Disappointed in one Endwalker Aspect [SPOILERS]

[Pofruin]

There's a lot that we don't know, but what we do know is that prior to the Sundering they chose when they died, unless killed violently. After, they didn't. The only thing going in the story's favor in this regard is its vagueness, a key component in its malleable, years long structure. We don't know how long they lived afterwards. It's clear that everyone was able to survive, at least in the places we've been, but it doesn't change the fact that Venat's Sundering is the root cause of all of their deaths.

I'm the only one with a real argument in our little "tête-à-tête." You are desperate to deny Venat did a great wrong. You ignore that the principle is the same. The shortening of someone else's lifespan.

Think harder.

The first sentence is correct yet with no additional information conclusions you have are your own and are not necessary true. The beings had different independent death conditions, and comparing them purely mathematically is just wrong. You can't argue against the point that average Sundered lifespan become longer purely because they stopped randomly killing themselves. By comparing incomparable and drawing conclusions you are just demonstrating bias and nothing more.

About Sundering as death. The Venat's Great Sudering speech states her intentions very clearly: she intents to take away features of people, thus transform them. Now transformation does contain element of Annihilation. It also contains an element of Creation also. So ill concede that She committed Genocide and is responsible of huge amount of deaths. The you concede that she is very literally Progenitor of almost all life on Etherys and is responsible for giving "birth" to most of it from blades of grass to sentient races.

There is also prevalent waving flag of Emets Prejudice against Sundered life here. People calling it inferior and "parody" all the time. While in the story this is not as clear-cut. In ShB it was kind of shown that yeah we are but we still want to live. While in EW it's shown that Sundered life has at least potential to be flat out superior to Unsundered. We have access to two energy types rather than one and have ability to withstand Apocalypses and recover from them. Rather rare ability in Universe it seems. Only Omega and Midgarsormr shown to have it from the alien races.

And the matter of Venat's intention to Sunder. She was not the one that came up with idea at all. As it stands the idea is either paradox created from time loop. Or was introduced by party responsible for time loop.
Venat seems to be unusually aware of time travel inner workings. Perhaps it falls within Azem's portfolio (Wanderer eh?). Perhaps time loop IS the way Azem found to deal with Final Days. That would make our past self ultimately responsible for the Sundering with Venat just playing the role based on the script that WE WROTE.

[Vyrerus]

The first sentence

All of it is correct, actually. You just don't like it, so declare it wrong. That's not an argument.

She IS NOT the progenitor of any life. She corrupted life. There was no creation. Some of the corrupted life, many millennia later, went on to create things the Ancients had not with the aid of alien influences, but Venat created nothing.

The story itself devalues Sundered life by stating that if the Source dies, then all of the shards die too. Yet the shards are unaffected by symptoms of the Final Days and can do nothing to combat it. And also do nothing to combat it within Endwalkers. The apocalypses you mention, other than the Final Days, weren't apocalypses. Just grave catastrophes that weren't seeking the star's destruction, but a return to its original wholeness. You should note that they were also required for us to be as strong as we are now.

With your last paragraph I'd be careful. You're robbing Venat of agency, which makes her less than a character. But I will note that I agree. The time paradox does do that to her, but many people who agree with your other ideas disagree with that. Of course, there's no winning against a literary time loop, because she had to have taken that action originally for us to loop back to her at all. Somewhere in the timelines is a prime line where she did the Sundering without an influencer from the future. I'd like to see that Venat.

[Kordarion]

All of it is correct, actually. You just don't like it, so declare it wrong. That's not an argument.

That my friend is the pot calling the kettle black, every time someone responds with any counter argument you declare that you are the only one who speaks the truth, the only person with any real argument and that any view other than your own is wrong and that therefore your argument is the only valid one.

[Vyrerus]

That my friend

You've assumed that you've made good arguments. You haven't. If you had, I'd have to stop and think. I haven't yet. Simple as that. I could list the people who've made me have to stop and think during other discussions, if that'd relax you. After all, this is about the umpteenth time these ideas have been argued for.

Yiankutku
Anonymoose
Theodric
RyuDragnier
EaraGrace
Cilia
Iscah
Cleretic

Along with some others. Make a good argument, and I will generally fail to respond or respond far more slowly. Though in some cases, I've either hit the posting limit or run out of time for the forum for the day.

[Kordarion]

Make a good argument, and I will generally fail to respond or respond far more slowly.

I've yet to see you respond to the fact that multiple people are telling you that there is no concrete proof that the ancients had an indefinite lifespan, in fact I've seen you ignoring that multiple times to instead focus on weaker parts of the argument. I've at least tried to provide evidence based reasoning for why they would have limited lifespans and yet you have simply said they have indefinite lifespans and provided no examples of where this belief might come from. You have also failed to respond to the multiple rebuttals of your assertion that Venat and Emet-Selch's respectively long lives have non-ancient sources. To be fair that could be that you've hit the posting limit especially with the Venat and Emet-Selch lifespans.

[Cleretic]

I've yet to see you respond to the fact that multiple people are telling you that there is no concrete proof that the ancients had an indefinite lifespan, in fact I've seen you ignoring that multiple times to instead focus on weaker parts of the argument. I've at least tried to provide evidence based reasoning for why they would have limited lifespans and yet you have simply said they have indefinite lifespans and provided no examples of where this belief might come from. You have also failed to respond to the multiple rebuttals of your assertion that Venat and Emet-Selch's respectively long lives have non-ancient sources. To be fair that could be that you've hit the posting limit especially with the Venat and Emet-Selch lifespans.

The question of the Ancients' lifespan is a difficult one, because we don't know that they could live forever, all we know is that they died voluntarily. You're absolutely right that the longest-lived Ancients were very clearly shirking their natural rules anyway; Venat and Elidibus by becoming primals, Emet-Selch and Lahabrea by just constantly possessing new bodies. So nobody can really say that a normal Ancient could have lived forever if they wanted to.

But what we can say is that while we don't know if their deaths are biologically natural, we do know that their deaths are societally natural. The event of an Ancient's death is so inevitable that it's treated almost like how we'd treat someone leaving their job; which is why Hermes was seen as so odd for instead mourning the previous Fandaniel. So if an Ancient could live forever, people would look down on someone who actually was, either as something pitiful ('wow, you still aren't done?') or possibly something loathsome ('you're supposed to be GONE').

So Venat can't be vilified for the Sundered having finite natural lifespans. Because not only do we not have proof that the Ancients didn't have an indefinite lifespan, but Ancient society itself valued the concept of a finite life.

[Vyrerus]

So Venat can't be vilified for the Sundered having finite natural lifespans. Because not only do we not have proof that the Ancients didn't have an indefinite lifespan, but Ancient society itself valued the concept of a finite life.

She can be, and is, because she shortened them to such a degree that most of the life has to focus on survival rather than fulfillment and purpose. Because most of the life has to focus on issues that did not used to be problems(or were problems that had been solved long ago), such as the creation of medicine and other such similar things.

It's important to note that the Ancients valued finite life, because they valued the Star's life. Their lives are referred to as the planet's lifeblood by Hythlodaeus, but clearly they valued finding true fulfillment and purpose more.

[Kordarion]

The question of the Ancients' lifespan is a difficult one, because we don't know that they could live forever, all we know is that they died voluntarily. You're absolutely right that the longest-lived Ancients were very clearly shirking their natural rules anyway; Venat and Elidibus by becoming primals, Emet-Selch and Lahabrea by just constantly possessing new bodies. So nobody can really say that a normal Ancient could have lived forever if they wanted to.

But what we can say is that while we don't know if their deaths are biologically natural, we do know that their deaths are societally natural. The event of an Ancient's death is so inevitable that it's treated almost like how we'd treat someone leaving their job; which is why Hermes was seen as so odd for instead mourning the previous Fandaniel. So if an Ancient could live forever, people would look down on someone who actually was, either as something pitiful ('wow, you still aren't done?') or possibly something loathsome ('you're supposed to be GONE').

So Venat can't be vilified for the Sundered having finite natural lifespans. Because not only do we not have proof that the Ancients didn't have an indefinite lifespan, but Ancient society itself valued the concept of a finite life.

I'd actually argue that to some degree we do have proof that the ancients had an upper age limit. During Meteion's report to Hermes at the top of Ktisis Hyperborea, we hear her talk of a species that tried to find a scientific way to cheat both death and ageing and that said civilization discovered that death and time were both immutable constants that could not be avoided and were inevitable. So while it doesn't directly state that the ancients weren't immortal, for me at least it does tell us that no species in FF14 can be immortal and I can't see them writing this and then turning around and saying the ancients were the exception to this rule.

I'd also argue that the reason we don't know the age limit of the ancients is because of their habit of choosing to die, which means that they are rarely if ever able to reach that upper limit on their age.

[Alleo]

You've assumed that you've made good arguments. You haven't. If you had, I'd have to stop and think. I haven't yet. Simple as that. I could list the people who've made me have to stop and think during other discussions, if that'd relax you. After all, this is about the umpteenth time these ideas have been argued for.

I'm the only one with a real argument in our little "tête-à-tête." You are desperate to deny Venat did a great wrong. You ignore that the principle is the same. The shortening of someone else's lifespan.

Think harder.

I honestly find it sad that you need to put the other poster down by saying that they are not using real arguments and things like that while you were the one opening that thread about arguing in good or bad faith.

The topic about sundering is not clear cut because we simply have no idea what exactly happened to the people. Kordarion just argued that the sundering itself is not killing, because the people stayed alive, while you argue that it is killing because of the reduction in lifespan and other parts thus they die faster and easier. Both of these are imo right. And the game even tell us that the act itself was not kind and that it birthed a cruel world. People can still like Venat and see her as a great character.

Some of the unknown stuff about the sundering:

- We have no idea how old the Ancients normally get before they choose to return to the star. It could be over thousand years or just a few hundreds.
- We have no idea how much of their memories the sundered lost.
- We have no idea how the new lifespan came to be. The people of the first are basically just 1/14 of the original yet they do seemingly have similiar lifespans than we do. They also dont seem to be much more frail or way less powerful than us. Maybe their own lifespan was not even reduced at all and the only reason why they die so fast now, is because they are reborn into the new races. After all if the lifespan was decreased by the sundering, why is it so different between the races? Why can the Viera for example live so much more longer?

[Pofruin]

All of it is correct, actually. You just don't like it, so declare it wrong. That's not an argument.

She IS NOT the progenitor of any life. She corrupted life. There was no creation. Some of the corrupted life, many millennia later, went on to create things the Ancients had not with the aid of alien influences, but Venat created nothing.

You mean to tell me socially acceptable suicide is in no way affecting average lifetimes in society? Or are you just mirroring my arguments without providing context eh?

If Venat was not progenitor, but corrupter that Sundering is not death, but corruption. One or the other, since they cancel each other.

The shards are unaffected by Final Days only cause we stopped the Final Days. In the Ancients timeline the progressed significantly further up to death of the very land itself. We haven't seen it since we didn't sit in our our high-rise city on our ass until all of Etherys is engulfed by Final Days. Emmet, Zodiark and Hydelin defeats shows that present time WoL is stronger than Ancients of the past. (We do cheat using Dynamis that most of those dudes don't even perceive, but that IS the point). Also Calamieties in current story was intentional Training wheels for Final Days. At the end Emet implies that all of Unsundered Ascians where always unknowingly working towards Ventas goal.

Note this paragraph contains personal views so if not interested just skip past: By the way I do think that Venat is responsible for all deaths in all rejoining's, and moon escape plan did involve sacrificing all life in all shards. My view is that theses are not unusual moral choices Ancients make. "Ours is Authority over lesser life" is fundamental principle of Ancient society (the very thing Hermes questioned by the way) and both Venat and Emet fit in perfectly. Why are people crying when Sundering sends this shit into Oblivion is beyond me.

Now final part where actual civil lore discussion can happen :P. Why should I be careful? I don't think Venat has much agency in the story. Like we don't really also. The story is written by somebody else and you just experiencing it.
Venat's first comment after listening our recount of future events could have read as her thinking about her future actions with Sundering. It can also be read as anxiety of how her future self abusing her present self. I read that Venat assumes us to be a message from the future from herself. She then opens the letter and finds script to follow that involves ending Ancient race and supervising torture of all life for 12k years with no information of whether it is worth it in the end at all. And If she choose not to follow it she would be risking full and final destruction of all life in the universe. Now choose, no pressure, take your time :P