What lore do you ignore?

[Cilia]

The world where, if I or someone else is feeling depressed, other people will come up and say "hey, let me help you, we'll get through this together", rather than "have you tried not being depressed?"

The Ancient world empirically lacked any institutional knowledge on how to handle trauma. The point of Endwalker was never "trauma makes you stronger", but rather "together we can overcome what each of us might not". This is consistent with what we've heard of Azem's duties and personalities, ever since we learned of them in Shadowbringers 5.3.

If someone is depressed and offed themselves due to not having anyone to share their troubles with, that illustrates the brittleness of Ancient society, not the suffering of modern Eorzean society. The consistent theme throughout the FFXIV story is we should help each other.

Actually, the point of Endwalker was neither "trauma makes you stronger" nor "together we can overcome what individually we cannot." The point of it is exalting the power of the individual, a call to live on your own terms and nobody else's. The collectivist ideals are a consequence of the Eastern lens, I think.

Whether or you like her or hate her, it's impossible to deny that by following her own ideals Venat influenced the course of history more than anyone else in Etheirys' recorded history. Nearly the entire rest of Amaurotine civilization was content to follow the ideals set forth by their society, and when that failed created and looked to Zodiark for guidance instead of deciding for themselves what was worth living for. Standing in stark contrast to Venat's conclusion that life has no objective purpose, it's something you have to decide on your own to find true happiness and fulfillment in life; letting others decide these things for you makes you unable to cope when they inevitably fail, as happened to Amaurot.

... Endwalker is a lot of Nietzsche. Like, a lot a lot. Like, wow.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

Actually, the point of Endwalker was neither "trauma makes you stronger" nor "together we can overcome what individually we cannot." The point of it is exalting the power of the individual, a call to live on your own terms and nobody else's. The collectivist ideals are a consequence of the Eastern lens, I think.

Whether or you like her or hate her, it's impossible to deny that by following her own ideals Venat influenced the course of history more than anyone else in Etheirys' recorded history. Nearly the entire rest of Amaurotine civilization was content to follow the ideals set forth by their society, and when that failed created and looked to Zodiark for guidance instead of deciding for themselves what was worth living for. Standing in stark contrast to Venat's conclusion that life has no objective purpose, it's something you have to decide on your own to find true happiness and fulfillment in life; letting others decide these things for you makes you unable to cope when they inevitably fail, as happened to Amaurot.

... Endwalker is a lot of Nietzsche. Like, a lot a lot. Like, wow.

It's funny that people like this because it has a positive spin, but I don't disagree with your read. And who is the Ubermensch in the FF14 universe? Zenos. I've stated multiple times that Zenos is the embodiment of Venat's philosophy. But people don't like that.

My issue with Venat wasn't that she lived by her own ideals. But that she forced everyone else to live by her ideals by devolving them and shaping their beliefs for the next twelve thousand years. You and I don't seem to disagree on what happened, we just seem to disagree on if that's cool or monstrous.

So you and I actually agree on what happened, and it feels good to at least get that far. I've spent so much time arguing over if I really saw what I saw, it's nice to have someone admit, nah, I saw that too.

ETA: Wait, it just hit me. When she sundered the star, she also believed she was acting in service of what was best for the star. She just didn't bother to work with her people and instead chose to work on them...She's still following the purpose the rest of her species believes to be their reason for existing, to serve the star. The only people truly acting against that believed purpose are the ones who want to replace the souls in Zodiark with some of the star's living energy. For Venat's actions to be truly Nietzschean, she'd have to be as self-serving as people assume I think she is by the way I talk about her.

[Cleretic]

... Endwalker is a lot of Nietzsche. Like, a lot a lot. Like, wow.

I mean, nihilism is not inherently negative. And I think one of the many abstract things Endwalker is focused on, many of which are related, is a very similar fundamental question: 'if life has no meaning, what do you do with it'. And your answer is ultimately personal, but that doesn't mean it has to be individualist: remember that the people who we directly see stare down the End of Days and overcome it are Thavnairians, who end up leaning on faith and religion, an ultimately extremely communal subject. Most of the role quests are also about addressing communal pains and helping each other.

The Ancient world was not destroyed by the Final Days. The Ancient world was destroyed in a terrorist attack -- The Sundering.

You are so obviously not paying attention to the arguments actually being made, and are stuck so stridently on the one you think you're having.

If I woke up as some rando in the Ancient world, I'm not scared of the End of Days. Frankly, I think I die ten seconds after the skies go red and the city is destroyed, and there's almost a level of comfort in dying so suddenly to something absolutely colossal that I both had no part in creating and had no power to stop; not really a lot of time or place for fear, at least as I process it.

I'm scared of a world where a child's nightmares can become real.
I'm scared of the world where the Behemoth is celebrated as an achievement.
I'm scared of a world so normative they can't even fathom a deviation from the norm--and what that means for me, as someone who so often doesn't fit it.
I'm scared of a world where literally anyone I meet has magic that can cause me great pain and danger, and whose power over that is so tenuous that a stray thought makes it go wrong.
I'm scared of having that power myself.
And I'm scared of a world run by fourteen people who only leave office voluntarily, who select their successors personally when they do, and who are all completely okay with everything I just mentioned.

Yeah, Thavnair's not perfect--even if I dodge the End of Days somehow, this is still a place that lost so many people on a specific pilgrimage that they started praying to the crocodile that might've eaten them--but I would still be happier and feel safer there than Amaurot. And it has nothing to do with who you think.

EDIT: Y'know what, as much as I love the non-sequitir, that needs and deserves the context.

[redheadturk]

If I woke up as some rando in the Ancient world, I'm not scared of the End of Days. Frankly, I think I die ten seconds after the skies go red and the city is destroyed, and there's almost a level of comfort in dying so suddenly to something absolutely colossal that I both had no part in creating and had no power to stop; not really a lot of time or place for fear, at least as I process it.

I'm scared of a world where a child's nightmares can become real.
I'm scared of the world where the Behemoth is celebrated as an achievement.
I'm scared of a world so normative they can't even fathom a deviation from the norm--and what that means for me, as someone who so often doesn't fit it.
I'm scared of a world where literally anyone I meet has magic that can cause me great pain and danger, and whose power over that is so tenuous that a stray thought makes it go wrong.
I'm scared of having that power myself.
And I'm scared of a world run by fourteen people who only leave office voluntarily, who select their successors personally when they do, and who are all completely okay with everything I just mentioned.

Yeah, Thavnair's not perfect--even if I dodge the End of Days somehow, this is still a place that lost so many people on a specific pilgrimage that they started praying to the crocodile that might've eaten them--but I would still be happier and feel safer there than Amaurot. And it has nothing to do with who you think.

EDIT: Y'know what, as much as I love the non-sequitir, that needs and deserves the context.

Yeah, no. why the *hell* would you be scared of a world where the entire society is pretty much gender non-conforming in the sense of "My body is just the one I was born with and does not define me as a person."? One where you don't need expensive surgeries or hormones to change your body if you feel uncomfortable in it because hey, magic can be used to shape your flesh how you want it? I would love to live in a world where I can just ]create whatever is needed so no one needs ever to starve again or fight over scarce resources. I mean, sorry, but your fears seem silly to me when the Sundered world with its pain and scarcity seems so much worse.

[Cleretic]

Yeah, no. why the *hell* would you be scared of a world where the entire society is pretty much gender non-conforming in the sense of "My body is just the one I was born with and does not define me as a person."?

It says such interesting things about you that you look at a world with one single uniform, and see any form of 'non-conformity'.

There are more parts to me than the flag that hangs in my home and the pills I take every day, all of which weigh in on my feelings about this. But even that part doesn't look at Elpis and see anything I'd want to call 'home'.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

You are so obviously not paying attention to the arguments actually being made, and are stuck so stridently on the one you think you're having.

If I woke up as some rando in the Ancient world, I'm not scared of the End of Days. Frankly, I think I die ten seconds after the skies go red and the city is destroyed, and there's almost a level of comfort in dying so suddenly to something absolutely colossal that I both had no part in creating and had no power to stop; not really a lot of time or place for fear, at least as I process it.

I'm scared of a world where a child's nightmares can become real.
I'm scared of the world where the Behemoth is celebrated as an achievement.
I'm scared of a world so normative they can't even fathom a deviation from the norm--and what that means for me, as someone who so often doesn't fit it.
I'm scared of a world where literally anyone I meet has magic that can cause me great pain and danger, and whose power over that is so tenuous that a stray thought makes it go wrong.
I'm scared of having that power myself.
And I'm scared of a world run by fourteen people who only leave office voluntarily, who select their successors personally when they do, and who are all completely okay with everything I just mentioned.

Yeah, Thavnair's not perfect--even if I dodge the End of Days somehow, this is still a place that lost so many people on a specific pilgrimage that they started praying to the crocodile that might've eaten them--but I would still be happier and feel safer there than Amaurot. And it has nothing to do with who you think.

EDIT: Y'know what, as much as I love the non-sequitir, that needs and deserves the context.

I will never understand how you can make the argument that every man, woman and child deserved to be eradicated because their post-scarcity society was "bad actually" when as she's murdering everyone, she explains it's because they have it "too good" and she's gonna make sure they have no choice but to suffer. Venat wasn't trying to make a better, more just world, if she was, she failed miserably. She was trying to make survivors by running them through a gauntlet. And I'd argue she only succeeded if one's metric for "survivor" are people who weren't murdered by her personally. Then sure. We're a game full of "survivors."

[Vyrerus]

I'm scared of a world where a child's nightmares can become real.
I'm scared of the world where the Behemoth is celebrated as an achievement.

The more faults we have to invent for the Ascians' world, the more we just point out the faults in Sundered world.

You're scared of a world where a child's nightmares can become real, but the adults in that world have dreams aplenty that can put it back to bed.

You're scared of a world where nature is so powerful that things like the Behemoth are considered a good addition to it that will balance it. How much more scary its natural order must have been! But a far finer addition to any world than a gunship the size of an aircraft carrier, or the cannons that line the Ruby Sea bay outside Hingashi.

You're scared of a world that's so accepting that it allows people to eschew its own customs without punishing them, and your favorite Ancient Venat is proof of that.

You're scared of a world where everyone has the potential to cause great pain, but almost everyone chooses not to do such things, and instead battles each other with ideas. Well, prior to their Final Days driven Civil War, anyway.

You're scared of having a power that would let you share your soul with others so directly that you could not be misunderstood, should you choose to do so. I can only envy such a wonderful power.

But emotions, which fear is, are not exactly rational anyway, so I suppose I can't fault you for that.

Nowhere is perfect. Amaurot was not perfect. But it excelled in ways we can only dream of. Post war, post scarcity, and conservationally minded in the extreme. Global Warming? Climate Change? Never heard of it.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

You're scared of a world where everyone has the potential to cause great pain, but almost everyone chooses not to do such things, and instead battles each other with ideas. Well, prior to their Final Days driven Civil War, anyway.

Is it confirmed anywhere that disagreement over the third sacrifice caused an actual civil war and not just arguing?

[Anonymoose]

Is it confirmed anywhere that disagreement over the third sacrifice caused an actual civil war and not just arguing?

Most English references say that an ideological divide gave way to open conflict and a final battle between Hydaelyn and Zodiark of a like usually found only in myth, but in French we have...

Hythlodaeus
Pour la première fois de son histoire, l'humanité était divisée en deux camps se livrant une guerre sans merci...
For the first time in its history, humanity was divided into two camps waging a merciless war...

I wouldn't say it was focused specifically on the third sacrifice, though. That was one part of a larger whole, the trend of trading more and more sacrifices (out of less and less true necessity) in a futile effort to restore "a past that could never be restored" (see: Unending Journey). It was a snowball at the core of which was the refusal to give new life and future generations a say in the way forward, aiming to reclaim the past even if it meant the "stewards of the planet" sacrificing the things they swore to be caretakers of.

[Cleretic]

Most English references say that an ideological divide gave way to open conflict and a final battle between Hydaelyn and Zodiark of a like usually found only in myth, but in French we have...

I wouldn't say it was focused specifically on the third sacrifice, though. That was one part of a larger whole, the trend of trading more and more sacrifices (out of less and less true necessity) in a futile effort to restore "a past that could never be restored" (see: Unending Journey). It was a snowball at the core of which was the refusal to give new life and future generations a say in the way forward, aiming to reclaim the past even if it meant the "stewards of the planet" sacrificing the things they swore to be caretakers of.

I've always been a little surprised that people didn't think there was any vocal opposition at all outside of Venat. Logically speaking, if your game plan is to sacrifice the lives of people who support you, then every time you do that, you're only losing supporters and the percentage of the population that's against you is only going to be proportionally larger. Surely after you burn through 75% of the population, the remaining 25% probably consists of a lot of people who aren't your supporters.

I don't like double-posting, but these really are just entirely separate points and this should be allowed to stand separately.