Endwalker Story sucked and it's time to admit it

[SentioftheHoukai]

Dehumanizing people has been used to justify the slaughter of an entire world of people since Endwalker and the Sundering. So... big whoop, such difference. Not the point you think it is, time for the Venatpocrites to admit they're incapable of being impartial and letting go of their "rules for thee, but not for me" mindset.

[Cilia]

That just loops back around to exploiting the planet for aether, though. If the planet was devastated in the wake of the Final Days, even after the sacrifice to restore it to habitability, aether levels would be lower overall due to a lack of living things. How would the Ancients have gathered enough aether to offer to Zodiark - and from where - for so grand a thing as the release of the souls used to create Him?

Venat's grand revelation from "A Friendship of Record" is that all things are aether. That doesn't mean what I think a lot of people believe it does - that nothing matters, because that's nihilism. What it means is that a thousand thousand things had to line up just right for you to exist; even the Ancients ultimately owe their existence to the inscrutable will of the planet (so far as such a thing could be said to exist, and I'm not talking about the Ancients' interpretation of it as Zodiark). Knowing this, if the Ancients held the planet sacred why would they so readily exploit the lives and souls it's given birth to for their own comfort? Who are the Ancients to decide what souls and lives are worthy of those gifts; isn't that the planet's authority?

... of course, sundering the planet and all life on it is a pretty extreme thing to do, but given there didn't seem to be an end to the sacrifices, the lion's share of the Ancients had no problem with that, and the Convocation was deaf to reason, what choice did Venat have but extreme action? Not to say I agree with her choice, but I understand it, and there's naught for it but to make the best of the world our ancestors left us. It may not be as "perfect" as Amaurot... and it never will be... but it's still worth fighting for, is it not?

The Ascians and Venat are ultimately meant to be similar so that what separates them is their ideals, not their methods. Shouldn't those living in the here and now be free to create their own futures, free of the shackles of the past?

I'm tired. And rambling.

[Necrotica]

That just loops back around to exploiting the planet for aether, though. If the planet was devastated in the wake of the Final Days, even after the sacrifice to restore it to habitability, aether levels would be lower overall due to a lack of living things. How would the Ancients have gathered enough aether to offer to Zodiark - and from where - for so grand a thing as the release of the souls used to create Him?

Venat's grand revelation from "A Friendship of Record" is that all things are aether. That doesn't mean what I think a lot of people believe it does - that nothing matters, because that's nihilism. What it means is that a thousand thousand things had to line up just right for you to exist; even the Ancients ultimately owe their existence to the inscrutable will of the planet (so far as such a thing could be said to exist, and I'm not talking about the Ancients' interpretation of it as Zodiark). Knowing this, if the Ancients held the planet sacred why would they so readily exploit the lives and souls it's given birth to for their own comfort? Who are the Ancients to decide what souls and lives are worthy of those gifts; isn't that the planet's authority?

... of course, sundering the planet and all life on it is a pretty extreme thing to do, but given there didn't seem to be an end to the sacrifices, the lion's share of the Ancients had no problem with that, and the Convocation was deaf to reason, what choice did Venat have but extreme action? Not to say I agree with her choice, but I understand it, and there's naught for it but to make the best of the world our ancestors left us. It may not be as "perfect" as Amaurot... and it never will be... but it's still worth fighting for, is it not?

The Ascians and Venat are ultimately meant to be similar so that what separates them is their ideals, not their methods. Shouldn't those living in the here and now be free to create their own futures, free of the shackles of the past?

I'm tired. And rambling.

Only to a point. If we build too nice a future we will all just want to die. Got to keep the suffering index at appropriate levels.

[KageTokage]

Honestly, I'm just really disappointed that they didn't make a bigger deal about the sacrifices themselves and rather it was the ideology behind it that was opposed.

From Shadowbringers, I had been wondering what in the world could've been so important about those new lives as to warrant effectively destroying the world for their sake (Nevermind that they would've logically suffered as well)...but then that ended up just feeling like a strawman.

Even just a little line or scene showing that those lives were sentient beings with their own cultures, hopes and dreams that would've been snuffed out had the Convocation gone through with their plan (As a precursor to what the Ascians would later go on to do) would've done a world for making Venat and her followers more sympathetic to me.

[Lyth]

The world was destroyed as a result of the Final Days. 75% of the Amaurotine population had sacrificed their lives and their souls to Zodiark. The question was whether it was appropriate to sacrifice non-Amaurotine souls to Zodiark to take the place of those who had died. In order to make that argument, you have to claim that the soul of a dead Amaurotine has more value than than a living non-Amaurotine soul. And I don't think we've seen anything to suggest that the Amaurotines could resurrect someone who had died at will, otherwise you would have expected the second set of sacrifices to do just that, rather than speeding up growth and and the birth of new lives on the planet.

That's the same argument that Emet uses to justify why he believes that killing the sundered is not murder. In his eyes, only the Amaurotines are truly alive, and the rest of humanity on the planet are just 'inferior creatures'. And it's not even an argument based in the sentimentality of his old friends. After all, he abandons Mitron in a semi-comatose state for one hundred years as Eden, and Mitron was on his side! That's not to mention what he tried to do to us on the First.

[redheadturk]

4. During our trip to Elpis we cannot change the events that happen there significantly, as that would cause a MAJOR Paradox. By stopping the End of Days, we would prevent the sundering, which would make us as the player character and our world, not exist in that current world, and create yet another branch timeline. This is what Elidibus warns of.


It would be more appropriate to say that by changing the future, Graha created a Parallel Universe, that has a different history and leads a different path than the one his original world took.

If this still isn't clear, I'll make an illustration.

So what? A branched timeline where the Ancients get to live and be happy is what we want

[RyuDragnier]

So what? A branched timeline where the Ancients get to live and be happy is what we want

Well it isn't gonna happen, so you're gonna have to accept that. Like how I had to accept that we'd never get a 3rd zone for Bozja. <_<

[KageTokage]

The world was destroyed as a result of the Final Days. 75% of the Amaurotine population had sacrificed their lives and their souls to Zodiark. The question was whether it was appropriate to sacrifice non-Amaurotine souls to Zodiark to take the place of those who had died. In order to make that argument, you have to claim that the soul of a dead Amaurotine has more value than than a living non-Amaurotine soul. And I don't think we've seen anything to suggest that the Amaurotines could resurrect someone who had died at will, otherwise you would have expected the second set of sacrifices to do just that, rather than speeding up growth and and the birth of new lives on the planet.

That's the same argument that Emet uses to justify why he believes that killing the sundered is not murder. In his eyes, only the Amaurotines are truly alive, and the rest of humanity on the planet are just 'inferior creatures'. And it's not even an argument based in the sentimentality of his old friends. After all, he abandons Mitron in a semi-comatose state for one hundred years as Eden, and Mitron was on his side! That's not to mention what he tried to do to us on the First.

I feel like the only reason resurrection was considered as a possibility was because their souls were being kept in limbo within Zodiark. The countless other Ancients who became victims of the Final Days and were claimed by the Lifestream seemed to be considered acceptable losses...at least for the time being.

I imagine that even if the revival plan succeeded, there would still be those who were discontent and left wanting, which may have ended up creating more dissidents like Athena who pursued dangerous and/or forbidden avenues to sate their desires.

[KariTheFox]

I wonder if the ancients who sacrificed themselves to Zodiark knew about the third sacrifice before doing it? If they didn't, would they actually be happy about the life they sacrificed themselves for being slaughtered to reverse that sacrifice?

And if they did know about the third sacrifice, it kind of cheapens thier own sacrifice since as far as they knew, they weren't giving up thier lives so much as agreeing to be temporarily inconvienced.

(I tend to lean towards them not knowing, and the third sacrifice being something that the remaining ancients decided on after the fact.)

[Alleo]

They would've needed offer more details to sway me because I just can't find myself viewing the sacrifice of non-sentient life as being something so reprehensible.

We don't even know if they'd have been consigned to an identical fate, because Zodiark was trying to preserve the souls of his summoners and it was aether he needed, not souls specifically; though offering ambient aether was out of the question given the harm that would cause to the environment. They may have simply been drained then returned to the cycle like with more conventional summonings.

The Ancients are bascially ageless beings that most of the time die on their own free will. If they did not need to exchange souls for souls it would have made their decision to sacrifice the new life born after Zodiark even worse...because they bascially could have used themselves as living batteries to feed him. Again take five Ancients and have each one of them give a bit of their aether and in return get one ancient soul back. Nobody died.

Yet seemingly that was not the plan. And seemingly the Ascians would have sacrificed fully unsundered people on the source after all the rejoinings anyway.

I wonder if the ancients who sacrificed themselves to Zodiark knew about the third sacrifice before doing it? If they didn't, would they actually be happy about the life they sacrificed themselves for being slaughtered to reverse that sacrifice?

And if they did know about the third sacrifice, it kind of cheapens thier own sacrifice since as far as they knew, they weren't giving up thier lives so much as agreeing to be temporarily inconvienced.

(I tend to lean towards them not knowing, and the third sacrifice being something that the remaining ancients decided on after the fact.)

I think they may have believed that they would truly sacrifice themselves and only afterwards learned about the plans to get them back. And I think that probably just like the rest of the living ancients, some were happy to be exchanged for another living being while others might not. Some might even enjoy being Zodiark. At least it sounded like that when we meet some of them inside of him. I mean for those that truly believed that they only wanted the best for their star, it may be awesome to bascially be the new will of the planet.

If they of course always believed to be brought back then that does cheapen their sacrifices a bit. And even more Emet-Selchs big speech about how such a huge part of the survivors gave their lifes.