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

[Lyth]

Ah, yes, that was a fantastic post. Thank you for reminding me about it.

It's not really worth engaging with people's rage towards certain characters. Personal preferences are irrational by nature, although we invariably come up with ways to rationalize our judgements to ourselves after the fact. Nobody is obliged like a given person, and you'll never convince people that they're wrong, let alone by arguing with them. Nor is it relevant whether they do or not.

I rather like Yoshi-P's take on the Amaurotians, although I do think that their level of decisiveness is very much a human trait, especially for anyone used to wielding authority. It's actually a bit of a fine line for the Scions to walk, given how entangled we've become with world politics. We have the power to make changes, and so we do. Sometimes the people that we 'liberate' are less than pleased with the result. It's much less a question of what was 'right' as it is about what 'happened.' Using that framework, it's interesting to see how the contest of wills inside of Amaurot played out.

[KariTheFox]

We're not discussing the Garleans right now, but if someone were to say "the Garleans are Nazis" to mean their society is just like 1930s-40s Germany - I would also disagree with that. Though if they just meant it as shorthand "they are a bunch of goosestepping bad guys" I wouldn't really care. Why do you feel the need to constantly bring up discussions I was not even a part of in your responses to me?

The issue is that Venat is very clearly described now as 'being just like an ancient' - she makes unilateral decisions about the fate of the world and the future in it because she thinks she knows best. If that is mental illness, then the entire society of ancients is mentally ill, because they all do that. At least Venat planned to actually step aside for future generations.

(Also if you just mean "Venat is mentally ill" as shorthand for "she is a bad person that I don't like" then that's kind of offensive to actually mentally ill people.)

[Rulakir]

I saw a thread on Reddit I found interesting regarding the second Final Days:

The thing about it is those that felt absolute hopelessness didn't overcome it, they died. And their souls were destroyed. The ones who overcame were those already strong, healthy.

As someone with depression the "have a bad episode? You could die AND have your soul destroyed AND turn into a monster that kills your friends and family" really hurt the message for me as it's exactly like the societal stigmatization of depression.

I firmly believe that the story was written by people with very little experience of depression/mental health as a whole. Thematically the expansion was incredibly shallow.

I honestly hadn't thought about it but, yeah, the second Final Days would've just ended up being a filter for everyone with mental illnesses. I'm sure that wasn't their intention, but still not a great message.

[polyphonica]

I honestly hadn't thought about it but, yeah, the second Final Days would've just ended up being a filter for everyone with mental illnesses. I'm sure that wasn't their intention, but still not a great message.

I think indeed it wasn't their intention, although I can see why the intention may not have landed for everyone. While it's true that the Final Days were making victims of some of society's most vulnerable, the story always portrayed this as a tragedy and generally as being a fault in society for not doing more to care about them sooner. The victims were never blamed, even though they had to be stopped. This is partly what the Role quests got into. The story has been pretty consistent in its admonishment against society for not protecting the vulnerable, as this is often the root cause of so much unneeded tragedy (which was always what the Ascians were counting on). The story also showed (with the first Final Days) that while it may start with the most vulnerable, it reaches everyone, so the second Final Days would not have ended up as only a filter.

[KageTokage]

After doing all of the role quests, I'd agree that really was not the vibe that they were shooting for at all and it seems like a stretch to even correlate the two.

They all draw attention to the fact that in each city state there were people quietly suffering from despair induced by various underlying issues; either as fallout from conflicts they faced earlier in the MSQ or more fundamental problems (In Gridania's case), and it's only when they started turning that the leaders became aware of it and took stronger measures to address their plight.

Though I will say that Gridania's storyline did absolutely nothing to improve my view of the elementals considering it was them being fickle and unforgiving that caused the blasphemy issues there in the first place. While the seventh calamity may have weakened them to an extent that they can no longer physically govern the lives of the Gridanians, other quests stress that they still have an unhealthy level of influence over their society and at times force people into situations that give them grief simply because they say so.

[Theodric]

It ties rather readily into a post I made on the subject a while back:

At the end of the day, it's just a video game. One many of us are varying degrees of passionate about, certainly, though I personally don't care for rivalries to form over something that is entirely fictional. As such, my stance has ever been to agree to disagree where common ground cannot be found. I don't care for endless arguments over morality and I'd like to think I've made it perfectly clear that if anyone has a problem with me, then they're very welcome to come and talk it out in a civil manner.

I like working out and discussing the 'how' and 'why' things happen in the way that they do in any given story or historical event, though my personal preferences drift towards characters and factions that have lofty stakes over those that have everything work out to their benefit most of the time.

One thing I noticed, however, was that some pretty spiteful and nasty accusations were aimed at anyone who ever dared to speak up in favour of the antagonists. This included death threats, homophobic comments and other unpleasant elements. Given that the offending posts were deleted, however, then such will have to be taken with a pinch of salt - though I'd like to think those who are being genuine and who have been around for a while will be aware of what I'm speaking of. Especially since some of the offending comments leaked into Reddit, Twitter and certain Discord servers.

The most fascinating thing I observed was that certain posters would repeatedly launch thinly veiled attacks and sometimes direct personal attacks at fans of the antagonists, implying all manner of horrible things about their person and real world morality. When finally those being assaulted had enough, even a minor quip in response would be treated as some deeply horrific crime and personal attack.

I will say that things have improved somewhat since then. Right around the same time that the game itself revealed that, yes, actually there was more to the Ascians and Garleans all along.

Ultimately any given individual is going to have their personal preferences and interests. I've never suggested that anyone has to like specific characters or factions. I only ask that the same courtesy is extended to others in turn.

In closing, I'd also note that the game attracts players from many different countries, cultures, backgrounds and belief systems. We all have different life experiences, so that is going to influence what we like and we don't like.

I think it's telling that there's so much concern being expressed over Venat being called a 'psychopath' when that's simply the opinion of an individual poster and more importantly...Venat isn't real.

It should go without saying that death threats, harassment and gatekeeping of opinions are far graver a problem than that.

How interesting that the trend of raising concern only arises when someone decides to push back against unsettling threats and personal attacks that they receive over something as trivial as their personal tastes in fictional characters.

[Rannie]

I think I know what happened during the convocation meetings with Venat... I'm currently watching it play out on the forums /facepalm

Edit: ohhh hey my banishment from the forums (daily post limit) has been lifted yaaaay!

Edit 2: if one of you decides to sunder us could you try to put me or one of my clones some where nice? Hawaii maybe or Japan?

[Slatersev]

After doing all of the role quests, I'd agree that really was not the vibe that they were shooting for at all and it seems like a stretch to even correlate the two.

They all draw attention to the fact that in each city state there were people quietly suffering from despair induced by various underlying issues; either as fallout from conflicts they faced earlier in the MSQ or more fundamental problems (In Gridania's case), and it's only when they started turning that the leaders became aware of it and took stronger measures to address their plight.

Though I will say that Gridania's storyline did absolutely nothing to improve my view of the elementals considering it was them being fickle and unforgiving that caused the blasphemy issues there in the first place. While the seventh calamity may have weakened them to an extent that they can no longer physically govern the lives of the Gridanians, other quests stress that they still have an unhealthy level of influence over their society and at times force people into situations that give them grief simply because they say so.

This is slightly off topic, but I do think its a shame we dont have a role quests for EW thread specifically, I don't think there writing was as strong as Shb. But I do appreciate how they actually used basically every major issue the countries had as a jumping off point to examine them.

[KariTheFox]

I think it's telling that there's so much concern being expressed over Venat being called a 'psychopath' when that's simply the opinion of an individual poster and more importantly...Venat isn't real.

Okay, for the last time. I do not care if someone dislike Venat or disapproves of her actions. Insult her all you want, call her a bitch, a miserable little worm, or a horrible person - I do not care.

What I objecting to is the specific claim about her as a character and her motivations that comes with calling her a "mentally ill psychopath". That isn't an 'opinion' - it is a claim about Venat as a character, and the text. It is a claim that is inaccurate because there is zero indication that Venat is mentally ill, or motivated by psychopathy. The reasons cited for her being a mentally ill psychopath "She told lies, she contradicted herself, she thinks she knows what is best for everyone" are not only not signs of mental illness - but also things that apply to all the ancients, and to sundered people as well. The fact of the matter is that Venat was perfectly sane, and acting in good faith doing what she thought was the best course of action. You are free to disagree that her chosen course was the best possible one, but we can't even start to have a discussion about that if we cannot agree on basic points of fact about the text.

If I were to say, "Emet-Selch is a mentally ill sadist, he causes rejoinings because he enjoys watching the sundered peoples suffer and die," you would rightfully object, because it is an inaccurate claim about his character and motivations, it does not suddenly become better if I say "In my opinion, Emet-Selch is a mentally ill sadist, he causes rejoinings because he enjoys watching the sundered people suffer and die." instead.

I also fail to see how it is relevant that other, unrelated people acted in bad faith regarding Garleans and the Ascians. So what if some people on twitter insulted you for liking Gauis and Emet-Selch or whatever? - that has nothing to do with my point. Nor do I think it's terribly mature to say 'well in some other discussions in the past, people I associate with being on 'your side' acted in bad faith, so there's nothing wrong 'my side' doing it now.'

[Theodric]

I really don't care if people insult fictional characters. What I'm specifically calling out is the personal attacks - some of which are present within this very thread. Nor was my post even aimed at you, hence why I didn't quote you.