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

[Caurcas]

Then someone kindly dropped the definition for the word and, did anyone actually read the site?

https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml

I mean, actually read the whole thing? What Hydaelyn did that was deliberate and conscious of the outcome because of time travel was: 1. Changing the physical makeup of a group of people and removing their capabilities to deal with their environment (soul sundering, loss of creation magic), and 2. Removing the majority of their memories and identity and erase them from history (so they are not tempted to find a paradise again).

So, look at the definition again:


Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements:

-A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and
-A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:
*Killing members of the group
* Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
* Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
*Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
*Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group


Mental element? Check, her intent was pretty clear and that says destroy, not kill. For the physical element I crossed out things that don't matter. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group is definitely something that happened. Erasure of memory is mental harm. The other definition is more fun though. Hydaelyn removed the ability to use creation magic. She inflicted a condition on them that would bring their destruction. She dropped a bunch of philosophers, office workers, and scientists who, with now shortened lifespans, are used to getting their every need magically created in world that's destroyed and only just starting to get back on its feet. I'm pretty sure that fits that definition.

You do not have to directly kill a group of people for it to be considered genocide. What she did was genocide. What's funny about this is that by what we know, the acians are actually less guilty of genocide from the definitions. Thy set up conditions for other people to cause their own demise accidentally. They made a big point of not actually killing the sundered themselves and instead coerce groups of people into performing things for them. Still really bad though, killed a lot of people.

WoL is guilty though. We deliberately went out and killed every last one of a group of people in the intent to wipe them out.

If you still think what Hydaelyn did isn't genocide after spelling it out, then you are doing what the developers intended people to do, so congrats.

My WoL would do it all again.

[CrownySuccubus]

In the end, I was just disappointed that you couldn't tell Venat, "No. What you're saying sounds like a terrible idea. I don't care if Fandaniel played a crucial role in forestalling the Final Days on my timeline. In this timeline, you have a chance to do something about it. Tell the damn Convocation.

"As a friend of mine once said, 'This tragedy, greater than even the Seventh Umbral Calamity, must be undone. If history must be unwritten, let it be unwritten.'"

Honestly, the issue with the alternative approaches I've seen recommended is that they buy into the premise that the ancients had to be "scary" or needed to have some critical flaw.

My theory is that this (and many other problems of the EW plot) center on the fact that the writers wanted to assure the player that the current world is "stronger", with the implication that (like another poster here tried to argue) that "death is necessary" or that tragedy always preludes a brighter tomorrow. (The Ultima Thule song, "Close in the Distance" is all about that concept.) "Even in the face of despair, grow stronger and never stop hoping for a brighter tomorrow" is the story's answer to the question of inevitable oblivion.

However, that argument wouldn't work if what we knew about the Ancients as of ShB was true. They and their society were presented as objectively better than the modern day. They were wiser, more advanced, more powerful, more long-lived and seemingly (based on how they treat you in Amaurot as well as how Emet-Selch describes their willingness to sacrifice themselves for their brethren) more benevolent. If EW had kept that theme, then the argument of "tragedy leads to strength and a brighter tomorrow" would have fallen flat, because the modern races are flat out weaker and living in a worse world than the Ancients ever did. (Granted, it did anyway, but not for lack of the writers trying otherwise.)

So they decided to go with the argument that the Ancients were "decadent" and that they "had to die" so that the younger races would be stronger and be able to fight for the "brighter tomorrow". However, they also didn't want to commit too much to making the Ancients complete jerkwads, because then it would make their beloved Emet-Selch (who they now intend to milk for fanservice) retroactively seem like a deluded idiot in Shadowbringers. Imagine trying to replay Shadowbringers and listen to Emet-Selch talk about the utopia of Amaurot when we go there and they're, like, grinding screaming Lalafells into their coffee or something. Thus, they had to try to make the Ancients "bad...but not TOO bad" which results in the complete dumpster fire that was the Elpis storyline.

[SpectrePhantasia]

Thus, they had to try to make the Ancients "bad...but not TOO bad" which results in the complete dumpster fire that was the Elpis storyline.

I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head with it there, and I said something similar earlier. The Ancients were essentially rewritten to be something entirely different than how they were previously presented, to fit their EW theming of "Go humanity!" This was completely ignorant of the fact that making it that way turns a great deal of what made Shadowbringers a narrative with depth into something far lesser. I think this is a textbook example of how a bad ending can tarnish even the great writing that came before it.

Also, I know it was a while ago, but since I didn't see your direct comment on my last post until now I will say: I respect that desire to not have the "God" of a particular world be wrong or have some fundamental misunderstanding about the people they watch over, at least once. I will agree that JRPG's love to pull that "Man should govern their own fate" stuff, and while I personally enjoy it a good deal, (call it the Persona fan in me) I can see how that would try someone's patience in repeated occurrences. However, I feel that any hope of that being a reasonable conclusion to come to was removed in Shadowbringers, when we learn that Hydaelyn is a primal; not at god. Venat is just another person, no more predisposed to making the "right" choice than anyone else. I think that once that bombshell was dropped, the most fitting and narratively sincere thing to do would be to convey that she is, in essence, no more ascended in thought or ideals than any of her brethren.

[Skyborne]

I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head with it there, and I said something similar earlier. The Ancients were essentially rewritten to be something entirely different than how they were previously presented, to fit their EW theming of "Go humanity!" This was completely ignorant of the fact that making it that way turns a great deal of what made Shadowbringers a narrative with depth into something far lesser. I think this is a textbook example of how a bad ending can tarnish even the great writing that came before it.

Also, I know it was a while ago, but since I didn't see your direct comment on my last post until now I will say: I respect that desire to not have the "God" of a particular world be wrong or have some fundamental misunderstanding about the people they watch over, at least once. I will agree that JRPG's love to pull that "Man should govern their own fate" stuff, and while I personally enjoy it a good deal, (call it the Persona fan in me) I can see how that would try someone's patience in repeated occurrences. However, I feel that any hope of that being a reasonable conclusion to come to was removed in Shadowbringers, when we learn that Hydaelyn is a primal; not at god. Venat is just another person, no more predisposed to making the "right" choice than anyone else. I think that once that bombshell was dropped, the most fitting and narratively sincere thing to do would be to convey that she is, in essence, no more ascended in thought or ideals than any of her brethren.

ShB Ancients: "The world we loved and lived for is dying beneath our feet... we must trust in the Convocation and summon Zodiark, even at a great cost! The end has been averted and we are grateful to him. Now let's pick up the pieces of our lives and restore some normalcy..."
EW Ancients, in Venat's manifesto messiah-o-vision: "hurr durr we are silly deluded boomers, WE WILL NOT ACCEPT IT WE WILL NOT ACCEPT IT HELP US ZODIARK AAAAAAAAAAH BRB KILLING MYSELF FOR LOLS MUH PARADISE"
Yoshida: "You guys actually believe Emet-Selch? He's biased, you know! (laughs)"

The worst part of that scene for me which lives rentfree in my head 4-5 months later, is that it implies Venat was sneering at the concept of Zodiark in the first place and saw it as an 'easy out'. Meanwhile in the last part of the Amaurot dungeon, you see the planet in flames and resembling the dead star in UT. Guys, you have to just willpower your way out of the planet going down the toilet! If you used Zodiark, you didn't REALLY beat Elden Ring -- I mean, uh, passed my/Hermes' test!

And yeah. Hydaelyn is not a traditional goddess, just a powerful being who is wearing a skin suit made out of dead people. Just like how Zodiark is a holding tank for souls with a skin made out of the dead. Pretty metal if you think about it like that.

[CrownySuccubus]

I respect that desire to not have the "God" of a particular world be wrong or have some fundamental misunderstanding about the people they watch over, at least once. I will agree that JRPG's love to pull that "Man should govern their own fate" stuff, and while I personally enjoy it a good deal, (call it the Persona fan in me) I can see how that would try someone's patience in repeated occurrences. However, I feel that any hope of that being a reasonable conclusion to come to was removed in Shadowbringers, when we learn that Hydaelyn is a primal; not at god. Venat is just another person, no more predisposed to making the "right" choice than anyone else.

Call it the optimist in me wanting to accept the story on the terms the writers wanted. As I've mentioned in the past, I liked Venat's character and charisma and found her standpoint interesting, but that's within the story's moral framework. Looking at the story from the lens of the real world, I'd slap her and say "What the fuck is wrong with you!?".

Also, I've mentioned before that I'm a skeptic, so I don't inherently believe in higher powers and whatnot, but I do find the idea fascinating. I don't like "Only man has the right to create destiny" stories because I don't deify humankind any more than fictitious beings. So again, for EW, I was able to (mostly) turn off my brain and just accept that the story portrayed Venat as "correctly knowing better".

[PawPaw]

Imagine trying to replay Shadowbringers and listen to Emet-Selch talk about the utopia of Amaurot when we go there and they're, like, grinding screaming Lalafells into their coffee or something.

It's always the Lalafells

In the end, I was just disappointed that you couldn't tell Venat, "No. What you're saying sounds like a terrible idea. I don't care if Fandaniel played a crucial role in forestalling the Final Days on my timeline. In this timeline, you have a chance to do something about it. Tell the damn Convocation.

"As a friend of mine once said, 'This tragedy, greater than even the Seventh Umbral Calamity, must be undone. If history must be unwritten, let it be unwritten.'"

And yes, this is probably the single most egregious issue for me with EW. I can accept a villain, ffs most of my favorite characters in this game are straight up baddies. What I could not stomach was being faced with someone who had committed the most heinous crime I had come up against in this game (Edit: actually the second most heinous, after Hermes), a crime that my character ultimately contributed to (which was INFURIATING), and then being told "Oh, this is fine though. Because she's on your side." NO! This is all kinds of wrong. She is not my best friend and why are you trying to make me feel as though she is when I can clearly use my brain and see that she has many, many things to explain and answer for? She used the information my character gave her not to save her world, but to destroy it, making me an unwitting accomplice. Why?! Why is my character not horrified? Questioning her motives and actions? I don't appreciate anyone trying to gaslight me in life and I certainly don't expect to run up against it when I play a game. Call a spade a spade and stop trying to force me to believe that she's something she is clearly not.

[anhaato]

"As a friend of mine once said, 'This tragedy, greater than even the Seventh Umbral Calamity, must be undone. If history must be unwritten, let it be unwritten.'"

And that completely baffled me when I found out exactly what we were there to do. They literally kept Graha alive at the end of 5.0 to tell us all that IT IS POSSIBLE to go back into the past and change history without affecting YOUR timeline. All you would do is create a new one. So why were we not there to do exactly that? If we went back there to prevent the sundering, or the final days entirely, and then got a glimpse of how our timeline came about (in a way that made it CLEAR that the star was ACTUALLY about to cease to exist if Venat hadn't chosen the sundering), I would've been BESIDE MYSELF. Maybe then the expansion would've actually started earning its 9.0+ ratings on every game site!

So they decided to go with the argument that the Ancients were "decadent" and that they "had to die" so that the younger races would be stronger and be able to fight for the "brighter tomorrow". However, they also didn't want to commit too much to making the Ancients complete jerkwads, because then it would make their beloved Emet-Selch (who they now intend to milk for fanservice) retroactively seem like a deluded idiot in Shadowbringers. Imagine trying to replay Shadowbringers and listen to Emet-Selch talk about the utopia of Amaurot when we go there and they're, like, grinding screaming Lalafells into their coffee or something. Thus, they had to try to make the Ancients "bad...but not TOO bad" which results in the complete dumpster fire that was the Elpis storyline.

The thing is, that would've been completely fine and actually added a certain kind of depth to his character. I was initially expecting exactly that when we got to Elpis, only to see that... they were completely fine? And Hermes' angst about "who's allowed to live" is still very much an issue with humanity as it currently stands. If we went to Elpis and found a dystopian society instead of the paradise Emet claimed it was, it would've cast his actions in a whole new light. Sure it might have cheapened his arc in post, but I'd take that over us essentially becoming a villain while the game tries to pretend we aren't. But they wanted us to keep feeling bad for the Ancients, fine, then at the very least they could've made Hydaelyn not this abject good figure they try to paint her as. If we had come back with new horror at how dark she truly was, instead of acting like she was a hero through and through, that would've also made the story a fair bit better.

[Brinne]

So they decided to go with the argument that the Ancients were "decadent" and that they "had to die" so that the younger races would be stronger and be able to fight for the "brighter tomorrow". However, they also didn't want to commit too much to making the Ancients complete jerkwads, because then it would make their beloved Emet-Selch (who they now intend to milk for fanservice) retroactively seem like a deluded idiot in Shadowbringers. Imagine trying to replay Shadowbringers and listen to Emet-Selch talk about the utopia of Amaurot when we go there and they're, like, grinding screaming Lalafells into their coffee or something. Thus, they had to try to make the Ancients "bad...but not TOO bad" which results in the complete dumpster fire that was the Elpis storyline.

In terms of "what happened," this is basically exactly what I've been thinking as others have discussed aspects of this, but was having trouble cohering it into anything worth posting. Yes, a huge part of the problem from a writing perspective was essentially trying to have their cake and eat it too. The devs are hyper-aware of the fanbase's love of the Ancients and Emet-Selch; they've been feeding into it with things like the Fanfest concerts and such ever since it sunk in how breakout they really were. Yoshida's personal evolution on Emet-Selch was nearly a character arc in and of itself. In the midst of Elpis, one thing that also stood out to me was the hilarious degree to which it was hammering in, repeatedly, from several angles: "EMET-SELCH IS A GOOD PERSON. EMET-SELCH IS A GOOD PERSON. EMET-SELCH IS A GOOD PERSON!" (I admit, I really didn't mind this and enjoyed it a lot - it was consistent, given the context, with how I read the character in Shadowbringers. But wow, when you take a step back, is it insane when you consider the overall approach to the Ancients as a whole, playing out right alongside that.)

I will say that I'm reluctant to write off not demonizing the Ancients as just coming down to protecting Emet-Selch, though, in terms of value. (I'm speaking purely in terms of value within the text as it stands on its own, disconnected from writing intent.) I think Shadowbringers as a whole and its compassionate treatment of the Ancients was worth protecting. If, after the nuanced tragedy of Shadowbringers, it was retconned into "actually yes, they were terrible people and this wasn't a horrific competition of resources between two deserving groups where only one can win, we were truly righteous and better", I still would have been angry. Like, it's probably overwrought, but especially in this day and age, Shadowbringers's approach was important to me. The "we went wrong" decision for me wasn't refusing to make the Ancients Very Very Bad, but refusing to adjust their conception of Hydaelyn As Good as would fit the story in a more organic way as it played out. So they very doggedly are going to hammer that square peg into the round hole, and you will like it, dammit!

Another friend and I were just discussing this yesterday, but she brought up what I thought was a really insightful point: the writers' perspective probably identified, correctly, that there would be a disconnect between the players and their worldview, and the Ancients' worldview. However, the assumption would be that the players' instinct would be to defend their world in the face of this gap and this discomfort, rather than confront the discomfort, consider it, and come to the conclusion: hey, you know what? The Ancients make sense. Their way is better. I'd rather live in this world than my own. So basically, we were, uh, less xenophobic than they anticipated?

[CrownySuccubus]

Another friend and I were just discussing this yesterday, but she brought up what I thought was a really insightful point: the writers' perspective probably identified, correctly, that there would be a disconnect between the players and their worldview, and the Ancients' worldview. However, the assumption would be that the players' instinct would be to defend their world in the face of this gap and this discomfort, rather than confront the discomfort, consider it, and come to the conclusion: hey, you know what? The Ancients make sense. Their way is better. I'd rather live in this world than my own. So basically, we were, uh, less xenophobic than they anticipated?

This is actually a pretty interesting take. But, unfortunately, it seems that the writers were mostly correct.

"Okay sure, our history may have done those X people dirty, but doing justice for them would hurt us, soooo....sucks to be them but I got mine." is definitely the default audience reaction. Far more people are praising Endwalker's story and accepting its morality at face value, even if they loved and felt bad for the Ancients, than those with incendiary hot takes like those in this thread.

The "we went wrong" decision for me wasn't refusing to make the Ancients Very Very Bad, but refusing to adjust their conception of Hydaelyn As Good as would fit the story in a more organic way as it played out.

Again, I am so sick to death of that cliche that I'm admittedly biased enough to be glad they didn't use it. I mean, yeah, Hydaelyn is still pretty heinous when you analyze the story, but I'm ironically glad that wasn't the theme.

EDITING for below:

Was it meant to be a Chrono series reference, though? Dare I hope we may take on Lavos and/or Schala after all.

Please don't give me false hope like that.

I'm a Chrono Trigger fan that has been waiting 27 years for a proper sequel. (No, not that one. I said a proper sequel.)

[Lauront]

Of course, this bears the question of free will and why and how there's been no variation on interbreeding and intermixing over the past 12,000 years. Did every person marry/have children with the exact reflections of their spouses on other worlds? Have there been no other stories like Lamitt falling in love with Ardbert? Have there been no other mixed children like Hilda? Or do genes eventually "settle" on one species, like with G'raha?

Yes, the way that across multiple disparate shards, with differing aetheric density to the Source, and differential passage of time, all the subraces evolved in exactly the same way... not even going to go into how much that stretches credulity.

Definitely on my list of 'things that Endwalker brings out in people' is the notion that liking the story or certain characters in EW makes you a super deep philosopher-king, and anyone who didn't like the story or whatever aspects of it is some knuckle-dragging trog pleb who just didn't understand it and never picked up a philosophy book in your life.

Yeah, I've seen some of that on Twitter, where the bluebird philosopher-kings spit out Zenos's comment on whether someone would approve of his actions if his motives were better and then whine about anyone who is sympathetic towards Emet-Selch or the Ascians but rejects Venat, Hermes and Zenos's methods, as if they're all the same. I genuinely don't get these people and it seems like they fixate on actions while ignoring context and motives. They can blabber all they like about "hypocrisy" - to me, you cannot simply evaluate actions in that way. Beyond that it's subjective factors - do I like this character or not? I can guarantee they all have characters who, no matter how "well written" they are thought to be, they can't stand.

Hear me out: Ancient society was heavily built around this idea and the first person we were shown who butted heads with it (Hermes) proceeded to go absolutely insane and doom their society and potentially the universe. I think part of the reason this flew over people's heads and/or fell flat is because we were never shown the true consequences of this outside of Hermes himself.

Instead, we were shown that it works, and were never even asked if we would want to live in a society like that because we were led to believe that the guy who had a problem with it was the crazy one and that everything was fine. Ancient society was too good for the story's own good.

Were we not shown that, it would've been easy to buy that the Ancients were supposed to be "scary." Literally all it would've taken is a few throwaway lines of dialogue at least, although it would've been preferable to spend more time showing us otherwise.

My question to them would be why even try aim for that? Maybe it's "scary" to a being which isn't immortal with creation magicks, but I find it weird to aim to portray it that way, as if they're wrong simply because they're a different type of being - perhaps you could convey that they're a bit strange or otherworldly by human standards, such that we'd struggle to live that way, but to me that's something different from setting out to make them scary. And frankly, that's how SHB dealt with it.

Also, they didn't aim to do this with the dragons which, sure, have some "scary" aspects to them - no one is sitting here saying because Nidhogg went off his rocker (for understandable reasons), that dragon society needs to be reshaped from inside out, and their kind wiped out to something less "scary". Also, there is a sidequest in Elpis that does ask you to opine on how you find the ancients, giving 1) as gods 2) not too dissimilar from us (sundered) and 3) inscrutable. So clearly it runs a gamut of options, all of which I'd argue are somewhat true.

Honestly, the issue with the alternative approaches I've seen recommended is that they buy into the premise that the ancients had to be "scary" or needed to have some critical flaw, when they could just as easily have had the Sundering result from an accident or (orchestrated?) misunderstanding, instead of fixating on justifying it. I think you came to a similar conclusion here.

On a slightly more serious note, this is why hypotheticals and propositions about "why the Ancients had to die" (the only one truly serious philosophical problem in FFXIV, one might say <_<) pointing at Creation Magic has always bothered me. It's innate to them. They are born with it. Babies can do it. It's like breathing to them, in their words. To say "creation magic is the problem" is essentially saying this race of people was just flat out "born wrong," and thus had to be eradicated because they're just biologically unacceptable to be allowed to live. It starts approaching that uncomfortable area quickly for me, again.

Exactly. And to me, it's no less innate to them than a dragon's great powers are. People keep trying to frame this with us as humans as the gauge of what's "natural", but in the context of the setting, these powers are natural and innate to them. I'd speculated in the past that maybe her faction had misdiagnosed the origin of the crisis, which would be understandable if you just saw creation magicks run amok, which I think would've been a more plausible motive than what they went with.

I honestly think, at this point, it's that simple - and it bears out with the sort of baffled "look we were kinda just winging this, okay?" tone the writers have taken when pressed further about the story. I would not say "theme" in the sense EW tried to pursue was a strong point - or even seemed to be a primary concern - for FFXIV up until Shadowbringers, which seems to have been largely Ishikawa's individual effort that largely slipped under Yoshida's notice, given his confusion to its reception.

I think this hits the nail on the head.

And of course, I'm sure we'd agree that the idea of "the Ancients can't accept death" gets very tripped up in the particulars of the storyline, such as their ritual ABOUT "accepting death" having the expectation of being met with horror from the audience, or Venat's motivation centering around her being unable to accept the possible end of her world, in the far future.

If that was the aim, it utterly failed for me, because I thought the metaphor of them as the star's lifeblood was a pretty beautiful one. They were strongly pointing at the ancients seeing themselves as part of a larger life force, which some of them could perceive in its full glory by seeing the flow of aether directly, such as Emet-Selch.

Unconsensual, unplanned death was still seen as a great tragedy even among the Ancients. See: the funeral rites for the killed creations, Erich and Lahabrea grappling with Athena's death. And, hell, their very response to the mass violent deaths of the Final Days.
Also, for what it's worth, (again, as has been rehashed in this thread a million times), their memories being wiped was confirmed by Emet-Selch in Shadowbringers, and their civilization, culture, and history being lost is a given.

Indeed, some of the souls wandering the moon mention the suddenness of what struck them and the lack of catharsis. Just because they were fine with dying once they fulfilled their purpose, does not mean they'd welcome any and all death at any point.

No. He confirms it in the cave scene where he reveals Hydaelyn and Zodiark are primals. "And the worst part? No one could remember it." Elidibus also talks later, on the moon, on how all knowledge and memory of the Ancients being wiped from history without a trace was Hydaelyn's intent.

Yes, the Watcher also confirms this one.

Most "copies" of Amaurot were actually unharmed if the First is anything to go by, so I think the implication is that the destruction and worldwide trauma caused by the Sundering rendered Amaurot either wholly inaccessible or useless, so to speak. With that in mind, it seemed like what little was left of the Ancients themselves only had a world that was mostly just wilderness to work with, and even if they retained their knowledge and memory, their lack of Creation magic would've forced a hard reset anyways if most of Ancient society was built upon it.

Not trying to make a point or anything, just saying what I think happened.

Adding to this, their structures were also pretty sophisticated spaces that were larger than they were physically and required regulation to keep functioning. Some of them, like Pandaemonium, were operated using creation magicks.

It was admittedly really confusing because she said both "it was the only way to defeat almighty Zodiark" and "yes, it is as you said" to Y'shtola questioning if giving us the potential to manipulate of dynamis was the purpose of the Sundering in the same line. Was that her purpose all along? Or was that just her trying to make the best out of the bad situation? It's not nearly as clear as anyone in this thread would tell you. I'd be really interested in learning how that line was in the original Japanese and how it was translated in other languages.

It's similar in French to EN. Basically, I think the picture which emerges is this: Zodiark would stand in her way and he had to be removed without being destroyed, but he was too powerful for her to defeat, so she had to sunder the entire star along with him in order to enact her plan of sundering the ancients (the explicit and ostensible aim was to sunder them to “remove temptation”.) She confirms to Y'shtola that it's to facilitate manipulation of dynamis (which alone is an awful reason for it), but both from the montage and what the Q&A state, it's the fate of the Plenty which she fears as inevitable if her people don't change - and she believed they wouldn't. That entire line of thinking is littered with flaws, but that's what it is.

Yes, and the Q&A confirmed he is correct.

On the point of whether the sundering is genocide, I don't think there's any room for debate. It reduced their lifespans to a fraction of what they were, meaning in effect it would kill them. Whether that takes a while to take place (not really very long relative to their total lifespans), that alone suffices to kill them off. The Q&A confirms that the sundered races evolved as a consequence of the sundering and she even acknowledges them as something separate to herself when she calls herself “the last of my kind”, but the fact that they also lose creation magicks, are aetherically thinned out and lose access to their full spectrum of echo abilities all add to this. She then sought to ensure they were lost to memory.

If the sundered were forcefully subjected to this fate, I doubt they’d somehow just roll with it because it isn’t “really” genocide – yes, it is. It would wipe them out as species in their current form and result in something quite unrecognisable to them if done in the same way as it was done to the ancients.

The only time it's ever mentioned at all to my recollection is in the final Elpis cutscene, where Venat claims that sacrificing more lives to reclaim the lost was "weakness".

We are never given further context to the "new life" which I feel was sorely needed to make it seem like a convincing reason for the Sundering to be necessary., because giving up the lives of some inconsequential beasts to spare your brethren from languishing for eternity as part of a god would hardly strike me as a sign of weakness.

Yeah, and by 5.2 they seem to be focused on the "doom" that awaited the ancients - the sacrifices are only an instrumental part of that, in that they'd power Zodiark to ensure he continued being able to defend the star even as the souls were withdrawn from him. They are never mentioned by her in any other context than that. It's always the purpose she's focused on, not the actual act.