Disappointed in one Endwalker Aspect [SPOILERS]

[Kordarion]

Putting someone into a situation that causes them to die is not a natural death. This is the issue.

The people of Etheirys are transcendent beings who live myriad physical lives through reincarnation. In the time of the Ancients they had dense souls and larger bodies which allowed them to live one physical life indefinitely. Even without those bodies, two of them have been shown to live until killed. Those two being Hades and Venat. The two of them have lived 12000 years + However Many years they lived prior to the Sundering. And they could have gone on living however long they wanted to, until they were killed.

Except at no point is this categorically stated, as far as I am aware there are no canon sources that state the ancients have an infinite lifespan. Add to that the game goes out of its way to say that there is no way to cheat death and that all things must die creates the opposite impression, that the ancients can die of natural causes but that we just haven't seen it yet. Therefore Venat isn't putting the ancients in a situation that they wouldn't already experience if not for creation magic hand waving, a state they had to have been in to discover creation magic.

Also your examples of incredibly long lived Ancients doesn't exactly hold up. Venat is quite literally a primal, a god, a being that does not deal with the same type of mortality that you or I or the ancients have to deal with. Doubly so for Emet-Selch who maintains his soul by returning to the in between realm the acsians have that stops them being sent to the aetherial sea when they die and instead allows them to return time after time, its the reason white auracite is needed to kill them.

[RyuDragnier]

Adding to the mentioning of the Rift, as we've seen through our travel to the First and Elpis, time does not flow normally in the Rift. 5 years on the First was akin to a few months on the Source, something that doesn't make much sense unless you assume that the Rift itself refracts time like water does light.

[KariTheFox]

I don't think we can say either Emet-Selch or Venat would have lived forever given the exceptional circumstances they both presented. Venat being a primal that lived at the center of the world, and Emet-Selch engaging in the practice of constant ascian body swapping.

On the other hand, "death by old age" seemed unknown by the ancients. But maybe their civilization just hadn't lasted long enough for that to happen to anyone.

[Kordarion]

I don't think we can say either Emet-Selch or Venat would have lived forever given the exceptional circumstances they both presented. Venat being a primal that lived at the center of the world, and Emet-Selch engaging in the practice of constant ascian body swapping.

On the other hand, "death by old age" seemed unknown by the ancients. But maybe their civilization just hadn't lasted long enough for that to happen to anyone.

It makes sense that the ancients had no concept of death by old age, after all their society is built around committing ritual suicide once your personal purpose in life is fulfilled. This combined with Emet-Selch stating that Venat is an outcast for NOT offing herself once her initial purpose is done implies that the vast majority of ancients willingly ended their lives before they could come to a natural end.

[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.

[Veloran]

Except at no point is this categorically stated, as far as I am aware there are no canon sources that state the ancients have an infinite lifespan.

I don't know about you, but if someone reduced my ~80 year life expectancy to like five days I would consider that them killing me.

[Kordarion]

I don't know about you, but if someone reduced my ~80 year life expectancy to like five days I would consider that them killing me.

Fair enough I can see where your coming from nobody likes it when someone else comes in and changes how long they live, my main problem is that Vyrerus is stating that Venat introduced the ancients to the concept of a natural death, and that without her they would all live forever which doesn't appear to be true and in fact is in opposition to the thematic purpose of Endwalker, that suffering and death are inevitable and that what truly matters is how you learn to live with this immutable fact.

[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.

[Theodric]

I don't know about you, but if someone reduced my ~80 year life expectancy to like five days I would consider that them killing me.

Likewise. If I were forcibly removed from my family, friends and cat and each of us had our memories stripped of one another then such could easily be considered a form of death and destruction as well.

It was the bonds formed between one another that supposedly led the Scions and Warrior of Light to triumph against Meteion and the Final Days. Though as we know, such tight bonds existed back in the Ancient world and as Meteion states, the answer to Hermes' question was 'there all along' on Etheirys.

Venat's actions robbed her people of such bonds and had the Ancients not been dealing with a saboteur within their midst, they would have been free to carve their own fate for better or for worse.