A potential reading of The Dead Ends' story.

[Veloran]

A fun thing that not everyone finds (including myself) in the quest where you go book-hunting in the Noumenon, there's a book that mentions the concept of the heat death of the universe. The reason Y'shtola and Urianger can grapple so readily with the Ea's anxiety is because Sharlayan did exactly that: they've already grappled with that crisis.

Did they? Or is such a crisis simply so far in the future and so far out of their wheelhouse that they'll never actually need to confront it? To the Sharlayans the notion of the heat-death of the universe is simply a scientific curiosity. To the Ea, this is something they will directly, personally, individually run up against. Saying mankind successfully grappled with the crisis of the heat-death of the universe is like saying that an ant successfully grappled with the climate crisis.



This is one of my core issues with the sundering and the notion of humanity's superior existence and superior handling of despair. Standing firm against a threat that is fundamentally incomprehensible isn't courage, it's ignorance. Being so inured to suffering and brutality that you accept it as a matter of course isn't strength of character, it's trauma bonding. And sacrificing the ideal of the world you want just for the sake of survival isn't righteousness, it's raw moral surrender.

[Pofruin]

This is one of my core issues with the sundering and the notion of humanity's superior existence and superior handling of despair. Standing firm against a threat that is fundamentally incomprehensible isn't courage, it's ignorance. Being so inured to suffering and brutality that you accept it as a matter of course isn't strength of character, it's trauma bonding. And sacrificing the ideal of the world you want just for the sake of survival isn't righteousness, it's raw moral surrender.

Despair is not fundamentally incomprehensible though. The Ancients chose to dodge it and not engage with it and declared it "fundamentally incomprehensible". Mortal races don't have such option. And by experiencing Despair they have comprehended few things: It's really bad in there and your very soul can get destroyed. Also you can cling to Hope while in there and get out with your soul intact.
And what is this Ideal of the world you are talking about? If accepting you are NOT arbiter of how world should function is "raw moral surrender" then refusal to do so is just "Prideful hubris of god complex". Refusal to se the world as it is and instead constantly telling it how it should be. Its fine to extent your power and influence over the world, but there are definite limits of how much you CAN change. Push too much and the world will readjust by its own rules and not your ideals.
Speaking of Climate Crisis. What makes you think Ants are grappling with it worse than Humans are? They are not wallowing in despair over their own powerlessness cursing and demanding everyone else to fix it while also not in any way diminishing their quality of life. Once the time comes Ants my very well go extinct. But until then you live the best life you can :P.

[Veloran]

Despair is not fundamentally incomprehensible though.

I wasn't referring to "despair" in some vague general sense. I was referring to the actual issues causing despair. It's not fair to say that mankind is superior to the Ea at overcoming "despair" for example, because they did not and will not ever need to face the problem that the Ea would themselves have to directly. Similarly it isn't fair to say that humanity is superior to the Ancients at facing and overcoming loss, because in the end mankind didn't come anywhere near facing the absolute planetary devastation and loss of 99% of the population and everything and everyone they had ever known that the post-Final Days Ancients had experienced. The nearest equivalence for modern humanity would be the events of the First and the 8UC timeline, where in both cases even the slightest glimmer of hope was only granted to people by outside forces interceding on their behalf, something the Ancients never had.

If accepting you are NOT arbiter of how world should function is "raw moral surrender" then refusal to do so is just "Prideful hubris of god complex". Refusal to se the world as it is and instead constantly telling it how it should be.

Do the Scions have the hubris of a god complex? Whenever they see injustice they seek to correct it according to their own values and desires and to the best of their ability. Anyone who choses to enact change or direction to the world is in essence choosing to be the arbiter of how they perceive the world should work rather than allowing themselves to get swept up in a current of acceptance of "this is just how things are now".

Speaking of Climate Crisis. What makes you think Ants are grappling with it worse than Humans are? They are not wallowing in despair over their own powerlessness cursing and demanding everyone else to fix it while also not in any way diminishing their quality of life.

Because they're ignorant of the crisis entirely. They don't have the capacity to actually understand or face it in any way. Again this isn't courage, this isn't "grappling" with anything, it's just being unknowing.