Endwalker Story sucked and it's time to admit it

[RyuDragnier]

As we now know too, if Zodiark dissipated, all their souls would return to the Lifestream. So it seems the Ancients who were okay with the 3rd sacrifice just could not accept the fact that the End of Days even happened to begin with, they rejected reality. Because if they knew the souls would return to the Lifestream upon Zodiark dissipating, why bother doing the 3rd sacrifice to begin with, the souls were just going to be reborn anyway.

[Alleo]

As we now know too, if Zodiark dissipated, all their souls would return to the Lifestream. So it seems the Ancients who were okay with the 3rd sacrifice just could not accept the fact that the End of Days even happened to begin with, they rejected reality. Because if they knew the souls would return to the Lifestream upon Zodiark dissipating, why bother doing the 3rd sacrifice to begin with, the souls were just going to be reborn anyway.

Especially since death is always beautiful. Kinda telling that they too dont like it when its forced upon them. Just like when it happened to all those creatures that they deemed unworthy.

[EaraGrace]

As we now know too, if Zodiark dissipated, all their souls would return to the Lifestream. So it seems the Ancients who were okay with the 3rd sacrifice just could not accept the fact that the End of Days even happened to begin with, they rejected reality. Because if they knew the souls would return to the Lifestream upon Zodiark dissipating, why bother doing the 3rd sacrifice to begin with, the souls were just going to be reborn anyway.

Well the plan didn't really include Zodiark dissipating. There's no indication the Ancients thought further action was needed post summoning to handle the threat of the Final Days, and the Unsundered spoke of those events as if they were solved. Zodiark was likely intended to last forever, and the souls within (whether they be from the initial sacrifice or the third) would be stuck there forever. Venat's faction seemed to be the ones who saw Zodiark as temporary.

On one hand this goes to explain why people wouldn't exactly view being part of Zodiark as a great thing. On the other, it meant that the Ancients were raising a bunch of lives just to use as a eternal battery.

[SannaR]

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.

To me when you look at the few times they mention those souls there must have been something different as even fake Hythlodaeus hints that they were different. Why would you replace the first Sacrifice with more Ancient souls just to get Ancient souls out? Also why are those who were part of the 2nd one seemingly not as important? You could say well the 1st had a lot of people who were important to the Convocation or your average person. Yet why would that argument not be able to be made for the 2nd? Or if the new life was souls equal to an Ancient's just not exactly the same then again why would they need to do a third? The 2nd and the 3rd smell a lot of impatience. Even though we don't know and most likely will never know more about the new life it could have been anything from plant and animal life. Or since we know the Meteia were already causing other Planetary Life Streams to shut down could be souls from other planets. If we are to believe souls do their best to find the nearest Lifestream.

[EaraGrace]

You could say well the 1st had a lot of people who were important to the Convocation or your average person. Yet why would that argument not be able to be made for the 2nd? Or if the new life was souls equal to an Ancient's just not exactly the same then again why would they need to do a third?

The third was intended to bring back both the 1st and 2nd set of sacrifices. And my belief is that’s why Venats faction reacted the way that they do. Those souls being just as worthy of moral consideration as any of those in Zodiark underlines the lengths to which the Ancients were willing to go to avoid having to experience that kind of grief. The souls in Zodiark are friends, loved ones and coworkers, and even if morally we recognize the right answer, emotionally the question is more difficult.

[Lurina]

And yeah, it might be that all these now-complete people will be used as blood sacrifices to Zodiark if the plan is just to release those souls in Him by way of blood sacrificing other souls. They wouldn't be Ancients though, and the Ascians consider non-Ancient lives inferior for reasons beyond their aetherial thinness (not as physically hardy, susceptible to death by old age, more easily bent toward violence, more openly selfish, etc). A fully recompiled soul wouldn't be enough to save you.

At the end of the day everybody's going to die except for the Ascians, either in the rejoinings, as part of a process to restore sundered Ancients, or as part of a blood sacrifice to Zodiark to get the Ancient souls in him out. The particulars of it don't seem all that important to me.

I'm two days late to this, but as far as I know, at no point is it suggested that the Ascians were planning to sacrifice absolutely-no-exceptions-everyone on the Source to bring back their own kind, or that no extant people would become 'Ancients' upon the rejoinings. During the elevator scene in Kholusia, Emet tells outright you that you have nothing to fear from his plans because upon their realization you would be a 'complete existence in a complete world'. Even if one takes a cynical interpretation of Emet's character where he's sometimes insincere, Alphinaud treats the idea that supporters of the Ascians would be allowed to live in the Unsundered World while only everyone else would be killed as a given during the final confrontation in Amaurot.

And I don't know where this idea that the original personalities of anyone on the Source would be destroyed is restoring them to Ancienthood is coming from. Even when a soul is rejoined, it doesn't seem to cause much of a change in personality, since it happened at the end of 1.0 and nobody even noticed. Identity in FFXIV is based largely on memory, not the nature of the soul.

To be clear, this isn't a defense of the Rejoinings, I'm just trying to nix what feels like a misconception.

[DPZ2]

During the elevator scene in Kholusia, Emet tells outright you that you have nothing to fear from his plans because upon their realization you would be a 'complete existence in a complete world'.

Emet-Selch lied.

In the 'original' time line, you're dead as a result of the 8th Umbral Calamity.

In the 'current' time line, you're supposed to die horribly when you actually cause the 8th Umbral Calamity after consuming the light from so many Lightwardens.

He may have been referring to Azem, I suppose. But the Warrior of Light is not Azem, and there is still the problem of the failed 'rejoining' that resulted in the Void.

[aveyond-dreams]

Emet-Selch was named after the literal angel of truth from FFXII for a reason, but ok.

[Lurina]

Emet-Selch lied.

In the 'original' time line, you're dead as a result of the 8th Umbral Calamity.

In the 'current' time line, you're supposed to die horribly when you actually cause the 8th Umbral Calamity after consuming the light from so many Lightwardens.

He may have been referring to Azem, I suppose. But the Warrior of Light is not Azem, and there is still the problem of the failed 'rejoining' that resulted in the Void.

You've misunderstood Emet's character in Shadowbringers. As Yoshi-P has outright said in an interview, he was being sincere when he said that he wanted to become allies with you if you could contain the light. The elevator scene takes place right before the fight with Vauthry, when it seems like you might actually do it. That's why he's so much more sentimental and open with you there compared to any other part of the story.

Emet's arc in Shadowbringers is one of internal conflict. Part of him wants to crush you and continue with the plan, while another hates what he's been reduced to and wants an excuse to finally stop, or else to be stopped. His 'test' for the player character is an attempt to try and resolve these competing emotions. When you fail to contain the light, it gives the former half of him the excuse it's looking for to write you off as another failure and subhuman being, but that's not the totality of his feelings.

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. <_<

They probably will do this, or else invent some other way to have a happier ending for the Ancients - you might not have noticed, but the FFXIV writers are immensely sappy and will almost never leave a controversial or bittersweet resolution to a plot unamended in the long term, even when they probably ought to. Though I don't quite get why people see this as some kinda panacea to the whole situation, since it's not like it would make the whole plot surrounding the Sundering any less awkward insofar as it already exists in the setting.

Anyway, fortunately for you, this also applies to the Bozja plot, which Yoshi-P and Matsuno are planning to go back to. https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...no_and_yoship/

[EaraGrace]

You've misunderstood Emet's character in Shadowbringers. As Yoshi-P has outright said in an interview, he was being sincere when he said that he wanted to become allies with you if you could contain the light. The elevator scene takes place right before the fight with Vauthry, when it seems like you might actually do it. That's why he's so much more sentimental and open with you there compared to any other part of the story.

Emet's arc in Shadowbringers is one of internal conflict. Part of him wants to crush you and continue with the plan, while another hates what he's been reduced to and wants an excuse to finally stop, or else to be stopped. His 'test' for the player character is an attempt to try and resolve these competing emotions. When you fail to contain the light, it gives the former half of him the excuse it's looking for to write you off as another failure and subhuman being, but that's not the totality of his feelings.

I agree that he meant for the olive branch to be sincere, but I would say we are special in that consideration, much like his favored son was. Emets empathy for the Sundered rested primarily on the personal connections someone had with him, either now or in a past life. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t willing to heap sufferings on the Source and it’s inhabitants, nor sacrifice them for his plan. His speech in Amaurot should demonstrate that I would think.

Once the rejoining of worlds is complete, Zodiark will regain His full strength and shatter His prison. Then we shall offer up the Source's remaining inhabitants in sacrifice, that we might resurrect our brethren who died to bring Zodiark into existence. But what was it that you came here to do, exactly?

Unless we wish to argue that by inhabitants he means fish and other such creatures, I’d say the intention is clear. He might have been willing to spare us due to the nature of our souls, but others? I doubt it. And there’s the real rub.