Sundering stuff established in the Q&A

[SannaR]

The one thing that I can't believe they told us is when asked again about what Azem was doing since they didn't help either side is a secret. Which can be seen as they don't know themselves. Or they have something planned but it's not fleshed out.

[sidurgu-12]

Unlike Zodiark, Hydaelyn drained all the souls used in her summoning of Aether completely, destroying them forever. By the time we fight her, only her soul remains, which is also destroyed after the fight.

ive always hated this aspect of the lore.

edit: the soul aspect i mean. it also makes it hard to look forward to myths of the realm.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Wow reading the qna now…..It really just does seem they had crazy crazy bias for Venat/Hydaelyn. She basically played death god with everything and is renowned as a hero? This is honestly incredible. Starting to question the devs’ morals now.

[MikkoAkure]

If the Rejoinings can be brought into question on that basis, then naturally so can the Sundering which pushed them on that path. I also dispute his claim that the ancients were so different in this regard – we see Ilberd, Vauthry, Thordan, Yotsuyu, Varis, Zenos, and yes, the 8UC Ironworks/G’raha, etc., eager to push their own vision onto mankind (or an entire timeline in the latter’s case.) As I have pointed out before, the way the sundered treat lesser life forms and their own “creations” is really not too different from the ancients, either, so let’s not be too hasty to exaggerate their differences in some key behavioural aspects.

I think the difference is that the first 6 people you mentioned are megalomaniacal villains who wanted to change the world for selfish reasons and not for anything altruistic and the last did it in a context of a ruined and dying world. Also, it's 6 people and 1 group out of a population of millions. He made a point to speak of the "wholeness" of being an Ancient and from what we can gather from the story, the Ancients were much more connected to both each other and the world as a whole and were overall more inclined to be able to truly feel that they were able to make a decision that affected everyone than the average person today would.

Yoshi-P, emphasis mine:

That really is an ancient moment that shows you how different the wholeness of these Ancient’s worth because normally we normal humans wouldn’t be able to make such a decision for all of mankind, so when I see that I really think, yeah, Venat was really one of them.

I don't think those 6 are normal humans and I don't think what the Ironworks did was a normal situation.

[Lauront]

Wow reading the qna now…..It really just does seem they had crazy crazy bias for Venat/Hydaelyn. She basically played death god with everything and is renowned as a hero? This is honestly incredible. Starting to question the devs’ morals now.

I'd demur on that front. I think they actually did commit to casting her in the same light as SHB Emet, in spite of all the feel-good razzle-dazzle surrounding her.

[KizuyaKatogami]

I'd demur on that front. I think they actually did commit to casting her in the same light as SHB Emet, in spite of all the feel-good razzle-dazzle surrounding her.

Just gotta read between the lines and disregard the in game worship of her constantly pushed in your face. I wish Emet got that…

[SpectrePhantasia]

I agree that with this in mind they are working to establish her as deservedly more gray than the MSQ depicted her, which is appreciated, and I hope that can be reflected in future content in mentioning her, if at all possible.

Though I will say it is greatly amusing that many of the people debating on Venat's behalf based a lot of their piece on Venat not possibly being the kind of person to have this grand keikaku plan accounting for even the eventual Rejoinings of the shards and couldn't be responsible for so much, when in fact that turned out to be exactly the case.

[Alleo]

I just put it down to residual magic from the sundering. The world was split, the ancients were depowered and left with some particular deficiency, and their new forms were vaguely related to what deficiency needed patching up.

But why then would there be so many different races? If cat ears solve the hearing problem why would Au Ra exist? And why would they get tails or scales? And what would happen if the soul was whole again? Would some races just get super hearing? Why were there not many differences between us and the people of the first? If the sundering impacts the people so much that one can lose their hearing, why are there no power (and other) differences between us?

For me that anwer just did not make much sense...but I guess that is how it is.

Edit:

Since we now got the confirmation that the summoners died since they got all their souls sucked up, does that mean that Elidibus too was completely destroyed since he said that he would use every bit of his aether to send us in the past? If so kinda poetic that both the hearts of the elder primals would end up being destroyed.

Starting to question the devs’ morals now.

Is it now fine to say, that someone liking character x or thinking about them a certain way means, that they are like that in real life too?

So should I question your morals too since you like the Ascians?

Or could it be that yes those are fictional characters and that people may enjoy even the worst character without being like that in real life? Yoshida and the others are humans too. And just as you can like the Ascians (and may want them to win) they can like Venat and see her as an overall hero without having dubious morals...

And I just like Venat. I liked that in the end she was not having a hidden agenda and would turn out to be the big bad. She simply saw this as the only way and truly loved "her children" and wanted them to survive. For that she did some really bad things. And unlike Emet and the others her soul is now fully destroyed. For me she is a complex character and it was shown in this expansion.

@SpectrePhantasia: I mean it was quite clear that she would need to let things go certain ways to get to our timeline again. Even back then, there was already a possiblity that she did not sunder the three ascians on purpose. Yet even with all that we dont know what she has done between Elpis and the Final Days. We dont know how much she had tried even after that. I also really doubt that we somehow told her the whole history of the planet.

And we were shown that she tried talking to the survivors. For me at least this paints the picture of someone that may have tried to change the path but failed and then did the choice to trust us to bring the story to a good end. Anything more imo is still pure speculation. Maybe she did stop the rejoinings quite a few times but bascially the Ascians only needed one win for it to be successful. Maybe she just sat there and hoped for the best while doing nothing. Both could be true but we dont know.

[Absimiliard]

The Q&A did leave me with one interesting thought, though it's less to do directly with said Q&A and more to do with having a few more blank filled in. The pursuit of perfection never ended; Venat, ultimately, failed in this regard. People now have less power with which to seek it, but we see quite clearly through in-game events an undeniable attempt on the part of many leaders to reach such a conclusion, however long and however many generations it might take.

Then we have general growth. It may take eons, but the people of the Source will eventually reach or at least begin to approach the level of the Ancients again, and history will either repeat or come to an end. We've already seen first hand in the story that evolution will not be denied its due.

[Kozh]

Remember that she directly stated that she did try to stop things--and in fact we confirmably saw her stop at least one Calamity (plausibly two, with the Zodiac Braves against Ultima) with great difficulty and contrived circumstances, so we can reason that doing so is really hard. She knew this plan was needed, but did her best to make it as painless as possible; it's just that she had very little ability to do so compared to the Ascians' ability to make it worse.

Did Ultima even used for calamity? I don't think so. Considering the WoL regale her with their story, might be that she thought not sealing Ultima will affect the timeline. Either that or simply because ultima threatens the Source, and She can't have that can she, since the final fight against meteion hasn't happened yet.

And the prevented calamity you mentioned, the First? She definitely knew how crucial it is in order for us to defeat emet and elidibus there and for the time travel technology. So of course she's going to prevent it. But the other seven calamites? rip to those shards.


Speaking of venat's motivation, since it's confirmed that her sole reason of sundering is because of dynamis, what caused her to sunder the world in the 8UC timeline then? Because at that timeline the WoL died and the time loop never happen.