What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

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Originally Posted by Conundrum

You hit on something that really annoys me, based on what we know Zodiark should be several orders of magnitude more powerful than Hydaelyn...he should have swatted her like a bug.

Hydaelyn is pretty much a textbook example of a Mary Sue character, always right, stronger than everyone...had to save the world from the stupid MEN.

P.S. Can someone remind me what Zodiark did that was so bad that he needed to be shackled? "We thought he might hypothetically do something bad at some point in the future" is some pretty crap tier reasoning for what she did. All of the bad stuff around Zodiark seems to have come from his fanclub and not him.

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At that point Zodiark was also like a machine without a driver, something that can be dealt with if one has the means to do so.

Zodiark himself did what was required of him yes, but at the accidental consequence of tempering his summoners, a side effect of creation that big performing feats of that scale. That, combined with his summoners desire to sacrifice other life, life that didn't volunteer to do so ultimately means he can't be left to be. After all when one tempers the actions of their resulting fanclub are rather intertwined with said being.

And as Hydaelyn herself admits her actions were neither kind or righteous, but at that point what would hating and blaming do? The sundering happened, tragic and horrific as it was, and now new life exists and thrives. The Ascians goals, for as understandable and relatable as their reasons are, will mean the end of the current world and everything upon it. Notably by the end not even they are hated by the main cast, they just accept that their goals are incompatable, while Hydaelyn's aren't.

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Originally Posted by Layte_Aeon

At that point Zodiark was also like a machine without a driver, something that can be dealt with if one has the means to do so.

Zodiark himself did what was required of him yes, but at the accidental consequence of tempering his summoners, a side effect of creation that big performing feats of that scale. That, combined with his summoners desire to sacrifice other life, life that didn't volunteer to do so ultimately means he can't be left to be. After all when one tempers the actions of their resulting fanclub are rather intertwined with said being.

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Which, once more, is not why she did what she did. Her stated rationale is concern that they'd meet their doom, because she considered suffering to be necessary to avoid this and based on the strawmen she encountered, she thought her people had lost that appetite. If you want to provide evidence suggesting she took issue with the very act of the sacrifices, not what she saw as their ultimate consequence, then provide it. This will have to be more than pointing to their intention of handing over the star to the new lives, because that is ancillary to the aim involved here based on her beliefs, i.e. leave things as they are and embrace suffering to avoid succumbing to an eventual doom; something also stated in the Anamnesis scene. Moreover, that scene fits with the second set of sacrifices, when they were rehabilitating the star's regular functioning, seeing as the Final Days had nearly killed it, as per this:

https://i.imgur.com/uPg5xZT.png

Tempering is not even touched upon as an issue anywhere. This is player interpretation and is faulty for multiple reasons, a list which has only grown with EW. Not least of which the fact that even the Convocation was divided on this, in line with the sources I provided on the topic, and that this rift had divided their broader society, which was not tempered. Zodiark was the method to be used here, but he was not compelling it and it was not even in his interest, because it was simply an exchange of life for life, to release the souls within him; bearing in mind he had to be maintained at full power to remain an effective means of defence against a potential recurrence of the Final Days, so simply pulling them out was not an option.

The real answer here is simple: Zodiark got in the way of her plan. He was too powerful for her to defeat him, so she had to sunder him along with the entire star.

https://i.imgur.com/7aFOkZO.png

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Originally Posted by Layte_Aeon

At that point Zodiark was also like a machine without a driver, something that can be dealt with if one has the means to do so.

Zodiark himself did what was required of him yes, but at the accidental consequence of tempering his summoners, a side effect of creation that big performing feats of that scale. That, combined with his summoners desire to sacrifice other life, life that didn't volunteer to do so ultimately means he can't be left to be. After all when one tempers the actions of their resulting fanclub are rather intertwined with said being.

And as Hydaelyn herself admits her actions were neither kind or righteous, but at that point what would hating and blaming do? The sundering happened, tragic and horrific as it was, and now new life exists and thrives. The Ascians goals, for as understandable and relatable as their reasons are, will mean the end of the current world and everything upon it. Notably by the end not even they are hated by the main cast, they just accept that their goals are incompatable, while Hydaelyn's aren't.

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Hydaelyn sundering the ancient world though meant the end of the current world and everything upon it. Keep in mind as well, we don’t even know if her followers gave consent to be sacrificed for Hydaelyn. Based on the tidbit of dialogue we got from them in Anamnesis, they don’t seem to know about the sundering at all or that they’d be dying. They simply say they’ll miss Venat after she’s gone. If Hydaelyn needed sacrifice, it stands to reason she too, could be used to sacrifice things to. Maybe she should have sealed herself along with Zodiark on the moon lol

What i hope in future patches is we will learn more about us before sundering, seeing that its been confirmed that we were the person with the Azem title before we were stript off the title. Azem was opposed to the Convocation's plan to sacrifice Elidibus and half of their surviving population and left. And when we where in Anamnesis Anyder there is a record talking about defactor which could possible be Azem, But that person also refuse to help Venat , I really would like to know the reason why Azem would not help either side.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

The term isn't solely used to describe female characters and nobody in this thread is taking issue with her on the basis of being a female character. There's also a male counterpart - gary stu - for the term, though often the two bleed together because they essentially mean the same thing.

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Regardless, the term still doesn't seem to fit her character.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

There is nothing in the sources that specifies what it was they were going to sacrifice....

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Nothing that specifies it, but we still have the objection of Venat's group. If these are just simple lifeforms that they created and destroyed at a whim regularly, there is no reason for Venat to object, even if that solution was only temporary. And just because they objected to it doesn't mean they can't acknowledge the intention of Zodiark's group, so it's not an issue of not understanding why they want to call upon Zodiark, but the method, which is not only temporary, but also requires further sacrifice. Thus, they objected to it.

From there, it would be logical to assume this new life is the ancestors of now existing races, possibly even player character races.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

The same reason that, despite him being a primal born of Salvation by a mostly peaceful race, he somehow has a demonic appearance. Whereas the opposing primal whose purpose was eventually to shatter the entire world(and is portrayed as a hero) gets an angelic appearance. Bias at its finest ;^).

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That's just because they have the image created before the story. The fact that they still used Zodiark as a tool of salvation despite his appearance is more important than complaining about his demonic look.

i mean.

if we're going to go the mary sue route then the WoL qualifies more than venat.

in order for a character to be a mary sue it needs to:

1. lack a personality
2. be extremely persuasive (she cannot convince her peers)
3. her powers and abilities would be both overpowered yet undefined, however we defeat her twice
4. she would hook up with another character and be the primary love interest of everyone
5. she would need to be a snowflake design-wise but she's an ancient and her robes are the same robes that any other person in the convocation would wear if they decided not to return to the life stream
6. she would always be in the spotlight however we did not even get to see any direct interaction with her until the beginning of stormblood

now you might scream "but Hydaelyn is a mary sue then" but... yes. she's a god, or rather the image of one. if you get a group of people together and have them imagine that would be the most perfect, powerful being in existence then most are going to imagine some overwhelmingly beautiful, good, powerful being. but she's from a time and place where everything is perfect and nothing is bad so it makes sense.

then comes zodiark, a being made from far more ancients. while this is true we also are aware that zodiark was around for days, if not weeks/months after he was summoned. he used his powers not just to enthrall(this is debatable) but to also kickstart the stagnating currents of aether in the planet and around it.

considering how powerful the Meteion(s) had become it makes sense that a significant chunk of his power would go toward protecting the star from this threat. if he's too busy being distracted and having his power drained to sustain the star then we can assume that it could give hydaelyn the upper hand.

we also don't know how much aether/power or whatever it takes to sunder a star. it's entirely possible that it takes far less power than restarting the celestial currents around a star. additionally, zodiark also didn't stop protecting the star and its multiple reflections even when sundered which was done to limit his power in the first place. the entire point of the rejoinings was to return said power to him.

and my final point is that the plan the ancients made with using zodiark was always meant to be temporary until AFTER he was summoned. they brought him into existence to halt the issue to give them the time to locate the problem. however as time went on that plan fell to the wayside because without everyone dying they all had time to see that the planet was now in ruin and, additionally, were now more interested in worshipping zodiark - their savior.

now is venat a 2-dimensional, boring character whose just another savior white chick? absolutely. i don't like her. while not quite wallpaper paste-levels of bland like minfilia, she's still completely and utterly boring. benign and tasteless. which to be honest is probably fitting for a goddess of stasis.

on the topic of meteion earlier in the thread, why was what the last race of the dead ends dungeon did considered bad again? they willingly let themselves be erased because they've lived perfect lives and that's... wrong? I don't know how to really explain it but if I had to try I'd say that EW trying really, really hard to hammer that 'perfect is bad' (as someone called it) point down was really off-putting for me, and even seemed pretty childish with their message that you must experience suffering or bad things or you're, well, bad

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Originally Posted by linayar

Regardless, the term still doesn't seem to fit her character.

Nothing that specifies it, but we still have the objection of Venat's group. If these are just simple lifeforms that they created and destroyed at a whim regularly, there is no reason for Venat to object, even if that solution was only temporary. And just because they objected to it doesn't mean they can't acknowledge the intention of Zodiark's group, so it's not an issue of not understanding why they want to call upon Zodiark, but the method, which is not only temporary, but also requires further sacrifice. Thus, they objected to it.

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Well no, there is a reason, and that reason is if their society was restored as it was, which those sacrifices were intended to accomplish (=restoration of the star to its pre-Final Days state), she believes they're still on track to meet an eventual doom along the lines of the Plenty, hence the way her rationale is presented is that the sundering is to remove the temptation of restoring things as they were. The objection is very clearly centered around this, i.e. the aim and not just the method. You can acknowledge the intention but in the absence of knowing what was involved and whether they'd even stick to this plan if they were given a full accounting of what had happened, it's a rather speculative acknowledgement, and we're stuck with her stated rationale.

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From there, it would be logical to assume this new life is the ancestors of now existing races, possibly even player character races.

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It's a fine as an assumption but we must bear in mind that the sundered possess the souls of sundered ancients (as per Elidibus in 5.2), of which some 25% or so of the remaining population were still around at the time. Still, it's possible the bodies were the result of creation magicks, at least for some races, but who knows.

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Originally Posted by Rinhi

on the topic of meteion earlier in the thread, why was what the last race of the dead ends dungeon did considered bad again? they willingly let themselves be erased because they've lived perfect lives and that's... wrong? I don't know how to really explain it but if I had to try I'd say that EW trying really, really hard to hammer that 'perfect is bad' (as someone called it) point down was really off-putting for me, and even seemed pretty childish with their message that you must experience suffering or bad things or you're, well, bad

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It was more that they gave up on life, not that perfect is bad.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

It was more that they gave up on life, not that perfect is bad.

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but it was by their own choice, unless meteion influenced it? I don't see it as something bad, I guess