When are we supposed to stop fighting?

[EaraGrace]

Venat's choice was - "it all worked itself out in the end" aside - strategically miserable.

Let's really think about this for a moment. She knows that aetherial density can counteract the effects of Dynamis. She knows that Zodiark's aetherial shield is tied to his existence and is the only thing protecting the planet. And she knows that Meteion is gathering power at the edge of the universe. In this situation, in what way does it make sense for her to not aid in the planet's defense or Zodiark's creation, and then to sunder Zodiark and reduce the aetherial density of everything in existence by 13/14ths?

Because she knows that Zodiarks presence will allow them to have a temporary and easy answer to suffering, given he’s made to answer the hopes and prayers of any who are struggling. This, plus the fact Ancients could not manipulate dynamis at all due to that selfsame aetheric density, meant they would have no way to defeat Meteion should she gather enough strength to pierce Zodiarks barrier. Sundering the world in the way she did addressed both issues.

As it stands the fact that Zodiark's aetherial currents weren't rendered useless by this is a major plothole, from the outset this had the potential to restart the Final Days instantly. Even the idea that this wouldn't dissolve Zodiark or undo his protection through the disruption to his form alone is a major leap. Not to mention that the necessity of using Dynamis to combat Meteion wasn't well established, and Venat saw firsthand that her despair was enough to bring WoL to their knees while the others were unaffected.

Only if Zodiark is killed does his change to the Aether currents lose effect, imprisoning him was the goal from the start and enervation itself was developed to do no harm to the physical, only split the soul. And on using dynamis, Venat possessed four important facts.

1. The Ancients lacked the ability to effect change in dynamis in any practical way due to the density of their souls
2. Dynamis is controlled by emotions, hope, happiness, joy, despair, sadness, grief, etc.
3. The Final Days is caused by Meteion using her control of Dynamis to imbue it with the power of a raging river, one whose waters are dyed with the despair and suffering of countless worlds
4. Zodiarks summoning would buy Etheirys time, but how long is unknown

From this the plan seems logical. You need beings capable of facing the despair Meteion is calling forth, Zodiark being a benevolent “deity” plus the Ancients own qualities would make such circumstances impossible to find on Etheirys, and thus the Sundering was needed.

Then there's the fact that she never told humanity about either the threat of Meteion nor the ideals she wanted them to either have or not have, meaning she's providing very little direction here other than "Ascians evil, Zodiark evil, kill", which is counter-productive in the extreme.

The unsundereds victory would have destroyed the shards and damned the Source. The only reason she called forth WoL was to counter their efforts, otherwise the plan for Meteions defeat would’ve gone unchanged, and in fact likely would’ve been completed sooner. Counterproductive it is not.

[KizuyaKatogami]

What does going back to being the stewards of the star mean though? Does it mean going OK folks we've been saved from w/e that was by Zodiark time to just pretend it didn't happen. Let's ignore that we found out that a few of the currents that are needed for life to do its thing had thinned out. Or do they go huh maybe we should make sure we're safe. Cause even if Azem wasn't on board we still should take a look at that and make sure our math was correct.

Emet still could have listened and still went so why did you decide to say screw the test? He didn't exactly deal with the loss of either friend. Heck even after the sundering I wonder why they didn't try and get some form of answer. As that would have been the best next time. From the Watcher's records at least the ones we were able to read they never asked them or try to understand why she kept Zodiark whole. Yes, it would have been great pre-sundering if more people could have been told what was really going down. Or that she thought saying screw Herme's and his test even post Zodiark was an option. Running away seems to have always been plan B, but the gain enough resolve and the know how to fight Meteion was always plan A.

Just because she didn't tell anyone there's a collective of murdery through despair birds that need to be dealt with doesn't mean people wouldn't have chosen the run away option. It's like how Le' Cie work in XIII. They get told oh hey this is your mission so go do that. If you don't you'll turn into a mindless monster that goes around killing everything. Only on a rare occasion did a Le'Cie say screw my mission I'm not going to do it cause it goes against my principles and not end up being a mindless monster killing everything.

I’m not saying everyone would have believed her, but given Emet’s status in the convocation and Hythlo as a very well respected member along with Venat being a previous Azem, the three of them hold a LOT of weight, and i find it hard to believe at the very least the convocation wouldn’t hear out her plea, especially since she even had a tracker on Meteion. As far as the stewards of the star, i’d imagine it’s just what they’ve always done, doing things for the betterment of the star. The thing is they didn’t even know after the fact what caused it, they thought Zodiark got rid of it and that’s that. It’s Venat that kept the secrets which is the problem here.

[Veloran]

That doesn't address the underlying problem that I posed. If Zodiark doesn't obey a law of equivalent exchange, then there is no 'sacrifice'. We can endlessly generate wishes for free in a recursive loop. The Ea were wrong. Zodiark is a perpetual motion machine of the first kind. And as you so kindly pointed out previously, that type of magic system where you can just snap your fingers and wish your problems away without a net consequence makes for very unsatisfying storytelling. You sidestep the conflict.

Except it is equivalent exchange. The Ancient were massive aether batteries individually, all of them together channeled through Zodiark is what allowed him to achieve such fundamental and worldwide effects. Meanwhile the third sacrifice was just intended to replace those massive aether reserves, at which point Zodiark's existence would continue to maintain the barrier and there would be no need to use him for such huge sweeping changes anymore.

Furthermore the magic system debate isn't one that simply boils down to ease of use to begin with. It's more about lack of rules, vaguery, and narrative use/portrayal.

but you can't judge its execution without having any indication on how it will play out.

I can judge what we've seen so far. Sure, maybe the next tiers will reveal that Lahabrea is actually having futuresight visions of the Final Days and suddenly WoL will spill the beans, but for now we're basically questing for a bunch of dead people.

Because she knows that Zodiarks presence will allow them to have a temporary and easy answer to suffering, given he’s made to answer the hopes and prayers of any who are struggling.

Funny how she would go on to serve as a supreme goddess answering the hopes and prayers of the suffering.

This, plus the fact Ancients could not manipulate dynamis at all due to that selfsame aetheric density, meant they would have no way to defeat Meteion should she gather enough strength to pierce Zodiarks barrier. Sundering the world in the way she did addressed both issues.

Not to mention that the necessity of using Dynamis to combat Meteion wasn't well established, and Venat saw firsthand that her despair was enough to bring WoL to their knees while the others were unaffected.

I'll also say again that creating aether-thin beings =/= sundering the entire world.

Only if Zodiark is killed does his change to the Aether currents lose effect,

The sundering's effects on Zodiark and the maintainment of the aether currents is something that, at best, Venat could glean by mere inference of WoL's existence in the future. But the truth is that because WoL didn't know the specific circumstances of the first Final Days and the sundering, Venat doesn't actually know the why or how of this. Combined with the fact that by her own words she intends to change the future and doesn't know if the timeline will go unchanged, this means that when doing the sundering Venat was taking a complete shot in the dark that just maybe the particular conditions of WoL's timeline would repeat in this instance and she wouldn't inadvertently destroy the world.

Furthermore as you yourself note, Meteion was gaining power over time - Meaning that even if the 13/14ths density reduction was still sufficient to block Meteion 12,000 years ago, she doesn't know if it will be into the future. If we accept that Venat believed that Zodiark would one day fail and it was merely a stalling tactic, her own actions could only have been detrimental to the length of that timespan they were spared. Even more, as you vociferously insist, she spent quite a lot of time and energy afterwards halting rejoinings, meaning that for all she knew at any moment Meteion would finally overpower the weakened aetherial density of the currents precisely because she herself had stopped their reinforcement. To the original point, this is all very bad strategizing.

otherwise the plan for Meteions defeat would’ve gone unchanged,

What plan? Her "plan" was "I'll try and maintain the status quo forever, and if that doesn't work run away with whoever I can, but maybe if someone comes along and wants to go for it I'll let them do it if they beat me in a fight."

And yes, hiding the fact that you're in a war and then starting an eternal civil war where your side has no idea what they're fighting for or against is extremely counterproductive.

[sidurgu-12]

this has been one giant circle thats going nowhere. can we just stop already?

[Lyth]

...

And as you rightly pointed out, the Ancients are very (aetherically) dense. So if you're talking equivalent exchange, we're talking about an equivalently large-scale sacrifice of countless lives. And it's not hard to see why there would be opposition to that.

If you watched through the same lectures that you linked, you don't really have to have a rule-driven hard magic system in place to create a satisfying narrative. The Ancients' creation magic is very much a soft system. Concentrate on the form of the thing that you want to create, snap your fingers, and then there it is. You can solve pretty much any problem that you like with such a system in place. The limitation is the cost, which is what sets the victory condition. You can save your planet - but at the cost of half of the population of Amaurot. You can restore the destruction wrought by the Final Days - but at the cost of a quarter of the population of Amaurot.

Without that cost, you sidestep the conflict. If it was just a matter of saving up enough aether crystals or biological waste products to pay Zodiark, then there never was a conflict at all. You just snapped your fingers and solved the problem. If it was just merely a question of aether, why do you need to sacrifice lives at all? Get every Amaurotian to spare a snifter of their bounteous reserves. But we're not trading in aether. We're trading in souls. And that's why the price paid has meaning.

That's the same reason why time travel as a 'magic system' has to have a victory condition/constraints in place as well in order for it to be satisfying. If you can undo events at will, nothing has consequences, and there is no conflict. You just snap your fingers and undo the bad event. Elpis very deliberately teases you with this by setting the constraint before you enter and then toying with it as you travel through the area.

[KizuyaKatogami]

And as you rightly pointed out, the Ancients are very (aetherically) dense. So if you're talking equivalent exchange, we're talking about an equivalently large-scale sacrifice of countless lives. And it's not hard to see why there would be opposition to that.

If you watched through the same lectures that you linked, you don't really have to have a rule-driven hard magic system in place to create a satisfying narrative. The Ancients' creation magic is very much a soft system. Concentrate on the form of the thing that you want to create, snap your fingers, and then there it is. You can solve pretty much any problem that you like with such a system in place. The limitation is the cost, which is what sets the victory condition. You can save your planet - but at the cost of half of the population of Amaurot. You can restore the destruction wrought by the Final Days - but at the cost of a quarter of the population of Amaurot.

Without that cost, you sidestep the conflict. If it was just a matter of saving up enough aether crystals or biological waste products to pay Zodiark, then there never was a conflict at all. You just snapped your fingers and solved the problem. If it was just merely a question of aether, why do you need to sacrifice lives at all? Get every Amaurotian to spare a snifter of their bounteous reserves. But we're not trading in aether. We're trading in souls. And that's why the price paid has meaning.

That's the same reason why time travel as a 'magic system' has to have a victory condition/constraints in place as well in order for it to be satisfying. If you can undo events at will, nothing has consequences, and there is no conflict. You just snap your fingers and undo the bad event. Elpis very deliberately teases you with this by setting the constraint before you enter and then toying with it as you travel through the area.

This is the basis for the protagonists though. We literally have a magic stone that we snap our fingers and it undoes any bad thing that happens to us.Yshtola time and time again has proven she can just undo any bad thing that happens to her. There hasnt been consequences for the protagonists for a long time, and i dont see anyone questioning that, so why is it all of a sudden impossible or convoluted to apply it to the antagonists? You state it wouldnt be good for the story. So are mass amounts of plot armor and plot holes to keep characters safe and alive also not good for the writing?

[Veloran]

And as you rightly pointed out, the Ancients are very (aetherically) dense. So if you're talking equivalent exchange, we're talking about an equivalently large-scale sacrifice of countless lives. And it's not hard to see why there would be opposition to that.

Equivalent exchange is done for a purpose. In this case Zodiark wouldn't be undertaking some monumental task, he would just be trading out his now-unnecessary huge aether batteries.

If you watched through the same lectures that you linked, you don't really have to have a rule-driven hard magic system in place to create a satisfying narrative. The Ancients' creation magic is very much a soft system.

The "soft vs hard magic system" concept isn't a scale between unsatisfying and satisfying. I would also say their magic isn't really all that soft, we know how it works and have been dealing with bootleg versions of it since the game started. A story where the magic system is cleverly utilized to provide an option out of a seemingly-hopeless catch-22 can be very narratively satisfying. The issue of creation magic in comparison to Dynamis is that, again, we understand it fairly well and have been dealing with it forever, meanwhile Dynamis is introduced at the eleventh hour of the plot, is extremely plot-critical, and effectively has infinite power and no rules. And if creation magic is like a 40 on the soft-hard scale, Dynamis is like a -25.

That's the same reason why time travel as a 'magic system' has to have a victory condition/constraints in place as well in order for it to be satisfying. If you can undo events at will, nothing has consequences, and there is no conflict.

They kinda broke that idea entirely with Shadowbringers, and Elpis, and Pandemonium.

This is the basis for the protagonists though. We literally have a magic stone that we snap our fingers and it undoes any bad thing that happens to us.Yshtola time and time again has proven she can just undo any bad thing that happens to her. There hasnt been consequences for the protagonists for a long time, and i dont see anyone questioning that, so why is it all of a sudden impossible or convoluted to apply it to the antagonists? You state it wouldnt be good for the story. So are mass amounts of plot armor and plot holes to keep characters safe and alive also not good for the writing?

100% this.

[Lyth]

...

The example that Sanderson gives in the lecture that Valorian linked contrasts Helm's Deep and Pelennor Fields in the Lord of the Rings as a means of illustrating the principle. The same solution is used to resolve both of them (army shows up, we win). The difference is that Helm's Deep has a victory condition placed upfront (survive for five days). This, he argues, is the reason why the former feels satisfying, while the latter feels like Deus Ex Machina.

The use of Azem's soul crystal in Ultima Thule is very deliberately set up. Y'shtola tells you before she makes her sacrifice that you can use the soul crystal to summon them all back. However, she tells you that you can't do that, because it would reset all of the dynamis effects that your companions' sacrifices are sustaining. That's the victory condition right there. There's another critical piece of information that you have from earlier that tells you how the conflict will be resolved, namely that line from Hyth:

'Perhaps when our time comes to return to the star, we shall remember these days that we have lost.'

Which the writers deliberately make a point of reminding you mere moments before Azem makes the critical move.

Now imagine what happens when we take away these elements. We never hear anything about how the soul crystal can or cannot be used, and we aren't given any reason as to why Emet would have his memories back. Then the use of Azem's crystal loses its impact. For magic to be effective as a storytelling device, the readers need to know the constraints to solve the problem.

[Veloran]

The example that Sanderson gives in the lecture that Valorian linked contrasts Helm's Deep and Pelennor Fields in the Lord of the Rings as a means of illustrating the principle. The same solution is used to resolve both of them (army shows up, we win). The difference is that Helm's Deep has a victory condition placed upfront (survive for five days). This, he argues, is the reason why the former feels satisfying, while the latter feels like Deus Ex Machina.

The use of Azem's soul crystal in Ultima Thule is very deliberately set up.

The arrival of reinforcements at Pelennor was also set up. In the film it's basically the entire C plot. Something being set up does not, in and of itself, make for a satisfying and resonant narrative point.

Zooming out a bit, the complete plot-aegis of the protagonists is probably the worst aspect of the story as a whole. I feel practically nothing for the character's struggles or the threats against them, because it's all utterly toothless. At least in Shadowbringers when WoL was coming down with the Light-cancer that could be internalized by the player, but even that is an outlier in like eight years of nostakes character progression. This even extends to most of the tertiary characters.

[EaraGrace]

Funny how she would go on to serve as a supreme goddess answering the hopes and prayers of the suffering.

Most religious systems in universe don’t seem to worshipping Hydaelyn are they? The only actions we have record of are Her efforts to stop the calamities, but other events not so much. In fact, given the lack of any record of Her communicating directly with the Sundered, She seemed to stay out of a lot of things entirely.

I'll also say again that creating aether-thin beings =/= sundering the entire world.

Sure, but if you already have to Sunder the world to weaken Zodiark, seems like you’re accomplishing both.

The sundering's effects on Zodiark and the maintainment of the aether currents is something that, at best, Venat could glean by mere inference of WoL's existence in the future. But the truth is that because WoL didn't know the specific circumstances of the first Final Days and the sundering, Venat doesn't actually know the why or how of this.

She knew enough to develop an entirely new form of magic for the purpose of imprisoning him, giving Hydaelyn that power and betting everything on it.

Combined with the fact that by her own words she intends to change the future and doesn't know if the timeline will go unchanged, this means that when doing the sundering Venat was taking a complete shot in the dark that just maybe the particular conditions of WoL's timeline would repeat in this instance and she wouldn't inadvertently destroy the world.

A reminder that in each timeline enervation is developed by Venat and her faction for that purpose, meaning they would carry at least some understanding of how it functions yes? And the Watcher directly says they wished to keep Zodiarks magicks working, it seems clear they were aware and trying to avoid that potentiality. I’m not sure what you’d ask of them to do, given we don’t seem to disagree on what their goals were they seemed to do everything and were successful in accomplishing them.

And if they failed then in their eyes the point is moot, as the world would be doomed either way right?

Furthermore as you yourself note, Meteion was gaining power over time - Meaning that even if the 13/14ths density reduction was still sufficient to block Meteion 12,000 years ago, she doesn't know if it will be into the future. If we accept that Venat believed that Zodiark would one day fail and it was merely a stalling tactic, her own actions could only have been detrimental to the length of that timespan they were spared. Even more, as you vociferously insist, she spent quite a lot of time and energy afterwards halting rejoinings, meaning that for all she knew at any moment Meteion would finally overpower the weakened aetherial density of the currents precisely because she herself had stopped their reinforcement. To the original point, this is all very bad strategizing.

There are several presumptions we are making here. First is that weakening Zodiark necessarily means weakening the laws he’s established. Given the removal of his heart, which we know weakens the primal, didn’t raise any concern and given how willing they were to fuck around with soul exchange, I’d say the laws he wrote are pretty durable. Provided he’s not, yknow, dead.

What plan? Her "plan" was "I'll try and maintain the status quo forever, and if that doesn't work run away with whoever I can, but maybe if someone comes along and wants to go for it I'll let them do it if they beat me in a fight."

Imprison Zodiark, gather aether, and buy humanity time to recover from the Sundering and reaffirm their lives in the face of inevitable oblivion. Then, with the resources and technology developed, take the fight to Meteion.

And yes, hiding the fact that you're in a war and then starting an eternal civil war where your side has no idea what they're fighting for or against is extremely counterproductive.

Once again, if Hydaelyn had lost or the fight was never fought in the first place then it is the position of Venat and her group that the world was doomed. Igniting a conflict under that circumstance would not be counterproductive, and what do ya know you know it turned out to be correct.

Zooming out a bit, the complete plot-aegis of the protagonists is probably the worst aspect of the story as a whole. I feel practically nothing for the character's struggles or the threats against them, because it's all utterly toothless. At least in Shadowbringers when WoL was coming down with the Light-cancer that could be internalized by the player, but even that is an outlier in like eight years of nostakes character progression. This even extends to most of the tertiary characters.

The Light Warden threat had exactly the same amount of teeth as the Scions sacrifice in Ultima, a potential end that had zero chance of occurring due to meta textual elements. If anything it had less teeth, as the PC has to survive, while other characters can be killed and there still be a video game to play.