When are we supposed to stop fighting?

[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.