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

[Brinne]

Once again, Cleretic, we're talking about the writing choices, not which character or faction you side with more because something something fantasy reasons. It doesn't ultimately matter, nor is anyone actually arguing, about who was ultimately "more wrong" in this entirely made up conflict. You're shadowboxing again. We're talking about the writing being fundamentally wrong, if you want to put it that way, for putting forth a situation and a framework in which we're expected to nod along with one genocide or the other, and consider the act of "deliberate annihilation of a race of people," if you like, a necessary evil committed by a character we're ultimately meant to see as tragically heroic. Take your pick as to which one, or all, if you really want.

It's the writing hemming and hawing and kicking up dust, seeing the gross rationalizing of a mass atrocity that's otherwise universally condemned in its own narrative, as acceptable in their feel-good quest to make Everyone Likable, as opposed to, you know, "genocide is always wrong."

[Cleretic]

Once again, Cleretic, we're talking about the writing choices, not which character or faction you side with more because something something fantasy reasons. It doesn't ultimately matter, nor is anyone actually arguing, about who was ultimately "more wrong" in this entirely made up conflict. You're shadowboxing again. We're talking about the writing being fundamentally wrong, if you want to put it that way, for putting forth a situation and a framework in which we're expected to nod along with one genocide or the other, and consider the act of "deliberate annihilation of a race of people," if you like, a necessary evil committed by a character we're ultimately meant to see as tragically heroic. Take your pick as to which one, or all, if you really want.

It's the writing hemming and hawing and kicking up dust, seeing the gross rationalizing of a mass atrocity that's otherwise universally condemned in its own narrative, as acceptable in their feel-good quest to make Everyone Likable, as opposed to, you know, "genocide is always wrong."

I'm realizing that I might be more okay with this because I've had experience with the Shin Megami Tensei series, and realizing that this is essentially their attempt to do similar in a different framework.

Like in mainline Shin Megami Tensei games, I think the intention is to use that mythological context to essentially blow out the scale of a personal quandry to the absolute maximum. And I think that works really well when SMT does it for two reasons:

1. When the scale is so far beyond what a human would be capable of, human scales of justice and morality no longer apply. I like bringing up the flood in the story of Noah for this; it's hard to call him guilty of any human crime for that, so the questions then change and become more conceptual.

And 2. Going that big questions the extremes of a human level of morality. You might generally believe in law and order as far as an average human being can affect that, but how far does that go before you draw the line and stop being comfortable? (Genuinely, Strange Journey's Law path was a bit of a revelation for me there, although I wouldn't exactly call it a masterpiece.)

I definitely feel like that's what they're trying to go for with the Zodiark-Hydaelyn conflict, although the nature of the game and story means they can't center it as much--both in terms of 'it came up several expansions into a story so it can't be the main crux of things', and 'the nature of the game itself means we can't let the player make this decision'. Still, I think it's a laudable effort and mostly gets across the goal and intention, even if it's not perfect. And even then, 'improving' it as a reader would be very difficult, because you have to both keep an even hand and also not 'soften' either side too much; this sort of story doesn't work if the choice is easy. (Which incidentally is why most SMT Neutral endings suck.)

Funnily enough, it's not that I 'don't care about the weird writing choices': it's that I liked them. Although it's probably a bit ironic that I really liked that part but hated Fake Amaurot and Elpis as story sections.

[Brinne]

I definitely feel like that's what they're trying to go for with the Zodiark-Hydaelyn conflict, although the nature of the game and story means they can't center it as much--both in terms of 'it came up several expansions into a story so it can't be the main crux of things', and 'the nature of the game itself means we can't let the player make this decision'. Still, I think it's a laudable effort and mostly gets across the goal and intention, even if it's not perfect. And even then, 'improving' it as a reader would be very difficult, because you have to both keep an even hand and also not 'soften' either side too much; this sort of story doesn't work if the choice is easy. (Which incidentally is why most SMT Neutral endings suck.)

Funnily enough, it's not that I 'don't care about the weird writing choices': it's that I liked them. Although it's probably a bit ironic that I really liked that part but hated Fake Amaurot and Elpis as story sections.

See, and I completely disagree with you there. I think it's very clear - and the devs (well, Ishikawa, basically) have said as much - that their goal in Shadowbringers and on were to "humanize" the Ascians, and the writing from that expansion onwards bears that out. All explicit framework in Endwalker's script, even, goes out of its way to underscore the Ancients as often mundane in how they go about their business, as like us, as just people. I wrote another post earlier about this:

This story is not presented as a myth, and Venat is not presented as a God. What happened is something we largely see play out in real-time before us with people we have tea with, help with mundane tasks, all while enjoying their charms and quirks and personality nuances. Much of the pathos of Venat's story is from meeting her as a person, and coming to understand that rather than a God, she was simply a single human person who made decisions on behalf of her vision of what humanity should be and her vision of the greater good for all of life and existence.

The attempted re-painting of our encounters of the Ancients, and the actions they committed, both for good and ill, as 'simple myths' or 'ancient history' always feel weird to me, because this is a video game where there is no meaningful distinction between the NPCs we talk to and accept quests in the 'present' and the NPCs we talk to and accept quests from in the 'past' (which we can access simply by clicking the teleporation button.) Either way, in our immediate moment, we talk to them, get annoyed, laugh at them, engage with them equally as pretend-living people in front of us. Even beyond one of Shadowbringers's prime writing goals being stated explicitly as "humanizing the Ascians," Endwalker itself is as firm as it can be in the final word on the Ancients through things like the DoH quests, or G'raha's remark in Ultima Thule: they were simply people.

"God" gets away with causing the great flood because he is a legitimate god, fundamentally inaccessible and incomprehensible. (And even then, opinions vary - I'm not religious myself, and the suggested nature of most 'gods' in theism is one factor as to why.) Venat is (and the rest of the Ancients, and the Ascians) explicitly a relatable human person, so suggesting we should downplay the decisions she, or the rest of them, made as relatable human people by acting otherwise is very strange and does the story a disservice in and of itself.

I think all the power of this story is that it has premises you'd expect to be generalized and mythological - the typical mysterious, mythical precursor race that fell you see in so many fantasy stories, a dime a dozen trope - and did an exceptional job at making them human. Hence, I absolutely loved Fake Amaurot and Elpis in terms of emphasizing those human qualities, because that's what makes this entire narrative special and exceptional to me. The fact that they were capable of world-destroying apocalyptic fantasy nonsense isn't exceptional in this setting. The goblins made a primal capable of destroying the world in the Alexander raids. It's practically mundane in and of itself. Nor are Venat's, or Emet's, capability of deciding their vision for the world and for their people are worth horrific levels of sacrifice exceptional or particularly mythological. Ilberd and Thordan are waving from the Aetherial Sea!

To be clear, I don't think you're wrong for liking that style of story, and there are times when that kind of thing can appeal to me too. Being swept away by sheer incomprehensible scale and atmosphere can be an incredible experience. But I could not disagree more in terms of trying to project that mindset and framework onto this specific story, and think all evidence is that that's not how we're even meant to process it. Thus, the dissonance.