Inconsistencies with the sundering (Spoilers)

[PeaTearGriffin]

The walk scene is metaphorical and symbolic.

If this is square enix's rationale I don't think it's a very good one. Cutscenes can still be metaphorical and symbolic without changing how events play out.

Apparently it didn't have an effect on Meteion's attack, considering nothing happened for thousands of years.

And that's the strange part. I think many people would figure that 1/14th the aether would be less effective at repelling meteion because this game does establish that having more or less aether makes a difference in this universe, but the final days/sundering event kind of ignores that rule and shows that an individual shard is just as good at repelling an attack from meteion as unsundered etheirys.

Maybe meteion just stopped trying after the ancients defended against her the first time around, but that wouldn't make sense either because as soon as the protagonist kills zodiark in the endwalker msq, a second final days begins to happen immediately which suggests that meteion was always constantly there.

The story's not over yet, so we'll probably get an answer to that last question by 6.5.

I certainly hope so because thats a loose end that needs tying up.

[Fiel_Tana]

Maybe meteion just stopped trying after the ancients defended against her the first time around, but that wouldn't make sense either because as soon as the protagonist kills zodiark in the endwalker msq, a second final days begins to happen immediately which suggests that meteion was always constantly there.

Metion was there singing her song of oblivion since the events in Elpis, possibly even killing more worlds while Hydaelyn waited for the WoL to arrive.

There are a lot of inconsistencies and plot holes in EW.

Why did Hydaelyn sunder herself? (The Watcher mentions that she did.) Are there mini-hydaelyns in the shards? Why then did she get weaker with each rejoining?

If the sundered weren't capable of, or didn't chose to save the star, wouldn't the refugees in the moon ship also be susceptible to the song after Zodiark was killed? And where was there to go? What kind of back up plan is that?

If the ancients couldn't manipulate dynamis, how did Hermes create Metion? Why did the elpis flowers react to their emotions? How did Emet-Selch and Hythlodeus use creation magic in Ultima Thule to not only make an entire field of elpis flowers, but also make the liveable environment permanent so the scions could come back? What part of manipulating dynamis were they incapable of, that only the sundered could do?

I'd love to believe that the writers will make everything clear by 6.5, but Yoshi said that 6.0 was the end of the Hydaelyn and Zodiark arc, so I guess we wait and see.

[Catwho]

If the sundered weren't capable of, or didn't chose to save the star, wouldn't the refugees in the moon ship also be susceptible to the song after Zodiark was killed? And where was there to go? What kind of back up plan is that?

I think we're not done with the Lopporits and the spaceship just yet. I suspect that the moon is capable of traveling between dimensions, or perhaps out into the Rift.

If the ancients couldn't manipulate dynamis, how did Hermes create Metion?

It's not that they couldn't manipulate it, it's that they couldn't interact with it directly, and most of them had no interest in doing so. Hermes is the one that realized that it was our aether that blocked it.

I think of it as like radio waves for humans. Prior to the invention of the Marconi radio, no human could manipulate radio waves. We knew about them. We even knew how to create them. The waves were always there before - cosmic background radiation is constantly raining down on us. But all it took was one human figuring out how to both send and receive them, and all of a sudden we were able to manipulate them for our own purposes.

(Dynamis as a concept from ancient Greece referred to the energy that existed in potential. An entelechy like Meteion was a complete being who could interact not only with aether (the energy that already is) but dynamis (the energy that could potentially be.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potent...hy_(entelechia)

[PeaTearGriffin]

Metion was there singing her song of oblivion since the events in Elpis, possibly even killing more worlds while Hydaelyn waited for the WoL to arrive.

There are a lot of inconsistencies and plot holes in EW.

Why did Hydaelyn sunder herself? (The Watcher mentions that she did.) Are there mini-hydaelyns in the shards? Why then did she get weaker with each rejoining?

If the sundered weren't capable of, or didn't chose to save the star, wouldn't the refugees in the moon ship also be susceptible to the song after Zodiark was killed? And where was there to go? What kind of back up plan is that?

If the ancients couldn't manipulate dynamis, how did Hermes create Metion? Why did the elpis flowers react to their emotions? How did Emet-Selch and Hythlodeus use creation magic in Ultima Thule to not only make an entire field of elpis flowers, but also make the liveable environment permanent so the scions could come back? What part of manipulating dynamis were they incapable of, that only the sundered could do?

I'd love to believe that the writers will make everything clear by 6.5, but Yoshi said that 6.0 was the end of the Hydaelyn and Zodiark arc, so I guess we wait and see.

These are all great questions that are currently unanswered and we can only hope that square tries to patch these plot holes up. That reminds me that I have even more questions myself.

Can sundered ascians use dynamis? What about sundered primals? Both sundered ascians and sundered primals are less aetherically dense so theoretically they could wield dynamis as another power source. If anyone knew the answers to that feel free to say so here.

[Atelier-Bagur]

These are all great questions that are currently unanswered and we can only hope that square tries to patch these plot holes up. That reminds me that I have even more questions myself.

Can sundered ascians use dynamis? What about sundered primals? Both sundered ascians and sundered primals are less aetherically dense so theoretically they could wield dynamis as another power source. If anyone knew the answers to that feel free to say so here.

probably? Although considering the amount of aetherical power a single Ascian had, they probably still lacked true potential to manipulate dynamis.

[MikkoAkure]

I suppose that could be the case, but then the idea that Zodiark has the potential to be that powerful introduces an additional inconsistency. With that kind of difference in power where just 1/14th of Zodiark's aether is enough to stop meteion, the ancients (barring venat's personal moral opinion that people should suffer) could just summon zodiark, have him kill meteion because he's so much more powerful than meteion in this scenario, and then work on restoring etheirys. We already know from the game's cutscenes that "Dynamis is a far weaker form of energy, and is almost completely nullified by Aether in equal quantities." If just 1/14th of Zodiark's aether is enough to nullify meteion, we can assume that zodiark can kill meteion with an additional fraction of his aether, then use his remaining aether to restore the world. Of course these are just fan theories at this point, but the hypothetical scenario that Zodiark is indeed that aetherically powerful creates more possibilities that might be better alternatives to sundering the world.

It isn't that a ton of aether could blast Meteion away because it's that much more powerful than dynamis, it's that it and aether seemingly can't really interact with each other at all and it was all they could do to put up a space umbrella around the world. If all it took was a being more powerful, then Hydaelyn could've just gone out into space herself and killed Meteion. Or Emet-Selch, Hythlodeus, Venat, and Hermes could have used aether to capture her way earlier instead of playing a silly game of hide and seek.


And again, part of the reason of the Sundering was that Venat was completely opposed to the 3rd Sacrifice and she wanted to do away with Zodiark. It isn't just about making people less aetherically dense to fight Meteion. That was a bonus and she didn't even know what the outcome would be.

These are all great questions that are currently unanswered and we can only hope that square tries to patch these plot holes up. That reminds me that I have even more questions myself.

Can sundered ascians use dynamis? What about sundered primals? Both sundered ascians and sundered primals are less aetherically dense so theoretically they could wield dynamis as another power source. If anyone knew the answers to that feel free to say so here.

We don't know the process of mantling a Sundered soul to be an Ascian and if it greatly fortifies them with aether to the point that they're unable to deal with dynamis. The other problem is that of all of the Ascians, only Fandaniel even knew about dynamis and he just wanted to watch the universe burn.

Primals are beings of pure aether and only exist of aether so they can't do anything with dynamis.

To note, we are shown quite conclusively that the ancients could interact with Dynamis.

Ancients could make something that interacted with dynamis, like Meteion. They themselves can't do anything else with it and the two have been shown to be oil and water.

[PeaTearGriffin]

It isn't that a ton of aether could blast Meteion away because it's that much more powerful than dynamis, it's that it and aether seemingly can't really interact with each other at all

Well now I'm confused because it says that "Dynamis is a far weaker form of energy, and is almost completely nullified by Aether in equal quantities." They don't interact with each other so to speak but they can cancel each other out according to the game. Here's a link to the website that I'm getting my information from https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Dynamis

Theoretically this means that a ton of aether could blast meteion away because dynamis can be completely nullified and cancelled out by aether even in equal quantities. Also you raise another good point. Hydaelyn, using the logic that aether nullifies dynamis, and if she was able to, could've gone out into space and killed meteion too. That would've made one hell of a cutscene.

[MikkoAkure]

Well now I'm confused because it says that "Dynamis is a far weaker form of energy, and is almost completely nullified by Aether in equal quantities." They don't interact with each other so to speak but they can cancel each other out according to the game. Here's a link to the website that I'm getting my information from https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Dynamis

Theoretically this means that a ton of aether could blast meteion away because dynamis can be completely nullified and cancelled out by aether even in equal quantities. Also you raise another good point. Hydaelyn, using the logic that aether nullifies dynamis, and if she was able to, could've gone out into space and killed meteion too. That would've made one hell of a cutscene.

Problem number one is that you're reading the wiki. It's been known to be incorrect before and even on that page mentions things that have never been confirmed as if it's fact. Unless I missed something somewhere, there's been no mention that the DNC quest had to do with dynamis specifically and that's just theories. Those quests existed before the writers even conceptualized dynamis as being a thing that exists.

Ultimately through the story we're led to believe that for whatever reason they can't just blow Meteion away with aether. I'm not even sure what the point of arguing over it is because the writers who made up how aether and dynamis work can just make up anything on the spot to justify the story we got. If it was possible, we or someone else would've done it. The Ancients couldn't do anything at all themselves except to stall it with a shield and even if they flew to meet Meteion, the unshielded Ancients would get Final Days'd again. If Zodiark flew away to fight Meteion, then the unshielded planet would get Final Days'd again. If aether could smack Endsinger down, Hydaelyn would've just left and swatted her like a fly.


And again with the Ancients doing dynamis, people keep saying there's examples of it, but no one has actually pointed out where in an instance that is actually described as dynamis use, while the story itself outright states they just can't do it. Hermes was able to make something that can handle dynamis in the same way that humans can make an airplane but they can't expect to fly by themselves. As far as the Elpis flowers, all they did was react to Hermes' state of emotion and change color.

[PeaTearGriffin]

Problem number one is that you're reading the wiki. It's been known to be incorrect before and even on that page mentions things that have never been confirmed as if it's fact.

We at least know that the wiki is correct on aether nullifying dynamis because Hermes says to the Wol, Venat, Emet, and Hythlodaeus in one of the cutscenes on Elpis: "As you know, Aether, in essence, negates dynamis." So we at least know for certain that is true.

sauce: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSOzhX7-d64
2:22:36

Ultimately through the story we're led to believe that for whatever reason they can't just blow Meteion away with aether.

I personally didn't hear or see that written anywhere during the msq but if that dialogue exists I'd sure like to read up on it.

I'm not even sure what the point of arguing over it is because the writers who made up how aether and dynamis work can just make up anything on the spot to justify the story we got. If it was possible, we or someone else would've done it. The Ancients couldn't do anything at all themselves except to stall it with a shield and even if they flew to meet Meteion, the unshielded Ancients would get Final Days'd again. If Zodiark flew away to fight Meteion, then the unshielded planet would get Final Days'd again. If aether could smack Endsinger down, Hydaelyn would've just left and swatted her like a fly.

I didn't really see this as an argument but rather a discussion on what other paths the game could've taken. It's like you said yourself "the writers can just make up anything on the spot to justify the story we got" which leaves the possibility of different solutions to the story. A vessel with an aether shield that prevents the ancients from becoming affected by dynamis as they travel to the edge of the universe; technology that can hold tremendous amounts of Zodiark's aether so zodiark doesn't have to be physically present to slay meteion and he can just hang back on etheirys to keep the shield going, and other alternate endings. If aether could be used on Endsinger then hydaelyn could definitely kill her as well and I can see that being a badass ending as well.

[Atelier-Bagur]

If this is square enix's rationale I don't think it's a very good one. Cutscenes can still be metaphorical and symbolic without changing how events play out.

And that's the strange part. I think many people would figure that 1/14th the aether would be less effective at repelling meteion because this game does establish that having more or less aether makes a difference in this universe, but the final days/sundering event kind of ignores that rule and shows that an individual shard is just as good at repelling an attack from meteion as unsundered etheirys.

Maybe meteion just stopped trying after the ancients defended against her the first time around, but that wouldn't make sense either because as soon as the protagonist kills zodiark in the endwalker msq, a second final days begins to happen immediately which suggests that meteion was always constantly there.

My understanding is that when she created the song, it wasnt a force that immediately affected every single life and planet in the universe, but instead a sound that traveled through light years of the great expanse that would reach any unfortunate stars to hear it and cause its destruction. This sound was able to reach Etheirys which jump started its destruction, but as we know the Convocation summoned Zodiark to shield the planet from further harm and to replenish its lost aether.

However Meteion's plan was always in the works in the background, as she continued to gather the universe's despair and dynamis to further strengthen her song to one day be able to end everything; which means eventually even with Zodiark, it wouldnt have been strong enough to prevent total annihilation (interestingly enough this idea was hinted by the Minstrel in the Endsinger EX, what if she had more time to strengthen her song?) So when Zodirak was no more, the planet lost its protective earbuds and the Final Days was able to resume once more.