Zodiark's Codex entry what do we think about it?

[Lurina]

That's a two-degrees removed tale, clearly taking heavy liberties, where at least one of the two sources was heavily biased. And from what I've heard from Nier Reincarnation players, Mama isn't the most reliable narrator either.

I'd struggle to enter it in as evidence for much of anything.

That's a little pedantic. Obviously it's biased, but it still presents one person's perspective of events faithfully, otherwise there'd be no point in it as a dramatic device. So no matter what, there's still something to be gleaned from the fundamentals.

You might as well use that argument to say there's no point in paying attention to Encyclopedia Eorzea's reckoning of the early eras either, since it's all presented as pseudo-in-universe inference.

[Cleretic]

You might as well use that argument to say there's no point in paying attention to Encyclopedia Eorzea's reckoning of the early eras either, since it's all presented as pseudo-in-universe inference.

Bad example, I don't pay much attention to those, because there's basically nothing substantial about them except in the cases of the Third and Fifth, where we have substantial physical evidence anyway. Probably mostly true, but also probably about as relevant to the present day as the Songhai's history is to my life.

If we ever went back to the Second Astral Era it would turn out more complex and nuanced than what the Encyclopedia tells us, which was basically 'holy wars happened and things burned'. At that point I'll care, but at that point I'll also have more to care about.

[Vyrerus]

With regards to the OP, it looks like the codex entry was typed in a rush by a localizer inserting as much of their own bias as possible. In spite of the entry saying, "These weren't viewed as good and evil back in Ancient times." the entry goes on to only use negative connotation words with regards to Zodiark, and then needlessly positive/modern within setting connotation for Hydaelyn.

All in all, I'm not big on these new codex entries in the first place. They seem to be trying to offer up too much revolving around story elements rather than the characters they are about. We learn basically nothing about Zodiark from this entry, however you wanna take it. They coulda gone into specifics on his creation, how taxing the spell/ritual was for the people performing it. How they probably struggled to maintain their composure for the creation magicks, knowing they were using the lives of people they loved to do it. They coulda wedged in some sort of new details about him.

But no. Like half of the Zodiark entry is instead about Hydaelyn and Fandaniel. /shrug Just another missing lifeboat on the failboat that is Endwalker.

[Lyth]

I'm not really sure why there's so much agitation over the revelation that the Convocation ordered the people of Amaurot to sacrifice themselves to their God. Conscription is just the logical extension of the decision to summon Zodiark in the first place. It seems a bit silly to fail the summoning ritual simply because you met part of, but not all of the sacrificial quota.

What is more interesting is the question around why the Amaurotines would ever come to worship Zodiark as a God in the first place. Amaurot was, for all purposes, a very scientifically-minded people, if you can agree to see magic in this universe as a form of technology. Concepts were just viewed as tools to be utilized and discarded in order to meet the dictates of society. It's strange that a Concept would become the subject of divine worship, emphasized by the capitalization on 'He'. It's also interesting that the decision around additional sacrifices didn't seem to be part of the original plan - they were perpetuated by those who had come to worship Him. You can't help but wonder how lucid the decision-making was around these later decisions.

We've seen recently seen a lot of discussion about the corrupting influence of auracite, a tool that the Amaurotines weaponized but themselves didn't fully understand. We also know that there's overlap between auracite and eikonic corruption. Who knows, perhaps if the Amaurotines had required a Light-aspected summon to construct their celestial barrier, they might have ended up worshipping the High Seraph instead of the Keeper of Precepts.

[Ayche]

Fanaticism is pretty universal, especially when it comes to having an omnipotent figure such as Zodiark. I have my own perspective where Zodiark is anthropomorphization of a authoritarian state (all powerful power figure controlled by a tight, elite cabinet? wowza), which easily fits into the society of the Ancients. Also if you are going to kill exactly half of the population in a mandatory sacrifice, I would feel random draft is the most uncomplicated egalitarian way to do it, which is itself just forced action through the proxy of random chance (which can be rationalized as fair thing because random choice cannot have bias right?).

[Cleretic]

With regards to the OP, it looks like the codex entry was typed in a rush by a localizer inserting as much of their own bias as possible. In spite of the entry saying, "These weren't viewed as good and evil back in Ancient times." the entry goes on to only use negative connotation words with regards to Zodiark, and then needlessly positive/modern within setting connotation for Hydaelyn.

Much of the codex entries so far have been written VERY similarly to Encyclopedia Eorzea entries (I don't think they're identical in any cases, but I haven't been so bored as to check; I know the character bios in the EE1 are much shorter in comparison). So I wouldn't be surprised if many of these entries are from Encyclopedia Eorzea 3, or at least written from the same perspective of 'in-universe academics writing on the subject'.

And from that perspective, yeah, Zodiark's gonna be written about like that. Zodiark hasn't exactly been 'a neutral entity venerated by a caring group of ancients' for very long, or very recently. For most of its twelve thousand year run, Zodiark was sitting there inanimate, being venerated by planet-smashing shadow wizards. From an in-universe historical perspective, he's far more pertinent as a recently-dead elder primal.

Genuinely, yes, I think the proper balance of subjects in this entry is what it is: About half on the summoning and context around Zodiark, about a quarter about its main long-term opposition, about a quarter about the guy that blew it up and the aftermath'. As a largely passive and inert figure, they write Zodiark in almost the same way you'd write about a statue, and I think that's about right. It wasn't exactly doing anything for a while there.

EDIT: Also, remember that on top of that in-universe perspective, it's also largely written about the events that were relevant to us--and again, Zodiark's not much of that. Have you read the First's entry? Because Literally none of it is about the locations and people that you'd find there, it's all about the Flood and the aftermath, because that's the important part. Information more like what you'd want would be found in either a theoretical Amaurot entry (which doesn't exist), or possibly the Ascian entry (which actually kinda breaks from my assumptions, because most of that entry is more about 'fallen Ancient convocation' than 'murderous ghost wizards').

[RyuDragnier]

Yeah we do. There was that NieR crossover short story.

Which tells us nothing. Here's the exerts from it, written out from the imgur screenshots.

Light triumphs with a sundering blow.
The powerful mage and his allies manage to withstand its impact. Barely.
When he opens his eyes...As the star lies shattered, so too do the souls upon it.

"Unnngh...Aaah..."
Pitiful moaning of malformed creatures...
They can no longer shape words. Language, culture, knowledge--forgotten.

Such an outcome is unbearable.
The man throws himself into restoring his star, his people...his paradise.

Decades...Centuries...Millenia pass.
As he works tirelessly, the wretched creatures begin to learn.
They speak in new tongues.
They worship new gods.
They forge new histories.

Nothing about that tells us anything about the time between the Sundering and the first Calamity. Supposedly the Twelve were around during that time, and we have no clue what they were doing either. 6.5 might tell us with the final 24-man's story, but until then, we know absolutely nothing.

[Lunaxia]

I'm not really sure why there's so much agitation...

Edit: Actually, forget it. I genuinely don't have the energy for this anymore, lol.

If we're at the point of ignoring overt and fundamental plot points, refusing to acknowledge lore written by the main scenario writer herself and now moving into painting the Amaurotines as fanatical fascists who conscripted innocent bystanders unto their deaths, go ahead. Have fun.

[Iscah]

I still do not understand why this "official" extra text from Emet's perspective goes against how he describes the Sundering within the game, where he demonstrates it as perfectly splitting a person into two copies with no mention of the horror of seeing them reduced to literal malformed creatures.

When there's a mismatch between actual canon and a simplified summary written for the audience of another game (and in this case until and unless we get a better explanation from the creators), I'm going to assume the discrepancy is down to the external version taking creative liberties for the sake of a self-contained capsule of story.

[Cleretic]

I still do not understand why this "official" extra text from Emet's perspective goes against how he describes the Sundering within the game, where he demonstrates it as perfectly splitting a person into two copies with no mention of the horror of seeing them reduced to literal malformed creatures.

When there's a mismatch between actual canon and a simplified summary written for the audience of another game (and in this case until and unless we get a better explanation from the creators), I'm going to assume the discrepancy is down to the external version taking creative liberties for the sake of a self-contained capsule of story.

I think people acted like it was more important partially because he describes them as 'malformed creatures' in the memory crystal we pick up in Etched in the Stars, and people looked at the Nier Reincarnation art and go 'oh that's what he was talking about'.

Which would make sense, if he weren't using exactly that same language to describe Garleans (and the sundered people as a whole) while living as Solus in one of his short stories. Which tells me that... no, he wasn't describing it literally, and also his internal rhetoric and monologue hasn't changed in twelve thousand years.