Sundering stuff established in the Q&A

[Kozh]

I do at least try to be understanding and try to see the perspective of those disagree with me, until it’s made clear that it’s not reciprocated.

Sorry to say, but I never get the feeling that you try to see other's perspective. It's hard to believe when you went to public forum, then said "gonna interrupt the echo chamber" just because some similar minded people were having a conversation. SpectrePhantasia wasn't even confrontational in their post, you're the one who decides to feel insulted all of the sudden. Using a capslock or two isn't equal to them yelling at you.

At this point why should I. All I get for my opinions is sneering and condescension. Why should I offer anymore good faith in these conversations?

I won't dismiss the possibility of someone being rude to you, but why take it on other people who doesn't have anything to do with it? Also, all you get is sneering and condescension? Idk about you but that feels kinda rude to people who support and upvotes your post.

Yet she reacts with surprise when we mention Elpis. Or what about her statement when leave to go back to our time? (Combined speech in all four languages)

See, THIS is the Venat I love. That's why I said in one of my previous post that pre-elpis venat and post-elpis venat are written for different story directions. Pre-elpis venat is the one who says "[the Ancients] are flawed, but I'm going to save it, warts and all" and "nothing is impossible". She's the one who had traveled the world, find the beauty of both her world and people, and want to save it. Meanwhile post-elpis venat is written more as "the end justify the means". If the sundering had a term&condition that explains how it comes with the risk of rejoining and how sparing emet would significantly increase that risk, she definitely read and tick the box. Even if she meant for emet to survive for his role in ultima Thule alone (though it's near impossible since she can't predict that far), it doesn't change the fact she accepted the chance for rejoining to happen.

[polyphonica]

See, THIS is the Venat I love. That's why I said in one of my previous post that pre-elpis venat and post-elpis venat are written for different story directions. Pre-elpis venat is the one who says "[the Ancients] are flawed, but I'm going to save it, warts and all" and "nothing is impossible". She's the one who had traveled the world, find the beauty of both her world and people, and want to save it. Meanwhile post-elpis venat is written more as "the end justify the means". If the sundering had a term&condition that explains how it comes with the risk of rejoining and how sparing emet would significantly increase that risk, she definitely read and tick the box. Even if she meant for emet to survive for his role in ultima Thule alone (though it's near impossible since she can't predict that far), it doesn't change the fact she accepted the chance for rejoining to happen.

I think one of the biggest differences between Emet-Selch and Venat in this context is what they consider "their people." It's also tied to the wider conversation about how Ancients viewed death. Emet-Selch says that post-sundered people's aether is so weak he doesn't consider them fully alive, and believes they'd stand no chance against the Final Days (until he finally decides to give them a chance at the end of 5.0). But for Venat, she views sundering as a sort of limiter she's placing on her people that in turn gives them the potential to find hope amidst despair and face Endsinger. So Venat still very much considers sundered life "her people" -- they are souls of the Ancients in new form. Because of the lifestream and the reincarnation of souls, sundering keeps her people alive, as opposed to the alternative proposed of sacrificing more life to Zodiark (which keeps their souls trapped, and might not lead them any closer to a solution). Even the rejoinings, while unbelievably tragic, still result in the joining of souls -- death is only transient, so long as she can preserve the cycle of rebirth (and not allow the Ascians to accomplish their ultimate goals).

But the other point here is... even having accepted that she wouldn't be able to stop suffering from occurring didn't mean she could just let it happen unchallenged. Her power was weaker than Zodiark to begin with and more limited after the sundering, but she had to assume that all those bad things happened despite her best, most earnest efforts to stop it. If she had just accepted the inevitability of what we told her and done nothing to intervene in all the years (acting purely on faith that the future was inevitable and would work itself out), that could also have broken the time loop and made things even worse for us (or resulted in everyone just killing themselves off or otherwise not surviving to be able to face Meteion). So given that she didn't know exactly what she did in all those intervening years, she had to always strive fervently to nurture hope despite having birthed a world of suffering.

Personally I don't think there's a discrepancy in pre-Elpis and post-Elpis Venat, provided you can accept that she considered this to be the "nothing is impossible" best way to save her world and her people -- that she earnestly believed the only way forward was to accept the "I acknowledge all must suffer to have the best chance to save the future" checkbox. And yeah, as Yoshida said, that's one heck of an agreement for her to unilaterally sign on behalf of the entire planet, but in the end she proved that it was at least "a" path forward. (I would still also point out again that this was a path that Emet-Selch himself had opened for her to pursue as well through his actions in Ktisis Hyperboreia; he knew that this is one of the possible futures that could result, even though he didn't want to believe it.)

Perhaps you could also say that, if you follow the sort of multiverse of time-travel theory, we live in the future where she did pick this path, and so that makes her a hero from our point of view (because otherwise we wouldn't be alive). But perhaps there are a whole lot of parallel time dimensions where she made different choices, some of which worked out in a different way, some of which ended with the Ancients calling for Ra-la to kill them. We can't ever know those other paths because, from our point of view, those other paths never existed. Who is to say that we live in the "perfect future," but it is a future where we exist, faced the Final Days, and lived on to tell the tale -- so, from our (the WoL and friends') point of view, it's the good end.

[Erendis]

Venat still very much considers sundered life "her people" -- they are souls of the Ancients in new form.

We are not her people. She keeps calling us "her children" just like Garuda did Ixal...