When are we supposed to stop fighting?

[Veloran]

She said achieving paradise through shortcuts would lead people astray.

Which has been demonstrated by the Ancient Amaurotines.

Being born with a natural ability for something is "taking a shortcut"...?

[YianKutku]

Being born with a natural ability for something is "taking a shortcut"...?

Summoning Zodiark is not a "natural ability" except in the loosest sense of the term, I would say.

Venat never said "paradise is wrong". She exhorted those who wanted to sacrifice to Zodiark to rebuild Amaurot with their own hands, which would indeed rely on those natural abilities, whether creation magic or simple crafting by using manipulator limbs like their own hands. This is putting aside whether Ancient society was perfect in the first place, since obviously Venat (and Hermes and Hesperos) disagree, but the principle holds true whether it is the ability to wield creation magic, or the ability to manipulate aether at all. It's the same as warning the people of the Fifth Astral Era not to keep sucking up huge amounts of aether from the environment; it's a shortcut, and the consequences for using that shortcut can be tragic.

[Cleretic]

Summoning Zodiark is not a "natural ability" except in the loosest sense of the term, I would say.

Venat never said "paradise is wrong". She exhorted those who wanted to sacrifice to Zodiark to rebuild Amaurot with their own hands, which would indeed rely on those natural abilities, whether creation magic or simple crafting by using manipulator limbs like their own hands. This is putting aside whether Ancient society was perfect in the first place, since obviously Venat (and Hermes and Hesperos) disagree, but the principle holds true whether it is the ability to wield creation magic, or the ability to manipulate aether at all. It's the same as warning the people of the Fifth Astral Era not to keep sucking up huge amounts of aether from the environment; it's a shortcut, and the consequences for using that shortcut can be tragic.

Something else important to take into account is that Venat wasn't objecting to 'rebuilding but doing it wrong', but that the crowd didn't want to rebuild from disaster, they wanted to undo disaster.

Speaking literally, you can read this as just a semantic difference; they're standing in a ruined city, they want the city to not be ruined. But that's very much the wrong reading, it's very clear in the scene that they're coming from a fundamental angle of 'we want to go back to when this never happened'. They don't want to move on from suffering, they want to move backwards to the world where it hadn't reached them.

[redheadturk]

Something else important to take into account is that Venat wasn't objecting to 'rebuilding but doing it wrong', but that the crowd didn't want to rebuild from disaster, they wanted to undo disaster.

Speaking literally, you can read this as just a semantic difference; they're standing in a ruined city, they want the city to not be ruined. But that's very much the wrong reading, it's very clear in the scene that they're coming from a fundamental angle of 'we want to go back to when this never happened'. They don't want to move on from suffering, they want to move backwards to the world where it hadn't reached them.

Which, I again point out, these people were traumatized. It is utterly natural during the time a person is within that traumatized state to want to go back to before the trauma occurred. It doesn't prove anything but that they were human, acting as all human beings do. It is not until much later, when the pain of the trauma has begun to pass and healing has begun that we realize the trauma has made us stronger. It would quite likely have been the same for them, had Venat given them that time.

[KariTheFox]

Which, I again point out, these people were traumatized. It is utterly natural during the time a person is within that traumatized state to want to go back to before the trauma occurred. It doesn't prove anything but that they were human, acting as all human beings do. It is not until much later, when the pain of the trauma has begun to pass and healing has begun that we realize the trauma has made us stronger. It would quite likely have been the same for them, had Venat given them that time.

How many more lives would have been sacrificed to Zodiark while Venat gives the ancients time to process thier trauma?

[Theodric]

How many more lives would have been sacrificed to Zodiark while Venat gives the ancients time to process thier trauma?

Given that the plan was simply to sacrifice a portion of the 'new lives' to Zodiark and not all lives indefinitely? Such would have involved far less death and suffering compared to Venat's decision to destroy everybody through the Sundering without their consent.

Of course, had she simply had a conversation explaining the circumstances behind the Final Days by sharing the information that she was aware of then a different solution could have potentially been found...especially with a Sundered Zodiark serving as a barrier against the return of the Final Days for at least twelve thousand years. One can only imagine how much longer an Unsundered Zodiark would have been able to keep the threat at bay in order to buy time for the Ancients to find a permanent solution.