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

[RyuDragnier]

But who's getting sacrificed here, there were no other groups to sacrifice and the world was functionally dead and needed to be rebuilt when Venat struck so I do see who they're meant to be killing

From the Ere Our Curtain Falls short story from the Tales from the Shadow series.

This was soon after Zodiark became the will of the star, and our Final Days were averted. The people were divided, unable to decide what to do with the future that now stretched out before them. Many wished to trade the new life which had sprung forth to reclaim those lost in sacrifice to Zodiark. No small number, however, insisted that the fate of our world should be entrusted to those selfsame freshly minted souls. All were at our wits' end.

[Lyth]

Out of curiosity, when you say that the world was 'functionally dead', what is the evidence to suggest that Sundering something kills it? All the explanations that we've seen so far suggest that it duplicates an individual into two (or more) reflections, each of which have reduced aetheric density, as Emet himself demonstrates with Ryne in the Ocular during Shadowbringers. This holds true for inanimate objects as well. He specifically uses the word 'enervate' in his explanation and not 'kill'. If all life on Etheirys was extinguished by the Sundering, then why are we still here? Why was Zodiark still in existence after the blow, despite being at its epicenter?

The suffix '-cide' is a Latin root meaning 'to slay'. What exactly is being 'slain' here?

[tokinokanatae]

Out of curiosity, when you say that the world was 'functionally dead', what is the evidence to suggest that Sundering something kills it? All the explanations that we've seen so far suggest that it duplicates an individual into two (or more) reflections, each of which have reduced aetheric density, as Emet himself demonstrates with Ryne in the Ocular during Shadowbringers. This holds true for inanimate objects as well. He specifically uses the word 'enervate' in his explanation and not 'kill'. If all life on Etheirys was extinguished by the Sundering, then why are we still here? Why was Zodiark still in existence after the blow, despite being at its epicenter?

The suffix '-cide' is a Latin root meaning 'to slay'. What exactly is being 'slain' here?

Gee, maybe you could go back and look at the answers every other time this has come up in the past couple of years instead of trying to derail the thread with bad faith nonsense again.

Nothing is being "slain"; they're video game characters. We're talking about them as narrative devices. Try to keep up.

[jameseoakes]

From the Ere Our Curtain Falls short story from the Tales from the Shadow series.

Which they rather retconned when all the primary races are made from the souls for the ancients so not sure what races that they mean with to if they even endured after Venat remade the world

[Lyth]

Right. So in short, nothing is killed in the process of Sundering. Thank you for your answer.

[SpectrePhantasia]

Right. So in short, nothing is killed in the process of Sundering. Thank you for your answer.

Me when I win an argument against the person I made up while I was in the shower.

[Turnintino]

Surely there are better ways to criticize each other's takes than with "ur dumb"-style zingers, y'all. If you think you've met a dead end, just stop responding lol.

[RyuDragnier]

Which they rather retconned when all the primary races are made from the souls for the ancients so not sure what races that they mean with to if they even endured after Venat remade the world

Except they didn't? As shown with the WoL's body compared with Ardbert's, the form does not need to match how it looked previously to hold it, meaning the souls are basically being recycled into new bodies all the time as they're reincarnated. The Pixies on the First are the souls of deceased children, who we're pretty sure did not look like Pixies when they were alive.

[Cleretic]

You would think it would be the easiest thing in the world to state clearly and definitively, "Genocide is never justified."

So, yeah, it does get frustrating when the conversation twists itself into, "It's okay to do a genocide if you really, really didn't want to" or "My favorite character can have just a little genocide, as a treat!"

As pointed out, the problem is with the writing itself, sheepishly trying to cover up the stench of dog shit by covering it with a pretty rug.

And that's why I don't like using the G-word. Because it flattens everything about that part of the story in an attempt to get an easy villain out of it.

Both sides' plans--the Zodiark Crew wanting to constantly dump more people into the Zodiark Furnace, and the Hydaelyn Crew's Julienne-ing of the Star, were both heavy decisions in a state with no objectively morally right answer. Both were extreme, yes, but the situation had reached such an extreme that non-ridiculous answers were no longer on the table. But while neither side was objectively morally right, and their decisions weighed heavy on both of them, they were also both morally justifiable; both sides believed they were doing the right thing even after all was said and done, and as said by characters that were generally meant to be speaking for us, it's hard to say what we would've done; it's a very mythological or fairytale approach to a moral challenge. Like, I can say I'd jump into the Hydaelyn Hole, but I can't be confident that I'd be making that choice without regrets.

Slapping the label of an objectively unjustifiable crime (that for multiple reasons doesn't really apply) rips out everything about that part of the story and conversation around it that's interesting in favor of the blunt bludgeon of 'which side is more objectively evil'--an argument that I feel only serves for attacking and insulting those who disagree, rather than examining both your own moral priorities and how those compare to others.

I'm sure you reached an answer to the problem that you're morally okay with, but I'd argue that doing so by stripping out every complexity, nuance and argument of the problem in favor of 'those ones did The Worst Crime' is completely missing the point of the discussion in the first place. And if you did that because you aren't interested in having that discussion, far be it for me to tell you you're wrong for that, but... well, I wonder why you're still here pretending to have 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."