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

[Skyborne]

Think playing through Shadowbringers and Endwalker should be a requirement before talking about the story... on top of that, there's been endless thoughtful posts in this thread, and other threads regarding Zodiark/the ancients/Venat. Seems like the typical 'you MUST answer MY question in a very specific way that I define or it doesn't count, and even if you do I will reject it since it isn't what I wanted'.

[Atelier-Bagur]

No offence, but are we even playing the same story? Summoning Zodiark is integral to her plan...

Youre ignoring my question. If she didnt sunder the world and only Zodiark was around what wouldve that helped the star?

[Caurcas]

Remove man's ability to strive and to struggle and you remove the ability to understand life and its importance. Brutal and harsh? Maybe, but necessary.

[Brinne]

Remove man's ability to strive and to struggle and you remove the ability to understand life and its importance. Brutal and harsh? Maybe, but necessary.

Nah, I don't think so.

[Caurcas]

Nah, I don't think so.

I see you missed Ra La.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Youre ignoring my question. If she didnt sunder the world and only Zodiark was around what wouldve that helped the star?

First of all, what do you mean Zodiark consuming more souls to preserve himself? Shadowbringers and Endwalker both ended that unsupported idea that he was some blood god that continuously ate souls. Disregarding that though, if she didn’t sunder the world and instead told them the truth of everything, they might’ve not even needed to summon Zodiark in the first place. We know the ancients can create beings capable of manipulating Dynamis. They had a facility they could use to learn the way of manipulating it themselves. There are numerous options given to us.Let’s not forget btw, her/Hydaelyn is the actual primal that wholly consumed souls until there was nothing left. At least the souls were still there inside Zodiark.

[Rulakir]

The fury of one friend in particular over the montage sequence was based around how it was contorting itself to uplift the struggles of Venat as a tragic individual, asking us to focus on her perspective and how much the Sundering was hurting her, and used everyone she had killed and subjected to suffering as narrative accessories for her noble torment.

Same. I call it the pity walk through the ages. :P Thanks so much for the detailed write up, I appreciated reading the different perspectives. Apparently my theory was way off, so I consider it thoroughly debunked!

[Brinne]

I see you missed Ra La.

Ra-La owns. The only problem I have with it is that I main Sage, and when someone gets hit with Doom, topping them up in a hurry can be quite tricky!

[Kyohei]

The sundered do not understand life and its importance more than the ancients. One just needs to see every expansions and wars that fuel them, or how eorzeans treat beast tribes.
Ancients actually valued life enough to sacrifice themselves as fuel to save their star and life on it. If we talk about how they had a procedure to end creations, that wasn't something they were happy about as we can see in side quests. The creators are sad for their creations if they have to be cancelled, so they do value them. Also, the process of deciding whether a creation gets to stay or not is driven with life quality of said creation and the ecosystem it will evolve in in mind. Hardly something one considers if they don't value or understand living.
The only one who thinks ancients don't value life enough is Hermes, but that is only because he refused to accept death as a whole. He refused to accept the death of his mentor, and can't accept the death of creations that would suffer and make other creations suffer if they weren't terminated. Ultimately this inability to welcome death as part of life leads him to nihilistic thoughts.

It's a very weak and reductive argument to write off the ancients as equal to Ra-la civilisation.
No one could predict how the ancient civilisation would have evolved if Venat had shared all the knowledge she had. Actually, no one can decently predict how a civilisation as a whole will evolve, if they'll die out or thrive. It's possible to assumptions based on past and present elements, make statistics, but there is no definite way to predict the future.

[PawPaw]

Youre ignoring my question. If she didnt sunder the world and only Zodiark was around what wouldve that helped the star?

I'm confused by your question, to be honest. Zodiark was created because the Ancients didn't know what else to do to combat what was happening to them. Do you mean what would have happened if Venat had allowed the Convocation to do their third proposed sacrifice to bring back their loved ones? That's a different question. Because the issue that I think most people here have is that Venat knew exactly how to combat Meteion, how to track Meteion and that Meteion was coming to kill her people and she did and said nothing to warn them or afford them an opportunity to find a way other than Zodiark.

Effectively, the Ancients solved their own problem even without knowing what was actually causing it. Zodiark's shield holds well into our time 12 thousand years into the future and this is after he's been split into 14 parts. There's no reason to believe it wouldn't have held for as long as they needed it to. Zodiark, the flawed solution to a desperate problem, is helping the star by being the only thing keeping the world alive and the only reason the WoL draws breath. And he was not created thanks to Venat, she just used him as she uses everything and everyone for her own means.