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

[Lauront]

Of course, this bears the question of free will and why and how there's been no variation on interbreeding and intermixing over the past 12,000 years. Did every person marry/have children with the exact reflections of their spouses on other worlds? Have there been no other stories like Lamitt falling in love with Ardbert? Have there been no other mixed children like Hilda? Or do genes eventually "settle" on one species, like with G'raha?

Yes, the way that across multiple disparate shards, with differing aetheric density to the Source, and differential passage of time, all the subraces evolved in exactly the same way... not even going to go into how much that stretches credulity.

Definitely on my list of 'things that Endwalker brings out in people' is the notion that liking the story or certain characters in EW makes you a super deep philosopher-king, and anyone who didn't like the story or whatever aspects of it is some knuckle-dragging trog pleb who just didn't understand it and never picked up a philosophy book in your life.

Yeah, I've seen some of that on Twitter, where the bluebird philosopher-kings spit out Zenos's comment on whether someone would approve of his actions if his motives were better and then whine about anyone who is sympathetic towards Emet-Selch or the Ascians but rejects Venat, Hermes and Zenos's methods, as if they're all the same. I genuinely don't get these people and it seems like they fixate on actions while ignoring context and motives. They can blabber all they like about "hypocrisy" - to me, you cannot simply evaluate actions in that way. Beyond that it's subjective factors - do I like this character or not? I can guarantee they all have characters who, no matter how "well written" they are thought to be, they can't stand.

Hear me out: Ancient society was heavily built around this idea and the first person we were shown who butted heads with it (Hermes) proceeded to go absolutely insane and doom their society and potentially the universe. I think part of the reason this flew over people's heads and/or fell flat is because we were never shown the true consequences of this outside of Hermes himself.

Instead, we were shown that it works, and were never even asked if we would want to live in a society like that because we were led to believe that the guy who had a problem with it was the crazy one and that everything was fine. Ancient society was too good for the story's own good.

Were we not shown that, it would've been easy to buy that the Ancients were supposed to be "scary." Literally all it would've taken is a few throwaway lines of dialogue at least, although it would've been preferable to spend more time showing us otherwise.

My question to them would be why even try aim for that? Maybe it's "scary" to a being which isn't immortal with creation magicks, but I find it weird to aim to portray it that way, as if they're wrong simply because they're a different type of being - perhaps you could convey that they're a bit strange or otherworldly by human standards, such that we'd struggle to live that way, but to me that's something different from setting out to make them scary. And frankly, that's how SHB dealt with it.

Also, they didn't aim to do this with the dragons which, sure, have some "scary" aspects to them - no one is sitting here saying because Nidhogg went off his rocker (for understandable reasons), that dragon society needs to be reshaped from inside out, and their kind wiped out to something less "scary". Also, there is a sidequest in Elpis that does ask you to opine on how you find the ancients, giving 1) as gods 2) not too dissimilar from us (sundered) and 3) inscrutable. So clearly it runs a gamut of options, all of which I'd argue are somewhat true.

Honestly, the issue with the alternative approaches I've seen recommended is that they buy into the premise that the ancients had to be "scary" or needed to have some critical flaw, when they could just as easily have had the Sundering result from an accident or (orchestrated?) misunderstanding, instead of fixating on justifying it. I think you came to a similar conclusion here.

On a slightly more serious note, this is why hypotheticals and propositions about "why the Ancients had to die" (the only one truly serious philosophical problem in FFXIV, one might say <_<) pointing at Creation Magic has always bothered me. It's innate to them. They are born with it. Babies can do it. It's like breathing to them, in their words. To say "creation magic is the problem" is essentially saying this race of people was just flat out "born wrong," and thus had to be eradicated because they're just biologically unacceptable to be allowed to live. It starts approaching that uncomfortable area quickly for me, again.

Exactly. And to me, it's no less innate to them than a dragon's great powers are. People keep trying to frame this with us as humans as the gauge of what's "natural", but in the context of the setting, these powers are natural and innate to them. I'd speculated in the past that maybe her faction had misdiagnosed the origin of the crisis, which would be understandable if you just saw creation magicks run amok, which I think would've been a more plausible motive than what they went with.

I honestly think, at this point, it's that simple - and it bears out with the sort of baffled "look we were kinda just winging this, okay?" tone the writers have taken when pressed further about the story. I would not say "theme" in the sense EW tried to pursue was a strong point - or even seemed to be a primary concern - for FFXIV up until Shadowbringers, which seems to have been largely Ishikawa's individual effort that largely slipped under Yoshida's notice, given his confusion to its reception.

I think this hits the nail on the head.

And of course, I'm sure we'd agree that the idea of "the Ancients can't accept death" gets very tripped up in the particulars of the storyline, such as their ritual ABOUT "accepting death" having the expectation of being met with horror from the audience, or Venat's motivation centering around her being unable to accept the possible end of her world, in the far future.

If that was the aim, it utterly failed for me, because I thought the metaphor of them as the star's lifeblood was a pretty beautiful one. They were strongly pointing at the ancients seeing themselves as part of a larger life force, which some of them could perceive in its full glory by seeing the flow of aether directly, such as Emet-Selch.

Unconsensual, unplanned death was still seen as a great tragedy even among the Ancients. See: the funeral rites for the killed creations, Erich and Lahabrea grappling with Athena's death. And, hell, their very response to the mass violent deaths of the Final Days.
Also, for what it's worth, (again, as has been rehashed in this thread a million times), their memories being wiped was confirmed by Emet-Selch in Shadowbringers, and their civilization, culture, and history being lost is a given.

Indeed, some of the souls wandering the moon mention the suddenness of what struck them and the lack of catharsis. Just because they were fine with dying once they fulfilled their purpose, does not mean they'd welcome any and all death at any point.

No. He confirms it in the cave scene where he reveals Hydaelyn and Zodiark are primals. "And the worst part? No one could remember it." Elidibus also talks later, on the moon, on how all knowledge and memory of the Ancients being wiped from history without a trace was Hydaelyn's intent.

Yes, the Watcher also confirms this one.

Most "copies" of Amaurot were actually unharmed if the First is anything to go by, so I think the implication is that the destruction and worldwide trauma caused by the Sundering rendered Amaurot either wholly inaccessible or useless, so to speak. With that in mind, it seemed like what little was left of the Ancients themselves only had a world that was mostly just wilderness to work with, and even if they retained their knowledge and memory, their lack of Creation magic would've forced a hard reset anyways if most of Ancient society was built upon it.

Not trying to make a point or anything, just saying what I think happened.

Adding to this, their structures were also pretty sophisticated spaces that were larger than they were physically and required regulation to keep functioning. Some of them, like Pandaemonium, were operated using creation magicks.

It was admittedly really confusing because she said both "it was the only way to defeat almighty Zodiark" and "yes, it is as you said" to Y'shtola questioning if giving us the potential to manipulate of dynamis was the purpose of the Sundering in the same line. Was that her purpose all along? Or was that just her trying to make the best out of the bad situation? It's not nearly as clear as anyone in this thread would tell you. I'd be really interested in learning how that line was in the original Japanese and how it was translated in other languages.

It's similar in French to EN. Basically, I think the picture which emerges is this: Zodiark would stand in her way and he had to be removed without being destroyed, but he was too powerful for her to defeat, so she had to sunder the entire star along with him in order to enact her plan of sundering the ancients (the explicit and ostensible aim was to sunder them to “remove temptation”.) She confirms to Y'shtola that it's to facilitate manipulation of dynamis (which alone is an awful reason for it), but both from the montage and what the Q&A state, it's the fate of the Plenty which she fears as inevitable if her people don't change - and she believed they wouldn't. That entire line of thinking is littered with flaws, but that's what it is.

Yes, and the Q&A confirmed he is correct.

On the point of whether the sundering is genocide, I don't think there's any room for debate. It reduced their lifespans to a fraction of what they were, meaning in effect it would kill them. Whether that takes a while to take place (not really very long relative to their total lifespans), that alone suffices to kill them off. The Q&A confirms that the sundered races evolved as a consequence of the sundering and she even acknowledges them as something separate to herself when she calls herself “the last of my kind”, but the fact that they also lose creation magicks, are aetherically thinned out and lose access to their full spectrum of echo abilities all add to this. She then sought to ensure they were lost to memory.

If the sundered were forcefully subjected to this fate, I doubt they’d somehow just roll with it because it isn’t “really” genocide – yes, it is. It would wipe them out as species in their current form and result in something quite unrecognisable to them if done in the same way as it was done to the ancients.

The only time it's ever mentioned at all to my recollection is in the final Elpis cutscene, where Venat claims that sacrificing more lives to reclaim the lost was "weakness".

We are never given further context to the "new life" which I feel was sorely needed to make it seem like a convincing reason for the Sundering to be necessary., because giving up the lives of some inconsequential beasts to spare your brethren from languishing for eternity as part of a god would hardly strike me as a sign of weakness.

Yeah, and by 5.2 they seem to be focused on the "doom" that awaited the ancients - the sacrifices are only an instrumental part of that, in that they'd power Zodiark to ensure he continued being able to defend the star even as the souls were withdrawn from him. They are never mentioned by her in any other context than that. It's always the purpose she's focused on, not the actual act.

[Skyborne]

My question to them would be why even try aim for that? Maybe it's "scary" to a being which isn't immortal with creation magicks, but I find it weird to aim to portray it that way, as if they're wrong simply because they're a different type of being - perhaps you could convey that they're a bit strange or otherworldly by human standards, such that we'd struggle to live that way, but to me that's something different from setting out to make them scary. And frankly, that's how SHB dealt with it.

Also, they didn't aim to do this with the dragons which, sure, have some "scary" aspects to them - no one is sitting here saying because Nidhogg went off his rocker (for understandable reasons), that dragon society needs to be reshaped from inside out, and their kind wiped out to something less "scary". Also, there is a sidequest in Elpis that does ask you to opine on how you find the ancients, giving 1) as gods 2) not too dissimilar from us (sundered) and 3) inscrutable. So clearly it runs a gamut of options, all of which I'd argue are somewhat true.

Honestly, the issue with the alternative approaches I've seen recommended is that they buy into the premise that the ancients had to be "scary" or needed to have some critical flaw, when they could just as easily have had the Sundering result from an accident or (orchestrated?) misunderstanding, instead of fixating on justifying it. I think you came to a similar conclusion here.

Exactly. And to me, it's no less innate to them than a dragon's great powers are. People keep trying to frame this with us as humans as the gauge of what's "natural", but in the context of the setting, these powers are natural and innate to them. I'd speculated in the past that maybe her faction had misdiagnosed the origin of the crisis, which would be understandable if you just saw creation magicks run amok, which I think would've been a more plausible motive than what they went with.

Vehn Aht: "My fellow brothers and sisters, if draconity is to completely defeat the Omicron, you must lend me your souls so that I can remove your wings and cut out your vocal cords. Only with our claws and fangs alone will we find the eternal light! No flying or using fancy magicks! Walk! (shields her favorite chosen one dragon with her voice magicks)"

[Lauront]

Vehn Aht: "My fellow brothers and sisters, if draconity is to completely defeat the Omicron, you must lend me your souls so that I can remove your wings and cut out your vocal cords. Only with our claws and fangs alone will we find the eternal light! No flying or using fancy magicks! Walk! (shields her favorite chosen one dragon with her voice magicks)"

I found this pretty funny: flip the narrative here from "experience" to "avoid" (or "reduce") and change some of the names here, and what does this sound a bit like.