The WOL and Mass Murder

[DPZ2]

Does anyone still here ever wonder just WHY OP was so "irked" about the WoL's bodycount? Most of the playerbase doesn't seem to care one whit

The Real and True Reason why the bodycount does not matter: It's a Video Game with combat as a focus.

People who appear to be upset about this haven't played, well, most any video game that involves combat. Period.

[Cleretic]

I can understand someone looking at the bodycount of the game (especially in ARR where the reasoning was occasionally... shifty), and feeling a little uncomfortable. XIV is hardly the most bloodthirsty game around, but it's also not exactly Animal Crossing. I think it's fine to have questions about that, as long as you also recognize that there are answers for them.

The OP asked that question in Stormblood, where the nature of the question was fundamentally quite different than now, largely because the scenario was in wartime. War both has changed and never changes, it's hell and good for absolutely nothin', but it's also a place where death is quite simply a known factor, and an inevitability around you even if you may be lucky to never inflict or be victim to it when you're there. That's not to say death is good or something we should be happy to have dealt, but it's a known consequence. It's also not murder; conscripted or not, death in war is not murder in large part because death is constantly on the table. That's not to say anyone has to be morally okay with it, but when the setting is a war, it happens.

The thread necromancer instead dragged in Endwalker contexts--specifically, talking about the Ascians. (Not the Convocation or Ancients, but specifically the post-Sundering, Calamity-doing Ascians). That is an enormously different context, and while yes you are still theoretically allowed to be sad that it happened, it's also not murder, largely by virtue of the Ascians shooting first--on rather an enormous scale both in magnitude and timespan, as well as just directly being the agggressor in all instances we've fought them. It's actually also not a mass murder even disregarding that; while you can't really get a singular agreeable worldwide definition, the US legal definition is at minimum three or four people (depending on the authority you look at) in a single event. The WoL has actually never managed to do that, the most Ascians we've killed at once is two by generous definition--more realistically that was the WoL and Thordan with one kill each.

[SentioftheHoukai]

I can understand someone looking at the bodycount of the game (especially in ARR where the reasoning was occasionally... shifty), and feeling a little uncomfortable. XIV is hardly the most bloodthirsty game around, but it's also not exactly Animal Crossing. I think it's fine to have questions about that, as long as you also recognize that there are answers for them.

The OP asked that question in Stormblood, where the nature of the question was fundamentally quite different than now, largely because the scenario was in wartime. War both has changed and never changes, it's hell and good for absolutely nothin', but it's also a place where death is quite simply a known factor, and an inevitability around you even if you may be lucky to never inflict or be victim to it when you're there. That's not to say death is good or something we should be happy to have dealt, but it's a known consequence. It's also not murder; conscripted or not, death in war is not murder in large part because death is constantly on the table. That's not to say anyone has to be morally okay with it, but when the setting is a war, it happens.

The thread necromancer instead dragged in Endwalker contexts--specifically, talking about the Ascians. (Not the Convocation or Ancients, but specifically the post-Sundering, Calamity-doing Ascians). That is an enormously different context, and while yes you are still theoretically allowed to be sad that it happened, it's also not murder, largely by virtue of the Ascians shooting first--on rather an enormous scale both in magnitude and timespan, as well as just directly being the agggressor in all instances we've fought them. It's actually also not a mass murder even disregarding that; while you can't really get a singular agreeable worldwide definition, the US legal definition is at minimum three or four people (depending on the authority you look at) in a single event. The WoL has actually never managed to do that, the most Ascians we've killed at once is two by generous definition--more realistically that was the WoL and Thordan with one kill each.

Nope. Venat shot first. Stop Venat, and you stop the Rejoinings. Truly, truly astonishing how difficult it seems to be for some people to acknowledge information that was quite literally spoonfed to us in a direct developer interview.

[sidurgu-12]

Nope. Venat shot first. Stop Venat, and you stop the Rejoinings. Truly, truly astonishing how difficult it seems to be for some people to acknowledge information that was quite literally spoonfed to us in a direct developer interview.

stop venat and every living person ceases to exist. well, in that timeline at least.

[SentioftheHoukai]

stop venat and every living person ceases to exist. well, in that timeline at least.

No more proof of that then there is proof she did or did not tell anyone anything relevant. Fact of the matter is, we don't know for we were shown nothing of that time period. Don't quote the dev's "word" they'd end up like the Plenty either, when in-game evidence so clearly contradicts this is means far less and is practically worthless as WoG. Not all of us are so willing to just accept what we're told at face value. Ancients weren't given their chance to deal with Meteion, and they deserved it. As I said before, during our time in Elpis the Final Days yet loomed and nobody had been sacrificed yet. THAT was the time for Venat to attempt to convince people to "face suffering" not after the Apocalypse she withheld from them already arrived and and they went batshit, as desperate people are wont to do when blindsided completely by an End of Days scenario they'd literally COULDN'T have seen coming. As I've stated many a time, normal people in normal times don't just up and summon God. Those are the actions of the desperate to live, and they didn't have to be that way. The Ancients we see Venat fail to "convince" are precisely the kind of personalities the narrative needed them to be, hence their status as unfaithful caricatures.

[sidurgu-12]

No more proof of that then there is proof she did or did not tell anyone anything relevant. Fact of the matter is, we don't know for we were shown nothing of that time period. Don't quote the dev's "word" they'd end up like the Plenty either, when in-game evidence so clearly contradicts this is means far less and is practically worthless as WoG. Not all of us are so willing to just accept what we're told at face value. Ancients weren't given their chance to deal with Meteion, and they deserved it. As I said before, during our time in Elpis the Final Days yet loomed and nobody had been sacrificed yet. THAT was the time for Venat to attempt to convince people to "face suffering" not after the Apocalypse she withheld from them already arrived and and they went batshit, as desperate people are wont to do when blindsided completely by an End of Days scenario they'd literally COULDN'T have seen coming. As I've stated many a time, normal people in normal times don't just up and summon God. Those are the actions of the desperate to live, and they didn't have to be that way. The Ancients we see Venat fail to "convince" are precisely the kind of personalities the narrative needed them to be, hence their status as unfaithful caricatures.

its not even about the plenty. Its about the sundering. if you stop venat then the sundering wont happen which means every person born after no longer exists since not everyone is a fragment of an ancient. and even then they also cease to exist because despite being their reincarnation theyre not the same person.

[Necrotica]

Hydaelyn shot first.

The Ascians then tried to fight back and retake their stolen world.

Odd that Hydaelyn never told her footsoldiers what started the war.

[sidurgu-12]

Hydaelyn shot first.

The Ascians then tried to fight back and retake their stolen world.

Odd that Hydaelyn never told her footsoldiers what started the war.

hermes shot first. hes the one who launched the nuke that irradiated the entire planet.

[Dzonathan]

Hydaelyn shot first.

The Ascians then tried to fight back and retake their stolen world.

Odd that Hydaelyn never told her footsoldiers what started the war.

I used to believe that too but then I gave it a bit more thought.

The real issue was not that the civilizations grow nihilistic and suicidal overtime.
The real issue was that they grow powerful enough to see their nihilism through.

At worst, a nihilistic cavemen is just going to run around, bonk other random cavemen and then get himself bonked to death. The life in the universe wont die and the rest will move on and find happiness in life.
At worst, a nihilistic ancient is going to create a universe destroying bird loli and then just runs off back to his corner to keep brooding. The life in the universe will die and the rest will not move on and find oblivion in death.

If Venat had enough smarts to present the issue as ancients being suicidal nihilists who were too powerful for their own good then she wouldn't had to hide the truth from everyone.

[Cleretic]

I used to believe that too but then I gave it a bit more thought.

The real issue wasn't not that the civilizations grow nihilistic and suicidal overtime.
The real issue was that they grow powerful enough to see their nihilism through.

At worst, a nihilistic cavemen is just going to run around, bonk other random cavemen and then get himself bonked to death. The life in the universe wont die and the rest will move on and find happiness in life.
At worst, a nihilistic ancient is going to create a universe destroying bird loli and then just runs off back to his corner to keep brooding. the life in the universe will die and the rest will not move on and find oblivion in death.

If Venat had enough smarts to present the issue as ancients being suicidal nihilists who were too powerful for their own good then she wouldn't had to hide the truth from everyone.

I largely agree with you, and actually never thought about it that way; we're knee-deep in a raid story of seeing what Ancients handling things poorly looks like, and yeeeeeeeah, maybe do your best to avoid giving a whole society the impetus to do that.

But mostly I'm replying to point out the black magic you have probably-accidentally stumbled on to make your avatar have a purple background, and I just want to applaud you for discovering what's definitely gonna be the new OF fashion trend. I checked how that happened by the way for anyone curious:

That's the Abyssos fending chestpiece's ring effect; it goes red on the edges, which blends with the usual blue.