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

[Cleretic]

I think what most games have tackled is that "unambiguously good" is impossible. Because "good" isn't the same for everyone. And these Gods have always been favouring what they thought was right, in detriment of the rest.

This is getting into more of a theological discussion, but I do think it's kinda sad if you can't fathom even an entirely fictional concept of a caring god. Of course, just because a god cares, doesn't mean they can save us.

This is something that's come up around Judeo-Christian theoology, so I'll borrow a bit from their angle. In the real world, it's generally agreed that if an ultimately good and caring god exists, they cannot be all of 'omnipotent', 'omniscient' and 'omnipresent', because we live in a world where bad things happen. So either said god doesn't have the power to stop those bad things (ergo not omnipotent), doesn't know how to (ergo not omniscient), or doesn't know it's going on (ergo not omnipresent), or possibly some combination of these things. I've also found this is an approach that holds true for understanding extremely strong heroic characters, too, and where they may fail; for example, Superman is effectively omnipotent on the scale of 'stopping Metropolis crime', but can't be everywhere at once and may not know how to solve every problem with his skillset; The Flash can be anywhere he needs to be, but might not know what to do or have the capacity to win when he gets there; Batman knows anything that's ever relevant, but is not necessarily capable of getting to the problem or solving it himself.

So... let's look to Hydaelyn. Fundamentally a caring god on the scale the story is focused on (sure, she hates the Ascians right now, but so should/do we, they're trying to blow up our home and don't really care about who that hurts), so why are we in such strife, which of the omni-s is she not? Well, we can safely say she's omnipresent; she's always aware of the situation. But omnipotent, definitely not; we know for a fact she's actually fairly weak on the grand scale. And omniscient, I'd argue not; while we've never really seen limits to her intelligence, we've also never really pushed it, but she's never exactly concocted intricate plans.

Hydaelyn can be a caring and loving god; there is nothing saying that she is not. But just because she cares, doesn't mean she's always capable of acting on that.

Also, I don't think all those other games came at it from a deep theological perspective, so much as a purely practical and cathartic one: in a medium we largely interact with through violence, any big fancy figure you introduce will inevitably be followed by someone wanting to punch that figure out. So most of them go 'sure, why not' and cue you up to go fight any god they introduce, because a lot of people struggle to settle for less than that. Which I think is ultimately what's at the heart of any 'Hydaelyn is secretly bad' theory; the developers introduced a big giant god, so inevitably people want to LB3 that thing in the face.

(Personally, I don't see the blue rock being an interesting boss fight, so I'll pass. But I'm also a healer main, so I don't exactly get to do the cathartic violence.)

[Lyth]

If Hydaelyn or Zodiark were the 'final boss', would you really care? We don't really have a personal feud with either of them.

Remember, whatever they're trying to pull here has to top the climax of Shadowbringers. Part of what made the fight against Emet/Hades effective was that it was so deeply personal. You were fighting against an old friend.

Both Zodiark and Hydaelyn were summoned for a reason. Perhaps Zodiark was first summoned to fight a threat from outside, and then Hydaelyn brought about the sundering to keep it in check where Zodiark failed (or perhaps because he was corrupted). But the real question is how Azem's decision to quit the convocation played out, and who stood to benefit most from besmirching your name. If someone sold you out, then that's so much more worthy of final boss material.

[Veloran]

I don't feel like "cliché" is the right word when it's just a thing established at the start of the story that holds true at the end.

And how many instances are there of "the being we thought was our mother-goddess is actually an artificial construct we may need to destroy – but actually she's still good and does genuinely care about us and want the world to be in a good state"?

Has that happened enough to become cliché?

If you specify something enough, nothing is cliché. I'm not saying she'll do a heel turn to become some cackling evil monster, I'm saying her priorities and ours are obviously prepared to diverge and set us in direct opposition to her, for all the reasons I've previously outlined.

This is getting into more of a theological discussion, but I do think it's kinda sad if you can't fathom even an entirely fictional concept of a caring god. Of course, just because a god cares, doesn't mean they can save us.

Hydaelyn isn't a god. She's a Primal construct invented by fallible "human" beings and by them given her directives and ideals, flawed or biased as they may be. What Venat wants may not be what WoL wants, as was the case 12,000 years ago when this exact same conflict played out and Azem chose not to side with her.

Remember, whatever they're trying to pull here has to top the climax of Shadowbringers. Part of what made the fight against Emet/Hades effective was that it was so deeply personal. You were fighting against an old friend.

I think it's clear any conflict with Hydaelyn would be a personal one. You can tell that just based on this discussion and how people are taken to viewing her.

[Iscah]

I'm saying her priorities and ours are obviously prepared to diverge and set us in direct opposition to her, for all the reasons I've previously outlined.

I'm not seeing the "obviously prepared to diverge" part. We haven't heard from her (at least in real time) in years at this point.

Azem chose not to side with her.

Azem also, even more firmly, refused to side with Zodiark either. Not joining Hydaelyn's faction seems less significant than actively walking out on the Convocation when they planned to summon Zodiark.

Azem simply does not have a clear side in this fight. Maybe they actively opposed both. Maybe they had a third, better option. We don't know yet, but we don't know that they were in conflict with Hydaelyn (or Zodiark) either.

[waifugenerator]

The image in my head of Azem is that they were right on the cusp of figuring out what the Sound is and then bam sundered, after we deal with Zenos and Fandaniel we'll probably pick up where Azem left off. I don't think Hydaelyn and Zodiark will really factor into it at all (we obviously can't kill either one, or the existing zones will irrevocabley change )

[Katie_Kitty]

The "subverting the cliché of a benevolent god by having them turn out to actually be evil" has been so overdone it's a cliché in and of itself now. There's nothing wrong with playing it straight.

I just don't have the inclination to argue minutiae anymore, and there's no profit in arguing against ideas that "can't be disproven / ruled out."

I actually quite like Hydaelyn's status as a deceitful and manipulative but ultimately benevolent force in the world. I think it's much more interesting than having her be either absolutely good and perfect or insidious and nefarious.

I keep hearing this stuff about how Hydaelyn is "deceitful and manipulative," but actually I don't recall a single time she lied to us. Did she tell us about Amaurot? No, she didn't. But point to me one outright lie she told. I don't think she told any. If your issue is the "light and dark did once dwell as one" thing, then you don't actually know that's not true. It very well could be. So I don't see how Hydaelyn is deceitful at all.

[Lyth]

...

Hydaelyn would be an absurdly poor choice for a final villain. It would be even worse than Necron or Zeromus showing up out of the blue as the embodiment of true evil. If I was the scenario writer for Endwalker, I would be genuinely embarrassed if the biggest climax from ARR to present ends up having less emotional impact than Shadowbringers. Not to say that this isn't possible or even likely, but it seems like a really inferior story concept.

The main villain is probably going to be another Amaurotian who sowed the seeds of discord and broke up the band. One who genuinely hates Azem to the bottom of their soul and their 'cheerfully refreshing' grape-loving free-thinking tendencies. One who can't stand the fact that the likes of Emet and Elidy were willing to let them get away with perpetually bending the rules. That way, when you complete your last rejoining in full, pull out your Ascian mask, announce your true name and the fact that you're out of bubblegum, it'll actually mean something. And then, when they're at your mercy, then you'll hunt the dark god that broke them, be it Jenova or Lavos or whatever.

[Lauront]

We all have our own ideas on what is "interesting" or not. All Veloran and some others - myself included - are positing is that there is clear scope to write either Venat, or Hydaelyn - or both - as antagonistic (putting aside the hackneyed "good/evil" Manichaean struggle which they have heavily hinted will not be at play as the story will evidently be even more morally grey than SHB, which itself had already jettisoned such concepts), and that there are some hints that she may have tempered the WoL, even if it's not decisive. It's often left out of discussions that Hydaelyn put the Ascians into the situation where the Rejoinings were even necessary to correct for the Sundering.

At this point, further argument is indeed futile, because they have already chosen the story they will commit to, so at best we're all speculating based on evidence available to us. There are so many ways in which they can write it that the assistance this evidence provides is merely to rule out certain impossibilities.

I think whatever the story outcome is, there will be those of us who don't like it.

[Lyth]

I think that a much more surprising outcome than Hydaelyn being evil would be one in which Zodiark is good. The short story 'Ere Our Curtain Falls' outright states that Zodiark became the will of the star and averted the final days. So who was the third party that caused the final days? And if Zodiark defeated them, then why was Hydaelyn necessary at all? Why sunder and seal away an evil that you can simply defeat?

[Cilia]

I keep hearing this stuff about how Hydaelyn is "deceitful and manipulative," but actually I don't recall a single time she lied to us. Did she tell us about Amaurot? No, she didn't. But point to me one outright lie she told. I don't think she told any. If your issue is the "light and dark did once dwell as one" thing, then you don't actually know that's not true. It very well could be. So I don't see how Hydaelyn is deceitful at all.

It's not really direct lies, but lies of omission. She uses peoples' ignorance of her true nature to present herself as a goddess and task people under that false pretense with combating the Ascians and their influence. Further she's not exactly forthcoming with the truth (for whatever reason), and Emet-Selch implies if not outright states she covered up the history of Amaurot after the Sundering. (Why? Who knows.)

The possibility that neither Hydaelyn nor Emet-Selch are lying about anything isn't lost on me. There are ways to reconcile their conflicting viewpoints. That said we don't have Hydaelyn's side of the story - but we do have a reliable (though very biased) expositor on the history of the world pre-Sundering whose claims are pretty well backed up. I don't think Hydaelyn is necessarily lied about that but with the information presented in Shadowbringers... yeah, she kinda did.