On Themis [6.4 SPOILER]

[Denishia]

I think that is also comes down to what you interpret the "new life" that the Third Sacrifice was aiming to trade to Zodiark in order to swap out the souls from sacrifices one and two. For me it was obvious in the implications that the new life wasn't just constructs and plant/animal life (which even then, okay you've just environmentally devastated the planet back towards the state you had just made the original Zodiark sacrifices for) but that these new lives were beings that had inherited the souls from the Lifestream had had originally belonged to people who had died in the initial Final Days, including all the citizens of the other cities that weren't Amaurot, or souls of people who died long before it and thus didn't have the memories of the Final Days that could have triggered the Echo via the Star Showers. The Convocation and their followers, through tempering and the extremely potent survivor's guilt towards the sacrificed like Hythlodeaus are deciding to kill reborn-Azem. Those same souls on the chopping block once the Rejoinings are complete.

[Brinne]

sacrifices

Not to fully retread old arguments, but keeping this focused on "Venat's individual motivations and actions" themselves as a potential foil or parallel to Athena - as opposed to a wider argument on the Convocation - Endwalker pretty firmly established that at least for Venat herself, (you could make an argument for her faction, who were largely kept in the dark about what she knew and what she intended), the sacrifices were the least of her concerns, and she was primarily motivated by the question of the Endsinger and her fears that the Ancients would eventually submit to total societal stagnation and nihilism, ala the Nibirun. This is reflected both in her not understanding why she would ever do what she did when you first give her the Endsinger-less and Meteion's report-less understanding of the future scenario, and the fact that whatever the "new life" was, Hydaelyn also chopped it up and effectively killed it all in the Sundering along with the Ancients.

For Venat herself, just like Athena (at least, the argument Athena put forth), the primary concern was indeed for her concept of "the greater good," and all forms of life around her were an acceptable sacrifice towards a future that would shape it.

[Denishia]

Not to fully retread old arguments, but keeping this focused on "Venat's individual motivations and actions" themselves as a potential foil or parallel to Athena - as opposed to a wider argument on the Convocation - Endwalker pretty firmly established that at least for Venat herself, (you could make an argument for her faction, who were largely kept in the dark about what she knew and what she intended), the sacrifices were the least of her concerns, and she was primarily motivated by the question of the Endsinger and her fears that the Ancients would eventually submit to total societal stagnation and nihilism, ala the Nibirun. This is reflected both in her not understanding why she would ever do what she did when you first give her the Endsinger-less and Meteion's report-less understanding of the future scenario, and the fact that whatever the "new life" was, Hydaelyn also chopped it up and effectively killed it all in the Sundering along with the Ancients.

For Venat herself, just like Athena (at least, the argument Athena put forth), the primary concern was indeed for her concept of "the greater good," and all forms of life around her were an acceptable sacrifice towards a future that would shape it.

"To try and reclaim those lives we lost by sacrificing yet more isn't wisdom. It is weakness."

To put in a parallel - the Convocation is acting like Hephatios in P8 - wanting to sacrifice Erichtonios to bring back Athena. Venat and her followers were trying to save Erichtonios but Venat realizes that she can't, her attempts at least in the timeline that we are on have no outcome where she succeeded in convincing Hephatios not to kill Athena in the first place and now her attempts at reasoning with Hephatios won't stop him from killing Erichtonios. He's solely focused on restoring Athena, who in this case was far more a victim of Ultima's auracite. Now the writers would have allowed the WoL in a similar situation to just kill Hephatios and save Erichtonios. Venat's followers think she might be able to. Thanks to time-travel shenanigans, Venat knows she won't be able to save Erichtonios, but her blow that stops Hephatios from killing him is also going to transform Erichtonios into Claudien. And Claudien, unlike Hephatios, is willing to go hunt down Ultima the High Seraph and unlike Hephatios or herself, actually has the best chance of defeating Ultima (and free Athena to be reborn too). I totally get the anger that Venat was still killing Erichtonios to get Claudien- but Hephaitios was also trying to kill Erichtonios, and as the story is written I disagree that Hephatios was ever going to kill Ultima.

[Kozh]

To put in a parallel - the Convocation is acting like Hephatios in P8 - wanting to sacrifice Erichtonios to bring back Athena. Venat and her followers were trying to save Erichtonios but Venat realizes that she can't, her attempts at least in the timeline that we are on have no outcome where she succeeded in convincing Hephatios not to kill Athena in the first place and now her attempts at reasoning with Hephatios won't stop him from killing Erichtonios. He's solely focused on restoring Athena, who in this case was far more a victim of Ultima's auracite. Now the writers would have allowed the WoL in a similar situation to just kill Hephatios and save Erichtonios. Venat's followers think she might be able to. Thanks to time-travel shenanigans, Venat knows she won't be able to save Erichtonios, but her blow that stops Hephatios from killing him is also going to transform Erichtonios into Claudien. And Claudien, unlike Hephatios, is willing to go hunt down Ultima the High Seraph and unlike Hephatios or herself, actually has the best chance of defeating Ultima (and free Athena to be reborn too). I totally get the anger that Venat was still killing Erichtonios to get Claudien- but Hephaitios was also trying to kill Erichtonios, and as the story is written I disagree that Hephatios was ever going to kill Ultima.

No offense, but this isn't really a good parallel imo (and very confusing). Venat's reasoning to sunder is no longer about saving "erichtonios". Because in EW there's new factors that influence her decision; meteion, dynamis and the Nibirun Dead End.

Also

her attempts at least in the timeline that we are on have no outcome where she succeeded in convincing Hephatios not to kill Athena in the first place

are you implying that venat tried to prevent first and second sacrifice as well?

[Denishia]

I think that Venat's statement that end "so I take nothing for granted as I walk my path" and the uncertainty that we were in a closed loop timeline or not until the Mothercrystal scene meant that Venat was trying to find solutions to the Final Days that wouldn't involve Zodiark or the Sundering, and by the nature of returning to our timeline we don't see if there are timelines where Venat was less cautious about not taking any steps that would butterfly away Zodiark's creation nor do we get to see the timeline where her pleading to the Zodiark worshiping survivors of the Final Days that focusing on trying to recreate their post-trauma memory of their past by offering up their present and future while not addressing what led to what had destroyed it and how to defeat its source which was still out there worked without having to Sunder. The game posits that the Endsinger wouldn't be defeated by the Ancients as they were without changing - until she pulls out the sword Venat is trying to debate that change of attitude without the change of the physical world. We also don't get to see the timeline where we arrive long before Hermes sent the Meteia into space and convince him via a life-changing road trip that there are answers to the doubts that plague him and other ways to find purpose and meaning in life than the only one he's been told - or no clear answers at all and that's okay.

[Denishia]

We know she convinced some people and gathered allies - we don’t know who or how many -if the Twelve seen in Anyder were the only ones or even just the only ones alive, considering this was after the Final Days had just wiped out the vast majority of the planet and half of the population sacrificed to Zodiark. Seems rather obvious that the people Venat would have been recruiting to fulfill the criteria of Not the Convocation but also willing and able to actively search for a way to stop the Endsinger would have been people caught up in the destruction and chaos of the Final Days as it approached Amaurot or ones also willing to become Zodiark’s fuel. Or perhaps Venat’s sense of who fit the narrows qualifications of trustworthy and useful to solve the problem of the approaching apocalypse that would still threaten even after Zodiark put up the shield was so small that Venat put them in a safety bunker until after the first two sacrifices.

Because dynamis wasn’t just about swapping to a different magic source, and the only reason the Ancients would fail was because they biological can’t use it any more than the Garleans use aether. Yes, it is one of the main reasons and why the Venat solution that we play as in this game is as a mortal being. It was also the emotional mindset to look at the Endsinger’s Fermi Principle, recognize the emotion of despair that it created, and have developed a coping mechanism that wasn’t just straight denial of despair or embracing oblivion. The scenes in Thavnair pre-Elpis and everything post Elpis but particularly Ultima Thule was making the statement that thinking horribly negative emotion and life experiences is something you can avoid or shield yourself from isn’t going to work in the long run, nor should you expect to defeat it solely on your own. Nor that there is only one answer in how to solve it or find meaning in life that helps to combat that despair, as the later halves of Ultima Thule stress, but one way for sure not to solve it is to completely give up on survival and one way to win against it is having friends help you through it once and point out it’s a repeatable victory. Venat thought that the Ancients’ status quo was self-defeating and trying to argue a course-correction to defeat the Endsinger and stop another Hermes Despair Event from arising and to avoid the nihilistic fate of the worlds that transformed Meteion into the Endsinger.

The game tells you that this particular version of Venat’s plan worked and why- but not any other would or could. Our impasse is agreeing if that assessment is right or not.


Another impasse is that I don’t think the UnSundered World appealing or feasible for a MMO game setting and the only likable NPCs able to tell interesting stories are those that defy its setting - Hermes and Erichtonios.

[TowaIsBestGirl]

It is an interesting little anecdote though, isn't it. But Cleretic's right in that they don't show any of these commonly inferred hypotheticals so a lot of people are arguing from the basis of rather shaky hypotheticals. For better or worse, we can only formulate theories and points of view from what information the game actually provides us with.

[Yuella]

Also remember that the sundering cutscene is not real time. It's a snippet/summary of major events that happened during the Final Days. Maybe Venat did try harder to convince the people not to sacrifice more lives to Zodiark.

[RyuDragnier]

Also remember that the sundering cutscene is not real time. It's a snippet/summary of major events that happened during the Final Days. Maybe Venat did try harder to convince the people not to sacrifice more lives to Zodiark.

We also don't even know how long she tried to convince them. She could have been trying for years, decades, or centuries before the 2nd sacrifices to repair the planet, and then kept trying until before the 3rd, when she realized there was no point. We have no clue when she finally "broke" and realized she couldn't reason with them. Nor do we know just how much the Convocation were willing to listen at all during that time...or even how Z-Elidibus (Zodiark's Heart) reacted if/when Venat tried to speak with him to come up with another method.

[Lurina]

It's tempting to get back into the weeds of the scenario like in so many preceding arguments now that it's risen up again for maybe the last significant time (well, depending on the last Myths of the Realm and the next round of Tales from the Dawn...) and to talk about Venat's actions and the necessity of the Sundering diagetically, or to criticize the awkwardness of the scenario itself, where the writers clearly fudged a haphazard mix of worldbuilding and thematic justifications , often with ambiguous details that the reader can fill in the blanks on - as people are doing in this thread! - to create a problem for the Sundering's solution.

But you know what?

It's all dumb. That stuff isn't, and probably has never been, even worth discussing.

The Sundering-as-written is (unlike the Rejoinings, which the narrative (correctly, for any unabashed Ascian fans) frames as abominable) a rotten plot beat because it expects the player to accept what is basically a genocide as ultimately necessary and reasonable, and employs every tool in its storytelling arsenal to do so. Everything else is just fluff.

It's gross, and I felt gross playing it. The writers should have just made it an accident.

That's my final word on it.