What lore do you ignore?

[Lady_Silvermoon]

Not only was it a genocide, it was the second worse genocide I've ever come across in fiction. And she did it on purpose, with not only full knowledge of the suffering she caused, but for that suffering to be the intended goal. Her stated intention was to clip man's wings so they could no longer bear him to heaven. When you remove the romantic language what she's saying is she's going to cripple her people to the point that they no longer have the power to reduce their own suffering. Because the pretty light lady says that she needed to reduce Zodiark's power for a time, people assume Zodiark was doing something bad with that power, but there is no evidence of that. Given her goals and her explicitly stated reasons for her actions, the power she was trying to keep in check was Zodiark's power to alleviate the suffering of the Ancients. If they had the power to alleviate their suffering (the wings to bear them to heaven) then they'd fail the test as they wouldn't have learned to endure despair. Her goal was to toughen people up through torture. That has to be the most monstrous goal of any character in the FF14 universe. Anyone who wasn't a sociopath would have worked to avoid the test because the belief that a group of people must "prove themself" to justify their existence is fascistic. Venat's ideology is a cross between Zenos' and Athena's but framed as good for some reason. She loves humanity the way she loved that guy she walked past as he was being eaten, as some abstract concept. As long as she got her skies and her laughter, she didn't care what happened to individual people. By allowing the Ascians to go free, she sacrificed seven worlds full of people to ensure the creation of one person. People are only okay with that because that one person was them. I wished she loved consent and post-scarcity societies as much as she loved skies one could drown in.

Trying to convince me Venat didn't commit genocide is like trying to convince me that someone who magically turned a child into a mouse whose cat then ate the mouse, who they brought into the room specifically to eat the mouse, did not just kill a kid. I saw what I saw.

ETA: She didn't sunder the world to save the "new life" because that was sundered too. She didn't want the third sacrifice because that would have alleviated the Ancients suffering and if they could just fix everything and not be in pain due to what happened to them, then they won't pass the test. She's not protecting anything or anyone. She's morphing her species into beings that have no choice but to get good at suffering because she's about to inflict heaps of it on them and make sure they are too weak to prevent it.

[Anonymoose]

people assume Zodiark was doing something bad with that power, but there is no evidence of that. Given her goals and her explicitly stated reasons for her actions, the power she was trying to keep in check was Zodiark's power to alleviate the suffering of the Ancients

The summoning of Zodiark (however inadvertently) tempered the entire governing body of the planet (aside from the one person who quit)... (EDIT: Not that I'm saying this directly affected anything, per se...)

We summoned Him, as your kind might summon a primal─albeit an infinitely more powerful one.
And like one of your primals, He tempered us. It was only natural. There is no resisting such power.

...who were now overseeing the One True God being used to - despite already having done the thing it was summoned to do at the cost of 75% of the population - keep exchanging sacrifices (which had to be defended by other ancients) to walk back anything and everything that wasn't their previously perfect paradise, including the resurrection of the willing sacrifices (who to my knowledge - feel free to throw citations at me - offered no indications they expected to be resurrected or would even want to be resurrected at the cost of sacrificing others in exchange).

We can't accept it! We won't accept it! It will be ours again─a world free of sorrow!
O mighty Zodiark, god born of our boundless faith! We bid you hear our prayer!
Accept this offering of lives, and deliver unto us the lives we once had. Deliver unto us the days of old...

I'm all for exploring different perspectives and interpretations and interrogating how the big picture of the story looks in the light of the way the story was told but to casually toss around words like "genocide" and "fascistic" and say anyone who disagrees is inconsistent and morally compromised while completely minimizing and disregarding that as "there's no evidence of a problem" and "Venat just wanted to prevent them from alleviating their suffering" is ... whew. I don't know where the conversation would even go from there.

But, from another angle...

Encyclopaedia Eorzea, Vol. 3 (Page 011)

The Schism
The newly summoned Zodiark answered the Convocation's prayers with potent efficiency, scouring the world of abominations and stabilizing the chaotic surge of creation energies. The Final Days ebbed and faded as the will of the star wove laws to bind and restore.

Yet although oblivion was averted, much still lay in ruin. The survivors turned their efforts to repairing the ravaged lands—through the rendering of additional sacrifices. Once the star was duly returned to vitality, they would offer a portion of its living energy to Zodiar in turn, thus allowing them to resurrect their sacrificed brethren whose souls slumbered within the deity.

This undertaking, however, was not without its opponents. There were those who contended that the volatile failure of creation magicks was a clear sign that mankind could not continue as it always had. Whether the calamity had eroded faith in the Convocation, or the grim glimpse of despair had simply woken people up to a new perspective, the fact remained that anti-Zodiark sentiment was growing, and had found a champion in a woman by the name of Venat. Her followers were too numerous to ignore, but the Fourteen would not be dissuaded from their plans. A schism formed in the ancients' society, and conflict between the two factions erupted in earnest.

...this reads like the ancients who did want to stop the sacrifices, come to terms with what had happened, and solve the problem of creation magicks (A) were dismissed by the Convocation and (B) joined Veant, complicating the situation even further.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

*snip*

I do not believe this to be true and even if I did believe this to be true, 12 people being tempered does not justify eradicating a civilization. At worst it would justify killing the 12 tempered people. If there are Ancients who are against the third sacrifice then that means they aren't all brainwashed lemmings that need to be wiped out like cockroaches. The very point that there is conflict over what to do next proves that the situation wasn't completely hopeless and they were all brainwashed zombies fit for extermination and nothing else.

That would also mean she knew that the Convocation would turn into brainwashed zombies bent on sacrificing everything and everyone and said nothing...Her design is based off Zodiark's, you'd think if the Convocation was so bad at making gods, she wouldn't have modeled herself after him.

If we can't be sure the willing sacrifices would want to be removed from Zodiark and replaced with other life energy from the planet even though we can straight up just ask them because Hythlodaeus is able to communicate with us while in Zodiark. But all these justifications you make to justify why Venat did it has nothing to do with her stated reasons. She wasn't trying to stop the third sacrifice for her deep love of plants and animals. She wanted people to live with their friends and family trapped in Zodiark, removed from the life cycle so that they would get good at being depressed. And given that she did not tell them why she thought they needed to get good at being depressed, it's not surprising they didn't listen to her. She sundered them so they'd no longer have the power to protect the people they loved, so they could learn to live with the pain, like Estinien did. His family being murdered is what gave him the ability to get them past the dragons. So his family being murdered is part of her grand design. You can't understand that and then try to argue she did it all to save some unnamed life energy. When children watching their parents die are the goal of her world, why would she be trying to protect some random life energy that I'm sure you've made sentient in your headcannon to make her actions okay?

That scene is misleading because if they showed the real scene, people arguing in a safe, repaired world over whether to sacrifice cows or not to get their parents out of purgatory and she showed up and devolved them all back to apes in the middle of the debate, we wouldn't be arguing right now. Also even in their fake scene, the people are sacrificing themselves. These innocent people the Ancients wanted to sacrifice who don't seem to exist before or after the Sundering are headcannon.

[Vyrerus]

come to terms with what had happened

Oh no. EE3. I can't believe you've done this.

In attempting to bend over backwards to have the Convocation be the unreasonables due to tempering, it's explicitly laid more sins on Venat's shoulders.

This is an explicit example that she started a rebel faction in society and incited civil war over a false pretense, and then used her faction to attain godhood to actually do what she felt needed to be done, and in that doing, she ruptured and destroyed her faction and followers all the while lying to them.

Let alone them, but also the life they were fighting for...


It's not just the twelve any more. It's some big minority of the body politic.

Whoooo boy...

[Anonymoose]

That would also mean she knew that the Convocation would turn into brainwashed zombies

Not everyone who's tempered is a brainwashed zombie. Several characters have been, to quote world director Oda-san, "not puppets that do nothing but repeat words of worship, but nevertheless ensure that they would obey and never betray" (specific reference here to the Heavens' Ward, not the Convocation, to be clear). I don't recall official materials blaming Convocation tempering on anything but the vague "spreading of His Darkness" and leaving us to decide what's what. It's true that they are, regardless of whether it means anything or nothing, but whether it means anything is up to one's interpretation for now, as far as I recall. (I'm used to being on the receiving end of this citation.)

Likewise,

In attempting to bend over backwards to have the Convocation be the unreasonables due to tempering

EE3 doesn't blame their tempering. Emet-Selch says only that the act of summoning tempered them (which, again, has degrees; no one can speak to the level of influence, unfortunately), Venat's compatriots say only that the Convocation won't hear debate, and - much later - EE3 says only that the Convocation would not be dissuaded. Correlation is not always causation. Do I think there's some influence there, myself? I think it's probably non-zero. But that's an opinion. Moreover, if they effectively tempered themselves to their own plan, their plan existed before the tempering, anyway. Who's to say the continuation of that plan certainly was solely because of tempering? If anything can be attributed to their tempering it would be their inability to re-evaluate the course despite the fact that there's now a civil war. And that's a maybe, even if it's one I accept in my personal interpretations.

Her design is based off Zodiark's, you'd think if the Convocation was so bad at making gods, she wouldn't have modeled herself after him.

It was the only thing capable of challenging him; the summary refers to it as a "disconcertingly familiar solution", and considering her summoners were sacrificed wholly to power it, the tempering angle conveniently failed to come up. (By design? No idea.)

She wasn't trying to stop the third sacrifice for her deep love of plants and animals.

The Convocation decided thus: we would nurture our world until it was bursting with vitality. Then, when the time was right, we would offer some portion of its living energy to Zodiark... In return, He would restore to us those brethren whose souls had fed His strength, and together we would resume our role as stewards. There were, however, those who disagreed with this plan. They argued that enough had been sacrificed to Zodiark─that this new world should belong to the lives newly born. These dissidents surrendered their life energies in the creation of Hydaelyn

Whether this is framed as the primary motivation does wobble from scene to scene, I'll give you that, but personally I wouldn't dismiss it entirely when it was the first explanation we got, from an entity imbued with its knowledge by Emet-Selch, no less.

why would she be trying to protect some random life energy that I'm sure you've made sentient in your headcannon

I never could fully pin that one down, honestly. Most of what I can find says the plan is to sacrifice "new life" and Venat's faction says the future should be determined by the "newly born". The fact that this could be mentioned so many times without explicitly specifying whether they were the same entities is comical, and almost seems deliberate. "A Friendship of Record" does state "His devotees then resolved to sow new life─a bounty of souls to take the place of their sacrificed brethren." But these days everything has souls, so I'm left with this one citation by Alphinaud in French:

La vie nouvelle qui a germé de ce labeur a été à nouveau offerte à Zordiarche, dans le but de ressusciter celles et ceux qui avaient été sacrifiés pour permettre son existence.
The new life that sprouted from this labor was to be yet again offered to Zodiark, with the aim of resurrecting those who had been sacrificed to allow its existence.

Or, Venat et ses fidèles ont estimé que cette vie nouvellement créée était celle qui avait le droit de déterminer l'avenir de la planète. C'est ainsi qu'ils ont décidé de donner naissance à Hydaelyn.
However, Venat and her followers believed that this newly created life was who had the right to determine the future of the planet. This is how they decided to give birth to Hydaelyn.

That's the only one I have that appears to link the "new life" born in the wake of Zodiark's recovery to the "new generation" Venat says deserves a say in the future.

Emet-Selch says that after the rejoinings are complete he's going to sacrifice the entire populace of the planet rather than some "plants and animals"...

Then we shall offer up the Source's remaining inhabitants in sacrifice, that we might resurrect our brethren who died to bring Zodiark into existence.

...but whether this reflects the original plan or an enhancement, I couldn't prove, I don't think.

Lastly, to assume that because I question the minimizing of how sideways things had gone in Amaurot I believe there is an automatic and complete vindication of Venat involved somehow is inaccurate. I'm still all for interrogating how the big-picture of the story looks, every bit as much as my personal interpretations are still rooted in taking the story's intentions for granted and trying to make them work as best I can with the citations I have (And I'm under no delusion that I have them all, or even the most recent in some cases.). There are still plenty of interpretations where it looks pretty dang bad, which isn't a surprise to me because she herself says it was pretty dang bad, and the developers have likewise described it in Q&A panels as pretty dang bad.

The whole framing relies on whether one accepts the writers' request to trust that it was this or eternal oblivion for everyone forever. The Ardbert Defense, cranked up to eleven.

That was, as everyone here has said, a regrettable position in which to leave the fandom, in retrospect.

And, as you said, in your opinion, the difference is meaningless, anyway.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

*snip*

What I find ironic about your position is if Zodiark (which she let them summon without warning them) caused the kinds of problems that you're claiming and a civil war had broken out cause these people wanted to sacrifice their own children, then that would have been the exact kind of despair ridden world that would have made the Sundering unnecessary. If their civilization is that bad off, then focusing on victory to save the babies would have been a gentler path to her goal. The Sundering only makes sense if they found a way to once again avoid suffering. That's why they needed their wings clipped. A baby murdering civil war doesn't sound like the heaven she was attempting to keep them from...

[Vyrerus]

Convocation won't hear debate

So there's a buncha wiggle room for the Convocation to not be deep fried.

Then we think about the last 25% of the population.

I know they never go into exact detail on who in society gave themselves up, just concerning themselves with how many did. But it leaves us to wonder, right?

Surely they all were highly virtuous folks, since none of them were compelled by force to do it... If they were to compel by force, wouldn't they compel those who already spat on Amaurotine ideals surrounding death like Venat?

Meaning all of the remaining populace were either deemed essential to society (government etc), restricted from doing so due to being young, or just wouldn't do it. Venat being part of the last grouping there.

Now we don't have, and likely never will have, the exact particulars on how that's divvied up on either side of the remaining society, but it means that very few of the first category were likely in either half of the remaining population. Meaning most of Venat's faction were the youth or the people who just wouldn't sacrifice themselves for other Ancients no matter what.

Was there ever any distinguishing as well, was it just the 12 that gave themselves up for Hydaelyn or was it her entire fragment of society? It wasn't a good look before, and it doesn't seem to be getting any prettier the more I think about it. Of course, Civil Wars have never been a pretty thing in any context...

If it was Venat's entire fragment of society that sacrificed themselves to make Hydaelyn, not just the 12, then it still has this contradiction to their motives. They want to stop the pro-Zodiark side from sacrificing new life to bring back the other Ancients. And we have some examples I know where people hint and say doing that would dishonor the sacrifice they made, but then... if Venat's faction is committed to self-annihilation to prevent that through violence as their newly formed god... It still spits in the face of that sacrifice, because they became willing to destroy themselves and the others that were the recipients of getting to live that the initial 75% sacrificed themselves for in the first place!

That was kind of confusing, poor verbiage on my part, but you get what I mean, right? They'd be killing the reason, the people and their society, that the first sacrifices gave their lives for.

And to top it all off, Venat is very senior to everyone in either faction. Perhaps not explicitly every single person, but there's power and prestige in her seniority, her age. And she has to be inspiring fragmented families missing fathers or mothers or both.

This is an extremely ugly affair. I wish they'd sat on it for another expansion. We really really needed that Garlemald expansion so they could cook this story up to well done. But it's come out raw.