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

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Originally Posted by linayar

We don't know what the collateral damage, if any, is. And collateral means they are unintended, so it has nothing to do with the morality of the perpetrator

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We know that the Sundering affected every living creature on the planet, regardless of whether they Ancients involved in the sacrifices, unrelated Ancients, or other creatures both sentient and otherwise, so there is implicit collateral damage.

And of course it does. If you perform an action knowing there will be collateral damage, or with recklessness in a manner that causes it, then you are morally responsible for the results. If see someone about to detonate a bomb on the other side of a crowded building, and the only way to stop them is to shoot through that crowd, you've still killed everyone hit by those stray bullets, regardless of your intent.

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Originally Posted by linayar

I wasn't aware Hydaelyn planned for there to be a specific amount of parts. Where did you find this information?

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I didn't. Like I said, that's something you can pick at if you have a mind to, but it wasn't my original point.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

We know that the Sundering affected every living creature on the planet, regardless of whether they Ancients involved in the sacrifices, unrelated Ancients, or other creatures both sentient and otherwise, so there is implicit collateral damage.

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What we don't know is how it affected them. We do know that the Ancients planned on killing people.

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And of course it does. If you perform an action knowing there will be collateral damage, or with recklessness in a manner that causes it, then you are morally responsible for the results. If see someone about to detonate a bomb on the other side of a crowded building, and the only way to stop them is to shoot through that crowd, you've still killed and are morally responsible for what happens to whoever is hit by those stray bullets, regardless of your intent.

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Intent matters. Someone who intentionally commits a murder is morally worse than someone who commits a murder unintentionally.

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I didn't. Like I said, that's something you can pick at if you have a mind to, but it wasn't my original point.

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If there is no excessive and unnecessary force, then there is no need to argue about collateral damage. Venat did what she thought she had to do to stop the others from making that final sacrifice.

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Originally Posted by linayar

If there is no excessive and unnecessary force, then there is no need to argue about collateral damage. Venat did what she thought she had to do to stop the others from making that final sacrifice.

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Collateral damage makes an action morally complicated, regardless of the intent and presumed necessity of the action. Someone who is willing to shoot into that crowd to stop a worse tragedy is not a hero, even if they believe their intent to be heroic, because they have still brought pain and death to the innocent themselves. Whether or not it's even permissible is the controversy inherent to the trolley problem, which you're almost certainly familiar with if you've spent any time online.

We've circled in such a manner that the only way I can think to respond is my looping back my original opinion.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

Personally, I will find a "necessary evil" on that kind of scale being framed as heroic in the way it was kinda creepy and offputting no matter what. Doing a bad thing to prevent a worse thing don't make you a morally better person, just a more pragmatic one.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

Collateral damage makes an action morally complicated, regardless of the intent and presumed necessity of the action. Someone who is willing to shoot into that crowd to stop a worse tragedy is not a hero, even if they believe their intent to be heroic, because they have still brought pain and death to the innocent themselves.

We've circled in such a manner that the only way I can think to respond is my looping back my original opinion.

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It's not morally complicated because you don't need to be morally perfect to be a hero.

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Originally Posted by Kozh

Uh huh, and yet seto and other characters keep saying "you're still you despite you soul being rejoined". Emet only saw that vision because he's already being sentimental enough since we're reincarnation of Azem.

The sundered souls may still retain its previous "color", hence why they can uplift sundered being into ascian (mitron, loghriff, etc.), but they are still not the same person as the original one due to the reincarnation.

Ancients soul that arguably can be brought back 100% are the ones trapped inside zodiark since they retain their "self". The rest have been reincarnated many times. Rejoining only allows them to make the sundered to be whole again soul and aether wise.

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That would mean that the WoL is the familiar of Azem, and not actually Azem, since its both the rejoining with Ardbert and the Blessing of Hydalen that give the color of Azems soul.

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Originally Posted by linayar

What we don't know is how it affected them. We do know that the Ancients planned on killing people.

Intent matters. Someone who intentionally commits a murder is morally worse than someone who commits a murder unintentionally.

If there is no excessive and unnecessary force, then there is no need to argue about collateral damage. Venat did what she thought she had to do to stop the others from making that final sacrifice.

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We can infer based on the shb shorty story that illness was a foreign concept to them, however we know illness exists in the sundered world, along with a lot of the aging down process. So we know illness and the short lifespans can be equated to the sundering which puts a lot of blood on Venat’s hands, more than the sacrifices ever would have caused if we count all the shards.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

We can infer based on the shb shorty story that illness was a foreign concept to them, however we know illness exists in the sundered world, along with a lot of the aging down process. So we know illness and the short lifespans can be equated to the sundering which puts a lot of blood on Venat’s hands, more than the sacrifices ever would have caused if we count all the shards.

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So you're saying it's better to not have existed in the first place than to exist in a less than ideal form.

I can see the logic in that, but I don't personally agree with it. My life, however bad it may be, is my life.

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Originally Posted by linayar

It's not about the world or the people. It's about what the sundering actually did. If it was killing people, then it wouldn't make sense for Venat to think that "mankind" continued on, and even the concept of the source is unclear from that perspective.

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If "mankind" means human, not arcane constructs nor beastial creatures born from concepts, of course it can be said that mankind continued on. The problem is that She did erase a whole race and replace it with new race. Similar enough in physical but not the same one.

How you still not understand the concept of sundering is beyond me. She halve their soul, lifespan, etc. 14 times, causing them to forget their unsundered life and revert them to cavemen, how is that not killing someone?

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Originally Posted by linayar

As if knowing means being able to stop them.

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Considering how quick she gave up on her own people, forgive me for doubting her inaction when the shards are being rejoined.

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Originally Posted by linayar

No, you're just pretentious enough to think it's better to be mad on behalf of long dead people against the being that ensured our survival.

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So now it's "long dead people"? I thought you said the sundering didn't kill anyone?

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Originally Posted by linayar

As I've said, though, you can disagree with Venat's choice, but she made it, and we've benefitted from that decision made in the past.

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I never deny this. I just hate how the game frame her as benevolent, tragic heroine. No matter how much she said "I'm not a good person", it falls apart when every npc still act like she's the "Mother" and even we as the player doesn't get a single choice to scorn her decision.

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Originally Posted by Kozh

If "mankind" means human, not arcane constructs nor beastial creatures born from concepts, of course it can be said that mankind continued on. The problem is that She did erase a whole race and replace it with new race. Similar enough in physical but not the same one.

How you still not understand the concept of sundering is beyond me. She halve their soul, lifespan, etc. 14 times, causing them to forget their unsundered life and revert them to cavemen, how is that not killing someone?

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If the sundering is splitting the world, when did she replace one race by another race? To me, it seems more likely that the sundering caused an "evolution" of the Ancients into the existing races, potentially with a mixing with the new life created by Zodiark.

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Considering how quick she gave up on her own people, forgive me for doubting her inaction when the shards are being rejoined.

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She didn't just give up on them. She disagreed with them.

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So now it's "long dead people"? I thought you said the sundering didn't kill anyone?

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As far as I know, all of them have died long ago. I don't remember anyone saying the sundering killed them even if the sundering did cause them to have shorter lifespan.

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I never deny this. I just hate how the game frame her as benevolent, tragic heroine. No matter how much she said "I'm not a good person", it falls apart when every npc still act like she's the "Mother" and even we as the player doesn't get a single choice to scorn her decision.

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Again, because the story is told from our point of view, and she is all that to us. Just because she may have done something some people disagreed with in the past, it does not mean other people have to view her in that light.

She's a Mary Sue. There's no hate or animosity behind that statement. That's just what the character is. I find the distinct similarities with Venat/Hydaelyn and Zenos much more interesting since a lot of battle mechanics, ideology, and dialogue are mirrored between the 2.