*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[RyuDragnier]

That is kinda the crux of the matter. Both were pretty clearly in the wrong for a multitude of reasons, but the bulk of the playerbase appears to be too stuck on "lol Venat good, Ancients bad" to comprehend the inherent wrongness in the Venat half of the equation.

Or likewise stuck in the "lol Ancients good, Venat bad." Both sides need to recognize this.

[Cleretic]

I'm in the camp of 'neither bad people, both did bad things, but one side ended up correct and the other ended up committing genocides'. Which, granted, is a little wordy, but is the stance the game itself takes.

[Absimiliard]

I'm in the camp of 'neither bad people, both did bad things, but one side ended up correct and the other ended up committing genocides'. Which, granted, is a little wordy, but is the stance the game itself takes.

....I mean, both sides went full on genocidal. It just took one side thousands of years to get there, while the other took the express lane to omnicide.

[Rulakir]

However, 'themes' being apparent is not a valid excuse for being needlessly murky on what is pretty inarguably the most important event in the entire world's lore.

The impression I've gotten is they wrote themselves into a corner in ShB, one which they might not have recognized until they read players discuss it. The "new life" angle is what was presented in ShB (and mostly dropped in EW), so either the Convocation was mistaken about what Venat's motives were or that was the reason she was giving people.

I consider the second sacrifice the more interesting one. Zodiark had to restore the world after the Final Days. We're given no indication Venat objected to this, perhaps it was seen as being necessary after what we hear and see of the devastation it caused. We're told in Elpis that the Ancients can't create souls, so it calls into question whether Zodiark would be able to either. What exactly was he asked to do? Were it to make the planet inhabitable again, then the priority should've been on the flora and fauna necessary to re-establish an ecosystem. It doesn't make sense for the Ancients to give their lives for other humanoids unless they were incredibly altruistic.

Perhaps they asked Zodiark to return the world to how it was before the Final Days and, even then, it seems he was only capable of bringing back life in its infancy. Any newborns, whether human or animal, would've had to have been raised by the Ancients, which would certainly lend itself to them being loathe to sacrifice them later. Even taking humanoids out of the equation, you couldn't convince me to offer up cats I'd raised from kittens to be sacrificed. However, I'm sure I could find people who would if it meant releasing their departed loved ones.

Speaking of which, they wrote the souls of the sacrificed were trapped within Zodiark, which also changes the debate. It wasn't just about bringing them back to life, it was that their souls weren't even free to return to the star and a big deal is made about this being a fundamental part of their beliefs. I'm not religious myself, but I can only imagine that's like saying your loved ones can't go to Heaven, they're trapped indefinitely in purgatory, but you have the means to free them if you're willing to make a trade. This would be a difficult choice for many.

[Cleretic]

....I mean, both sides went full on genocidal. It just took one side thousands of years to get there, while the other took the express lane to omnicide.

I've brought this up before, but Venat's actions are difficult to quantify as 'genocide', in large part because it's a philosophical question if the Sundering counts as 'killing'. But since she was going up against an act that was also similarly shady, it's not really right to cast shade over her and not the Convocation.

And as I mathed out last night... evidence suggests that the Ascians didn't take 'thousands of years' to get to genocide, because going with the math that it takes one thousand to one and a half thousand years to commit a Calamity under normal circumstances (the brief time to the planned eighth being a known outlier), and that there was a failed attempt before the successful first Calamity, actually suggests that the amount of time they took before going for the genocide plan wasn't 'thousands of years', but somewhere between 'hundreds of years' and 'literal minutes'.

[SpectrePhantasia]

Whether or not Sundering counts as killing is irrelevant. She destroyed their civilization, erased everything about who they were, memories and all, expunged their entire culture and lives from history, (much as Emet wanted to do to the WoL, might I add) doomed them to living lifespans that were a fraction of their normal, and subjected them to more frail lives than ever before. Even if you want to veil Sundering itself as something different from killing, even though it is killing in everything but name, it doesn't matter because what the Ancients found to be a far more terrible thing than death itself is a life that is ended before the person can fulfill their desires, which is the exact kind of fate she subjects them to.

The impression I've gotten is they wrote themselves into a corner in ShB, one which they might not have recognized until they read players discuss it. The "new life" angle is what was presented in ShB (and mostly dropped in EW), so either the Convocation was mistaken about what Venat's motives were or that was the reason she was giving people.

Yeah I think there was lot more potential in what Shadowbringers wrote this dilemma to be, and was far more nuanced than what Endwalker tries to make of it afterwards. The second sacrifice is interesting I agree, and the lack of further explanation onto what occurred during the original Final Days is exactly what I'm talking about. In the end we don't know for certain what EITHER side is really fighting for. That is a problem. Boiling such a complex issue down to the simplicity that Endwalker tried to frame it as really left a bad taste in my mouth personally.

[Rulakir]

Boiling such a complex issue down to the simplicity that Endwalker tried to frame it as really left a bad taste in my mouth personally.

As often as people say we had all of ShB to learn the Ascians' side, we find out in EW that it was entirely without context. Instead of seeing what really happened in EW, we get a dramatization of events from Venat's POV. Elidibus, the person who probably would know the most since he was acting mediator, conveniently has memory issues, is disposed of before we travel to the past, and doesn't make an appearance again within the MSQ. (It remains to be seen what, if anything, we learn in Pandemonium.) I doubt we'll ever know the truth of it.

[Vyrerus]

I've brought...

It's not hard to quantify what Venat did as genocide at all. To even deny that's what it was is to literally discount the Ancients' lives. Either all lives are precious, or some aren't. Can't have it both ways. There are similar philosophical branches we can travel down that paint the Rejoinings as not being Genocide, and in that same branch of thought lies the denial of Venat's deed too.

But there is one hard thing the Sundering did that Rejoinings could never do. That is, it damaged the soul which is the core of an Etheirysian's being. At first it seems not to matter, we could even be generous and suggest that it's the same sort of deal IRL where the spirits housed in Eastern shrines are split and taken to other shrines to impart a growing spirit across all the lands. However, FFXIV's account of Etheirysian souls is too detailed for that to really hold water. Especially when the combining of the sundered souls restores power and vitality, as the soul approaches wholeness.

This(Ye Olde Sundering) made Etheirysians susceptible to, "true death" via Dynamis, and has lead to the only true deaths for Etheirysians with no possibility of reincarnation for such individuals (At least as shown currently, though I suspect with the writers wanting to maintain Hydaelyn's "inexorable" integrity they will throw the baby out with the bathwater yet again at some point in the near future. This will create its own host of new problems, probably).

[KariTheFox]

The perspective that sundered souls are somehow "lesser" or incomplete versions of real people is the view of the ascians and Emet-Selch. A perspective that is shown to be wrong by the narrative.

Sundered people are able to lead rich, fufilling lives and care for each other as much as any unsundered. Emet-Selch was wrong to call us broken things that barely qualify as people.

Also, the cycle of reincarnation seems to happen just fine regardless of whether or not the sundering happened. With the exception of the souls bound up in zodiark and meteion's nest. But we dealt with both of those problems.

Edit: As for needing "more detail" about Venat's side and motivation in Endwalker, what more could people possibly want? We learn in Shadowbringers that the Ancients intended to sacrifice more life in ordee to bring back thier bretheren. And we later learn that Venat's faction believed that Zodiark would ultimately fail to prevent the final days and thier society would end up going down the same path regardless.

Venat and her faction oppossed Zodiark on both practical and philosphical grounds. We already knew that going into Endwalker. All Endwalker did was let us fill in the specifics. I'm really curious as to what more people wanted to be told that wasn't made glaringly obvious already.

[EaraGrace]

It's not hard to quantify what Venat did as genocide at all. To even deny that's what it was is to literally discount the Ancients' lives. Either all lives are precious, or some aren't. Can't have it both ways. There are similar philosophical branches we can travel down that paint the Rejoinings as not being Genocide, and in that same branch of thought lies the denial of Venat's deed too.

The philosophical questions surrounding the Sundering might spawn another 75 pages

But there is one hard thing the Sundering did that Rejoinings could never do. That is, it damaged the soul which is the core of an Etheirysian's being. At first it seems not to matter, we could even be generous and suggest that it's the same sort of deal IRL where the spirits housed in Eastern shrines are split and taken to other shrines to impart a growing spirit across all the lands. However, FFXIV's account of Etheirysian souls is too detailed for that to really hold water. Especially when the combining of the sundered souls restores power and vitality, as the soul approaches wholeness.

This(Ye Olde Sundering) made Etheirysians susceptible to, "true death" via Dynamis, and has lead to the only true deaths for Etheirysians with no possibility of reincarnation for such individuals (At least as shown currently, though I suspect with the writers wanting to maintain Hydaelyn's "inexorable" integrity they will throw the baby out with the bathwater yet again at some point in the near future. This will create its own host of new problems, probably).

You’ll be disappointed to find out then the writers see to have already have done so. Thancred and the Scions survived despite their aether being overwhelmed with Dynamis (much to Meteions surprise), the souls held by Meteion returned to their bodies (the dragons, Ea and Omicrons) after we defeated Endsinger, and from the role quests there seems to be more to the Blasphemies than we thought.

Not to mention the question of what she was supposed to do. If you view the Sundering as an unneeded genocide, then I can understand that position. But, if you believe the Sundering necessary, plus the fact she acted to prevent Zodiarks destruction and gave us the clues needed to get to Elpis, it would be hard to criticize her for those deaths when she did all she could to prevent them. I think I’ve made clear where I fall on that, thus I don’t agree with the criticism.