Tales from the Dawn #3: "A Question of Life" (Hermes)

[Cleretic]

Yeah, I generally agree these days that calling anything done in most of the Zodiark/Hydaelyn conflict 'genocide' is generally not helpful, (I've used it in the past as a descriptor but would not any more) because those acts are so bananas-crazy fantastical that they don't seem real or relatable as crimes. Which is to their benefit, because it means they can exist more as an abstract that serves what the story asks for us. This is not true of events around, say, the Garlean Empire, which are very much akin to real-world atrocities and so feel like it's appropriate to use the real-world crimes to describe them.

That's not a discredit to the Garlean story, that's a story very much worth telling, and for the most part done very well. But it does make Emet-Selch a... misfire, for me. I can't treat him in the same way as the other Ascians for doing an abstract bad-thing when he's explicitly responsible for very non-abstract and relatable bad things.

[Lurina]

Yeah, I generally agree these days that calling anything done in most of the Zodiark/Hydaelyn conflict 'genocide' is generally not helpful, (I've used it in the past as a descriptor but would not any more) because those acts are so bananas-crazy fantastical that they don't seem real or relatable as crimes. Which is to their benefit, because it means they can exist more as an abstract that serves what the story asks for us. This is not true of events around, say, the Garlean Empire, which are very much akin to real-world atrocities and so feel like it's appropriate to use the real-world crimes to describe them.

That's not a discredit to the Garlean story, that's a story very much worth telling, and for the most part done very well. But it does make Emet-Selch a... misfire, for me. I can't treat him in the same way as the other Ascians for doing an abstract bad-thing when he's explicitly responsible for very non-abstract and relatable bad things.

I agree in principle that using the term 'genocide' to describe stuff in a video game generally feels a bit over-the-top - I only did it indirectly earlier for that reason. However, I think it's obvious that the writers intend the players to take at least the Rejoinings as acts of literal and condemnable mass murder. Y'shtola literally says "you have murdered millions, and that is something we cannot condone" to Emet-Selch after his big Rejoining powerpoint presentation. His role in the Garlean Empire rarely even comes up in terms of their contempt for him.

Why the writers seem comfortable firmly pushing this framing on the Rejoinings but not the Sundering goes back to the strange writing around Venat/Hydaelyn in general, where the Main Scenario Team seems in disagreement with itself as to whether she should be seen as a pure savior goddess or the other side to Emet's coin, with Yoshi-P openly getting a little defensive about her character in interviews. But that conversation has been had recently already.

I mean. Okay.

It's weird to me to say you can't take the eradication of a race and culture seriously as 'genocide' simply because the methodology is fantastical, in what has always been a fantasy story. Regardless of how you want to phrase it or handwave it as "taking away godhood", Venat's actions deliberately resulted in the extremely premature destruction of the Ancients both physically and mentally, and she then continued to go on deliberately attempting to erase them from history altogether. This is not something fantastical to me - the latter part in particular is very harrowing in terms of real world atrocities and parallels.

To me, I don't see much distinction between saying "Venat's actions can't be described as genocide because they're too fantastical" and "the Allagan Empire's actions can't be described as genocide because they're too fantastical" because we don't have alien dragons or primals or Tempering or the capacity to create artificial moons with a combination of all of the above to use as a battery. Murder is murder, the forceful ending of one's life is the forceful ending of one's life, regardless of if you're using weird magic as the means to carry it out. And in-game, the Ancients are portrayed as being equally human, full of quirks and idiosyncrasies and emotions and textured relationships and hopes and dreams and frustrations and aspirations, as any other NPC group we interact with. The thematic final word on them in Ultima Thule (from G'raha, if I'm recalling correctly) once again reinforces that they were simply people. And as a people, they were snuffed out wholesale in an act of violence.

Quoting this post because it shouldn't languish at the bottom of a page.

[KariTheFox]

and she then continued to go on deliberately attempting to erase them from history altogether.

When did Venat do this, exactly? Traces of the culture of the ancients seem to exist all over the First, and presumably the other shards too, and Venat made no effort to say, cover up the murals depicting the final days or get rid of the still standing ancient facilities under the ocean.

The only reason no trace the ancients can be found on the source is the seven calamities that have occured there and subsequently buried it all deep underground.

As for the rest of your post, the reason I can look at Allag as genocidal even though they use fantasical means is because a more technologically advanced society enslaving the people of another society has plenty of historical analogues.

But with Venat, splitting the souls of nigh-immortal godlike beings into 14 ordinary mortals has nothing that corresponds to it in history, and has all its analogues in mythology instead.

[Lurina]

When did Venat do this, exactly?

I mean. She made up an entire fake story for the Sundering where she and Zodiark were actual, for-real Gods and the Ancients didn't even exist, which she tells the player during the 3.X patches and presumably been telling people since civilization was set back to zero by her actions. She admits to deceiving you on that basis at the start of Endwalker.

During the Omega quests, the Watcher outright says that her goal was for the Ancients to be forgotten so the knowledge wouldn't burden contemporary humanity.

But with Venat, splitting the souls of nigh-immortal godlike beings into 14 ordinary mortals has nothing that corresponds to it in history, and has all its analogues in mythology instead.

A significant plot element in Heavensward that the story intends the player to understand as a serious act of cultural extermination by the villain is the population of a nation slowly being turned into dragons. Elsewhere in the same expansion, the Allagan Empire has stolen the gods of three nations and sealed them in a floating island to harness their power, which is framed as an act of imperialist violence.

To be blunt, I don't think there's much of a line to draw between the fantastical framing that covers half of FFXIV's takes on more serious ideas and what happens with the Sundering and the Rejoinings. It's pseudo-mythological weirdness all the way down.

[SentioftheHoukai]

It's arguable if Venat did commit acts of violence at all, in Venat's case, her "violence" can be seen as the same kind of violence that a surgeon commits when he has to amputate an infected limb.

Do you even realize that this is nearly exactly the same kind of rhetoric people love to condemn Emet-Selch for? Seriously, what's the big bloody difference between this:

"Emet-Selch is not guilty of murder, for those he killed were not truly people"

And this:

"Venat is not guilty of murder, because she was merely stripping humanity of a limb not killing"

?

Even then, following your own established train of logic; a surgeon who divested every human on the Earth of an arm or leg simultaneously would still be seen by the world at large as a crazed criminal who divested all of humankind of a crucial limb they require to keep living in the manner in which they have up to this moment. Nobody at all is going to argue in favour of this surgeon beyond the insane and immoral, and he would be condemned at large even should he state his goal to be "I did this to benefit mankind, they were relying on their right arms far too much and this reliance was bringing down their quality of life."

Tl;dr Jigsaw's a villain, and you're not making Venat look all that much better with statements like these.

Conversation is moving faster than my comfortable speed of posting here, but this is a little screwed up. Whether or not you agree it was justified, the Sundering killed (or at least identity-deathed) everyone on the planet, many of whom were probably not even involved in the the sacrifice issue at all. It was unambiguously a violent act, and I assume even the writers accept that - there's a reason that Venat is depicted wielding a sword in the abstracted post-Elpis cutscene.

Describing the extermination of a culture or group in medical terms (amputating a gangrenous limb, cutting out a cancer, taking bitter medicine, etc) is a dehumanizing rhetorical tool to whitewash violence that has often been employed in the justification of real world instances of genocide. It's silly to say since we're talking about a video game, but you should probably be careful with that sort of thinking.

Gonna be honest here, Lurina. I truly don't comprehend where you get all this patience.

Personally, I think you're being far too charitable and lenient on someone who just used the same kind of logic Emet-Selch used; as well as various genocidal regimes in real life human history to justify their violence and cultural erasure.

[Brinne]

But with Venat, splitting the souls of nigh-immortal godlike beings into 14 ordinary mortals has nothing that corresponds to it in history, and has all its analogues in mythology instead.

At the risk of falling into Extreme Hot Take territory, even putting aside the "purposefully wiping them from history" aspect, I will go ahead and say that it's actually not difficult at all for me to think of historical analogues in terms of "deliberately destroying a race/culture and then using its broken-down components as resources towards building a different culture more to one's liking."

[SentioftheHoukai]

At the risk of falling into Extreme Hot Take territory, even putting aside the "purposefully wiping them from history" aspect, I will go ahead and say that it's actually not difficult at all for me to think of historical analogues in terms of "deliberately destroying a race/culture and then using its broken-down components as resources towards building a different culture more to one's liking."

As I've said many a time, we the Warrior of Light/player character are ourselves erasing the Ancients and their deeds from history. The Unending Codex is is LITERALLY the Warrior of Light's personally penned journal, and everything Zodiark and the Ancients did has for some inane reason been attributed to Hydaelyn instead. And the only thing written about the Ancients is Fandaniel's villainy. We're literally doctoring history as we speak.

Like Mother, like Child~

[Iscah]

For me it would be similar to people getting upset that others aren't upset about the Titanic sinking at the end of watching any movie or mini series about the boat. We know it has to happen or it becomes an AU.

That's a good analogy, and perhaps even more for the mindset that has to go into the writing of a plot like this. The boat has to sink in the end, and the writers can only adjust the details around it.

They're not going to decide "oh, we like our characters too much and don't want to kill them off, so we'll write an ending where they dodge the iceberg and all live happily after". Firstly, the characters only exist to serve the plot of the ship sinking, and secondly, even if they did safely reach port there's no guarantee their lives would go well afterwards.

I also think that – whether we believe it as an audience or not – the writers might be coming from the concept that Venat was correct (and not vastly overspeculating) in her belief that her society was on the verge of destroying itself anyway, in which case there would be no kindness in creating a second timeline where they are about to run themselves off a cliff and go through a different variety of suffering and total society death.

I don't think it particularly plausible but I have the same opinion of the fate of the other worlds that was handed to us in the story as a factual thing that inevitably happened to all societies. And if that was the mindset of the writers then there was really no good reason to create a split timeline where the options are "the Sundering" and "nothing survives".

I am interested in what happens at the end of Pandeamonium as Elidibus did mention a few times a promise they made to someone about something.

I still prefer to interpret that as the oath he must have sworn upon joining the Convocation, as that is among the remaining shreds of his memories that we glimpse during 5.3. Everything he is doing is focused on fulfilling his mission, which stems from those promises he made to act in accordance with his position as Elidibus – and by the end he can't even remember who he made the promise to, only that he needs to follow it.

I actually will be disappointed if it gets retconned into Pandæmonium.

Also, Venat was operating with future knowledge that Zodiark would eventually die and the souls inside him freed, too.

That's a good point. Assuming she hits a point where she is resigned to being stuck on her foretold path, she knows that part of that sequence of events will free the souls eventually. She's not dooming them to be trapped eternally.

I assume the devs thought that if it was outright said that the 3rd sacrifices were sapient, there would be no morally grey area anymore and Venat would be easily declared the heroine and the Convocation the villains, I guess?

That could be the case. I feel like whatever is going on with their reluctance to explain, it either comes down to not having decided or some kind of ongoing creative argument where different people want it to go different ways and they've decided the solution is to not tackle it, regardless of what that does to the narrative.

I dunno, Emet-Selch's line about whether half of the sundered would sacrifice their lives for the other kind of loses its weight if what he actually meant was "would half of you agree to be temporarily inconvienced until the other half figures out how to fix it?"

It kind of cheapens the first and second sacrifice if the ancients going into it always knew it was a temporary affair. I always figured that the third sacrifice was something that the remaining ancients came up with after being incapable of accepting the loss of the ones that died to bring about Zodiark.

I agree on that. At the point of Shadowbringers there was a lot we didn't know (and the devs possibly hadn't invented) about exactly how souls work, and the sacrifices within Zodiark specifically. The closest analogue we had was the Ananta queen trying to revive her daughter through Lakshmi's power, in which case we were told that her soul was unreclaimable, so it seemed as if the entire idea of "retrieving the souls from Zodiark" might be a similarly futile endeavour that the Ascians had fixated on all this time. The full tragedy would be that after all they did, their friends were still utterly lost to them.

I don't think we even knew for certain that Zodiark contained souls specifically, only aether. I had in mind that it might have only been their body-aether that went into Zodiark while their souls were released to the Lifestream, though I'm not sure if there was a specific quote to imply that.

[SannaR]

That's a good analogy, and perhaps even more for the mindset that has to go into the writing of a plot like this. The boat has to sink in the end, and the writers can only adjust the details around it.

They're not going to decide "oh, we like our characters too much and don't want to kill them off, so we'll write an ending where they dodge the iceberg and all live happily after". Firstly, the characters only exist to serve the plot of the ship sinking, and secondly, even if they did safely reach port there's no guarantee their lives would go well afterwards.

I also think that – whether we believe it as an audience or not – the writers might be coming from the concept that Venat was correct (and not vastly overspeculating) in her belief that her society was on the verge of destroying itself anyway, in which case there would be no kindness in creating a second timeline where they are about to run themselves off a cliff and go through a different variety of suffering and total society death.

I don't think it particularly plausible but I have the same opinion of the fate of the other worlds that was handed to us in the story as a factual thing that inevitably happened to all societies. And if that was the mindset of the writers then there was really no good reason to create a split timeline where the options are "the Sundering" and "nothing survives".





I still prefer to interpret that as the oath he must have sworn upon joining the Convocation, as that is among the remaining shreds of his memories that we glimpse during 5.3. Everything he is doing is focused on fulfilling his mission, which stems from those promises he made to act in accordance with his position as Elidibus – and by the end he can't even remember who he made the promise to, only that he needs to follow it.

I actually will be disappointed if it gets retconned into Pandæmonium.

I would agree with that if it wasn't for when he starts to try and remember whatever it is he promised happen. They both happen soon after we get him to start talking about other things. I think one even happens soon after he has a thought about Azem. Or at least he'd know it was about Azem if his memory wasn't Swiss cheese. He then gets angry and hops back onto to the nope I need to kill you horse. The angry could be due to not having the ability to remember, him getting angry at himself for questioning his choice to not look at those memory stones, or whatever amount of tempering is going on. For even though he's a primal he also is different as he also might have not been part of the fuel at the start? Idk they don't ever hint at how he became the heart just that he was and we know that Zodiark can exist without its heart. So he could have also been part of his summoners. This just feels like a please don't overthink or too deeply about this.

[Kozh]

A shame that when (most of) us ascian simp, as some posters love to call us, have no problem admitting that rejoinings are genocide, venat's stans are unwilling to do the same. Instead of admitting that sundering is genocide, they go "well actually-", some even compare it to "amputating infected limb", which is insensitive as hell btw.