The questions I want EW to answer the most: WHY and HOW was the world sundered?

[Iscah]

That’s you though, not them.

Alright then. I am pretty sure that anyone who willingly sacrificed themself to save to world would not be impressed to find themself back alive and told that it's because the thing they'd sacrificed for had in turn been sacrificed to undo their work – just because their friend couldn't cope with the fact that they were dead.

And I don't know how the Sundering comes into this, because that's not the choice that the Ascians were making. It was between letting the world that their friends willingly gave their lives for continue to grow and flourish, or to undo that work.

As for Hydaelyn's summoners? Assuming they were not in fact malevolent "let's shatter the world just for fun" types, they presumably either didn't know they were going to cause the Sundering, or it was the least worst option and the alternative was actually worse.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Alright then. I am pretty sure that anyone who willingly sacrificed themself to save to world would not be impressed to find themself back alive and told that it's because the thing they'd sacrificed for had in turn been sacrificed to undo their work – just because their friend couldn't cope with the fact that they were dead.

And I don't know how the Sundering comes into this, because that's not the choice that the Ascians were making. It was between letting the world that their friends willingly gave their lives for continue to grow and flourish, or to undo that work.

As for Hydaelyn's summoners? Assuming they were not in fact malevolent "let's shatter the world just for fun" types, they presumably either didn't know they were going to cause the Sundering, or it was the least worst option and the alternative was actually worse.

I brought up the sundering because i originally was making a comment about the sacrifices. You brought up how it was “wrong” in your opinion. We don’t know if the ancients who sacrificed themselves had perhaps been told they’d try to bring them back once all is said and done, there’s many unknowns. They were sacrificed to save the planet. They did so and the last set of sacrifices wasn’t going to destroy the planet again so that argument is moot.

[RyuDragnier]

I brought up the sundering because i originally was making a comment about the sacrifices. You brought up how it was “wrong” in your opinion. We don’t know if the ancients who sacrificed themselves had perhaps been told they’d try to bring them back once all is said and done, there’s many unknowns. They were sacrificed to save the planet. They did so and the last set of sacrifices wasn’t going to destroy the planet again so that argument is moot.

But it does mean their sacrifice was for nothing. Imagine sacrificing yourself to save the world, being brought back, and the people you loved are no longer themselves, they're fanatics towards the god you helped create. And they sacrificed other life that did not consent to do it, something that goes against everything your entire society and culture was for. It's very likely you'd say you never would have done it to begin with if it was going to lead to this.

[KizuyaKatogami]

But it does mean their sacrifice was for nothing. Imagine sacrificing yourself to save the world, being brought back, and the people you loved are no longer themselves, they're fanatics towards the god you helped create. And they sacrificed other life that did not consent to do it, something that goes against everything your entire society and culture was for. It's very likely you'd say you never would have done it to begin with if it was going to lead to this.

They weren’t outright fanatics though lol. We’re literally shown that. They even said in a recent interview a primal can dictate how tempered they make their followers and in the ascians case it clearly wasn’t very strong of a tempering considering half of the convocation was opposed to the sacrifices at first and this was post tempering. Read the short stories.

[Rosenstrauch]

How doesn't seem like it needs to be answered. Between Hydaelyn's take on events back during Heavensward (she defeated Zodiark, bound him to the Moon, and divided the world into the Source and Thirteen Shards), Emet-Selch's take on events (Hydaelyn used the heretofore unheard of power of enervation to dilute Zodiark's power), and Venat's take on events (only she could serve as Hydaelyn's heart if She were to have any hope of defeating Zodiark), it seems fairly obvious to me that Hydaelyn alone is responsible for the "How".

The "Why" is considerably more vague, and I'd say it all hinges on two factors. The first: Are the two separate goals assigned to Hydaelyn's summoners complementary or contradictory?

If the former is the case, then it would be incredibly difficult to believe that the Sundering was an intentional act on Venat's part. I somehow doubt the big plan to save everyone from being sacrificed to Zodiark was to Logan's Run them to death. But it leaves open the possibility that Venat could not control Hydaelyn, creating a rift between the characters' wants. Alternatively, Venat is just ridiculously shortsighted and the whole Sundering was a terrible accident.

If the latter is the case, then it means that Emet-Selch was wrong about Venat's goals. That the intent behind Hydaelyn's summoning was not to stop anyone from being sacrificed, but specifically to shackle Zodiark and (somehow) stop the Final Days. This still leaves the possibility that the Sundering was accidental/a conflict of interests between Venat and Hydaelyn, but also opens up the possibility that it was very much an intentional act—an extreme means justified, at least from Venat or Hydaelyn's point of view, by the ends: A permanent end to the Final Days.

… of course, the events of Endwalker are no doubt going to prove that Venat's solution wasn't permanent. That could be because Zodiark is now powerful enough to break free from his prison, and his affinity for Darkness is somehow connected to the Final Days. Or it could be because Hydaelyn was holding back the Final Days in addition to sealing Zodiark, and becoming weak enough to fail at one necessarily meant failing the other as well. Or maybe the Final Days were always inevitable, and Hydaelyn only delayed the event (or had no effect on it at all!).

Or maybe the Shoebill is the mastermind.

All that said, I do hope they don't just gloss over the effects of the Sundering. That would, well, kind of piss me off. Venat was a well-intentioned extremist in FFXII, and to make her XIV counterpart unambiguously good by ignoring the consequences of her actions would never sit right with me.

Then again, if a certain Tales from the Shadows short story is any indication, they could just as easily write their way out of the Sundering having ever happened in the first place, as ludicrous as that sounds. I'm thinking some "Source+Shards are really Dream Zanarkand" kind of deal.



EDIT: I forgot to get to what I thought the second factor would be, and it's so many hours that I've actually forgotten what I wanted to say, lol. I think it was something like "What actually caused the Final Days to begin with?". Venat and her followers seemed to have some understanding of this, but did not elaborate further on it than "the Final Days will come again".

I'm of two minds on this: That the cause of the Final Days was something intrinsic to the way the Source worked, or that it was an extrinsic force acting on the planet. In the former case, it could be something like "the collective unconscious" or a repeat of the Phoenix incident (another Tales from the Shadows short story) on a global level. And in the latter case, it could be something like an interstellar parasite (Lavos/Jenova/etc.) or some kind of temporal malfunction (Zodiark and/or Hydaelyn retroactively causing the conditions that led to their sudden existence).

That last one would be hell to explain, and would probably annoy everyone because time travel. Personally, I am also not fond of the idea that "The Sound" was caused by a living thing with a name and a face. A lot of effort would have to be put into justifying why the WoL and a bunch of other sundered goons can walk up and punch it to death when the Unsundered had to rely on reality warping memetic gods just to hold it at bay.

[Vyrerus]

Actually... we don't have that.

Actually, we do.

If the Convocation didn't have stark support for Zodiark, then the population wouldn't have sacrificed twice to him. They had wide support, as most governments do during crisis or even perceived crisis. They continued having support after the fact due to being deemed the wisest and most learned by most of the Ancients of their nation(and by Through His Eyes short, most powerful). Not too mention actually having saved and restored the world through their own ingenuity, and by sacrificing one of their own members to do it. This all on top of a promise that they could restore the Amaurotine society to the before times, eventually. And in those before times we learn from side Amaurotine street talk dialogue that there have been previous calamities that the Convocation saved their people from.

So it's the bulk of what's left of Amaurotine society vs. a small group of dissenters who openly admit they are the much smaller group(who also admit they will be forever reviled for their actions). While the exact numbers are unclear, no amount of mental handstands are going to incline that fact favorably towards your assertion. Remember, Team Hydaelyn isn't merely opposing the will of the living at this point as well.


Of course, we don't know the specific motivations of the populace by this point. Whether it's mostly fear of the unknown, tempering, or just standard goodly Amaurotine obeisance. Probably a little column A, little column B.

The dead heat showing is keeping with what we care about as readers. FFXIV always keeps us focused on the pivotal leaders and historical groups within the MSQ. It had the intended effect, I think, of making us compare Team Hydaelyn's number to that of The Twelve. Got us clamoring with theories and talking shop.

By the by, the script's localizations are made in tandem, from what I understand. So it's artistic vision all around. It's not operating like a typical anime dub. We do gain insights and people do stock more faith in the JP script, myself included, but there are times where the JP takes from the English rather than vice versa.

[Cleretic]

By the by, the script's localizations are made in tandem, from what I understand. So it's artistic vision all around. It's not operating like a typical anime dub. We do gain insights and people do stock more faith in the JP script, myself included, but there are times where the JP takes from the English rather than vice versa.

Everything else on this is mostly just trying to decipher what we ultimately have very little information on (and information we know to be incomplete and will be added onto in the future, at that, so we know we don't have the full picture), but I will mention this one just as a general outline of how I approach this stuff:

While all the localizations are indeed developed in tandem, and so there aren't mistranslations or inaccuracies, there are occasional spots of linguistic flourish that will probably send you down the wrong path if you take very specific wording to be a clue. The example that kinda introduced that to me was Fandaniel talking about the End of Days to Zenos; in English he says his knowledge is 'mostly secondhand', which if you take as written, is super suspicious; how does someone have 'mostly secondhand' knowledge of the end of the goddamn world? But it becomes rather less suspicious when you realize that in other languages he's more saying that it's 'a story he heard' or 'hearsay', which is still curious (after all, what reason does he have to cast doubt on the story as we know it) but less weirdly particular. Since we know that the writers wouldn't intentionally give one language more information than the others, we can reason that 'mostly secondhand' isn't something we're meant to underline and put on the corkboard full of newspaper clippings.

Unfortunately, I don't have a way to meticulously check the exact same text box across every single language. So the best I can do is recognize that dipping into exact peculiarities of very specific word choice is probably a much less useful way of reading things than grasping the overall intention and tone of a message. So in this case, the English script having a possible subtle reading that both Zodiark and Hydaelyn supporters are minorities in greater Amaurotian society... it needs more evidence than 'curious word choice'.

[Vyrerus]

So in this case, the English script having a possible subtle reading that both Zodiark and Hydaelyn supporters are minorities in greater Amaurotian society... it needs more evidence than 'curious word choice'.

I get what you mean with the first bit here. I've been opposed quite readily for picking up on English word choice in other scenes, where JP FR or DE script turn what I thought was an amazing read into a nothing-burger(though apparently sometimes this makes people realize other cool things from the surrounding context).

I don't get this sentence though. Are you saying you can't nail down your assertion? I mean, that's how it reads since I'm going with the angle of what's presented in the game(and doubt the other language scripts can do much to reverse that). I've said that Zodiark supporters are the majority of Amaurotine society. You said we can't be sure of that, even though it's given to us in triplicate in game. Once by Hythlodaeus, once by Emet-selch, and once by Venat's holo record. We could say Hythlodaeus and Emet-selch are the same source, so of course they agree. Despite that bias, Venat, the dissenter's side, also agrees. So what's the hang up?

[kaynide]

@OP: It’s a tricky situation. As we understand it, Zodiark was created to represent the will of the planet, and to bend the rules in order to block or otherwise dampen the effects of the Sound.

We also understand that, as Zodiark is a primal, he is not actually the will of the planet, but a primal created to do what the Ascians envisioned would be their ideal for this. Being a primal we can assume this required huge amounts of aether, with continued sacrifices.

Hydaelyn then was created to overthrow and otherwise contain Zodiark and also not require huge amounts of aether/sacrifice (going against her nature as a primal).

I believe it was not intentional to sunder the world, but that it was just the end result of their conflict.

This creates a series of problems though:

Without Zodiark, Hydaelyn has no purpose. What happens to her then?
Does either of their existence have anything to do with maintaining the multiverse as we know it?
Without Zodiark’s existence silencing the sound…what happens to the Sound (cue Lavos roar at end of 6.0 credits).

@Zodiark Supporters in Amaurot:

I was always under the impression that the Amaurotians were a mostly homogenous society, so that when the idea of summoning Zodiark came up, most of the society just agreed/went along with the leaders (who are now the Ascians).

And I remember that while there were disagreements and debate, it was shocking for a group to splinter off and actually oppose the main body, more so that this splinter group ultimately created Hydaelyn.

[Cleretic]

I don't get this sentence though. Are you saying you can't nail down your assertion? I mean, that's how it reads since I'm going with the angle of what's presented in the game(and doubt the other language scripts can do much to reverse that). I've said that Zodiark supporters are the majority of Amaurotine society. You said we can't be sure of that, even though it's given to use in triplicate in game. Once by Hythlodaeus, once by Emet-selch, and once by Venat's holo record. We could say Hythlodaeus and Emet-selch are the same source, so of course they agree. Despite that bias, Venat, the dissenter's side, also agrees. So what's the hang up?

What I mean is that the actual wording of that line in English ("You know as well as I that but few support our cause. Far fewer than they who place their faith in Zodiark.") could be read as meaning that Zodiark support also isn't all that big, but the core intention is clearly that Venat's crew is going up against a relative giant, and any indication of the Zodiark support's comparative size is incidental. If every single script confirmably said much the same thing, then it could have weight, but there's easy ways to write that in ways that don't suggest Zodiark support is also small ("Those that support our cause are dwarfed by those that support Zodiark", for example).

Basically: as interesting as I find that reading of that line, by itself it's extremely weak evidence I can't stand behind.

By the way, you do keep mentioning the sacrifices as if it's confirmable indication that Zodiark support is in the majority, but there's two things to take into account there:
1. We don't actually know how willing those sacrifices were. The initial sacrifices were probably ultimately voluntary, albeit under duress ("we're all gonna die anyway, no reason not to"), but all our knowledge of the second sacrifice's existence comes from a single Hythlodaeus text box that at the very least confirms it wasn't in red-alert contexts. Again, we don't necessarily know that Amaurot was democratic, it'd be a fair belief that they didn't necessarily go purely voluntary on that one.
2. Even if it was purely voluntary (in fact, especially if it was)... remember that at that point, they were down to roughly 25% of the population, and that 25% were the people who refused/dodged calls to sacrifice to Zodiark twice. Chances are most of Zodiark's actual opposition is still standing, while most of Zodiark's true believers have by now jumped in the grinder.

We're probably never going to get actual numbers for either, but I do think it's folly to assume that, especially by the end, Hydaelyn support was a small cell of extremists.