What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[DiaDeem]

It was totally genocide.
Hydaelyn literally killed all of her people to make weaker more frail people, and then became the god of those people.

The funny part is the Zodiark plan seems to have fucking worked because it wasn't until we killed Zodarik that Metion started to attack Etheirys again.
Which means even in an incredibly sealed state, Zodiark was enough to scare Metion away.

Like I get this wasn't the developers intention with the events, and the takeway shouldn't be that Hydaelyn is an insane genocidal god, rather EW's story is pretty poorly written.

I mean... they killed half the population to create Zodiark, then the half of the half to nurture life again, and then they were gonna kill EVERYONE new to bring back the old.

The whole takeaway for me was that these people (the ancients, all of them), as powerful as they were, they were as human and as flawed as anyone else. It's always been the most interesting thing about the Ancients for me. They're all different shades of Gray, Venat included.

Anyway.. just wanted to make a small comment. This discussion is a bit beyond my interest anymore.

[Kazhar]

I mean... they killed half the population to create Zodiark, then the half of the half to nurture life again, and then they were gonna kill EVERYONE new to bring back the old.

Is it really "killed half the population" when they did it in their own volition? You could say they were coerced into sacrificing themselves but nothing indicates this was true.
Also, no, they weren't going to kill everyone to bring back the old. The wording in never ambiguous about that, it's always "some of the new life created".

You're probably mistaking it with the Rejoinings, where the Ascians had the intention of killing all the Sundered in the end, but they were far gone at this point.

The whole takeaway for me was that these people (the ancients, all of them), as powerful as they were, they were as human and as flawed as anyone else. It's always been the most interesting thing about the Ancients for me. They're all different shades of Gray, Venat included.

This, I can agree. The Ancients were flawed and not perfect, what annoys me is that they're judged on completely different standards for their mistakes than the Sundered or our own mankind.
Hermes apparently didn't receive the amount of mental health care he needed? "Wow their society were a bunch of evil unfeeling fascists who deserved to die".
They had to make difficult choices to ensure the star would survive? "Their kind was doomed, it doesn't matter if Venat killed them."
Try to apply the same logic to humans and see how cruel this would be.

Unfortunately the story itself is guilty of this. Showing more compassion to the horrors done in Allag's name than the Ancients for commiting the crime of... not suffering enough in their daily lives I guess.

[Striker44]

Also, no, they weren't going to kill everyone to bring back the old. The wording in never ambiguous about that, it's always "some of the new life created".

This is the genocide part that the anti-Venat cabal loves to conveniently ignore. The simple fact is that a genocide was going to happen no matter what. The only question was whether the victims would be innocent beings created solely to be sacrificed, or the very people who were planning to commit that genocide.

Is it really "killed half the population" when they did it in their own volition?

This also becomes iffy ground depending on how much of the plan individuals and/or the general public knew. It hits different when someone is "sacrificing" themselves expecting it to be the end of their life, versus "sacrificing" themselves...fully expecting to be revived when the plan is complete.

[Lauront]

This is the genocide part that the anti-Venat cabal loves to conveniently ignore. The simple fact is that a genocide was going to happen no matter what. The only question was whether the victims would be innocent beings created solely to be sacrificed, or the very people who were planning to commit that genocide.

No, the "anti-Venat cabal" has discussed this topic extensively. I can refer you to posts on it in this very thread, in case you want to play (?) dumb.

The question of whether it is even a "genocide" depends on whether it is a people being sacrificed or not, a question the writing has never directly answered, but there is an implication that this is life seeded by Zodiark, i.e. living creations given what we know of how life is created in the ancient world. We don't refer to mass slaughter of animals, which we humans (and the sundered in game) habitually perform in the form of modern agricultural and husbandry practices, as genocide. If you're trying to pull some weird argument of this motivating her actions, you will note that she is given a recollection of events by the WoL in Elpis and cannot understand what would move her to the actions she undertook. It is only after Meteion's report that it begins to click for her.

Her stated motivations, and those given by Yoshi, are explicitly 1) ability to manipulate dynamis and 2) not ending up like the world of the Nibirun, hence drop the sacrifices... and "accept suffering". After the shade mentioned this third sacrifice as being what caused her faction's opposition, we were also told by Yoshida that we hadn't heard her faction's side yet. She herself states, freely, that she does not wish to speak ill of the Convocation on this matter and that it does what it deems best for the star's sake, which is dissonant with her performing this on account of some supposed "genocide" - a plan their people were divided on, no less. All life on the star was sundered, whether in agreement with the plan or not, or not even sapient. So if you're trying to frame this as the reason, or claim it's an adequate reason? In the strongest terms: no.

Really, if she's so bothered about genocide, what sense does it make to then deliberately spare Emet, knowing what will happen? It ensures maximum genocide. It's clearly not a cost she's unwilling to bear in order to achieve her goal - a goal (achieved through maintaining the timeline she's told about) which we were told revolves around defeating Endsinger and ensuring the continuity of life... at least, in some form. Your framing of this as some inevitability of genocide, when she had not informed her people of the true nature of her concerns, and this could've meaningfully altered the course of events, doesn't follow.

This also becomes iffy ground depending on how much of the plan individuals and/or the general public knew. It hits different when someone is "sacrificing" themselves expecting it to be the end of their life, versus "sacrificing" themselves...fully expecting to be revived when the plan is complete.

It's clear from Hythlodaeus's words that that is part of the Convocation's plan that was added on later.



For the record: I like her character. What I don't like is the narrative treatment of her actions, or the insinuation that the ancients did not deserve to be told the truth to try and deal with the problem for themselves. I think this actually undermined her writing and it unfortunately involved a lot of awkward backtracking from SHB's themes.

[DiaDeem]

Is it really "killed half the population" when they did it in their own volition?

Oh no, even if willingly, they were sacrificed, thus got killed. Not saying it wasn't noble or anything but they most def got killed lol.

This, I can agree. The Ancients were flawed and not perfect, what annoys me is that they're judged on completely different standards for their mistakes than the Sundered or our own mankind.
Hermes apparently didn't receive the amount of mental health care he needed? "Wow their society were a bunch of evil unfeeling fascists who deserved to die".
They had to make difficult choices to ensure the star would survive? "Their kind was doomed, it doesn't matter if Venat killed them."
Try to apply the same logic to humans and see how cruel this would be

As someone who'd do anything for her family, I actually relate more with Emet than I do with Venat at a personal level. I feel a lot people are quick to pass judgement without realizing that being on their position wouldn't make the choices as clear cut and simple. I do wish Venat told Emet about the Final Days right away, and wish she brought to a vote if the sundering was a good idea at all. I get that she wanted to introduce pain into the world to prevent their society from becoming apathetic to everything like the Nibium from the Dead Ends, but... she didn't even give them a chance to show they could do better. I'm not entirely sure what the full intent was behind how they painted each character, but how grey they all came across to me is what makes them the best characters in the story. I guess the one thing I would have wanted was for the game to question Venat and her actions a bit more as it did for everyone (ancients) else. I do like them all in their own way, for the record.

[Oizen]

I mean... they killed half the population to create Zodiark, then the half of the half to nurture life again, and then they were gonna kill EVERYONE new to bring back the old.

I recall it being voluntary though. No one is denying the situation was shitty, but seems like only hydaelyn went against the grain here.

Oh no, even if willingly, they were sacrificed, thus got killed. Not saying it wasn't noble or anything but they most def got killed lol.

Yeah but they had a choice here, Venat is the only one who forced her will onto her own people, killing them anyway, or sealing them inside the moon as part of Zodiark.
Then she went on to make herself god of a new, weaker race.

I don't think anyone here is defending the actions of the Zodiark cult, or acting like Zodiark was the good guy. It was a desperate ploy done by people to try to save their planet.
You can't say the same when it comes to Hydaelyn, and while the story tries desperately to paint her as the hero, she really more looks like someone who sat on all the information for herself, went against her people who didnt know what she did, made herself a god, and doomed them all.

Again, the takeaway here is that Endwalker's story is rushed and of rather poor quality, you can take the events how the developer's intended, but I think the fact this discourse has gone on for this long now shows they objectively did a pretty bad job.