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ImpAtom posted:It's also worth noting that the Sundering was specifically stated as being the limit of Venat's power. She isn't as strong as Zodiark and the act of performing the Sundering was the only way to weaken him enough to stop him. It was an act made in the defense of life. Maybe you can argue the same for Zodiark's sacrifice but at the end of the day Ventat was acting in defense to save lives while the Ancients had a choice, they just chose to kill instead. And it's clear Ventat wasn't the only one who felt that way since the primal summoning was born from multiple survivors, not just her. 1. The Ancients were also saving lives. They were saving the lives of the people that were currently swimming around in Zodiark. 2. We have no idea what "life" the Ancients were going to sacrifice. There's a difference between culling primordial Au Ra and killing a bunch of trees and the game is very vague on the matter. 3. It's heavily implied Venat's plan literally hinged on sparing Emet-Selch from Sundering to allow him to "genocide" seven worlds. Like you'd think if she was so concerned about ~life~, she could at least Sunder the man that was going to be responsible for spearheading the Rejoinings. Guess once again, fixing that time loop is much, much more important than lives.
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Dec 12, 2021 04:59
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Your third point is speculation, not text. We don't know why lahabrea and emet-selch weren't sundered
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Dec 12, 2021 05:00
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cheetah7071 posted:Your third point is speculation, not text. We don't know why lahabrea and emet-selch weren't sundered Emet-Selch has a huge speech near the end of the game implying everything that happened was Venat's plan to get him here for this moment. That means the implication is that she chose not to Sunder him. It's possible the game will go into detail as to a different reason as to why three random people were spared from Venat's sword, but what Emet-Selch says is my assumption for now.
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Dec 12, 2021 05:03
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musouka posted:
1. The Ancients were not saving lives. They were murdering to bring back people who had already willingly sacrificed their lives. 2. Uh no, they specifically stated it was people who were being sacrificed, the new races who had come up. That is the entire point! "Actually they just were going to sacrifice a bunch of cabbages" is nonsense. 3. Nothing of the sort is remotely implied and you're making that up to be made at a character. We don't know how Emet or Lahabrea survived but it's unlikely that Venat could pick and choose who didn't get sundered or why would she pick fuckin' Lahabrea and not Azem?
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Dec 12, 2021 05:03
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musouka posted:Emet-Selch has a huge speech near the end of the game implying everything that happened was Venat's plan to get him here for this moment. That means the implication is that she chose not to Sunder him. It's possible the game will go into detail as to a different reason as to why three random people were spared from Venat's sword, but what Emet-Selch says is my assumption for now. The same thing happened for Hythlodaeus though. And he wasn't unsundered he was just dead.
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Dec 12, 2021 05:04
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I suspect that Pandaemonium will go into greater detail about why Lahabrea and Emet-Selch escaped the Sundering. It's the one dangling question remaining that's never explicated on in EW, but it was also one of those things that never really mattered for EW's story, so an explanation there seems due.
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Dec 12, 2021 05:05
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Vermain posted:I suspect that Pandaemonium will go into greater detail about why Lahabrea and Emet-Selch escaped the Sundering. It's the one dangling question remaining that's never explicated on in EW, but it was also one of those things that never really mattered for EW's story, so an explanation there seems due. itll be impressive if they do that in a story set before the sundering happens
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Dec 12, 2021 05:06
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I don't think it's something that needs to be explained tbh.
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Dec 12, 2021 05:08
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Cleretic posted:The Sundering is a difficult thing to qualify as 'death' because there wasn't a literal seizure of bodily function, it's more that conscious, continuous life just... spontaneously changed form. We don't really have language for that. And it's also hard to tell if consciousness even stopped, since we didn't exactly ask a random miqo'te how they felt three minutes after the event. It's possible that there wasn't an outright stoppage of the Ancient's consciousness, it just transitioned from one form to the next. I agree that it's debatable from a real-world philosophical perspective - I think we'd view death a lot differently in general if it was confirmed scientific fact that someone's essential self would be regurgitated and reborn later, as it seems to be in FFXIV. I think you're correct that, strictly speaking, it would be better to view it as a sort of radical transformation of the self (which would still be a screwed thing to inflict on literally everyone, but regardless) rather than outright destruction. My issue with it is, that if the writers intended us to view the Sundering in that gentler way, the perspective is applied inconsistently. Based on what happens with the WoL and Ardbert, there is also no stoppage of consciousness in a rejoining - the soul (and subsequently mind) merges with its Source equivalent, and all the memories that would have defined it as a separate person disappear. In other words, it's also a "transformation". But in that case, the framing is completely explicit that, yes, this is death. Anyway, if you approach the situation from the perspective that Venat was choosing the lesser of two evils, this is further muddied by the fact that the sacrifices to Zodiark weren't destroying souls, either, but preserving them intact within him. It's another state-change rather than outright annihilation, and in a way that's arguably less of a violating act than Sundering, because at least the self is preserved. So like... Why am I supposed to understand what Venat did as the painful but ultimately better and necessary option? It's blueberry flavored mass-murder/transformation as opposed to strawberry flavored. I know that's not how the writers meant it to come across, but if you follow what they've written to its logical conclusion, I don't know how to see it any other way. Clarste posted:I don't think it's clear that the Sundering destroyed everyone's memories. Possibly it just made them mortal and then dying naturally afterward destroyed their memories. The story doesn't go into what happened at the precise moment their souls were sundered. I can't get in game right now to 100% confirm it, but IIRC Emet straightforwardly says they barely remembered anything. PoorWeather fucked around with this message at 05:27 on Dec 12, 2021 |
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Dec 12, 2021 05:09
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ImpAtom posted:
1. As the game says, those people were literally cut off from the planet's aetherial sea, doomed never to reincarnate. It is valid to want to save them from that fate. 2. Where did they state that? I replayed the bits where Hythlodeus talks about the Hydaelyn faction's motives recently and it says absolutely nothing about the type of "new life" they wanted to sacrifice. 3. Have you finished EW yet? If you have, did you pay any attention to when Emet-Selch talked, or did you just replace his dialogue with trombone noises because you don't like him?
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Dec 12, 2021 05:11
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musouka posted:
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Dec 12, 2021 05:16
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musouka posted:
Say what now
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Dec 12, 2021 05:17
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I don't think they've really adequately explained how Hydaelyn was able to best Zodiark in the first place. The best they do is 'she tried rly hard' in the same expansion they explain why that wouldn't count for much from her. Also they consistently explain that holding Zodiark was a constant exertion of power, not a one-time exercise that sapped her strength. Whatever she spent in trying to stop Fandaniel, there was enough to keep Zodiark sealed with the final brand in place. Once Zodiark is dead, she's no longer exerting that power, and she should be massively stronger than she was up to that point. It would be plausible for this power to be negative, effectively manifesting as a Flood Of Light on the Source, but in the text she's weaker than ever, aside from the Gud Fite juice she's been saving for you, for some reason. Hydaelyn is very handwavy and has only gotten moreso the more time we spend with her.
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Dec 12, 2021 05:19
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musouka posted:
1. The solution to the people inside Zodiark is not to replace them with other sacrificed beings, sentient or otherwise. That's the problem, they're continuing to sacrifice to Zodiark instead of solving the problem such that Zodiark can be unmade (thus freeing the people who willingly sacrificed themselves for a duty they know might not end, remember that Zodiark was fully planned, everyone who sacrificed to make him knew they'd be inside him until his job was finished). 2. It's conjecture based on Emet-Selch using the exact same or similar language to describe the new life post second sacrifice, and the sundered beings. I personally don't think it matters whether it was sentient or not, because if the life being sacrificed is non-sentient the act is still a betrayal of the ethos of the Ancients, to shepherd the star selflessly. Either they're sacrificing sentients to get the willing Ancients who make up Zodiark out, or they're sacrificing non-sentients and still not respecting the actions of those sacrificed who want to save the star until they're no longer needed, as is their duty agreed upon by the plans to make Zodiark. 3. Emet-Selch is a dick, of course he's gonna grouse that Venat/Hydaelyn left him his memories instead of stopping him from becoming the monster they both learnt of. It wouldn't matter if she specifically chose to do so or not he'd say that regardless. Francis posted:I don't think they've really adequately explained how Hydaelyn was able to best Zodiark in the first place. The best they do is 'she tried rly hard' in the same expansion they explain why that wouldn't count for much from her. She was literally made to sunder the world and that's how she did it, she didn't attack Zodiark, she split the planet itself, Zodiark being a manifestation of the will of the planet it's effectively his weakpoint. As for the spoilers Hydaelyn has a limited amount of Aether, and never ever got more because she never sapped the land or had more sacrifices made to her, any Aether she might have collected she instead used to form the Mothercrystal. So by the time we meet her in the Aetherial Sea she's spent almost all the Aether from her initial summoning on binding Zodiark. She absolutely wouldn't be massively stronger because she's got nothing left to power her except that which she fights us with, which she'd been trying to save so she could have one last fantastic fight before dying fulfilled in her duty to the star. She's not handwavy at all, everything has a logical explanation. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 05:23 on Dec 12, 2021 |
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Dec 12, 2021 05:20
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musouka posted:
1. It was understandable to want to save them, not to mass murder to to do it. 2. Emet-Selch's literal plan was and remains "We are going to rejoin the sundered worlds and then offer up the Non-Ancients as fodder for the revival of the other races." This is the basic concept of the story. He explains it in no uncertain terms right before the Amurot dungeon. It also makes no loving sense otherwise because that is the entire reason for the conflict! 3. Ah yes, I hate Emet-Selch which is why I spent an absolutely unreasonable amount of time defending him as a good character in this very thread. The only thing I disagree with is the idea he's a wonderful woobie good guy and not a complex nuance character with flaws and problems.
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Dec 12, 2021 05:22
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Francis posted:I don't think they've really adequately explained how Hydaelyn was able to best Zodiark in the first place. The best they do is 'she tried rly hard' in the same expansion they explain why that wouldn't count for much from her. She did it because she a badass. Enough said.
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Dec 12, 2021 05:22
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SyntheticPolygon posted:She did it because she a badass. Enough said. If nothing else, we know her answer to the chicken-sized horses vs horse-sized chicken question.
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Dec 12, 2021 05:26
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Like just so this is clear Hydaelyn has a limited amount of power and Aether, she spent almost all of it sundering and binding Zodiark, every time a rejoining happened she had to spend more of it. The fact she lasted as long as she did is a miracle. Primals don't have infinite power, they only have as much power as the Aether they're made of and can spend it all unless they get more Aether added in.
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Dec 12, 2021 05:26
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ImpAtom posted:
I really don't think this point is as clear as you're interpreted it being in your reading. The narrative is vague about it in both ShB and EW, and in fact emphasizes how much we should value non-sentient life in the latter. Plus, the idea of "Non-Ancient races" is a super ambiguous plot point itself - we know that at least some of the extant races are sundered Ancients rather than "new life" fostered by Zodiark (presumably Hyur at the bare minimum), but where does that stop? Are all the playable races, roughly referred to as "mankind" in-universe, their descendants, by some means or another? All beastmen...? The latter are shown getting the Echo, so they can certainly inherit Ancient souls. It's all really loose. I get the sense that, again, they wanted people to kinda gloss over it because they realized establishing it firmly would break some part of the story or another - making either Venat or the Ascians look unforgivable. PoorWeather fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Dec 12, 2021 |
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Dec 12, 2021 05:41
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PoorWeather posted:I really don't think this point is as clear as you're interpreted it being in your reading. The narrative is vague about it in both ShB and EW, and in fact emphasizes how much we should value non-sentient life in the latter. Plus, the idea of "Non-Ancient races" is a super ambiguous plot point itself - we know that at least some of the extant races are sundered Ancients rather than "new life" fostered by Zodiark (presumably Hyur at the bare minimum), but where does that stop? Are all the playable races, roughly referred to as "mankind" in-universe, their descendants, by some means or another? All beastmen...? The latter are shown getting the Echo, so they can certainly inherit Ancient souls. How 'non-Ancient lives' could definitively be interpreted by non-insane people matters less than how Emet-Selch specifically--and presumably the rest of the Ascians--interpreted it. Their interpretation was that, yes, all of the playable races and beastmen count as 'non-Ancient lives' and so are acceptable casualties, because the fragmented Ancient souls within will be retained and eventually reformed in full as Ancients once all the Rejoinings are done. As I put it when I made a video about them: they don't see it as killing Ted, they see it as killing Ted's foot, so that one day they can glue Ted back together.
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Dec 12, 2021 05:53
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Cleretic posted:How 'non-Ancient lives' could definitively be interpreted by non-insane people matters less than how Emet-Selch specifically--and presumably the rest of the Ascians--interpreted it. Their interpretation was that, yes, all of the playable races and beastmen count as 'non-Ancient lives' and so are acceptable casualties, because the fragmented Ancient souls within will be retained and eventually reformed in full as Ancients once all the Rejoinings are done. Sorry, I should clarify I was talking specifically about the pre-Sundering state of affairs there, and just using the present day setting to speculate about it. Like whether Zodiark had spat out a bunch of unsundered Wrothgar that the Ancients wanted to breed for a bit and then feed back to rock dad, or if the diversity in sapient life only happened after the Sundering and they'd only planned to kill animals, or somewhere in between. And how fuzzy the story is about that point. Obviously post-Sundering the Ascians didn't view anybody left over as wholly alive, or at least wouldn't admit it if they did.
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Dec 12, 2021 06:01
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wanna see the look on the face of the Fifth's first lunar explorer when he discovers Zodiark's Abs 11.0 gonna be some Castlevania II poo poo where we put together Demi-Zodiark or something
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Dec 12, 2021 06:18
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Doesn’t only the Source have a moon?
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Dec 12, 2021 06:39
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Pollyanna posted:Doesn’t only the Source have a moon? Nope, I was doing the role quest capstone in Shadowbringers last night and specifically noticed the moon on the First.
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Dec 12, 2021 06:41
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How much physical area was sundered? What was involved in the sundering, aside from Hydaelin doing the Big Steppy on Zodiark on Etheriys and then she put him in the moon, right? Could that moon be shared across all of the reflections? (not really but it would be funny.)
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Dec 12, 2021 06:47
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Zeruel posted:How much physical area was sundered? What was involved in the sundering, aside from Hydaelin doing the Big Steppy on Zodiark on Etheriys and then she put him in the moon, right? Could that moon be shared across all of the reflections? (not really but it would be funny.) Honestly I would love if this was the key to travel to the Source, just have go to to the moon and back.  Now the problem is getting back to their respective shards.
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Dec 12, 2021 06:49
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Zenos question related to the 89 dungeon: They said Amon was getting the repeating dreams because the memory machine didn't wipe memories just pushed them deeper into the soul, but Zenos was having the same kind of dreams to the point Amon even comments on it earlier but didn't really add up to anything.
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Dec 12, 2021 07:10
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Looking back at the last few pages, man, it is funny what people remember of ShB, because I definitely remember a lot of people here not liking Ran'jit or the trolley episode/mineshaft dungeon that much, like at all. For me, when it comes down to it, Endwalker is going to match blow for blow with Shadowbringers on the stuff that will probably stick with me for the rest of my life regardless of the few errors I thought it did make, so yeah, great expansion 9.5/10, the rabbit base is too big and labyrinthos drags more than once, and they could have cut that chasing stealth-mode Meteion segment entirely and skip straight to her depressing report
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Dec 12, 2021 07:16
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Don't trust Ran'jit likers imo.
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Dec 12, 2021 07:40
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If Rejoining is murder, then Sundering is murder. I think it is strange to argue otherwise. For what it's worth, Emet-Selch states outright in Shadowbringers that their memories were wiped along with everything else in the scene in the Crystarium where he's explaining the mechanics of Sundering - "And the worst part? Nobody could remember." The Ancients' memories are gone. Their civilization is gone. Their bodies are gone. Their souls in the original forms are gone. Their hopes and dreams and wishes and self-identity are all gone. Venat killed them - she says, herself, that what she did was unjust and cruel. To put it another way, as much as we emphasize that the Warrior of Light is not Azem and is their own person - in that case, where's Azem? At what point, after the Sundering, is Hythlodaeus going to be able to fulfill his dream of reuniting with his close friend Azem in the Lifestream? Even if you say that "well, she memory-wiped and identity-killed them, and then just let them live their lives as mortals", it feels like splitting extreme hairs to me to say that "Venat just inflicted them with a terminal disease that ensured they'd die in a week instead of living out their natural lives" is totally distinct from murder. Also, yes, it is textual that Venat deliberately let Emet-Selch walk his path, genocides and all, in order to fulfill her plan. That's the entire reason he's angry at her, and why he comments she's trying to make a gesture to him to apologize for all of the poo poo she put him through that he thinks isn't good enough. Whether that means she specifically left him Unsundered is still a bit vague, but it would make perfect sense, since Emet says she needed him to be where he was to tie up the timeline. Raelle fucked around with this message at 08:29 on Dec 12, 2021 |
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Dec 12, 2021 07:41
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lol the game beats you over the head with pretty comprehensive explanations for these fundamental things like how sealing the will of the planet on the moon as he gains strength with each of the rejoinings would take a lot out of someone who hadn't just absorbed the aether of half the world's life lmao. Or how anyone could ever say no to the emotionless end-of-history dystopia of the Ancients when you're drip-fed that particular explanation in the form of the entire final segment of the last dungeon in the game, verbally, by Meteion herself but sure maybe it doesn't apply because those weren't the Ancients of Etheirys, and maybe that 'always beautiful' glowing description of how the ancients understood death wasn't just some throwaway line! Venat's sundering monologue was weirdly dark but it wasn't exactly left as indecipherable subtext that she was intentionally opening pandoras box by making 14 reflection worlds full of life whose aether is thin enough to let them feel things like hope and determination because she knows you can't just run from the cataclysmically-online endsinger's tweet death of the universe forever even if running was a contingency plan - she'd obviously also planned on fighting you as a test for that purpose and tells you as much before, during, and after said fight, god drat. The fact that EW is a bit of a hustled ragtag effort at landing some of those cosmically-heavy plot beats doesn't mean the entire game from ARR through present just skips major world-building components and story pillars for shits and giggles but hey if that's the case maybe making the depression-sharing would-be perpetrator of the memetic sadbrains apocalypse take the form of a small blue bird was completely innocuous too FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 08:50 on Dec 12, 2021 |
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Dec 12, 2021 07:47
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Y'know, we never did find out what happened to Altima, Pashtarot etc. I hope they all have hobbies now, and I really hope one of them shows up at island sanctuary going "hey I used to basically be a gardener in Amaurot lemme look after your onions."
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Dec 12, 2021 11:58
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Ibblebibble posted:Y'know, we never did find out what happened to Altima, Pashtarot etc. I hope they all have hobbies now, and I really hope one of them shows up at island sanctuary going "hey I used to basically be a gardener in Amaurot lemme look after your onions." ...that could unironically work, Halmarut was the Botanist Convocation member and he's one of the unaccounted Ascians. Edit: on second thought he'd turn all your crops into Morbols, so maybe not the best idea.
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Dec 12, 2021 12:30
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Ibblebibble posted:Y'know, we never did find out what happened to Altima, Pashtarot etc. I hope they all have hobbies now, and I really hope one of them shows up at island sanctuary going "hey I used to basically be a gardener in Amaurot lemme look after your onions." The way Endwalker talks abut the Ascians implies the other Ascians are all dead and Fandaniel's the last one. Which certainly explains why he was acting like he was, but it feels really weird for them to just kill four space wizards off-screen. Don't you guys want to keep some of them in the back pocket? Pour one out for Deudalaphon, he died before even getting mentioned by name.
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Dec 12, 2021 13:01
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I beat Endwalker. Wow, what an expansion. My favorite zone by far was Garlemald. It really nailed how everything went to poo poo and how Garleans wouldn’t accept help because they’re awful fascists. Quintis made a big impression for a character with around ten minutes of screen time. Can someone make an edit of the “Can a depressed person make this?” meme except it’s Hermes holding Meteion
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Dec 12, 2021 14:10
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Finished Endwalker, had some strong negative kneejerk reactions so I've been ruminating on it for a couple days to see if my opinion changed. It didn't really. Basically, I loved everything up to Elpis (I see people complain about the In from the Cold duty, personally that, along with the whole Garlemald zone, was one of the highlights for me). I also loved the dungeons and trials post-Elpis. The story took a nosedive for me in Elpis onward, though, because, my personal dislike of stable time loops aside, the whole concept of dynamis felt like an unnecessary rear end-pull. The game's always been eager to explain how things work, yet it's terrible at explaining dynamis, and much of the story starts hinging on it once you get to Elpis. There isn't anyone who tries to draw connections to stuff we've already seen, like Nidhogg being for all intents and purposes a rage ghost, or that the "faith" part of summoning primals might have something to do with dynamis (and, possibly unrelated, when Ilberd summons Shinryu, we see a dark fog effect very similar to dynamis). Yes, nobody knows about it, which is why nobody can really exposit about it, but that's not very satisfying. So a lot of stuff in Elpis and beyond felt hollow to me, almost like it was written by a different person. Dungeons were all top notch though, and as much as I disliked Ultima Thule because dynamis didn't click for me, the 90 dungeon was great. Felt like a better, shorter Ultima Thule. "Life is meaningless so we decided to die" x 5 just left me frustrated, but the 90 dungeon I feel did a great job of showing me both the different ways that can play out, and it made me warm up to Meteion a tiny bit. I would've liked it better if she'd permanently been a bird, her girl design was a bit too anime for me even though I can't pinpoint exactly why. I do like that she somewhat resembles a siren though, which works well with the whole Song of Oblivion thing. Overall I'd say that ShBs ending and overall tone was better, but the first 60-70% of Endwalker is my favorite part of the whole game, and though the narrative fumbled a bit towards the end it had a ton of highs and I enjoyed them immensely. I can see what the narrative was trying to do, it just didn't work for me personally.
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Dec 12, 2021 14:11
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Cleretic posted:The way Endwalker talks abut the Ascians implies the other Ascians are all dead and Fandaniel's the last one. Which certainly explains why he was acting like he was, but it feels really weird for them to just kill four space wizards off-screen. Don't you guys want to keep some of them in the back pocket? I can't remember exactly who said it and I might be spacing on the context of the line but I think Venat or Emet-Selch specifically calls the WoL "the last of us" and the missing Ascians aren't included on Emet-Selch's list of planned content. Maybe they'll show up in Pandaemonium though.
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Dec 12, 2021 15:46
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Chillgamesh posted:I can't remember exactly who said it and I might be spacing on the context of the line but I think Venat or Emet-Selch specifically calls the WoL "the last of us" and the missing Ascians aren't included on Emet-Selch's list of planned content. Maybe they'll show up in Pandaemonium though. There's that, and I believe Fandaniel himself also has a line alluding to the fact the rest are all dead, but like you, I'm not entirely sure on the context.
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Dec 12, 2021 15:53
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I remember in 5.3 that he does his crazy laugh about all the unsundered being dead. But doesn't mention the others.
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Dec 12, 2021 15:57
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It does seem weird that they'd just leave the last four completely unaccounted for. Hopefully we'll at least discover their fate at some point, if not have them resurface.
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Dec 12, 2021 15:58
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