The nature of the Sundering has been spelled out in a Nier Reincarnation side story.

[Cleretic]

Well, that sounds like a personal assumption as to what a rejoining is like. Given the emphasis of memories being etched onto the aether of the soul I could equally assume rejoinings couldn't be that bad or everyone on the Source would have severe PTSD from the trauma inflicted to their multiple soul fragments.

The world of FFXIV being the way it is with tangible souls and reincarnation prevent me from drawing any real world comparisons. The Ascians weren't killing people for the sake of it and the narrative addresses Emet's struggles with his duty. Conversely, Hermes and Venat knowingly chose violence for the express purpose of ending their world as they knew it. Intent makes a difference to me.

...the comparisons I made weren't to the Rejoinings. Yeah, we don't know what the people on the Eighth felt like, and to be honest, I don't really care enough to probe the notion. I meant the Bozja Incident, I mean the Garlean and Allagan racial suppression, I mean Black Rose.

Emet-Selch being the instigator of the Garlean Empire deliberately to cause these events puts all of that blood on his hands (and Lahabrea doesn't exactly get off scot-free either). If I had to point to my specific most hated moment in the entire story, it is exactly the point where Emet took credit for the Garleans and claimed all that was his plan, which in one swoop killed two villainous forces for me. Emet in exactly that way--orchestrating that empire completely eradicating any hope for the sympathy they'd later try to wring out of him, while also nearly-completely destroying the human element of the Garlean Empire; a big part of the tragedy behind similar regimes in history is that they are entirely made by humans doing human things to humans; adding that 'orchestrated by the Ascians' element to the Garleans nearly completely ripped out that heart of them, and just made them empty pawns. Honestly, it's a good thing Matsuno decided that human element of war would be his angle for his Shadowbringers contribution, and that their too-brief spotlight in Endwalker worked so well, or that link in to the Ascians would've compeltely ruined the Garlean Empire as a feature of the setting for me.

[MikkoAkure]

Well, that sounds like a personal assumption as to what a rejoining is like. Given the emphasis of memories being etched onto the aether of the soul I could equally assume rejoinings couldn't be that bad or everyone on the Source would have severe PTSD from the trauma inflicted to their multiple soul fragments.

The world of FFXIV being the way it is with tangible souls and reincarnation prevent me from drawing any real world comparisons. The Ascians weren't killing people for the sake of it and the narrative addresses Emet's struggles with his duty. Conversely, Hermes and Venat knowingly chose violence for the express purpose of ending their world as they knew it. Intent makes a difference to me.

Just because you’re reincarnated or your soul is recycled doesn’t mean you’re the exact same person. We are not a one-for-one to Azem. Emet’s best friend is never coming back like he wanted. Considering what we know needs to happen for a Calamity to trigger, it is not some touchy feely thing where people’s souls are simply stitched together on another world and they live through them. Their lives, cultures, and everything generations of people strived for and were passionate about are never coming back. The lead up to the Calamity also requires a lot of pain, death, and destruction on both the Shard and the Source in order to work and the two failed attempts created hell worlds.

And I don’t believe the Ascians were a pure people who were only killing because they had to. The very first quest arc in the game in Gridania for involves an Ascian sending a golem after you just because he likes killing adventurers. Emet-Selch possess some random guy on the First and twists his body to look like Solus just because he’s more comfortable like that. Before that, he gloats about the Garlean Civil War he designed being more catastrophic than he planned despite the fact that it was not necessary at all for a future Calamity and even hindered it since it gave Eorzea and Doma breathing room to get their shit together and fight back. If Emet-Selch had simply named Varis as a successor, Garlemald wouldn’t have recalled the legions and Ala Mhigo and Doma would still be under Garlean control.

[Erendis]

I'd say it's a safe bet that it can be taken seriously as canon given that the Nier universe is already directly connected to the Final Fantasy XIV universe via the Nier raid storyline. Ishikawa also had a direct hand in crafting it which suggests a desire to acknowledge and maintain a sense of canon alignment.

There was nothing canon in Nier raids no matter what they said (not even the only time where dev words did not match with things in game). As for validity of info in an unrelated mobile game, who knows /shrug.

[aveyond-dreams]

Since the release of Shadowbringers, and especially over the past several months since the release of Endwalker, there's been some controversy over what exactly happened to people during the Sundering - physically, to their identities, and whether or not this could constitute death. Other than the line from Emet after the Qitana Ravel about people barely remembering the Unsundered World, the game itself is relatively vague.

However, you may remember that there's an ongoing crossover event between Nier Reincarnation and FFXIV. A couple days ago, a new event series focusing on Emet-Selch was released written by Natsuko Ishikawa. In this, the immediate aftermath of the Sundering is directly described. I'll present it here without comment.



If you like, the whole thing can be viewed here. There's some other interesting stuff in there, too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVZh6oZziwQ

Good to see that they finally got around to it after wasting an enormous amount of time and resources on slice of life scenes while failing to effectively address the circumstances of the Sundering.

[Tehmon]

Well I think it's safe to say that Emet felt absolutely no guilt or remorse about anything he did, if this story is anything to go by. He is straight up repulsed by the sundered!

[KageTokage]

I took "My ideals are inviolate, invincible" as a fancy way of saying "I regret nothing".

I think he ultimately recognized that we had the potential of being worthy heritors of the star, but still didn't think we were actually better then the Ancients.

[Tehmon]

I took "My ideals are inviolate, invincible" as a fancy way of saying "I regret nothing".

I think he ultimately recognized that we had the potential of being worthy heritors of the star, but still didn't think we were actually better then the Ancients.

I mean, that was obviously what it was. But it's good we can finally put any lingering doubt about Emet's feeling towards the sundered and his killing spree behind us, granted this side story is '' canon. ''

[Seraphor]

No, Nier is part of FFXIV in the same way that FFXII and FF Tactics are part of FFXIV: it is not. Characters and events in FFXIV that resemble characters and events from Nier are not the characters and events from Nier. They are characters and events that resemble characters and events from Neir. In the same way, it's safe to say that characters and events in Nier that resemble characters and events from FFXIV are not the characters and events from FFXIV.

This is incorrect.
When Nier was released (or maybe even announced) it was stated that it would be canon to Nier. The events in 14 directly follow on from one of the many endings of Nier Automata, in much the same way that all of the Nier games are direct continuities from one of the alternate endings of a previous game.
YorHa: Dark Apocalypse is canon to the Nier universe.
It stands to reason that any mention of FF14 content in Nier content directly related to YorHa: Dark Apocalypse is also bilaterally canon, especially if it's written by the same writer.

This is markedly different to the Ivalice questline, which IS stated to merely be a reflection of those events and characters.

[Jandor]

I think it's more accurate to say that Nier in FFXIV is inconsequential. Yeah the events are canon, but they're so disconnected from everything else that it doesn't really matter.

I'd say the same is true in reverse too. No main story beats change as a result of this, it just adds some neat extra fluff around events we already know about, cool stuff for those invested in the lore but of no real consequence to most people.

[Cleretic]

I think it's more accurate to say that Nier in FFXIV is inconsequential. Yeah the events are canon, but they're so disconnected from everything else that it doesn't really matter.

I'd say the same is true in reverse too. No main story beats change as a result of this, it just adds some neat extra fluff around events we already know about, cool stuff for those invested in the lore but of no real consequence to most people.

Yeah, this is broadly how I read it too. Being connected doesn't mean they're actually important to each other, it just means they share a space and one day bumped into each other. 2B and the WoL have their own lives and deal with their own problems, the fact they met one day didn't really impact on either of them. It's like Gilgamesh; The fact that he's the same guy from FFV (who was also the same guy in VIII, XII, XIII-2, Dissidia 012...) is at the same time unarguably true, and in no way important.

Honestly, that's how most crossovers used to work. I can think of so many TV show crossovers that are neat at the time, but ultimately don't impact beyond that; just because Magnum P.I. and Murder She Wrote had a crossover, doesn't mean that said crossover is a huge inflection point for either, but at the same time, the fact they aren't a huge inflection point doesn't mean they didn't happen.