Disappointed in one Endwalker Aspect [SPOILERS]

[Garnetiferous]

Except it was to save other races. Which is worse, destroying a single race, or destroying multiple? Both are horrible, even Venat acknowledges the horrors of what she did when we met with her inside the planet. Venat had a good reason to save the other races, just as how the Convocation had a good reason to save their own.

There is no clear cut villain here, just shades of gray everywhere. Even Meteion's evil through despair was caused by Hermes innocently wanting the answer to the meaning of life. All we're left with are souls who were so badly damaged by their own circumstances that it rippled and made things worse for others.

We don't know what life they were planning to sacrifice for the 3rd one. It's never stated in-game or in any story. It's possible that it was the sapient races we know from the modern world but the point still stands that we don't actually know.

[RyuDragnier]

We don't know what life they were planning to sacrifice for the 3rd one. It's never stated in-game or in any story. It's possible that it was the sapient races we know from the modern world but the point still stands that we don't actually know.

Which adds to the gray. We have so much we do not know.

[KariTheFox]

Venat wasn't respoinsible for the complete destruction of the ancients though. Half thier number died to summon zodiark, another half died to restore the star. And that is after thier population was likely severely reduced by the sheer destructiveness of the final days.

She also wasn't acting alone, she had an entire faction of ancients who agreed with her and were willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of an uncertain future.

[Ryaz]

Venat wasn't respoinsible for the complete destruction of the ancients though. Half thier number died to summon zodiark, another half died to restore the star. And that is after thier population was likely severely reduced by the sheer destructiveness of the final days.

She also wasn't acting alone, she had an entire faction of ancients who agreed with her and were willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of an uncertain future.

Yeah, this is one thing that's been confusing me. A lot of people are arguing that Venat decided to sunder the Anicents on her own, when ShB made it clear she had supporters. I wouldn't be surprised if they were people who knew of the Final Days ahead of time and of the future. She did say she'd have to carefully consider who she brought into the fold. I have a feeling she told some people she trusted and it wasn't just her doing it on her own whim. That would neglect everything we learned in 5.2.

I also feel that the scene we're shown of her walk and "sundering" was taken a bit too literally. The whole scene went through a few periods of time as she explained things (ie, showing Hytho going off to sacrifice himself and then cutting to the Ancients prepping for yet another sacrifice to an already summoned Zodiark). I think that scene was more her becoming Hydalaen and the actual battle against Zodiark and sundering took place after and wasn't shown on screen, because we already had that info given to us in ShB.

[Slatersev]

Honestly while we don't actually know I have no idea how anyone could actually think the third sacrifice would just be like, regular animals and such.

Like on a very basic narrative level making it the Convocation just wanting to use literal cattle undermines the themes of both ShB and EW massively. It doesn't give the story shades of gray or anything close to that.

The convocation wanting to sacrifice new sapient life because they want back what they lost vs Venat sundering her own people partly in defense of that new innocent life is a compelling and interesting narrative element.

Having her do it to protect literal chickens makes both her and Emet look like idiots. Like why the fuck would Emet beat around the bush so much with us if the original end goal was something that simple?

Regardless of who you like more making it literal animals would just make both sides look really dumb, not tragically compelling.

[Cleretic]

Honestly while we don't actually know I have no idea how anyone could actually think the third sacrifice would just be like, regular animals and such.

Like on a very basic narrative level making it the Convocation just wanting to use literal cattle undermines the themes of both ShB and EW massively. It doesn't give the story shades of gray or anything close to that.

The convocation wanting to sacrifice new sapient life because they want back what they lost vs Venat sundering her own people partly in defense of that new innocent life is a compelling and interesting narrative element.

Having her do it to protect literal chickens makes both her and Emet look like idiots. Like why the fuck would Emet beat around the bush so much with us if the original end goal was something that simple?

Regardless of who you like more making it literal animals would just make both sides look really dumb, not tragically compelling.

Yeah, as I've said before, the story just doesn't function if it's something small and fairly safe. Both on a narrative level and a logical one.

I'll point out, we learned in Mare Lamentorum that all the lives sacrificed to Zodiark are still in it. Which implicitly tells us that at least part of the third sacrifice would be to replace them; Zodiark still needs to be powered, they just want to replace the power source. There may be additional costs required, but that's the floor.

So if that's true, how much is in there that needs to be replaced? Oh, right, 75% of the planet's population. We don't have a statistic on that, but it's gotta be a big number. So then, to get a better idea of what is actually needed, we then have to ask another question: were they sacrificing to give Zodiark aether, or to give it souls? Honestly, neither of those give us a favorable result; if it's aether, the Ancients are notoriously aetherically dense, so the math isn't going to be '1 cow=1 Ancient'. And if it's souls, we're in with a bigger problem, because we know that souls aren't a reliably appearing resource. So either the Convocation were specifically picking out a whole lot of ensouled creatures to sacrifice, or a new population of reliably ensouled creatures turned up; and either way, they're about to sacrifice a hell of a lot of them.

The third sacrifice is an unknown, but there's no way that it wasn't significant. This is true both from a narrative perspective, and from a purely logical one with the pieces in play; there's no way to math out the size of the third sacrifice without ending up with a number in the 'dear god, NO' range.

[KariTheFox]

Honestly while we don't actually know I have no idea how anyone could actually think the third sacrifice would just be like, regular animals and such.

Like on a very basic narrative level making it the Convocation just wanting to use literal cattle undermines the themes of both ShB and EW massively. It doesn't give the story shades of gray or anything close to that.

The convocation wanting to sacrifice new sapient life because they want back what they lost vs Venat sundering her own people partly in defense of that new innocent life is a compelling and interesting narrative element.

Having her do it to protect literal chickens makes both her and Emet look like idiots. Like why the fuck would Emet beat around the bush so much with us if the original end goal was something that simple?

Regardless of who you like more making it literal animals would just make both sides look really dumb, not tragically compelling.

Exactly. Emet-Selch, who loves talking people's ears off and was trying very hard during Shadowbringers to convince the WoL of the righteousness of his cause would have said something if the plan was to sacrifice a bunch of livestock. Like, "Hydaelyn, in her infinite cruelty, would not even allow us sacrifice the mindless beasts of the star to bring back our bretheren. Does that sound like a righteous goddess to you, playername?" or "Don't worry, after the rejoinings - we will sacrifice some of the plants and animals of the world to bring back our brothers, and once again you will be afforded the protection and guidance we gave the star long ago."

[Alleo]

Exactly. Emet-Selch, who loves talking people's ears off and was trying very hard during Shadowbringers to convince the WoL of the righteousness of his cause would have said something if the plan was to sacrifice a bunch of livestock. Like, "Hydaelyn, in her infinite cruelty, would not even allow us sacrifice the mindless beasts of the star to bring back our bretheren. Does that sound like a righteous goddess to you, playername?" or "Don't worry, after the rejoinings - we will sacrifice some of the plants and animals of the world to bring back our brothers, and once again you will be afforded the protection and guidance we gave the star long ago."

And if chickens and other animals are enough and they truly care about sentient/sapient races why would Emet state that all the remaining inhabitants of the source would be offered as a sacrifice to Zodiark? You know those people that would have been whole thus "alive" again. Those people that included reborn Amaurotines and other Ancient souls. They would still be sacrificied. So if their plan was alway just normal animals why change towards the end? It only imo makes sense if the life that was supposed to die was also already more.

[Rulakir]

And if chickens and other animals are enough and they truly care about sentient/sapient races why would Emet state that all the remaining inhabitants of the source would be offered as a sacrifice to Zodiark? You know those people that would have been whole thus "alive" again. Those people that included reborn Amaurotines and other Ancient souls. They would still be sacrificied. So if their plan was alway just normal animals why change towards the end? It only imo makes sense if the life that was supposed to die was also already more.

Why would Emet sacrifice his own people he's trying to make whole again through rejoinings? He says to the WoL during the lift cutscene, "Should you survive the remaining calamities, you will become our equal. A complete existence in a complete world."

The 'remaining' inhabitants of the Source would be those without Ancient souls and since this is 12k+ years into the future that probably did include sentient life. However, it's a stretch to say that's what was intended for the third sacrifice. The second sacrifice to Zodiark was to make Etheirys inhabitable again, so what purpose would be served by bringing back humanoid races? The priority would be on flora and the basic amount of fauna necessary to create a functioning ecosystem.

I have to wonder what plan they could've come up with prior to the Final Days to create the barrier around Etheirys. Had they been given warning and been proactive, they wouldn't have had to rely on only themselves for aether and the second sacrifice wouldn't have even been necessary since they would've prevented the destruction of the world.

[Cilia]

If the souls of the original Ancients who sacrificed themselves to summon Zodiark were still present within Zodiark, were the souls of all the other Sundered people collected within Zodiark with each Rejoining? If Emet-Selch had been successful in killing all humanoid life on Norvrandt, wouldn't those souls have joined with the ones inside Zodiark?

Or, were the souls within Zodiark un-Sundered as they died before the Sundering?

Theoretically, it's a mixed bag. We know Zodiark was sundered, but not whether or not any or all the souls that made him up were. We do know there are sundered pieces of various souls out and about the reflections (aside from Azem - PC / Ardbert, there's also Rowena / Mowen and Geralt / Grenoldt, as well as the various Ascians) but not the exact state of the souls that made up Zodiark post-Sundering.

Why would Emet sacrifice his own people he's trying to make whole again through rejoinings? He says to the WoL during the lift cutscene, "Should you survive the remaining calamities, you will become our equal. A complete existence in a complete world."

The 'remaining' inhabitants of the Source would be those without Ancient souls and since this is 12k+ years into the future that probably did include sentient life. However, it's a stretch to say that's what was intended for the third sacrifice.

We don't know what was intended for the third sacrifice and ultimately it's not terribly relevant; Venat / Hydaelyn sundered the world not to stop the Ancients from making sacrifices of other lifeforms but to stop them from making sacrifices of themselves, chasing the impossible concept of "a perfect paradise free from sorrow." The second time around Labyrinthos is a bit of a drag in terms of pacing, but therein it lays out one of the key philosophical ideas in Endwalker - that being perfection is an impossible to achieve ideal, even if you achieved it you wouldn't be happy, and the cost wouldn't be worth the result anyway.

Regardless, Emet-Selch does tell us prior to the Amaurot dungeon he intends to sacrifice the remaining Source mortals post-full Rejoining to bring back his brethren. What exactly was intended to be sacrificed 12,500 years ago is purely an academic question.