Shadowbringers is all about the juxtaposition of Emet-Selch and Feo Ul.
Emet-Selch, a timeless immortal that lives for the past he lost, seeing you and feeling disgust, revulsion, and contempt all for your grand crime of being mortal, seeing you and those you love as not even being truly alive solely because you were not born into his definition of perfect.
Compare him to Feo Ul, a timeless immortal that lives only for happiness in the present, seeing you and instantly falling helplessly in love because you are mortal, full of fleeting passion and ambition that eclipses anything a fae like them could ever achieve all due to your transient ephemeral life; the courage, drive, and hope for the future that only someone with a finite lifespan could ever have.
This, but ALSO how Emet-Selch compares and contrasts to Thancred and how they both deal with the grief of losing someone, having vain hope of getting them back, and their respective failure to and success of accepting that the person that they once knew and loved deeply is just NOT coming back and will never be as they one were.I love comparing these two, especially with the revulsion and criticism that these two level at each other, when in truth, there is so much common ground between them.
THANCRED TOO!
As an antagonist, Emet-selch acts as a mirror to so many characters!! He's portrayed sympathetically enough to imagine a world in which he could have been an ally, and yet you see the ways in which!! He fails and turns away where your friends and companions do not, he doesn't accept the world or try to build anything positive and LOOK, SEE... HOW YOUR FRIENDS CHOOSE TO RISE IN THE FACE OF PAIN AND GRIEF AND THE LOSS OF WHAT THEY HAD ONCE, AND HE SINKS INTO THE DEPTHS, WILLINGLY, BECOMING A MONSTER OF HIS OWN MAKING.
WELL NOT JUST THAT, BUT THE WAY YOUR FRIENDS SUCCEED WHERE EMET-SELCH FAILS IS THROUGH GENUINELY REACHING OUT AND FORMING MEANINGFUL BONDS WITH OTHERS!! Feo Ul has a genuine interest in mortals and gets mad at you every time you neglect to come to them when they could help you; they want so much to help and be involved with the WoL. The Exarch is the heart of the Crystarium; everyone knows and cares after him, and he in turn goes out of his way to make sure they are looked after and counsels with them on matters of importance. The Crystarium is built HEAVILY on this sense of care and community! Ardburt comes out of the dark because of his connection with you, and in seeing everything you do for the people of the First, and in realizing that Seto is still alive and still thinks lovingly of him. The Scions all make deep connections with the people of the First wherever they live and come to care deeply for them. Even with Thancred, the defining moment in him turning around from his grief is when he connects with and reaches out to Magnus, because he sees so much of himself in how Magnus is clouded in his loss. And it's that reaching out that permits BOTH OF THEM to move forward! Emet-Selch claims to have 'given you a chance' and to reach out to you, but it's always under pretenses. He expects you to disappoint him more than anything. He is unable to make a real connection because of a fundamental failure to see you as equal, and even with the other surviving Ascians, he doesn't seem to be particularly close with them. When he talks about Lahabrea and Elidibus, he seems somewhat at a distance to them, like they are coworkers towards a cause and not much else.
We're fucking VIBING on this shit, Kari, oh my god, I'm reblogging mostly bc I want all ur additional commentary. It's so good. It's really, really good. It is the connections and love we have for one another that gives us strength, and Shadowbringers shows us that in so, so, SO many ways.
