Disappointed in one Endwalker Aspect [SPOILERS]

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Originally Posted by Kordarion

So do you consider the player character to be guilty of committing genocide then? After all by your logic the fact that we travel into the past, discover the cause of the final days but don't do anything to to stop it happening before returning to our time, and in fact are the reason why Venat sunders the world means that we are responsible for the sundering and every death that occurred as a result.

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I actually hate the fact that they force our character to take part in this by going back in time to tell her what to do. I wish they did not have the time travel aspect at all.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

I think it's kind of an unfair assertion to make, given the nature of time travel. We don't know Venat didn't do everything in her power to prevent the Rejoinings, it just so happens that our timeline exists as a consequence of the OG Final Days / Sundering / seven Rejoinings so we can't observe timelines where any of those didn't happen. You can propose staying in the past but Venat tells you not to because it could get dangerous (temporal paradox, ayy), but point is nothing we did or saw on Elpis could meaningfully alter the (relative) past. Elidibus warned us as much.

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See that's the problem with time travel where you interact with people and places in the past, you are actively making decisions that have impacts on the future, regardless of weather you pull a G'raha and create branching timelines or do as we did in Elpis and create a time loop. As such I'm arguing that according to the stated logic of a person being responsible for every consequence of an action they take, no matter how matter how spatially or temporally distant from said action, that according to said logic that we must be responsible for genocide. As it was our actions in the past that lead to Venat knowing of the future and of the final days which lead to her sundering the world and therefore every element of suffering in the sundered world. I would like to add that I don't personally believe that is the case, its simply what I'm inferring from the stated logic of someone being blamed for any event that links to any action they take.

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Originally Posted by OhNooo

I actually hate the fact that they force our character to take part in this by going back in time to tell her what to do. I wish they did not have the time travel aspect at all.

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And I respect that you have a problem with our characters being a part of the lead up to the first final days and the sundering, it is a very morally grey part of the story. I am however interested in what other option you believe we could have had, how else we could have stopped Meteion and the song of oblivion? How else could we have saved our friends and world without returning to the past and discovering its source? Or would you have had us abandon the scions, the source and its reflections to their fate to save the unsudered world?

Seeing as so much of the discussion in thread is constructed off of this one premise, how did the sundering kill people? Death doesn't usually result in more individuals than you started out with. The sundering probably has more in common with mitosis than it does with death.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Seeing as so much of the discussion in thread is constructed off of this one premise, how did the sundering kill people? Death doesn't usually result in more individuals than you started out with. The sundering probably has more in common with mitosis than it does with death.

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We don't actually know it did, as far as I am aware which is admittedly not very much, it seems like it didn't technically kill them only split them into 14 pieces and pulled a Kairos on their memories so that they couldn't propperly remember what happened before the sundering, after all they had to be alive and with some vague recollection of the past to create the Qitana Revel cave paintings and to pass on these hazy memories as the founding myths of the many civilizations of the source and shards. Not to mention all of the creatures and beast races that were shown in Elpis to be creations of the Ancients.

You can argue that by losing your memories you are no longer the same person and have therefore "died", but then again Endwalker has repeatedly shown that some parts of a person are permanently etched onto their souls, Hermes' depression and Azem's adventurous nature and natural ability to bring people together to name a few.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

Enervation

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You are wrong about Enervation. Its effects were stated clearly and truthfully in Shadowbringers.

EMET-SELCH: "As a counterbalance to Zodiark, Hydaelyn was created with the power to enervate her foe. This singular ability strikes not at such banal things as flesh, but at everything that defines the target, diluting its existence. For example, if she were to strike at you... *points to Ryne and snaps his fingers, a second Ryne appears* Two individuals identical in appearance, yet reduced in all respects. Strength, intelligence, the soul itself -- all is halved."


Also, no. The Sundering is nothing like amputating a limb. Amputation requires that the limbs die, not gain new wills of their own. The parts of the original people of Etheirys were split into identical physical copies, which then died 14 times faster than they otherwise would have. The only thing it was necessary for was our precise story, and issues within that story, its plot holes, question that necessity.

We don't even know Venat as well as we know Hermes. A character that just showed up this expansion. Which, Venat pretty much is, since all past renditions of her have been vague expositors which add almost nothing to the character we know her as now.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Seeing as so much of the discussion in thread is constructed off of this one premise, how did the sundering kill people? Death doesn't usually result in more individuals than you started out with. The sundering probably has more in common with mitosis than it does with death.

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It split the souls of every life on Etheirys, causing their lifespans to shortened by a multiple of the times they were divided. It also reduced their resistance to ailments by that amount. In real world terms, the average life expectancy is about 77 years for a person. If a real person were to be sundered, they would live for about 5 years and 7 months.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

You are wrong about Enervation. Its effects were stated clearly and truthfully in Shadowbringers.

EMET-SELCH: "As a counterbalance to Zodiark, Hydaelyn was created with the power to enervate her foe. This singular ability strikes not at such banal things as flesh, but at everything that defines the target, diluting its existence. For example, if she were to strike at you... *points to Ryne and snaps his fingers, a second Ryne appears* Two individuals identical in appearance, yet reduced in all respects. Strength, intelligence, the soul itself -- all is halved."


Also, no. The Sundering is nothing like amputating a limb. Amputation requires that the limbs die, not gain new wills of their own. The parts of the original people of Etheirys were split into identical physical copies, which then died 14 times faster than they otherwise would have. The only thing it was necessary for was our precise story, and issues within that story, its plot holes, question that necessity.

We don't even know Venat as well as we know Hermes. A character that just showed up this expansion. Which, Venat pretty much is, since all past renditions of her have been vague expositors which add almost nothing to the character we know her as now.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

It split the souls of every life on Etheirys, causing their lifespans to shortened by a multiple of the times they were divided. It also reduced their resistance to ailments by that amount. In real world terms, the average life expectancy is about 77 years for a person. If a real person were to be sundered, they would live for about 5 years and 7 months.

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And which part of splitting one living being into multiple all still living beings is killing them? None of it, sure are you being a dick by reducing those peoples life spans, most certainly. But in no part of the sundering are you actively killing any singular person directly.

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Originally Posted by Kordarion

And which part of splitting one living being into multiple all still living beings is killing them? None of it, sure are you being a dick by reducing those peoples life spans, most certainly. But in no part of the sundering are you actively killing any singular person directly.

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Strand someone in the desert without water. They'll die in 3 days. But you didn't kill them directly, so you were just being a dick, right? Come up with a real argument next time.

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Originally Posted by Kordarion

So do you consider the player character to be guilty of committing genocide then? After all by your logic the fact that we travel into the past, discover the cause of the final days but don't do anything to to stop it happening before returning to our time, and in fact are the reason why Venat sunders the world means that we are responsible for the sundering and every death that occurred as a result.

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WoL at least did tell everyone and can even offer to stay and help before leaving Elpis. Venat convinced them not to.

But yes, WoL also being partly culpable in this is quite an issue people have had with the story.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Strand someone in the desert without water. They'll die in 3 days. But you didn't kill them directly, so you were just being a dick, right? Come up with a real argument next time.

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Did the sundering leave people with out food, water or shelter? We don't know but if everything was an exact copy of before, which it appears to be considering the near identical geography of the source and the first, then I would argue that that did still have all of the elements needed to survive. What you however are insinuating is that Venat just left everyone to die which makes absolutely no sense for the simple fact that we know there were imediately post-sundering civilizations, the Qitana Ravel cave paintings for example. It therefore shows that you don't have a real argument, you couldn't disagree with my point of Venat not directly committing murder so you push this allegory of stranding someone in a desert as if that is even remotely applicable, you appear to want some reason to paint Venat as pure evil so much that you are grasping at straws to justify that.

We also know that pre-sundering Etheriys was capable of sustaining life considering the fact that we know that the Ancients enacted a second sacrifice to Zodiark that returned the physical world to its pre-final days state.