Quote Originally Posted by Kokomi View Post
There's still the question of why Zodiark made intelligent life instead of just plants and animals. What were the Ancients even thinking? "Let's create new life in the image of our own souls, except it's okay to kill them since they'll die in such a short span of time anyway"? Isn't that a bit cruel? (Seeing parallels to how most individuals living in affluent parts of the world don't care about factory farming practices, though.)

Supposing they truly had no choice and either this new life or the sacrificed Ancients had to go, I'm curious why the Hydaelyn faction disagreed.

We don't have the full story and it's bothering me.
It's possible that intelligent life was an unanticipated side effect. Like, they told Zodiark "MAKE IT BETTER!!! ;_; " and Zodiark independently decided that making it better required a touch from intelligent life forms. It's also possible that intelligent life rose independently of both the Ancients AND Zodiark's wishes. Big Z created the Lifestream, souls emerged and formed bodies, and some of those souls turned out to be complex enough to be Spoken. It was still working as intended, so it was just an interesting curiosity - at least, up until the point the Council decided to chuck it all into the furnace.

But yes, we do not yet have the full story. We have most or all of the Ascian's side of it, now, and I suspect it's all true from their point of view. That doesn't save it from being BIASED, however. For instance, Emet informed us that the Dissidents brought forth Hydaelyn, but he was clearly upset and betrayed by their actions. It wasn't something he was expecting, and chances are high he doesn't really understand WHY they did what they did. There's a whole other viewpoint to the story that we have yet to see, and I'm guessing it will make a world of difference.