Disappointed in one Endwalker Aspect [SPOILERS]

[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.

[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

[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]

You mean to tell me socially acceptable suicide

As put by Hythlodaeus, most Ancients understand the nature of their lives. They don't actually end when they "die," they return to the star, and come back later as a new person. Giving their aether back to the planet, so that it can grow and express new life. He also expresses that their lives are finite there, but gives no indication of how finite. To fulfill one's purpose in life is a very vague thing. It also implies that they each were able to find something they felt was their true purpose in life. Earlier, in SHB, Emet had said, "In the beginning everyone, everyone lived for nigh an eternity. Such was the natural order of things." He also says, "They could live for an age." It's all purposely vague so we can make of it and value of it what we will, but keep in mind that death was completely voluntary. We've yet to see or hear about someone rejecting returning to the star, and having to be violently put down by others in the ancient world. Venat herself rejected it, and also called Emet, "One so young."

Of course, we can go off road and talk about, "Astrological Ages." In an Astrological Age, 12 cycles form one year, and one year, called a Great Year, equates to 25,772 years as we measure them now. That's not in the game, of course, so it doesn't mean much. Just some neat trivia. Point is, they lived an awful lot longer than any of the Sundered races, and theirs lives were shorten and their powers were taken. They were also made susceptible to illness, which was more or less eradicated via their potent souls and magicks.

I refer to it as corruption, because you tried to refer to it as transformation. If you're familiar with the Simarillion, then what you're positing is that Hydaelyn did the same thing as Morgoth. Twisted Life trying to create. That isn't what she did, of course, she damaged life and made it lesser to fulfill a specific purpose. As a poison or intense radiation would, she shortened life. "Birthed a world of mire and plague." As the English puts it.

I like that paragraph. :3

I could only read it that way after she didn't have her memory wiped in Ktsis Hyperboreia. They could have tucked up the time paradox a bit more if her memory of our story had just been wiped. My discontent with Venat's character stems from this. From this and the inclination for people to say that the Sundering was all groovy and good.

[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.

[Lauront]

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.

I think that is probably a better way of framing it.

We can surmise the ancients did not live forever but Emet-Selch (in the Ladder encounter) describes them as living for an age, or in the FR version, as being practically immortal. So I'd consider it to be of little relevance whether infinite lifespans were reduced to rather short ones, or whether ones we'd consider exceedingly long were cut in such a fashion. It is still a drastic reduction.

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.

She is very likely to be referring to the Ea there. Their discovery of the eventual heat death of the universe, resulting in nihilistic tendencies, no doubt factored into death being an "inevitability".

We have no idea when the Qitana Ravel paintings were created, only that it was before Ronka. It could be they were painted by someone with the Echo, or even that one of the Ascians aided in creating them (Emet is a "patron of the arts" and shows up there right on cue for example).

They sketched out something of an answer to this here.

14. It's been observed by players that in the Chrysalis, the meteor phase of the fight has a crystal formation very similar to the Crystal Tower, as well as a figure that looks a lot like Hydaelyn's portrayal in the caves. Could you please elaborate on what the Chrysalis is and why the Ascians chose to portray scenes of both gods?

Oda: The cave painting was not done by Ascians, but by someone who had a memory of the world before the Sundering. Perhaps he saw it in a dream or something, and then made a mural. The reason why there’s a often crystal-shaped motif when it comes to the Ascians is that Zodiark's crystal is sort of the antithesis to the Mothercrystal of Hydaelyn.

Of course, this sort of thing could end up changing when put down in the next EE or whatever, but it will have to do for now. So it is indeed very difficult to pin it down, and they're attributing it to surviving in memory, and as we know from how the Echo is triggered, said memory can persist very, very long depending on what it is. It is worth noting that we do have some account of the earlier periods of history in the game, to which the below is relevant:

The First Umbral Era was a prehistoric era that followed the First Umbral Calamity.

Drawing from the songs and writings of countless civilizations, theologians believe prehistory to be a tempestuous time of uncontrolled creation overseen by a mercurial god or gods—creation which abruptly ends with the destruction of all that exists, ultimately allowing for the rise of mankind from the wreckage.

Historians and scholars of biological fields, on the other hand, claim that mankind could not have simply "appeared" and suggest an evolution of the species in the thousand thousand years preceding the first calamity. What the two groups do, however, agree upon is that modern history begins with the First Umbral Era.

We can surmise that it was a near total reset:

It is during the First Astral Era that mankind is believed to have learned the essentials for survival—the ability to carve stone tools and the ability to make fire. Tools allowed for the rise of agriculture and a departure from hunting and gathering, which eventually resulted in the abandonment of nomadic lifestyles and saw the establishment of villages and towns. Within these towns, civilization thrived and basic sciences such as animal husbandry and simple metallurgy were discovered and refined.

As the towns grew, so did the hegemonies that oversaw the towns until finally kingdoms were born. However, kings, as is their wont, are rarely content with what they have, and soon the leaders of the newly formed countries abandoned the creation of tools for the forging of weapons, and the era descended into bloodstained madness.

While the 1UE is preceded by a calamity of wind, only the target shard would be consumed wholesale, and I believe had these tools already been developed and in memory and use of them understood, they'd be in use. Seems far likelier given how the sundering operated that man had to start back at step 1. One could quibble about how accurate the source is and make of it what one wishes, but it's all we have for now - a 14 times divided star of an Etheirys that was still itself in the process of rebuilding once Zodiark revitalised the star, with ruins of arcane buildings of little practical use without the know how to operate them dotted about, would fit the bill.

[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?

[EirolOcarrol]

So it really bothers me that Square Enix played it rather "safe" with this story. I came into the story hoping that Hydaelyn was actually going to be the villain of the story all along and we have been doing her bidding because we were "tempered" to her. I think they really did hint at this in Shadowbringers.

And I would have been even more disappointed if this were the case.

I'm so relieved they didn't do that. It would have been truly awful and heartbreaking.

[MikkoAkure]

It split the souls of every life on Etheirys, causing their lifespans to shortened by a multiple of the times they were divided. It also reduced their resistance to ailments by that amount. In real world terms, the average life expectancy is about 77 years for a person. If a real person were to be sundered, they would live for about 5 years and 7 months.

If that were true, then the average lifespan of each person on the Source would go up after every Calamity and people on the Shards would be weaker, sicker, and die faster than us and there's no substance to that idea.

I think it's far more likely to believe that the Ancients owe their enormous lifespans to their equally enormous amount of aether, rather than something specifically physiological about their bodies. The Ancients weren't immune to the aging process, Venat tells Emet-Selch that he's starting to get lines on his face or something to that effect. There must be some sort of cutoff where if you're X amount of magical, then you have a very long or effectively immortal lifespan. It's a classic trope of wizards living longer than natural lifespans and this feels like that to a more expanded degree.

Also, the Qitana Ravel cave paintings were made by the Ronkans, an empire civilization implied to be similar in workings to the Allagans, though never outright stated to be a machination of the Ascians, it could have been. Another thing we don't know is where they got the information to paint what was depicted.

When did they say it was done by the Ronkans? I thought Emet-Selch said it was done by people shortly after the Sundering and there's no evidence of the Ronkan Empire being that old. Y'shtola even says the murals predate the empire.