FFXIV Lore- Why Memories aren't considered Alive
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ม.ค. 2025
- I was honestly shocked when I saw how many players actually thought the WoL was committing some kinda genocide in Living Memory. So I've decided that before the MSQ does anything else with the Endless I'd make this video to set the record straight. Of course the writers may very well retcon this video into oblivion later but so far the lore has been quite clear on the different between living and non-living things. So join me as we talk about that!
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#ffxiv #lore #dawntrail
I need a big bottle of ink so I can forget how Krile got snubbed during DT
A few other things of note, the relic weapons are made out of either souls, memories, or creating a weapon that bonds with the WOL's soul.
The ARR relic weapon is a weapon that takes the souls of those it slays and then uses there memories and experience to adapt to what the WOL needs. The WOL has been taking the soul of Garleans and beast tirbes to make this weapon. The weapon itself is bound to the WOL soul and so only the WOL soul unlocks this power.
The Heavensward relic is the weapon now evolving from those souls and experience in one of its own, it asks for the WOL to go into its own memories of battle and so it can learn and adapt itself more as its own identity so the WOL no longer has too. It more or less is a soul taking weapon that learns and can communicate to the WOL.
The Shadowbringers Relic weapon is a weapon made of memories from warfields in Bozja. The collective memories of trauma from war and the raw emotions are used in the construction of the weapon. By all accounts it is using the same powersource blasphemy use.
Some fun things for those who do not read with a fine tooth comb the lore of relic weapons or ever made one. The method Solution 9 is using is not new to the WOL only the fact they have a tech version of it not magical.
Cheers for that last point. Origenics is doing the exact same thing that the Lifestream does, it's just doing it artificially (and a lot faster)
Serve, save, slave, slay..I've sins aplenty, aye.,but regrets? Not so much. - WoL
It's possible that the whole soul use, at least in the English ver, could be a mistranslation/misconception since I read from a redditor that in Japanese, it often makes clear that soul-use is actually using the living aether of a soul while kicking the soul core itself back to the aetherial sea, who can't return to the physical plane anymore because all of their juice got sucked out. So depending on the interpretation, us Wol did either destroyed soul or just stole their energy and forced them into early reincarnation.
I argue that Krile's Carbuncle is the most advanced Carbuncle in existence...Its still wandering the plains.
or so the legend goes.
Actually it was taken back to Old Sharlayan. They're trying to find out how the heck it didn't discorporate.
@@SynodicScribe the Legend lives.
Don’t you mean Tataru’s?
@@acgearsandarms1343 Oh right the final boss's minion it all makes sense now.
@ Also good job noticing I used the wrong Lala's name x-D
It was pretty sad to hear Erenville at the end of the MSQ say that he was going on an adventure so he had stories to tell his mother when they "met again in the aetherial sea". For one, even if that happened, she wouldn't know anything about the events of Dawntrail, she wasn't there. For another, there is every likelihood that her soul no longer exists, having been used to glamour an electrope popcorn stand or gondola. For yet another, given the identical hair color and styles (down to the blonde tipped braids) shared between Cahciua and the rabbit in Yuweyawata field station, I think it's possible her soul went to a different place entirely.
Though, it's better for him if we don't get technical and correct him.
Another example is Myths of the Realm. When Oschon stays behind for one last adventure, it's with the knowledge that none of the Twelve have souls to return to the Aetherial Sea. When they relinquish their aether, they're gone forever. And Oschon will join them in oblivion after his final adventure.
@@Salt_Mage i think the 12 might be more akin to shards and while they lost the part of them that became Hydealyn, this was still a shard of themselves left to be reborn
@@Salt_Mage They did go to the Aetherial Sea tho. I think it was mentioned that there were still enough of their core/soul to be reincarnated since Venat purposedly didn't consume all of their aether. The only god that was truly burnt away forever was Hydaelyn herself.
And the whole thing about whether Cahciua and the souls being used in S9 are truly gone or not is very muddy due to translation/wording between Japanese/English. There was a redditor who posted a whole thread about how in Japanese, it was made clear that a soul is made up of 3 parts: The memory, the soul/soul core, and the living aether that surrounding the core. When a soul's living aether is consumed, the soul will be forcefully moved to the Aetherial Sea and it actually takes a lot of effort to completely destroy a soul (which was why Y'shtola freaked out over how Dynamis "destroyed" souls). The souls of S9 got stuck inside a regulator have their living aether consumed and only get their soul cores be released upon the death of the host, that's why when Mr deadbeat dad died, his regulator released many soul cores. So in Japanese version, it seems that S9 delayed the whole reincarnation circle drastically but did not outright destroy souls. The English version however, implied that the souls got destroyed completely.
Yeah, the fact that Cahciua's soul was ripped apart and doesn't exist anymore is one thing that so many I've talked to simply didn't grasp. And the fact that *Erenville* didn't get it despite being there for the whole explanation of how things worked... either ball was dropped by the writing team, or sweet boy is just in some serious denial.
@ I'm fine operating under the assumption that he is an expert on marmots and other wildlife but isn't really an aetherologist.
I didn't have a problem shutting down Living Memory, but what I've had trouble reconciling is actually how souls are used in Solution 9, that souls are simply "paper" and just an energy interchangeable between people. The way I had understood souls before in FFXIV was that memories or not, they are the essence of a person, shown in the way Azem shares part of a soul with the WOL, or that different reflections of people from different shards tend to be alike. Re-using the souls seems to imply they don't matter, and that as long as the memories are they same, its the same person. Like did I get that all wrong?
You got it exactly right. This is why soul swapping is wrong. The normalization of this is wrong and Alexandrians are wrong. Let me give you the clearest example of this: The WoL's soul is more dense than others because we are rejoined an extra time. In addition to that, we have the largest piece of the soul of Azem. _This_ is why we are the WoL, not just our memories and body. Granted, our body does hold power, but if we used one of those devices and died and it stuck a new soul in our body, we would no longer be us, no longer be Azem. We would be a recycled soul inhabiting the original body, just as surely as we weren't us when Zenos stole our body. And no doubt, the soul's past and experiences that now inhabits the WoL's body would steer it different just as surely as Zenos would if his soul got stuck in our body. The WoL did what they did, made the choices they made, took the actions they took in large part due to the soul of Azem that inhabits the body. So in that way, if we die and the head-widget installs a new "soul" in our body, we would be dead and our soul would be shoved into that insane supercomputer that stores souls to be recycled, our memories wiped from our soul, and prepped to be randomly shoved into some new body. The way Alexandrians casually reuse souls like a resource is abhorrent and wrong. The fact that this is not made clear enough is the fault of the storytelling, though. A lot of these details are revealed, but the storytelling falls flat in that respect in that it does not make it clear enough that its wrong or why its wrong.
The memories are the essence of a person, they soul is a vessed on how they can express themselfs. A pure soul is just white, its the memories what gives it a color.
Yeah, while memories are important as they define a person in each lifetime, the soul itself has a core that holds a certain imprinted memory/traits that cannot be washed away. Memories are writing/letters, but the soul traits are the color of the page itself. Azem and the Wol shared the same foundation is because of those soul traits.
To quote the wisest character in Shadowbringers: "Of course, you are you, and no one else. We are defined not by the soul we are born with, but the path we walk."
I think Emet-Selch's obsession with the WoL's soul during Shadowbringers and the whole "Azem" thing have given the impression that souls are more important than they really are.
@ The experience in each lifetime is important but I don't think it's wise to dismiss the soul foundation of a person either. Why must we decide that one is more important than the other when it's possible that both the soul itself and the memory are equally important? it's just that the soul ensures that certain traits and bonds will last beyond a single lifetime.
FFXIV is still an Asian game so certain themes like reincarnation and karmic circles are bound to be around.
I am honestly quite surprised that the teachings of the Yok Huy were not mentioned here in some capacity. They were the first in Dawntrail to talk about and center on memories as a focal point in terms of life and death and it never did leave my mind especially during the events of Living Memory. I never saw it as 'no one really cared about deleting thousands of memories' as much as remembering that memories are for the living, to keep those that have passed alive still within the loved ones that were left behind.
Memories may fade by they are not without importance, and as someone who has lost many more than I wished to in my lifetime, this has to be one the first times I can not fully agree with the approach of this lecture. It all feels so black and white when the lesson I got from this expansion is more shaded than it may appear. I understand the core concept of souls and memory and the entire dilemma posed by Living Memory did call for putting their memories to rest. The aether may fade but as was stated, it needed to leave an impression in order to write down the memory on the parchment of one's soul. And impressions are not so easily removed.
So every time I go to Living Memory, I will give time to pause and remember. It's my duty as a living being to do at least that much.
Agreed, but I doubt FFXIV will ever show is what a true afterlife is. They arent going to go to the route of Shadowlands lol
@@FredericckPesetas I think it might be because there isn't one, while at the same time we already went there in the Aitiascope dungeon. The seven heavens/hells aren't a thing and when someone dies, the soul goes down into the aetherial sea to get recycled, and seemingly retains power/personality till it completes the process.
I think the trick is that the Yok Huy don't deliberately hold the memories in thrall. They record them in stone, honour them, and let the natural course take place. This is opposed to Alexandria that was so afraid of death that it literally tore souls apart to keep a memory copy running. Even if we wanted to keep the system on, between an increased energy demand because of more memories to be stored and a dwindling supply of souls as each remaining shard became depleted and almost no aetherically rich life left in the universe, the system was unsustainable.
And THEN we got the end of 7.1. 7.2 is gonna be an interesting setup for whatever resolution they have planned for 7.3.
The Yok Huy are important. Remember that no one in living memory is remembered by anyone wearing a regulator. From the Yok Huy's point of view, the system designed to preserve the Endless has actually killed them in the most profound way.
I’m surprised you didn’t bring up [DRK job quest spoilers] Myste, as weaving lingering memory into a false person was kinda their whole thing, and the lessons we learned from it.
As Rikku from 10 perfectly described. "Memories are nice, but that's all they are."
I'm surprised by a lot of the comments on this video, because I had a completely different read on Dawntrail and Living Memory.
In my opinion, each expansion has its own set of themes. Heavensward asks the player to take a hard look at prejudice, injustice, and cycles of violence. Stormblood considers oppression and how one might create a better world from ashes. Shadowbringers deals with the deep grief of those left behind, and how this grief can lead to healing as easily as madness. Endwalker challenges the player to look fear and suffering and death in the face, and still choose hope and life-to recognize that meaning is something we choose.
Dawntrail, however... Dawntrail is legacy and *letting go.* So many of the characters are concerned with the impact of those who went before, and their continuity. It breaks Gulool Ja, who is terrified of expectations, as well as Sphene, who can't let go of her people. Erenville, Krile, and Wuk Lamat, on the other hand... all three of them meet a precious relative in Living Memory, share a moment... then let those 'living' memories go.
That's what I found so moving and difficult about the final zone. I would give *anything* to speak with my grandmother again. To hug my grandfather. To tell them everything I didn't say in life, when I had the chance. Moving on from loss can feel impossible.
I don't see how the nature of the beings in Living Memory as *memories* makes any difference at all. Look at how characters have reacted during the patch. The presence of these artificial memories allow them to push back grief. To ignore it, and pretend there never was a loss at all. It's a cheat, and I think the party knows that. Shutting down the AI, to me, is not a meaningless press of a button because of what it represents-acceptance that the people we loved and cared for are gone and that, although it hurts, we will walk on.
In a way, it makes the act (for the player) all the more meaningful. The game is asking you to choose life, over and over, rather than be swallowed in nostalgia and death.
Im surprised by this comment, it's almost exactly what i wanted to say. Memories or experiences are what shape the soul and let us grow stronger as people.
I would argue that living memories are that person, just unable to grow any more.
But yes, DT's living memory arc was for sure about choosing life and letting go. Which is why it was so hard for me to play it. My grandmother was very sick and passed away while I was playing through this part. Which is why it took m so long to finish it. The day after she passed I meet with wuk's caretaker and man....that hit hard as fuck.
The entire arc is etched into my own memory as very specific or a haze cuz i was so emotional and crying the whole time. Because god damn what i wouldnt give for the same, to talk to either of my grandmothers one more time....
I quite suprise by this comment. A lot of people tend to believe that Living memories theme was about the moral conundrum of sentience and life, but that to me didn't sit right with the context of the story in general. I'll be honest and say I didn't like the MSQ of dawntrail but this aspect of it sort of different for me. To me, Living memory was the embodiment of what it means to be a memory. When I got the consensus of Living memory when arriving at the final zone. My impressions of it was that this was a direct conflict to the themes of FFXIV and what it means to be a legacy. To be remembered is what it means to be a memory. That's the motto the WoL and and their companions have championed. Even the phrase "For those we could not save, and those yet to be saved" harkens to this idealogy that memory is suppose to exist within the hearts of others. What Living memory had done was rob the simalcrums created by that memory the chance to be a proper memory. That's why I didn't feel wrong or wierd about deactivating them.
To me the nature of living memory's residents doesn't matter, its about what it tarnishes that's more important. I too would kill to have my great grandmother again, but if it meant that she could not be remembered, if she couldn't be recalled by those she loved any longer, I would never choose that. If she had to exist in the same sense as the Endless, then that in itself is a cruel act.
But in the context of the story, the WoL and its party had already experience this mockery over and over again throughout their journey in the previous saga. They know its a difficult choice, but they've already made plenty of difficult choices already. Could they have dived into the philosophy of "What is Life?" in that zone? Yes, but then you need to ask the question, "Was that the point of Living Memory?". And my answer to that is, it wasn't. It was a theme of defining what it means to be a memory, and that Alexandria's methods idea of what it mean't that "Through memory, we shall live on" was perverted to an extent that it didn't matter if they were alive or not. There actions and methods threaten that what the WoL and their companions held dear. It was a action that spoke volumes that you shouldn't cling to the life, that their is solace in the fact that because someone knew you, met you, spoke to you, recalls you, that the living will always remember you and for that, you would live on.
The notion of the endless being living or not is just a distracting point.
@@sarathepirate the themes are fine, I think the main issue with the expansion is that the writing quality was not up to par with past entries.
The problem here is that the people who actually need to learn this lesson and the people that Living Memory affects the most aren't even present in Living Memory. Not a single Alexandrian from any of the Solutions is at Living Memory to experience the choices that the WoL and Scions made. They made the choice to move on without the people that need to learn to move on. We made this choice for the people of Alexandria and they don't even know what happened.
Small correction with you saying Gulool Ja instead of Zoraal Ja in part of the comment
But yeah this comment is exactly what I thought myself and why Living Memory works so well for me, and also the message of DT works so well for me personally, especially after Endwalker. That was a message of how do you find a reason to keep going in this life full of suffering and despair. Dawntrail was a story of how do you go about finding purpose, joy and fulfillment in this life. That in part goes hand in hand about legacy and how one looks to the future. That imo, was a good and impactful message that DT delivered to me very clearly
the carbuncle segment reminds me of tataru's carbuncle, and how it seems to have a personality at the very least. that, and that she's such a masterclass weaver, she apparently wove that much of a mind-numbingly efficient spell that the dang this is still roaming the lands of Eorzea to this day
Honestly the dislike and the feeling people have that we committed genocide on the Endless is completely the writers fault. There was barely any effort in distinguishing a living person from an Endless outside of the part where we try eating the food. The Endless hear, feel, and think like any normal person. If you put an Endless right next to a living being, no one would be able to tell the difference. In fact, the Endless are so real, that they completely contradict the values of Alexandria and Living Memory. Those of Living Memory and Alexandria only keep cherished memories, while extremely negative memories are taken from them, however we see Otis have a PTSD episode, which should literally be impossible. How does Living Memory know how to process PTSD? Why does living memory even have access to memories that it was built NOT to use? We see this again with Namika. We're told that depending on the form that an Endless takes, there's a high possibility that they won't be able to remember the memories after their chosen age group. Yet Namika contradicts this by being able to pull more memories from Living Memory somehow just at the mere sight of seeing Wuk Lamat. Just like that, the possibility of the people of Living Memory having their memories manipulated and lacking free will goes right out the window. They have free will, they completely contradict their 'coding'. They're able to make completely new memories, and experience all forms of emotion. So it boggled my mind that the WoL and the Scions didn't explain the situation to the people at all. Instead we just, well, kill them and we're supposed to be okay with it without any real discussion cause the plot said so. The writers have written completely real people, with the only suggestion otherwise being that the game literally verbally tells you that they aren't real and need to go and you're supposed to throw your hands in the air and just say "OK!"
Sphene and the people of Alexandria consider the Endless alive. The people of Alexandria believe that those they have forgotten are alive, waiting for them in "The Cloud." While I still believe that shutting down Living Memory would have been the end goal regardless, the way it's written is dumb and comes across as heartless and equally pointless. Shutting down the terminals does nothing, and doesn't even turn out to be the reason why we can even encounter Sphene in the first place. Sphene doesn't acknowledge that we've killed the Endless at all during the final dungeon or battle. "Learning" about the people and giving them one last hurrah feels pointless because only five people have witnessed any of this and will walk out with any memory of what happened in Living Memory. None of the Endless and absolutely zero of the Alexandrians have a say. We "Learn" about one or two NPCs per area, then turn off the terminal containing dozens of the projected ones that we never even interacted with, and hundreds of thousands of those who were never projected in the first place.
At the end of the day, the people of Living Memory and how to deal with it is an extremely complex issue, one that didn't get the amount of time needed that the Scions prior to Dawntrial would have 100% approached completely differently. It's bad writing.
@@RikaRokiju I feel like the worst part is erenville's mom because she expent years leading a group of people without any of them realizing anything wrong .
That pretty much destroys the posibility of portraying them as not-people at all .
Her telling its all ok because she's not real kind of feels hollow.
I would be ok of I could dismiss It as her trying to prevent us from feeling guilty when killing her cause she wants to die , but everyone else is just ok with It aparently.
Also like aren't we suposed to empatize with Sphene at all? Because that definitely did seem to be where the writting was going.
@@victorlevoso8984Dang, this is a really good point lol. Cahciua has been working with the Resistance for years and no one was able to tell the difference. She worked with them, made memories with them, took care of Gulool Ja, and had a neutral relationship with Sphene. No one could tell at all she was an Endless lol
Yup, the writers wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They wanted you to feel bad about shutting the Endless down so they made sure to make them as real as possible and have you make bonds with them, but they also didn't want you to commit genocide so they also tell you that they're not actually real. What we're being shown and what we're being told is a complete contradiction.
This could have made for a great philosophical theme and debate about what it really means to be alive and/or be an individual (what are we if not just a collection of memories that have shaped us?) like in Star Trek or SOMA, but the writers clearly weren't interested or capable enough for that. So what we're left with is this contradictory and toothless story that doesn't really please anyone.
yeah, in my head cannon I didn't delete them, just put the servers into a low power mode where they don't consume souls, with the goal to "find another way" as Sphene challenges us to, one that doesn't use such a valuable resource
@@victorlevoso8984 this is one the biggest things that bugged the shit out of me with DT. how are we supposed to believe Cahciua is not alive and real when she's been leading a rebel force in the shadows and playing a guiding hand in trying to figure out the inner workings of the whole Everkeep operation. like wtf? makes absolutely zero sense that a non living being would have this much sense of motivation and determination
what about Tataru's Carbuncle? As far as we know, it's still running free somewhere
It's actually in Old Sharlaya right now. Hanging out with some researchers as they try to figure out why it didn't dissolve back into aether.
You can also add that some souls seem to keep certain traits the WOL seem to love to wander the world and explore and help people like Azem Fandaniel and his later life as Amon seem to study and try to created life. Of course this could be rare case for souls overall not everyone has the Echo it appears.
Azem is the WoL.
@@Spyrit2011 No. The WoL is a reincarnation of Azem. Not strictly the same. Same soul yes but everything else is different.
I like to think that each soul has certain characteristics that can impact the lives it has. Some core elements that will always express even if in different ways.
@@kurojester4513 Oh certainly, souls themselves aren't just batteries but they hold their own core traits too. Amon may look completely different at first but in the end, he actually kept a lot of his old traits. Same with Claudien and Erich, heck, even their appearances still share many similarities despite Claudien being no longer physically related to Hephaestus.
@@kurojester4513 The WoL is a sundered Azem. Attracting souls with each calamity.
I feel like the the soul stone is a pretty apt comparison. The servers of electrope are equivelent but to a much larger and power hungry degree. Like the wielder of a soul stone would probably get pretty upset about losing one too, but at the end of the day it's not because the small fragments of memory from battle were alive, it was just a useful impression to have.
I don't think they're quite the same. The way I see it, the Soul crystal is like a usb stick, in a simplified way. A USB stick is used to store data or "memory" and the soul crystal acts like that. It's just the memories from the past owner. It cannot revive the holder of that crystal. Whereas the regulators not only imbue their souls with beast souls but also revive them with another soul if they die.
It just came to my attention that ... if they lose their souls from the alexandrian soul extraction machines, what becomes of their other shard selves? Are they perma-nerfed or do they regain that portion of their own aether but in a bleached out, factory-reset format? Plot hole?
No idea. The Writers have been extremely inconsistent with the sundered souls fragments as well as aetheric density. Unless we get a line for line explanation I dunno if we'll ever known 100% what's going on.
Could the post-Omega quest added in Endwalker shed some light to why Alpha is still with us?
I think for me my only real frustration with living memory was just how lackadaisically we went about it. There was no sense of urgency from either the us nor the Sphene. I understand that what I'm about to say may be retreading old ground but this zone really needed us (IMO) to be either chased through or under some sort of timer with obstacles in our path. Again, I'm aware that suggestion probably just sounds like Amaurot and Ultima Thule again but that just raises the stakes. For me this section felt ridiculously anticlimactic.
It is a theory that was also explored in Fullmetal alchemist, the idea of the body and soul being one thing, with the spirit and it's memories being the link that ties the two together.
In the French translation they used an interesting term to describe the result of missing a single element, an "erzats" in other words a replacement that is convincing enough to feel like the real deal, but any looking into it farther reveals it has nothing to do with the original.
I'm actually wondering if there could be a similarity to it within the Living Memory where it's inhabitants felt sadly shallow and almost disillusioned to their situation in some cases. Maybe because they felt they were nothing more than mere leftovers missing crucial parts of themselves.
People have different opinions about what makes something consious, and very popular functionalist theories of consciousness don't allow for beings that act exactly like a conscious being that arent.The game saying souls are what makes you alive in this setting is going to clash with that , and its pretty valid to interpret it as people in universe being wrong about philosophy.
Answering to philosophical questions with in game lore that's supposed to override the answers they might have on our wold metaphysically not just in terms of the physics of how the fictional world and its people works is just not satisfying.
And yes is seems likely that for other reasons deleting them was the best option but like "justified genocide" is pretty yikes and a very different situation from turning off things that only seem like people but aren't and so you should argue whether turning off the terminals was the best choice and whether it was killing people separately.
If you think beings without souls can be conscious and have feelings but aren't "alive" and that means its ok to delete them, that's even worse cause then you are trying to have the game provide answers to morality questions in a way that a lot of people will disagree on.
And I feel like a lot of the reason this explantion feels compelling is the vibes and tropes of simulated people and ghosts the endless have and the ones we talk to wanting us to kill them.
If the game had made a race of biological people who didn't have souls for some reason and the wol killed all of them while they begged them not to I feel like you woud be much less comfortable saying that that's all meaningless because they have not souls and therefore they are not truly "alive" whatever that means. The obvious plot that would be written there instead would be that those people do matter anyway.
Saying that Alpha didn't matter or didn't have feelings or something before he had a soul is also not going to be compelling to most players.
"The exception that proves the rule" was always a nonsensical saying, if something has a exception is not the true rule.
At minimun alpha getting a soul and things that can act like people for years leading a resistance movement not having one kind of works on cross purposes narratively.
Also do the omicron even have souls? seems like it kind of goes against the talk graha gives and the themes of that section of endwalker if they don't and you decide that means they are not real.
Like I'm not saying your interpretation is not valid, I'm mostly complaining on the implication that the lore settles this question and there's no reason for people to reasonably disagree.
I think it truly depends on the context from which the systems you are operating on in order to determine the definition of conciousness. A philosophical question is designed to never have the answer, but in the context of story telling, you'll never be satistfyed because all answers to this question is suppose to be subjective. I can see that it can be displeasing if the story justifies a certain answer with its own lores and functions, but in reality that's all fictional stories.
The problem with trying to impose our worlds philosphical standings and interpretation on the concept of "What defines life?" is that it's not a equal equivalency to a fictional setting. This is because in our own world, we answer this question based on the context and information we consensusly know. This is how most people define "Sentience" and "Life". Through the knowledge and context we have.
However, this isn't something you can use in the context of a fictional world. The conventional knowledge, rules, and laws of a ficitonal world greatly change the answer and the question. This is why context matters. In FFXIV their rules and definitions of life by atamonical level is greatly and vastly different from the rules we use in our own reality. This is the example of false equivalancies.
People would argue that this is a genocide, in a way it may be. However we have to understand the psyche of Emet-selch and his perspective. Most will reference Emet-Selch lines of "You all are but fragments, therefore I don't consider you alive and feel nothing" mindset. At first glance you would think this is a direct equivalant to what the WoL and his company did in alexandria. However the way I interpret Emet-selch's words is far more complex. Emet-Selch viewpoint isn't that he doesn't see the people of the sundered world as having no souls. He does see that people have souls, however, the souls of those people are small in aether density, so in his eyes he views the souls of the sundered world as not alive. This isn't him not acknowledging that the sundered souls as not being souls, this is him invalidiating the value of those souls for he see's the ancients as souls of greater importance. In this context, Emet-Selch never went agaisnt his definition that souls are the definitive metric for life. He just saw the metric presented to him through the unsundered world as a worthless thing to entertain. In sense, Emet-selch was words are best to be read as a connotation rather then a dennotation. He isn't saying that you are not alive, he saying he views you in the same sense as someone who isn't alive. Those two phrases had two different meanings.
In Alexandria's case hower, its different. Alexandria had ultimately valued the memory as the definitive metric for existence and life. The problem with this veiw point stems from the circumstances of the Aether system that governs all of FFXIV's Aetherology. They were tarnishing the course of nature to cheat death both through memory and the burning of souls through the use of regulators and living memory. The problem that this creates is the fact that Memory is being valued more than the soul itself and as established by the lore, memory doesn't have the strength to sustain itself.
My point being that in the context of Emet-Selch, he was willing kill the souls of millions for the sake of furthering his goals becuase he saw no worth in those souls versus Alexandria where they memories were consuming the souls of countless for the sake of preserving the memory of life rather than life itself. If you apply this to that philosophical question, you see the problem. One choice will disregard the laws of FFXIV world and nature while the other would try to entertain the tarnishing of life.
Now they could have made it a scenario where the memories were begging for their lives, but in all honesty, their systems were on their last legs as stated by the MSQ. Not many Endless were being simulated at the time. Not only that tho they were self-aware of what they were, the problem lies in the fact that they reflect the civilizations of the dead ends. To me, the Endless ultimately didn't want that form of existence, solely because they had no reason to keep existing. This reflects the final civilization you encounter in the dead ends. A cilvization that had eliminated all sorrows only to find their was no fulfillment in joy so they sought to end their existence by creating a beast to deliver their mercy. The Endless were in a similar boat. A bunch of simulated memory that sought achieve fullfillment but found no purpose in existing any further. The paradise they sought was now a prison they wanted to end. Living Memory is a direct relation to the dead end dungueons and ultimately it is you who delivers that mercy.
In the retrospect of whether the omicrons have souls, they quick answer is they use to. The omicrons by their lore aspect are still beings that traded out their organic bodies for mechanic ones. Even Otis is an example of this. Robot otis has a soul, he's just a soul planted in the body of a machine.The omicrons are no different, however you could say, they are far more automatized. The only wierd case is Alpha to which even by the video standards we cannot exactly tell what he is, so that's just speculatory at best.
i *had* hoped that this video would address, even briefly, the actual substance of why this story beat hit so strangely, rather than retreading the purely watsonian explanation we've all already heard. You can construct a definition of "life" such that it excludes the Endless, and that may make for an interesting story, but that definition is ultimately arbitrary and was invented for the story. it doesn't meaningfully address the core philosophical question, beyond the terms set by the text itself; it merely presumes the answer put forth by the text is the correct one by default. Which is fine for examining a text, but insufficient for examining people's *reaction* to a text.
What we have here is a modified version of the concept of "philosophical zombies", and it inherits some of the attendant philosophical questions. the core question, to me is: if the Endless behave and react in every way identically to their living counterparts in every situation (as is broadly implied to be the case within the story), then in what way are they meaningfully *distinct* from their living selves, as moral subjects or objects? or, to put it another way, how are they different in the sense that the act of killing them should or should not have gravity?
The notion i take issue with is not "it was morally correct to shut down the Endless", as that was sufficiently justified within the text in my opinion. Rather, it's "the Endless are not the same as living people, AND THEREFORE, shutting them down is more morally good (or less morally objectionable) than it would have been if they *were* living people". This, to me, is an incoherent position. Shutting down the Endless was a necessary but immensely heavy act. To justify it by saying "well, they weren't really alive, so it's fine" *cheapens* it.
To be perfectly fair, I have seen this sentiment expressed far more often, and far more explicitly, *outside* the game than in the in-game text. But the in-game dialogue occasionally flirts with this line of thinking, even if it treats the act with the appropriate gravity while it is actually happening. In fact, it's this very duality in the game's attitude toward the Endless that comes off as so strange in the first place. We are supposed to feel sad at their passing, but simultaneously we are supposed to believe that they are not "real" in some meaningful way.
Not only does the game fail to satisfactorily justify this, I don't think it served the story to even *try*. I truly believe that, even if the Endless *had* been "alive" by the story's own reckoning, it would not have materially changed anything about the situation, and shutting them down would *still* have been necessary. Why lower the stakes by asserting that they are "lesser" in some way? To soften the blow? It didn't need softening. It SHOULD hit hard. The game should own the gravity of what's happening, rather than bend over backwards to make you feel okay about doing something morally complicated. Pulling punches here made it feel less authentic, and I think that may be why it didn't sit well with so many people.
@thetaClysm yeah I also felt similarly when playing the story.
Erenville's mom saying It because she wants to die to try to convinces us would be ok , It makes sense, even though how she acts kind of makes that feel hollow to me and like the real reason she is saying It is that she doesnt want to live if that means expending souls of other people and doesnt want us to feel guilty for killing her .
But the other characters don't question that at all or act like theres any nonobious dilema in hands wich feels weird, and was annoying me all the way.
And sure I see how It could make sense for the characters to have the opinions expresed on the video .
But then thats obiously going to clash with the players own thoughts and feelings on the topic, and how the story seems to be setup as you say to make you feel sad and like the endless do matter at places.
And the characters don't even discuss the topic much they just seemingly take for granted her answer.
We also help the endless be happy one last time like they matter on each zone directly clashing with that.
Krille does express some doubt at all when its her own parents and just accepts It because they personally happen to be ok with dying.
Imagine if instead they didn't want to.
And while undertandable starting to have doubts after you turned off terminals without complaining or needing much effort to being convinced feels weird.
If they had made the endless much less like people , not capable of trully grasping the situation or forming new memories or something a lot of people wouldn't complain but It felt like they either wanted to have their cake and eat It too with respect of endless being people.
@@victorlevoso8984yup, they should have at least had some of your companions be against shutting them down. Or at least argue against being so cavalier about it. Everyone just instantly being fine with it was just weird after everything we've been through and seen in our adventures.
From Alpha to everyone in Omega Thule to Gigi, we've always gone out of our way to treat these people as sentient individuals and protected them. Yet for the Endless everyone is suddenly instantly fine with doing the complete opposite.
@@charlesdickens1803 yeah, and the whole omicron society quest kind of relies on them being people, otherwise why bother.
And also at the metaphor level the whole not acepting things as people is like racism coded wich is part of why the whole "acepting new kinds of beings as people " is so popular , and going aganist that and say some new kinds of being is not people better be coupled with some really strong reason like them not being able to form new memories at all or something (wich would have fit the themes and logic)otherwise if its something that feels abitrary to the players like not having some vague unexplained soul that aparently is not necesary for like behaving indistinguishable from a person its going to feel like just discrimination to a lot of people .
And then of course people are going to call It genocide and basically equivalent to Emet's logic.
And It really feels like to me that not having souls should mean they don't act like people given that aparently those are suposed to be where a lot of thinking, memory and personality happens on the setting (I wonder, what so brains even do in the ffxiv universe).
And if the terminals are doing the same functions as a soul In that regard Its basically judging people based on the material their minds are made of basically.
Would they judge people from our universe, who are wholy made of meat as not real?.
This also happens on a universe where nier automata is a thing going by the raid wich IS kind of ironic.
I think there's more to be said about memory in FFXIV, and quite possibly more that's going to be in-game. Memory is perhaps the largest theme Dawntrail's story, but very few people mention it. Like how grief and loss and loneliness are themes in Shadowbringers and Endwalker, but there's not much analysis of Dawntrail's themes.
For instance, Living Memory is called "the cloud" because it's cloud storage. A remote wireless storage server. We use them in real life to store everything important to us. Our photo's, videos, audio clips, writing, personal files, music we like, games we play. So much of ourselves is stored digitally, and it can remain long after we're gone. We lose people, but we still have their digital memories, and often those memories are stored in the cloud.
All the more troubling then, that we're faced with a real-world energy crisis that could see those digital memories destroyed. Our digital infrastructure is not truly permanent, it's fragile. Servers can fail and shut down, and take all their stored data with them. The energy crisis in Alexandria parallels the one in real life, as does their solution: military action to take resources from other countries. Even so, what they are doing is unsustainable.
I also think that, with Living Memory in particular, the devs are acknowledging that their own servers will one day be shut down. That this fantastic world they created will be gone. And the places we've all gone and our journeys and our characters will be gone too. In it's own way, FFXIV is a "living memory".
The carbuncle does actually have a will. If you recall when Tataru was trying to find a skill that would best benefit the Scions, she tried being an arcanist but the carbuncle refused to obey her. It ran away from battle and the WOL had to step in and save her.
I have a lot of conflicted feelings about DT, but Living Memory was an aspect I hated. I mean, I hated it in the story, but the concept and how they explored it was very interesting.
Because Living Memory was a place Sphene considered a heaven, and to the Endless it was more an uncaring hell. After all, they themselves didn’t mind fading away, and with the exception of Sphene and Cachiua, were trapped within LM with all the illusions of life slowly fading away like an abandoned Chuck E. Cheese.
Oh and another thing. You seem to have forgotten the curious case of Tsuyu. Wherein the character Yotsuyu lost her memories, and the cast opted to give her new identity dignity and the respect of a new PERSON. A new LIFE. Because she could make new MEMORIES.
The picture you are painting here in this video is one that tries to deny the personhood of all of The Endless. And that will never be the moral high place. No, not even in the context of XIV's world.
It was another ugly affair of kill or be killed, and we did what we're good at.
1 thing i don't get is why in the 24man raid the boss's seem to get electrop bodies but in living memory they are more like projections
I believe it's because Sareel Ja is the one manipulating & molding the electrope, and he's relatively a novice at it. So it looks cruder than Alexandria.
Alexandria has been at this practice for centuries, so they're capable of much more intricate manipulation of electrope
Thanks for the amazing video! Again!
5:40 yknow I've always found a parallel between Hermes and ShB Emet, but I didn't know they were truly so tied together! I even had a theory they'd reveal that the Twelve was the Convocation in Myths of the Realm and really hammer home the parallels with NaldThal
11:00 sorry for the second comment, bit I felt like this was a separate question
What would happen if in theory we gave a carbuncle a blank soul crystal?
Nothing. Mostly because carbuncles are already made from aether conductive stones. Can't really have stone on stone action.
@SynodicScribe Gotcha! All the aether is already going to one stone, and that stone isn't "strong enough" to hold memories?
Edit so what if the chosen gemstone WAS strong enough to hold memory!
This isn't like "vital character lore" or anything, just a fun idea I figured I'd ask about while I'm here
The problem is that this concept just... doesn't work.
If you believe the Endless are truly alive, then turning them off is totally unconscionable and goes against so much of what we've learned about other quasi-living creatures. If you believe they're alive, you are committing genocide by erasing them, and we are no longer a hero but a terrible villain.
If you don't believe the Endless are truly alive, then there's literally no reason not to turn them off, and all the time we spend learning about them and getting to know them is completely pointless.
I personally fell into the latter category, causing the entire final zone of Dawntrail to feel like a chore with zero stakes. I literally didn't care about turning off Alexandria's AI chatbots of dead people and all the melodrama around doing so completely fell flat.
The game could have addressed the morally grey elements of this if it bothered to explore those elements. But the writing in Dawntrail is nowhere near that smart.
Remember. Remember that we onced lived.
That is why we spent time with them before turning them off. Beyond the fact the scions and the Warrior of Light are just natural curious people we wanted to honour the people they are copied by.
At least how I viewed it. It was like finding a library filled with stories that is going to fall down and crush homes below it. We had sometimes to flip through a few tomes but ultimately it had to be removed for the greater good. Yes we should have just done the deed and moved on but we never do that. Other wise we stop being ourselves and just become a blunt weapon only good to smash threats.
Was this well writen or executed? No. But 14 always has problems like that. Stick enough of us in a room and you'll learn your fav part is another's most hated.
"From my perspective, you are not truly alive. Therefore I would not be guilty of murder if I kill you." Paraphrased Emet-Selch.
It would've been better if the Endless had been stated as a form of live, but they themself would've pleaded the WoL to end their existence, because they understood that their time was over, and their continued existence would've caused suffering in other beings, and the only one who wanted them to stay was Queen Sphene. That way we would've had the feeling of doing the "right" thing despite it might being painful for us to do so, and we would've had a villian with an understandable cause of action. It would've been a good lesson about letting go.
The "Fake" Golden city.
Man i hate how we get to this expansion to just witness that this mythical place since ARR was just a purgatory made by a sentimental AI.
what i mean? is one of the best parts od DT
The entire living memory section broke me.
same. turning off the Aero terminal took me 3-4 hours just from crying about bun mom
Never forget, the strange carbuncle that seemingly existed in EW without the summoner granting it aether 🤭
Sphene is basically Meteion, but slightly more successful in the killing of existence.
Erasure from Existence by Memorial Soul Cannibalism, think we can guess what the ice Cream in Living Memory was actually made of.
Until future patches adds or retcons it's own story, because Dawntrail have this weird habit of forgiving an antagonist for absolutely horrible actions because "they were just having a bad day you know, just SMILE while thousands of souls are eradicated!"
Thank you for publishing a clear & succinct explanation as to why we're not "exactly like Emet-Selch" for shutting down Living Memory.
Hopefully that argument can die down like the Zodiark Trancers from Shadowbringers who were ready to rejoin Etheirys because Emet missed his way cooler friends
I was moved by the stories in Living Memory: Wuk Lamat's farewell with Namika, Evenville and his mum... not so much the part with Krile's parents, I think they didnt do them justice... But I didnt feel anything when we shut-down that computer. And this has nothing to do with Emet: Emet would compare modern men to what they were in his time, and found them, us, wanting. But the "people" in Living Memory... they were just data, just ink without paper. What am I do to with ink without a surpace to put it on? Sure, that might be a bit too simply put, and that couple from the Canal zone clearly created new memories, new data if you will, by being together at long last. But there is no future for them, no meaning, no purpose. No life. They just exist, as if pretenting to be "alive", but its merely a stage play: all we did was turning off the lights and ending the show.
* was moved by the stories in Living Memory: Wuk Lamat's farewell with Namika, Evenville and his mum... not so much the part with Krile's parents, I think they didnt do them justice* They did do them justice
@@FredericckPesetas Your opinion, thats fine. I think, Krile was overall neglected in DT, but thats me.
Another thing about Living Memory is it's stuck in stasis. The living memories really aren't doing anything there. They don't really have the power to do anything. And if they tried to do anything, they'd probably fade away from the effort. So it's merely a masquerade of living. Little events to keep them occupied and distracted from thinking about their existence. All of them know they died. Some of them suspect they're not the same person as when they lived. And a small handful know they're not the same person as when they lived.
Even worse is the system was failing over the long term. The amount of energy needed to keep just that one zone in existence was unfathomable. And it once used to be larger with more memories allowed to co-exist, but many had to be put into sleep mode just to allow for what we saw. But also some memories weren't returning. And this would have grown worse and worse over time. And no matter how much the Eternal Queen tried to stop it, it would probably just accelerate its demise. But it would have done untold amount of damage and destruction as it tried to stop the whole system from unravelling.
@@TheWickedWizardOfOz1 I don't think it should only apply with Cahciua. Even if the Endless are memory alone and they act upon memories of those who were once alive, the main takeaway is that they are sentient. That if they are sentient beings, then they should be considered alive.
Although it's tricky in that if they're basically avatars programmed to act like those who were once alive, then can an AI program basing their actions on said memories be considered a living being?
@@TheWickedWizardOfOz1 Killing them all outright? If turning off the terminals ended their lives, then why is it that there were those that still stayed after?
Reality is that turning off the terminals didn't act as a means of pulling the plug. But instead being a means for them to be released, since it was Living Memory itself that trapped them there unable to leave.
If it's rather clear that they could have stayed if they wanted to, making it a consensual action on their part, then why the need to argue about the morality of turning off the terminals?
@ Is it really necessary to question in giving the means for people to leave their prison?
I had just mentioned that the dilemma you're wanting doesn't apply to Living Memory. You're still basing your argument on the idea that the WoL killed them to justify a moral dilemma. A moral dilemma that does not exist.
Additionally, your wants of the specific moral dilemma you're wanting plays little role in the narrative theme of DT. Living Memory has and has always been a means for those who are living to come to terms with the death of someone close. Not this belief of choosing who lives or dies.
I feel Living Memory would have had more impact if it wasn’t retreaded ground. I don’t hate it, but because we did something similar in Endwalker, it lost its novelty and impact to a lot of players.
Honestly, I’d argue we did a favor to the Endless because I know for a fact they can persist past the shutdown of the terminals if they have unfinished business. If so many went away initially, they had nothing important enough to linger. And for those who remained, we helped settle their affairs. A lot of them wouldn’t want to continue existing if it meant the cost of life to the living.
they could have made it a LOT different the UT if they had not focused on the rabbit and the cat and instead focused on emet. hammer home how what we were doing to the endless was like and for the same reasons as emet tried to kill us. some of them SHOULD have fought back other then sphine, it should have been obvious that they were just cyphers of real people but with edge cases of them going outside of their programing. emet was the one who pointed us this direction in the first place, it should be both sweeping up his leftover messes and him showing us what his point of view was.
There is an interesting conondrum here. According to christian religion, the soul is the core of it all, its own sense of self, what it make us, us and what it lives forever. But according to ffxiv, it follows a similar way of the budaism religion, where the soul is just a part our structure but not core of it. It's infact the memories what are the core of one's self.
While I do not disagree with your assessment, I think what’s truly interesting (and not explored at all, sadly) is that the plot beat was for the party to even make these distinctions and decisions.
Why?
Emet Selch argued that the denizens of the core and its reflections effectively were not “alive” because compared to an unsundered , a sundered beings soul or spirit was insufficient to be considered thus. Therefore his actions were justified . His understanding on what life WAS , his baseline definition, made him feel justified in his decision
Likewise the party’s current baseline definition of life as covered in this video made Them feel justified in their decision in a living memory
I think that this would have been interesting to explore further. While we may be in “the moral good” I would love to have the citizenry of Alexandria or Living Memory being as horrified with our decision as we were with Emet Selch
From THEIR position , we are. I just dislike that the game doesn’t think we’re smart enough for this nuance
Also, one of the Living Memories literally asked the party to shut everything off and end their existence as, essentially, Sphene's NFT collection.
@@NehfariusI found that odd basically contrived to take out all nuance so we didn’t have to trouble ourselves with thought tbh
This is the same argument i make with my friends. We are just following the same path Emet did and we are just so happy to do so... We don't understand them and we don't see them as alive so we are happy to kill them.
I would have rather the endless themselves sacrificed themselves to stop Sphenes plan. They could have lied to the Hero of Light telling them to turn off the pillars to save the queen... But in the end it really shuts down the Endless as well. A moral sacrifice to do the right thing...
Shutting off Living Memory is more like turning off Amaurot. No one would argue that Amaurot is "living". They're just aetherial shades with Emet-Selch's memories imbued onto them.
@@Euphamia I think a lot misinterpret Emet-Selchs words.
Emet-Selch didn't see the people of the sundered world as not living. He saw the value of their souls as valueless as someone who is not alive. Emet-Selch was being connotative with his words in my opinion and I think people take his words too literally.
Emet-Selch did see that the people of the sundered world had souls, he just didn't see the value in them. Hence his phrase "I do not see you as alive" is more of a connotation rather than a literary meaning. The clutch of Emet-Selch's principles was based on inheritence and legacy and whether the people of this age was worthy of bearing the title as stewards of the stars. His motives were driven not by him seeing you as without souls but that your souls weren't worthy with the task of leading the star. He didn't see the people of this world as worthy of the legacy and releving him of his burden. That's why he sought to rejoin the worlds, because he believed the souls of the ancients are far more worthy than the souls of today's age.
You the WoL are walking a different path than Emet selch. The choice of having to deactivate Living Memory was done not because you didn't see them as alive per say but because they're existence was a paper-clip theory that was doom to inact a extinction event.
In the case of Living memory, you are surronded by simulcrum made by the memories of those who lived and are left to deactivate them. You could argure chicua is proof of this, but then would you argue that the watcher is also proof of life? or would you argue that the simulcrums of Ultima Thule to be alive? or would you argue that the Hythlodeaus you meet in Amoruot to be alive as well? That's where the problem of the argument of sentience with Living memory, because then you'd have to consider them alive when they explicitly said through dialogue that they are arcane by nature.
Now the reason why The endless are so willing to be upfront and complacent about it is because of severals reasons. One the system of Living Memory when you got there is on its last legs and extremely run down, so majority of the recorded memory isn't being simulated because it lacks the sufficent Aether to do so. The people of living memory have existed for so long that the joy of existing likely ate away at the memory. They were self-aware yes, but eventually a self-aware AI would deem that its pointless to keep performing the task after awhile. This harkens to the same themes shown in Endwalker with the dead ends. Living memory greatly reflects one of those civilizations. A existence that has given up living because they found no joys in further existing. The eternity they created was all but a prison for the Endless.
This is why I say Emet-Selch's actions and the WoL's actions are entirely different. Emet-Selch's motives and reasonings stem from not seeing any worth in the lives of a the souls that were so flawed and inperfect that they weren't worthy of inheriting the legacy. The WoL saw that Living memory was a disrespect to the very notion of what a memory is and therefore it needed to be stop for it had greatly treaten the star. The two are not equivalancies.
I remember in Fallout 3 there was a group of survivors locked in a vault they dumped their consciousness into a simulation unknowingly, they could live for as long as the vault had power likely forever; the ideal situation for Queen Sphene, and the people were happy but could never grow a man that was likely 90 years old could never grow up to be a man he could never live anormal life he was a child for 80 years like Miquella stuck in childhood. The one woman that understood what was going on that it was a simulation... she was begging me to let her die.
Living memory felt a lot like that to me. just they were continuing a war that had already destroyed the star; taking resources from other people it started with electrope and it graduated into souls and after souls it would have been something else or it would have just ended when there were no more resources to consume if there is no production consuming becomes unsustainable, but if there is just production and no consuming that is also unsustainable.
I feel like the last zone was a waste of time if we knew that the memories were just memories we shouldn't have wasted any time dealing with them, but because we did waste time more value should have been placed on them, it comes back to the main flaw with XIV's writing; filler Titan is going to break the land but the WOL is fetching cheese for a party...
Pretty sure they upload the psyche of the person as well, actually making them 'living'. If it was 'just memories' I agree. But its a lot more then that. As someone pointed out, shutting down living memory wasn't what go to me. It was sad, yes but I was more freaked out by the use of souls in solution 9. And was more upset we didn't end that.
Hear…Feel…Think
Even if Living Memory could be maintained indefinitely without the sacrifice of souls, it's simply a dead end to existence. Those memories can't have children, strive towards anything, grow, change, experience new things. It's complete stagnation. The Endless are more akin to Sin Eaters than actual living beings. They are Vauthry, living in decadence and surviving off the aether of others. And on a long enough timeline would lead to the end of life on Etheirys and its reflections.
Considering the conversation we had with G'raha in Labyrinthos regarding souls maintaining certain traits, this could be more defining of what makes a living being. A newborn is still alive even if it doesn't have any memories. Memories are just something that the soul acquires over time. So strictly speaking the memory isn't a person it's a record of their experiences.
It could also be argued that what makes an individual isn't either/or, but rather both. Instead of a nature vs. nurture it's nature + nurture. A soul provides base stats and the experiences provide choices. Which are informed by predilections of the soul and memories of past experiences, making the individual. And you cease to be if you are without both.
Very arguable. We got precedents that showed that they could interact with the outside world if they really wanted to, such as the case with Erenville's mom. With that would have come experience and change. While it doesn't compare to a real body it doesn't really need to. And that's the thing, there was room for them to grow if they joined hands with the outside world. We saw that rebuilding a whole body from aether and picking a lost soul and placing it there isn't exactly an impossible task.
The reason why Living Memory had to go was ultimately only the aether and souls issue and even there I believe that they gave up way too fast just for drama's sake. We know about Dynamis, we know about reflections with way more aether than they know what to do with and ways to change its very nature. We did far more difficult things than that.
And finally it really doesn't address the plight of the Endless. Their situation was plain unfair, even worse than the Ancients who at least reached a peak before falling. Many of the people from Alexandria were born in a devastated world, with broken bodies and no hope in sight. Living Memory was a respite from that. And that made the morality of the issue way more difficult, regardless of how much the game tried to pretend otherwise. Probably the only ones with the right to understand and judge them are the survivors of the 8th Umbral Calamity who understood how harsh the world going to hell was. Not us, not the Scions and definitely not miss Dawnservant.
But we explicitly see them "grow, change, and experience new things" though? We see them get married, make and perform art, and even set up a whole successful resistance movement with the sole goal of changing things.
@@neh1234 The robot Cahciua used was only useful so long as the portal was open in the Everkeep. And has since closed. At the point where we entered Living Memory, Sphene had the key. Not that we even knew how to use it. There was, of course, the gate in Skydeep Cenote, but it would be pure speculation as to its functionality relative to Everkeep's portal with how piloting a robot from Living Memory may or may not work. As conditions were very different. Being in the dome, proximity, abundance of electrope, the Sharlayan devices placed on the Skydeep portal, etc..
Maybe there were other options we could have explored, unfortunately we had a very narrow window of opportunity because the only time we'd be able to take them down was while Sphene was running a windows update. And we needed to do that in order to get to her before she went full Matrix on everyone.
Their situation was very different from any others we faced as the Endless already died. Their memories were just in stasis. If they had just been allowed to pass and go through the rejoining they would have returned to the Source's Aetherial Sea and been reborn. But as they are, there's nothing but oblivion for them when their aether dissipates. As the soul is what gets reborn, not the memory. Ironically their endless cycle of rebirth ended the moment they became Endless. We can't simply build a new body and put their soul into it because they don't have a soul anymore. Their soul was turned into an ice cream for G'raha to deepthroat. We can't make a soul because not even the Ancients could create souls. They have to occur naturally through the lifestream process.
@ Right, it's all performative, though. They can't exceed their limitations. They can't pursue ambitions beyond the scope of the simulation. Like how Cahciua couldn't pursue her adventurous dreams. And as I said, they can't have children. They can't grow older than their memories. The Endless will never know what a Dragon is unless a Turali person had a book from across the salt that mentions them because there weren't any on the Ninth(Alexandria) and none of the first brood settled in Tural. They would just replay the same experiences over and over for all eternity.
@@Barnuses This aspect isn't talked about enough. This kind of unnatural stagnation would literally have been the end of their world and their people, even if it didn't need to plunder the other worlds for a power source.
The way they burn through souls and just upload AI memory constructs that can't continue life or create new things -- it's literally a dead end.
I see the Endless compared to the recreated Dynamis beings in Ultima Thule, post-tribe questline a lot. But unlike the Endless, they can reproduce, they can create new things. They are literally new life that can sustain itself, parallel to how life sustains itself on Etheirys.
2:07 - Confirmation that Lalas don't have souls.
Yes as a lala I can confirm I am not alive
I love this channel!
alot of my friends got incredibly mad at me when we discussed this because they fundamentally did not understand that these memories were not alive.
they are copies. possibly copies of copies of half remembered details about the people they were.
While they are copies, they are basically perfect copies. As far as we know the resonator/everkeep can completely copy the memory aether and store that using electrope. So while they won't be alive they will still remember exactly like their living versions did (unless ofc parts of the memories got removed and altered which is something they probably would do)
What is life if not awareness? This question has been brought up in all sorts of media that include robots and artificial intelligence. Living Memory is aptly named, because it could be argued that these memories are in fact living. Now the real dilemma isn't that they exist, but at the cost it takes for them to persist.
The Omicron society quest line deals with similar themes.
But in the end, all of them decide to make the best of their new lives despite the possibility of the Omicron, Dragons, Nibirun, and the rest of them being essentially copies made from Dynamis.
I've seen the discussion around copies, but there is a key detail most people won't typically see when running through the story. It's conveyed on an information terminal in the Origenics dungeon explaining that the memory and soul aether is separated where the soul aether is processed and stored there for use and the memory aether is sent to the Meso Terminal. You visually see the physical aether components sent their respective ways. Essentially this would mean it's not copies but rather the original memories that exist in living memory. You can find the Terminal at the top above the vortex tube thing after the first boss. (explorer mode to make it easier)
If you learned that you're actually an imperfect copy of a dead person, would that fact make you suddenly consider your existence worthless? Is your experience's value defined by the circumstances of your creation? I thought that the answer is rather obvious, and even xiv took a stance on it in EW.
I firmly believe Living Memory should stay off. People asking for it to be turned back on are missing the point.
Just go to NG+ if you want your Screenshots, folks.
@10:17 say that to tataru
Thank goodness you covered this. This subject frustrated me so much in DT's MSQ and having a reputable and clear worded lore content creator explain what was going on in DT and it's weirdness is great to both reference to and give to other confused players. Thank you Synodic.
Living memory is one my favorite parts of DT and I think what I love about it is how differently players can react to it depending on how they view what makes something "alive". Even though the Endless aren't technically alive, the player is allowed to connect to these memories and feel for them when they're gone if they choose to. For me it hurt a lot, and I'm happy it impacted me in that way, but I also understand why there's people who didn't feel much for them too!
Living memory was the biggest miss in DT for me. I went through the whole zone assuming every npc was basically just a bunch of customized chat gpt bots. It really cheapened all the emotional moments the story wanted to show with Namika and Krile's parents.
They *are* customized ChatGPT Bots.
But they're also the only remnants of the actual living people who once were-- a Memory of the Living, one might even say.
The point of the moments weren't to emphasize their nature as actual people and a final goodbye, but to emphasize that our heroes would be the only ones to remember them, this side of the Chasm. To get *some* insight into their loved ones' nature, and to put them to rest knowing they'll carry on their memories beyond that purgatory, into everything they do next.
Why was the biggest miss? You like failed to understand the entire point of it all??
I'm not a big writing buff, so some of my dislike was my initial negative reaction to the events. While playing through living memory, it felt and looked like a cheerful, nonchalant genocide when the npcs were strangers. I later went around looking for explanations like this video. I arrived at the same conclusion eventually, but now the heartstring pulling feels a lot less tragic. We could have just found a bunch of diaries before setting them on fire for the same result for our characters
@@neko4wife313 Think on budaism, the the memory is the core of onse self, but it depends on the soul is be alive.
Missed the whole point that the entire zone was about your companion's personal growth and emotional development. The point of the zone was Krile/Erenville/Lamatyi. It was one of the most beautiful parts of the DT storytelling, but so many miss it cause they assume their WoL has to be the MC in everything 😅.
when people remember past lives memories I Iike to use the analogy of the ink and paper once again, but in another perspective...like how when you write with a pen on a notebook, sometimes if you write with a heavy hand the words you write on paper will be imprinted on the page underneath, perhaps not clearly visible but you can make out the indentations of the pen strokes.
First of all, great video Mr Scribe. Always a pleasure sir.
I had zero regrets or feelings for terminating these false things. They are shadows of what the actual person used to be, not the person themselves. The actual person is dead.
Also, to keep the Endless and Living Memory running costs many souls to be consumed as fuel and destroyed. They'll never get to reincarnate into new life, actual real life that hears, feels and thinks. So then knowing this, why do the "people" that are already dead deserve to "live" at the expense of actual living breathing people and animals? There is just no way that this is even a question that deserves thinking about for more than 2 seconds for me. They made it very simple to me.
The questing in this zone tried to make me connect emotionally to the endless, but i just did not care for one single moment knowing the cost of all of this. We go into the zone with a timer to switch things off or real people will likely die. Fake Sphene is killing living people and trying to wage war on the source to keep Living Meme-ery powered on. However, before we shut it down, lets put on a play for the AI children that are actually already dead. I just can't fathom how you could feel anything for these shadows knowing that they're not real. They had their chance at life like everyone else. It isn't fair or right to prolong a synthetic fake version of life at the expense of other peoples lives. It really is just stupid to me. It is insulting how they make a mockery of life and death with the neuralink brain chip as well. The Yok Huy have the right of it by remembering the fallen, not erasing them from existence like they don't even matter. Imagine someone you love died and you'll never see them again, and then they are erased from your memory. It's insulting. 2/10
Very interesting topic
Souls in xiv are pretty fascinating
SPOIL ME FOOL
I really wish I could come back to the game once the writing get better, living memory was a cool concept but it feel underwhelming at the end
You can tell the developer team is being reduced making them work on side projects such at the cellphone edition of the game and other projects still on the oven
I just a reason to come back
I liken it to the paintings in Harry Potter.
It's filled with the memories that everyone has of the deceased, but everyone knows that it's not actually that person. We still weep for Dumbledore as we see a painting of him in the headmaster's office.
It felt like the writers didn't want to commit to either side of this. If they wanted us to think that they're actually not real, there should have been more obvious tells. Cahciua not acting quite right for example. Erenville could have pointed this out, and it could have been a great moment.
Nevermind that, If we're supposed to treat them like just memory projections without free will or rights, why do we spend time doing quests for them? This isn't even like the last two times they did the "recreation of past civilization you have to get through to get to the big bad"
In Amaurot, we had to actually ask around to learn more about what this place was, and where to find Emet Selch. In Ultima Thule, the path forward just didn't exist until we can prove that we're more capable of withstanding the hardship that undid these past worlds.
Here, there's no reason we don't just go right to the terminal and shut things off immediately. The only part where that's not the case is when Krile is meeting with her parents' memories. Learning about the past is all these memories are good for, so I had no issue taking a detour to hear from them.
The realest issue is if the conclusion is that they're actually alive, and we just genocided them without a second thought. The dialogue would also imply this is the correct interpretation sometimes.
I really don't know which one they'll go with as the "correct interpretation", and I don't think the writers know either. if they go with the latter, then I don't think I'll have the will to keep going with the story if this is their direction. Time and time again, they showed us that through our determination, and cooperation, anything can be accomplished. That's the whole point behind the sundering. In the present, we had the willpower and knowledge to do the impossible and triumph over despair itself. We saved the world without having to sacrifice half the population, because trading lives like that was seen as such a grave crime that the world had to be sundered so it didn't happen again.
Now, if the endless are really alive, we just kill them all so we can save more lives instead of taking as much time as we have to fight Sphene's army off, and find a way to stop them without killing anyone.
@@redgeoblaze3752 also the sidequests and tribe quests on ultima thule basically treat them as alive , otherwise what is the point of making a bar for them.
So being recreations made of dynamis means you are alive but this other methods arbitrary doesn't , even though they act the same?
(I should probably stop responding to random coment on this coment section , but I had to admit that the whole endless thing made me really anoyed at the game especially because I'm really into the philosophical isues It dodges and this video has reignited my feeling after months of not thinking about It).
There are multiple problems with saying Living Memory is alive. One is that Living Memory is no different than putting the AI created memory of someone into something like a Robot. Even "if" you want to argue the robot is alive, it is for a fact not the person who is long dead. They would have to be considered a completely different person. Yet the AI memory in Living Memory will not deviate from who they are pretending to be. The AI will only ever act in the way it assumes the person would react but we cannot guarantee it will react the way the real individual would.
It's also the whole problem with cloning a person, is that clone their own individual or a "1up" of the original? Are the residents of Living Memory separated from who they used to be or are they supposed to be the OG? This all goes back to Amon who stayed his ground to tell you and the Ancients that Amon is his own person, he is not Hermes. To say that Living Memory are "alive" as the originals is no different than saying, "No Amon, you are Hermes and will only ever be Hermes if you are forced to integrate the Ancients memories into yourself." Amon had his own soul to hold steady that he is his own person, the Living Memory residents do not. They are just AI imitations of people who used to exist.
This is honestly a fairly disingenuous take on the matter. You know damn well that the memories are the identities of the people, are the people, and that is why they are saved and separated from the souls. In this world where souls are tangible, where it was established that you can physically waltz into the afterlife and strike down souls with your mortal blades, it is the intangible things like memories that matter the most.
It's evident that they are alive, as they remember their entire lives and have wills that they enact. Wills that even cause some of them to linger on past the shutting down of the server, until that last will was placated.
Remember, remember they once lived.
The memory aether kept in the denizens of Living Memory is a denial of death. It is living beings taking control of their fate to survive no matter what comes. In a city that was the only thing that survived from its shard, isolated from a natural aetherial sea cycle entirely.
It is tragic and bad, because of what its cost is. It is something that is renewable but is not renewable at the rate at which Alexandria consumes it.
But also, your definition of life in FFXIV's universe is flat out WRONG. You failed to account for the living beings composed of Dynamis, who as far as we know, have no souls. Are all of the denizens of Ultima Thule as it stands now not living, because they are recreated from Dynamis? Meteion sure experienced a whole lot of pain, for something you consider to not be alive. And you know what the Dynamis recreated them from? MEMORY.
The WoL is simply the morale good, because the hard calculus is that Alexandria's way of lives costs the lives of others. That's it. You don't need to try and justify the atrocity being committed in the name of that to act like they are implacably heroic in this matter. But whatever keeps you feeling good about it, I suppose.
Thats the reason i didnt care for what was going on with living memory,i was happy for krile and i tought erenvilles goodbye to his mom was underwelming...but in the end,the endless are just memory,they are the equivalent o ai,i felt more about amaurot because it was a monument to emet selchs solitude,i didnt care about ai sphene,honestly i wanted her to be skynet and not have a redemption moment in the end
It wasn't killing it was burning the library of Alexandria if said libray was going to eat the world just to protect a few 1000 books. Yes I know my word play.
Lot of folks seem more upset that we "wasted time" talking to pointless memories and yet they likely adored the shadow of our dear friend from Shadowbringers. That Hythlodaus copy might not be a danger to the first but he could be if we let it last to long.
Plus we came to this game for stories grand and small.
Reading some of the comments here just shows how some people were only scratching the surface of the DT MSQ. No wonder some of them claimed it was good. You gotta dig a little deeper to see what's lacking, guys.
That's a relief because here I thought the only thing people cared about in DT was hating on Wuk Lamat.
I felt nothing in the last half, because I knew none of them were real. I felt nothing for Sphene, because Sphene is a program too. They are not REAL, FEELING, PEOPLE. It's not the same as Emett-Selch, not EVEN CLOSE.
How could you see Cahciua's tears and come to that conclusion?
I really wanna know why nobody has decided to explore living memory: if we canonically still have access to the place, why aren't we dealing with "where is this?" Or is it just a bubble with nothing beyond what we can see?😊
Y'shtola and Shale leave to explore Living Memory midway through 7.1-the teaser at the end of the patch clearly shows them being there. And the entire Strayborough Deadwalk quest happened because Oblivion discovered the missing zone during a routine exploration of Living Memory, and needed us to deal with it because of how dangerous that zone had become.
Y'shtola was actually in the process of doing just that, but then she found the "Sphene of Reason", and is probably going to bring her back to solution 9.
Algorithm
7.1 final boss. *triggered*
Never forget, the strange carbuncle that seemingly existed in EW without the summoner granting it aether 🤭