Confusion (of the highest order) about Venat and Sundering

I have to say I really don't understand why the writers chose the route of "Venat deliberately caused the Sundering" when there were other neater and less questionable (and more consistent with past information) ways to have it happen. It could have been an accident or an unexpected result of sundering Zodiark or it really was cosmically necessary for some reason, and once it had happened, the suffering that would be wrought to repair the world would be worse than the effects of being sundered in the first place.

I feel like the writers may not have had enough of a clear idea of what happened when they set out the earlier parts of the plot, and now haven't been able to bring the answers together successfully. Either that or the original idea got changed and lost in a lot of workshopping and they failed to notice that it doesn't really work in the larger scheme of things.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

Why should we not think that? If someone were to reduce my natural lifespan to a tiny fraction of what it would be I'd consider that murder.

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Yes but after the initial life span shortening, which as I have said I understand why you think that is murder, it is no longer a reduced life span, it simply is their life span. Once they have returned to the aetherial sea and their memory is separated from their soul, they are now a different person in a different race that has that new lifespan. Therefore after that initial reduction any further deaths are just that deaths.

I would also say your line of thinking is very morally problematic for a different reason, it strips the sundered people of agency and culpability. No longer can you say their actions are their own when every action taken as a consequence of the sundering is directly Venat's fault, that their choice to love or to hate is their own. That a murderer is no longer to blame for killing someone, because by your logic Venat stopping the ancients from hiding from suffering is to blame. No longer is it THEIR fault because THEY chose to commit murder when they didn't have to, it is someone else's and they are free to keep murdering because they can't be held accountable for those deaths. It also means that a sundered persons choice to love someone else isn't their own, because by your logic every action post-sundering is Venat's direct fault, effectively making them puppets and not real people, at least that's the impression you give me.

Onto the topic of the ancient race going extinct, sort of? Obviously they no longer are as they once were but seeing as we know that they were stripped of their aetheric density and life span I'd argue it was more they were transformed rather than killed in that regard. Still it isn't a morally right thing to do, necessary but not morally right. We also don't know that the reason their souls went back to other ancients wasn't simply that they were the only sentient life for most of their history.

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Originally Posted by Antoine_Lenheim

Then it brings us to my first point -- why it was worth it to sacrifice another group of people (now seemingly big) to prevent sacrificing of another group of people. It's sacrificing anyway? x)

I also love you guys turned this thread into discussion of something irrelevant lmao but still fun to read all these theories.

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I'm sorry, I probably should have just corrected his misunderstanding instead of commenting on it and starting the derail...

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Originally Posted by Antoine_Lenheim

Then it brings us to my first point -- why it was worth it to sacrifice another group of people (now seemingly big) to prevent sacrificing of another group of people. It's sacrificing anyway? x)

I also love you guys turned this thread into discussion of something irrelevant lmao but still fun to read all these theories.

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Back on point then! My read on this is that Venat was making a philosophical judgment here, not a moral one. It wasn't really the sacrifice of lifes she had her main issue with, but what it represented in her mind: a return to the old ways, which she deemed invalid in face of recent events.

Everything else technical about the sundering is just for (retroactive) plot convenience. Probably why we don't get too much specific information about it and its immediate aftermath.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

I'm sorry, I probably should have just corrected his misunderstanding instead of commenting on it and starting the derail...

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I'm not sure misunderstanding is the right word to use when having a philosophical debate over what constitutes dying outside of the physical sense, but I also apologise for derailing this thread.

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Originally Posted by Kordarion

I'm not sure misunderstanding is the right word to use when having a philosophical debate over what constitutes dying outside of the physical sense, but I also apologise for derailing this thread.

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No, I mean the original misunderstanding was when sidurgu-12 thought that the OP was talking about Hydaelyn having killed people when the Sundering happened, rather than in the sacrifices to summon her, which is what they meant. And then I replied to correct them, and you replied to the side-comment I put in parenthesis, and so on.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

No, I mean the original misunderstanding was when sidurgu-12 thought that the OP was talking about Hydaelyn having killed people when the Sundering happened, rather than in the sacrifices to summon her, which is what they meant. And then I replied to correct them, and you replied to the side-comment I put in parenthesis, and so on.

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Ah, ok I get it now. All good, thank you for clearing that up.

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Originally Posted by Kordarion

Yes but after the initial life span shortening, which as I have said I understand why you think that is murder, it is no longer a reduced life span,

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Yes, yes it is. It is a state that was imposed upon everyone without their consent. If I nuked a country and subjected them to multigenerational radiation poisoning, for future generations that isn't "just their natural lives", that is something I did to them.

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I would also say your line of thinking is very morally problematic for a different reason, it strips the sundered people of agency and culpability. No longer can you say their actions are their own when every action taken as a consequence due the sundering is directly Venat's fault, that their choice to love or to hate is their own.

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Yes, it is morally problematic to strip somebody of their agency, which is exactly what Venat did. The conditions of suffering and conflict she created is exactly what she wanted. That is not to say that in every instance nobody has any individual culpability for their own wrongdoing, but Venat created the context for all of this suffering to take place, meaning she is personally partly responsible. In choosing to create the sundered world Venat is effectively it's goddess, it's progenitor, it's "Mother" if you will, and this image of the world is the one she wished to cultivate.

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I'd argue it was more they were transformed rather than killed in that regard.

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I would argue that is killing them. They weren't just given a haircut, they were fundamentally altered to the point that those they once were no longer existed.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

No, I mean the original misunderstanding was when sidurgu-12 thought that the OP was talking about Hydaelyn having killed people when the Sundering happened, rather than in the sacrifices to summon her, which is what they meant. And then I replied to correct them, and you replied to the side-comment I put in parenthesis, and so on.

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yeah that was my misunderstanding, sorry about that.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

I'm sorry, I probably should have just corrected his misunderstanding instead of commenting on it and starting the derail...

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It's okay, I don,t mind it much. Like I said I actually enjoyed reading all the fun theories.