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

[Lyth]

As for the talk of Genocide. Is it reductive? Sure, there's more nuance to it than simply that, but I really don't think there's any point in decrying its use in describing events in the plot. The end-game of both the Ascians and Hydaelyn are the intentional wiping out of a specific classification of people to fit an ideal or purpose. The writing is what has gotten us to this point--the point where acts of that scale are what necessitate the survival of one side or the other. Of course, its a fictional fantasy story where circumstances like these would never apply to reality, but it doesn't erase the tangible things these characters have to do to get to that point. Speaking for myself, I certainly don't use it to disregard the numerous layers of moral ambiguity that go behind it, I'm just not going to handwave the scale of what is being done to entire civilizations by using euphemisms. Adults can have adult conversations about things, even in dumb JRPG's.

There's nothing wrong with having a critical discussion on the topic of genocide if you apply the word appropriately. As an example, when Elidibus releases chemical weaponry in the midst of the clash between his own Garlean forces and the Eorzeans during the Eighth Umbral Calamity, an act which wipes out most of the human population of the continent, it's unambiguously correct to describe this act as genocide. The use of chemical weaponry, even on its own, is explicitly classified as a war crime in human society. Likewise, when Emet and his Convocation launch into their crusade to eradicate the entire human population of seven different worlds on the basis of the fact that they were 'inferior' and thus less deserving of life, the coding of this act in the text is pretty much unambiguous.

The crux of the issue with the Sundering is that we don't actually have any frame of reference for what it actually entails. It doesn't kill, and we have no real world analogy for losing our magical powers. So now we come to why someone would bring up the topic of genocide in the context of the Sundering, based on the limited information that we do have about it. Are we talking about killing off a group of people? No. We've already established that the Sundering doesn't kill its target, from Emet's demonstration in the Ocular.

So now we come to genocide in the context of 'cultural erasure'. Hostile intent is actually a fairly critical part of the definition, and with very good reason. Cultures are not static and change over time (especially when you're talking about a time period of twelve thousand years). Even the simple act of people emigrating to a new area can give rise to new cultures are very different from the original. Changing a country's governance can have a profound impact on its culture as well. These are not 'acts of cultural erasure'.

Even if we look within Amaurot's history, the decision to summon Zodiark vastly altered the local culture. The Amaurotine people went from being a very secular people to one that worshipped Zodiark as a God and offered Him human sacrifices. Do we then make the claim that the Convocation committed genocide against the Amaurotine people by altering their culture? Yet intuitively we know this doesn't make sense, because the Convocation members themselves are Amaurotine, and aren't acting with hostile intent towards themselves. The same is true with Venat, as an Amaurotine herself. An internal political clash over the ideological values of your own people doesn't constitute genocide. Rebellion to remove the societal control of an oppressive government doesn't constitute cultural erasure. The people of Eorzea are the descendants of the Amaurotine people, twelve thousand years later.

So why does the word genocide get misused in this context? The answer is simple. Equivocation. As was stated earlier, the etymological root of the suffix '-cide' means 'to kill'. You end up twisting the narrative into one in which Venat 'kills' the world (despite the story itself pointing to the contrary), bringing her group down to the level of the Convocation. It allows you to paint both groups under the same brush in a thinly veiled 'gotcha'.