Confusion (of the highest order) about Venat and Sundering

[Kordarion]

In what way is that any different from Venat sacrificing every living thing X14*12,000 years without their consent?

Are you seriously still trying to blame Venat for every death that ever happened after the sundering? I can understand considering the sundering to be killing people, even if I don't agree, but to actively blame every death after the sundering on Venat because she took away the ancients god powers is insane, especially when you take into account the fact that if the sundering is murder then the rejoinings are also murder and that quite a large number of those deaths you attribute to Venat are actually not her fault but the acsians. Not to mention the death count from the Allagan and Garlean empires, the catastrophe on the 13th, the deaths caused by the environmental effects of the rejoinings and, probably, the many acsian built murder empires on other shards. She may have sundered their world but THEY CHOOSE TO MURDER OTHER PEOPLE when they could have tried to move on, not forget but move on. Are you really going to blame those murders on her too?

Do you also blame your furthest in the past tracible ancestor for the death of every other ancestor you have because your first ancestor gave birth to the beginning of the rest of your line and humans are destined to die? Because that's the impression you are giving.

[Shookbeast]

It’s my understanding that we have two options for working theories on the post-sundering inhabitants.

Theory One:
Venat sunders the original planet - making 14 identical reflections (including the Source). On each reflection we have identical people, animals, plants, and continents. (Thus ruins under the ocean. Those ruins would be on each reflection, in the same spot). All the people sundered lose their creation magic powers - because their original self was split apart to make these identical, but less-powerful copies.

From the moment after the sundering - each reflection then begins to “act” of its own accord. A Spriggan on one reflection gets bopped on the head and dies - while on another reflection, it evades the head-bopping, trains in warfare, and becomes a cruel, tyrannical ruler. This theory most closely follows Emet’s own description of the sundering… if we are to take him literally.

You could think of each reflection as an alternate universe or timeline (although they technically are not, even though the passage of time differs on each reflection it seems). After the Sundering, the identical reflections all begin to differ - people die and are reborn at different times and in different ways - and eventually (over thousands of years) the reflections all become very dissimilar from each other.

According to this theory - everyone right after the Sundering, on each reflection, has a “fuzzy memory” of what just happened. I find this theory compelling, but also confusing. Wouldn’t there be books and letters and all manner of things left over to tell people what just happened? If so, is this what lead to cave paintings? This seems plausible - but also deeply distressing. We’d have whole planets of wildly unhappy people who all find out they were stripped of their creation powers - unwillingly.

Theory Two:
Venat murders everyone. In this theory - Venat doesn’t spilt everyone into identical copies, but instead uses her planet to create 14 brand new planets. In this case, one Spriggan from the original planet gets chopped up into 14 lesser pieces - and these pieces are each used to “power” new life - one piece for each reflection. If this is the case, Venat kills everyone, the same way a re-joining might “kill” all the people on a reflection. She obliterates the original to make 14 new things. I’m not sure this theory is correct. But it would be a doozy if so.

[Shookbeast]

Addendum:

My main concern with both of these theories is what happened to Azem.

In one version we get 14 less powerful Azems each running around their own planet (with plenty of time to realize what’s happened and try to undo or mitigate the problems caused by the Sundering).

In the other, Azem, (and everyone else), gets poofed out of existence - to make way for completely new people, powered by sundered souls.

I think I prefer Theory #1. It leaves a lot of possibilities open. For example - what if Emet attempts a rejoining very soon after the Sundering - which leads to the destruction of the 13th, and the creation of the Void? Not only is he down a planet - but he’s down an Azem! He’s only got 12 left (not counting the one on the source). So he gathers them up, and plops them on the source to create a new convocation. The original 12…

I know that’s a bit far-fetched - but with 14 copies of everyone running around post-sundering… things could get weird.

[Lersayil]

Are you seriously still trying to blame Venat for every death that ever happened after the sundering? I can understand considering the sundering to be killing people, even if I don't agree, but to actively blame every death after the sundering on Venat because she took away the ancients god powers is insane, especially when you take into account the fact that if the sundering is murder then the rejoinings are also murder and that quite a large number of those deaths you attribute to Venat are actually not her fault but the acsians. Not to mention the death count from the Allagan and Garlean empires, the catastrophe on the 13th, the deaths caused by the environmental effects of the rejoinings and, probably, the many acsian built murder empires on other shards. She may have sundered their world but THEY CHOOSE TO MURDER OTHER PEOPLE when they could have tried to move on, not forget but move on. Are you really going to blame those murders on her too?

Do you also blame your furthest in the past tracible ancestor for the death of every other ancestor you have because your first ancestor gave birth to the beginning of the rest of your line and humans are destined to die? Because that's the impression you are giving.

Its not a completely unreasonable stance to take. There is an argument to be made about her not being directly responsible for all the deaths since the sundering, but she is very much at least partially and indirectly responsible. Her actions directly lead to an increased amount of death, suffering and greatly shortened lifespans of sentient life on the planet and shards. She herself feels responsible and states as much.

[Kordarion]

Its not a completely unreasonable stance to take. There is an argument to be made about her not being directly responsible for all the deaths since the sundering, but she is very much at least partially and indirectly responsible. Her actions directly lead to an increased amount of death, suffering and greatly shortened lifespans of sentient life on the planet and shards. She herself feels responsible and states as much.

I agree that she is indirectly to blame and that there is an ethical grey area in that but what I have repeatedly taken from Veloran's comments on the matter is that they seem to hold Venat personally responsible for those deaths, as if she walked up to those people and stabbed each and every one of them to death. And so far they have said nothing to the contrary and in fact seem to keep reinforcing their view.

[Lurina]

How people read the specifics of the Sundering vis-a-vis human lifespan is going to differ depending if they view FFXIV's universe as only existing meaningfully as a contrast to our own - as fiction defined by what it says about reality - or if they view it as a world meant to stand on its own as well.

If it only exists in relation to our world, then the Sundering only creates the status quo, where people live normal length lifespans. This is hard to judge as super terrible, since, well, we deal with it every day. It's just how it is, barring any revolution in biological science.

However, if we treat Etheirys as its own reality, it comes across as a pretty abominable act, regardless of whether or not it was justified. The natural state of affairs was one where humans, and probably all beings, lived a much, much longer amount of time... And now an unnatural status quo has been created where everyone dies incredibly young. If would be like if, in order to solve some existential problem real-world mankind was facing, somebody permanently lowered our lifespans to only 20 years, forever. If I did that to anyone in this thread right now, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't hold back in calling me responsible for their impending death.

[Veloran]

Are you seriously still trying to blame Venat for every death that ever happened after the sundering?

Why should we not think that? If someone were to reduce my natural lifespan to a tiny fraction of what it would be I'd consider that murder. Not to mention the Unsundered world was generally peaceful and without death by war or disease either. This level of death and suffering was literally Venat's intention in doing the Sundering. And then there's the fact that Venat never told the Ascians about the threat of Meteion, so they were trying to rejoin the worlds while ignorant of the threat that was potentially posed to them in the process.

As to the Sundering - Yes it clearly killed everyone. This is very obvious by the non-existence of the Ancients as a race today and the existence of newly created races housing their souls. Even on a basic level taking beings that had lived for millennia and cutting their lifespans down to 100 years would have instantly killed all of them. This isn't even getting into the self-death aspect that is stripping everyone of their memories and interpersonal connections. Even if we were to assume that they somehow survived the initial shock of the sundering, they would have awoken as entirely new people in a hostile world with no clue who they were or where they had come from, and soon thereafter proceeded to die off for various reasons.

[Lersayil]

I agree that she is indirectly to blame and that there is an ethical grey area in that but what I have repeatedly taken from Veloran's comments on the matter is that they seem to hold Venat personally responsible for those deaths, as if she walked up to those people and stabbed each and every one of them to death. And so far they have said nothing to the contrary and in fact seem to keep reinforcing their view.

True, but how much of a difference does that make in the grand scheme of the argument though? Even if she was only fully responsible for the "death" of everyone during the sundering, and only held partial responsibility in the death and suffering that followed for thousands of years... thats still a lot she's responsible for.

In the end, I don't think there is much difference between Emet and Venat. They both did terrible things for what they perceived as the greater good and made no excuses about it. There are a number of differences of course (some pros and cons on both sides), but when it comes down to it, neither of them were truly villainous, nor heroic. And as far as I recall neither really proclaimed themselves as either.

That being said, I do think Endwalker kinda pulled punches with Venat (intentionally or not) to make sure she's seen as sympathetic. A reverse Emet issue from Shb if you will.

[QT_Melon]

I agree that she is indirectly to blame and that there is an ethical grey area in that but what I have repeatedly taken from Veloran's comments on the matter is that they seem to hold Venat personally responsible for those deaths, as if she walked up to those people and stabbed each and every one of them to death. And so far they have said nothing to the contrary and in fact seem to keep reinforcing their view.

hmm to put it in this perspective because people are talking about consent due to it being a violation upon themselves - while people argue otherwise.

"Rape is better than being a murderer"

So to a group of people interpreting the story there's just no way you're going to reconcile "morally grey" because both acts are seen as extremely offensive. It's going to be even harder to argue otherwise if people have real world experience of having consent taken from their agency or someone they know personally. Yes, this is a video game but people are likely to draw from experience that will color their interpretation of a story.

This is the best way I can think of why this particular argument tends to resurface so much and both sides refuse to reconcile over the interpretations of said story.

[Antoine_Lenheim]

life wasnt being created with the sundering, it only sprang up after zodiarks second sacrifice. plus it seems like venats group was quite big.

Then it brings us to my first point -- why it was worth it to sacrifice another group of people (now seemingly big) to prevent sacrificing of another group of people. It's sacrificing anyway? x)

I also love you guys turned this thread into discussion of something irrelevant lmao but still fun to read all these theories.