[Spoilers] Death and reincarnation

[Alleluia]

In the german version its outright stated by her that this is how she looked before the oracle part happened. I was a bit surprised that they did not say it that directly in the english version either.

The whole part about death and lifestream really gets more confusing to me as the time goes on. I mean even the Ancient still died it was just not something that happened often. So did the lifestream already exist at that time? Or were they all like the Ascians and they never died completely and just took over a new body? (But then children did exist thus new ones were born..if old ones never truly died then they should have overpopulated the planet at some time)

Also now we suddenly have a big amount of fairy races that are the souls of those that drowned or died as babies so the souls seemingly can go on much more often than I thought. Especially since the Fuath wanted to make us one of them by drowning us, which means that its quite certain that we would have ended that way?

So whats so special about these souls that they can just turn around and stop becoming part of the lifestream? Why are they able to do (especially as babies) that and others cant?

In the Englsih, at least, they say the pixies are the souls of children, not infants/babies, so we can kind of assume they mean young kids (at least 3-4 years old). As for why they get to reject all the rules and manifest as pixies? No idea. I'd say maybe it was a matter of them still being new life and stronger somehow, but that wouldn't explain the fuath.

[RenewalXVII]

Just using the literal actual sea as an analogy, junk that's thrown into it is spat out all the time. It's possible that the souls that go on to become fairies are those that accidentally get tossed out a little earlier than most, and so haven't been fully undifferentiated in the Lifestream yet. Remember, it's not that all drowned souls or infant souls become Fuath or pixies, but the converse. Some random number of souls by chance become fairies, but most probably cycle through the Lifestream as per normal.

[LineageRazor]

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.

[QT_Melon]

I am suspecting that it may be the Ancients tempered were facing an eventual extinction crisis/mortality? I mean that due to Hythlodaeus stating (iirc) that the division came because they felt their time as Ancients was over and it was time to let the new life inherent for better or for worse.

Being tempered they probably didn't see the fault with their primal since Zodiark already did something great, so probably tried to see if there was a way to get their old life back instead of dealing with what Zodiark created.

It's just weird to me that the first two sacrifices were OKAY. Then had an issue with the proposition of the third.

This again depends on when exactly did the 14th leave imo and the timing of events after.

[Alleluia]

The first two sacrifices were ok cus they were ancients who signed up and volunteered to die for the good of the group. The last sacrifice would be of (presumably sentient) life without that life’s consent. That’s the moral difference between the sacrifices.

I’m surprised there seems to be so much confusion from so many people on this, honestly. Thought it was a clearly stated plot point?

Now, I’m not really sure sacrifice #2(of the 3) was *actually* voluntary, since we don’t know if those who volunteered were tempered or not. (It could be the “us” in “He tempered us” meant just the 13 summoners or it meant all the remainder of amaurot, we don’t know.), but the amaurotines involved thought it was. Nobody at all thought the 3rd sacrifice would be voluntary.

[Kokomi]

[snip]

Good points, we know too little right now to do anything other than make wild guesses. Judging from this thread we're also charting new territory when it comes to fragmented souls, immortality, and the origin and nature of the lifestream.

I do hope that when we find out the truth it actually influences us to take some different course of action. I would seriously be questioning the point of creating this complicated story surrounding the Ancients, shards, and the almost sympathetic portrayal of Emet if, in the end, we win and everything settles into a state as if Laha/Emet/Elidibus had never survived the Sundering.

[Absimiliard]

We don't yet have any actual proof that Zodiark created sapient life. It's mere speculation based on the fact that the Spoken races are apparently the same across the shards. Problem is, that could just as easily be explained away by them all being Ancient fragments.

[Alleluia]

By spoken races, we are including beast tribes, right? Just asking for clarity.

[Kokomi]

We don't yet have any actual proof that Zodiark created sapient life. It's mere speculation based on the fact that the Spoken races are apparently the same across the shards. Problem is, that could just as easily be explained away by them all being Ancient fragments.

That's true. I think we've discussed this in other threads already and are starting to go in circles. We don't know what kind of life Zodiark created but it may have been intelligent as 1) it would explain why the Hydaelyn supporters had a problem with sacrificing them and 2) Emet's plan is to sacrifice the rejoined life on the Source to Zodiark, so we know that the Ascians approve. I think it's best to table this issue for now since we simply don't know.

Another thing I'm confused about is the difference between whole and fragmented souls. Emet has made a lot of claims but we haven't seen a single difference other than comparing WoL and Emet (and possibly Ryne) vs. everyone else, and the only difference there has been power, and in Emet's case, longevity.

[QT_Melon]

The first two sacrifices were ok cus they were ancients who signed up and volunteered to die for the good of the group. The last sacrifice would be of (presumably sentient) life without that life’s consent. That’s the moral difference between the sacrifices.

I’m surprised there seems to be so much confusion from so many people on this, honestly. Thought it was a clearly stated plot point?

Now, I’m not really sure sacrifice #2(of the 3) was *actually* voluntary, since we don’t know if those who volunteered were tempered or not. (It could be the “us” in “He tempered us” meant just the 13 summoners or it meant all the remainder of amaurot, we don’t know.), but the amaurotines involved thought it was. Nobody at all thought the 3rd sacrifice would be voluntary.

Right, that's why I pointed out that there was more than one sacrifice and the point of contention was stated at most with the third. However that 14th member, were they involved with the first 2 or left after seeing the effects was my question. Because If the 14th was involved with 1 and/or 2 sacrifices how did (we) escape tempering of Zodiark? How far did the tempering spread, to those who summoned or those around...?

The reason I'm asking is that it seems people want to shove things into a certain narrative like Zodiark was absolute evil where it could be just an unintended side effect like how if you put something into belief you become a slave to its idea (hence tempering).

So that's why I'm stating confusion at people saying it's all bad, especially since that wasn't the point of contention. The only way I can see this fitting the narrative is due the timing of the departure of the 14th member...