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

[Lauront]

This is the genocide part that the anti-Venat cabal loves to conveniently ignore. The simple fact is that a genocide was going to happen no matter what. The only question was whether the victims would be innocent beings created solely to be sacrificed, or the very people who were planning to commit that genocide.

No, the "anti-Venat cabal" has discussed this topic extensively. I can refer you to posts on it in this very thread, in case you want to play (?) dumb.

The question of whether it is even a "genocide" depends on whether it is a people being sacrificed or not, a question the writing has never directly answered, but there is an implication that this is life seeded by Zodiark, i.e. living creations given what we know of how life is created in the ancient world. We don't refer to mass slaughter of animals, which we humans (and the sundered in game) habitually perform in the form of modern agricultural and husbandry practices, as genocide. If you're trying to pull some weird argument of this motivating her actions, you will note that she is given a recollection of events by the WoL in Elpis and cannot understand what would move her to the actions she undertook. It is only after Meteion's report that it begins to click for her.

Her stated motivations, and those given by Yoshi, are explicitly 1) ability to manipulate dynamis and 2) not ending up like the world of the Nibirun, hence drop the sacrifices... and "accept suffering". After the shade mentioned this third sacrifice as being what caused her faction's opposition, we were also told by Yoshida that we hadn't heard her faction's side yet. She herself states, freely, that she does not wish to speak ill of the Convocation on this matter and that it does what it deems best for the star's sake, which is dissonant with her performing this on account of some supposed "genocide" - a plan their people were divided on, no less. All life on the star was sundered, whether in agreement with the plan or not, or not even sapient. So if you're trying to frame this as the reason, or claim it's an adequate reason? In the strongest terms: no.

Really, if she's so bothered about genocide, what sense does it make to then deliberately spare Emet, knowing what will happen? It ensures maximum genocide. It's clearly not a cost she's unwilling to bear in order to achieve her goal - a goal (achieved through maintaining the timeline she's told about) which we were told revolves around defeating Endsinger and ensuring the continuity of life... at least, in some form. Your framing of this as some inevitability of genocide, when she had not informed her people of the true nature of her concerns, and this could've meaningfully altered the course of events, doesn't follow.

This also becomes iffy ground depending on how much of the plan individuals and/or the general public knew. It hits different when someone is "sacrificing" themselves expecting it to be the end of their life, versus "sacrificing" themselves...fully expecting to be revived when the plan is complete.

It's clear from Hythlodaeus's words that that is part of the Convocation's plan that was added on later.



For the record: I like her character. What I don't like is the narrative treatment of her actions, or the insinuation that the ancients did not deserve to be told the truth to try and deal with the problem for themselves. I think this actually undermined her writing and it unfortunately involved a lot of awkward backtracking from SHB's themes.