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Shogeton
Apr 26, 2007

"Little by little the old world crumbled, and not once did the king imagine that some of the pieces might fall on him"

You know, one of the results of Zodiark and Hydaelyn no longer being in the picture, is that there is no longer a 'Zodiark gets free, the Ascians make their wish. Eveyrone dies to bring back the old days' scenario.

How would you try to do an Unsundering in a non genocidal way. I mean, if you could have travel between the Source and the Reflections, could you evacuate the people of said Reflection on a voluntary basis, then try to manage 'Calamities' in a way that avoids loss of life? Or could you try to have the Aether from a Reflection slowly drain back to the Source to make it less abrupt? Making sure that people of the Reflection being absorbed have ample time to transport their society to the Source, making sure you don't wipe out their legacy. But then again, that's kind of a hard ask, right?

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Regy Rusty
Apr 26, 2010

Raelle posted:

I mean, after she commits the Sundering, Venat says herself that she birth a world of suffering and pain. We get lots of imagery of miserable people around her to drive the point home.

Yeah but the Sundering itself isn't the cause of that. Venat does not originate suffering. She says that because she chose to risk a world of suffering and pain rather than allow the ancients to wipe out the planet while seeking an idealized past that didn't exist and could never be reclaimed, or allowing Meteion's song of despair and oblivion to end all suffering and pain forever with death.

TGLT
Aug 14, 2009

Raelle posted:

This is demonstrably untrue, both through the MSQ and the sidequests. Hythlodaeus, Emet-Selch, and Venat were all happy to hear Hermes out (well, Emet-Selch will grumble at first, as he does with everything, but.) The Ancients absolutely were capable of taking Hermes's points to heart. You do your WoL thing through Elpis if you explore there, inspiring others to update their thinking and see things from another perspective and improve.

Hermes's points were valid. He was being offered a seat of the highest power in his society, and imagine all the good he could have done if he had wanted to put in the work of making things better. Instead, he wrapped himself up in his own misery, isolated himself and convinced himself no one could understand based on the mood ring flowers, and then sent his untested creation to brave the horror of space alone to give him some peace of mind.

Emet seems pretty clear that he's had enough of Meteion's report, that all he intends to do is take her back to Amaurot and recall her sisters. He tells her to stop talking then gets annoyed when she keeps going. Also I've done the Elpis's side quests and I think the only time we see another group of Amaurotines grapple with tragedy the way Hermes does is the flower ceremony after a few of their experiments get cut short. We even get a sort of repeat of Hermes tackling other Fandaniel choosing to die, and that person sort of just shrugs at the person who's fretting over them. I mean again, one of them tells you to let yourself die to preserve his experiments after charging you with a quest. Paired with their willingness to toss all their creations into Zodiark's mouth I think it's a fair reading.

Raelle posted:

This whole argument is always really strange to me considering that we go around every other FATE or sidequest culling animals or killing them to get materials for someone, or ourselves, while we the players sit at home wearing clothes often made with animal products and chowing down on animal-based foods that we certainly don't necessarily need. Like, you can absolutely mitigate the cruelty and suffering of the necessity of culling beings for the sake of the environment or for our own desires, and Hermes was in a position to do so and make change - people were willing to hear him out - but he instead had a self-destructive meltdown because he could not accept suffering or death on any level.

I think a good illustration of the distinction I'm seeing between respecting and not respecting the life you're taking is in how a lot of Gridanian side quests deal with the thorny issue of killing wildlife for your own benefit. There is a lot more of a sense in those quests that what you're doing is necessary instead of simply convenient.

Yeah it starts to fall apart when you take into account the amount of time I've spent in front of a market board hungrily consuming leathers for gear I'm gonna discard in a few weeks, but hey that's video games.

PoorWeather posted:

I mean... If I cut your guts open and stole a bunch of your organs, making you chronically unhealthy and cutting your lifespan down by decades, I'm pretty sure I'd still be a huge rear end in a top hat even if I said "now you can no longer hide from the pain inherent to the world" afterwards.

Suffering existed before the sundering, and it existed afterwards. Venat increased the % of suffering the average person experiences by a lot. And yes, the narrative threw reasons out there for why this was okay/for the best, but that isn't my point.

I mean if we're discarding the pure mechanical narrative, then Venat isn't gutting you she's the person grabbing your shoulder after a tragedy disrupts your previously pleasant status quo to say you need to keep moving forward instead of looking to reclaim what was or could have been.

TGLT fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Dec 13, 2021

Jetrauben
Sep 7, 2011
angered the evil eye lately

Regy Rusty posted:

Yeah but the Sundering itself isn't the cause of that. Venat does not originate suffering. She says that because she chose to risk a world of suffering and pain rather than allow the ancients to wipe out the planet while seeking an idealized past that didn't exist and could never be reclaimed, or allowing Meteion's song of despair and oblivion to end all suffering and pain forever with death.

Yeah, like...

Venat is watching people she could have "saved" by allowing the sacrifices with Zodiark to take place, even though the end result would have been an escalating cycle of death. That's the cause of her anguish, not that she somehow invented suffering.

Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Dec 13, 2021

No Dignity
Oct 15, 2007

PoorWeather posted:

I hope the fact that people are throwing out wildly different interpretations of how the narrative meant Venat to be seen, even among those who didn't have any problems with that part of the narrative, goes some way to illustrating the inherent jank to it I'm kinda fundamentally complaining about.

I liked Venat's actions coming off as a little ambiguous and open to interpretation, it's an insanely hosed up thing she did in response to an insanely hosed up situation and the narrative doesn't need to outright tell you that she was an unimpeachable saint for it or history's greatest monster.

Oh Snapple! posted:

Piggybacking off this to comment on how much I appreciated Zenos just...not interfering with your business with Meteion at the very end. loving with that would have stoked some incredible rage and...he just lets it play out and makes his challenge once you're finished. And my WoL was happy to accept! It's not exactly incredible character growth but it worked well for me.

I hope one day to experience this scene myself, when the servers are unsundered and I can go to the toilet without losing my place in the four hour long queue

Lord_Magmar
Feb 24, 2015

"Welcome to pound town, Slifer slacker!"


Shogeton posted:

You know, one of the results of Zodiark and Hydaelyn no longer being in the picture, is that there is no longer a 'Zodiark gets free, the Ascians make their wish. Eveyrone dies to bring back the old days' scenario.

How would you try to do an Unsundering in a non genocidal way. I mean, if you could have travel between the Source and the Reflections, could you evacuate the people of said Reflection on a voluntary basis, then try to manage 'Calamities' in a way that avoids loss of life? Or could you try to have the Aether from a Reflection slowly drain back to the Source to make it less abrupt? Making sure that people of the Reflection being absorbed have ample time to transport their society to the Source, making sure you don't wipe out their legacy. But then again, that's kind of a hard ask, right?

I think the likely best solution would be something to do with the afterlife. If you can manage to get all the disparate streams back into a single sea, you could simply wait until everyone’s soul rejoins naturally from the shards and source dying on their own and their souls rejoining in the Afterlife. Imagine if you will, the WoL dies, whilst the soul is drifting around waiting to reincarnate, it finds shard of itself and rejoins together with zero suffering or loss of life beyond “natural” loss. It then reincarnates as 9/14ths of an ancient soul. Eventually you might start getting 13/14ths of a soul reincarnated without destroying the shards at all. The real issue becomes the 13th shard, the World of Darkness.

Shogeton
Apr 26, 2007

"Little by little the old world crumbled, and not once did the king imagine that some of the pieces might fall on him"

Regy Rusty posted:

Yeah but the Sundering itself isn't the cause of that. Venat does not originate suffering. She says that because she chose to risk a world of suffering and pain rather than allow the ancients to wipe out the planet while seeking an idealized past that didn't exist and could never be reclaimed, or allowing Meteion's song of despair and oblivion to end all suffering and pain forever with death.

I think there is a fair amount of suffering and pain that is a direct result of the Sundering. Death and infirmity by old age. Death and suffering by because Creation Magics are no longer there. The Pre-Sundering world was not Perfect, but the Post Sundering world was worse... but the Sundering was the only way to avoid a mass genocide of newly created innocent life...

Vermain
Sep 5, 2006



multijoe posted:

I liked Venat's actions coming off as a little ambiguous and open to interpretation, it's an insanely hosed up thing she did in response to an insanely hosed up situation and the narrative doesn't need to outright tell you that she was an unimpeachable saint for it or history's greatest monster.

Yeah. People having fundamental disagreements over the interpretation of a text, in which both sides can actively support their position through the text, is a sign of good writing.

Shogeton
Apr 26, 2007

"Little by little the old world crumbled, and not once did the king imagine that some of the pieces might fall on him"

Lord_Magmar posted:

I think the likely best solution would be something to do with the afterlife. If you can manage to get all the disparate streams back into a single sea, you could simply wait until everyone’s soul rejoins naturally from the shards and source dying on their own and their souls rejoining in the Afterlife. Imagine if you will, the WoL dies, whilst the soul is drifting around waiting to reincarnate, it finds shard of itself and rejoins together with zero suffering or loss of life beyond “natural” loss. It then reincarnates as 9/14ths of an ancient soul. Eventually you might start getting 13/14ths of a soul reincarnated without destroying the shards at all. The real issue becomes the 13th shard, the World of Darkness.

I always had kind of expected that the kid from the 13th might actually be a fragment of Azem. In which case the WoL might be the ONLY person who could get fully Unsundered...

Unless somehow, the 13th gets unfucked. Would that even be possible?

Regy Rusty
Apr 26, 2010

The post sundering world being worse than the pre-sundering world is exactly the Emet-Selch perspective and one that I think Shadowbringers pretty categorically rejected.

Jetrauben
Sep 7, 2011
angered the evil eye lately

TGLT posted:

I mean if we're discarding the pure mechanical narrative, then Venat isn't gutting you she's the person grabbing your shoulder after a tragedy disrupts your previously pleasant status quo to say you need to keep moving forward instead of looking to reclaim what was or could have been.

Yes, exactly. Venat is basically trying to tell the survivors of a genocidal event "we need to find a way to deal with this." The Zodiark Restores Everything option wouldn't have actually made Ancient society any more prepared to deal with the next one.

And of course if they had sacrificed more to Zodiark to swap out the captive ancient souls...well, that's just swapping who's in the Eternal Purgatorial Existence Fueling a Primal Necessary To Keep The World Safe seat, and that's itself a monstrous act in Ancient ethics.

Basically: Ancient society wasn't an Omelas situation.... until the Final Days. Beforehand it was just a good existence, built by robust systems, personal power and healthy ethics. Creating Zodiark and keeping Him around forever to maintain the idyllic status quo was what turned it into an Omelas scenario, because from that point on somebody needed to be in the Pain Box to keep the world going, and that would only have changed if the surviving Ancients had listened to Venat.

Raelle
Jan 15, 2008

Even I...

Regy Rusty posted:

Yeah but the Sundering itself isn't the cause of that. Venat does not originate suffering. She says that because she chose to risk a world of suffering and pain rather than allow the ancients to wipe out the planet while seeking an idealized past that didn't exist and could never be reclaimed, or allowing Meteion's song of despair and oblivion to end all suffering and pain forever with death.

She absolutely created an environment that had manifolds more suffering. Like, if I chop off someone's arm, I'm not going to expect that person to shrug and go "well, even if you hadn't chopped off my arm, I still could have stubbed my toe, pain would have existed regardless, so it's fine."

As for the other points, that goes back to what I said earlier - I do not think the narrative was sufficiently convincing enough to sell me that Venat's act was the only choice or the last resort versus "allowing the ancients to wipe out the planet." Do I think something along those lines was the intent? Sure, probably - although the narrative goes through some absolute contortions to keep both Venat and the Ancients sympathetic at the same time, which is a tall ask - but as is with the actual concrete plot details we have, it feels more like Venat prematurely passing judgment on someone who was brought up in a poor environment or reacting to fresh trauma, because She Knows Where This Is Going. And that's pretty messed up.

What the story is trying to convey doesn't sufficiently match the actual circumstances we see. So you're left with either "okay, the writers were sloppy here" or reading against the thematic grain to make Venat's character work, basically.

Orcs and Ostriches
Aug 26, 2010


The Great Twist

Shogeton posted:

I always had kind of expected that the kid from the 13th might actually be a fragment of Azem. In which case the WoL might be the ONLY person who could get fully Unsundered...

They kinda imply that Unukalhai and Nyelbert are shards, or maybe Unukalhai and Taynor, depending on how you interpret it.

Raelle
Jan 15, 2008

Even I...

Regy Rusty posted:

The post sundering world being worse than the pre-sundering world is exactly the Emet-Selch perspective and one that I think Shadowbringers pretty categorically rejected.

You're not going to convince me that Ul'dah has materially equal conditions to Amaurot and I should be just as happy to live in one or the other. The point is that even if the Sundering world is objectively worse in many respects, it still has a right to live. The Scions basically concede that in terms of cold logic, Emet is right in most respects, but they still rise up and assert their right to live. It is one of many reasons why Shadowbringers does, in fact, rule.

MechaX
Nov 19, 2011

"Let's be positive! Let's start a fire!"

Oh Snapple! posted:

Piggybacking off this to comment on how much I appreciated Zenos just...not interfering with your business with Meteion at the very end. loving with that would have stoked some incredible rage and...he just lets it play out and makes his challenge once you're finished. And my WoL was happy to accept! It's not exactly incredible character growth but it worked well for me.

I was fully expecting him to pull a “nothin personal kid” and just teleport-kill her or throw the scythe but he just… doesn’t. He just lets the scene play out (probably thinking it was cringe as gently caress because I mean, it’s Zenos), and I was really surprised by that

Lord_Magmar
Feb 24, 2015

"Welcome to pound town, Slifer slacker!"


Shogeton posted:

I always had kind of expected that the kid from the 13th might actually be a fragment of Azem. In which case the WoL might be the ONLY person who could get fully Unsundered...

Unless somehow, the 13th gets unfucked. Would that even be possible?

I mean, I always figured the obvious answer to what Voidsent is Zenos using would be yours, he’s exactly that sort of guy after all.

Also the 13th can be unfucked the same way that the first got unfucked. We just need to repair the aether with a series of rad boss fights. I’ve previously offered the suggestion that the Cloud of Darkness is actually the same deal as Eden, and the reason it can only be slowed down is that there is an Ascian core somewhere that needs to be defeated.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.
My feelings about Endwalker so far can be summed up with one quest:



The most powerful emotional moment I've ever had in the game that had me outright crying in front of my computer. Then immediately undercut by the two worst characters in the game furiously masturbating in front of me and then forcing me into the most obnoxious gameplay experience I've ever had in the game.

Regy Rusty
Apr 26, 2010

Raelle posted:

She absolutely created an environment that had manifolds more suffering. Like, if I chop off someone's arm, I'm not going to expect that person to shrug and go "well, even if you hadn't chopped off my arm, I still could have stubbed my toe, pain would have existed regardless, so it's fine."

I just think that stuff like this is an absolutely nonsensical analogy. The good that the Sundering did is well established in the story, so comparing it to something pointlessly harmful like chopping off an arm doesn't really make any sense.

Now admittedly in the rest of your post you say that you don't agree that the narrative established why the Sundering was necessary, in which case alright but I totally disagree. The Sundering made perfect sense to me in Shadowbringers and Endwalker only added on more reasons why she chose that exact route.

MechaX
Nov 19, 2011

"Let's be positive! Let's start a fire!"
It’s going to take a long, long time for Eden to unfuck the first though. However, I wonder if the denizens of the 13th would ultimately be cool with this plan if you told them “you won’t be aether-starved anymore”

Cythereal posted:

My feelings about Endwalker so far can be summed up with one quest:



The most powerful emotional moment I've ever had in the game that had me outright crying in front of my computer. Then immediately undercut by the two worst characters in the game furiously masturbating in front of me and then forcing me into the most obnoxious gameplay experience I've ever had in the game.

Jesse what in the gently caress are you talking about

MechaX fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Dec 13, 2021

Chomposaur
Feb 28, 2010




Raelle posted:

This whole argument is always really strange to me considering that we go around every other FATE or sidequest culling animals or killing them to get materials for someone, or ourselves, while we the players sit at home wearing clothes often made with animal products and chowing down on animal-based foods that we certainly don't necessarily need.

When they initially introduced the Zodiark plan my first read on it was basically factory farming, they're breeding all these creatures that they view as "not human" in whatever sense in order to mass slaughter them for their own benefit.

I suspect that the difference we're intended to draw is that the "not humans" that they were going to slaughter for Zodiark are, like, literal humans and cat people and stuff right? Or did those come later somehow?

Jetrauben
Sep 7, 2011
angered the evil eye lately
The addition of dynamis to the cosmology does explain how voidsent and sin eaters can continue to exist, now that I think about it. They're nothing left but dynamis and severely imbalanced aether, but their dynamis keeps them going even in a state of constant frantic imbalance.

TGLT
Aug 14, 2009

Raelle posted:

As for the other points, that goes back to what I said earlier - I do not think the narrative was sufficiently convincing enough to sell me that Venat's act was the only choice or the last resort versus "allowing the ancients to wipe out the planet." Do I think something along those lines was the intent? Sure, probably - although the narrative goes through some absolute contortions to keep both Venat and the Ancients sympathetic at the same time, which is a tall ask - but as is with the actual concrete plot details we have, it feels more like Venat prematurely passing judgment on someone who was brought up in a poor environment or reacting to fresh trauma, because She Knows Where This Is Going. And that's pretty messed up.

What the story is trying to convey doesn't sufficiently match the actual circumstances we see. So you're left with either "okay, the writers were sloppy here" or reading against the thematic grain to make Venat's character work, basically.

I don't think they want you to think it was the only choice, but right before she sunders the world they are literally talking about they intend to sacrifice to Zodiark rather than confront the End of Days and Meteion. Or less literally, how they would rather sacrifice everything else in a futile attempt to go back to the way things were than confront the inherent meaninglessness and tragedy of life. She also isn't passing judgement on some one she barely knows, it's her society too.

Orcs and Ostriches
Aug 26, 2010


The Great Twist

Chomposaur posted:

When they initially introduced the Zodiark plan my first read on it was basically factory farming, they're breeding all these creatures that they view as "not human" in whatever sense in order to mass slaughter them for their own benefit.

I suspect that the difference we're intended to draw is that the "not humans" that they were going to slaughter for Zodiark are, like, literal humans and cat people and stuff right? Or did those come later somehow?

We're not sure when the modern races like Hyurs or Miqo'te and the like came about yet. Any ancient we interact with in the past, or even in memory, sure don't recognize them, so I'd expect them to be post-sundering.

ZenMasterBullshit
Nov 2, 2011

Restaurant de Nouvelles "À Table" Proudly Presents:
A Climactic Encounter Ending on 1 Negate and a Dream

Gearhead posted:

The Fathercrystal, for lack of a better term, is one of those dangling threads.

I could see us exploring the fallout of these and the remainder of the Convocation in the future, but their time as primary antagonists and plot drivers is probably done. I could see people using their tricks for nefarious purposes, though. We will probably never be entirely rid of people who think that becoming a bodiless, masked rear end in a top hat is an upgrade, but as an actual INDUSTRY they are probably done.

The writers have a tendency to not simply discard mechanics and setting elements. As long as something is a part of the setting itself, we are probably going to have the possibility of SOME aspect of it popping up.

When you beat the 73 trial zodiark becomes a constantly dispersing thread of aether. I think that's supposed to be the big purple crystal breaking down

Zomborgon
Feb 19, 2014

I don't even want to see what happens if you gain CHIM outside of a pre-coded system.

Lord_Magmar posted:

Actually now I am curious, given the nature of FFXIV as a somewhat self insert fiction. Are there any story beats where your internal characterisation, whether it be from being a Hrothgar during ARR and hearing the words Beastmen said straight to your face, or all the assumptions of your character being a young fresh adventurer for those playing what they want to be older heroes, either simply mature or as I showed in my case playing with the Viera having a lifespan of 300 years; led to an interesting experience of the story.

My own internal character’s response to Emet-Selch for example feels like it’s a kind of neat idea. How does a Viera who will outlive the Scions react to Emet’s whole spiel about watching mortals die. Or the more comedic examples of being treated as fairly young by most people, only to get incredibly funny reactions when he reveals he’s older than the rest of the Scions combined and could have been Louisox’s grandfather.

I wonder how old Erenville actually is, given the amount of respect and power he has over the Gleaners narratively.

Every time someone Meracydia I think back to the backstory for my WoL, Rachel; she was born in Eorzea but had travelled to the southern continent out of typical wanderlust in her youth, eventually living among a bunch of Calamity-displaced Lominsans on the coast. Thus the ship she arrives on to start FF14, in this light, is one she helped them fix up for the return trip.

That said she became a lot more hardcore by association when I found out that the place is kind of a mad max hellhole.

So yeah, with Emet asking if Rachel knew anything of the place's current affairs, she'd have to be thinking "well yeah I haven't been back for years, but there's probably still several warlords seeking my head over something or other."

Jetrauben
Sep 7, 2011
angered the evil eye lately
Given that people refer to you as a familiar and familiars seem to have far more varied and whimsical features I still think the Sundering functionally reduced everyone to the rough level of familiars, and that's how we got the earliest ancestors of people like au ra and miqo'te.

Shogeton
Apr 26, 2007

"Little by little the old world crumbled, and not once did the king imagine that some of the pieces might fall on him"

Regy Rusty posted:

The post sundering world being worse than the pre-sundering world is exactly the Emet-Selch perspective and one that I think Shadowbringers pretty categorically rejected.

I feel that Shadowbringers is more 'The people in the Post-sundering World's lives have values, and you can't just wipe them all out to get to your 'better world' and claim a moral high ground.

If Emet came up with the. 'Alright, here is the plan for a slow 'rejoining' letting all these people once again enjoy long lives and increased abilities, without doing any wiping out, it'd be pretty drat awesome.

Regy Rusty
Apr 26, 2010

MechaX posted:

It’s going to take a long, long time for Eden to unfuck the first though. However, I wonder if the denizens of the 13th would ultimately be cool with this plan if you told them “you won’t be aether-starved anymore”

Jesse what in the gently caress are you talking about

Another In From the Cold hater probably

Raelle
Jan 15, 2008

Even I...

Chomposaur posted:

When they initially introduced the Zodiark plan my first read on it was basically factory farming, they're breeding all these creatures that they view as "not human" in whatever sense in order to mass slaughter them for their own benefit.

I suspect that the difference we're intended to draw is that the "not humans" that they were going to slaughter for Zodiark are, like, literal humans and cat people and stuff right? Or did those come later somehow?

That's never clarified, not even when the narrative is bending over backwards trying to justify Venat's decision, and since what Zodiark needed was fundamentally to function was aether - we don't know. Especially considering that Zodiark's agency and capacity for decision-making was essentially Just Elidibus, who was, in fact, a very good boy. Again, one of the "concrete plot elements" that makes the theme start to unravel for me is that, upon learning more details, the three-stage plan the Ancients originally had for Zodiark makes complete sense to me and it would actually be horrific if they hadn't been racing to find a way to get their loved ones out of Zodiark, if it was viable to replace the souls with another form of aether. They went for the souls initially because they had to come up with an untold huge amount of aether RIGHT THEN because the world was ending as they spoke.

Again, if it had been shown that even after saving everyone and making sure they had access to their afterlives and rebirth, they were STILL hopped up on Zodiark and reaching for him to solve every little problem and inconvenience - that would have come across entirely different. However, frankly, I think their hands were tied because of how they wrote the end of Shadowbringers in order to invoke a certain emotional impact within those confines at the time. They'd already established that Hydaelyn went Full Sundering before they had the chance to even attempt saving their loved ones, so... something something, gotta clip those wings and learn to walk.

Shogeton
Apr 26, 2007

"Little by little the old world crumbled, and not once did the king imagine that some of the pieces might fall on him"

Regy Rusty posted:

I just think that stuff like this is an absolutely nonsensical analogy. The good that the Sundering did is well established in the story, so comparing it to something pointlessly harmful like chopping off an arm doesn't really make any sense.

Now admittedly in the rest of your post you say that you don't agree that the narrative established why the Sundering was necessary, in which case alright but I totally disagree. The Sundering made perfect sense to me in Shadowbringers and Endwalker only added on more reasons why she chose that exact route.

While the Sundering did prevent a great evil, the consequence of it was that people were vastly reduced, were cursed to suffer old age, and all the misery and death coming with it, and destroyed the remains of a culture, as well as the power that they held. I absolutely understand why she did it. And it's clear she's aware enough of the hurting she's going to cause that if she saw an alternative, she would have taken it, but to say that she didn't cause any suffering is incorrect I feel. Every suffering caused by old age, and every death by it is a direct consequence of her choice.

TGLT
Aug 14, 2009
I mean, just Zodiark's presence alone is having him deal with their problems for them. Zodiark's function was to provide a shield against Meteion's song, a way to ignore her and pretend that problem just didn't exist. Now maybe they'd eventually have ripped that band-aid off themselves I don't know, but it definitely didn't sound like it. Their propensity to go die when they've fulfilled their "purpose" doesn't speak well to that. edit: Also in lore some of that is on Venat for not being more forthright with what was going on. I think the game's usually good about acknowledging how dumb that sort of secret keeping is and I feel like it probably should have had that moment with Venat.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

Chomposaur posted:

When they initially introduced the Zodiark plan my first read on it was basically factory farming, they're breeding all these creatures that they view as "not human" in whatever sense in order to mass slaughter them for their own benefit.

I suspect that the difference we're intended to draw is that the "not humans" that they were going to slaughter for Zodiark are, like, literal humans and cat people and stuff right? Or did those come later somehow?

there was a part of the msq that talks about this and effectively rubs your face in the fact that the ancients explicitly knew they were creating new life, with souls and all, putting them through basically a psychological evaluation, and only letting them avoid immediate extinction if they were sufficiently sentient, sane, and capable of learning.

The world was not free of suffering, it just considered all of the suffering to be that of lesser beings and thus not actual suffering according to the guys at the top. The big flying thing you have emet selch train? It was afraid of flying because its aether was more water-aspected than air and it was allowed to live because you were able to prove it had the sentience to overcome its nature. This is the life they were planning on wiping out every time they went back for a Zodiark fix. And they would need to, because Metion wasn't ever getting any quieter or weaker out there.

Shogeton
Apr 26, 2007

"Little by little the old world crumbled, and not once did the king imagine that some of the pieces might fall on him"

TGLT posted:

I mean, just Zodiark's presence alone is having him deal with their problems for them. Zodiark's function was to provide a shield against Meteion's song, a way to ignore her and pretend that problem just didn't exist. Now maybe they'd eventually have ripped that band-aid off themselves I don't know, but it definitely didn't sound like it. Their propensity to go die when they've fulfilled their "purpose" doesn't speak well to that.

I feel that the 'Ideal Situation' for Hydaelin would be. 'Alright, well, we've staunched the bleeding with the Zodiark Solution. But obviously, this is not something that we can keep that way. Let us build society up again, together with this new life, and seek what caused this Final Days things. After that, we could seek to find an ethical way to bring back our loved ones... or learn to accept their loss, and move on with our life.' I feel that if that was on the table, we'd not have had the Sundering. But there were a bunch of traumatized folks very understandably going 'Nope, nope, just... please rewind the clock on this Zodiark. Everything back to how it was please, we do NOT want to deal with this poo poo'

Lord_Magmar
Feb 24, 2015

"Welcome to pound town, Slifer slacker!"


Also, they’re not trying to free the people in Zodiark because it’s the right thing to do (which considering the focus on duty I don’t necessarily think it is, eventually freeing the people who make up Zodiark yes, doing it as fast as possible instead of accepting and respecting their decision to make powering Zodiark their duty no). They’re doing so out of a desperate desire to rest the world to exactly how it was before the Final Days. They’re literally devaluing the sacrifice itself by trying to walk it back, instead of finding a way forward that makes the sacrifice no longer needed to be maintained.

I said before, they defaulted to more sacrifice, instead of letting their brethren who became Zodiark stand as a shield and protector until they had fixed the planet and solved the problem, and then freeing those souls from their duty by ending Zodiark’s existence.

musouka
Apr 24, 2009

FAUXTON posted:

there was a part of the msq that talks about this and effectively rubs your face in the fact that the ancients explicitly knew they were creating new life, with souls and all, putting them through basically a psychological evaluation, and only letting them avoid immediate extinction if they were sufficiently sentient, sane, and capable of learning.

Actually, this isn't the case. Creations specifically do not have a soul, as Ancients believe that only the planet can imbue a being with one. This comes up in the side stories and Hythlodeus also remarks upon it when he's making your robes, iirc. I also think that if you are going to be making things directly out of aether, having a process to determine the things you are creating are sentient, sane, and capable of learning is probably a good idea. That Hermes tries to bypass that entirely was part of the problem that led to Meteion.

Shogeton
Apr 26, 2007

"Little by little the old world crumbled, and not once did the king imagine that some of the pieces might fall on him"

Also, considering that it is revealed that the Tempering thing is a deliberate corruption of Creation Magics done in order to bring about the Rejoining, neither Zodiark nor Hydaelin were presumably created with 'Tempering' as a thing. So any worship the Ancients and Ascians give to Zodiark is just plain old normal one, and they can make normal decisions regarding him later.

Edit: You know, I think that the 'Fault' of the Ancients that made the Sundering Hydaelin's go to was pretty in theme. When faced with Horrible Things, they surrendered to Despair, did not have what it took to accept the loss and the pain and struggle to make it better. Instead, they sought to escape it. To just throw innocent lives at the problem and not think about it any more. And the theme of Endwalker seems to be that when poo poo is hosed, you gotta deal with it. It doesn't make it good that poo poo is hosed, but don't go either giving up, or turning away from it.

Shogeton fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Dec 13, 2021

Lord_Magmar
Feb 24, 2015

"Welcome to pound town, Slifer slacker!"


Shogeton posted:

Also, considering that it is revealed that the Tempering thing is a deliberate corruption of Creation Magics done in order to bring about the Rejoining, neither Zodiark nor Hydaelin were presumably created with 'Tempering' as a thing. So any worship the Ancients and Ascians give to Zodiark is just plain old normal one, and they can make normal decisions regarding him later.

Tempering is still something Zodiark and Hydaelyn could do though. The automatic tempering is a design flaw introduced, but Tempering itself is simply the Primal unbalancing your Aether. They even note Zodiark is big enough that he could accidentally give a slight tug when done the right way.

My suspicion is that the Convocation were tempered, but not by the initial summoning. Elidibus returning is what tempered them imo.

Oscar Wilde Bunch
Jun 12, 2012

Grimey Drawer

Lord_Magmar posted:

I mean, I always figured the obvious answer to what Voidsent is Zenos using would be yours, he’s exactly that sort of guy after all.

Also the 13th can be unfucked the same way that the first got unfucked. We just need to repair the aether with a series of rad boss fights. I’ve previously offered the suggestion that the Cloud of Darkness is actually the same deal as Eden, and the reason it can only be slowed down is that there is an Ascian core somewhere that needs to be defeated.

Open a portal to the WoD on the top of the Crystal Tower on the first and shove all that crystalized light aether through and see what happens.

Countblanc
Apr 20, 2005

Help a hero out!
Krile fans were feasting this expansion. You love to see it.

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Shogeton
Apr 26, 2007

"Little by little the old world crumbled, and not once did the king imagine that some of the pieces might fall on him"

Now that it's done, when Zenos got the nickname 'Viator' which is Latin for Traveller, I actually started thinking that he somehow was the 'other parts of Azem' somehow, and there was gonna be some kind of 'Fusion through battle' and we'd end up 'fully Unsundered', though perhaps briefly.

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