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

[Rulakir]

Heck, she herself admits that what she did caused countless suffering, bred sorrow and hate.

She does. Literally nobody else. They even wrote Emet to commend her at the end. Emet.

decided(not alone, she had followers who agreed with her)

There's actually no evidence of this. Her followers in Anyder act as if they're completely oblivious to the fact that she intends to destroy their souls to become Hydaelyn (this was confirmed in the LL) or that she intends to do anything other than stop Zodiark, on the contrary, they act as if she is the one who will be leaving them as Elidibus did the Convocation.

[redheadturk]

It is if not outright stated, at least HEAVIYL implied that they intended to sacrifice the new races and species that sprung forth after the second sacrifice for the third and beyond, not themself(or atleast not themself exclusivly)



Yes, Yes what Venat did was Genocide in some definition i am not here to argue that, noone should deny that.
BUT it is pretty much spelled out(if not at least implied heavily) that, no the ancients would NOT have discoverd a way to fight Meteion, they would not have reached ultima Thule and Confronted the Endisinger. They would NOT have made it this far.
Their reaction to experience true wide scale suffering for the first time(or at least first time in a LONG LONG WHILE) was to run away, to look away and sacrifice more of their number to make the catastrophy as if it never happend.
They tried to escape, heck Emet selch and the unsunderd still tried to escape after they got sunderd, to the point where they planned to sacrifice more lives(lives they found "beneath" them) to bring back those they lost

Let's just say if it was between my loved ones and sentient dogs? Yeah, sorry, those dogs are going into Zodiark's belly. And you know what? I wouldn't even feel bad about it. And you know why they would have had trouble discovering such? Because Venat freaking lied to them by omission! If they had known what they were up against? Ancients are damned resourceful people, they would have found a way.

[Teraq]

(snip)

I get that the writers wanted to tell us Venat was conflicted about what she did. I think most of us here do. The problem is that Venat herself is the only one commenting on how cruel her actions were, and it is largely glossed over by everyone else. There is very little nuance to be found when Y'shtola immediately pats her on the back because dYnAMiS (also, I entirely disagree that Ancients could not do a single thing against her, and that the plot heavily suggests otherwise is IMO a complete failing on the writers' part) or when Emet-Selch compliments her after literally suffering for 12,000 years because of her.

When combined with the extremely shallow flanderization of Ancients as a whole from ShB to EW as people who were stuck in the past, would never learn to grow or deal with suffering and did not respect life that wasn't theirs –according to one single mentally ill dude working at an animal research facility who didn't talk to anyone else much–, the narrative feels extremely one-sided and cheapened compared to the grey conflict initially presented in ShB.

Make the sundering of the star an accident. It really feels like the writers discounted the possibility of things occurring not on purpose. Every action required intention, but they forgot that intention has a much easier tie to morality questions.

This is the only way I would have accepted the time loop, personally. Have Venat actually decide to fight "fate" rather than be its implacable agent purposefully engaging in a whole lot of bs to accomplish a time loop 12,000 years later at the cost of boundless suffering (that might not even have resulted in success!).

[MicahZerrshia]

to the point where they planned to sacrifice more lives(lives they found "beneath" them) to bring back those they lost

Were they really sacrificing those who they saw as "beneath" them or were they trying to put the pieces of fractured souls back together to undo the damage the was caused by the sundering in the first place? It's really not difficult to understand why Emet and crew saw us as not being alive. If you sister threw a vase across the room and broke said vase because it was in danger of being knocked off a table that you already put supports under, are the pieces still a vase? That is up for a philosophical argument. But you have a couple things you can do right now. You can either throw the pieces away or remake them into the vase it used to be, and if that vase was important to you, what would you do? Are you destroying the pieces for the sake of the whole or do you leave the vase broken for the sake of the pieces? The whole evil ascian thing is really not so cut and dry, esp with what we know now.

And it really wasn't spelled out that the ancients would not have succeeded, except by hydaelyn, who of course is going to use any means necessary to justify her actions, which is where the gaslighting comes in. Because that is what narcissists, abusers and straight up dictators do. When anything bad happens, the majority tend to hide, that much is true. But all it takes is a few with means and knowledge on the subject to come together and find a solution. Hydaelyn had that knowledge and as a people that had the means. Imagine, when the first plague hit mankind and we were dying by the thousands, if the top scientist who could save us because they knew exactly what was happening, decided just to kill everyone because future generations could do it better, even if the virus that killed most of humanity set us back millenia evolutionarily speaking.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Personally, i still disagree that the game tried to make hydelin unconditionally "good"
Heck, she herself admits that what she did caused countless suffering, bred sorrow and hate.
Just because the end result is good, and the other "viable" option would have most likely failed, dosnt mean the one who took the first option is inherently 100% good.


It was a choice between basically confirmed extinction only DELAYED by sacrifices(feeding zodiark), and the chance of non extinction in a future that requires sacrifices now(aka the sundering itself).
Booth options are inherently similiar in theory just the timespan fo the sacrifices, and the method in which they are used majorly differd



The ancients had a (near) perfect world, after that world was ruined, their first response wasnt to fix it themself, or discover what happend..


It was directly to sacrifice more people to get it "fixed" for them.


Venat knew what happend, and her response was, after seeing the Ancients wanted to sacrifice life to "fix" the shit they are partially responsible in causing , decided(not alone, she had followers who agreed with her) that if sacrifices will be made, sacrifices shall be made... Just that her sacrifices was everyones soul being sunderd and split instantly instead of a "few" being sacrificed every so often.

One just needs to look at the codex entry to see the level of bias surrounding her. No mention of her consuming the souls of her followers. No mention of Zodiark shielding the planet and keeping it safe. Nope it’s all just her her her saving is from the “ill fated wish”that is Zodiark. Throughout the story she takes credit for the time travel when in reality it was Elidibus. She also takes credit for keeping the planet safe when in reality…. that was Zodiark.

[KariTheFox]

Let's just say if it was between my loved ones and sentient dogs? Yeah, sorry, those dogs are going into Zodiark's belly. And you know what? I wouldn't even feel bad about it.

I wonder how the dogs would feel about that.

[KizuyaKatogami]

I wonder how the dogs would feel about that.

Do you feel bad when you’re eating cheeseburgers and steak?

[redheadturk]

I wonder how the dogs would feel about that.

I'd have my family back, so honestly, duncare.

Also, Kizuya has a point, we don't feel bad when we eat beef or pork either [pigs which are stated to have the mental ability of a three year old]. Why should the Ancients feel bad about sacrificing familiars?

[KariTheFox]

I'd have my family back, so honestly, duncare.

Also, Kizuya has a point, we don't feel bad when we eat beef or pork either [pigs which are stated to have the mental ability of a three year old]. Why should the Ancients feel bad about sacrificing familiars?

Depends, does the familiar have the capacity to think "I don't want to be sacrificed" and then communicate that to the ancients?

[CrownySuccubus]

Yeah, I don't think this argument is very productive.

There's a lot of gray area and potential nuance between "Complete lack of empathy for other species" and "Balls into a corner crying if they eat beef jerky or accidentally step on an ant."