In regards to something involving the main cast

[Theodric]

The argument isn't that the Ancients were perfect so much as they didn't deserve to have some deluded nutter waltz in, inflict genocide upon them, declare herself to be a 'supreme deity' and then try to stifle all memory of their existence.

I don't care about the 'moral' stuff, it's a video game at the end of the day. Not the real world. I just like and desire consistency. If a game's story is going to fill my screen with lengthy sophistry fuelled rants from characters that are given every possible advantage in order to succeed then I'd rather not see the game apply its supposed 'rules' across the board and not hide the actual consequences of the likes of the Sundering behind feel good, fluffy language.

[sidurgu-12]

despite how much they all try to be the same and hide their differences behind masks and robes, the Ancients are not cut from the same cloth and are not a monolith. Just because some of them have a funeral for dead concepts doesn't mean their society as a whole is absolved of anything bad they've done and it's not like it matters either.

and this is why i love the ancients. despite having a society that's hyper focused on hiding individualism and embracing the journey to perfection they are ultimately flawed and human individuals.

[kaynide]

We do kill alot of people but I am not sure if we should take ingame achivements into account. After all the gathering I have done according to the achievements there should be no tree or rock left in the world.

We also dont know if we always kill or if some are knocked out.

But yes overall we have killed quite a few (a topic which does in a way come up in the Dark Knight quest), yet in a lot of conflicts we are also at war, where killing is sadly something that will happen.

I mean, we all started the game with "go murder some wildlife, like 5 of each, just to get a feel for how to kill things"

[kaynide]

Hot Take:

what if all this disagreement/misunderstanding is down to a difference in their character's emote in that cutscene.

Like I have an emote that is more of a "thinking something" while my wife is "looks nervous/uncomfortable..maybe needs a toilet".

[Rulakir]

The argument isn't that the Ancients were perfect so much as they didn't deserve to have some deluded nutter waltz in, inflict genocide upon them, declare herself to be a 'supreme deity' and then try to stifle all memory of their existence.

I think the thing that's the most telling in all of this is that no one here cared about familiars either until Y'shtola created 2 of them and sent them to the Void. The nixies are no different from carbuncles. Both are familiars, both are made out of nothing but aether, both can be dismissed and turn into nothingness. I wonder if you guys would still be upset if she sent carbuncles into the void since they're familiars that we're more familiar with and used to seeing being sent into combat.

I never cared about the nixies, I cared about the hypocrisy. What you just described is every Ancient creation, so I'm glad we can finally agree. I don't understand why this was ever a debate.

[MikkoAkure]

The argument isn't that the Ancients were perfect so much as they didn't deserve to have some deluded nutter waltz in, inflict genocide upon them, declare herself to be a 'supreme deity' and then try to stifle all memory of their existence.

The Ancients didn't deserve it, but it's not as though Venat and Hermes were outside forces either. They didn't just "waltz in". They were both Ancients and products of the society in different ways. Venat's adventuring gave her a different point of view from the rest of her society and it's likely Azem was the same, even if she did not reach the same conclusions. But they both chaffed at the norms and questioned the heart of their culture. Hermes cared too much in an apathetic world and then went crazy after his creations that he programmed poorly gave him news he didn't want to hear and decided that he should test the world and end it all. Hopefully we get some sort of Tales from the Dawn or something that will go deeper into their reasons why they did what they did. There's no doubt that we'll have one from Venat's point of view.

I don't recall Hydaelyn referring to herself as a "supreme deity" but the Ascians sure had things to say about their own Dark Lord and Savior, Zodiark and about how great He is and how he will plunge the world into Darkness.

I never cared about the nixies, I cared about the hypocrisy. What you just described is every Ancient creation, so I'm glad we can finally agree. I don't understand why this was ever a debate.

You haven't been paying attention to anything at all then.

Ancient Concepts/Creation magic - Can be anything from clothing, to cities, to creatures.

Concepts at Elpis - Flesh and blood creatures designed to become part of the ecosystem and even perhaps gain souls and become an integral part of the Lifestream and the circle of life. When these die in Elpis, they still remain as corpses as normal animals would.

Familiars - Both in the Ancient and modern days, beings created of pure aether and can be dismissed into aether. They are created for a specific task.


The heart at the debate is whether Y'shtola sending nixies into the Void is comparable to the Ancients' treatment of their concepts at Elpis and I say "no" because they're two different things. Familiars are not alive in the same way. They have a task embedded into their existence that shapes their entire reason for being. They do not have real bodies either. Nixies are water, porxies are clay (as one amaro found out when attempting to eat one), and carbuncles are a matrix of aether around a stone. A sidequest in Elpis even mentions that they're usually "fed" aether, not real food. Y'shtola's nixies don't even die, she dismisses them as one would dismiss a carbuncle.

[Theodric]

Venat declared herself as having a different point of view to her brethren, though as others - particularly Lauront - have pointed out on numerous occasions that doesn't really line up with Hythlodaeus revealing that Emet-Selch is himself well travelled. Simply being part of a society doesn't give someone the right to utterly destroy it, either. Especially when there's ways to change a society without eradicating it from existence entirely - as we've seen from everywhere from Limsa Lominsa to Garlemald and Ala Mhigo to Doma.

As for the difference between Zodiark and Hydaelyn, the former actually actively defended the Unsundered and Sundered versions of Etheirys whereas the latter declared herself to be a 'supreme deity', failed to explain pretty much anything in a way that wasn't an outright lie or misdirection for most of the game's existence, declared that mankind must walk (whilst bestowing herself with wings, of course) and spent most of her time sitting in the aetherial sea encouraging other people to do the heavy lifting. So, yeah, I can see why Zodiark was considered to be a saviour figure by comparison. Especially when Hydaelyn didn't save her people, or her civilisation.

As for the usual 'yOu HaVeN't BeEn PaYiNg AtTeNtiOn' accusation, all I'll say is that sort of phrasing is incredibly disingenuous. It's precisely because some here are paying attention that they're even having this discussion in the first place as well as the reason behind Endwalker itself receiving mixed reactions.

[Cleretic]

The argument isn't that the Ancients were perfect so much as they didn't deserve to have some deluded nutter waltz in, inflict genocide upon them, declare herself to be a 'supreme deity' and then try to stifle all memory of their existence.

Yeah, Nym, Mhach, Meracydia and Bozja didn't deserve what happened to them.

Wait, what was your point?

[Theodric]

Yeah, Nym, Mhach, Meracydia and Bozja didn't deserve what happened to them.

Wait, what was your point?

Well, perhaps it's something you can make one of your next videos about! After all, as per the recent clarification Live Letter in relation to Endwalker's story Venat is the one ultimately responsible for everything that the Ascians went on to do. She's the one who chose to leave room for Emet to escape the Sundering and actively leaned on the Ascian plans as part of her own agenda. Nor were either the Sundered or the Unsundered ever obligated to just roll over and die for the sake of the other. Rather than blame the Ancients for doing everything possible in order to preserve their loved ones and civilisation I'm much more inclined to lay the blame at the feet of the very unbalanced and deluded woman who decided to stand by and allow an apocalypse to strike without warning only to throw a fit and resort to genocide because the survivors didn't react the way she wanted them to.

As for my point? Well, perhaps if certain posters hadn't spent a considerable amount of their time around these parts insisting that there was never a 'good reason' for acts of genocide only to turn around and proclaim that it's fully justified so long as 'mOmMy WiTh A sOfT vOiCe' does it then these debates wouldn't be so circular.

I'd say at this point, the question can be turned back right at you. What's your point? All of this has been pointed out many times already. Lore snippets have been provided by numerous posters backing up their arguments (such as Lauront's very detailed summaries of the events leading up to the Sundering) and yet the goalposts are always moved when instead this isn't a case of debating the lore at all - it's just an attempt at spin to erode away any and all blame from those who simply don't buy into the idea that Venat did everything she could in order to protect her people.

By all means, feel free to disagree but I can safely suggest that nobody in this thread is in any position to declare that their moral stance reigns supreme and there aren't any other stances allowed. Some of us are more interested in figuring out how and why something happened, rather than trying to claim that X, Y or Z is 'perfect' and 'always justified'.

[Cleretic]

Oh, no, I'm afraid you misunderstand. I'm not pro-Hydaelyn at all; she had her reasons, and we can't ever dismiss that every single character we interact with is either a benefactor of her actions or at this point extremely, absurdly dead. At this point being anti-Hydaelyn is like being anti-Julius Caesar; you can write all the arguments you want, but it's not going to have any influence on anybody because Julius Caesar has not directly influenced society in a very long time.

But what I am is anti-'very recent crimes with still-extant victims'. And... yeah, it turns out the Ascians have committed a lot of them. I would hope you agree, over in-universe history they haven't just committed many more acts of mass destruction than Hydaelyn, but did so with considerably less remorse, and with survivors and effects that echo into the present day. Just in the four I brought up (because I specifically avoided the 'puppeted into doing the horrible thing' civilizations), there are surviving Nymians and Bozjans that are still in great turmoil because of them; depending on where you are in certain other questlines, there might be some Mhachi souls with something to say as well. Hell, your favorite civilization in the game probably has the most objections of all among those still with large populations, as not only did one of the Ascians turn their peaceful society into a militarized empire as a pawn, but then another Ascian basically turned their entire empire to dust for fun. They ain't good people, and I don't see enough people around here call them out for that!

This is technically entirely unrelated to the points the OP brings up, but it's true to the spirit of the initial question, because... well, why is it that when two sides have ostensibly committed the same acts of violence, why does this subforum only pull the knives out against one of them?

(Incidentally, my next video is related to the Ascians quite directly, but I suspect you won't be the biggest fan of what I have to say about them. Largely unrelated to this, though.)