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

[Tama-Kanzashi]

I was under the impression according to Shadowbringers and Emet-Selch's explanation is that people weren't killed when the sundering happened, just their souls were split. All the current shards that happened right after had all the remaining people were identical in appearance/intelligence/ect (when he demonstrated on Ryne) but had forgotten about being long lived beings or about their past and whatnot and then they just died due to the normal things like happenings of war, sickness or old age. I don't see how that is "killing everyone."

What Venat did was the same exact thing as what God did when he cast Adam and Eve out of paradise for not learning and heeding His lessons. She tried reasoning with them and making them learn, they refused, so they were cast out of paradise (Unsundered world). Minfilia is akin to what happened to Jesus. God also flooded the entire world in what He deemed to be a greater good for the world. Yet I don't see people ranting about how God is evil for doing that.

Hydaelyn is not a goddess, she is just a woman with a particularly large ego who is convinced that she knows better than anyone ever.

[Kazemon15]

Hydaelyn is not a goddess, she is just a woman with a particularly large ego who is convinced that she knows better than anyone ever.

Again, what is the difference? It's okay for God to do it because He's a God? How do we know the Unsundered people aren't considered Gods in this story and she just happens to be one of them? They were creating life with just their wills and magic, just like a divine being would. That sounds pretty Godly to me. We don't know much about the ancients to deem whether or not they were Godly beings or not.

I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of blaming Venat. If you wanna blame her, anyone who is religious needs to look to their own religious figures and well and question that.

[Lauront]

I was under the impression according to Shadowbringers and Emet-Selch's explanation is that people weren't killed when the sundering happened, just their souls were split. All the current shards that happened right after had all the remaining people were identical in appearance/intelligence/ect (when he demonstrated on Ryne) but had forgotten about being long lived beings or about their past and whatnot and then they just died due to the normal things like happenings of war, sickness or old age. I don't see how that is "killing everyone."

What Venat did was the same exact thing as what God did when he cast Adam and Eve out of paradise for not learning and heeding His lessons. She tried reasoning with them and making them learn, they refused, so they were cast out of paradise (Unsundered world). Minfilia is akin to what happened to Jesus. God also flooded the entire world in what He deemed to be a greater good for the world. Yet I don't see people ranting about how God is evil for doing that.

I think you need to go re-watch that scene. He's not saying they're identical at all in that scene, and factually, they are not, across a number of different dimensions. Their lifespans alone are cut by a significant factor (nigh immortal to the much shorter sundered lifespans), which would've killed any ancients off at the time. If you don't see how that is "killing everyone", then I guess you won't see how, say, slowly poisoning everyone so as to cut their lifespans down is killing them either, because death doesn't occur right then and there. They did cover the aftermath of the Sundering in the Nier crossover, here. Likewise, the modern races evolved out of the fragmented ancients to adapt to their environments given their newfound frailties, as per the Q&A pre 6.1.

Regarding your second paragraph, there are plenty who do in fact argue that the biblical deity is malevolent, or at the least quite harsh, for that very reason, but Venat is no god - she is an ancient herself. What we were shown of her in that very loosely inspired by the facts, pity me scene is not her trying to 'reason' with her people (to what end? is it a time loop or not? would they be able to wield dynamis or not? what is her end game if they did listen?), but tone-deaf lecturing delivered to a people still grieving apocalyptic levels of destruction of their star, which required the sacrifice of 75% of their number to halt the apocalypse and restore their star to a functional point.

Again, what is the difference? It's okay for God to do it because He's a God? How do we know the Unsundered people aren't considered Gods in this story and she just happens to be one of them? They were creating life with just their wills and magic, just like a divine being would. That sounds pretty Godly to me. We don't know much about the ancients to deem whether or not they were Godly beings or not.

I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of blaming Venat. If you wanna blame her, anyone who is religious needs to look to their own religious figures and well and question that.

You can direct that argument at any who are religious here, but it's not really on very solid grounds, not least of all because the god in question is, in relation to those he inflicts his decisions on, a higher being, and not just that, but the creator of all existence and life, both of which traits are relevant to its godhood and thus its perceived authority. The ancients may have many transcendent traits compared to humans, but she is one of them, they are still sufficiently human-like for us to be able to empathise with them and they did not see her as a/their god, let alone their creator; the latter two are are things she is emphatically not. So I am unclear on what 'hypocrisy' you're supposedly pointing out, even if someone is religious - which I am not; I thus have little interest in defending the biblical conception of god. Even so, trying to conflate her with the biblical god, a being which is not human at all, is just strange to me.

[Tama-Kanzashi]

Again, what is the difference? It's okay for God to do it because He's a God? How do we know the Unsundered people aren't considered Gods in this story and she just happens to be one of them? They were creating life with just their wills and magic, just like a divine being would. That sounds pretty Godly to me. We don't know much about the ancients to deem whether or not they were Godly beings or not.

I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of blaming Venat. If you wanna blame her, anyone who is religious needs to look to their own religious figures and well and question that.

Bless your soul, I don't know how to break this to you ... but when everyone is what we consider a "god" nobody is.
But when you just murderize everyone to reduce them to a lesser state of being and are effectively the last one of your people who could do all those miraculous things, and then elevate yourself into godhood when nobody asked for it...that is what is called a big dang ego.

[Jagick]

I was under the impression according to Shadowbringers and Emet-Selch's explanation is that people weren't killed when the sundering happened, just their souls were split. All the current shards that happened right after had all the remaining people were identical in appearance/intelligence/ect (when he demonstrated on Ryne) but had forgotten about being long lived beings or about their past and whatnot and then they just died due to the normal things like happenings of war, sickness or old age. I don't see how that is "killing everyone."

What Venat did was the same exact thing as what God did when he cast Adam and Eve out of paradise for not learning and heeding His lessons. She tried reasoning with them and making them learn, they refused, so they were cast out of paradise (Unsundered world). Minfilia is akin to what happened to Jesus. God also flooded the entire world in what He deemed to be a greater good for the world. Yet I don't see people ranting about how God is evil for doing that.

If you vaporize my dog to create like 13-14 completely different clones of her that exist on completely different worlds with different personalities and I neither remember her nor does she remember me, not even considering different timelines for all these worlds apparently, yeah. Yeah I'd just about say you killed my actual original dog. I don't care if all those others have a fragment of her soul or whatever nonsense. It's not actually her.

I'm not going to get into the can of worms that is IRL religion.

[aveyond-dreams]

I was under the impression according to Shadowbringers and Emet-Selch's explanation is that people weren't killed when the sundering happened, just their souls were split. All the current shards that happened right after had all the remaining people were identical in appearance/intelligence/ect (when he demonstrated on Ryne) but had forgotten about being long lived beings or about their past and whatnot and then they just died due to the normal things like happenings of war, sickness or old age. I don't see how that is "killing everyone."

We know this to not be the case, as pictured here:



This depiction is canon, and so we know that the Sundering unravelled the Ancients to the point where they had to re-evolve into the spoken races of the world. This transformation is so drastic and erased all but the faintest memories of the unsundered world, so I don't know what else you could call it.

What Venat did was the same exact thing as what God did when he cast Adam and Eve out of paradise for not learning and heeding His lessons. She tried reasoning with them and making them learn, they refused, so they were cast out of paradise (Unsundered world). Minfilia is akin to what happened to Jesus. God also flooded the entire world in what He deemed to be a greater good for the world. Yet I don't see people ranting about how God is evil for doing that.

The comparison of Hydaelyn to the Christian God is not an accurate one. Hydaelyn has demonstrated the qualities of pride and vanity in the face of the tragedy of the Final Days. By comparison, the Ancients around her were operating on logic while she attempted to preach to them about her ideals in the face of the most painful moment of their lives.

Needless to say it did not go down well. Who is she to preach to them? At that moment she certainly wasn't a being above them like the Christian God was to Adam and Eve.

Pair these qualities with her rebellion against the actual God that halted the final days, Zodiark, then what is she if not a fallen angel? Her actions and that of her biblical analogue condemned humanity to a spiral of suffering. We fought her on a literal lake of ice. Cold and beautiful, very accurate for this sort of villainous entity.

[Theodric]

Genocide is genocide. It doesn't suddenly become anything but genocide just because its effects are obscured and hidden behind fluffy language.

Let's not forget that in addition to wiping out her people and civilisation she was fully committed to lying about their motives and circumstances as well as attempting to eliminate all memory of their existence. Which, again, is yet another trait of genocide.

[Kazemon15]

We know this to not be the case, as pictured here:



This depiction is canon, and so we know that the Sundering unravelled the Ancients to the point where they had to re-evolve into the spoken races of the world. This transformation is so drastic and erased all but the faintest memories of the unsundered world, so I don't know what else you could call it.



The comparison of Hydaelyn to the Christian God is not an accurate one. Hydaelyn has demonstrated the qualities of pride and vanity in the face of the tragedy of the Final Days. By comparison, the Ancients around her were operating on logic while she attempted to preach to them about her ideals in the face of the most painful moment of their lives.

Needless to say it did not go down well. Who is she to preach to them? At that moment she certainly wasn't a being above them like the Christian God was to Adam and Eve.

Pair these qualities with her rebellion against the actual God that halted the final days, Zodiark, then what is she if not a fallen angel? Her actions and that of her biblical analogue condemned humanity to a spiral of suffering. We fought her on a literal lake of ice. Cold and beautiful, very accurate for this sort of villainous entity.

Yeah I don't consider a picture from a random youtube channel to be canon unless you can link me to the story on the actual SE site where it says this.

Emet-Selch said himself this:

(Im not sure how to link pictures here in case this isnt showing up:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vw971lybm7...t%204.jpg?dl=0

[Lauront]

Yeah I don't consider a picture from a random youtube channel to be canon unless you can link me to the story on the actual SE site where it says this.

Emet-Selch said himself this:

(Im not sure how to link pictures here in case this isnt showing up:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vw971lybm7...t%204.jpg?dl=0

It doesn't matter if you consider it to be canon or not. It is depicted from a crossover event in that game, which Ishikawa herself authored.

Your screenshot doesn't support what you're saying, either. He just says 'appearance' there. I don't have the EN version to hand, so I am going to quote from the FR one:

Emet-Selch : En tant que garde-fou de Zordiarche, Hydaelyn était dotée de capacités tout bonnement extraordinaires.
= “As Zodiark’s safeguard, Hydaelyn was endowed with simply extraordinary capabilities.”

[14:00] Emet-Selch : Des attaques qui, en plus de toucher l'enveloppe matérielle de l'adversaire, tranchaient jusqu'à son essence même... C'était du jamais vu.
= “Attacks that, in addition to touching the material envelope (body) of the opponent, cut to its very essence… It was never seen before.”

[14:00] Emet-Selch : Supposons que vous subissiez un tel assaut. Vous seriez alors scindée en deux personnes distinctes.
= “Suppose you were subject to such an assault. You would then be divided into two separate persons.”

[14:00] Emet-Selch : Vos incarnations se ressembleraient comme deux gouttes d'eau, mais chacune ne posséderait plus que la moitié de ce qui vous constitue, que ce soit votre force, votre intelligence, ou votre âme.
= “Your incarnations would be like two drops of water, but each one would possess only half of what constitutes you, whether it be your strength, your intelligence, or your soul.”

[14:00] Emet-Selch : C'est ce qui est arrivé à Zordiarche, et à cette planète tout entière.
= “That is what happened to Zodiark, and this entire planet.”

The EN version is the same, and someone else can supply the remaining screenshots for it.

[Kazemon15]

It doesn't matter if you consider it to be canon or not. It is depicted from a crossover event in that game, which Ishikawa herself authored.

Your screenshots don't support what you're saying, either. He just says 'appearance' there. I don't have the EN version to hand, so I am going to quote from the FR one:



The EN version is the same, and someone else can supply screenshots for it.

You mentioned in another post he didn't say they were identical, yet I just showed a screencap saying that they were, even using Ryne as an example. Which is what I had said in my previous post.

Yeah, well crossover games, why not add them to the actual canon story then?

Venat herself said there was no kindness or justice in the things she had did, yet everyone here is talking about how she intentionally did it with malicious intent, and therefore, she's this evil being with no black or white morality. The entire story is not black or white. It's a muddled gray area. All the characters are "evil" to some extent. No one is entirely "good." But blaming Venat for all the evils in the world certainly isn't fair or right, especially when the circumstances of not understanding Hermes's grief of death caused him to go overboard. It doesn't make him right either. None were right, but none were intentionally evil either.