#you know what everyone has been saying about plot holes lack of substance no backstories messy ending… uh yup

[wisteriafield]

Now that more of my friends are experiencing Shadowbringers, it bears bringing up again that Emet-selch deserves to be considered the best Final Fantasy villain and I hate FF14 not getting recognition despite literally holding Square Enix on its back like Atlas

Let’s be honest, while a lot of FF villains have cool concepts or great style most of them have no substance beyond wanting to destroy the world for vaguely defined reasons or lack of reasons, and the ones that do have some semblance of depth are either so amazingly blaise and boring as hell with zero charisma (Vayne) or are just executed so carelessly (Ardyn)

I said often during its release that Shadowbringers did almost everything FF15 tried to do but with proper execution, and Emet-selch is the closest equivalent to Ardyn

You have a depressingly sad man who has lived for milennia with a personal grudge having their life fucked over by someone, but Ardyn’s scenes are so hilariously overacted that its completely obvious that he’s up to no good, despite trying to frame himself as an ordinary bystander who explains things to Noctis’ party that they don’t even question WHY he knows things like that, and then so often says shit like “OOPS! TEEHEE, SILLY ME, I LEFT THE [MACGUFFIN] IN THE [MURDERCAVE] BY COMPLETE ACCIDENT!” and nobody fucking bats an eyelash, its so infuriating.

Emet on the other hand has already been established as a foe by your party even though you’ve never personally met, and by his own admission, is “plotting something every hour of every day, but never you mind that.” But he does genuinely try to treat with your party to find common ground, and your party is completely wary of him all the while, even when he takes action in good faith (rescuing your party member effortlessly with no conditions). He drops his comical persona while in the company of your party and reveals much about his motivations.

The difference is that where Ardyn’s backstory is slapped together in a game that is intentionally filled with holes that you have to buy the DLC to get the whole picture of, and is designed to invoke pity in a game where the hero has to sacrifice himself for no other reason than “because that’s what everyone was expecting when the game was in development” and felt that you should feel sowwy for the bad guy too.

While Emet-selch’s revelations are relatable, not to jerk a tear for the sake of it.