Inconsistencies with the sundering (Spoilers)

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Originally Posted by Reimar

THEN WHERE IN HYDALEN'S NAME IS MY CHILI YOU LALA MONSTER

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The chili were the friends you made along the way.



she in it. she in the chili now. so is haurchefant.

i think end of this. its players getting way too invested and noticing all the little things that build up and make the story or any aspect seem not as good. so they start to nitpick on every little thing. had i done this..i would have started back in arr to be quite honest lol. its a story set in a fantasy world. if something askew who cares. enjoy the content

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Originally Posted by kpxmanifesto

Oh, for sure. My friends that played through MSQ are still under the impression that Venat just did the sundering all by herself and that it was not the result of the conflict between Hydaelyn and Zodiark. I had to link them to the Tales of the Dawn webpage which I didn't even know existed until someone else posted it in this thread.

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Its funny to think how easy it could've been to avoid retconning the shadowbringers version of the sundering. Square could've just had venat say one more line in the sundering cutscene like the quote from Tales of the Dawn: "To have any chance at defeating the nigh-omnipotent Zodiark, however, the sacrifice must be absolute." But no... lets not make any mention of zodiark vs. hydaelyn in this very important cutscene.

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Originally Posted by PeaTearGriffin

Its funny to think how easy it could've been to avoid retconning the shadowbringers version of the sundering. Square could've just had venat say one more line in the sundering cutscene like the quote from Tales of the Dawn: "To have any chance at defeating the nigh-omnipotent Zodiark, however, the sacrifice must be absolute." But no... lets not make any mention of zodiark vs. hydaelyn in this very important cutscene.

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again, what is this "magical" retcon of the sundering explained in shadowbringers?

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Originally Posted by PeaTearGriffin

Its funny to think how easy it could've been to avoid retconning the shadowbringers version of the sundering. Square could've just had venat say one more line in the sundering cutscene like the quote from Tales of the Dawn: "To have any chance at defeating the nigh-omnipotent Zodiark, however, the sacrifice must be absolute." But no... lets not make any mention of zodiark vs. hydaelyn in this very important cutscene.

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Yeah for real. SE was rushing to complete things so they could release the game without too much delay, and in their hurry they made an error. They had already delayed the release of the game for two weeks so they could edit the cutscenes on Ultima Thule.

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Originally Posted by kpxmanifesto

Yeah for real. SE was rushing to complete things so they could release the game without too much delay, and in their hurry they made an error. They had already delayed the release of the game for two weeks so they could edit the cutscenes on Ultima Thule.

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People refusing to admit they were confused by a dumb, overwrought cutscene and instead saying that there's actually a giant writing mistake where the writers of Shadowbringers somehow forgot their own story despite the fact the "Hydaelyn stomping Zodiark" cave art is basically the symbol of that whole expansion, so they awkwardly made a cover-up is still one of the silliest conspiracy theories I've heard about this game.

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Originally Posted by kpxmanifesto

Yeah for real. SE was rushing to complete things so they could release the game without too much delay, and in their hurry they made an error. They had already delayed the release of the game for two weeks so they could edit the cutscenes on Ultima Thule.

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It's a major oversight but not hard to imagine especially since I saw yoshi p in the Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LXVIII that you linked. Wow that was a disaster...

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

People refusing to admit they were confused by a dumb, overwrought cutscene and instead saying that there's actually a giant writing mistake where the writers of Shadowbringers somehow forgot their own story despite the fact the "Hydaelyn stomping Zodiark" cave art is basically the symbol of that whole expansion, so they awkwardly made a cover-up is still one of the silliest conspiracy theories I've heard about this game.

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The problem is, that cutscene is confusing, even once you recognise that it has to be allegorical, and it's very hard to reconcile it as an allegory of a physical fight between the two beings. It does seem to be presenting an alternative narrative where Venat made a calculated decision to sunder the world herself, with Zodiark not present or involved, rather than it happening in the heat of battle.

Everything else up to that point seems to be a series of snapshots of "real" events, just merged into a single diorama instead of happening over time, so I'm left feeling that it doesn't line up with what we knew before.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

People refusing to admit they were confused by a dumb, overwrought cutscene and instead saying that there's actually a giant writing mistake where the writers of Shadowbringers somehow forgot their own story despite the fact the "Hydaelyn stomping Zodiark" cave art is basically the symbol of that whole expansion, so they awkwardly made a cover-up is still one of the silliest conspiracy theories I've heard about this game.

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I recall asking you before: in that cut scene, whats the metaphor for hydaelyn's battle with zodiark? You weren't able to answer it.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

The problem is, that cutscene is confusing, even once you recognise that it has to be allegorical, and it's very hard to reconcile it as an allegory of a physical fight between the two beings. It does seem to be presenting an alternative narrative where Venat made a calculated decision to sunder the world herself, with Zodiark not present or involved, rather than it happening in the heat of battle.

Everything else up to that point seems to be a series of snapshots of "real" events, just merged into a single diorama instead of happening over time, so I'm left feeling that it doesn't line up with what we knew before.

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I still think the cutscene is trash.

But I think the idea that the writers at that moment decided to randomly throw away a giant plot detail or just straight-up forgot it, RIGHT at the climax of a decade's worth of story, and then went back on it by publishing short stories and putting the stomp on merchandise to "hide their mistake" is a really dumb idea too.


I think it makes much more sense that the writers went overboard making a big cinematic scene, the stomp ended up on the cutting room floor for whatever reason, and the result was approved without any input from people outside of the dev/writing team.

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Originally Posted by PeaTearGriffin

I recall asking you before: in that cut scene, whats the metaphor for hydaelyn's battle with zodiark? You weren't able to answer it.

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They just didn't put it in for whatever dumb reason. I'm not saying I agree with the way they did things, but I am saying that I think the idea of a conspiracy is stupid.

If the cutscene wasn't an allegory/metaphorical, then what's your answer to Hytholdeus walking calmly past a giant man-eating monster with neither of them caring about each other? Did Venat also literally walk down a smoky hallway covered in blood while seeing shades of sad and angry people?

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

and then went back on it by publishing short stories and putting the stomp on merchandise to "hide their mistake" is a really dumb idea too.

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And what happens if they didn't post the short story resolving the two different versions of the sundering? Which version would we accept as canon?

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

If the cutscene wasn't an allegory/metaphorical, then what's your answer to Hytholdeus walking calmly past a giant man-eating monster with neither of them caring about each other? Did Venat also literally walk down a smoky hallway covered in blood while seeing shades of sad and angry people?

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We already addressed this. You're falling behind.

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Originally Posted by PeaTearGriffin

And what happens if they didn't post the short story resolving the two different versions of the sundering? Which version would we accept as canon?

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You don’t need the writers to hold your hand to be able to reconcile the fact that Hydaelyn stomped Zodiark and had more than just 1 reason to be summoned, as was stated back in the Shadowbringers patches.

But maybe we do need handholding and we need giant flashing warnings in cutscenes now to tell us whether what we’re seeing is an artistic description of events condensed into one thing or if it’s meant to be taken literally.

Again, I think they should’ve done it literally and showed us the fight we should’ve had.

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Originally Posted by PeaTearGriffin

We already addressed this. You're falling behind.

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I was hoping for a better response than the one you gave that cherry picks parts of the cutscene that support your idea that it’s meant to be literal, but the part of it is “obviously metaphorical” doesn’t count so you’re supposed to think it’s literal and then metaphorical.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

If the cutscene wasn't an allegory/metaphorical, then what's your answer to Hytholdeus walking calmly past a giant man-eating monster with neither of them caring about each other? Did Venat also literally walk down a smoky hallway covered in blood while seeing shades of sad and angry people?

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I don't think the question is whether it's an allegory. It clearly is.

The problem is seeing where in that allegory you're supposed to see the allegorical outline of an epic fight between Hydaelyn and Zodiark, given that Venat seems to engage in sundering the world for purely philosophical reasons and not in battle.

There was an event where a person got killed by a monster. There was an event where Hythlodaeus farewelled Hades. They didn't happen at the same time but we see them overlapping.

By that assumption, the argument between Venat and the Zodiark worshippers also happened, but perhaps not in that time and place.

Where then is the room for the clash of primals? When do we shift from overlapping "real" events to pure metaphor? We clearly have by the time of Hydaelyn's "final walk", but that seems different to what came before.

The bait is strong in this thread.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

You don’t need the writers to hold your hand to be able to reconcile the fact that Hydaelyn stomped Zodiark and had more than just 1 reason to be summoned, as was stated back in the Shadowbringers patches. But maybe we do need handholding and we need giant flashing warnings in cutscenes now to tell us whether what we’re seeing is an artistic description of events condensed into one thing or if it’s meant to be taken literally.

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In the endwalker cutscene, whats the metaphor for hydaelyn's battle with zodiark? You can't answer that, can you.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I don't think the question is whether it's an allegory. It clearly is.

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If you’d been following the OP, he doesn’t think it’s an allegory.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Where then is the room for the clash of primals?

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I want to know why they didn’t put it in there too.

But just because they made a weird decision not to show it doesn’t mean that the writers for some reason decided to backtrack on it ever happening and then backtracked on backtracking and put it back in through short stories and jackets.

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Originally Posted by PeaTearGriffin

And what happens if they didn't post the short story resolving the two different versions of the sundering? Which version would we accept as canon?

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Honestly, this is an interesting thing to think about. If Tales of the Dawn didn't exist to correct the inconsistency between ShB's and EW's versions of what the true cause of the sundering was, I would probably go with ShB's version of the Sundering just because I like it more, lmao.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

But just because they made a weird decision not to show it doesn’t mean that the writers for some reason decided to backtrack on it ever happening and then backtracked on backtracking and put it back in through short stories and jackets.

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Let's be real here. Tales of the Dawn does help provide clarity to the audience on what the cause of the Sundering was. I want to say that it was definitely put there to help clear things up.

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Originally Posted by kpxmanifesto

Honestly, this is an interesting thing to think about. If Tales of the Dawn didn't exist to correct the inconsistency between ShB's and EW's versions of what the true cause of the sundering was, I would probably go with ShB's version of the Sundering just because I like it more, lmao.

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I seem to have missed Tales of the Dawn adding new information on this? Venat's chapter with the Watcher was bogged down in as much vagueness as the cutscene.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I seem to have missed Tales of the Dawn adding new information on this? Venat's chapter with the Watcher was bogged down in as much vagueness as the cutscene.

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The Tales of the Dawn sidestory, A Friendship of Record, seems a little more indicative of there being some kind of fight between Hydaelyn and Zodiark.

"Venat's faction thus resolved to manifest an entity capable of shackling that power. To have any chance at defeating the nigh-omnipotent Zodiark, however, the sacrifice must be absolute."

- https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../#sidestory_01

The language is still somewhat ambiguous as it doesn't explicitly say "Hydaelyn and Zodiark go head to head in a battle," or something along those lines, but I can at least now believe that there was some sort of major conflict between them prior to the Sundering.

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Originally Posted by kpxmanifesto

The Tales of the Dawn sidestory, A Friendship of Record, seems a little more indicative of there being some kind of fight between Hydaelyn and Zodiark.

"Venat's faction thus resolved to manifest an entity capable of shackling that power. To have any chance at defeating the nigh-omnipotent Zodiark, however, the sacrifice must be absolute."

- https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../#sidestory_01

The language is still somewhat ambiguous as it doesn't explicitly say "Hydaelyn and Zodiark go head to head in a battle," or something along those lines, but I can at least now believe that there was some sort of major conflict between them prior to the Sundering.

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Originally Posted by AwesomeJr44

Yes. Yes it is.

It's the same type of bad writing that happened in Star Wars 9 where Palpatine's return required reading outside material to be explained properly.

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Guess we could say endwalker is our star wars 9.

i could have sworn they were explaining the hydaelyn/zodiark battle since shadowbringers

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Originally Posted by kpxmanifesto

The Tales of the Dawn sidestory, A Friendship of Record, seems a little more indicative of there being some kind of fight between Hydaelyn and Zodiark.

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That isn't merging, though – it's going back to the "old" narrative that Hydaelyn battled Zodiark with no mention of it ending in a philosophical clash between the factions.

Merging the two would require actually talking about what happened when Hydaelyn and Zodiark fought each other while clearly connecting it to the allegorical cutscene, which they seem extremely averse to doing.

Either they really did try to overwrite "the fight" with "Venat turned up at a meeting", or they've written it confusingly enough that a fair chunk of the audience feels like they did that, and either way they have made no attempt to explain or justify the discrepancy – not in further stories and not in interviews. They just avoid any explanation of it, which makes me feel like they don't actually have a good answer for how to reconcile the two.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

That isn't merging, though – it's going back to the "old" narrative that Hydaelyn battled Zodiark with no mention of it ending in a philosophical clash between the factions.

Merging the two would require actually talking about what happened when Hydaelyn and Zodiark fought each other while clearly connecting it to the allegorical cutscene, which they seem extremely averse to doing.

Either they really did try to overwrite "the fight" with "Venat turned up at a meeting", or they've written it confusingly enough that a fair chunk of the audience feels like they did that, and either way they have made no attempt to explain or justify the discrepancy – not in further stories and not in interviews. They just avoid any explanation of it, which makes me feel like they don't actually have a good answer for how to reconcile the two.

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Alternatively you can use that bad cutscene as Venat's moral justification of what she did during battle. The sundering does still take place during battle but that doesn't mean Venat didn't intend to do it for reasons beyond just defeating Zodiark.

The cutscene starts with Venat telling us, "Even now, I remember standing there. Locked in a moment where the sky is aflame."

The entire cutscene is her telling us a story: her story of the sundering.

It's natural that she tells a different story from Emet-Selch's: She remembers Meteion; he does not. She's motivated by pushing mankind forward; he's motivated by restoring the past. The stories they tell us are the stories that they've each been telling themselves, to remind themselves of why they've been carrying their burdens for thousands of years.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

That isn't merging, though – it's going back to the "old" narrative that Hydaelyn battled Zodiark with no mention of it ending in a philosophical clash between the factions.

Merging the two would require actually talking about what happened when Hydaelyn and Zodiark fought each other while clearly connecting it to the allegorical cutscene, which they seem extremely averse to doing.

Either they really did try to overwrite "the fight" with "Venat turned up at a meeting", or they've written it confusingly enough that a fair chunk of the audience feels like they did that, and either way they have made no attempt to explain or justify the discrepancy – not in further stories and not in interviews. They just avoid any explanation of it, which makes me feel like they don't actually have a good answer for how to reconcile the two.

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So right before that line I quoted from Tales of the Dawn earlier, there's another line that says: "Venat, along with the archivist and their like-minded companions, objected to this undertaking. The future, they believed, must not bear the cost for saving the past. Only in accepting pain and loss─by learning from the mistakes of yesterday─could they greet the morrow. A power such as Zodiark possessed was anathema to the progress of man."

The chain of events from Tales of the Dawn doesn't directly match up with the allegorical cutscene we saw in EW, but I personally feel the writer of Tales of the Dawn at least attempted to include both reasons for the Sundering that we saw from ShB and EW. ShB had the clash between Zodiark and Hydaelyn as the primary cause of the Sundering, EW had Venat's philosophical reasons for the Sundering, and Tales of the Dawn mentions both.

But you're right when you say "Merging the two would require actually talking about what happened when Hydaelyn and Zodiark fought each other while clearly connecting it to the allegorical cutscene." That would be the correct way of merging the two versions of the Sundering.

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Originally Posted by PeaTearGriffin

Guess we could say endwalker is our star wars 9.

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Somehow, the cause of the Sundering from ShB RETURNED!

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Originally Posted by kpxmanifesto

The chain of events from Tales of the Dawn doesn't directly match up with the allegorical cutscene we saw in EW, but I personally feel the writer of Tales of the Dawn at least attempted to include both reasons for the Sundering that we saw from ShB and EW. ShB had the clash between Zodiark and Hydaelyn as the primary cause of the Sundering, EW had Venat's philosophical reasons for the Sundering, and Tales of the Dawn mentions both.

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I still don't think that's adding anything new to the table. We knew since Shadowbringers that Hydaelyn was created by a faction philosophically opposed to Zodiark.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I still don't think that's adding anything new to the table. We knew since Shadowbringers that Hydaelyn was created by a faction philosophically opposed to Zodiark.

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With how vague the storytelling is, I can see this being the case for many people. That's not to say I think your interpretation is wrong, but it is different.

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Originally Posted by Ravenblade1979

i could have sworn they were explaining the hydaelyn/zodiark battle since shadowbringers

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Yeah, right until the infamous EW cutscene which completely ignores that.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

That isn't merging, though – it's going back to the "old" narrative that Hydaelyn battled Zodiark with no mention of it ending in a philosophical clash between the factions.

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As the other poster pointed out, we get a hint of this philosophical clash between the factions in the tales of the dawn quote - "Venat, along with the archivist and their like-minded companions, objected to this undertaking. The future, they believed, must not bear the cost for saving the past. Only in accepting pain and loss─by learning from the mistakes of yesterday─could they greet the morrow. A power such as Zodiark possessed was anathema to the progress of man."

I think this is very much saying there was a clash between the ideologies of those that supported zodiark and those that supported hydaelyn. This should've been included in the endwalker cutscene too.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Either they really did try to overwrite "the fight" with "Venat turned up at a meeting", or they've written it confusingly enough that a fair chunk of the audience feels like they did that, and either way they have made no attempt to explain or justify the discrepancy – not in further stories and not in interviews. They just avoid any explanation of it, which makes me feel like they don't actually have a good answer for how to reconcile the two.

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And this is why there's a few of us on these forums that think the endwalker cutscene is a retcon.

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Originally Posted by PeaTearGriffin

As the other poster pointed out, we get a hint of this philosophical clash between the factions in the tales of the dawn quote

This should've been included in the endwalker cutscene too.

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Yeah, not only should this have been included in the cutscene, but it wouldn't have hurt to expand upon this in Tales of the Dawn too. They spoke about it briefly in Tales, but sadly, it leaves a lot on the table.

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

The cutscene starts with Venat telling us, "Even now, I remember standing there. Locked in a moment where the sky is aflame."

The entire cutscene is her telling us a story: her story of the sundering.

It's natural that she tells a different story from Emet-Selch's: She remembers Meteion; he does not. She's motivated by pushing mankind forward; he's motivated by restoring the past. The stories they tell us are the stories that they've each been telling themselves, to remind themselves of why they've been carrying their burdens for thousands of years.

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I was just thinking about this. Its not that there's a retcon, its that we have two different perspectives of the sundering.

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Originally Posted by kpxmanifesto

Yeah, not only should this have been included in the cutscene, but it wouldn't have hurt to expand upon this in Tales of the Dawn too. They spoke about it briefly in Tales, but sadly, it leaves a lot on the table.

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I don't understand why square doesn't just come out with something in tales of the dawn that explains things in depth for everyone. There's obviously still some confusion about endwalker's story as we can see from many responses in this thread and the questions that players asked yoship during the Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LXVIII.

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Originally Posted by PeaTearGriffin

I don't understand why square doesn't just come out with something in tales of the dawn that explains things in depth for everyone. There's obviously still some confusion about endwalker's story as we can see from many responses in this thread and the questions that players asked yoship during the Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LXVIII.

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Probably because coming out with a better written version of the game's story would indirectly be acknowledging that they did a terrible job the first time around.

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Originally Posted by kpxmanifesto

Probably because coming out with a better written version of the game's story would indirectly be acknowledging that they did a terrible job the first time around.

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I still dont understand how people get confused about this story. First we have people being bad about playing this easy game, now we suddenly have people being bad at understanding the story. How amusing

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Originally Posted by kpxmanifesto

Probably because coming out with a better written version of the game's story would indirectly be acknowledging that they did a terrible job the first time around.

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I guess we can't expect too much from a game whose director says things like "when you're making this world you'll just sort of sometimes ignore things that are inconvenient" and "I think you guys can come up with your own theories for this one". At least disney tried to make amends for star wars 9 by explaining how palpatine returned even if it took a writer having to explain it outside of the movie.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

I still dont understand how people get confused about this story. First we have people being bad about playing this easy game, now we suddenly have people being bad at understanding the story. How amusing

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Because the in-game presentation focuses on enabling gameplay progression, not explaining nuance. There's nothing to get confused about, some things - like the full extent of the Venat and Zodiark faction's ideologies are simply left unspoken because a tearjerker movie has more emotional impact for less time and enables the player to go back to playing the MSQ faster.

I'd be wary of being proud of "understanding" this childish plot, or of dismissing players who focused on different aspects of the game. It's not really anything that merits full attention.

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Originally Posted by Celine_Aurora

I'd be wary of being proud of "understanding" this childish plot

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Wow this is going to piss people off. You're a brave soul.

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Originally Posted by Celine_Aurora

Because the in-game presentation focuses on enabling gameplay progression, not explaining nuance. There's nothing to get confused about

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i get where you're coming from in that if there's less dialogue and exposition that would mean there's less for the player to sift through and digest. But some could say that the lack of nuance and leaving things unspoken can add to the confusion too.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

I was just thinking about this. Its not that there's a retcon, its that we have two different perspectives of the sundering.

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Being presented with "two perspectives" should still be recognisably the same event from each perspective. The "Tales from the Dawn" quote seems to be a matching second perspective to Emet's account in Shadowbringers, but the post-Elpis cutscene does not resemble the same description of events.

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Originally Posted by PeaTearGriffin

I guess we can't expect too much from a game whose director says things like "when you're making this world you'll just sort of sometimes ignore things that are inconvenient" and "I think you guys can come up with your own theories for this one".

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They would also have to resolve certain inconsistencies in the game in greater detail that are already difficult to explain, like how you mentioned the inconsistency with Elidibus, Lahabrea, and Emet-Selch not being sundered in your original post. As you can see from what other posters in this thread already pointed out and from the video of the Q and A session, Yoshi P struggled to answer that question and ended up giving a lame reason for it.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Being presented with "two perspectives" should still be recognisably the same event from each perspective. The "Tales from the Dawn" quote seems to be a matching second perspective to Emet's account in Shadowbringers, but the post-Elpis cutscene does not resemble the same description of events.

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I'll make an attempt to draw a connection between the symbolic EW cutscene and Emet-Selch's story from ShB.

We see Venat who's presumably already Hydaelyn at this point, so in essence she represents her faction. Then she confronts the room full of Ancients who are summoning Zodiark, which is symbolic of the philosophical clash between those who support Hydaelyn and those who support Zodiark. Then Venat taking out her sword and sundering everyone is symbolic of their battle and the subsequent event where Hydaelyn strikes Zodiark with such force that it tears the world asunder.

Even still, I only arrived at this conclusion by jumping through several mental hoops and giving everything the benefit of a doubt. The "link" that I see between the EW cutscene and Emet's account in ShB is tenuous at best, if there even is one.

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Originally Posted by kpxmanifesto

We see Venat who's presumably already Hydaelyn at this point, so in essence she represents her faction. Then she confronts the room full of Ancients who are summoning Zodiark, which is symbolic of the philosophical clash between those who support Hydaelyn and those who support Zodiark. Then Venat taking out her sword and sundering everyone is symbolic of their battle and the subsequent event where Hydaelyn strikes Zodiark with such force that it tears the world asunder.

Even still, I only arrived at this conclusion by jumping through several mental hoops and giving everything the benefit of a doubt. The "link" that I see between the EW cutscene and Emet's account in ShB is tenuous at best, if there even is one.

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I might need a road map for a few of these aha.