Live Letter Thoughts

[thegreatonemal]

(Of course the story never takes this approach with them and instead positions them as having the right to fight to exist in spite of all of the above... a perfectly fine position, I just wish that courtesy were extended to the ancients in the story's narrative treatment of them.)

It does. They just lost and the story has us on the other side. The story also acknowledges their side and characters understand why they are trying to do this. That doesn't mean we were going to let them do it.

[Lauront]

It does. They just lost and the story has us on the other side. The story also acknowledges their side and characters understand why they are trying to do this. That doesn't mean we were going to let them do it.

But it doesn't. It very strongly tried to justify Venat's decision through giving the impression of it both being necessary and the best conceivable outcome given the circumstances (with the writers even nudging somewhat in this direction in some of the interviews, e.g. posing the rhetorical question of whether Hermes was the first step for mankind), stylising the sundering (this is only depicted somewhat more directly in its brutal aftermath in the Nier mobile crossover), with precious little raised as an objection to it throughout the story. The notion of how this contradicts various ideals or previous positions of the Scions (or even Emet, who is conscripted in praising Venat) does not even enter the dialogue - at most there is a half-hearted apology from her, but not specifically to the ancients, but instead addressed to her sundered champions, and Y'shtola pretty briskly brushes it aside. Only later through the Q&A (which predicates her decision more heavily on her beliefs) and within the Omega quest (which introduces a re-consideration of the actions of Emet, Hermes and Venat, questioning all three, as well as walking back the notion that there is a singular 'correct' response to despair in the context of the Endsinger) is this watered down. If you are referring, on the other hand, to the struggles of the Ascians, note this isn't what I am referring to nor is it what sparked this whole little discussion in the first place; rather, it was a reference to an AU.