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

[KizuyaKatogami]

snip

Considering she caused far more death than the ascians ever did, while also lying,manipulating,and keeping secrets not only from her own people but from us as well, yes to me she’s a villain. Had she actually told her people the truth, perhaps they could have banded together and prevented the final days from occurring in the first place. But no, instead she kept it a secret. You just keep creating double standards for the sundered where it’s okay for them to do something but wrong for the ancients to do so.The lykaons were also a case of doing it for the greater good as they were going to end up slaughtering the other specimans. Lets not forget btw, if you do diadem, one of the mounts even acknowledges the fact that the "adventurers"(our wol's) from old diadem rendered an entire species almost extinct with only one surviving.Great value on life that. The sundered didn’t exactly get the message, do you remember ironworks? They were willing to sacrifice an entire timeline of people to bring back the wol because they couldn’t move forward in their world. The ancients were planning to move forward though, their whole plan was to resume their duties after the 3rd sacrifice, Venat didn’t give them that chance. Zodiark is without a doubt a “good guy.” He shielded the planet for thousands of years and kept it safe. Were it not for him we would be dead. Elidibus sacrificed himself for us, without him, again, we would be dead.

[BokoToloko]

C

You have literally zero metrics for deaths and pinpointing every death for age as a Hydaelyn kill is as absurd as proclaiming Amaurot culture is the culprit for their suicides. And not only that, the habitants themselves would have to admit it as abnormal which they don't. Not to mention it assumes the sundered lives follow Amaurotian standards when they DON'T. They're a whole different thing with a whole different set of values and yes, different standards for what living entails. And if people actually cursed that condition, then the Ascians would've had their work cut out for them. Just tell them their future selves will be better if they renounce themselves for the good ol' Zodiark. You count as a crime, but literally most (if not all) would see it as anything but that. The only ones who can't cope with that fact are the Ascians, who are completely unable to come to terms with it.

And Zodiark and their followers have NEVER been the good guys, and the fact people try to believe the subversion of expectatives work here is absolutely baffling. You go several expansion trying to fix the messes Ascians leave left and right, witnessing the atrocities they commit and just because they have lived in a cool place that bad bad crystal mommy took away from them they're completely justified and the life and work of the Warrior of Light is a pile of worthless misguided garbage they should've gotten rid of in favor to champaigning the glorious genocides and ruining the lives instead of improving them just because... Elidibus himself tried to killed us. Several times. And literally stripped other worlds from their heroes for the last stand, using them to fuel himself. But, hey, he saved us that one time, so it's all good.

And then I'm the one using double standard when you're using every fringe situation to illustrate a case that's focused on the MSQ and the MSQ alone. And I never said the sundered were good or better, but trying to paint the Ascians and Zodiark as good guys is as disingenuous as it gets. As a matter of fact, any attempt to reduce the plot to a black/white is absurd.

[KizuyaKatogami]

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I never said it was black and white, however, Zodiark and Hydaelyn themselves can be argued are innocent. It’s their hearts that dictate what they do. Zodiark didn’t do anything but good. He saved the planet not once but twice and helped it flourish. Hydaelyn, while she did sunder the world, was due to the actions of Venat, her heart. The story is pretty much morally gray barring a few outliers. The devs themselves however have stated they expect people to take the sides of the ascians/ancients and others to take the sides of the sundered. They promote this kind of debate. They also state that the ascians aren’t in all actuality villains. They’re the heroes of their own story much as we’re the heroes of our own story. It doesn’t change the fact however.Venat did countless bad and to some, evil deeds. I don’t think many would argue the ascians haven’t done bad things, but it’s the grand scheme of things, context matters. They wouldn’t have to do these things if it weren’t for one person and that person is Venat.

As for the death thing, i’ll be generous. Let’s say only 25% of the age deaths count towards hydaelyn’s sundering. That is still trillions of lives lost because of her. We know illness was a foreign concept to the ancients based on Emet’s short story. We know they lived for a much much greater lifespan than the sundered, so yes, that death can indeed be pinned on her. The sundered are sundered shards of the ancients. As far as your comments about them just basically needing to roll over and die, i find extremely amusing. You realize the scions themselves agreed they’d do no different were they in the ascians’ shoes. So it seems you’re the outlier here. Again i bring up Ironworks, who didn’t just give up and die. They placed all their hopes in one person just like the ancients placed their hope in the convocation and Zodiark. They were willing to sacrifice millions of people to bring us back. Guess they’re evil for not rolling over and accepting fate? Even though in the final trial of this expansion both Alphinaud and Alisaie acknowledge they will fight against fate no matter what.