Disappointed in one Endwalker Aspect [SPOILERS]

[EaraGrace]

Unfortunately, it has the unintended consequence of meaning that Venat also sundered most of the dead, too. And the unborn. And those awaiting rebirth. It turns out that in some, so far unexplained, maneuver that a few of the Ascians and those within Zodiark weren't sundered, somehow.

Then it's even told to us that the shards rely on the Source as a nucleus of sorts, so that the stakes rise higher, but this also intrinsically means that the shards are explicitly lesser to the Source, too. This opens up the sticky mess, that is a fact, that Hydaelyn's Sundering caused there to be Nucleus Lives and Orbital Lives, the Orbital Lives aren't even on the same dimensional plane. They can't even be made to come and combat Meteion, unless they are Ascian or unless they are Rejoined. Even the mechanism most important to our time conundrum and story came from an alternate Source, made by Nucleus Lives.

It's actually an incredibly complex vilification, and the real rub comes from essentially being told by the story to push that complexity out of your mind.

"Don't think too hard about all this, just go out and save the universe. It's for your own good."

"Her cannibalization of her own people was noble. They was no other way to live and win."

Survival is not intrinsically noble.

"Killing and eating my companion on the mountainside was noble. There was no other way for me to live."

It is actually a choice that debases her. Literally everyone who has said that the Ancients couldn't find a way and had no future are just echoing what Emet-selch said about the sundered.

So no, Hydaelyn wasn't a good girl all along. She was a survivor, willing to be morally unsound to live at the expense of everyone she ever knew.

I fail to see how a being that condemns themselves to a multi millennia vigil, stuck in the aetherial sea and forced to give up their life force bit by bit is just acting out of selfishness. I also fail to see how a person who sacrifices themselves for the lives of others is “living at the expense of everyone she knew.” We know her, we know her passion and purpose in life was to journey forth, helping those in need. She was not “killing and eating her companion.” She was trying to save life, not hers but everyone’s. And She gave her own life to see that happen. A person concerned only with survival would not do that.

[OhNooo]

I fail to see how a being that condemns themselves to a multi millennia vigil, stuck in the aetherial sea and forced to give up their life force bit by bit is just acting out of selfishness. I also fail to see how a person who sacrifices themselves for the lives of others is “living at the expense of everyone she knew.” We know her, we know her passion and purpose in life was to journey forth, helping those in need. She was not “killing and eating her companion.” She was trying to save life, not hers but everyone’s. And She gave her own life to see that happen. A person concerned only with survival would not do that.

I really do feel like she saw herself as a messiah. She really did believe that she and her supporters were the last hope left.She saw the ancients as flawed and made the judgement to change them by force for what she truly believed was the greater good. She did sacrifice herself for her ideals.

I wonder if she could hear those souls that were trapped inside of Zodiark crying out the whole time he was imprisoned.

[Veloran]

I fail to see how a being that condemns themselves to a multi millennia vigil, stuck in the aetherial sea and forced to give up their life force bit by bit is just acting out of selfishness.

I know right? Lahabrea was the coolest guy.

[EaraGrace]

I know right? Lahabrea was the coolest guy.

Ignoring of course the repeated genocides to bring his friends back. Say what you will of the Sundering, but at least it wasn’t for her benefit but for the benefit of all life.

[Cilia]

Ignoring of course the repeated genocides to bring his friends back. Say what you will of the Sundering, but at least it wasn’t for her benefit but for the benefit of all life.

Between Elidibus needing to correct him for whose sake he was acting in the final cutscene of A Realm Reborn and Ere Our Curtain Falls having Emet-Selch remarking on how much he'd changed, it's implied Lahabrea wasn't onboard for the sake of restoring the Ancients' world anymore.

[Slatersev]

Between Elidibus needing to correct him for whose sake he was acting in the final cutscene of A Realm Reborn and Ere Our Curtain Falls having Emet-Selch remarking on how much he'd changed, it's implied Lahabrea wasn't onboard for the sake of restoring the Ancients' world anymore.

I wonder if that will ever be brought back up in any form. Feels like it was quietly dropped more then anything.

[Vyrerus]

Ignoring of course the repeated genocides to bring his friends back. Say what you will of the Sundering, but at least it wasn’t for her benefit but for the benefit of all life.

Hydaelyn's genocide count stands at 14 x 120 worldwide lifetimes(providing generous 100 year lives for everything living) via the Sundering. The Sundering didn't benefit all life. It benefitted our present-future, and the unknown regions of the universe by proximity. (The entity trying to kill our planet just happens to want to and be able to kill all planets, but the story presents none that are still living so it is an unknown).

Everything it benefitted was unknown to her at the time she did it, save for what was described to her by a time traveler. She would go on to eventually know the life that it benefitted, years afterwards, but only after the Sundering destroyed everything she knew and was raised by.

[Cleretic]

Hydaelyn's genocide count stands at 14 x 120 worldwide lifetimes(providing generous 100 year lives for everything living) via the Sundering.

I hate that I've had to pull this out multiple times: The actual definition of genocide is not 'killing an entire population'. That is a common misconception.

If you really want to argue her to be guilty of genocide, here's the definition of genocide, as per the United Nations:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

1. Killing members of the group;
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

When talking about Hydaelyn, I think the main thing here is 'intent to destroy'. Her intent was not destruction; on the contrary, her intent was continued life, it just so happens that death is an inevitability. Charging her for the deaths of sundered people is akin to charging a mother with murder because her child eventually died. On top of that... I'm not sure which of those five methods you'd even charge Hydaelyn with; she didn't kill the sundered, she didn't seriously harm, she didn't deliberately cause the concept of death (as you might remember, all Ancients do die, just only by choice), and she definitely didn't prevent births or transfer children.

If you believe that being sundered is akin to death, then you could instead have a case that the act of sundering caused a genocide of the Ancients. But that comes to a question of 'is that death', which is more of a philosophical discussion.


And while unrelated, the actual reason I've had to bookmark this page: the Ascians are indeed guilty of fourteen different genocides, through willing intent to destroy a people, by being guilty of methods 1 and 3. You could potentially rack the count up even higher by counting destroyed nations separately, but I don't because that makes for a difficult tally (how many nations existed on the Third?). Not a part of the current conversation, but I've had to do the work and it's probably helpful to get an idea of what is and is not a genocide.

[OhNooo]

I'm not sure which of those five methods you'd even charge Hydaelyn with; she didn't kill the sundered, she didn't seriously harm...

I would argue that she did cause serious mental/emotional/psychological harm with the sundering even if she didn't intend to. I'm of the opinion that it is a sort of death since all they were as a person - their personality etc was wiped out and replaced. I also believe that the sundering did bring about things like disease which caused them to suffer when their way shorter life spans came to an end. I do agree that it's partly about intent but then for me it's about, did she realize what would happen to everyone once she sundered them as far as all the suffering? Did she not realize it would be as bad as it ended up once it was finally done? Or did she know the full implications and did it anyway because she was willing to pay that price?

[Veloran]

I hate that I've had to pull this out multiple times: The actual definition of genocide is not 'killing an entire population'. That is a common misconception.

If you really want to argue her to be guilty of genocide, here's the definition of genocide, as per the United Nations:

I struggle to understand how every part of that definition doesn't apply to what Venat did to the Ancients. She intended to destroy their society and did so knowing that their race would die out by her actions - She intentionally destroyed them nationally, ethnically, racially, and definitely religiously. She killed members of them, caused them great bodily and mental harm, specifically instituted conditions of life to destroy their ideals through suffering, and literally split them up into a bunch of new separate races leading their old race to become extinct. Now, the UN definition is something of a wide net, but she certainly meets every single point.