Disappointed in one Endwalker Aspect [SPOILERS]

[Slatersev]

Honestly while we don't actually know I have no idea how anyone could actually think the third sacrifice would just be like, regular animals and such.

Like on a very basic narrative level making it the Convocation just wanting to use literal cattle undermines the themes of both ShB and EW massively. It doesn't give the story shades of gray or anything close to that.

The convocation wanting to sacrifice new sapient life because they want back what they lost vs Venat sundering her own people partly in defense of that new innocent life is a compelling and interesting narrative element.

Having her do it to protect literal chickens makes both her and Emet look like idiots. Like why the fuck would Emet beat around the bush so much with us if the original end goal was something that simple?

Regardless of who you like more making it literal animals would just make both sides look really dumb, not tragically compelling.

[Cleretic]

Honestly while we don't actually know I have no idea how anyone could actually think the third sacrifice would just be like, regular animals and such.

Like on a very basic narrative level making it the Convocation just wanting to use literal cattle undermines the themes of both ShB and EW massively. It doesn't give the story shades of gray or anything close to that.

The convocation wanting to sacrifice new sapient life because they want back what they lost vs Venat sundering her own people partly in defense of that new innocent life is a compelling and interesting narrative element.

Having her do it to protect literal chickens makes both her and Emet look like idiots. Like why the fuck would Emet beat around the bush so much with us if the original end goal was something that simple?

Regardless of who you like more making it literal animals would just make both sides look really dumb, not tragically compelling.

Yeah, as I've said before, the story just doesn't function if it's something small and fairly safe. Both on a narrative level and a logical one.

I'll point out, we learned in Mare Lamentorum that all the lives sacrificed to Zodiark are still in it. Which implicitly tells us that at least part of the third sacrifice would be to replace them; Zodiark still needs to be powered, they just want to replace the power source. There may be additional costs required, but that's the floor.

So if that's true, how much is in there that needs to be replaced? Oh, right, 75% of the planet's population. We don't have a statistic on that, but it's gotta be a big number. So then, to get a better idea of what is actually needed, we then have to ask another question: were they sacrificing to give Zodiark aether, or to give it souls? Honestly, neither of those give us a favorable result; if it's aether, the Ancients are notoriously aetherically dense, so the math isn't going to be '1 cow=1 Ancient'. And if it's souls, we're in with a bigger problem, because we know that souls aren't a reliably appearing resource. So either the Convocation were specifically picking out a whole lot of ensouled creatures to sacrifice, or a new population of reliably ensouled creatures turned up; and either way, they're about to sacrifice a hell of a lot of them.

The third sacrifice is an unknown, but there's no way that it wasn't significant. This is true both from a narrative perspective, and from a purely logical one with the pieces in play; there's no way to math out the size of the third sacrifice without ending up with a number in the 'dear god, NO' range.

[KariTheFox]

Honestly while we don't actually know I have no idea how anyone could actually think the third sacrifice would just be like, regular animals and such.

Like on a very basic narrative level making it the Convocation just wanting to use literal cattle undermines the themes of both ShB and EW massively. It doesn't give the story shades of gray or anything close to that.

The convocation wanting to sacrifice new sapient life because they want back what they lost vs Venat sundering her own people partly in defense of that new innocent life is a compelling and interesting narrative element.

Having her do it to protect literal chickens makes both her and Emet look like idiots. Like why the fuck would Emet beat around the bush so much with us if the original end goal was something that simple?

Regardless of who you like more making it literal animals would just make both sides look really dumb, not tragically compelling.

Exactly. Emet-Selch, who loves talking people's ears off and was trying very hard during Shadowbringers to convince the WoL of the righteousness of his cause would have said something if the plan was to sacrifice a bunch of livestock. Like, "Hydaelyn, in her infinite cruelty, would not even allow us sacrifice the mindless beasts of the star to bring back our bretheren. Does that sound like a righteous goddess to you, playername?" or "Don't worry, after the rejoinings - we will sacrifice some of the plants and animals of the world to bring back our brothers, and once again you will be afforded the protection and guidance we gave the star long ago."

[Alleo]

Exactly. Emet-Selch, who loves talking people's ears off and was trying very hard during Shadowbringers to convince the WoL of the righteousness of his cause would have said something if the plan was to sacrifice a bunch of livestock. Like, "Hydaelyn, in her infinite cruelty, would not even allow us sacrifice the mindless beasts of the star to bring back our bretheren. Does that sound like a righteous goddess to you, playername?" or "Don't worry, after the rejoinings - we will sacrifice some of the plants and animals of the world to bring back our brothers, and once again you will be afforded the protection and guidance we gave the star long ago."

And if chickens and other animals are enough and they truly care about sentient/sapient races why would Emet state that all the remaining inhabitants of the source would be offered as a sacrifice to Zodiark? You know those people that would have been whole thus "alive" again. Those people that included reborn Amaurotines and other Ancient souls. They would still be sacrificied. So if their plan was alway just normal animals why change towards the end? It only imo makes sense if the life that was supposed to die was also already more.

[Rulakir]

And if chickens and other animals are enough and they truly care about sentient/sapient races why would Emet state that all the remaining inhabitants of the source would be offered as a sacrifice to Zodiark? You know those people that would have been whole thus "alive" again. Those people that included reborn Amaurotines and other Ancient souls. They would still be sacrificied. So if their plan was alway just normal animals why change towards the end? It only imo makes sense if the life that was supposed to die was also already more.

Why would Emet sacrifice his own people he's trying to make whole again through rejoinings? He says to the WoL during the lift cutscene, "Should you survive the remaining calamities, you will become our equal. A complete existence in a complete world."

The 'remaining' inhabitants of the Source would be those without Ancient souls and since this is 12k+ years into the future that probably did include sentient life. However, it's a stretch to say that's what was intended for the third sacrifice. The second sacrifice to Zodiark was to make Etheirys inhabitable again, so what purpose would be served by bringing back humanoid races? The priority would be on flora and the basic amount of fauna necessary to create a functioning ecosystem.

I have to wonder what plan they could've come up with prior to the Final Days to create the barrier around Etheirys. Had they been given warning and been proactive, they wouldn't have had to rely on only themselves for aether and the second sacrifice wouldn't have even been necessary since they would've prevented the destruction of the world.

[Cilia]

If the souls of the original Ancients who sacrificed themselves to summon Zodiark were still present within Zodiark, were the souls of all the other Sundered people collected within Zodiark with each Rejoining? If Emet-Selch had been successful in killing all humanoid life on Norvrandt, wouldn't those souls have joined with the ones inside Zodiark?

Or, were the souls within Zodiark un-Sundered as they died before the Sundering?

Theoretically, it's a mixed bag. We know Zodiark was sundered, but not whether or not any or all the souls that made him up were. We do know there are sundered pieces of various souls out and about the reflections (aside from Azem - PC / Ardbert, there's also Rowena / Mowen and Geralt / Grenoldt, as well as the various Ascians) but not the exact state of the souls that made up Zodiark post-Sundering.

Why would Emet sacrifice his own people he's trying to make whole again through rejoinings? He says to the WoL during the lift cutscene, "Should you survive the remaining calamities, you will become our equal. A complete existence in a complete world."

The 'remaining' inhabitants of the Source would be those without Ancient souls and since this is 12k+ years into the future that probably did include sentient life. However, it's a stretch to say that's what was intended for the third sacrifice.

We don't know what was intended for the third sacrifice and ultimately it's not terribly relevant; Venat / Hydaelyn sundered the world not to stop the Ancients from making sacrifices of other lifeforms but to stop them from making sacrifices of themselves, chasing the impossible concept of "a perfect paradise free from sorrow." The second time around Labyrinthos is a bit of a drag in terms of pacing, but therein it lays out one of the key philosophical ideas in Endwalker - that being perfection is an impossible to achieve ideal, even if you achieved it you wouldn't be happy, and the cost wouldn't be worth the result anyway.

Regardless, Emet-Selch does tell us prior to the Amaurot dungeon he intends to sacrifice the remaining Source mortals post-full Rejoining to bring back his brethren. What exactly was intended to be sacrificed 12,500 years ago is purely an academic question.

[Alleo]

Why would Emet sacrifice his own people he's trying to make whole again through rejoinings? He says to the WoL during the lift cutscene, "Should you survive the remaining calamities, you will become our equal. A complete existence in a complete world."

Well he said it so who knows. Maybe we as the Wol being Azem were special and he may have hoped that we would join them again. But he says that the rest of the source will be sacrificied and when everyone looked angry he was all like "are you angry that you will be offered to Zodiark?". So yes for me that means that he included all the people that would have survived.

And about the second sacrifice. The races that seemingly exist on the first and the source (and the 13 shard too seeing those survivors) must have existed before the sundering to be on all those split planets. For me it makes the most sense that they existed either as new races when Zodiark brought life back or they were created as kind of familiars by the Ancient.