Quote Originally Posted by KariTheFox View Post
If throwing a bunch of animals into the Zodariak wood-chipper would bring back the ancients trapped in him 12,000 years ago, why not just try to do that again after the rejoinings? Why with the planned human sacrifice of people who absolutely will not want to be sacrificed and risk further conflict? Why not just tell the nations of the newly unsudered world "okay, supply us with an incredible amount of livestock to sacrifice and we'll reward you with our amazing magic and knowledge".

Are Emet-Selch and other Ascians very stupid and shortsighted? Are they motivated by petty feelings of revenge against the sundered? That'd be odd, since the ancients were supposed to be better than that.

Or, is it just the case that human sacrifice (or at least the sacrifice of ensouled life) was always a necessary component of trading for the lives of the ancients trapped in Zodiark?
They're different plans made in different circumstances. There were no people to sacrifice and there's no point sacrificing ancients to zodiark as it defeats the whole point so this as an idea just makes no sense. If I had to assume the the sacrifice plan we see planned in the event of the rejoinings either being on born out of haste or the need for a big use of aether to fix the damage caused by the sundering and this plan was monstrous which was why Emet was a satisfying villain