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

[Lyth]

Hydaelyn is also the planet, no? Why would a deity/primal based off of the planet itself want to sunder itself to save itself?

[MikkoAkure]

He's just biased. This is the same society that was going to leave a inhabited island's population to be killed by a volcanic eruption.

The Convocation wanted to evacuate the locals while Azem went against the wishes of the council to help them prevent the destruction instead, since their society had the power but didn't want to use it.

This has two implications:
The first is that not all sentient beings in the ancient world had creation magic like Amaurot. The inhabitants of the island were farmers, not god-magic wielding philosophers.

The second is that Azem has always gone against the flow in a society where up until Zodiark, every last single one of them were completely unified on decision-making. I wonder if Azem's rogue tendencies were a catalyst for Venat and her crew splitting off from the rest to begin with. We already know that Azem wanted nothing to do with Zodiark's summoning and I wonder if they were popular enough in Amaurot that others were willing to follow their example.

Hydaelyn is also the planet, no? Why would a deity/primal based off of the planet itself want to sunder itself to save itself?

Zodiark is the original will of the planet. Hydaelyn basically booted him from his chair and broke him into 14 pieces, 1 for every shard and then the Source, and imprisoned him in the Moon. She then sat down on his chair atop the lifestream and became the new will of the plant.

The debate is whether or not she was right in doing so.

On one side you have the Ascian legal defense team who think that the Ancients were a good and complete society and the Sundering was of no fault of their own and that current life shouldn't exist and that everyone alive today is nothing.

On the other side you have the white knights who think Hydaelyn can do no wrong.

The truth is probably somewhere in between, but right now we only have the side of the story from a few Amaurotines who were tempered by one of those two so I lean more toward Hydaelyn. Knowing what we do of Primals, I'm less inclined to believe that everyone kept sacrificing themselves to Zodiark so he could have the power to work his magic and that after it's all over, he will gladly eat up the donated aether from all the new life on the planet, give everyone back their loved ones, and willingly fade away.

Ramuh and Hydaelyn are the only primals we have seen so far to willingly give up their power and aether and weaken themselves, as they are both programmed that way. But whether Zodiark would actually do the same remains to be proven. They're both just programs and one is programmed to return the world to how it used to be and the other is programmed to protect the new life that came after the first Summoning. Hydaelyn isn't going to go too far out of our way to protect us though, unless it's specifically from Zodiark. As she told us in the game's main theme song: "Thy Life is a riddle, to bear rapture and sorrow. To listen, to suffer, to entrust unto tomorrow".

[thegreatonemal]

The Convocation wanted to evacuate the locals while Azem went against the wishes of the council to help them prevent the destruction instead, since their society had the power but didn't want to use it.

This has two implications:
The first is that not all sentient beings in the ancient world had creation magic like Amaurot. The inhabitants of the island were farmers, not god-magic wielding philosophers.

The second is that Azem has always gone against the flow in a society where up until Zodiark, every last single one of them were completely unified on decision-making. I wonder if Azem's rogue tendencies were a catalyst for Venat and her crew splitting off from the rest to begin with. We already know that Azem wanted nothing to do with Zodiark's summoning and I wonder if they were popular enough in Amaurot that others were willing to follow their example.

"The island had one village upon it, and a wealth of fertile farmland─all of which would soon be lost. But that was simply the way of the world. As in many such cases, our role was merely to acknowledge the fact. The islanders would do the same, and those who deemed it prudent had likely already begun to move elsewhere. While it was true that the Convocation intended to discuss the matter, the conclusion would be no less inevitable."

Nah, they weren't planning to help with anything they were just gonna sit and watch.

[MikkoAkure]

"The island had one village upon it, and a wealth of fertile farmland─all of which would soon be lost. But that was simply the way of the world. As in many such cases, our role was merely to acknowledge the fact. The islanders would do the same, and those who deemed it prudent had likely already begun to move elsewhere. While it was true that the Convocation intended to discuss the matter, the conclusion would be no less inevitable."

Nah, they weren't planning to help with anything they were just gonna sit and watch.

Welp. I guess I misremembered that story and gave them more credit than they deserve.

[HiraishinNoJutsu]

"The island had one village upon it, and a wealth of fertile farmland─all of which would soon be lost. But that was simply the way of the world. As in many such cases, our role was merely to acknowledge the fact. The islanders would do the same, and those who deemed it prudent had likely already begun to move elsewhere. While it was true that the Convocation intended to discuss the matter, the conclusion would be no less inevitable."

Nah, they weren't planning to help with anything they were just gonna sit and watch.

Amaurotine Firebrand:

“I disagree. The scale concerns me less than the nature of the proposition itself. Who are we to unilaterally intervene in the affairs of those half a world away? Are we to be the saviors of one and all? Such arrogance may well lead to our own downfall.” -Debate and Discourse Quest

Amaurot may be guilty of the same sin as Sharlayan that non-intervention when you have the ability to do so is indolence but to them If they start interfering and playing world police crossing that line it will do even more harm. Even in today's modern world people desire autonomy so having a bunch of Demi-God's interfering in your life doesn't sound bueno.

Azem choosing to help the people is seen as noble in the story because they are using their own moral compass to guide them but I don't believe the intention was to paint the convocation negatively. It's simply a difference of opinion on how best to interact with the world.

[thegreatonemal]

Amaurotine Firebrand:

“I disagree. The scale concerns me less than the nature of the proposition itself. Who are we to unilaterally intervene in the affairs of those half a world away? Are we to be the saviors of one and all? Such arrogance may well lead to our own downfall.” -Debate and Discourse Quest

Amaurot may be guilty of the same sin as Sharlayan that non-intervention when you have the ability to do so is indolence but to them If they start interfering and playing world police crossing that line it will do even more harm. Even in today's modern world people desire autonomy so having a bunch of Demi-God's interfering in your life doesn't sound bueno.

Azem choosing to help the people is seen as noble in the story because they are using their own moral compass to guide them but I don't believe the intention was to paint the convocation negatively. It's simply a difference of opinion on how best to interact with the world.

Their position is more let nature take its course if all these people die/lose everything they have when we can easily intervene and stop that. They style themselves stewards of the world, meaning they watch over the world as a whole. The entire thing stinks of arrogance. They think themselves above everyone else.

[dreamfisher]

"... As in many such cases, our role was merely to acknowledge the fact. The islanders would do the same, and those who deemed it prudent had likely already begun to move elsewhere. ..."

Nah, they weren't planning to help with anything they were just gonna sit and watch.

This is finding its way far off-topic, and it's true that Amaurot wasn't planning to intervene, but unless you've taken to considering grapes a part of the population, I don't know how accurate it is to say they were going to "leave a [sic] inhabited island's population to be killed by a volcanic eruption." I'm not arguing for/against intervention (nor am I arguing for/against Amaurot's people), but when you do, I advise doing so in good faith and without hyperbole.

Proto-Garleans once fled their homeland following natural disaster and they turned out fine. It didn't completely wipe them out.

Edit: The only thing I can actually contribute to the discussion is a vague question. I never really understood Hydaelyn's tale. The way it reads to me is:
1. Hydaelyn/Zodiark fight (in her words, "the Darkness" covets power and forces Her hand)
2. Hydaelyn tries to banish Him into space, and he becomes the moon/bound to the moon (depending on your source).
3. By chance, this opens the barrier between the source and 14 other planes, and the shards are created

Is Hydaelyn's claim (regardless of its accuracy) that she only meant to excise Zodiark from the planet, and in the process, accidentally created an opening (the same sort of opening as is exploited by the Ascians as part of the rejoining) through which reflections of the source were aetherially siphoned?

Though he's also not 100% to be trusted, Emet-Selch says that Hydaelyn was designed with the ability to enervate Her foes. If I may be allowed to wildly (and probably very wrongly) speculate, my guess is that Hydaelyn isn't completely lying and truly meant to cast Zodiark into space, open an interdimensional rift there, and banish only Him.

Then again my theory that the Ancients dabbled in interdimensional rifts is mostly sourced from

the dungeon preview, in which we're shown a location where desert scenery is juxtaposed with forest scenery, and I get strong FFV Interdimensional Rift vibes from it — though I know the Interdimensional Rift as a location was already used for the Omega questline.

[GoldStarz]

This is finding its way far off-topic, and it's true that Amaurot wasn't planning to intervene, but unless you've taken to considering grapes a part of the population, I don't know how accurate it is to say they were going to "leave a [sic] inhabited island's population to be killed by a volcanic eruption." I'm not arguing for/against intervention (nor am I arguing for/against Amaurot's people), but when you do, I advise doing so in good faith and without hyperbole.

Proto-Garleans once fled their homeland following natural disaster and they turned out fine. It didn't completely wipe them out.

The quote you highlighted shows that Emet doesn't know if anyone has moved anywhere. "Had likely" is the key words there.

Also, let's not pretend that even if they were evacuated that they wouldn't be completely devastated since their means of living would have been completely destroyed with their home. Something that was clearly preventable considering Azem alone was able to solve the issue.

[dreamfisher]

The quote you highlighted shows that Emet doesn't know if anyone has moved anywhere. "Had likely" is the key words there.

My apologies. I must have misread the original framing as reflecting that "the people of Amaurot are willing to let people die," and not that "the people of Amaurot are unwilling to make sure people don't die." A small but significant difference.

It is true that such a lack of diligence ill fits "stewards of the star," though, which I believe was the original point.

[MikkoAkure]

It is kinda funny though. Amaurot has an apathetic attitude toward a bunch of grape farmers whose volcano is about to blow them up basically saying "it can't be helped" and they refuse to intervene.

But when a sound makes them all anxious and their creation magic goes out of control, their reaction is to kill half of their entire surviving population to create a god to stop it, and half again to bring life back to the planet. That itself is pretty noble since the fabric of reality was falling apart and everyone was affected.

The part that gets me is the decision "OK, time to cull the life of the planet we brought back so that we can bring back our whole society that was wiped out by disaster when we're not going to help anyone else unless it directly affects us". It makes them lose all credibility of "all-powerful caretakers of the planet" when they're not willing to intervene for others unless Amaurot is caught up in it too, but they're willing to break everything and everyone for themselves.