/r/ffxivdiscussion: Has FFXIV had any major retcons or plot holes in the story?

[Lady_Silvermoon]

You wanna explain that one? The sundering did just that, it split them in thirteen. The rejoining requires the literal death of an entire shard AND causes a cataclysm on the source. Not sure why you think the sundering killed anyone unless you're being metaphorical or running on headcanon

If I reduce you to an IQ of 7 and you die five minutes later of natural causes because I've corrupted your genes to such an extreme degree I've shortened your lifespan to mere moments, I've killed you in every way that counts.

If that is not considered murder, then attempting you smash you back together again most certainly shouldn't be considered murder. I consider both murder, but I consider Venat's crimes more grievous because what she did she did to her own species, what the Ascians did, they did to the shredded pieces of their people as they attempted to undo her war crimes. And regardless of how anyone feels about the Ascians' action, Venat set them up to do the rejoinings by purposely sparing them, so those deaths are also on her ledger along with all the pain and suffering endured by the unsundered as they labored for 12k years attempting to restore their people without knowing they were just controlled opposition.

[Vyrerus]

You wanna explain that one? The sundering did just that, it split them in thirteen.

Incorrect. It split them into 14. Or, more accurately, it reproduced 14 identical copies of the original world and every lifeform upon it.

The closest real world example we could ever provide to understand this is to reference Cloning. More or less, The Sundering "cloned" the original world and its inhabitants, while simultaneously eliminating the originals. There's a bit of pondering to do on, "The Soul." That was the only thing not "cloned." The souls were split, but the physical identity of everything was "cloned."

The "cloning" process was less than perfect. All clones came out roughly 1/3rd the physical size of the originals with 1/14th of the aetheric density of the original hosts. It's unspecified by how long, but lifespans were also drastically reduced.

The results of this "cloning" process is that all original hosts were eliminated. However, their souls were partially intact and spread out within the shards, and their memories could eventually be recalled or salvaged through a few different techniques that the Ascians found by trial and error.

The Rejoinings were basically an imperfect reversal of this process. Essentially it kills the descendants of the clones, imbuing The Source bodies with greater aetheric density and stitched the souls back together. In essence, they would not restore the former people, as Rejoinings do not seem to increase physicality. They would, however, make memories and knowledge easier to access as the people of The Source became more whole on a soul level.

Suffice it to say, all of the shards exist because of their original " donors." This process killed those donors, removing their lives and wills from the face of Etheirys. This process also tucked 13 of the shards into a dimensional pocket so convoluted that not even the writers know the specifics surrounding how Etheirys is seen by outside eyes. But within the context of Endwalker it was revealed that all that afflicts and affects The Source can kill all of the reflections, meaning that The Source is the only one that truly matters, as it is the nucleus for all life on Etheirys and within its dimensional frankenstein patchwork quilt existence.

In short, The Sundering was a genocide (or Omnicide if we wanna realize this also happened to planets and animals and dirt), that not only killed people, but radically altered the natural state of the entire planet, forever placing it in a dire, unnatural state.

[NanaWiloh]

The WoL told Venat about the future. So if she is a murderer then that makes the wol her accomplice. Cause WoL knew she would sunder the world and Zodiark.

[Ryvick]

If I reduce you to an IQ of 7 and you die five minutes later of natural causes because I've corrupted your genes to such an extreme degree I've shortened your lifespan to mere moments, I've killed you in every way that counts.

This did not happen tho, The ancients ceased to exist and 14 new unique individuals completely unrelated in any way to the previous Ancients were created. Noone was killed.

If that is not considered murder, then attempting you smash you back together again most certainly shouldn't be considered murder.

The second is murder because you are actively killing 1 (or more) unique individuals.

I consider both murder, but I consider Venat's crimes more grievous because what she did she did to her own species, what the Ascians did, they did to the shredded pieces of their people as they attempted to undo her war crimes. And regardless of how anyone feels about the Ascians' action, Venat set them up to do the rejoinings by purposely sparing them, so those deaths are also on her ledger along with all the pain and suffering endured by the unsundered as they labored for 12k years attempting to restore their people without knowing they were just controlled opposition.

The End of Days was something that could not be stopped and had already begun. Knowing that what does one do? Attempt to stop that which you know cannot be stopped or do exactly what was done before and hope that the stopgap performed before will reach a successful conclusion?

We know the flow of event was 1. Planet destroyed, yet small number of survivors (Exact number unknown and largely unnecessary) 2. Half of survivors willingly sacrifice themselves to create Zodiark and expends Zodiarks power to recreate the planet. 3. Further Half of remaining half of Survivors (Or 1/4th of all Survivors) sacrifice themselves willingly to re-empower Zodiark and Zodiark expends the energy to recreate all life on the Planet. 4. Final survivors willingly sacrifice themselves to create Hydalen which A. Creates the Moon and imprisons Zodiark there. B. Sunders the Planet, Moon, and all Life on the Planet. C. Places the 14 Planets with their partner Moons equidistant in a circle and erects a barrier/"cloaking shroud" around each pair to hide them from the coming Endsinger and either knowingly or coincidentally keeps each planet that falls from spilling out to the others when they fall.

Even if we told Venat what little we actually knew about what happened/ was going on/ was going to happen, there is sooo much we don't know or didn't know at the time that is rather important to what eventually happens and could have had unintended consequences. The cataclysmic fall of the 13th is an example. The Ascians attempted and failed to rejoin the 13th and as such sundered it from the Aetheric River which not only prevented a portion of Zodiark from returning to the source it also caused the unique beings from that shard to be unable to rejoin the Aetheric River. (I don't believe we have successfully rectified this altho I could be wrong. I had theorized a sufficient blast of Light aether could have jump started its re connection to the Aetheric River altho we have not yet found out what has really happened to the 13th since our departure.)

People seem to forget that if Venat had not done what she did during the original End of Days, the End of Days would have simply continued to occur again and the planet and all life would have been destroyed all over again without way to definitively end the cycle. (Possibly without a way to re-empower Zodiark as well which would cause a final End of.)

[Yuella]

The ancients were planning to commit genocide by sacrificing the new lives. If a bad guy holds a gun to a hostage's head, what should a police officer do? The police would shoot the bad guy to save the hostage. In this case, the ancients were the bad guy, the new lives were the hostage, Venat was the police officer.

[Merrigan]

Major plot hole : the Twins not growing.

LET THEM GROW DAMMIT.

[BokoToloko]

Honestly, the heated argument about whether Hydaelyn committed genocide and whatnot would've ended way, waaaay earlier if those who decry her actions didn't also excuse the Ascians' in the same breath. The common bottom line should be that the Ancients had very extreme ways to solve problems, not "one side good, one side bad".

[Carin-Eri]

Urianger speculates that, since the place we fight Zenos for the last time is basically made of pure dynamis, it reacted to him to bring the teleporter back to send the WoL home as his thanks for finally getting his rematch. It's as plausible an explanation as any other.

Agreed - and it's the explanation I choose to follow, and there aren't an abundance of possibilities anyway. I mean, Meteion was the only other being present before the fight and it was very heavily implied that she was unaware that the Warrior of Light remained behind to fight Zenos.

[Eisi]

Honestly, the heated argument about whether Hydaelyn committed genocide and whatnot would've ended way, waaaay earlier if those who decry her actions didn't also excuse the Ascians' in the same breath. The common bottom line should be that the Ancients had very extreme ways to solve problems, not "one side good, one side bad".

This is very cute, but the real reason this argument is going for so long is that the writing in Endwalker was subpar. Venat, Hermes, Meteion, these are all victims to a plot that should have never been written the way it was in the first place. To assume one side of the "conflict" is to implicitly try and protect the story itself as redeemable or to seek it's flaws in the wrong places. As if the issue was that Venat should have been a villain or that people are whitewashing the Ascians. No, Venat was clearly written with the intent of being a tragic hero, which was completely botched by way of the absolutely ridiculous timeloop bonanza that had implications the writers simply didn't think about.

[ReynTime]

What ruins lore discussions in this community is the "XIV has no flaws" crowd keeps using headcanons and personal interpretations to argue against plot holes and retcons or poorly explained detail.

If it's not explicit in-game or in any official media and interview your argument is worth nothing.