What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[EaraGrace]

To be completely honest we've been at it for so long now and with all of these multi-split responses it's been hard for me to recall what we were going for in each point and to follow the conversation. I did my best to recall things without going back 20 pages for an accurate depiction.

That’s fine, but I have every reason to call that as well, since what we are arguing about is kind of important for the discussion we want to have.

Ok. Now what?

I’m reiterating my point. Do you’d disagree with it? If not then there was no reason to begin this back and forth and we just wasted both of our times.

Yes, I don't even know what you're trying to argue with this point anymore. What exactly does his "unique" expertise at that particular time entail if you don't disagree with them being capable of eventually acquiring the same expertise?

…that you can’t get rid of him and slot in another before or during the Final Days?? That’s the whole point for why Venat couldn’t simply tell everyone before hand remember?

What I said is that her referring to "humanity" as a whole, both past and present, to fit the narrative of a particular cutscene isn't some irrefutable proof of her seeing pre-and-post humanity as the same (not consistently, at least). Just because in the end she got her "feel good" moment of this new humanity passing her "test" and being strong enough to have a chance at facing Meteion (but like someone else mentioned, testing your fitness to prevail where "aether will avail you naught" by defeating an aether rich entity, lol) doesn't mean at the time she didn't pass her own judgment on humanity and didn't deem them unfit without her sundering.

But this is a contradiction. Once again, if she believed humanity unfit to live on, why would she believe that the sundered would be different if it did not at all change their fundamental nature. The point of the Sundering was to imprison Zodiark and in turn force humanity to face suffering head on. It was not intended to alter its fundamental nature. In other words, she believed in mankind’s ability to “find a way forward,” and the Sundering was done to force them to do so.

But is it that simple? If you split a person into 14, even if they all possess a fragment of the same "soul", does any of them retain the same consciousness as the original? We could guess the ones in the Source could have, but would we be certain? Or none at all and all fragments have completely new consciousness? Also, think of your own character and remember Ardbert. Can you look at him and say "yes, this is undoubtedly the same person as me/my character"? With how strikingly different everything is between you 2, could you tell which one can be identified as the same Azem as was split? Or neither one?

It’d be the same as someone making 14 exact copies of myself, all based on the person I was at that exact moment. Which means philosophically they’re are a million different answers to your questions. Personally, my thought is they are all me, until the first moment passes and we then have separate experiences, paths, memories, etc.

The same way your local priest won't ask if you're gonna baptize your newborn daughter but when. Or your friend would ask you when you're gonna bring Danny to the baseball field. Again, casual conversation taken way too seriously and extrapolated to absolutes.

Baptism is a great example. If my priest asked that I would of course assume that they expected me to do so and if I lived in a society where the Catholic Church still held great sway, I’d certainly feel obligated. Once again I concede they may not be forced to do so, but heavily encouraged?

I already responded to this before. They didn't need to go fight her the same way we did. They could have just done anything that would have stopped her from affecting them (making an aether prison around her, consuming the dynamis around her to leave her dry, etc.)

Hell, she was even uncapable of altering the ancients themselves, only their creation magics. Worst case scenario just ban creation magics, grab a spade and a pickaxe and live a simple life with physical labor and without having to sunder anyone, problem solved. The most important part was to know that there was an attacker and that dynamis was the medium. A solution was reachable.

None of the solutions mentioned would work given what we know of Dynamis and the nature of Ultima Thule. And simply convincing a handful of Ancients to rough it doesn’t prepare them to face despair incarnate, a being that instilled a fear of death and suffering the Ancients never forget even after millennia of reincarnations.