Inconsistencies with the sundering (Spoilers)

[Atelier-Bagur]

The cutscene starts with Venat telling us, "Even now, I remember standing there. Locked in a moment where the sky is aflame."

The entire cutscene is her telling us a story: her story of the sundering.

It's natural that she tells a different story from Emet-Selch's: She remembers Meteion; he does not. She's motivated by pushing mankind forward; he's motivated by restoring the past. The stories they tell us are the stories that they've each been telling themselves, to remind themselves of why they've been carrying their burdens for thousands of years.

I was just thinking about this. Its not that there's a retcon, its that we have two different perspectives of the sundering.

[Iscah]

I was just thinking about this. Its not that there's a retcon, its that we have two different perspectives of the sundering.

Being presented with "two perspectives" should still be recognisably the same event from each perspective. The "Tales from the Dawn" quote seems to be a matching second perspective to Emet's account in Shadowbringers, but the post-Elpis cutscene does not resemble the same description of events.

[kpxmanifesto]

I guess we can't expect too much from a game whose director says things like "when you're making this world you'll just sort of sometimes ignore things that are inconvenient" and "I think you guys can come up with your own theories for this one".

They would also have to resolve certain inconsistencies in the game in greater detail that are already difficult to explain, like how you mentioned the inconsistency with Elidibus, Lahabrea, and Emet-Selch not being sundered in your original post. As you can see from what other posters in this thread already pointed out and from the video of the Q and A session, Yoshi P struggled to answer that question and ended up giving a lame reason for it.

Being presented with "two perspectives" should still be recognisably the same event from each perspective. The "Tales from the Dawn" quote seems to be a matching second perspective to Emet's account in Shadowbringers, but the post-Elpis cutscene does not resemble the same description of events.

I'll make an attempt to draw a connection between the symbolic EW cutscene and Emet-Selch's story from ShB.

We see Venat who's presumably already Hydaelyn at this point, so in essence she represents her faction. Then she confronts the room full of Ancients who are summoning Zodiark, which is symbolic of the philosophical clash between those who support Hydaelyn and those who support Zodiark. Then Venat taking out her sword and sundering everyone is symbolic of their battle and the subsequent event where Hydaelyn strikes Zodiark with such force that it tears the world asunder.

Even still, I only arrived at this conclusion by jumping through several mental hoops and giving everything the benefit of a doubt. The "link" that I see between the EW cutscene and Emet's account in ShB is tenuous at best, if there even is one.