Thread: The Reasoning behind The Sundering? (*6.0 Endwalker Spoilers*)

Originally Posted by LineageRazor

I think there can be little doubt that the Ancients held themselves as being a tier apart from their creations, above them and fundamentally superior and of greater intrinsic importance. Certainly, they might favor such creations, bear affection for them - but that affection is much like the affection that we have for pets, even in cases where the creations are clearly intelligent beings. Several of the Elpis quests made it quite clear that even intelligent creations were seen as disposable and replaceable (such as the quest where we're instructed to allow the beast to rip us apart if it became a choice between its life and ours - it's an important research specimen, after all, and we're just a familiar!).

More than that, though, there were some strong hints that the Ancients did not hold their OWN lives in especially high regard, either. It's a regular occurrence, for instance, for an Ancient to simply decide that they've done enough and that it is time to die. Half of all the Ancients decided to sacrifice their own lives to birth Zodiark, and while that seems like a breathtaking spectacle of altruism from our perspective, to the Ancients it might not have been quite so unimaginable.

Is there really anything wrong with the Ancients viewing their creations as no higher than animals? Whether intelligent or not, those beings were given life primarily as a means of furthering the growth of Etheirys. While some (such as Meteion, being the prime example) were made with a specific purpose in mind, most were meant to spread and reproduce, such that increasing amounts of aether would be added to the world via the cycle of life and death. Even culling some of their own creations to bring back those sacrificed to Zodiark seems pretty acceptable when one considers this.

For the matter of the Ancients' own lives; they would choose to die because they felt it was their duty to return to Etheirys. It wasn't about a lack of care for themselves so much as a greater care for the whole. The immense amount of aether possessed by each Ancient meant such sacrifices were an excellent way of nourishing the world they so loved. As for the choice, what else could they do? A creature that cannot die of old age and possessed of such immense power is unlikely to meet its end through any natural means. More Ancients being born than die would both harm Etheirys by taking too much aether and harm the creatures living there through the resulting overpopulation. I would further contend that their willingness to sacrifice themselves to Zodiark stemmed not from a disregard for life but from an abiding love for it. To give up your own life so that your world, your loved ones, and people you haven't or never will meet can go on living for another day could easily be seen as the ultimate act of love for life. The fact that even more Ancients were then willing to die so that Zodiark could fix the damage done to their world - more specifically, so that it would be able to sustain the survivors - also speaks volumes.