What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[MikkoAkure]

I don't think I'll ever understand how people see the Convocation as nothing more than another group of Oppressive Shadow Council that holds all the power. They're literally voted in by the people, Hythlodaeus says as much. With the sole exception of the Fandaniel we come to know, Hermes who was groomed for the role by the previous Fandaniel. Nepotism, in other words. Kind of like how Venat was grooming Azem to be the next her. Odd how those who rise to their station that way turn out to be such bad eggs, eh?

Nevertheless, where you see something to revile in a "logic-based society" I personally instead see something to admire and praise. Beings based primarily upon logic need not necessarily mean they do not HAVE emotions, and the way more than half of this fandom goes on about the Ancients some of you begin to resemble those that tell me being neurodivergent means I have no feelings and don't care about others' feelings.

Disheartening.

How does any of this have anything to do with what I said?

The part you bolded was that I expected people who are logical to recognize that their own creation is not a “one true god”, and so they must be tempered, not that they don’t have feelings.

I was also under the impression that Convocation members were voted in by other members of the Convocation and that all would be raised up by previous members. They are supposed to be the preeminent minds in their field of science or culture. I don’t remember something about the general public voting them in. Where is this in the text?

[Causante]

I would agree that the tempering was limited to the Convocation and anyone else who may have been immediately present with the summoning. But the Convocation making decisions others didn't believe in did have an effect on the populace because while Venat and everyone else were A-OK with summonings 1 and 2, the 3rd was what caused the main debate and ultimately the Sundering.

I don't think people didn't believe the convocation, their decisions saved the remaining ancients and restored the planet albeit at a terrible cost and people had to volunteer for that even before the summoning ocurred after all. Your conclusion makes it sound like zodiark was manipulating the convocation, which in turn was manipulating the populace, prompting venat to perform a drastic act to save "life". I'm sure you'll agree that's not what happened or how it was portrayed in recent expansions.

Tempering also has seen to have had some degree of control over the Ascians as well, unless you want to fully retcon ARR and say that all the scenes of the Ascians deranged praying to the "one true god" didn't happen.

I'm pretty sure we're supposed to accept that as full retcon. I may be wrong on this, but I don't remember ascians praising zodiark as a "true god" in a fanatical sense since they changed the writing around the ascians. What it felt to me is that from then on they treated zodiark as the embodiment of their hopes for a future where they could recover what they had lost.

In my mind this makes sense even in a logical society if you think about it. They were on the verge of extinction, everything they knew was being destroyed and people around them dying. All this happening without a cause or a reason (from their perspective). And then this all powerful being makes everything stop and is even able to restore the planet (to some extent) to what it once was. I think it should be doable to understand that a lot of people, specially those less versed in the sciences or creation magicks, would start to worship their "savior". Others, on the other hand, would be afraid of him given what they had (as a collective) to sacrifice, which would explain why they were so divided. The mental state of the ancient society must have been chaotic after dealing with such a catastrophe.

This scenario could've been explored way better to try and give more convincing explanations for the downfall of ancient society and Venat actions, but it's not how they went about it endwalker. It's not about Zodiark, it's about Hermes and Venat's beliefs.

[Larirawiel]

I wouldn't be so sure.

LL68 Q&A:



The bolded is articulated in-game by Y'shtola when she directly questions her, and confirmed back to her. The rest is strongly implied in her reasoning throughout 6.0, but either way, combined, these are the motives the writers have articulated.

(Of course one could question his whole "she's just an ancient bruh" schtick here, and more besides, but that horse has already been beaten to a fine, bloody pulp...)

True. But Meteion can control dynamis. So the ancients could summon some Meteion-like creatures and those creatures could control the dynamis instead, if the ancients themself could not do it. So there were better solutions than the sundering.


Cheers

[Lauront]

True. But Meteion can control dynamis. So the ancients could summon some Meteion-like creatures and those creatures could control the dynamis instead, if the ancients themself could not do it. So there were better solutions than the sundering.


Cheers

Agreed, and that's just the stuff we see immediately before us, and not with the benefit of further research they could've undertaken. Another option would just be selectively sundering a few. She only had to sunder the entire star because she couldn't defeat Zodiark otherwise... and that only had to all happen because she wasn't being open about what was going on. Yes yes, there's the time loop, but even sticking to that was a chosen outcome to arrive at the status quo.

[Teraq]

Don't mind me, just passing by to dunk on literally everyone who thought Lahabrea

would be a bad, bad man, a terrible heartless father and totally pro-necromancy, as it turns out even the Bad™ part of him that attempted to raise Athena really was irremediably corrupted by her being a conniving schemer in the first place.

And can I mention how even worse this all makes Venat look in retrospect? As we all suspected here, Ancients could routinely show each other their memories and past events. So much for the hypothesis of people not believing her, or whatever those convoluted concerns of hers were about. Not only could she have shown what happened, but Themis speaking highly of her just reinforces that at least he would have taken her completely seriously, and he in turn is shown to be taken very seriously by Lahabrea and Azem. What she truly cared about was maintaining the fairness of Hermes's unfair sadistic little test.

Oh I am eating so good tonight.

[sorawild34]

This thread has been going on for 7 months. Dont you people have anything better to do?

[Lucky_CJ]

This thread has been going on for 7 months. Dont you people have anything better to do?

And the cumulative story of this game has been going on for 10+ years. People are invested, and have a lot to say. Let them

[Striker44]

I don't think I'll ever understand how people see the Convocation as nothing more than another group of Oppressive Shadow Council that holds all the power. They're literally voted in by the people, Hythlodaeus says as much. With the sole exception of the Fandaniel we come to know, Hermes who was groomed for the role by the previous Fandaniel. Nepotism, in other words. Kind of like how Venat was grooming Azem to be the next her. Odd how those who rise to their station that way turn out to be such bad eggs, eh?

I'm curious where you got this idea from. Everything I remember seeing pointed to the members of the convocation themselves being the ones to ask and then appoint successors for their roles. I don't recall seeing anything about a democratic election of the Convocation by the ancients at large.

[Theodric]

I'm curious where you got this idea from. Everything I remember seeing pointed to the members of the convocation themselves being the ones to ask and then appoint successors for their roles. I don't recall seeing anything about a democratic election of the Convocation by the ancients at large.

Luckily I had a post of mine saved related to the subject as it comes up fairly often so I'll just go ahead and quote myself:

Huh? From what I recall, it's been pointed out many times throughout a variety of threads that the Convocation was not simply going off and doing its own thing with zero oversight and accountability. It wasn't a hive mind, either - since Elidibus' seat was designed to sometimes align with the Convocation on some occasions and against it on others.

There's also the conversation between the player character and Hythlodaeus during the Elpis portion of the story, as seen here:



Note how it is pointed out that countless people from the world over vouched for Emet-Selch, rather than just the Convocation.

Their entire society is also built around research and debate.

I'd also point to this snippet from one of the short stories:



An outright insinuation that debates are held in regards to the suitability of individuals appointed to positions of authority.

[MikkoAkure]

Luckily I had a post of mine saved related to the subject as it comes up fairly often so I'll just go ahead and quote myself:

People vouching for Emet-Selch isn’t the same as a democratic election. That poster earlier was insinuating that Azem and Fandaniel snuck through the “regular” process via nepotism and the others were democratically voted in and this is not the case.

Ancients are not casting ballots for Convocation seats. If a seat is open, it looks like the sitting members will go around and look for recommendations.