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.

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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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I don't think this is quite the case, given that if it worked on multiples than the Ancients would "only" have lived about 1400 years. Pretty long relative to the sundered, but a far cry from how they're presented and described throughout the story.

Granted we also don't know exactly how the sundering was performed. That is to say the order in which it happened. For example the Source being divided fourteen times to make the 14 shards would be quite different from all of the shards being created simultaneously out of fourteen evenly divided pieces of the Source. It could be the First is actually about half the density of the current 7/14ths divided Source if it was truly sundered first. Meanwhile maybe the Thirteenth is actually like 0.07 percent the density of the original world. Or alternatively maybe it happened a different way entirely.

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Originally Posted by Kordarion

there were imediately post-sundering civilizations, the Qitana Ravel cave paintings for example.

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We have no idea when the Qitana Ravel paintings were created, only that it was before Ronka. It could be they were painted by someone with the Echo, or even that one of the Ascians aided in creating them (Emet is a "patron of the arts" and shows up there right on cue for example).

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Originally Posted by Kordarion

Did the sundering

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There's a lot that we don't know, but what we do know is that prior to the Sundering they chose when they died, unless killed violently. After, they didn't. The only thing going in the story's favor in this regard is its vagueness, a key component in its malleable, years long structure. We don't know how long they lived afterwards. It's clear that everyone was able to survive, at least in the places we've been, but it doesn't change the fact that Venat's Sundering is the root cause of all of their deaths.

Also, the Qitana Ravel cave paintings were made by the Ronkans, an empire civilization implied to be similar in workings to the Allagans, though never outright stated to be a machination of the Ascians, it could have been. Another thing we don't know is where they got the information to paint what was depicted.

I'm the only one with a real argument in our little "tête-à-tête." You are desperate to deny Venat did a great wrong. You ignore that the principle is the same. The shortening of someone else's lifespan.

Think harder.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

I don't think this is quite the case

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It's likely not. I'm quite aware that this portion of the story purposefully lacks specifics, because the specifics aren't the point and are harder to write/relate with. But it is illustrative of my point.

I think comparisons to real world actions fall apart because in real life, nobody is an immortal, god-like being. And there is very little in terms of real life analogue to being turned from an immortal, godlike being into a regular person.

From what I see, the Sundering did not change the cycle of life much outside of lifespans. If you go under the assumption that the lifespans of all creatures were adjusted, then it would, say, make it so a wolf only lives 10-13 years, when prior it would have lived up to 140-172 years. It was akin to (because this recently happened ingame) a stat squish, with not much changing in the long term, just lives ending in shorter time frames than they once did. Probably means changes to the planet also took way longer than they do currently on the Source, so it could have taken tens of thousands of years just for a small environmental change in the past.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

There's a lot that we don't know, but what we do know is that prior to the Sundering they chose when they died, unless killed violently. After, they didn't. The only thing going in the story's favor in this regard is its vagueness, a key component in its malleable, years long structure. We don't know how long they lived afterwards. It's clear that everyone was able to survive, at least in the places we've been, but it doesn't change the fact that Venat's Sundering is the root cause of all of their deaths.

Also, the Qitana Ravel cave paintings were made by the Ronkans, an empire civilization implied to be similar in workings to the Allagans, though never outright stated to be a machination of the Ascians, it could have been. Another thing we don't know is where they got the information to paint what was depicted.

I'm the only one with a real argument in our little "tête-à-tête." You are desperate to deny Venat did a great wrong. You ignore that the principle is the same. The shortening of someone else's lifespan.

Think harder.

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Ok so I got the Qitana Ravel thing wrong fair enough, I got the impression that it was older that the Ronkans, but I am willing to concede that I am wrong on that point. And at what point have I denied that what Venat did was wrong? I admitted that the sundering was a dick move and while I haven't said it I don't think what she did was morally right but unfortunately, as you said, the whole time period is very vague so who is to say she didn't exhaust all other options.

Except I don't agree the principle is the same thing, for me what you are saying is that when a person dies of natural causes their mother is guilty of killing them because she brought her child into a world that ends with death. Sure Venat had a more direct impact in that she shortened everyone's lifespan but then who is to say that the Ancients couldn't have died natural deaths as well? Nowhere is it stated that they are biologically immortal only that they commit ritual suicide when they believe their purpose is fulfilled. If they were actually immortal then yes your point would be valid.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

I think comparisons to real world actions fall apart because in real life, nobody is an immortal, god-like being. And there is very little in terms of real life analogue to being turned from an immortal, godlike being into a regular person.

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Within the setting of the story they were regular people. That's how far their civilization had climbed. The only reason we can't relate to that specific is because we are only imagining it, not living it. It is an inherit problem with humans telling stories. We can only take the story as far in relatability as the audience is able to imagine.

But there's no real need to relate to immortality or god-likeness. We're shown in Elpis that they still have foibles, and are basically just people with abilities extraordinary to us. The importance is that they were people. They had dreams. They had loves. They had favorite foods. The need to eat. The need to rest. The need to cry.

So real world comparisons don't really fall apart due to that facet of the story. In this instance, the writers actually use our real world experience against the Ancients' story to cudgel a philosophy into us. We accept it, because it's more readily relatable.

When you come across the Qitana Ravel cave paintings, Y'sthola remarks that they might predate the empire. They also appear remarkly different in aesthetic from the surrounding Ronkan ruins.

The cutscene that follows has Emet-Selch talking about how once, long ago everyone remembers the sundering and the final days. There is no indication that the Ronkans made the cave paintings, or that anyone had to be told about the events being depicted. Emet-Selch says they were drawn from fragmented memories and vague impressions of a forgotten world the people who drew them once knew.

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Originally Posted by Kordarion

Ok so

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Putting someone into a situation that causes them to die is not a natural death. This is the issue.

The people of Etheirys are transcendent beings who live myriad physical lives through reincarnation. In the time of the Ancients they had dense souls and larger bodies which allowed them to live one physical life indefinitely. Even without those bodies, two of them have been shown to live until killed. Those two being Hades and Venat. The two of them have lived 12000 years + However Many years they lived prior to the Sundering. And they could have gone on living however long they wanted to, until they were killed.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

There's a lot that we don't know, but what we do know is that prior to the Sundering they chose when they died, unless killed violently. After, they didn't. The only thing going in the story's favor in this regard is its vagueness, a key component in its malleable, years long structure. We don't know how long they lived afterwards. It's clear that everyone was able to survive, at least in the places we've been, but it doesn't change the fact that Venat's Sundering is the root cause of all of their deaths.

I'm the only one with a real argument in our little "tête-à-tête." You are desperate to deny Venat did a great wrong. You ignore that the principle is the same. The shortening of someone else's lifespan.

Think harder.

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The first sentence is correct yet with no additional information conclusions you have are your own and are not necessary true. The beings had different independent death conditions, and comparing them purely mathematically is just wrong. You can't argue against the point that average Sundered lifespan become longer purely because they stopped randomly killing themselves. By comparing incomparable and drawing conclusions you are just demonstrating bias and nothing more.

About Sundering as death. The Venat's Great Sudering speech states her intentions very clearly: she intents to take away features of people, thus transform them. Now transformation does contain element of Annihilation. It also contains an element of Creation also. So ill concede that She committed Genocide and is responsible of huge amount of deaths. The you concede that she is very literally Progenitor of almost all life on Etherys and is responsible for giving "birth" to most of it from blades of grass to sentient races.

There is also prevalent waving flag of Emets Prejudice against Sundered life here. People calling it inferior and "parody" all the time. While in the story this is not as clear-cut. In ShB it was kind of shown that yeah we are but we still want to live. While in EW it's shown that Sundered life has at least potential to be flat out superior to Unsundered. We have access to two energy types rather than one and have ability to withstand Apocalypses and recover from them. Rather rare ability in Universe it seems. Only Omega and Midgarsormr shown to have it from the alien races.

And the matter of Venat's intention to Sunder. She was not the one that came up with idea at all. As it stands the idea is either paradox created from time loop. Or was introduced by party responsible for time loop.
Venat seems to be unusually aware of time travel inner workings. Perhaps it falls within Azem's portfolio (Wanderer eh?). Perhaps time loop IS the way Azem found to deal with Final Days. That would make our past self ultimately responsible for the Sundering with Venat just playing the role based on the script that WE WROTE.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Putting someone into a situation that causes them to die is not a natural death. This is the issue.

The people of Etheirys are transcendent beings who live myriad physical lives through reincarnation. In the time of the Ancients they had dense souls and larger bodies which allowed them to live one physical life indefinitely. Even without those bodies, two of them have been shown to live until killed. Those two being Hades and Venat. The two of them have lived 12000 years + However Many years they lived prior to the Sundering. And they could have gone on living however long they wanted to, until they were killed.

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Except at no point is this categorically stated, as far as I am aware there are no canon sources that state the ancients have an infinite lifespan. Add to that the game goes out of its way to say that there is no way to cheat death and that all things must die creates the opposite impression, that the ancients can die of natural causes but that we just haven't seen it yet. Therefore Venat isn't putting the ancients in a situation that they wouldn't already experience if not for creation magic hand waving, a state they had to have been in to discover creation magic.

Also your examples of incredibly long lived Ancients doesn't exactly hold up. Venat is quite literally a primal, a god, a being that does not deal with the same type of mortality that you or I or the ancients have to deal with. Doubly so for Emet-Selch who maintains his soul by returning to the in between realm the acsians have that stops them being sent to the aetherial sea when they die and instead allows them to return time after time, its the reason white auracite is needed to kill them.

Adding to the mentioning of the Rift, as we've seen through our travel to the First and Elpis, time does not flow normally in the Rift. 5 years on the First was akin to a few months on the Source, something that doesn't make much sense unless you assume that the Rift itself refracts time like water does light.

I don't think we can say either Emet-Selch or Venat would have lived forever given the exceptional circumstances they both presented. Venat being a primal that lived at the center of the world, and Emet-Selch engaging in the practice of constant ascian body swapping.

On the other hand, "death by old age" seemed unknown by the ancients. But maybe their civilization just hadn't lasted long enough for that to happen to anyone.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

I don't think we can say either Emet-Selch or Venat would have lived forever given the exceptional circumstances they both presented. Venat being a primal that lived at the center of the world, and Emet-Selch engaging in the practice of constant ascian body swapping.

On the other hand, "death by old age" seemed unknown by the ancients. But maybe their civilization just hadn't lasted long enough for that to happen to anyone.

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It makes sense that the ancients had no concept of death by old age, after all their society is built around committing ritual suicide once your personal purpose in life is fulfilled. This combined with Emet-Selch stating that Venat is an outcast for NOT offing herself once her initial purpose is done implies that the vast majority of ancients willingly ended their lives before they could come to a natural end.

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Originally Posted by Pofruin

The first sentence

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All of it is correct, actually. You just don't like it, so declare it wrong. That's not an argument.

She IS NOT the progenitor of any life. She corrupted life. There was no creation. Some of the corrupted life, many millennia later, went on to create things the Ancients had not with the aid of alien influences, but Venat created nothing.

The story itself devalues Sundered life by stating that if the Source dies, then all of the shards die too. Yet the shards are unaffected by symptoms of the Final Days and can do nothing to combat it. And also do nothing to combat it within Endwalkers. The apocalypses you mention, other than the Final Days, weren't apocalypses. Just grave catastrophes that weren't seeking the star's destruction, but a return to its original wholeness. You should note that they were also required for us to be as strong as we are now.

With your last paragraph I'd be careful. You're robbing Venat of agency, which makes her less than a character. But I will note that I agree. The time paradox does do that to her, but many people who agree with your other ideas disagree with that. Of course, there's no winning against a literary time loop, because she had to have taken that action originally for us to loop back to her at all. Somewhere in the timelines is a prime line where she did the Sundering without an influencer from the future. I'd like to see that Venat.

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Originally Posted by Kordarion

Except at no point is this categorically stated, as far as I am aware there are no canon sources that state the ancients have an infinite lifespan.

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I don't know about you, but if someone reduced my ~80 year life expectancy to like five days I would consider that them killing me.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

I don't know about you, but if someone reduced my ~80 year life expectancy to like five days I would consider that them killing me.

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Fair enough I can see where your coming from nobody likes it when someone else comes in and changes how long they live, my main problem is that Vyrerus is stating that Venat introduced the ancients to the concept of a natural death, and that without her they would all live forever which doesn't appear to be true and in fact is in opposition to the thematic purpose of Endwalker, that suffering and death are inevitable and that what truly matters is how you learn to live with this immutable fact.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

All of it is correct, actually. You just don't like it, so declare it wrong. That's not an argument.

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That my friend is the pot calling the kettle black, every time someone responds with any counter argument you declare that you are the only one who speaks the truth, the only person with any real argument and that any view other than your own is wrong and that therefore your argument is the only valid one.

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Originally Posted by Kordarion

That my friend

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You've assumed that you've made good arguments. You haven't. If you had, I'd have to stop and think. I haven't yet. Simple as that. I could list the people who've made me have to stop and think during other discussions, if that'd relax you. After all, this is about the umpteenth time these ideas have been argued for.

Yiankutku
Anonymoose
Theodric
RyuDragnier
EaraGrace
Cilia
Iscah
Cleretic

Along with some others. Make a good argument, and I will generally fail to respond or respond far more slowly. Though in some cases, I've either hit the posting limit or run out of time for the forum for the day.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

I don't know about you, but if someone reduced my ~80 year life expectancy to like five days I would consider that them killing me.

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Likewise. If I were forcibly removed from my family, friends and cat and each of us had our memories stripped of one another then such could easily be considered a form of death and destruction as well.

It was the bonds formed between one another that supposedly led the Scions and Warrior of Light to triumph against Meteion and the Final Days. Though as we know, such tight bonds existed back in the Ancient world and as Meteion states, the answer to Hermes' question was 'there all along' on Etheirys.

Venat's actions robbed her people of such bonds and had the Ancients not been dealing with a saboteur within their midst, they would have been free to carve their own fate for better or for worse.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Make a good argument, and I will generally fail to respond or respond far more slowly.

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I've yet to see you respond to the fact that multiple people are telling you that there is no concrete proof that the ancients had an indefinite lifespan, in fact I've seen you ignoring that multiple times to instead focus on weaker parts of the argument. I've at least tried to provide evidence based reasoning for why they would have limited lifespans and yet you have simply said they have indefinite lifespans and provided no examples of where this belief might come from. You have also failed to respond to the multiple rebuttals of your assertion that Venat and Emet-Selch's respectively long lives have non-ancient sources. To be fair that could be that you've hit the posting limit especially with the Venat and Emet-Selch lifespans.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

All of it is correct, actually. You just don't like it, so declare it wrong. That's not an argument.

She IS NOT the progenitor of any life. She corrupted life. There was no creation. Some of the corrupted life, many millennia later, went on to create things the Ancients had not with the aid of alien influences, but Venat created nothing.

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You mean to tell me socially acceptable suicide is in no way affecting average lifetimes in society? Or are you just mirroring my arguments without providing context eh?

If Venat was not progenitor, but corrupter that Sundering is not death, but corruption. One or the other, since they cancel each other.

The shards are unaffected by Final Days only cause we stopped the Final Days. In the Ancients timeline the progressed significantly further up to death of the very land itself. We haven't seen it since we didn't sit in our our high-rise city on our ass until all of Etherys is engulfed by Final Days. Emmet, Zodiark and Hydelin defeats shows that present time WoL is stronger than Ancients of the past. (We do cheat using Dynamis that most of those dudes don't even perceive, but that IS the point). Also Calamieties in current story was intentional Training wheels for Final Days. At the end Emet implies that all of Unsundered Ascians where always unknowingly working towards Ventas goal.

Note this paragraph contains personal views so if not interested just skip past: By the way I do think that Venat is responsible for all deaths in all rejoining's, and moon escape plan did involve sacrificing all life in all shards. My view is that theses are not unusual moral choices Ancients make. "Ours is Authority over lesser life" is fundamental principle of Ancient society (the very thing Hermes questioned by the way) and both Venat and Emet fit in perfectly. Why are people crying when Sundering sends this shit into Oblivion is beyond me.

Now final part where actual civil lore discussion can happen :P. Why should I be careful? I don't think Venat has much agency in the story. Like we don't really also. The story is written by somebody else and you just experiencing it.
Venat's first comment after listening our recount of future events could have read as her thinking about her future actions with Sundering. It can also be read as anxiety of how her future self abusing her present self. I read that Venat assumes us to be a message from the future from herself. She then opens the letter and finds script to follow that involves ending Ancient race and supervising torture of all life for 12k years with no information of whether it is worth it in the end at all. And If she choose not to follow it she would be risking full and final destruction of all life in the universe. Now choose, no pressure, take your time :P

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Originally Posted by Kordarion

I've yet to see you respond to the fact that multiple people are telling you that there is no concrete proof that the ancients had an indefinite lifespan, in fact I've seen you ignoring that multiple times to instead focus on weaker parts of the argument. I've at least tried to provide evidence based reasoning for why they would have limited lifespans and yet you have simply said they have indefinite lifespans and provided no examples of where this belief might come from. You have also failed to respond to the multiple rebuttals of your assertion that Venat and Emet-Selch's respectively long lives have non-ancient sources. To be fair that could be that you've hit the posting limit especially with the Venat and Emet-Selch lifespans.

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The question of the Ancients' lifespan is a difficult one, because we don't know that they could live forever, all we know is that they died voluntarily. You're absolutely right that the longest-lived Ancients were very clearly shirking their natural rules anyway; Venat and Elidibus by becoming primals, Emet-Selch and Lahabrea by just constantly possessing new bodies. So nobody can really say that a normal Ancient could have lived forever if they wanted to.

But what we can say is that while we don't know if their deaths are biologically natural, we do know that their deaths are societally natural. The event of an Ancient's death is so inevitable that it's treated almost like how we'd treat someone leaving their job; which is why Hermes was seen as so odd for instead mourning the previous Fandaniel. So if an Ancient could live forever, people would look down on someone who actually was, either as something pitiful ('wow, you still aren't done?') or possibly something loathsome ('you're supposed to be GONE').

So Venat can't be vilified for the Sundered having finite natural lifespans. Because not only do we not have proof that the Ancients didn't have an indefinite lifespan, but Ancient society itself valued the concept of a finite life.

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Originally Posted by Pofruin

You mean to tell me socially acceptable suicide

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As put by Hythlodaeus, most Ancients understand the nature of their lives. They don't actually end when they "die," they return to the star, and come back later as a new person. Giving their aether back to the planet, so that it can grow and express new life. He also expresses that their lives are finite there, but gives no indication of how finite. To fulfill one's purpose in life is a very vague thing. It also implies that they each were able to find something they felt was their true purpose in life. Earlier, in SHB, Emet had said, "In the beginning everyone, everyone lived for nigh an eternity. Such was the natural order of things." He also says, "They could live for an age." It's all purposely vague so we can make of it and value of it what we will, but keep in mind that death was completely voluntary. We've yet to see or hear about someone rejecting returning to the star, and having to be violently put down by others in the ancient world. Venat herself rejected it, and also called Emet, "One so young."

Of course, we can go off road and talk about, "Astrological Ages." In an Astrological Age, 12 cycles form one year, and one year, called a Great Year, equates to 25,772 years as we measure them now. That's not in the game, of course, so it doesn't mean much. Just some neat trivia. Point is, they lived an awful lot longer than any of the Sundered races, and theirs lives were shorten and their powers were taken. They were also made susceptible to illness, which was more or less eradicated via their potent souls and magicks.

I refer to it as corruption, because you tried to refer to it as transformation. If you're familiar with the Simarillion, then what you're positing is that Hydaelyn did the same thing as Morgoth. Twisted Life trying to create. That isn't what she did, of course, she damaged life and made it lesser to fulfill a specific purpose. As a poison or intense radiation would, she shortened life. "Birthed a world of mire and plague." As the English puts it.

I like that paragraph. :3

I could only read it that way after she didn't have her memory wiped in Ktsis Hyperboreia. They could have tucked up the time paradox a bit more if her memory of our story had just been wiped. My discontent with Venat's character stems from this. From this and the inclination for people to say that the Sundering was all groovy and good.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

So Venat can't be vilified for the Sundered having finite natural lifespans. Because not only do we not have proof that the Ancients didn't have an indefinite lifespan, but Ancient society itself valued the concept of a finite life.

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She can be, and is, because she shortened them to such a degree that most of the life has to focus on survival rather than fulfillment and purpose. Because most of the life has to focus on issues that did not used to be problems(or were problems that had been solved long ago), such as the creation of medicine and other such similar things.

It's important to note that the Ancients valued finite life, because they valued the Star's life. Their lives are referred to as the planet's lifeblood by Hythlodaeus, but clearly they valued finding true fulfillment and purpose more.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

The question of the Ancients' lifespan is a difficult one, because we don't know that they could live forever, all we know is that they died voluntarily. You're absolutely right that the longest-lived Ancients were very clearly shirking their natural rules anyway; Venat and Elidibus by becoming primals, Emet-Selch and Lahabrea by just constantly possessing new bodies. So nobody can really say that a normal Ancient could have lived forever if they wanted to.

But what we can say is that while we don't know if their deaths are biologically natural, we do know that their deaths are societally natural. The event of an Ancient's death is so inevitable that it's treated almost like how we'd treat someone leaving their job; which is why Hermes was seen as so odd for instead mourning the previous Fandaniel. So if an Ancient could live forever, people would look down on someone who actually was, either as something pitiful ('wow, you still aren't done?') or possibly something loathsome ('you're supposed to be GONE').

So Venat can't be vilified for the Sundered having finite natural lifespans. Because not only do we not have proof that the Ancients didn't have an indefinite lifespan, but Ancient society itself valued the concept of a finite life.

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I'd actually argue that to some degree we do have proof that the ancients had an upper age limit. During Meteion's report to Hermes at the top of Ktisis Hyperborea, we hear her talk of a species that tried to find a scientific way to cheat both death and ageing and that said civilization discovered that death and time were both immutable constants that could not be avoided and were inevitable. So while it doesn't directly state that the ancients weren't immortal, for me at least it does tell us that no species in FF14 can be immortal and I can't see them writing this and then turning around and saying the ancients were the exception to this rule.

I'd also argue that the reason we don't know the age limit of the ancients is because of their habit of choosing to die, which means that they are rarely if ever able to reach that upper limit on their age.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

She can be, and is, because she shortened them to such a degree that most of the life has to focus on survival rather than fulfillment and purpose. Because most of the life has to focus on issues that did not used to be problems(or were problems that had been solved long ago), such as the creation of medicine and other such similar things.

It's important to note that the Ancients valued finite life, because they valued the Star's life. Their lives are referred to as the planet's lifeblood by Hythlodaeus, but clearly they valued finding true fulfillment and purpose more.

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I think that is probably a better way of framing it.

We can surmise the ancients did not live forever but Emet-Selch (in the Ladder encounter) describes them as living for an age, or in the FR version, as being practically immortal. So I'd consider it to be of little relevance whether infinite lifespans were reduced to rather short ones, or whether ones we'd consider exceedingly long were cut in such a fashion. It is still a drastic reduction.

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Originally Posted by Kordarion

I'd actually argue that to some degree we do have proof that the ancients had an upper age limit. During Meteion's report to Hermes at the top of Ktisis Hyperborea, we hear her talk of a species that tried to find a scientific way to cheat both death and ageing and that said civilization discovered that death and time were both immutable constants that could not be avoided and were inevitable. So while it doesn't directly state that the ancients weren't immortal, for me at least it does tell us that no species in FF14 can be immortal and I can't see them writing this and then turning around and saying the ancients were the exception to this rule.

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She is very likely to be referring to the Ea there. Their discovery of the eventual heat death of the universe, resulting in nihilistic tendencies, no doubt factored into death being an "inevitability".

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Originally Posted by Veloran

We have no idea when the Qitana Ravel paintings were created, only that it was before Ronka. It could be they were painted by someone with the Echo, or even that one of the Ascians aided in creating them (Emet is a "patron of the arts" and shows up there right on cue for example).

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They sketched out something of an answer to this here.

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14. It's been observed by players that in the Chrysalis, the meteor phase of the fight has a crystal formation very similar to the Crystal Tower, as well as a figure that looks a lot like Hydaelyn's portrayal in the caves. Could you please elaborate on what the Chrysalis is and why the Ascians chose to portray scenes of both gods?

Oda: The cave painting was not done by Ascians, but by someone who had a memory of the world before the Sundering. Perhaps he saw it in a dream or something, and then made a mural. The reason why there’s a often crystal-shaped motif when it comes to the Ascians is that Zodiark's crystal is sort of the antithesis to the Mothercrystal of Hydaelyn.

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Of course, this sort of thing could end up changing when put down in the next EE or whatever, but it will have to do for now. So it is indeed very difficult to pin it down, and they're attributing it to surviving in memory, and as we know from how the Echo is triggered, said memory can persist very, very long depending on what it is. It is worth noting that we do have some account of the earlier periods of history in the game, to which the below is relevant:

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The First Umbral Era was a prehistoric era that followed the First Umbral Calamity.

Drawing from the songs and writings of countless civilizations, theologians believe prehistory to be a tempestuous time of uncontrolled creation overseen by a mercurial god or gods—creation which abruptly ends with the destruction of all that exists, ultimately allowing for the rise of mankind from the wreckage.

Historians and scholars of biological fields, on the other hand, claim that mankind could not have simply "appeared" and suggest an evolution of the species in the thousand thousand years preceding the first calamity. What the two groups do, however, agree upon is that modern history begins with the First Umbral Era.

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We can surmise that it was a near total reset:

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It is during the First Astral Era that mankind is believed to have learned the essentials for survival—the ability to carve stone tools and the ability to make fire. Tools allowed for the rise of agriculture and a departure from hunting and gathering, which eventually resulted in the abandonment of nomadic lifestyles and saw the establishment of villages and towns. Within these towns, civilization thrived and basic sciences such as animal husbandry and simple metallurgy were discovered and refined.

As the towns grew, so did the hegemonies that oversaw the towns until finally kingdoms were born. However, kings, as is their wont, are rarely content with what they have, and soon the leaders of the newly formed countries abandoned the creation of tools for the forging of weapons, and the era descended into bloodstained madness.

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While the 1UE is preceded by a calamity of wind, only the target shard would be consumed wholesale, and I believe had these tools already been developed and in memory and use of them understood, they'd be in use. Seems far likelier given how the sundering operated that man had to start back at step 1. One could quibble about how accurate the source is and make of it what one wishes, but it's all we have for now - a 14 times divided star of an Etheirys that was still itself in the process of rebuilding once Zodiark revitalised the star, with ruins of arcane buildings of little practical use without the know how to operate them dotted about, would fit the bill.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

You've assumed that you've made good arguments. You haven't. If you had, I'd have to stop and think. I haven't yet. Simple as that. I could list the people who've made me have to stop and think during other discussions, if that'd relax you. After all, this is about the umpteenth time these ideas have been argued for.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

I'm the only one with a real argument in our little "tête-à-tête." You are desperate to deny Venat did a great wrong. You ignore that the principle is the same. The shortening of someone else's lifespan.

Think harder.

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I honestly find it sad that you need to put the other poster down by saying that they are not using real arguments and things like that while you were the one opening that thread about arguing in good or bad faith.

The topic about sundering is not clear cut because we simply have no idea what exactly happened to the people. Kordarion just argued that the sundering itself is not killing, because the people stayed alive, while you argue that it is killing because of the reduction in lifespan and other parts thus they die faster and easier. Both of these are imo right. And the game even tell us that the act itself was not kind and that it birthed a cruel world. People can still like Venat and see her as a great character.

Some of the unknown stuff about the sundering:

- We have no idea how old the Ancients normally get before they choose to return to the star. It could be over thousand years or just a few hundreds.
- We have no idea how much of their memories the sundered lost.
- We have no idea how the new lifespan came to be. The people of the first are basically just 1/14 of the original yet they do seemingly have similiar lifespans than we do. They also dont seem to be much more frail or way less powerful than us. Maybe their own lifespan was not even reduced at all and the only reason why they die so fast now, is because they are reborn into the new races. After all if the lifespan was decreased by the sundering, why is it so different between the races? Why can the Viera for example live so much more longer?

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Originally Posted by ddwarbird

So it really bothers me that Square Enix played it rather "safe" with this story. I came into the story hoping that Hydaelyn was actually going to be the villain of the story all along and we have been doing her bidding because we were "tempered" to her. I think they really did hint at this in Shadowbringers.

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And I would have been even more disappointed if this were the case.

I'm so relieved they didn't do that. It would have been truly awful and heartbreaking.

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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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If that were true, then the average lifespan of each person on the Source would go up after every Calamity and people on the Shards would be weaker, sicker, and die faster than us and there's no substance to that idea.

I think it's far more likely to believe that the Ancients owe their enormous lifespans to their equally enormous amount of aether, rather than something specifically physiological about their bodies. The Ancients weren't immune to the aging process, Venat tells Emet-Selch that he's starting to get lines on his face or something to that effect. There must be some sort of cutoff where if you're X amount of magical, then you have a very long or effectively immortal lifespan. It's a classic trope of wizards living longer than natural lifespans and this feels like that to a more expanded degree.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Also, the Qitana Ravel cave paintings were made by the Ronkans, an empire civilization implied to be similar in workings to the Allagans, though never outright stated to be a machination of the Ascians, it could have been. Another thing we don't know is where they got the information to paint what was depicted.

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When did they say it was done by the Ronkans? I thought Emet-Selch said it was done by people shortly after the Sundering and there's no evidence of the Ronkan Empire being that old. Y'shtola even says the murals predate the empire.