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

[Ixon]

Question. Is being sundered equal to being dead? The persons sundered weren't really killed right? Just split 14 ways? Or is that one of those "fates worse than death"? My first reaction is no, only on the premise that the Ancients themselves viewed a things Aether to merely be a tangible substance, to be woven as seen fit(one side quest Elpis NPC talked about eating a familiar Gaelkittin's Aether lol). Even their version of actual death of returning to the aetherical sea seemed more like a retirement home the way it has been described. Was just curious seeing all the "genocide" comments. At least the game made it seem like a better way out than being sacrificed to Zodiark where those appeared to be more imprisoned, unable to return to the sea(unless I am mistaken).

[Lauront]

They're not merely split, no. It altered them along a number of traits, not limited to: ability to use creation magicks, each individual's full suite of Echo abilities, aetheric density, physical dimensions, susceptibility to illness, and most importantly, lifespans. The latter point alone is enough to constitute killing, because the resulting beings went from ancients with lifespans probably in the thousands of years to beings with lifespans of, at the very most, a few hundred years, and for most races, much less than this. The evolution of the sundered races of man is directly attributed to the Sundering. If you inflicted a poison or magic on a being that drastically cut its lifespan, I fail to see how that is not killing. What emerged are very different beings, at the expense of those sundered.

On the last point, it's not an either/or. Those souls inside Zodiark forming him had to fuel him in the absence of alternative methods to do so and volunteered to do it. Venat's plan would not alter that. Her actions targeted the surviving ancients who were not inside him.

[Ixon]

They're not merely split, no. It altered them along a number of traits, not limited to: ability to use creation magicks, aetheric density, physical dimensions, susceptibility to illness, and most importantly, lifespans. The latter point alone is enough to constitute killing, because the resulting beings went from ancients with lifespans probably in the thousands of years to beings with lifespans of, at the very most, a few hundred years, and for most races, much less than this. The evolution of the sundered races of man is directly attributed to the Sundering. If you inflicted a poison or magic on a being that drastically cut its lifespan, I fail to see how that is not killing. What emerged are very different beings, at the expense of those sundered.

On the last point, it's not an either/or. Those souls inside Zodiark forming him had to fuel him in the absence of alternative methods to do so and volunteered to do it. Venat's plan would not alter that. Her actions targeted the surviving ancients who were not inside him.

Understandable in that sense. Though without knowing more and given the story we were given, idk what's worse: being sundered and having your soul make it back to the aetherical sea piece by piece(if that's how it happens), or being trapped in Zodiark till he was defeated and you were set free(which again is my assumption).

[Caurcas]

So from 1 came 14. Different, but fundamentally additive. Can't see how those sundered really can care given they are no longer around.

[Ixon]

If you inflicted a poison or magic on a being that drastically cut its lifespan, I fail to see how that is not killing. What emerged are very different beings, at the expense of those sundered.

Reading it over, I am not sure I fully agree with this point given the context of the story we were told. Zodiark was given form through "half of the planet Etheirys's population" to delay the final days. After that only provided a bandaid fix, in the cutscene we see what is presumably another half was about to given before Venat sundered the world. This was assumed to potentially continue till nothing was left. So I do not fully agree that however many "half of Etheirys" over and over again to be sacrificed to Zodiark is any worse or better than taking the life that would have been sacrificed and splitting it up in presumably equal parts across 14 reflections. Not saying one is right over the other, though sundering had to exist for some reason for our character to exist, just noting I don't think either outcome was preferable over the other, "damned if you do, damned if you don't".

Now to be fair, I do think it was a notion of "finish this story by writing a beginning to fit the end that aligns with what we set up Shadowbringers", along with "fan service in more Emet and Hythlodaus" plus "write something in that allows the character to interact with pre-sundered Etheirys because people will like that fan service" was at play. So it could have probably been delivered a little better, maybe over two expansions instead of just one. I did at least like that Zodiark vs Hydaelyn wasn't a Bad vs Good, or Zodiark actually good vs Hydaelyn actually bad but more of Zodiark is a neutral primal tool vs Hydaelyn is a necessary good/bad and surprise look at that despair bird over there. At most I'll be happy to move on from "Ascians" and the droned out Hydaelyn vs Zodiark to hopefully some interesting, albeit scaled down, confrontations.

[KageTokage]

It's kind of funny that they retroactively made Emet-Selch even more sympathetic with the suggestion (Which is easily missed if you don't talk to Y'shtola before the Dead Ends) that the shades of Amaurot viewing us as children rather then familiars was a subconscious expression that he never truly bought into his whole "Sundered aren't really alive" narrative...though in further hindsight, that was already suggested by his feelings towards his son/Varis' father in one of the side stories.

Then on flipside, even people who felt completely pro-Hydaelyn/Venat originally ended up thinking badly of her despite apparently being totally contrary to what the writers seemed to be intending.

Are souls within the universe of 14 finite?

If you choose believe the Scions' claims that the people who turned truly had their souls completely erased, then yes, though the game has entertained the notion that there's some deeper immutable part of the soul that simply isn't discernable by people without the Echo.

As things currently stand, it's kind of a "maybe, maybe not" situation that will probably get elaborated on if they decide to take a deeper dive into the blasphemy issue instead of brushing it off despite that they'd realistically still be a lingering presence all over the whole of Etheriys.

[Lauront]

Reading it over, I am not sure I fully agree with this point given the context of the story we were told. Zodiark was given form through "half of the planet Etheirys's population" to delay the final days. After that only provided a bandaid fix, in the cutscene we see what is presumably another half was about to given before Venat sundered the world.

It's less to do with it being a bandaid fix, and more to do with how badly damaged the star was - see below.

This was assumed to potentially continue till nothing was left.

Assumed by whom? It's not suggested by any source on the topic that it would continue until nothing was left. For example, Hythlodaeus's shade mentions two stages and a final one (at which point they'd resume stewardship of the star), which they had debated amongst themselves as per later sources, until they reached a consensus to go ahead with it (Venat's group excepted):

So I do not fully agree that however many "half of Etheirys" over and over again to be sacrificed to Zodiark is any worse or better than taking the life that would have been sacrificed and splitting it up in presumably equal parts across 14 reflections. Not saying one is right over the other, though sundering had to exist for some reason for our character to exist, just noting I don't think either outcome was preferable over the other, "damned if you do, damned if you don't".

Again, it's not either/or. Her own plan is based on Zodiark being summoned and restoring the star. So all those sacrifices are required for it. The sundering is on top of this. The third stage involved unspecified "new" life, implied strongly by the JP version of the same text to be the life seeded by Zodiark (I'd suggest opening this one in a new window/saving it to get round the sizing):



The texts are not specific on what they were, but Zodiark is shown to have the ability to realise creations via concepts readily - if these fit certain criteria, the star will bestow upon them appropriate souls, and they will constitute living entities. So it is quite likely, creations similar to those in Elpis.

The sundered are the surviving ancients. Not the intended sacrifices - and she only really opposes these because she believes if they were to restore the star and their civilisation, they'd end up like the Plenty - a function of her belief that they would not change.

[PawPaw]

After that only provided a bandaid fix

I honestly would not consider Zodiark merely a bandaid fix. The Ancients were presented with the Final Days out of nowhere, did what they thought their only, desperate option was to save their world and...it did the job. Zodiark is split into 14 and his heart goes for a walk and he still keeps on pumping out his shield and there is no reason that we've been presented with to believe that he would ever stop doing so or that he would ever require additional sacrifices. He seems to work just fine after 12k years without any. As long as he's alive, Meteion and her song simply cannot affect Eitherys. The Ancients didn't know what was happening to them but despite this, they still find a working answer to their problem. They want to replace the aether of their sacrificed loved ones with the aether of this "new seeded life" and go back to being the stewards of their star. No one knows for sure what this new life is, but I've always assumed it meant the life that had been mentioned directly before this part of the story, i.e. the plants and animals that had begun to grow again, seems only logical. And the world would have continued to turn and grow again, safe from Meteion and her "song". For all the talk about how the Ancients couldn't have possibly found a way to counter Meteion, they effectively did exactly that.

Fighting Meteion at its source? I mean, if literally no one in the world but one person knows that Meteion even exists then why would they care about that? For all they knew, they had achieved their goal of stopping the end of their world and now they wanted their people back; Which is a completely human reaction. I don't know anyone who, having lost someone precious, wouldn't jump at a chance to have them back again if they were presented with a magical means to do so.

[Tanis_Ebonhart]

The ancients issue is that they couldn't let go. If they had just accepted their losses, learned from it, and strived to be better then they never would have been sundered.

The writing was on the wall. They had to be sundered because of their arrogance, inability to let go, and desire to never change or accept consequences.

[Lauront]

Yeah, not responding in the precise way she wanted during a time of extreme trauma (=planet still dying, most of their people gone), based on the platitudes she was spitting out = they deserved being destroyed as a civilisation. They should've just rolled over and accepted her word, even though they had managed to eradicate all manner of ills before... just roll with it.