Sundering stuff established in the Q&A

[Cleretic]

So much this. I am unhappy that they left the answer up to individual headcanon. Thus really needs more discussion on the forums then it's getting.

I actually think this is the right thing for them to do, and have argued for pretty much exactly this before.

Azem is intended to essentially be our avatar in the world at that time. Becauze Azem is us, whatever view Azem takes in this is therefore implicitly the correct choice, because 'we' made it. However, Zodiark V. Hydaelyn is intended to be an dubious question with no clear right answer between them.

You cannot have both an implicitly correct character and an unresolvable moral question within the same story, because then whatever choice that character makes becomes the right answer to a question that should not have one (including if Azem explicitly took neither side, which they didn't do; we don't know why they left the Convocation and we don't know why they didn't answer Venat). So, yeah, the right answer for the writers is to take Azem out of the equation, and leave it to us to answer what they're doing otherwise.

Personally, my belief is that Azem is off solving other smaller but no less legitimate problems, because whoever comes out on top is going to want the world to be okay otherwise. If the Convocation come out ahead, they don't want to turn around and find out Amaurot burned down while they were busy, and if Venat comes out ahead she doesn't want to find out that the lives she's banking on got wiped out by a tidal wave ten minutes later.

[EaraGrace]

The only thing that leaves a bitter taste is that she let the unsundered willingly escape, but even that has it's answers. We can all agree to disagree tho.

This is the big thing I still have questions on. We have numerous examples to draw from showing Venat working to prevent the calamities the Unsundered brought about, and we have her own statements pre and during Endwalker where she says she’s working against them. All of this would suggest she doesn’t want them to happen, so then why leave the crack for Emet? If she only intended Emet to make it through, perhaps due to his role in Elpis, then it’s all relatively self explanatory. If not, and she intended all three to escape, then we have a contradiction.

So idk lol

[tokinokanatae]

There is no contradiction. Yoshi-P said very clearly that she was trying to preserve the timeline that led to the WoL, which would mean the Calamities had to occur.

I’m sure she was very sad about it, though.

[Cleretic]

If she only intended Emet to make it through, perhaps due to his role in Elpis, then it’s all relatively self explanatory.

Good news, this is exactly what was said that she did. Her only aim was 'give Emet a window to live', the other two just lucked out.

Which confirms what we all knew: that nobody actually wants Lahabrea around, he just stubbornly persists despite that.

[Absimiliard]

In other words, Yoshi-P favors the idea of it being a stable time loop, and most of the in-game events do support this interpretation. Moreover, this would mean it's not the first loop, and it won't be the last. Stable time loops are eternal unless some external force swoops in to disrupt them. Makes one wonder just how many times the loop has repeated now. The entire system would essentially be consigned to it, as the loop was forced into being a necessity for Etheirys to survive.

[EaraGrace]

In other words, Yoshi-P favors the idea of it being a stable time loop, and most of the in-game events do support this interpretation. Moreover, this would mean it's not the first loop, and it won't be the last. Stable time loops are eternal unless some external force swoops in to disrupt them.

Agreed. This song feels particularly apt.

We lean to turn in the velodrome
All lines are curved in the velodrome
We pitch and roll, wheels
Flesh and bone
Total control and it's
It's ours alone

[tokinokanatae]

Okay, sure. There must be a different explanation as to why Venat purposely did her absolute best to allow the person that would cause the Calamities escape as opposed to oh, say, Azem?

Like, she was deliberately aiming for Emet-Selch to live. Knowing he’d attempt to rejoin the Shards. Guess the other option is that she was really excited about him being mentally tortured for thousands of years?

[EaraGrace]

Okay, sure. There must be a different explanation as to why Venat purposely did her absolute best to allow the person that would cause the Calamities escape as opposed to oh, say, Azem?

Like, she was deliberately aiming for Emet-Selch to live. Knowing he’d attempt to rejoin the Shards. Guess the other option is that she was really excited about him being mentally tortured for thousands of years?

That is the question we have to answer and why I’m curious about it. It’s possible she wanted him to remain Unsundered so as to retain some ability to remember Elpis, perhaps with the goal of having him remember, explaining her plan, and then having his aid.

Just theories though at the moment.

[tokinokanatae]

Except he would have remembered Elpis had he died, so that’s pretty odd. Also, other the quickest way to get his aid would have been to tell him about Meteion, which she didn’t, even though she had 12,000 years to mention it.

Also strange to me how Yoshi-P’s words are up for debate in this instance, but not in regards to the Plenty being the inescapable end of the Unsundered, since both are put forth as dev supposition.

[Lurina]

That is the question we have to answer and why I’m curious about it. It’s possible she wanted him to remain Unsundered so as to retain some ability to remember Elpis, perhaps with the goal of having him remember, explaining her plan, and then having his aid.

Just theories though at the moment.

The quote from the Q&A begins by referencing the scene in Ultima Thule where Emet discusses the idea that his role in what has happened has all been a part of Venat's plan, and then expands from a place of confirming the accuracy of his supposition. "As you think back to the text towards the end Emet-Selch did imply that Venat let him live unsundered. In fact Venat did intentionally leave a tiny floor in her Sundering attack... (etc)"

As a reminder, this is the quote from Emet which is being referred to here.

So here I am, Venat. I suppose you needed me to tie it all together, these frayed threads of history.

In my opinion, in context, this represents a implicit confirmation of what Emet is saying in this scene - that she spared him to "tie these frayed threads of history", which is to say, to resolve the time loop.