldn't find a way forward, so Venat committed a genocide, and recreated the world as the world of mortal men, so that Meteion could be defeated, and life would endure. Would that the Ancients could accept suffering and find a way to harness Dynamis. Would that the Endless could be maintained in a more sustainable way. But just like Venat, we aren't given the time to find that answer. If anything cleans even a little of the blood off our hands, it's that Sphene decided the course for everyone, and forced us to commit to a genocide before she committed an even greater one.
Wonderful video that was really personal! Thank you for sharing your experience 😊
What really did it for me was how much this place gave me nostalgia, specifically to one of my favorite games, Kingdom Hearts 2. This place has such a heavy Twilight Town feel to it. But the similarities didn't end there, as Cahcuia talking about how everybody is just recreations based off of memories, and that they aren't really people, sounded a lot like some plot points in the KH series. Not to mention the existential and depressing nature of this area gave me light Nier vibes, which is another series that tackles similar themes. I had already been conditioned to know that these people are just as living as us.
What made this more difficult was that usually, in those games, you're watching this happen. Nier makes a decision that he would have absolutely no knowledge of what kind of effect it would have on the world, which is it's own tragedy, but you're just watching the story unfold. This game asks you, demands of you, to make that choice. To most people, your WoL isn't a character, they're you, an extension of you. The game isn't asking the character to make the choice to shut down the terminals, it's asking YOU to make that decision. And that was hard, because I already decided they were people.
And then I think about how Emet was so adamant that you aren't truly alive. Probably just to make it easier for him, before he truly broke.
I love that you also clocked the “theme park at closing time” vibe of the music of Living Memory. There’s something undeniably whimsical, yet bittersweet, to the tune that takes me back to Magic Kingdom’s Main Street, shuffling out of the park with all the other guests after the end of the fireworks show and the characters sang their last farewell for the night.
Thank you for sharing this amongst all the hate out there (not that every criticism is hate but a lot are). I enjoyed the hell out of this expansion and this area in particular really spoke to me. I loved how they made you destroy the area yourself and it made me go around to enjoy the moment and take pictures while I had the chance. Also here's a thought I had. I think the thing that sets us apart from Emet Selch is that the memories here had their chance. It may have ended unfairly or been sad in some way but they were born to the star, lived, and then most importantly... died. Emet wanted to bring back friends that had also for all intents and purposes ended. I think its super interesting that while the roles are somewhat reversed seeing that we are the ones shutting down the place now, ourm position remains unchanged, stopping people from denying others their only chance at life to give themselves a second one. Thanks for the analysis and I'll be watching to see what you make next :)
Appreciate your analysis and commentary. Subbed.
Yeah, what we did in living memory definitely left a bad taste. Necessary but I wish it wasn't.
And that even after finishing MSQ, the place stayed gray and well..... Dead. Hits hard
7:15 Funny enough, we’re not the equivalent of Hades wanting to rejoin everything to the source, this is much more equivalent to re-sundering the world after the unsundered rejoin all the shards. Soul extraction/Living memory/ Preservation is a very hardline reflection of Zodiark/Full Rejoining/convocation. Their worlds were beset by disaster so they offered up souls in exchange for living a bit longer (Zodiark/Soul extraction) and they were beset by even more disaster after that (sundering, rejoining.) the 12th shard succeeded in a way that the unsundered did not; they made their paradise for the lost, which is precisely what would’ve come of the source if the unsundered had their way; vain reflections of their fallen created by their god. Shutting down living memory is much more akin to re-sundering than anything else.
God I love hearing positive takes on Dawntrail. It gets exhausting hearing people dunk on this expansion so much. I binged it all in like 3 days and Living Memory made me cry, and it was wild to come out of it to find most people just hating everything about it somehow. Its not flawless for sure, but this expansion really did hit me in the ways I think it wanted to.
Nice job love the video and you're positive outlook u where nice to watch ❤
You do me a kindness with a comment like this. Thanks for watching!
@@Pollymacho yvw ❤️
I know "WoL is Hydaelyn's ascian" has been around for a while, but I wonder if thats where we're going in the next few expansions? We're similarly shard-hopping nigh-unkillable demigods at this point. Between ensuring Wuk Lamat became dawnservant and erasing the "less-alive" endless, we're engaging in a lot of the same activities as Emet. Obviously our reasons are different, but whether motives count or not is an entire philosophical debate. I doubt that something so irreversible would happen in XIV, but it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility for us to accidentally cause a rejoining (perhaps in our effort to fix the void).
Now that would be a great twist! Thanks for sharing it!
I subbed for this video. I don’t feel people have been appreciating this section of the game. When you get rid of the first tower for the first time and that sections endless disappeared, I cried because how I view life and thought of my own personal experiences how I had to let go of people as well.
So for Emet's "I don't see you as alive, there for it is not murder if I kill you." I think it's important to remember our party DOES see the endless as alive after a fashion. They see them as valuable, they see them as people, and it is still murder that we kill them. The parallel to Emet isn't with us it's with Spheeme. They would both sacrifice our living for their dead. There is no contradiction and we are not now suddenly taking his side.
One of the quieter themes in FFXIV, particularly in ShB, EW, and DT is that of progressives, the young folk willing to champion new systems, learning from what came before but not falling into the traps of the older generations. Emet is the overbearing father that walked to school 10 miles in the snow both ways, in Elpis we see that our "enlightened forbearers" were far too quick to tell their peers to bottle it up, and were no smarter than we are, we even get the twin's father buckling and admitting he is lost. Living memory is the current generation being asked to give up their future for the comfort of old folks who feel uncomfortable with sustainable energy, think wars they don't have to fight are good for the nation, and long for a world far less far less diverse than what we see in Tural.
XIV does not inherently demonize these people, it encourages to see why they are the way they are, but it's no surprise that the villains are the ones that will not do the same, or if they do, just don't care.
I said the EXACT same thing about Emet and the Ascians I’m glad I’m not the only one
I somehow wish the final act of the story wasn't so epic. I was really looking forward to a more grounded story as a palette cleanser after ShB and EW, but it seems they wanted to tread familiar ground yet again. I think these big final zone setpieces riddled with emotional weight are amazing, and I don't want them to grow stale from being overused, is all.
I get what you mean by that, would have loved it if we got the living memory stuff but it wasn't tied with the fate of the world. Don't know how that would work but that would be really cool.
When it came to the Endless it was hard for me to think of them as alive because they were all just recorded memories and personality traits. AI can mimic people and somewhat sound like its alive when its not. The Endless seem to be more like arcane beings that don't have a soul and created to act like the person they were modeled after. Otius is an good example in my opinion. We meet him in heritage found and we were told he went through with an experiment on memory. His soul eventually ends up in a machine. Now we also have the Endless Otus. His personality is the same but he is not the Otus we knew. Otus in heritage found was alive while at the same time the Endless Otus existed even though at the time we didn't know it. They both cannot be the real Otus cause their can only be one of a real person so to me all the Endless were more or less projections of people that do not exist anymore and all computer AI. From what I can tell the main thing that determines in FF14 weather something is truly alive is if they have a soul cause the soul makes it so they can exist without outside help.
sueing you for igniting my inner fear of thinking abt what is life and death, but good video btw
Ah drat my lawyer just left the office lol. Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for watching!
I liked your video very much. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching!
Awesome video! That last zone has been on my mind a lot still too, I wonder if it remain as how it became or will something happen
I'm curious as well, only time will time. Thanks for watching!
Love the video! Like and sub!
This was a good essay
Glad you enjoyed it!
I'm going to hurt some of yall really quick... Listen to the pre and post shut down living heritage's theme and then listen to the Caretaker's "Everywhere at the End of Time".
You are welcome.
Yup that'll do it ouch! Really cool thematic suggestion!
Are we gonna ignore the seed of destruction lore and parallels from Nier 🤔
You're character looks too much like mine. You'll be hearing from my lawyer for copyright infringement.
Ah drat another one, My next tactic is to side step this legal issue by complimenting your great taste in character creation.
I love this, and thank you for this. I love dawntrail even if they did BLM dirty.