Disappointed in one Endwalker Aspect [SPOILERS]

[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."

[Ryaz]

Venat wasn't respoinsible for the complete destruction of the ancients though. Half thier number died to summon zodiark, another half died to restore the star. And that is after thier population was likely severely reduced by the sheer destructiveness of the final days.

She also wasn't acting alone, she had an entire faction of ancients who agreed with her and were willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of an uncertain future.

Yeah, this is one thing that's been confusing me. A lot of people are arguing that Venat decided to sunder the Anicents on her own, when ShB made it clear she had supporters. I wouldn't be surprised if they were people who knew of the Final Days ahead of time and of the future. She did say she'd have to carefully consider who she brought into the fold. I have a feeling she told some people she trusted and it wasn't just her doing it on her own whim. That would neglect everything we learned in 5.2.

I also feel that the scene we're shown of her walk and "sundering" was taken a bit too literally. The whole scene went through a few periods of time as she explained things (ie, showing Hytho going off to sacrifice himself and then cutting to the Ancients prepping for yet another sacrifice to an already summoned Zodiark). I think that scene was more her becoming Hydalaen and the actual battle against Zodiark and sundering took place after and wasn't shown on screen, because we already had that info given to us in ShB.

[Illmaeran]

Are they the heroes or the villains in this case?

They're Shadowrun Toxic Shaman.



I think the writers wrote themselves into a corner during ShB when explaining the Hydaelyn/Zodiark situation and the history of their summonings. Once they said Hydaelyn was summoned in response to Zodiark they locked themselves into having to explain it in-game somehow in order to make the entirety of the game possible. Hell, the moment we find out about the relationship between the Ascians and Zodiark they set us and Hydaelyn on a one-way path seeing as both factions are mortal enemies. As others have said, without the Sundering there would be no Eorzea/Ethyris or Norvrandt and 10 years of wasted story for the sake of having a game.

In that regard, I have to give them a pass for making the least un-graceful end to a story that probably didn't have a full start-to-finish outline at the beginning. Going forward through the next 10 years? They'd better have all the main story beats planned out in full.

[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.

[Illmaeran]

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?

[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.

[Ryaz]

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?

I'd guess the souls within Zodiark were whole when they were sacrificed, but were sundered when HE was sundered, and are probably trapped across his reflections. So, with each rejoining they'd regain part of their soul, but still be trapped inside him. But given that they still have the form of the ancients, it's possible there's still a connection between them across reflections that keeps them somewhat whole.

[Cleretic]

I'd guess the souls within Zodiark were whole when they were sacrificed, but were sundered when HE was sundered, and are probably trapped across his reflections. So, with each rejoining they'd regain part of their soul, but still be trapped inside him. But given that they still have the form of the ancients, it's possible there's still a connection between them across reflections that keeps them somewhat whole.

We meet Hythlodaeus' soul in Mare Lamentorum, and he seems fine and whole, so I think that while Zodiark himself was split apart, the souls within him sere separated without themselves being split. So basically there's a cluster of unsundered Ancient souls inside a Zodiark arm somewhere around the First.

To answer Illmaeran, though, Zodiark himself didn't actually get any sundered souls with any Rejoinings; instead, those souls were reunited with their equivalents in the Source. The Ascians were aming to do as many Rejoinings as feasibly possible, and then sacrifice the still-partly-sundered population left over to Zodiark to do the rest of the job. And then bring back the trapped unsundered souls within him. ...and then reconstruct the civilization itself. Look, the Ascians were never up-front about it but even in their own plan they were gonna have to perform so many more sacrifices to Zodiark that I'm not sure they would've ever been capable of saying 'okay this is the last one, we're done'.

[SquigglesMajor]

Hydaelyn is a villain. She took it upon herself to decide the fate of the star for us. She knew that her plan to sunder the world would fail, because we told her before she even set out on it. And she decided to go with it anyways. We're supposed to believe that she had faith in mankind to live for tomorrow, but she didn't have faith in her own people to even try and help them avert the final days? She willingly withheld information, and actively worked against her own people because she was convinced that we were doomed. It's the exact same logic Hermes used to justify killing everyone. Except Venat's plan was to slowly suffer and die until Meteion eventually came to kill us. Venat didn't have a plan to stop the final days. She didn't believe it could be done. She only planned to have us run away so we could suffer some more. If suffering is supposed to make us stronger why is the plan to run away instead of fight? Surely we aren't suffering for the sake of suffering. But we are. She doesn't offer any reason for why suffering is necessary, we're just told that it is and we should totally trust this person who has been keeping secrets and putting us in danger of extinction.