Revelations from SHADOWBRINGERS

[Alleo]

It's been three months since I finished ShB, and there is still one thing no one has been able to explain satisfactorily during all these back-and-forth discussions.

Why is it okay for Hydaelyn to have ended the existence of everything on the Source by splitting it into fourteen bits but not okay for Emet Selch to end the existence of all those bits by bringing them back (rejoining) them into their original form? I am struggling to see how these two acts differ.

If separating them isn't killing them, how is rejoining them killing them, to put in another way?

We dont know what splitting did at that time but I doubt it killed the people. Why? Because you need people alive to even have future races. Nobody there to reproduce would kinda mean that nobody would be born. Thus they must have survived. (Also there is the cave painting which shows that people did survive otherwise who would have painted that?) It could be that it simply took away the memories or it could be that the people remembered but thanks to their power being split they could not do anything and only over time did the past die.

So as long as we dont know for sure how that part happened we cant just say it was that bad or not. But I doubt it killed. Rejoining is something different because the souls existed splitted at that part and to rejoin again one part of the soul has to give itself up. So they need to die.

Emet also did not want to just bring life back together. He stated ingame that if everything is rejoined (and suddenly they should all be living beings again even in his view) they still plan to sacrifice that life to maybe get the ancient ones back. It was never the plan to just stop there.

We know that they had planned to sacrifice ‘life’ to Zodiark to resurrect the sacrificed Ancients, but we don’t know exactly what that life consisted of; Did they intend to sacrifice people? Had they intended to sacrifice animals? Or plant life? Or both?

Yes we dont know exactly and it could be that they included animal life in that too but there are some things ingame and in the short story that gives us further hints:

-Hythlo mentions that a part of their race wanted to give the planet to the new life and later Emet says that the spoken races cant be trusted with the planet: This imo makes me doubt that we are talking about plants or common animals. You would not talk about giving something in the hand of lifeforms that cant even act on their own and Emets words do fit with it being sapient life.
- The short story makes it clear that they only see things with souls as truly alive. Thus why they could grind their creations into crystals without any remorse. Yes animals can develop a soul but we never saw a normal plant ever have one and even most beasts seems to not have one (especially since a lot of our beasts are their creation too). So if he talks about the new life then for me it makes sense that he is talking about life with a soul.
- Zodiark needed an unknown amount of Amaurotines souls to exist and then later rebuilt the planet. We know that these ancient beings are immensly powerful. Why would Zodiark exchange a soul for a couple of plants especially if they dont even have souls? No imo they needed at least something with a bit of power which is probably why ancient ones were against it...for just one single ancient soul you would probably still need huge amount of other lifeforms with souls.
- There is also not a single hint imo in the game that hints towards it just being plants. Heck them just needing plants would have been a great solution..just take a bit of land and grow some trees on it and then later chop them down..I mean we do something similar to this to get wood.

[Scintilla]

Yes we dont know exactly and it could be that they included animal life in that too but there are some things ingame and in the short story that gives us further hints:

- Emet’s words were in response to Alphinaud’s appeal to him to look to the present, rather than continuing to dwell on the past, explaining one of the reasons he wasn’t prepared to abandon his objectives. If it was thought that Hydaelyn’s ability to split the opponent would go no further than imprisoning Zodiark, it would make the sundering unintentional and the whole ‘lesser races would be untrustworthy’ argument wouldn’t have applied. If it was known that Hydaelyn’s ability to sunder would extend beyond Zodiark to the star and it’s inhabitants, it would make the sundering intentional, forcibly applying the effects upon everyone on the star whether they wanted it or not. Amaurot was only a single city. Is it possible that there could have been other survivors elsewhere on the star who may have had no knowledge of the ongoing conflict in Amaurot and, therefore, would have had this practically irreversible change thrust upon them with no choice?
Animals can act on their own. Human life isn't essential to the survival of all. And, as some here have already said, if given the option to sacrifice an entire Family of animals to restore the Human race, they would refuse it and leave the planet to the animals. So why would their talk of leaving their star to 'future life' necessarily discount non-human or common animal life?

- Isn’t aether the matter that primals require, with aether being described as the basis of all life? I’ll admit, I don’t know very much about it. Beast-tribes manage to summon primals (albeit incredibly weak ones in comparison to Hydaelyn/Zodiark which both used sacrifices of Ancients), not only through the use of crystals but also by their own sacrifices (shown in the Garuda and Titan (Hard) cutscenes). So for such beasts post-sundering to still be of some use to primals, the beasts which existed prior to the sundering may have held greater stores of the aether required.

- In truth, we can’t really say either way. I’d agree Zodiark would’ve expected a considerable quantity of aether, but whether they would’ve obtained this from further sacrifice of Ancients (seems illogical to me but it is a possibility) or whether they would’ve obtained it from immense sacrifices of other life on the star is still somewhat unknown.

- Plants not being the only possibility, but it would also depend how much is needed and how quickly it’s required. If such sacrifices did involve plants/animals it’s likely huge swathes of land would’ve destroyed. Perhaps some felt that such mass destruction of the planet (especially after the sacrifices just made to restore it) was a backwards step and that the star’s then thriving life belonged to the future generations to enjoy – not to Zodiark.

[Alleo]

- Emet’s words were in response to Alphinaud’s appeal to him to look to the present, rather than continuing to dwell on the past, explaining one of the reasons he wasn’t prepared to abandon his objectives.

Yes Emets words alone could be just taken as him saying that about the people now but together with Hytlos words about giving the planets into the hands of the new life and not the anicents anymore and then have Emet later confirm that its about the new races being the new stewards makes it feel to me that this was meant to show that the new life might have been the spoken races.

Also about the sundering: Well if they had not done anything then all these survivors would have probably been killed too. We are talking about tempered people that came from a city that saw itself as the best of the world and that waited with a solution until it was at their own doorsteps. They also only talked about getting those Amaurotines souls back even though that could simply be because the rest can be reborn. (Which then begs the question if they too were part of the new life..) We also know that 75% of the survivors were needed to create Zodiark and rebuilt the planet. Thus only 25% were even left. Even if most of them would be on Hydealyns side she would still had a huge amount of souls less then Zodiark. I for one do believe that the sundering was planned and that they saw it as necessary, especially since Zodiark was part of the planet now (as the will of the planet) and his complete destruction might have destroyed things. (It could also be that they saw it as necessary to split the power of creation because they might have had more information than we do and saw that history would just repeat itself or that everyone would fall under the tempering)

Yes animals act on their own but if you see yourself as the protector of the planet then I doubt you would say that you will give that role to the new life if its just animals. Animals dont protect. They simply live. Of course animals could have also been part of the process (if they imo had souls) but I really doubt that it was only about them. Also why should some of the ancients even think that? IMO it only makes sense if they believe that their rule is over and the new sapient life that grows right now should have the right. Otherwise if its just about simple animals why talk about it at all?

Well Zodiark needed 50% of the surviving Amaurotines to even exist. I dobut that they would have used human sacrifice if they had other huge aether storages. We know from the game that even the WoL with 8 of 14 soul parts did not even come near their power, heck they were even surprised that a child had such low aether. I somehow doubt that any animal had nearly as much aether as they did. Also beast tribes may be called like that but as far as we know they are just like the spoken races and have a soul. They are not like the animals we see around. Right now we have not a single example were an animal was directly used to summon a primal.

Not only would it be a backwards step but also means that Zodiark needed to work again to restore life. Because you cant just take out a huge part of the planets life without consequences. And now you have a circle of sacrifice. But again I doubt that we talk about plants.

Edit: sry for the double post..forgot that I already posted on before that...but at least the post is not that huge thanks to that.

The japanese part of Hytlos speech included these sentences:

Time would pass, and eventually life would flourish again. They reconsidered the best way for humanity to continue their guardianship of this star once that time came.
The Council of Fourteen presented this conclusion.
That when the time was ripe, and the world bountiful with life, they would sacrifice a portion of it to Zodiark...
Such that he might revive those whose aether he had consumed for power, and everyone would once again oversee the world together.
But there were those who did not agree.
They believed that it was time for the sacrifices to come to an end, and for them to hand the new world over to the new lives living upon it.

[Edax]

Well Zodiark needed 50% of the surviving Amaurotines to even exist. I dobut that they would have used human sacrifice if they had other huge aether storages. We know from the game that even the WoL with 8 of 14 soul parts did not even come near their power, heck they were even surprised that a child had such low aether. I somehow doubt that any animal had nearly as much aether as they did. Also beast tribes may be called like that but as far as we know they are just like the spoken races and have a soul. They are not like the animals we see around. Right now we have not a single example were an animal was direct

The problem was that the powers of the Ancients that were running amok and destroying the world due to the sound. The raw power of the Ancients was working against them until the very Star was failing (in Emet's own words). Even if there were vast aether reserves held within the other life on the planet, they might have already been destroyed before the Amaurotine choose to act. For all we know, the life pre-Calamity could have been teeming with aether. But from what we see in the duty Amaurot, the Source was already a burning wasteland and Amaurot collapsing before Zodiark was summoned. There wouldn't have been many sources of aether by that point, hence why they probably resorted to human sacrifice.