Quote Originally Posted by Anonymoose View Post
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.