Endwalker Story sucked and it's time to admit it

[Cilia]

There is one very important key difference. None of the people Venat supposedly killed* actually truly died, since rebirth is a known fact in FFXIV. So really it's more of a case of forced rebirth / collective amnesia. We ourselves are some of those "murdered" people, and last time I checked we were doing just fine.

The Ascians though? They were planning to entrap everyone's soul in Zodiark, which would have prevented their rebirth. Which is probably worse than death. And contrary to his buddies previously entrapped there these new souls wouldn't get a say in the matter.

*Also, genuine question, where was it even stated that the sundering killed anyone to begin with? For all we know the Ancients just died of natural causes due to no longer being immortal and their culture declined on its own. Which would be expected, given that they can't even get their pants on without relying on creation magic.

You sweet summer child...

1. The Sundering affected just about everything, including memories. Ergo, it was an effective death of personality; even if the body survived and the soul lived on (albeit diluted), the person would never be the same due to lacking their memories from the time of Amaurot. Wouldn't be so different to reducing modern people to caveman intelligence with a Thanos snap or something; wouldn't have a clue what was going on, and would have to build civilization back from the ground up.

2. Lol so you care more about cows than people? Ahem... it's not stated what they intended to sacrifice to Zodiark to release the original sacrifices' souls, but the common hit against this is that since we don't know for sure as far as anyone can tell it would have just been wildlife or livestock. The fact a soul is a precious gift from the planet and turning it into a disposable commodity is extremely questionable, and that these commodified souls could be reincarnations, and the new lives potentially being sentient, have been deemed inconsequential.

[RyuDragnier]

2. Lol so you care more about cows than people? Ahem... it's not stated what they intended to sacrifice to Zodiark to release the original sacrifices' souls, but the common hit against this is that since we don't know for sure as far as anyone can tell it would have just been wildlife or livestock. The fact a soul is a precious gift from the planet and turning it into a disposable commodity is extremely questionable, and that these commodified souls could be reincarnations, and the new lives potentially being sentient, have been deemed inconsequential.

One of the things leading to the possibility of it being intelligent life is the mythos of the Azim Steppe, since they mention Azim by name. Azim in their mythos created the Raen to do battle for him, with the Oronir version even mentioning that Azim descended into the mortal world in the flesh of a Xaela and fathered the Oronir tribe before ascending back to the heavens.

There's the possibility of this mythos being an altered tale (meaning changed over the years of retellings) of the Raen and Xaela being some of the new life on the planet, with Azim running across them and the tribes mistaking him for a god and their creator due to his magic. Same with the Oroniri's version of him having appeared as a Xaela and giving birth to their tribe, which is also possible due to Ancients being able to change forms.

Though there's no telling what the truth is, not unless the story goes in depth about it all, but I have a feeling they never will.

[Striker44]

The Sundering fits the numerous established definitions of genocide so I think there's little benefit in pretending otherwise.

The issue is the lack of any reasonable alternative. The Ascians/Ancients original plan as per ShB was to sacrifice their first batch to summon Zodiark, then sacrifice another batch to produce an explosion of life, then sacrifice (i.e. genocide) that life to get their first two sacrifices restored. If Venat didn't act, there would still be genocide, just on a massively larger scale than what she did. Venat didn't have a choice between genocide and no genocide; she had a choice between a smaller one and a much larger one. She chose the smaller one.

It's the famous philosophical problem of the mine shaft. A rock is plummeting down a mine shaft and will crush 4 people. You have the ability to pull a lever that will deflect the rock so that it goes down a different mine shaft and kills 1 person. Do you pull the lever? If so, you have directly caused the death of 1 person. If not, you technically didn't "actively" kill anyone, but your decision not to act guaranteed the death of 4 people. Point being - someone is going to die no matter what you choose to do (or not do). Death is guaranteed - the outcome you can control is how many people are killed.

[Necrotica]

The issue is the lack of any reasonable alternative. The Ascians/Ancients original plan as per ShB was to sacrifice their first batch to summon Zodiark, then sacrifice another batch to produce an explosion of life, then sacrifice (i.e. genocide) that life to get their first two sacrifices restored. If Venat didn't act, there would still be genocide, just on a massively larger scale than what she did. Venat didn't have a choice between genocide and no genocide; she had a choice between a smaller one and a much larger one. She chose the smaller one.

It's the famous philosophical problem of the mine shaft. A rock is plummeting down a mine shaft and will crush 4 people. You have the ability to pull a lever that will deflect the rock so that it goes down a different mine shaft and kills 1 person. Do you pull the lever? If so, you have directly caused the death of 1 person. If not, you technically didn't "actively" kill anyone, but your decision not to act guaranteed the death of 4 people. Point being - someone is going to die no matter what you choose to do (or not do). Death is guaranteed - the outcome you can control is how many people are killed.

What makes you think the Ancient's killing of the new life would amount to more death than the THOUSANDS OF YEARS ON 14 DIFFERENT WORLDS OF A CONSTANT CYCLE OF DEATH AND SUFFERING?

Hydaelyn caused more death than the Ancients could ever dream of.

[sidurgu-12]

What makes you think the Ancient's killing of the new life would amount to more death than the THOUSANDS OF YEARS ON 14 DIFFERENT WORLDS OF A CONSTANT CYCLE OF DEATH AND SUFFERING?

Hydaelyn caused more death than the Ancients could ever dream of.

a cycle created by the ascians. unless youre talking about natural death and suffering which still existed before the sundering

[PawPaw]

a cycle created by the ascians. unless youre talking about natural death and suffering which still existed before the sundering

Fairly sure that she is talking about the cycle of suffering created by Hydaelyn when she introduced sickness, war, strife and a regular, short life and death cycle to a world that did not have it. Multiply this times 14 reflections full of people dying over and over for 12 thousand years (and endlessly into the future) and that's a whole lot more death than would have been caused by any theoretical third sacrifice of humans (?). The Ascians (who Hydaelyn created by letting them go) have nothing to do with it. The Ancients had a natural cycle of death and rebirth, but it was entirely their choice in regards to when they wanted to pass on and start again.

[Lyth]

The Amaurotines were dead for millennia when Emet, Lahabrea, and Elidibus started slaughtering entire worlds filled with people. They were trading real, actual lives for the idea of something that was long since dead.

The Convocation was harvesting living souls in order to bring back the dead Amaurotians who were sacrificed to Zodiark. Again, they were trading real, actual lives for the sake of the dead.

Even still, you're arguing for the sake of a civilization that died out twelve thousand years ago now. If that really was your philosophy, would you not have a serious problem with the Ascians?

[Lyth]

The word 'sacrifice' means that you're giving up your life. In order to create Zodiark, the Amaurotines involved had to give up their lives in order to do so. And in order to bring that long dead society back, the Ascians needed to slaughter countless innocents across seven worlds in order to do so, the only justification being that the lives that they were taking were 'inferior'. And that's one of the most off-putting things about their society. It just seems strange that so many of them held the view that they were better than everyone else. And if we see more of the Ancient world as a whole, I'd love to see a civilization from their time that was highly advanced, yet had the humility to not lord it over everyone else. Maybe something closer to the Cetra from FF7, where you have people living with nature and the lifestream, to juxtapose with Amaurot's cold and severe highrises.

[Ayche]

All and all, the Third Sacrifice makes Sundering a karmic retribution.
If Space Wizards from Space came to Earth to kill me and burn my corpse for Space Energy, I would hate them.
If they said "But I am only doing this because I want to resurrect my wife!", I would say "That is pretty tragic, I hope both you and her burn in hell".

[Thenightvortex]

There is one very important key difference. None of the people Venat supposedly killed* actually truly died, since rebirth is a known fact in FFXIV. So really it's more of a case of forced rebirth / collective amnesia. We ourselves are some of those "murdered" people, and last time I checked we were doing just fine.

The Ascians though? They were planning to entrap everyone's soul in Zodiark, which would have prevented their rebirth. Which is probably worse than death. And contrary to his buddies previously entrapped there these new souls wouldn't get a say in the matter.

*Also, genuine question, where was it even stated that the sundering killed anyone to begin with? For all we know the Ancients just died of natural causes due to no longer being immortal and their culture declined on its own. Which would be expected, given that they can't even get their pants on without relying on creation magic.

Reincarnation does not mean that there is no death. The sundered people you mention are not the ones that lived before. WOL is not Azem, Amon is not Hermes, those were erased by the sundering. If you want to apply reincarnation, that means all people that died in rejoining haven’t truly died, in fact, no one ever actually died at all except the cases where the Sing of Oblivion was involved. It is a very flawed logic.

The process of sundering as we are shown from different sources, entails tearing one’s body and soul into fourteen parts and turns them(at least those on the source) into aberrations who can’t talk and it takes generations for them to recuperate. They live as different people who rarely ever remember how they were. There is no body, no memories, no identity, no 13/14 parts of the soul left. How is it not a murder?

All and all, the Third Sacrifice makes Sundering a karmic retribution.
If Space Wizards from Space came to Earth to kill me and burn my corpse for Space Energy, I would hate them.
If they said "But I am only doing this because I want to resurrect my wife!", I would say "That is pretty tragic, I hope both you and her burn in hell".

All a matter of perspective. If I were one of the scions, I would have given them much less credibility and sympathy than they actually have in game, they would be a threat to be exterminated. But if I were with the ascians, I would have probably done all they have in this situation, too. Being players who observe the story from the sides allows us to discuss the matter without personal biases that would be only logical we’re something like that actually occur.

That said, Sundering is about as karmic as going back in time and murdering a tyrant of the present as a young child…Actually no, that would at least prevent the said tyrant from committing their crimes. Sundering is more like going back in time and punishing the child by murdering their parents, which in turn breaks them and makes them the tyrant down the line.

EDIT: I just realized that you were talking about the intended third sacrifice before the sundering and not what they attempted to do afterwards after rejoinings, which was for some reason the conclusion I have gone to straight away, so apologies for misunderstanding your point.

The third sacrifice is a very vague concept before the sundering and we don’t know who they were sacrificing exactly, but we could assume those are beings with souls. I agree that this is immoral and wrong on their part, but the Sundering is still overreaction to a problem which in part arises due to Venat not telling the convocation all the truth. Not to mention that those innocent souls that they would try to sacrifice were also victims of the Sundering.