[6.0 - 6.4 Spoilers] An interesting video detailing Venat's polarizing reception

[LandonIXIII]

My god, The mental gymnastics that you folks make just to justify the nonsense you spew out is laughable at this point.

[JepMZ]

I still don't get why people think she's evil. So she should have just allowed mass murder of their children and offsprings to revive boomers and let their invention continue to permanently prevent life in the universe?

[the-kuponut]

I still don't get why people think she's evil. So she should have just allowed mass murder of their children and offsprings to revive boomers and let their invention continue to permanently prevent life in the universe?

What makes a person a person? Isn't it their memories? their experiences that they lived? If I killed a man, but revived him with no memories, no relationship to his former family, and his appearance is different, is it the same man anymore?

The sundering shattered the souls of countless people who ceased to exist, the sundered are not the same people who once walked the planet, even if they share souls. The cultures and customs that were there were erased after the sundering, the people are no longer the same.

If the sacrifices were going to erase the newly born lives, then the sundering erased all of the lives. The narrative's problem is that it try to justify it by saying that it is the same souls, except that's not what makes a person a person. The original person who had their own thoughts and relationships, who had their own loved ones, their own ways to live life, their own experiences and memories, it's all dead. Nothing of it remains except that they're part of the same "soul".

Yes, the sacrifices were not ideal, but to answer death with even bigger death is absurd. The sundering IS a sacrifice, Venat sacrificed the ancients (not by their will, which is why people refer to it as genocide) for the sake of the star. But that's exactly the very thing she was against isn't it?

The sundering is a direct parallel to the rejoining (the rejoining is horrible, and the game portrays it as such). Both are sacrificing lives for the sake of others. If the sundering is splitting the same souls, and the rejoining is putting them back together, then either both are horrible or both are neutral. They're the same concept, but the game excuses one (and even portrays it as heroic) while condemning the other. Which is just absurd.

Either the sundered and unsundered person are the same and therefore, neither the rejoining or the sundering is genocide, or they're different and both the sundering and the rejoining are genocide and should be condemned. The narrative can't have its cake and eat it too.

[Iscah]

I still don't get why people think she's evil. So she should have just allowed mass murder of their children and offsprings to revive boomers and let their invention continue to permanently prevent life in the universe?

So was there any actual reason to bring up this subject again, or did you just want to restart the exact same argument we've already had over and over?

[JepMZ]

People are still people if you take their ability to use genocidal powers away. People who become mute or dislexic aren't suddenly not people or dead. I think the naysayers' core principle against Hydaelyn is the assumption that sundering is murder when it isn't. There is no facts that state sundering is death. Everybody got to live their mortal lives after the sundering, they just can't play being gods anymore. It's a lower quality of life, sure, but it's not the same thing as getting murdered. They still chose to live or else there wouldn't be offsprings

And there's no facts that support sundering and rejoining is the same thing. You can't just make up a rule that they have to have the same consequence when there are plenty of fiction with various outcomes of duplications concepts. If anything, shadowbringers prove the buildings are intact after a sundering, they only get killed because of future disasters, and not from the sundering itself. You don't die when your party gets sundered into two shards during a raid battle. What we do know that's given facts is that lifestream=life=sea of souls. The ascians going against the sacrificed people's wishes to save life by sacrificing the lives they saved is taking out huge portions of souls out of the life cycle with no guarantee that the souls in Zodiark could actually be restored. We already know at least one Ancient who died "naturally" during the final days, he could potentially be among the new life when he reincarnates. Without Hydaelyn's reaction, he might possibly would never had the chance to be reborn at all

[Lyth]

The first step is to determine how sundering someone or something actually works, before arriving at any conclusions. This entire discussion hinges on whether sundering someone:

• kills them
• destroys all their memories

Emet-Selch's demonstration on Ryne in the Ocular during the Shadowbringers MSQ doesn't seem to support either of these. In fact, Emet makes a deliberate point of stating that 'this singular ability strikes not at such banal things as flesh'. We also know that sundered souls can retain memories from before the sundering, including some flashbacks of the Amaurotine Final Days. The entire plotline around Amon/Fandaniel hinges on him retaining his memories of Elpis from before the time that he was sundered. So that contradicts the second point as well.

We can try to piece together an understanding of how sundering magic works by inference. Argos seems to be an early precursor to sundering magic, and his duplicates are directly referred to as 'reflections' in the quest text when you encounter him on the moon. He appears to be able to sunder and rejoin himself without consequence, and his memories of who you are seem to be still preserved across 12000 years.

During the Pandaemonium questline, Lahabrea splits his soul into two, and deliberately seals away part of his personality and memories around Athena on to one of his soul fragments. This process doesn't kill him, but does result in some memories being unique to each reflection, while others appear to be shared. He seems to be able to consciously plan for what information each fragment is able to recall. That suggests to me that memories aren't necessarily 'encoded' to a single locus on a soul (perhaps there's a degree of redundancy, if you want to use a RAID analogy). Splitting the soul doesn't seem like it necessarily damages the information encoded on it.

I think if you want to develop a theoretical framework to explain all this, you need to have a clear understanding of how memory works in FFXIV and how this relates to aether. Because the rules are different from how they work in our own world.

Even inanimate objects have memory, as seen in Venat's demonstration of the Echo on Elpis. You don't need a living being to be physically present. And we know that the sundering affects inanimate objects as well, because the geographical features of the First were all parallels of Eorzea. It's not like they were destroyed in the process. So it really doesn't seem like Sundering actually damages corporeal aether (which again, we could have predicted if we listened to Emet-Selch's original explanation).

Dying doesn't remove your memories either. Endwalker used this 'underwater' effect as a storytelling motif whenever the narrator was floating around in the lifestream, during both the MSQ and Pandaemonium. Despite being very dead, both Emet and Elidibus still can recall what happened to them while they're waiting to dissolve back into the lifestream.

Your memories have to first be 'cleansed' by the lifestream before your soul returns back to the cycle. Until that happens, you still retain all your memories. Even after being sundered, those memories are preserved unless that cleansing process occurs fully. Cue to Asahi furiously scrubbing Fandaniel's soul.

I'm curious about what happens to all those memories after cleansing, but I have a personal theory that it's something important to the functioning of the lifestream and planet, as well as this slightly vague concept of 'the Will of the Star'. I'm predicting that there's an entity that predates Zodiark and Hydaelyn that was originally meant to occupy that position, similar to how Zodiark required a 'Heart' in order to function.

Either way, the fundamental assumptions that underpin this entire discussion are flawed, and the contradictions become quickly obvious if you were asking questions rather than trying to force conclusions of your own choosing.

The only reason why the term 'genocide' gets thrown around deliberately and inappropriately in here is because some Ascian enjoyers see it as an opportunity to pull an 'Uno Reverse' on the discussions of Stormblood from some six years ago. It has nothing to do with Venat herself outside of what she symbolizes to the protagonists. Previously, Garlemald has occupied a fairly uncomfortable space within game lore, drawing historical inspiration from real world fascist regimes and the war crimes they committed. Elidibus quite literally employed (al)chemical weaponry in warfare, in the form of the Black Rose. Enjoying the villains doesn't automatically mean that you condone such actions or sympathize with those ideologies, but it's not surprising that those discussions became heated back in the day. Either way, it's probably worth letting those grudges go if you're still clinging to them. And if you can't, well, it looks like this story is moving on with or without you.

The Sundering is a Garden of Eden story, with a sprinkle of Pandora on top. All these stories are fundamentally about answering the question of 'why does good and evil exist in our world?' and about how to transcend that. Is it a coincidence that the flower that Venat left behind for us, Elpis, is the spirit of hope?

[Alenore]

snip

In fact, your understanding is flawed. Memories are absolutely split during sundering as well.

Until one calamitous day when the world was divided across ten and three reflections, sundering the land and all who dwelled upon it.
And the worst part? No one could remember it. Not really. Just fragments and fleeting memories of an achingly familiar world...
A vision shared of a paradise lost, preserved only in song and scripture and paint...
Once upon a time. Yet here we find ourselves again. To look, learn, and remember...

He directly says people couldn't remember the past, only fragments of it (let me guess, 1/14!).


There's also the Nier recounting of events
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVZh6oZziwQ
Their memories were absolutely not intact.

Pitiful moaning of malformed creatures...

They can no longer shape words.

Language, culture, knowledge - forgotten.

Take a book, only keep 1 letter for every 14, let's see if you have something coherent in the end.
This was affecting people's memories and sense of self so badly they went back to the stone age.

Proof?
Eorzea's recorded history :
- First Astral Era : people rediscover tools, then forging, and only found town and villages here ;
- Second Umbral Era : the first form of magic reappers through prayers (thanks the Twelve I guess) ;
- Second Astral Era : steel and stonemasonry only start being developed.

Just took over an Era to actually reach somewhat medieval levels.



For all intent and purpose, they lost their powers, their memories, and their culture, were exposed to sickness, hunger and death.
Arguing that it's not genocide because "actually they still have SOME memories, and like, they didn't actually die as in their souls going back to the Lifestream to be reincarnated. And you're right using our definition of death, which is the end of life.

If you use that definition, people who turned into voidsent, sin eaters or blasphemies aren't dead : memories still on their souls, they weren't cleansed! And neither are those who get rejoined: they just merge with their counterparts on the source! Is Ardbert dead?
But somehow, I feel like if you asked random people in Eorzea if people transformed into Blasphemies were actually dead, they'd say yes. Well, it's the same in this case.

Every Ancient bar 2 disappeared in that moment. We obviously can't draw parallels from our world since magic isn't a thing, but if that happened, you'd call it a genocide as well. At the very least, a cultural genocide.

[Alenore]

I'm not making any kind of a commentary about societal record-keeping in a time period that the EE Vol.1 specifically refers to as 'prehistory', because that has nothing to do with individual/personal memory. If you would like to attempt to offer a rebuttal, I would recommend that you revisit those points directly, as my argument still stands, unchallenged.

Pre-history would be before the First Umbral era.
Here's the rebutal.

The first step is to determine how sundering someone or something actually works, before arriving at any conclusions. This entire discussion hinges on whether sundering someone:

• kills them
• destroys all their memories

This entire discussion doens't hinge on that, it rests on the sundering destroying the sense of self and most memories of the previous person, to a point they are virtually gone. This is what people mean when they say it "kills them".

Emet-Selch's demonstration on Ryne in the Ocular during the Shadowbringers MSQ doesn't seem to support either of these. In fact, Emet makes a deliberate point of stating that 'this singular ability strikes not at such banal things as flesh'. We also know that sundered souls can retain memories from before the sundering, including some flashbacks of the Amaurotine Final Days. The entire plotline around Amon/Fandaniel hinges on him retaining his memories of Elpis from before the time that he was sundered. So that contradicts the second point as well.

The rest of the sentence is "but everything that defines the target, diluting its existence". Which means the soul, the memories, the reality of the being itself. His demonstration on Ryne literaly states they would be identicial in appearance, but reduced in all respects : "all is halved" to borrow is term.

We can try to piece together an understanding of how sundering magic works by inference. Argos seems to be an early precursor to sundering magic, and his duplicates are directly referred to as 'reflections' in the quest text when you encounter him on the moon. He appears to be able to sunder and rejoin himself without consequence, and his memories of who you are seem to be still preserved across 12000 years.

Are we supposed to think every NPC that create images of itself is actually a form of sundering? I mean, it checks out since Argos is Venat's direct creation. But just recently, we had Oschon create images. Ifrit does it. Etc.

During the Pandaemonium questline, Lahabrea splits his soul into two, and deliberately seals away part of his personality and memories around Athena on to one of his soul fragments. This process doesn't kill him, but does result in some memories being unique to each reflection, while others appear to be shared. He seems to be able to consciously plan for what information each fragment is able to recall. That suggests to me that memories aren't necessarily 'encoded' to a single locus on a soul (perhaps there's a degree of redundancy, if you want to use a RAID analogy). Splitting the soul doesn't seem like it necessarily damages the information encoded on it.

No, it doesn't kill him in the sense his soul went to the Aetherial Sea to be reborn. He also split a part of his soul in a controlled manner, with specific informations. Venat split everything in 14, she probably didn't take time to check every single being and how it'd affect them.

I think if you want to develop a theoretical framework to explain all this, you need to have a clear understanding of how memory works in FFXIV and how this relates to aether. Because the rules are different from how they work in our own world.

Even inanimate objects have memory, as seen in Venat's demonstration of the Echo on Elpis. You don't need a living being to be physically present. And we know that the sundering affects inanimate objects as well, because the geographical features of the First were all parallels of Eorzea. It's not like they were destroyed in the process. So it really doesn't seem like Sundering actually damages corporeal aether (which again, we could have predicted if we listened to Emet-Selch's original explanation).

Inanimate objects don't have memory. The form of echo Venat use in Elpis is described as "piecing together an event from ripples left in ambient aether". The idea is aether simply has an afterimage of what happens. Since the Sundering splits everything (as said by Emet when he explained it), and since it's a well known fact that sunderign reduces the aetherial density, these memories are affected in the same way.

Dying doesn't remove your memories either. Endwalker used this 'underwater' effect as a storytelling motif whenever the narrator was floating around in the lifestream, during both the MSQ and Pandaemonium. Despite being very dead, both Emet and Elidibus still can recall what happened to them while they're waiting to dissolve back into the lifestream.

Your memories have to first be 'cleansed' by the lifestream before your soul returns back to the cycle. Until that happens, you still retain all your memories. Even after being sundered, those memories are preserved unless that cleansing process occurs fully. Cue to Asahi furiously scrubbing Fandaniel's soul.

You still use the definition of killing as in "going back to the Sea", which, again, is obviously not what people mean when they said the Ancients were killed. Ancients themselves never had a chance to even go back to the Sea, since they were sundered, effectively removing their memories, and their presence from the world, instead replaced by 14 beings somewhat like them, but with gaping holes in everything.

Either way, the fundamental assumptions that underpin this entire discussion are flawed, and the contradictions become quickly obvious if you were asking questions rather than trying to force conclusions of your own choosing.

See above

The only reason why the term 'genocide' gets thrown around deliberately and inappropriately in here is because some Ascian enjoyers see it as an opportunity to pull an 'Uno Reverse' on the discussions of Stormblood from some six years ago.

No, it's because it's exactly the same.
- Venat split souls, and creates new life from shards of the previous. The ones who were before are gone, to the profit of new people. In doing so, calamities happen and people of the Source face hardships.
- Ascians merge souls, reinforcing the source version. The shards are gone, to the profit of current people. In doing so, a calamity happens on the Source as well.

[Lyth]

...

Thank you for taking the time to formulate a critique.

The word 'kill' used in the context of a living being carries an unambiguous meaning. If that's not what you're implying, you cannot use the word. Emet-Selch makes it fairly clear in his explanation in the Ocular that sundering 'does not strike at the flesh', and then demonstrates using Ryne as an example (spoiler: she doesn't die).

Death occurs specifically in reference to the physical body. A soul without a body feels the pull of the lifestream/underworld. We know this from the Tales of the Shadows short story 'Through His Eyes.' In some cases, that soul can find a suitable vessel before departing, as we saw in the case of the Phoinix, which was the original inspiration for the hemitheoi.

As for a discussion of what it means 'to be yourself' - we're not the same people that we were yesterday. What you're calling 'the self' is just your narrative of that change. Amaurot underwent radical changes in the time of the Final Days. During the time of Elpis, they were completely secular. The Final Days all but destroyed them. After summoning Zodiark, Amaurot converted to religious worship in the wake of His enthrallment. The Convocation sacrificed three quarters of their surviving population to their God. And then the Amaurotines were stripped of their powers by the Sundering. Every one of these changes irrevocably altered their culture. But again, you can't conflate cultural shifts in response to political events with biological death.

The journal text for the Lv.84 MSQ 'Helping Hands' contains the following line: 'After a few moments, a swirling mass of aether takes shape, and Argos appears in a flash of light. The aetherial guardian is as friendly as before and, perhaps sensing what is to come, creates reflections of himself, one for each of your companions. With that, your party is ready to cross the chasm and meet the moon's crew.'

I'm not really sure where you were going with your discussion of Lahabrea. During the Pandaemonium: Abyssos questline, Lahabrea splits his soul into two in order to seal his memories of Athena away. He also refers to Hephaistos as 'his twisted reflection' in the quest 'Servant of Violence.' He later reabsorbs those memories back into himself on Elpis during the Anabaseios quest 'Guided by the Past' in order to ensure that he would once again have the strength to lead.

Lahabrea and Hephaistos' interactions suggest that the memories encoded by souls are not destroyed by partitioning them. It also implies that splitting souls doesn't necessarily mean that a memory only belongs to one and not the other. Both Lahabrea and Haephaistos both retained all facets of their practical knowledge, despite being split into two different soul fragments. Saying that Venat 'probably didn't have time to do this' is a vague handwavy answer that we don't actually have any evidence for.

I do also note that you chose not to address the point about sundered souls, like Amon, retaining their memories of Amaurot and Elpis even after being reincarnated. This too, suggests that memory itself is not necessarily affected by sundering a soul.

Being able to piece together the memory of an event from the ambient aether implies that the memory is, in fact, encoded on it. It doesn't have to be the same thing as 'having a soul'. It's just a form of data storage.

The primary issue with rejoining shards is that it requires mass murder on a planetary scale in order to trigger the shift. In addition, those souls all have individual lives of their own. In Ardbert's case, he had lived and died in the time of the Flood of Light one hundred years prior. But I think it would turn into a problem if we suddenly started hunting down Azem fragments on other shards specifically in the name of becoming more powerful.

[Alenore]

The word 'kill' used in the context of a living being carries an unambiguous meaning. If that's not what you're implying, you cannot use the word. Emet-Selch makes it fairly clear in his explanation in the Ocular that sundering 'does not strike at the flesh', and then demonstrates using Ryne as an example (spoiler: she doesn't die).

Death occurs specifically in reference to the physical body. A soul without a body feels the pull of the lifestream/underworld. We know this from the Tales of the Shadows short story 'Through His Eyes.' In some cases, that soul can find a suitable vessel before departing, as we saw in the case of the Phoinix, which was the original inspiration for the hemitheoi.

Do you think Emet-Selch actually sundered Ryne here and there, instead of just showing a projection through the Ocular? I may have misunderstood the situation, but all this was demonstrative. Neither did a single blow move 13 different planet in a circle.

Killing means ending a life. But destroying the body doesn't exactly kill somebody in FF : there's the Echo, and we summoned people from the sea multiple times. Multiple beings from different races were recreated in Ultima Thule, and seem to have kept going on with their lives.
Souls are in a big cycle, usually evolving the same way. Ascians who take body don't consider themselves dead. Teleporting or using flow just turns you into pure aether and thus destroying your body, just to be recreated on the other end. But since your soul and memories are left intact in a new meat suit, you're still alive. So was Zenos after he cheated death. And so were the scions when their spirits were on the First without a physical body, in the end it's just a flesh mecha for the soul.
Again, i'll stress that no, the Sundering didn't kill them as in "left their souls without a body, in such a way that their souls were going to the sea". But it killed them in all but name.

Note that I'm not telling you you're wrong. Stricto sensu, you're right. I'm just explaining what people mean when they say the Sundering killed them, and why they consider it a genocide. Death simply isn't just biological in XIV.

As for a discussion of what it means 'to be yourself' - we're not the same people that we were yesterday. What you're calling 'the self' is just your narrative of that change. Amaurot underwent radical changes in the time of the Final Days. During the time of Elpis, they were completely secular. The Final Days all but destroyed them. After summoning Zodiark, Amaurot converted to religious worship in the wake of His enthrallment. The Convocation sacrificed three quarters of their surviving population to their God. And then the Amaurotines were stripped of their powers by the Sundering. Every one of these changes irrevocably altered their culture. But again, you can't conflate cultural shifts in response to political events with biological death.

I'm quite certain at least one Ancient mentions gods during Elpis. Even if not overtly religious, they do know the meaning and the term and use it. Hemitheoi and Athena meant to reach the status of godhood. Whiletheir societies were not a theocracy, they did seem to understand the concept of gods, which means they most likely had faith in their society.

Now, though, the Convocation didn't kill the population. Not do we have any proof that their culture changed so drastically after summoning Zodiark. They literally summoned a god to grant their wishes, through their creation magic, the very tool they used to shape the Star. Why wouldn't they use their new God-tool to keep doing so? It just enables them to act on a larger scale, but requires more aether due to how widespread the effects need to be.

The journal text for the Lv.84 MSQ 'Helping Hands' contains the following line: 'After a few moments, a swirling mass of aether takes shape, and Argos appears in a flash of light. The aetherial guardian is as friendly as before and, perhaps sensing what is to come, creates reflections of himself, one for each of your companions. With that, your party is ready to cross the chasm and meet the moon's crew.'

I'd argue that since he "creates" reflections instead of splitting himself, that'd be more like different avatars of himself than sundering.

I'm not really sure where you were going with your discussion of Lahabrea. During the Pandaemonium: Abyssos questline, Lahabrea splits his soul into two in order to seal his memories of Athena away. He also refers to Hephaistos as 'his twisted reflection' in the quest 'Servant of Violence.' He later reabsorbs those memories back into himself on Elpis during the Anabaseios quest 'Guided by the Past' in order to ensure that he would once again have the strength to lead.

Lahabrea and Hephaistos' interactions suggest that the memories encoded by souls are not destroyed by partitioning them. It also implies that splitting souls doesn't necessarily mean that a memory only belongs to one and not the other. Both Lahabrea and Haephaistos both retained all facets of their practical knowledge, despite being split into two different soul fragments. Saying that Venat 'probably didn't have time to do this' is a vague handwavy answer that we don't actually have any evidence for.

Like, if you're going to use the fact that everytime someone uses the word "reflection" it means he was sundered, please keep away from mirrors.
My point was, he sundered himself with purpose, one to keep specific memories out of himself. Of course he wasn't going to do that in a way it would have left him a drooling moron. And neither do you have any evidence that Lahabrea simply copied memories onto the other part, willingly or by mistake.
In the end, we have specific dialogs and content showing that sundered Ancients forgot all but a few fleeting memories of the Ancient world. And nothing saying Ancients, post Sundering, were fine. Venat literally had to reincarnate the Twelve (which wasn't in the original plan) to guide mankind. She wasn't going to do that and stray from her plan, expanding Aether in doing so, if that wasn't necessary.
If you have any source saying otherwise, i'm highly interested.

I do also note that you chose not to address the point about sundered souls, like Amon, retaining their memories of Amaurot and Elpis even after being reincarnated. This too, suggests that memory itself is not necessarily affected by sundering a soul.

I haven't covered it for a simple reason: it's already explained in game. Some memories are imprinted on souls, for instance the Starshower linking to the old memory of the Final Days.
As for Fandaniel/Amon retaining more memories, it's also stated in the cutscene at the end of Aitsacope: the use of Kairos etched these memories on his soul:

They were the memories of Hermes, that he himself erased using the power of Kairos. Or so he thought.
In his attempt to burn away the events of that fateful day, he succeeded only in searing them more deeply into his soul.

These memories do not wash away when reincarnating.

Being able to piece together the memory of an event from the ambient aether implies that the memory is, in fact, encoded on it. It doesn't have to be the same thing as 'having a soul'. It's just a form of data storage.

I think we both agree on that point and I misunderstood you before.

The primary issue with rejoining shards is that it requires mass murder on a planetary scale in order to trigger the shift. In addition, those souls all have individual lives of their own. In Ardbert's case, he had lived and died in the time of the Flood of Light one hundred years prior. But I think it would turn into a problem if we suddenly started hunting down Azem fragments on other shards specifically in the name of becoming more powerful.

These souls having lives and memories and friends and hope and dreams of their own is exacly the problem we face with the Ancient, forced to lose them to the benefit of new beings.
At some point you need to accept that if it isn't murder to split someone and erase his personality and memories to create another being, then neither is merging them. You're just technically unsundering them.
Before someone says I'm minimizing murder, my point of view is that they both are.