*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[KariTheFox]

The idea of an "unbiased" source confuses me. Firstly, because we are not talking about true historical events. We are talking about a story, the source will always be biased towards the message and theming that the writers intended, that Venat was right.

And second because even recordings in the real world are susceptible to bias - who made the recording, how is it framed, what was ommitted, etc. In terms of in game cutscenes, stuff like music choice, shot composition and how characters are framed when speaking will introduce bias already. And written content will be biased by the narrative voice.

From the perspective of an investigative journalist trying to understand what really happened in the final days, the desire for an "unbiased" source is admirable. From the perspective of someone trying to analyze a piece of fiction, it's baffling.

[Nilroreo]

The idea of an "unbiased" source confuses me. Firstly, because we are not talking about true historical events. We are talking about a story, the source will always be biased towards the message and theming that the writers intended, that Venat was right.

Well in the case of Endwalkers story, I agree. The story is written with the expectation that we agree that she was right despite there being plenty of evidence to the contrary. The stories morals and underlying theme, which are based on Hydaelyns own personal beliefs are expected to be taken as gospel and everything in the story is expected to conform around her beliefs. And this is precisely why I consider Endwalker to be the weakest expansion from a writing standpoint, only beating out ARR cuz of how much of a damn slog that game was.

[Vyrerus]

This argument is so cyclical

I see you've doubled the numbers on the Rejoinings because you don't like how the Sundering math works out, but unfortunately for you, there were no genocides on the Source. Just large disasters that did kill many people, but no race wide devastation and no complete obliteration of life/death of all things living. Just like the exact details on the Sundering, there are no details provided as to just how bad each Rejoining was for the Source. We have a binary meter from the 7th and 8th to form a sort of range, but there's nothing concrete. And thousands upon thousands of survivors worldwide in every case. To include them as a doubling is to lessen the meaning of the word genocide. No doubling the deck just because you are desperate to return people's views of the Ascians to pre-SHB times.

As the prior premise, your reiterated angle has issues too. Venat wasn't merely correct. She was the only one capable of being correct, because she was the only one with all of the facts.

As far as the Convocation being OK with doing the, "same morally dubious thing..." On a surface level, sure. But the Rejoinings, which do not measure in the double digits for successes, restore what Hydaelyn broke, the souls of the planet and every living thing, and are also a direct consequence of her actions that she knew would occur. 100% necessary in line with the time traveler's prophecy. Which she has to follow whether she wants to or not. And she must want to, because there's no way any writer could ever convince me that her vague exposition prior to Endwalkers was her, "Doing her best to rally against her fate that she cannot be certain will play out as she was told."

But I digress. My angle is that there should be no hand waving for her. We cannot hand wave atrocities just because we agree with the guilty party's motive. *Points to Endwalker: Subsection Garlemald Article II: Zenos under the reddened sky, speaking to Jullus.*

What the Ascians did was bad. What Venat did was also bad. Out of all the high minded ends justify the means it was just a struggle for survival. Each side doing what they thought was truly right. And in the end the universe was saved by motives both selfless and selfish.

[Lauront]

I don't get this take that people who ended up feeling sour about the Sundering were looking for an excuse to dislike Hydaelyn. I was ready and willing to like and agree with her, and still would be if they told a version of the story that actually made sense and didn't require huge, tone-directed assumptions on the part of the player to work around their vagaries.

Not everyone picks a made-up side in a narrative to cheer for, and then sticks with them like some kinda sports team. I just want a non-messy story.

My biggest bugbear with it is how it glossed over what SHB introduced as the pivotal conflict between her group and the Convocation, through a fast-forward scene which has confused no small number of people, plus tried to slap all of this together through yet another use of time travel (in spite of the Echo existing as a possible tool to utilise for glimpses into the past, given that the parameters of what it can or can't do are open-ended enough for this), itself with implications that remain poorly understood for how the setting works, and also greatly narrowing what actions the character was willing to undertake.

This. I have no interest in dealing with absolutes and I couldn't care less who was right or wrong in this situation. I also have no interest in sugarcoating genocide when the perpetrator just so happened to be a character I personally liked. Both sides committed atrocities and no amount of comparisons between their death counts will ever absolve either side of this conflict of their sins. In addition, Emet regarding sundered beings as lesser or subhuman is irrelevant to the fact that his people have no more or less a right to the planet as we do. Your feelings on the matter are your own and you're free to disagree with him but to argue that we deserve it more than him cuz he called us a bad name is pointless.

To me, Venat's actions weren't an objectively correct answer as she had no idea what the outcome would be and wouldn't have created an exit strategy had she known everything would turn out fine. The sundering was simply an answer, just one answer she chose. And until I learn that there truly was no point in warning the ancients beforehand, or that the ancients were guaranteed to sacrifice innocent lives despite Elidibus himself exhibiting apprehension at the 11th hour, I will continue to treat her decision of sundering the world as just an answer.

Ditto.

Much as having an unbiased source confirm my preferred view would be epic, yeah I think what's more important is having an actual proper retelling of events so we can truly draw our own conclusions.

Indeed. I do tend to come at stories with my own set of principles and mindset, and if I do think a story is pushing messaging too hard which I don't really care for (such as exhorting an ancient race to simply roll over and die), I may just come to the view that I will pay less attention to that aspect of a game (since you can still enjoy them in other ways), or I may just wait for a product where I prefer the storytelling. On the other hand, they may surprise me and convince me of their perspective, but a lot of what has been presented is nothing all that new and hasn't succeeded in that. But what I'd really like is a clear presentation of events in a story meant to conclude this saga, not yet more vagueness slapped upon pre-existing piles of it.

Well in the case of Endwalkers story, I agree. The story is written with the expectation that we agree that she was right despite there being plenty of evidence to the contrary. The stories morals and underlying theme, which are based on Hydaelyns own personal beliefs are expected to be taken as gospel and everything in the story is expected to conform around her beliefs. And this is precisely why I consider Endwalker to be the weakest expansion from a writing standpoint, only beating out ARR cuz of how much of a damn slog that game was.

Quite. A "theme" or "message" being present does not mean one has to agree that the way it's being presented is convincing or even consistent and isn't a substitute for a story which makes sense.

[Lurina]

The idea of an "unbiased" source confuses me. Firstly, because we are not talking about true historical events. We are talking about a story, the source will always be biased towards the message and theming that the writers intended, that Venat was right.

And second because even recordings in the real world are susceptible to bias - who made the recording, how is it framed, what was ommitted, etc. In terms of in game cutscenes, stuff like music choice, shot composition and how characters are framed when speaking will introduce bias already. And written content will be biased by the narrative voice.

From the perspective of an investigative journalist trying to understand what really happened in the final days, the desire for an "unbiased" source is admirable. From the perspective of someone trying to analyze a piece of fiction, it's baffling.

I'm not thinking of bias, I'm thinking of comprehensiveness. If you make what is essentially the foundational element of a setting defined in such vague terms that taking the haphazard information you're given literally leaves both the morality and facts of the situation ambiguous, it becomes difficult to care about that world at all because there's no observed grounding for its moral universe. It would be like if Tolkien never actually explained what Sauron had even meant the Rings of Power to do and left open the idea that the Last Alliance had attacked him unprovoked, and had also casually dropped that the Orcs were sapient beings with loved ones who weren't actually any more evil than anyone else, while leaving the rest of the story - where they're massacred righteously - unchanged.

[Lauront]

I see you've doubled the numbers on the Rejoinings because you don't like how the Sundering math works out, but unfortunately for you, there were no genocides on the Source. Just large disasters that did kill many people, but no race wide devastation and no complete obliteration of life/death of all things living. Just like the exact details on the Sundering, there are no details provided as to just how bad each Rejoining was for the Source. We have a binary meter from the 7th and 8th to form a sort of range, but there's nothing concrete. And thousands upon thousands of survivors worldwide in every case. To include them as a doubling is to lessen the meaning of the word genocide. No doubling the deck just because you are desperate to return people's views of the Ascians to pre-SHB times.

As the prior premise, your reiterated angle has issues too. Venat wasn't merely correct. She was the only one capable of being correct, because she was the only one with all of the facts.

As far as the Convocation being OK with doing the, "same morally dubious thing..." On a surface level, sure. But the Rejoinings, which do not measure in the double digits for successes, restore what Hydaelyn broke, the souls of the planet and every living thing, and are also a direct consequence of her actions that she knew would occur. 100% necessary in line with the time traveler's prophecy. Which she has to follow whether she wants to or not. And she must want to, because there's no way any writer could ever convince me that her vague exposition prior to Endwalkers was her, "Doing her best to rally against her fate that she cannot be certain will play out as she was told."

But I digress. My angle is that there should be no hand waving for her. We cannot hand wave atrocities just because we agree with the guilty party's motive. *Points to Endwalker: Subsection Garlemald Article II: Zenos under the reddened sky, speaking to Jullus.*

What the Ascians did was bad. What Venat did was also bad. Out of all the high minded ends justify the means it was just a struggle for survival. Each side doing what they thought was truly right. And in the end the universe was saved by motives both selfless and selfish.

We just need a villain to come along offering to sunder the sundered a bit more, and we'll have a ready-set list of arguments as to why there's no problem with that, and why they should accept it for some purported "greater good".

[Rulakir]

I agree to some extent that an unbiased view of events wouldn't change anything. The characterization of Venat as the 'benevolent mother' was so over the top even if it was shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that she did the wrong thing, we're still supposed to love and forgive her. I have my doubts this was Ishikawa's original intention, but it certainly was someone's decision and it's what we're stuck with now. However, as many others have stated better than I, what we're presented with in game does not make the case that the sundering was necessary. Given that it led to the death of the parent civilization, the fracturing of eternal souls, and eventually the loss of 9 reflections, it should have been driven home that there was no other way. Instead, it seems there were a myriad of other possibilities that weren't explored.

Not everyone picks a made-up side in a narrative to cheer for, and then sticks with them like some kinda sports team. I just want a non-messy story.

I didn't want to be on a team at all. I thought the whole premise of Azem striking out on their own meant they disagreed with both approaches and, likewise, the WoL would've been neutral. Instead, we're firmly planted on #TeamHydaelyn and the character of Venat is written as being not only the previous seat holder, but mentor to Azem. I'm not sure how they could have further compromised the characterization of Azem and, by extension, the WoL. I don't want them to touch Azem anymore because I'm not convinced they won't be written as being in league with Venat too.

[Jandor]

We just need a villain to come along offering to sunder the sundered a bit more, and we'll have a ready-set list of arguments as to why there's no problem with that, and why they should accept it for some purported "greater good".

So long as they have a good reason, I wouldn't really care.

The Source has way more than it needs anyway, with the Unsundered gone and the restoring Zodiark plan totally ruined, we're basically just hoarding aether for no reason at this point.

[Nilroreo]

We just need a villain to come along offering to sunder the sundered a bit more, and we'll have a ready-set list of arguments as to why there's no problem with that, and why they should accept it for some purported "greater good".

Except the writers will conveniently ommit the "To live is to suffer" message so the villain will actually be expected to be held accountable for his actions this time

[Cleretic]

I see you've doubled the numbers on the Rejoinings because you don't like how the Sundering math works out, but unfortunately for you, there were no genocides on the Source.

I was giving you the benefit of assuming that you also remembered that we've talked about this, and so I didn't have to re-state the actual definition of genocide as defined by the United Nations. Genocide doesn't mean 'total eradication'--and you know this even if you don't know the definition, because every genocide you can think of had survivors, and we still call them that. ...in fact, that is also true of the Sundering, which you do call a genocide.

Therefore, all the Calamities do count as two genocides (except the Seventh, which only counts as one but wasn't intended that way by the Ascians); the killing of the entirety of one people, and the near-killing of the entirety of another, while rendering the survivors in a condition hostile to continued life. That is why their rap sheet of both committed and intended crimes is so long; because crashing two planets together wrecks them both pretty badly.

...but I'm not sure why you're even deciding to re-argue this one, because you agreed on the main point: that at the time when it was an active, present decision to pick between them, both sides were pretty equally shady but fighting for what they thought was the best. It's just that afterwards, one side racked up a rather excessive K-D ratio.

We just need a villain to come along offering to sunder the sundered a bit more, and we'll have a ready-set list of arguments as to why there's no problem with that, and why they should accept it for some purported "greater good".

Well, why would they do it? Remember that the Sundering came from extreme circumstances; the only reason it was the right thing to do was because of what was coming if Venat didn't do it. Is there another legitimate planetary threat (actually, another two legitimate threats, remember that the Sundering was for both stopping the Zodiark sacrifices and an angle against Meteion) that can only be stopped by sundering the planet? Can we assume that this character is smart enough to have considered and maybe even pursued other options?

I mean, I know the answers you're going to give and want in return, because you jumped right out calling them a villain thereby immediately poisoning the well by declaring them wrong. But remember: The Sundering was not inherently good. The Sundering was inherently pretty awful, actually, it was just what Venat saw as the least awful option.