Quote Originally Posted by Lium View Post
And this right here
You seem to have assumed that every other argument in the thread was not made with what's in the game in mind. It's what's in the game that causes it to be a Broken Aesop. It's what's in the game that causes the disagreements. The writers can self-insert all they want, and that won't change how people feel about or perceive it.

They can say Venat was right until they're blue in the face, and the characters in the game can agree with them, and they can show it to never go another way, but they only achieve these things through dubious means.

They're achieved by:

1) Ignoring that Ancients possess The Echo and can use it at will, and not merely peer into another's memories, but see them as they happened precisely. This makes Venat's excuse that she won't be believed a plot hole. How could they not believe what they could witness firsthand by peering into her soul? They don't need the environment of Ktsis Hyperboreia. Her soul escaped undamaged. The script has used the Echo in the past to pass on crucial information with such frequency that I've lost count. In every instance it has been irrefutable evidence. Yet, this time, with characters who can literally control it, it's not used.

2) Not showing the actual Sundering. By not showing the Sundering as it actually happened, they left the door wide open for people to take issue with it while simultaneously giving them very little to work with. This also served to disguise the horror inherent in it. The scene they do show goes more towards making it seem as Hydaelyn is suffering more than the people she destroyed. She's stained by their blood, black with sin, but we know full well now that she goes on being a Supreme Goddess who lies to every single one of her champions all throughout the 12,000 years until we start uncovering the truth. She may have even lied to her own faction in Ananemis Anyder, by asserting that Hydaelyn would only shackle Zodiark not Sunder the world.

3) Allowing Venat to escape Ktsis with her memory intact. This made everything she did intentional, rather than incidental, calling the morality of her actions into question. It's what makes her an Anti-Villain, not a hero. She used evil ends to achieve something ultimately good.

Zodiark could not address the Final Days' root cause, because he was not made to do that. He was made in ignorance of Meteion, because Venat would not open her soul to the Convocation. And even in his ignorance, he was twofold vital to Venat's plan.

1) The Hydaelyn faction copied his design schema and sacrificed themselves in a similar manner to imbue Venat with Hydaelyn.

2) His aether web was necessary to keep the Sundered world from being drown into dark oblivion by Dynamis.

It is absurd to allege that an entire race could not come up with a means to stop Meteion when it merely took a small coalition to stop her after she had gained power for 12,000 years. Just by having information about her. Just having scant information about Dynamis as well. Just having the slightest indication that we can even manipulate it at all.

As for the Sundering. It's been argued in this thread ad nauseum that it was not killing because people lived, but even if it killed no one, and I don't believe that in the slightest, it is still morally wrong. Essentially it nonconsensually cloned the entire populace 13 times, and then asserted that the clones not only have the right to life but a greater right to life than their donors. Who by the way "donated" every part of themselves in the "creation" of the Sundered.

By comparison the Rejoinings kill clones, which in turn returns what was, "donated" to its Source.

If that confuses you, then look at the line from Hydaelyn's speech, "Man will no longer have wings to bear himself to paradise."

Translation: I am going to mutilate what is currently a fundamental characteristic of everyone in the world, so that they have to live the way that I believe they need too.

By doing this she inflicted every real horror that we know, and some that we imagine onto Sundered mankind. Slavery. Racial discrimination. Sexual discrimination. Sexuality discrimination. War. Famine. Pestilence. Inexplicable death. That is the unfathomable genocide.

And did you notice? Hydaelyn still has wings.