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

[linayar]

No, Venat was well aware that the effects of the Sundering would cause mankind to suffer more, die horrible deaths they otherwise would have, and would also cut their lives to a fraction of what they were. That was the entire PURPOSE of the Sundering, and she had ample knowledge of what it would cause thanks to receiving a heads-up about the future.

She knows what will be the result in terms of the bad things that can happen, but the result was not why she sundered mankind. That's why she pled with the Ancients. If they didn't choose to go with their plan of sacrificing the new life to return their old lives, I don't think she would commit the sundering.

The sundering also had nothing to do with Zodiark. It was Meteion that the Sundering was ultimately supposed to defeat by teaching mankind to "live through suffering". But honestly, that's taking the logic of the story at face value, and I've already gone through pages and pages of explanations about why it doesn't work even after the story tried to bend over backwards to make it work.

Of course the sundering had to do with Zodiark. The sundering happened because she couldn't kill Zodiark, so she had to weaken him somehow, and yes, it also had to do with Meteion as an action does not have to have only one purpose.

Also, no. This notion you have of "well if I didn't end your life today, then I didn't kill you" is nonsense.

Again, if I stab you, and this injury directly leads to your death even in an indirect way (you wander into the street looking for help and get hit by a bus), I will STILL get arrested and convicted of murder. "Killing", neither legally nor ethically, is limited to directly ending someone's life with one act.

Your examples still do not apply because they are about specific injuries. The sundering is not about specific injury as the whole world was sundered. If what you say is true, then the planet itself is injured and dying.

Also, another factor contributing to the shortened life spans is the loss of creation magic, meaning mankind had to work harder to exist and not rely simply on creation magic. Quality of life changes alone can change life spans. That is not a direct comparison to actually stabbing an individual because the indivual was not injured. All the resulting problems happened because life is harder for them, so conflicts can arise more easily.

Hey, good to know if somebody deliberately hits me with a car to render my body and mind nonfunctioning, naturally simultaneously destroying my memories, and giving me a final life expectancy of about six months out, that so long as my heart beats and my womb works, they didn't kill me! Pack it in, folks.

I still don't see where any of that was said in the story.