When are we supposed to stop fighting?

[Lurina]

If you want to go send Time Cops after the Deviant Future Ironworks, sure, go ahead; you're assuming I'll jump to their defense for some reason, but to be honest I just don't care about them.

I think you're kinda missing his point there. It's not that you have to feel the Future Ironworks is bad or else be a hypocrite, or even that they're especially significant unto themselves at all. It's that the story is thematically inconsistent, which means the events that occur feel without meaning. If there is no truth conveyed in the destruction of the Ancients that is not contradicted by other parts of the narrative, then you have to ask why they had to die, beyond the arbitrary mechanical concerns of the scenario? What message are we supposed to take into our lives? Is it immature and stupid to try and bring back a lost past at the possible expense of the present, or noble and self-sacrificial? Or when is it one versus the other?

In Shadowbringers, this wasn't an issue because the story embraced its own tragic ambiguity - it wasn't that the Ascians were better than the Ironworks in terms of their core motive, just that one of their projects required doing overt murders to realize that motive. But the plot around Venat is much more traditionally moral driven; the Ancients had an original sin tied in with the core themes that doomed them, and for that they had to be cast down so that their successors could be saved. But if the story can't sell that sin as something fundamental within its own moral universe, then it all falls apart, and the writing feels dissonant and cruel.

I think the cause of a lot of these problems comes down to the fact that Shadowbringers was written as a realist narrative ("things happen based on the choices and competing needs of the characters"), while Enwalker is very much an idealist ("things happen for bigger picture, thematically-driven reasons") one. They're fine in isolation, but they go together like oil and water, which is not great since they're so inter-dependent.

2. There are no 'other civilizations' to the Ancients. It's unclear if Amaurot was the only civilization, but we do know that the Ancients were the only people. And from the fact that Zodiark involved sacrificing half the planet's population (twice), we can assume the world was making decisions in concert, even if we don't know if there was a one-world government at play. You can't just say 'and also she sacrificed other civilizations than the Ancients', because there's no evidence to their existence.

Is this actually made clear, or just a case of ascended fanon? Emet and Hythlodeus talk about half of their 'people' and 'race' being sacrificed, but that could just as easily mean just Amaurotines. And the quests in Amaurot, particularly the debate club one, make it clear that there are other nations in the world not under their control.

[Lauront]

I think the cause of a lot of these problems comes down to the fact that Shadowbringers was written as a realist narrative ("things happen based on the choices and competing needs of the characters"), while Enwalker is very much an idealist ("things happen for bigger picture, thematically-driven reasons") one. They're fine in isolation, but they go together like oil and water, which is not great since they're so inter-dependent.

Yup, well said. I particularly dislike how it took a lot of the more finely detailed nuance on the topic of her faction and the Convocation's disagreement and squashed it down to that arguably very misleading fast-forward cinematic, which has caused no small amount of confusion.

Is this actually made clear, or just a case of ascended fanon? Emet and Hythlodeus talk about half of their 'people' and 'race' being sacrificed, but that could just as easily mean just Amaurotines. And the quests in Amaurot, particularly the debate club one, make it clear that there are other nations in the world not under their control.

It's not confirmed explicitly, but I'd say the inference is correct based on the information we know. The extent of the Convocation's authority over other habitations is not defined in exact terms, but they are ultimately the body charged with overseeing the star's well-being (e.g. here or here by searching "institution") and so this is highly suggestive of some manner of global (con)federation of city-states under its watch, and reading between the lines, it seems like it calculated its interventions based on what it considered to be best for managing the star's future. In terms of the sacrifices, Venat does state that mankind gave half their number to summon Zodiark. While it's not outright stated that the inhabitants of the other areas would be "mankind", they do use terms in the debate quest like "friends", which to me suggests it.

Personally I would say that there's little need to even bring other civilisations into this. It adds little and isn't the issue with what she did, which to me is the erasure of her people through her unilateral judgement, after not sharing the information she had as to why she had the concerns she did (except through what amounted effectively to platitudes about 'suffering'), whatever the story-based constraints resulting in that decision.

[AziraSyuren]

I think the cause of a lot of these problems comes down to the fact that Shadowbringers was written as a realist narrative ("things happen based on the choices and competing needs of the characters"), while Enwalker is very much an idealist ("things happen for bigger picture, thematically-driven reasons") one. They're fine in isolation, but they go together like oil and water, which is not great since they're so inter-dependent.

This actually makes a lot of sense and is probably why I prefer EW's story. I like idealistic, thematically driven stories much more than realist ones.