*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[Lauront]

Fair enough then.

I think with Emet-Selch, he knew for a very long time that he was wrong but was so overcome by grief and sorrow that no matter what he did, he couldn't accept it. And one of the tales from the shadow, he did almost give up the whole rejoining thing. The line about the Ancient society being perfect, well, of course, he thinks that, his society was indeed perfect for him. Like a pair of the ultimate rose-colored glasses. So yeah, clearly he's bias.

I wouldn't concede the point so quickly, because we're talking about something that is effectively, in their eyes, an arcane construct - Elidibus sent you back into the past much in the way he summoned some of the aether of the WoLs during SoS (albeit weaker), and Emet fortified that a bit - they had originally thought you were a familiar created by Azem and attributed any similarity in your soul hue to that (implying I think that the creator could pour some of their own soul aether into the creations) - you are then to present yourself as a familiar. Hythlodaeus and Emet-Selch possess exceptional soul sight, so for ancients lacking this, they had little reason to think you're anything but a familiar; and even those who could discern a soul might think it is aether imbued by the creator of the concept. Bearing in mind even various plant and animal lives would gain souls and thus become living beings (and much like with us humans, they don't automatically assume that because something is a living being, that it's of equal status to them; a very niche and questionable moral position anyway), and that we know from Hermes that the assessment of whether a creation actually gained a soul was a complex business that fell to Hyth's office (probably for the very reason I mentioned about Azem's soul hue), it is an extremely low threshold, a being similar perhaps to an egi or if we ramp it up, a primal. Pretty human-like beings in guise potentially, but not necessarily actual people. Perhaps some, having gained souls, could come closer to it, but that's a separate matter - certainly if it was the case with the Meteia, Hermes withholding examination of the concept meant there was no definitive answer on that. Emet-Selch shifted his perspective on the sundered over time, and only once he became satisfied that they could suffice as stewards of the star, or at least was reaching that point (i.e. the Amaurot reconstruction.) Here is the rub: the sundered are not ultimately familiars cooked up in Elpis. They just look like them because they're so aetherically thinned out. In context, the sundered are Emet's people, but fractured, and the focus of the Ascians is on restoring these souls to their complete form. Any such inferences about the sundered are therefore not transitive to the creations in Elpis. To say he is wrong requires one to say the sundering was justified - in turn, that requires one to accept that Venat's plan was the only one that could've worked, which is nothing but supposition ultimately. Hades made his peace with her plan as ultimately the writers' goal is fan appeasement where everyone's fan faves gets a happy ending more or less, that we're now stuck with due to the time travel gimmicks. But to me, I am not committed to taking his word for it that her plan secured a better future than they could've. It does not suffice for me.

[Garnetiferous]

I wouldn't concede the point so quickly,

While I agree with you on some aspects I don't think saying that Emet is wrong requires saying that the sundering is justified. From the perspective of the sundered like the WoL, who had no choice in the matter, then he's wrong. He wants to destroy their world regardless of whether he has a good reason for it. And from the perspective of the sundered as we see with Ardbert and the WoL, separate pieces of the same soul behave as different people. So, those people are perfectly justified in saying to the Ascians, "even though the event that created us maybe shouldn't have happened, you don't have the right to tell us that we're mistakes and should die for the sake of your people". Even if we take the view that the sundering shouldn't have happened, 12000 years later, the already existing sundered have a right to defend themselves.

Regarding the sundering and its necessity, I've pretty much maintained a neutral stance on this because I feel like there's several questions that need to be answered before I can make a judgment on Venat's actions. Like, how long from the 2nd sacrifice was it until the sundering? What was Azem doing? What was the life that was to be sacrificed to bring back the ancients? Was it just plants and animals or was it creatures much like modern people? Either way I don't think it was morally correct to do so which even Venat admits herself, but the answers to some of the questions would clear things up for me in determining whether it was truly a necessity or not.