*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[EaraGrace]

They’re her people split apart and reduced to mere fragments. However correct me if i’m wrong, but it was not too long ago that many people here were arguing that the sundered are different from the ancients and they’re their own people. Gaia as one example. But now it’s that they’re her people still despite being completely ripped apart and having completely different memories and lives etc. Convenient. Still doesn’t change the fact she gave up on them overall. Whether it be her giving up on them via her moon ship plan, or her giving up on them by not sharing her knowledge with them. She really needs to practice what she preaches.

If you’re referencing our discussion on Loghrif and Gaia, and can’t conceive how insisting there’s a difference between saying the two aren’t the same person and saying that the Ancients and Sundered aren’t the same species, then I don’t know if this conversation is worth having.

[Kordarion]

Each to their own but I personally wouldn't consider it to be 'condescending', especially when many people in the current era are fluent in multiple languages. That isn't true of everybody, though it doesn't strike me as fair to expect players on a global forum to keep quiet and not bring up other localisations for added clarity.

It's also an established trend around these parts, given that it isn't unusual for the New Year's messages to be discussed from the position of every available localisation. The same happens when new patch trailers go live and discussion threads are made to interpret what is going on.

Its not the fact that they are bringing up a translation as evidence, its when they repeatedly bring up translations as a counterpoint to several different viewpoints.

I think its also the fact that using it to say your wrong is sort of condescending, if someone uses a translation to say, hey here's something to think about its all good, but when right and wrong come into it, it does become sort of hard to argue against when you can't even get the full context of the untranslated text to properly argue against.

Many people being fluent in multiple languages doesn't mean everyone and it doesn't mean everyone knows the same languages. Someone could know English and German or English, Danish and French but if the most accurate lore comes from a language they don't know, it is still disadvantageous.

Edit: By your own previously stated logic it is condescending that people are repeatedly dismissing the English translation when a lot or lore fans are in the UK, US, New Zealand and Australia.

[KariTheFox]

I've been wondering why people are desperate to argue that the third sacrifice would have just been some plants and non-sentient animals - when it flies in the face of the thematic meaning of the story, makes every character involved look like an idiot, and has not been mentioned once by a single character, ever. And the only conclusion I can see is that it's because it makes Venat look bad. If she tried to prevent the ancients from sundering a bunch of cows and chickens, she would be silly and callous - if she tried to prevent them from sacrificing ensouled peoples, she'd be sundering them in order to prevent her own people from committing genocide. I don't know about anyone else, but I know which one I think is more in keeping with the themes of the story being told.

No matter how unsupported by any textual evidence it is, and how frankly, silly and absurd it is, people are going to keep bringing up the possibility of a livestock powered Zodiark because they have an axe to grind against Venat.

[EaraGrace]

I've been wondering why people are desperate to argue that the third sacrifice would have just been some plants and non-sentient animals - when it flies in the face of the thematic meaning of the story, makes every character involved look like an idiot, and has not been mentioned once by a single character, ever. And the only conclusion I can see is that it's because it makes Venat look bad. If she tried to prevent the ancients from sundering a bunch of cows and chickens, she would be silly and callous - if she tried to prevent them from sacrificing ensouled peoples, she'd be sundering them in order to prevent her own people from committing genocide. I don't know about anyone else, but I know which one I think is more in keeping with the themes of the story being told.

No matter how unsupported by any textual evidence it is, and how frankly, silly and absurd it is, people are going to keep bringing up the possibility of a livestock powered Zodiark because they have an axe to grind against Venat.

There’s a lot of axes people have to grind with Venat. It becomes clear when we get to the core of things, which is why Venat would take such drastic measures and Sunder the world she loves. She is either a woefully incompetent idiot who didn’t bother with trying to save the Ancients and instead subjected people to untold suffering for no reason, or she is a narcissistic sociopath who lies every time she speaks and simply wished to play goddess.

Both require an incredible amount of leaps, in the text and out of it.

[Nilroreo]

I fail to see how we don’t have a canon statement on what they would’ve done. The game beats you over the head with the message that they would’ve broken. Would you need Ishikawa to say it to confirm that fact?

Yes, We do. because as it stands now, all we have is conflicting information. The fact that this has been going on for 60+ pages alone is proof that nobody can come to a definitive consensus on anything.

When analyzing a games lore, all you can do is take the information provided by the game at its word and assume it isn't lying to you until new information arises. When Emet says his own methods wouldn't have brought his people this far, we have to trust what he says, not like there's any other choice in the matter. We also have to acknowledge that nobody, NOBODY, including you or me knows what would have happened had Venat actually shared what she knew. We never get to see this story unfold, and thus any claims that it wouldn't have worked out or that the ancients were on a path towards self-destruction is nothing but baseless conjecture. We also don't know if they would've been able to save themselves in that scenario, we just don't know. And that is precisely why I consider Emet's line irrelevant in the grand scheme. Sure, its relevant now that all is said and done, the ascians are all dead, we're literally standing where no man has stood before, so yeah, he's right. Venat sundered the world denying the ancients the opportunity to know. After what she's done, they never had a chance to come this far.

But when you take Emet at his word, you're now forced to assume that it still wouldn't have worked had Venat actually shared her knowledge... except that would be baseless conjecture and we can't know that for sure because again, we never actually saw that happen. We just don't know, and we'll never know, unless we know.

[Lurina]

I've been wondering why people are desperate to argue that the third sacrifice would have just been some plants and non-sentient animals - when it flies in the face of the thematic meaning of the story, makes every character involved look like an idiot, and has not been mentioned once by a single character, ever. And the only conclusion I can see is that it's because it makes Venat look bad. If she tried to prevent the ancients from sundering a bunch of cows and chickens, she would be silly and callous - if she tried to prevent them from sacrificing ensouled peoples, she'd be sundering them in order to prevent her own people from committing genocide. I don't know about anyone else, but I know which one I think is more in keeping with the themes of the story being told.

No matter how unsupported by any textual evidence it is, and how frankly, silly and absurd it is, people are going to keep bringing up the possibility of a livestock powered Zodiark because they have an axe to grind against Venat.

I can only speak for myself, but my axe to grind with Endwalker isn't with Venat - I liked her character overall, and don't even per-se object to the idea that the Sundering could have a 'valid' reason; obviously the writers intended for us to feel it did. Rather, my complaint is with the writing and presentation itself. If the sacrifices were intended to be people, why is the script so shy about saying so, absent Emet's single line about sacrificing the 'remaining population of the Source' which is only applied in the present-day scenario and obviously influenced by the context of the conversation around his broader negative feelings towards Sundered life? Why does the script use phrasing like 'a portion of life' instead of just saying what they're killing, especially in the scene at the end of Elpis?

Like many details about Venat's actions and motives, the whole thing is written in a way that feels deliberately fuzzy, and I can't shake the sense that the writers were trying to have their cake and eat it. That they wanted us to sympathize with both the members of the Convocation and Venat, but realized that clearly establishing the nature of what the Ancients wanted to do would make doing so impossible. Either their entire culture comes across as monstrous in a way that clashes with the heroism we're obviously supposed to see in past-Emet and Themis, or Venat comes across as some kinda fanatical environmentalist willing to murder her people to save some cows, clashing with our own mainstream real-world values about non-sentient life.

I write for a living, and I know when you've written yourself into a corner, it's incredibly tempting to keep things abstract in the hopes that the reader will kinda 'find their own answer' based on the vibes of the story. If everything is clearly defined, it's impossible for both Emet and Venat at the time to have been acting in a way we'd broadly consider moral or heroic. However, if the situation is abstracted and left to our imaginations, that becomes possible - either through not thinking about it, or simply interpreting the story differently based on which character we were more invested in to begin with.

[EaraGrace]

Yes, We do. because as it stands now, all we have is conflicting information. The fact that this has been going on for 60+ pages alone is proof that nobody can come to a definitive consensus on anything.

When analyzing a games lore, all you can do is take the information provided by the game at its word and assume it isn't lying to you until new information arises. When Emet says his own methods wouldn't have brought his people this far, we have to trust what he says, not like there's any other choice in the matter. We also have to acknowledge that nobody, NOBODY, including you or me knows what would have happened had Venat actually shared what she knew. We never get to see this story unfold, and thus any claims that it wouldn't have worked out or that the ancients were on a path towards self-destruction is nothing but baseless conjecture. We also don't know if they would've been able to save themselves in that scenario, we just don't know. And that is precisely why I consider Emet's line irrelevant in the grand scheme. Sure, its relevant now that all is said and done, the ascians are all dead, we're literally standing where no man has stood before, so yeah, he's right. Venat sundered the world denying the ancients the opportunity to know. they never had a chance to come this far.

But when you take Emet at his word, you're now forced to assume that it still wouldn't have worked had Venat actually shared her knowledge... except that would be baseless conjecture and we can't know that for sure because again, we never actually saw that happen. We just don't know, and we'll never know, unless we know.

I actually really like these points and would agree. My response could only be that given the information we know Venat to have, plus the information we come to learn from the various major figures in the story, it is reasonable to believe that Venat was acting correctly contingent on the information she had. It is indeed true that we won’t know for certain. But, as is the case in our lives, we are not certain of anything and must make the best decisions possible regardless.

[Lyth]

To be precise, non-ancients, albeit it is unclear because every single source on it is deliberately vague beyond the possession of souls. I am not arguing that that stage was necessarily a good idea. I don't know what was involved in that stage of sacrifices (i.e. what type of beings) or how they'd modify their plan if they were given the full truth as to what Hermes had learnt via Meteion. Their society was originally divided on this plan, which we know from the Sources I posted. We also can see very clearly from the Elpis sidequests that the ancients are quite readily open to modifying their practices where they see the merit in it. What I am disputing is that the plan, based on the knowledge they had, was idiotic, especially given that those souls inside Zodiark would be unable to return to the star, something the ancients valued - this may well explain the emotional gravity to it. Furthermore, he had to be maintained to avoid a repeat as far as they knew, thus the exchange of unspecified life. Venat's entire plan is dependent on stages 1 and 2 of the sacrifices completing, and she only knows 3 may end poorly because of what Meteion's report says of what we now know to be the Plenty. So I am open to the view that that stage is a bad idea, but not so much persuaded by the idea that they couldn't have been persuaded to re-think the plan if they were given more context...

That was some seriously convoluted writing.

Was it noble for the Ancients to sacrifice their souls to save the star and bring new life to it? Absolutely. Emet makes the point that society post-sundering wouldn't have made that same sacrifice. He's probably right; we're unlikely to do so collectively. It would have been fine if they stopped there. But you can't seriously mean to contemplate whether 'stage three' of the plan (i.e. let's trade in non-Ancient souls to Zodiark to free the ones who were previously sacrificed) was a sound one. And the fact that it's still being put forward in their master plan years later raises some serious questions about their value system.

[Lurina]

That was some seriously convoluted writing.

Was it noble for the Ancients to sacrifice their souls to save the star and bring new life to it? Absolutely. Emet makes the point that society post-sundering wouldn't have made that same sacrifice. He's probably right; we're unlikely to do so collectively. It would have been fine if they stopped there. But you can't seriously mean to contemplate whether 'stage three' of the plan (i.e. let's trade in non-Ancient souls to Zodiark to free the ones who were previously sacrificed) was a sound one. And the fact that it's still being put forward in their master plan years later raises some serious questions about their value system.

At the risk of being facetious, would you murder a dolphin to save a loved one in an unrelated situation?

[Rulakir]

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised after the events of the past two years, but I never cease to be amazed how people when presented with the same information can arrive at different conclusions. I often think a study on the different perspectives of players would be fascinating. Does it come down to culture, values, personality type? I'm almost tempted to make a survey. :P

Like many details about Venat's actions and motives, the whole thing is written in a way that feels deliberately fuzzy, and I can't shake the sense that the writers were trying to have their cake and eat it. That they wanted us to sympathize with both the members of the Convocation and Venat, but realized that clearly establishing the nature of what the Ancients wanted to do would make doing so impossible. Either their entire culture comes across as monstrous in a way that clashes with the heroism we're obviously supposed to see in past-Emet and Themis, or Venat comes across as some kinda fanatical environmentalist willing to murder her people to save some cows, clashing with our own mainstream real-world values about non-sentient life.

I write for a living, and I know when you've written yourself into a corner, it's incredibly tempting to keep things abstract in the hopes that the reader will kinda 'find their own answer' based on the vibes of the story.

Exactly this. I suspect that's why the "new life" angle was largely dropped in EW once they realized there was no way to rectify it without vilifying one side or the other. However, the alternate route they took wasn't any less controversial. It could've been avoided had the sundering been unintentional outside of Zodiark or without memories of the future, unfortunately they chose to do both. I think they fell in love with both the idea of everything coming 'full circle' and the WoL being able to interact with the past without thinking through the details as much as they should have.