The Ancients still deserved better, after everything

[anhaato]

Everyone is acting as if Venat went straight for the "Sunder" option. We are shown she didn't. She begged, pleaded, for them to see that there was no going back.

She begged, pleaded, hid the truth, came up with excuses, went on a vacuous political tirade that offered no solution, straight up lied to her followers about the purpose of Hydaelyn, shoved her beliefs down their throats, and ultimately punished everyone for wanting life to be good again. Then, as if murdering the entire world wasn't enough, she let the few that escaped go on to kill half of the shards knowing that was exactly what they would do. She didn't trust her people for a moment, she gave up on them and hubristically decided to become their god. She had her own personal idea of the right way, and decided that every life destroyed in the process was expendable and justified by the ends. Zodiark and the sacrifices could've quite easily been nipped in the bud if she just trusted them to come up with a different way to put an end to the final days because SHE KNEW WHAT WAS CAUSING IT! And we know manipulating dynamis was not an issue like she pretended it was because they created Meteion to begin with.

The world was irrevocably changed. She did all she could to get them to see that the, as the one Ancient put it, "perfect paradise" they once had was unobtainable. Zodiark's intervention did save them in the short term, but in the long term, there would be an endless, repeated cycle of sacrifice and conflict.

12,000 years and counting of effective protection is nowhere near "short term," also here we go again with the blood god shit, that's how I know you weren't paying attention. Three sacrifices, all amounted to less death than the sundering. Also, no, she quite openly believed that their paradise was attainable and that attaining it was a bad thing. The devs themselves said that was her primary motivation.

The adherents of Zodiark made it clear that they would do whatever it took to restore the old world, up to and including the murder of countless new lives. Everyone who puts the Ancients on a pedestal seem to forget that.

Nothing to say to this that wasn't already covered by this post here:

I put together the sources on this a while ago here. The TLDR short of it is there was nothing indicating they were sacrificing babies as such, because the story does not elaborate. Here's a theory on what may have been the case.

[OhNooo]

Be better! Fight against all odds! Forge Ahead ™! Stand against fate! Uh be better but not TOO good because then there won't be anything to work towards since you did it all and then you'll want to die. So...strive to become...mediocre! Gotta have balance amirite. Uh and stand against fate but...SOMETIMES you have to accept your fate - accept that you're suffering and maybe even EMBRACE it so that you can become STRONGER. So that you can...be better! But not TOO GOOD because then there won't be anything to work tow-well you get what I mean.

You guys don't understand that Venat really did mankind a favor. You go Venat! Clip those wings gurl! Only then could they learn what struggle truly means! What life truly means which is to struggle, fight, crawl your way through all the hardships until you finally...become better and better and bet-but not TOO good! So struggle, crawl, fight, live die and know...that sometimes when you're not a protagonist and you've stood against as much fate as you could, sometimes you gotta just let nature take it's course and surrender and accept that it just be like that sometimes. But at least you went out smiling...

[Skyborne]

forge ahead brudda DDDD

Yeah, pretty much sums up the weird way that Endwalker ties itself in knots with its own message. Death is inevitable and we must find our own meaning and take joy in the little things, so why exactly is the narrative judging the Ancients as being doomed and bad and unworthy for the crime of... ending, after doing everything they could to preserve themselves (without knowledge of what was actually happening)? Ditto with the various alien races we are introduced to.

Feels like overcompensation, like people are working overtime to "justify" the existence of the sundered who need no justification to live -- who are all vulnerable to any of the three "ends" in the Dead Ends (the name in itself feels kind of judgy). In ShB the Final Days just seemed like a senseless tragedy and unknown phenomenom. Bad things happen to good people all the time. Why take a dump on that?

[geekgirl101]

I get what you mean. It's sad that the Ancients were wiped out by events they didn't even see were going to happen and couldn't understand why. We are the survivors, we are what's left of the Ancients with our souls sundered and our aether weakened that we cannot use creation magicks in the same way they did. The likes of Venat and Elidibus are lost to us forever. Emet-Selch could come back reborn as one of us if he wanted since his soul wasn't obliterated like the other Ascians we've encountered, but he explicitly expressed his desires not to.

Venat made the decision not to tell her people about Meteion because if they had succeeded in changing the past it would've created a paradox where we never would've existed to warn her about the Final Days in the first place. Elidibus warned us for that very reason before he gave up his last remnants of his soul to open a gate to the past that we were not to try to alter the past nor prevent the Final Days from happening. In fact just before his soul was obliterated he recalled us visiting him in the past stating that it was a warming memory that he had forgotten, so even before we learned we could go there a version of ourselves had already been into the past and set in motion the cycle of events that would lead to us needing to go back to the world unsundered. Also Venat recognised that up until the Final Days they had been living in a utopia that risked becoming stagnated and that true peace shouldn't just be a given but something that's earned through overcoming hardships.

As for Hermes he believed all life had the rights to live even if it meant destroying everything else and developed an emotional attachment to everything. He could not accept the standard ways of his people who would create and unmake creations without remorse or regrets and once they believed their work was done would give up their own lives for someone else to fill in their place. The other Ancients were far too occupied with duty and acceptance of their ways to notice how unstable he was becoming and put their bets on him becoming the next Fandaniel would occupy him enough to forget his troubles. He secretly created Meteion to question what does it mean to live on other worlds but when his answer was that there was no other significant reason for living it pushed him over the edge and he sided with Meteion's judgement that to exist was to suffer. Even though he was reborn as a sundered Ascian the question still haunted him and with each rebirth he felt even less about life and longed for the cycle of death and rebirth to come to an end.

[redheadturk]

I get what you mean. It's sad that the Ancients were wiped out by events they didn't even see were going to happen and couldn't understand why. We are the survivors, we are what's left of the Ancients with our souls sundered and our aether weakened that we cannot use creation magicks in the same way they did. The likes of Venat and Elidibus are lost to us forever. Emet-Selch could come back reborn as one of us if he wanted since his soul wasn't obliterated, but he explicitly expressed his desires not to.

Venat made the decision not to tell her people about Meteion because if they had succeeded in changing the past it would've created a paradox where we never would've existed to warn her about the Final Days in the first place. Elidibus warned us for that very reason before he gave up his last remnants of his soul to open a gate to the past that we were not to try to alter the past nor prevent the Final Days from happening. In fact just before his soul was obliterated he recalled us visiting him in the past stating that it was a warming memory that he had forgotten, so even before we existed a version of ourselves had already been into the past and intervened. As of yet we've still not met with Elidibus of the past...or have we?

As for Hermes he believed all life had the rights to live even if it meant destroying everything else and developed an emotional attachment to everything. He could not accept the standard ways of his people who would create and unmake creations without remorse or regrets and once they believed their work was done would give up their own lives for someone else to fill in their place. The other Ancients were far too occupied with duty and acceptance of their ways to notice how unstable he was becoming and put their bets on him becoming the next Fandaniel would occupy him enough to forget his troubles. He secretly created Meteion to question what does it mean to live on other worlds but when his answer was that there was no other significant reason for living it pushed him over the edge and he sided with Meteion's judgement that to exist was to suffer. Even though he was reborn as a sundered Ascian the question still haunted him and with each rebirth he felt even less about life and longed for the cycle of death and rebirth to come to an end.

If the WoL would have spread the tale and prevented the final days would it have created a paradox? Yes. But if it meant saving the Ancients and preventing the Final Days, even if meant that either he was erased from existence or could not go back to his own reality should he do so, he would do it in a heartbeat. He is selfless, his primary goal would be to prevent the tragedy that befell the race that were his first self's friends, lover, and brothers. He would also know that if the Scions had the information he did they would *gladly* sacrifice their existence to prevent it.

[Avidria]

Snip

I definitely don't see the WoL this way at all, especially after we spent the entirety of Shadowbringers trying to prevent the Ascians from effectively doing exactly that - sacrificing everyone we know and love to restore Ancient civilization. Why would they sacrifice one civilization to save another when they've spent so long trying to prevent exactly that?

What is interesting here actually is that what you describe is essentially what G'raha did, but I've seen him decried for it more than once on these forums (not necessarily by you, but in general). He effectively sacrificed a dying world to save a "better" one, where his hero and friends are still alive, and get a second chance. WoL would need to make the same choice to save the Ancients, only they'd be doing it knowing all of their friends are actually still alive and do actually have a chance to be saved, and they'd be trading that for a bunch of people they don't know closely and likely can't fit in with anything close to easily because they're so vastly different in experience, worldview, and abilities. And also OG Azem is still alive back then, too.

WoL knows they used to be Azem, but they are not Azem, and nothing I've seen suggests they remember being Azem to any significant extent. They have no current personal connection to these people other than the encounters they've had with their future selves and the few hours/days/whatever we interacted with them in the past. From their perspective, that's a trade of life for life, and they would be making that choice on behalf of an entire world (and then some, considering all of the shards). Which is... not far off of what Venat is being decried for too. Making the choice to give up on one world for the sake of a maybe brighter future in a different one.

I mean, I'm not gonna be out here singing praises for the story - it's an MMO story, and the bar for those is low, and the bar for a decent time travel story is darn near subterranean. This is definitely one of the better ones I've played, in general, but it definitely still has flaws. But also... sometimes characters make stupid choices based on incomplete or incorrect information or assumptions. There are gaps in the story, but there's also plenty of room for people to just... be irrational and make weird decisions. They are just people after all, Ancient or otherwise.

[Rulakir]

What is interesting here actually is that what you describe is essentially what G'raha did, but I've seen him decried for it more than once on these forums (not necessarily by you, but in general). He effectively sacrificed a dying world to save a "better" one, where his hero and friends are still alive, and get a second chance.

It's thematically inconsistent. The 8UC is basically a complete "bad end" for Venat right down to people again trying to return to the past over going forward in the future (and by his very nature G'raha is the biggest thematic walking contradiction in the entire universe). This is why people have a problem with it. I've seen EW referred to as "Rules for Thee, But Not for Me": the expansion and I can't say I disagree.

WoL would need to make the same choice to save the Ancients, only they'd be doing it knowing all of their friends are actually still alive and do actually have a chance to be saved, and they'd be trading that for a bunch of people they don't know closely and likely can't fit in with anything close to easily because they're so vastly different in experience, worldview, and abilities. And also OG Azem is still alive back then, too.

Ordinarily, I would argue that saving the Ancients is the morally correct choice in that by doing so you prevent the omnicide of Etheirys, the obliteration of 8 shards including the 13th, the near complete annihilation of the First, and that's not including anything from the 8UC. Not to mention saving your original soul from being sundered. The WoL's life for all of that seems a small price to pay (one life for multiple worlds). The problem is with how shoddily time travel is handled within FFXIV. There's either the paradox of the WoL has to return to the future to maintain an arbitrary time loop or that we now know creating a new timeline doesn't erase the previous one because I honestly don't care about people who don't exist yet and won't for 12k years over what I can do here and now to prevent multiple apocalypses.

I frankly don't know what was supposed to feel satisfying about this time loop. Sending me back in time to not be able to change anything, feel worse about Emet & Hyth's fates, and have Venat shoved up my backside wasn't worth it and was overall a detriment to the story.

Which is... not far off of what Venat is being decried for too. Making the choice to give up on one world for the sake of a maybe brighter future in a different one.

The issue is there was nothing wrong with Ancients' future when she chose to end it. The 8UC at least has the excuse that after 200 years the people working on making the CT a time traveling machine still felt that the Source was beyond hope of salvation to the point they were willing to erase their existence. The Ancient world was in the process of healing and restoration after an extinction level event and Venat decided that seemed like a good time to strike to make sure that they don't potentially end up like The Plenty, while making the Source (and it's shards) more susceptible to numerous other doomed world fates. This is something that's never addressed, that in avoiding one fate (that was not guaranteed) she put the world at risk of a myriad of others.

Even the 8UC was a group effort. Everything we're shown is Venat never told anyone anything. (I don't care she said she would in Elpis, all evidence suggests she never actually did.) This was exclusively the decision of one individual in the midst of a crisis of faith.

People keep comparing the worlds or morality of the two groups without bothering to acknowledge that the state of the Shards has been fucked with by Ascians sense the start. We have quite literally no idea what the Shards or Sundered would be like in a world where they were left alone because the Ascians were actively making things worse for everybody the whole time.

Yes, we do. Those dastardly Ascians didn't have their fingers in every pie. The sundered are quite willing and able to corrupt themselves on their own without assistance.

[Lauront]

Yes, we do. Those dastardly Ascians didn't have their fingers in every pie. The sundered are quite willing and able to corrupt themselves on their own without assistance.

Besides, wouldn't want the world going the way of the dreaded Plenty, now would we?

[BaconBits]

Yes, we do. Those dastardly Ascians didn't have their fingers in every pie. The sundered are quite willing and able to corrupt themselves on their own without assistance.

Nobody.
Not a single soul.
Ul'dah getting ready to turn Sil'dih into shambling corpses so their war crimes wouldn't be war crimes:

[KizuyaKatogami]

I get what you mean. It's sad that the Ancients were wiped out by events they didn't even see were going to happen and couldn't understand why. We are the survivors, we are what's left of the Ancients with our souls sundered and our aether weakened that we cannot use creation magicks in the same way they did. The likes of Venat and Elidibus are lost to us forever. Emet-Selch could come back reborn as one of us if he wanted since his soul wasn't obliterated like the other Ascians we've encountered, but he explicitly expressed his desires not to.

Venat made the decision not to tell her people about Meteion because if they had succeeded in changing the past it would've created a paradox where we never would've existed to warn her about the Final Days in the first place. Elidibus warned us for that very reason before he gave up his last remnants of his soul to open a gate to the past that we were not to try to alter the past nor prevent the Final Days from happening. In fact just before his soul was obliterated he recalled us visiting him in the past stating that it was a warming memory that he had forgotten, so even before we learned we could go there a version of ourselves had already been into the past and intervened.

As for Hermes he believed all life had the rights to live even if it meant destroying everything else and developed an emotional attachment to everything. He could not accept the standard ways of his people who would create and unmake creations without remorse or regrets and once they believed their work was done would give up their own lives for someone else to fill in their place. The other Ancients were far too occupied with duty and acceptance of their ways to notice how unstable he was becoming and put their bets on him becoming the next Fandaniel would occupy him enough to forget his troubles. He secretly created Meteion to question what does it mean to live on other worlds but when his answer was that there was no other significant reason for living it pushed him over the edge and he sided with Meteion's judgement that to exist was to suffer. Even though he was reborn as a sundered Ascian the question still haunted him and with each rebirth he felt even less about life and longed for the cycle of death and rebirth to come to an end.

Except we already have another time travel situation and it didn’t result in a paradox, it resulted in a split timeline. 14 keeps changing its rules and laws to fit the narrative and its biting the writers in the ass this time because people aren’t pretending to be oblivious to it anymore. It’s completely half-assed and makes very little sense, as does Venat’s reasoning for not telling the ancients. We understand how Hermes feels, what Venat thinks etc etc, no one is confused on that. People are simply calling out the bs writing that surrounds Elpis as a whole because the entire plot has so many holes it’s like it’s made out of swiss cheese.