On Venat's Role in the Story

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Originally Posted by Rosenstrauch

They could rely on familiars of similar composition to Meteion. Familiars that they could in turn shield from the negative effects of dynamis if need be. By working in tandem with them, as we ultimately did with Emet-Selch, Hythlodaeus, and Venat/Hydaelyn as well, they could accomplish the same as us.

And before anyone replies with the obvious rebuttals, the possibility of failure is not an absolute refutation. Any plan can fail, even ones relying on the WoL.

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Familiars instantly get converted into murderous terminus beasts. That's what their incarnation of the End of Days was, they interpreted it as 'their magics turned against us' because anything they created just came out as one of those. We saw this in both Emet's and Venat's memories. Sundered people clearly had some kind of edge; it's impossible to say what, but remember that Omega outright tried to answer that and only came back with the indistinct answer of 'heart'. The way I generally interpret that, it's that we could reach into ourselves to find reasons to keep going when faced with despair, much like how the Scions pushed through in Ultima Thule--something the familiars couldn't do because they had a lifespan of approximately a nanosecond before being faced with it. To a degree, that makes quite a lot of sense; they convert the instant they're cohesive enough to ask the question of 'why am I alive' and then get gripped by existential terror. It also makes a very difficult challenge for the Ancients to overcome, because as Hermes' conflict with others demonstrated, they never really asked that sort of question of their creations.

You're right, the plan that ended up working wasn't a surefire success. There was actually an absurdly high chance of failing, and personally I'd put the final success more on the shoulders of Thancred's sacrifice, Zenos' clutch breakthrough and Estinien happening to be the perfect guy to empathize with the dragons way more than I put on the WoL, who let's be honest, didn't exactly do a whole lot that someone else couldn't have in the same position (which personally I find the best part about the WoL as a character, that they aren't special but they're there anyway). But as slim a chance of that is, it's a chance the Ancients wouldn't have had, because... well, remember the obstacles we hit in Ultima Thule. Familiars wouldn't have survived as a base rule, but even if they could, they still would've required some with the same sort of outlooks as Thancred, Estinien (again, very difficult since he was responding with direct evidence and experience), Y'shtola and Urianger, G'raha, and the twins. That's a stacked goddamn deck.

(And of course it's a stacked goddamn deck because Ultima Thule is the end point of the Scions' journey meant to show the culmination of their characters, so asking if someone else could be capable of it is actually akin to asking 'could Kratos beat Pyramid Head', but that's a different conversation)

Ultimately the flimsy excuses we got like "Ancients are useless against dynamis" and "Hermes will rebel if he finds out about his role in the Final Days" show that anything we could come up with that would cause the Ancients to live would get shot down by the devs because they weren't meant to live no matter what. Our characters and over 10 years of the game require the Sundering to happen in order to exist, and events from the game with Hydaelyn plus the songs Answers and Dragonsong that are sung by her establish her as a "light" character as opposed to a "dark" one.

This is a consequence of writing your story as it's going with no clear ending at its inception or even a backstory for the main villains until you're over halfway through it.

The whole idea of the Ancients exist only as a plot device to to explain Hydaelyn and the Ascians and bridge them from ARR to the end. They aren't the crux of the story, so the story isn't going to bend over backwards for them. The fact that there's so many holes after Elpis shows that the writers didn't care enough for their own creation of the Ancients to properly explain things and just said "this is the way of things, trust us".

We got what we got because of a combination of ShB expanding the plot like crazy from "Ascians want to revive their one true god to plunge the world in eternal darkness" to "precursor race wants to revive themselves at the cost of us". EW then had to somehow juggle reconciling the new plot with the fact that Venat was always intended to be the one we side with per that interview with Yoshi-P on her side of the story. Thrown into that mix is that the writers decided to invoke Answers literally.

Good God, this isn't worth my time, but I'll bite.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Familiars instantly get converted into murderous terminus beasts. That's what their incarnation of the End of Days was, they interpreted it as 'their magics turned against us' because anything they created just came out as one of those. We saw this in both Emet's and Venat's memories.

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You know this is wrong. And I know you know this is wrong, because I've seen you put in the effort to research what you're talking about before. You of all people should be aware that you're talking out of your ass here. But since you seem compelled to engage in sophistry:

The Final Days does not instantly convert anything. It permeates the environment, causing individuals on the verge of mental breakdowns to be consumed, producing a blasphemy in their stead. And all evidence suggests that this remains true for the Ancients, save for the fact that they could not be converted directly. Instead, the effects manifested in the form of the afflicted losing control of their creation magicks and producing blasphemies that way. Not once however are we shown an entity, "living" or otherwise, instantly turn into a blasphemy without at least the implication of having succumbed to fear and despair in the moment of their transformation.

Not only that, but we can technically count the familiars who have been seen afflicted on one hand, because they're all technically the same person: Meteion. Who is, quite clearly, not a blasphemy. This in spite of her and her sisters living in the very heart of the Final Days' source.

Not even the player's familiars are affected—carbuncles, egis and the like retain full functionality and don't spontaneously start eating your face in Thavnair, Garlemald, or Ultima Thule the instant you summon them. And to cut off the immediate counterargument—Yes, the developers aren't going to lock 2-3 classes/jobs out of playing Endwalker. But I could just as easily argue that the player's familiars are mentally sound enough to not be turned into blasphemies, so there.


Everything else isn't worth addressing, as it's either built on this faulty assumption that familiars instantly transform from a whiff of the bad juju, or is more "I don't think the Ancients could pull it off!", and to reiterate:

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The possibility of failure is not an absolute refutation. Any plan can fail, even ones relying on the WoL.

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I mean this with the utmost sincerity: I do not care what you think about the Ancient's chances. Probability in storytelling is horseshit.

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Originally Posted by Rosenstrauch

The Final Days does not instantly convert anything. It permeates the environment, causing individuals on the verge of mental breakdowns to be consumed, producing a blasphemy in their stead. And all evidence suggests that this remains true for the Ancients, save for the fact that they could not be converted directly. Instead, the effects manifested in the form of the afflicted losing control of their creation magicks and producing blasphemies that way. Not once however are we shown an entity, "living" or otherwise, instantly turn into a blasphemy without at least the implication of having succumbed to fear and despair in the moment of their transformation.

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What do you mean, "all evidence remains true" that it only affected certain ancients? From what we are told, it sounded like it was affecting everyone back then.

I agree we have no guarantee that familiars would be immediately corrupted by dynamis, but neither do we know that they would be immune, especially if they are intelligent enough to be expected to do battle with the Meteia. Perhaps she could drive them to despair and transformation easily.

We're way out in the realm of speculation, but what we do know is that the authors want the ancients' efforts to fail. So if they put the effort into speculating all the possibilities as far as sending familiars to fight Meteion, they would invent a reason for that effort to be thwarted.

It doesn't matter that there might be a plausible path to victory for the ancients if they did the right things. What matters is that there needs to be a way for it to go wrong.

As much as I think they glossed over the complexities of Venat's path, I also don't need a detailed list of everything the ancients might have tried. For all we know, they might have taken the "Venat runs away" story path because it was too convoluted explaining why she split from them later.

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Originally Posted by Rosenstrauch

Good God, this isn't worth my time, but I'll bite.

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The problem with your proposed theory of sending in Dynamis familiars like Meteion to fight fire with fire is that only Hermes knows how to make those, Hermes can't be trusted to help since he's pro-Meteion, and they have no example of one to copy.

Besides all this, Zodiark would've already need to have been created at this point to stop the Final Days unless you expect them to do research on familiars from zero and send them into battle while the world is still burning and the sky is falling. And Zodiark's creation would've brought us back into the whole thing where part of why Hydaelyn did what she did is because she didn't like the 3rd sacrifice.

We could sit here over and over making theories, but like the holes we're trying to fill, the theories themselves are full of holes.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

What do you mean, "all evidence remains true" that it only affected certain ancients?

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That's not what I said, nor what I meant. Let me try again.

All evidence suggests that the Ancients are affected by the Sundered through the exact same sequence. The afflicted region is permeated. Those on the verge of mental breakdowns succumb. They then proceed to produce a blasphemy. The only difference is the outcome—the afflicted Sundered are consumed wholly to produce a single blasphemy, while the afflicted Ancients instead begin to uncontrollably produce blasphemies.

But not every Ancient was afflicted, just as not every Sundered mortal was afflicted. We know this to be the case because the people of Amaurot were able to create Guardian Forces and eventually summoned Zodiark, both acts that required the use of creation magicks.

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I agree we have no guarantee that familiars would be immediately corrupted by dynamis, but neither do we know that they would be immune

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What matters is that there needs to be a way for it to go wrong.

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We're way out in the realm of speculation, but what we do know is that the authors want the ancients' efforts to fail.

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Putting aside that I fundamentally disagree with the idea that the Ancients need a perfect and unassailable plan, for the exact same reason I've said twice now...

Why even ask what the Ancients could do, then, if you're just going to go "Speculation is pointless, the authors' will is final"? Might as well just delete the Lore forum.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Familiars instantly get converted into murderous terminus beasts. That's what their incarnation of the End of Days was, they interpreted it as 'their magics turned against us' because anything they created just came out as one of those. We saw this in both Emet's and Venat's memories. Sundered people clearly had some kind of edge; it's impossible to say what, but remember that Omega outright tried to answer that and only came back with the indistinct answer of 'heart'. The way I generally interpret that, it's that we could reach into ourselves to find reasons to keep going when faced with despair, much like how the Scions pushed through in Ultima Thule--something the familiars couldn't do because they had a lifespan of approximately a nanosecond before being faced with it. To a degree, that makes quite a lot of sense; they convert the instant they're cohesive enough to ask the question of 'why am I alive' and then get gripped by existential terror. It also makes a very difficult challenge for the Ancients to overcome, because as Hermes' conflict with others demonstrated, they never really asked that sort of question of their creations.

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This is guesswork that I don't even feel like is supported by the text. We only see the Ancients creating Terminus Beasts when Meteion is driving their magic haywire; it's never elaborated what happened to their creations which already exist, not least of all their sapient ones. Since they'd have thinner aether presumably they'd have been affected exactly the same as the present day Sundered races (reminder to MikkoAkure that the PCs aren't dynamis-based beings either; it's just repelled less by them, which is enough), which is to say that they'd be normal until they got sufficiently bummed out and transformed.

Unless your point is just that the Ancients couldn't have created anything specifically new to combat the final days after it had started, in which case I'd remind you that there was a long period after the Final Days started but before it covered the whole world when creation magic was still quite normal. Remember that in phantom Amaurot and Akadaemia Anyder they're still making stuff like it's no big deal.

Honestly, I really wish people would stop acting like the script did some perfect job of making the hopelessness of the Ancients completely unquestionable. Like, it's been over a year now. Everyone has calmed down, and we know a lot more from interviews about how much the developers fussed with the specifics of the Hydaelyn vs. Zodiark plot, to the point they didn't even have a final villain in mind until relatively close to the deadline.

It doesn't make Endwalker irredeemably awful or anything, but can't we admit that it's a little bit jank? That it did a quick little flirt with trying awkwardly to justify genocide because the scenario got out of the writers hands?

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

The problem with your proposed theory of sending in Dynamis familiars like Meteion to fight fire with fire is that only Hermes knows how to make those, Hermes can't be trusted to help since he's pro-Meteion, and they have no example of one to copy.

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It's funny you should mention this, because I wrote exactly that in Ashes. YMMV on how believable it is, but I wholeheartedly see Hermes as a man who could learn what he did, come to terms with it, and do the right thing.

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Originally Posted by Rosenstrauch

Why even ask what the Ancients could do, then, if you're just going to go "Speculation is pointless, the authors' will is final"? Might as well just delete the Lore forum.

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In most cases of speculation, we are wondering what the authors' intent is for future story beats. In this case, we know their intent is to bring the story full circle and have the ancients' collective actions lead to the Sundering, because narratively they were locked into this years ago, and the only thing to debate is the details of how it happened.

Also, the Lore forum is a repository of current lore, not just speculation.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

In most cases of speculation, we are wondering what the authors' intent is for future story beats.

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Well, then I see what the problem is. I'm not here to try and guess what the authors' intent is. I'm here to talk about my ideas. My perspective. What I care about.

Edit: To give an example:

Remember the Nier raids? Prior to Endwalker, one of the things I gushed about regarding them is that I found to Dwarves' half of the story to be a good analogue to the Final Days and the conflict that led to the Sundering. And to an extent, I still believe that! At least as far as Shadowbringers is concerned. But absolutely none of that has anything to do with what the authors intended to write. For all I know or care, they were writing by the seats of their pants without regard for whether or not their story would even make sense. And obviously as of Endwalker it demonstrably isn't a good analogue for the aforementioned conflict. If it was, the whole thing would've been orchestrated by Anogg after falling into the mystery pearl, or a heretofore unmentioned third sibling with a preexisting chip on his shoulder, or something. But I still believe my perspective on it was worth sharing here.

If I didn't feel that way, I wouldn't even be here.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

In most cases of speculation, we are wondering what the authors' intent is for future story beats. In this case, we know their intent is to bring the story full circle and have the ancients' collective actions lead to the Sundering, because narratively they were locked into this years ago, and the only thing to debate is the details of how it happened.

Also, the Lore forum is a repository of current lore, not just speculation.

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It's just really tiring to see people still trying to make these hard storytelling-mechanics justifications for why it was a matter of inevitable necessity for the an entire culture/race of people to be indiscriminately wiped out.

Like, yeah, the Sundering had to happen from a perspective of story structure. But the writers chose to not only make it intentional, but to then go on to make all these awkward excuses for why it was this unavoidable action we should be sympathetic to. And now every time someone talks about how that made them uncomfortable (setting aside all the weirdos who come at this from a perspective of projecting on the Ancients, or with hangups about the tone of the story or female characters like Venat or whatever) and points out ways it seems like it wasn't unavoidable, a load of people chime in to speculate beyond what the writers even put in a story to try and plug every last hole.

It makes me uneasy, and reminds me - even if I wouldn't equivocate it - how easily people's moral compasses can be manipulated to forgo basic tenants in reality when the framing is right. How people are willing to set aside absolute rules like "genocide is wrong, no matter what" when you paint the affected group with a broad brush as selfish, or cruel, or doomed anyway.

And so much of this fandom does that without a second thought. Again, this isn't to act like this damns the entire story; I can see at this point how the writers arrived where they did without really meaning to. And we don't have to talk about it ad infinitum. But at the same time, it would be great if people could just acknowledge "yeah that was a bit weird" without trying with all their power to hold up the framing the game presents uncritically.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

[...] But at the same time, it would be great if people could just acknowledge "yeah that was a bit weird" without trying with all their power to hold up the framing the game presents uncritically.

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You're putting a lot of words in my mouth and motives into my actions.

I've said plenty of times that the whole Sundering is weird and badly written, but at the same time it is the story we are stuck with, and do we really need to have the "I am uncomfortable about this" conversation every time we discuss the details of what happened?

Also, "Venat should have warned them" is a different discussion to "if Venat had warned them, they could have successfully stopped Meteion because they have the technology for it", which is the one I was addressing.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

You're putting a lot of words in my mouth and motives into my actions.

I've said plenty of times that the whole Sundering is weird and badly written, but at the same time it is the story we are stuck with, and do we really need to have the "I am uncomfortable about this" conversation every time we discuss the details of what happened?

Also, "Venat should have warned them" is a different discussion to "if Venat had warned them, they could have successfully stopped Meteion because they have the technology for it", which is the one I was addressing.

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Sorry, I didn't mean to come across as overly critical of you specifically. Cleretic's post was mainly the one that irked me a bit.

Regardless, I just feel like these conversations about the technical details of the Sundering are kind of a farce. You said yourself a minute ago that the writers were obviously approaching the scenario backwards; the informed inability of the Ancients in being able to stop Meteion isn't ultimately down to anything we can quantify absolutely within the setting, especially since late-EW largely runs on handwavium anyway. The writers simply wanted it to be that way. They wanted annihilating the Ancients to be presented as the best and most sympathetic option, and worked from there.

And we agree that's a little bit weird. So in my opinion, the only real discussion to be had about the topic - if one is even worth having at this point - is a meta one. If someone comes in saying "but the Ancients could have just built a really big aether cannon and shot meteion!" then responding to that with criticism about the viability of the Really Big Aether Cannon is pointless, because the scenario isn't grounded on any kind of hard in-setting logic. Whether it's you saying the Ancients wouldn't have been able to navigate Ultima Thule, or me arguing they could have just made creations with less aether, or any of the hundreds of other permutations of this discussion; dynamis creations, sending Zodiark to Ultima Thule, Hermes and whether it's realistic he was the only expert on this topic on the planet, the possibility of sundering specific individuals and sending them, all the myriad arguments about the social conditions of the Ancients and what they could or could not have done... It's pointless. No one can be wrong or right because it's all just vaguely-defined fluff.

So maybe, beyond admitting to that person that it is a little weird, it would be better to have no discussion at all. You basically said as much in our last exchange, IIRC. Sometimes all you can do with janky lore is accept that it's janky and leave it alone to the best of your ability, because trying to seriously debate the in-universe implications just means everyone rolls around in the mud.

Just like Venat herself, the writers were so intent on killing all the Ancients that they were willing to sacrifice everything else in the world building to do it, too!

Look, if we agree the Sundering was a janky, badly written case of the writers working backwards and they did a poor job actually justifying why it needed it happen from a grounded, in lore standpoint, then what is there to discuss if we’re not engaging on a writing/audience/meta level, ie, “how did the writers end up at a point where their precious cart was worth desperately justifying the eradication of this entire population”, what they tried (and failed) to do to make it work, and why it did or did not land for different portions of the audience?

If it falls back onto “don’t talk about it” in general, if you’re tired of hearing about it, that’s perfectly ok, but it’s also literally the topic of this particular thread. People are free to ignore it and not respond when people speak up to voice that the bizarre priority given to this cart to the point of accepting the most mangled, grotesque of horses makes them uneasy as an audience member.

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Originally Posted by Brinne

If it falls back onto “don’t talk about it” in general, if you’re tired of hearing about it, that’s perfectly ok, but it’s also literally the topic of this particular thread. People are free to ignore it and not respond when people speak up to voice that the bizarre priority given to this cart to the point of accepting the most mangled, grotesque of horses makes them uneasy as an audience member.

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Well this thread was not posted in for over half a year until SOMEONE (Talonk) brought it back up again. I'd prefer if it returns to that abyss to prevent the usual ouroboros effect (meaning same circular arguments) that we had going for months.

I finally broke my silence on why I think the team struggled with endwalker because ff16 divided the team. Then I finally got to talk about why I did not like venat because the people in this community tell me im not allowed to have my own opinions unless they are positive but I finally manned up and talked about it so let's no argue anymore then. The story is not great it was subpar. Thanks to ff16. There you go sir. SOMEONE had to say it.

I always found this topic to be interesting because I always thought the writing for Venat was great, and it wasn't until I joined this forum that I saw so many people seeing it differently (which is fine).
I also see that this seems to be a sensitive topic in the community so I'm going to be as clear as possible when I say that this simply is, and has always been, my interpretation from the story. I had never even considered anything else until seeing different opinions.

I never thought of Venat's decision to sunder mankind as a way to defeat Meteion, that was never her main focus. I think that regardless of Meteion, Venat has always held strong to the ideal that mankind has the potential to move forward and overcome difficulties, and for that she needed to create a world where there was pain, suffering and death. Because only in doing so could humanity truly thrive - by overcoming difficulties. Meteion can be seen as the spark she needed, or perhaps a more "moral reason" that she took advantage of.
But, and this is my main point here, she would've sundered mankind regardless when she saw that most people were still hanging on to "bringing back paradise" rather than "using this as a lesson and move forward with it." She knew that the former would only bring further sacrifice and humanity would never be able to learn and grow.

As to her role in the story, I always saw her as a character who's not afraid to take action if she truly believes it's for the best and her love for mankind is her main motivator. She truly is like a mother, who's harsh when needs be, but it's always for the best - and that's why she proceeds to do what she did.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

Sometimes all you can do with janky lore is accept that it's janky and leave it alone to the best of your ability, because trying to seriously debate the in-universe implications just means everyone rolls around in the mud.

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Speaking as a pig enthusiast, I do enjoy a good tumble in the mud as long as everyone walks away with a clear understanding that this is just a work of fiction. Any frustration ought to be laughed off, and hard feelings should be the last thing anyone takes away from it. I do get the feeling of being alone in enjoying such arguments, though.

I hate invoking the phrase, since even I'll admit that there is value in understanding the writers' intent, but I'm a pretty firm believer in "Death of the Author". Rare is the moment when the writer's intent lines up perfectly with the fiction they've created, and so I feel their interpretation is no more or less valid than that of those who appreciate their works. Though I think I can agree on one thing: That if folks aren't keen on speculation and discussion without examining the author's biases, when they see someone who is doing just that, not engaging would be the better choice.

Oh well. If I've gotten anything positive from this, it's that I'm inspired to get back to editing Amidst the Ashes of Paradise. I'd originally wanted to add an extra scene that I cut for time, but it fell to the wayside between round two of an ear infection and my resubbing to this game for 6.3—which I've completed, at least as far as the MSQ is concerned. But I digress. I've got two new scenes in mind now, and a hefty rewrite of a third. One of the perks of fanfiction, I suppose. Even when the story is declared finished, the story can still be changed. Expanded. Continued.

… It's also a perk of MMORPGs, now that I think of it.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

I never thought of Venat's decision to sunder mankind as a way to defeat Meteion, that was never her main focus. I think that regardless of Meteion, Venat has always held strong to the ideal that mankind has the potential to move forward and overcome difficulties, and for that she needed to create a world where there was pain, suffering and death. Because only in doing so could humanity truly thrive - by overcoming difficulties. Meteion can be seen as the spark she needed, or perhaps a more "moral reason" that she took advantage of.
But, and this is my main point here, she would've sundered mankind regardless when she saw that most people were still hanging on to "bringing back paradise" rather than "using this as a lesson and move forward with it." She knew that the former would only bring further sacrifice and humanity would never be able to learn and grow.

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Venat's reason for going for the Sundering is multifaceted, and I think it's both very important to recognize that and very personal which part you considered most important. Like, I think that the reasons the writers and evelopers, when they did a lore Q&A, focused on 'she had to stop Meteion' part in their answers was because they're the writers and developers, the most important thing to them is the structural narrative element, the thing that keeps the plot moving. That doesn't mean the other reasons don't exist, and in fact that reason was quite downplayed in the actual script. In the Anamnesis meeting they're rather directly focused on stopping the sacrifices; in the post-Elpis flashback we see Venat dovetail from that into talking about how humanity can't just hide from its problems and has to overcome things through hardships. And another piece of evidence is the Twelve's epigraph; while admittedly a step removed from Venat/Hydaelyn, it shows that her and her crew genuinely wanted to see mankind and their world succeed and wanted to help them along in their own subtle ways; only the Unnamed Thirteenth had a focus that didn't mention mankind at all.


I'm not especially interested in arguing with Rosenstrauch, because we're coming from greatly different approaches to the game's story that care about different things. They write fanfiction; they're focused on the what ifs, the might have beens and things that could have been happening off in the background, because that's where they weave their own stories and find their own fulfillment. But personally, I'm interested in the lore as it relates to the story we've got and the world we're given; I'm interested in the concrete facts, the direct evidence and how it relates to the rest of the story as it is, because that's where I find my fulfillment.

Neither of those is necessarily wrong, but they do lead to a fundamental difference in how we approach what the game tells us. I hear 'we can't tell Hermes or he'll start working against us' and go 'yeah that makes sense, we saw him say and do literally that before he got memory wiped'. Rosenstrauch hears it and goes 'but what if instead that didn't happen, what would happen then?'

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Originally Posted by Cassar

I always found this topic to be interesting because I always thought the writing for Venat was great, and it wasn't until I joined this forum that I saw so many people seeing it differently (which is fine).
I also see that this seems to be a sensitive topic in the community so I'm going to be as clear as possible when I say that this simply is, and has always been, my interpretation from the story. I had never even considered anything else until seeing different opinions.

I never thought of Venat's decision to sunder mankind as a way to defeat Meteion, that was never her main focus. I think that regardless of Meteion, Venat has always held strong to the ideal that mankind has the potential to move forward and overcome difficulties, and for that she needed to create a world where there was pain, suffering and death. Because only in doing so could humanity truly thrive - by overcoming difficulties. Meteion can be seen as the spark she needed, or perhaps a more "moral reason" that she took advantage of.
But, and this is my main point here, she would've sundered mankind regardless when she saw that most people were still hanging on to "bringing back paradise" rather than "using this as a lesson and move forward with it." She knew that the former would only bring further sacrifice and humanity would never be able to learn and grow.

As to her role in the story, I always saw her as a character who's not afraid to take action if she truly believes it's for the best and her love for mankind is her main motivator. She truly is like a mother, who's harsh when needs be, but it's always for the best - and that's why she proceeds to do what she did.

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There are certainly shades of her feeling like mankind was somehow lacking judging from her remark about feeling like she couldn't return to the star until she felt they didn't "need" her anymore.

Though this gives the unfortunate implications of her feeling like the Final Days were a necessary hurdle for them to overcome after we told her it was a near extinction level event.

Her whole character is driven by ideology, consequences or morality be damned, which quite frankly is something I cannot resonate with after such viewpoints were strictly opposed throughout XIV's story.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

In the Anamnesis meeting they're rather directly focused on stopping the sacrifices;

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Venat’s faction actually doesn’t discuss the sacrifices in the Anamnesis meeting at all. In fact, the only time they’re brought up as a primary motivation for Hydaelyn is from Shade Hythlodaeus’s (aka, Emet-Selch’s) POV, back when Yoshida directly stated after release that “we still didn’t know Hydaelyn’s side of the story.” Cohering the various aspects as they stand now, it seems Shade Hythlo’s explanation was basically Emet’s misunderstanding, more or less.

As Kage said, Venat actually turned out to be basically driven by pure ideology and a belief mankind as it was wasn’t good enough to pass muster for the test of existence for lack of suffering. YMMV on how you feel about that, regardless of what the game signals about it. Obviously, I personally am not a fan.

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Originally Posted by Brinne

Venat’s faction actually doesn’t discuss the sacrifices in the Anamnesis meeting at all. In fact, the only time they’re brought up as a primary motivation for Hydaelyn is from Shade Hythlodaeus’s (aka, Emet-Selch’s) POV, back when Yoshida directly stated after release that “we still didn’t know Hydaelyn’s side of the story.” Cohering the various aspects as they stand now, it seems Shade Hythlo’s explanation was basically Emet’s misunderstanding, more or less.

As Kage said, Venat actually turned out to be basically driven by pure ideology and a belief mankind as it was wasn’t good enough to pass muster for the test of existence for lack of suffering. YMMV on how you feel about that, regardless of what the game signals about it. Obviously, I personally am not a fan.

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They're focused on stopping the unsustainable continued reliance on Zodiark. The sacrifices aren't stated explicitly, but are EXTREMELY strongly implied. I'd like to hear what you think they're objecting to and pleading to the Convocation about if not further sacrifices.

And... yeah. She's driven by ideology. That's not a sin. Thinking about all of Endwalker I think the only person who's not motivated primarily by ideology is, like... Nidhana, and maybe some Omicrons; ideology is a huge driving point of characters in this game. You could debatably make a case that the main complicating incident around Meteion is when she developed an ideology to be driven by, informed solely by negative input. And you can disagree with her ideology, just like how I vehemently disagree with Emet's, Amon's, Quintus', Meteion's (once she got one), and think Hythlodaeus should consider himself lucky he wasn't around for when his would've been tested.

You're allowed to disagree with her ideology. But I would also ask you to acknowledge her ENTIRE ideology, and not cherry-picked parts of it. Venat and her crew believed that mankind should not put themselves ahead of the planet they live on, and that problems should be akcnowledged, dealt with and learned from rather than ignored and acting like they never happened. And of course, they were willing to put everything on the line, including themselves, to stand by what that means--and weren't 'consequences and morality be damned' about it, Venat was rather clearly haunted by what she did, as was the Watcher as far as we can see. But that's true both in the negative (they did do the Sundering, that cannot be denied) and the positive (they did their utmost to both protect and aid the world that resulted, in keeping with their ideals). You can think one of those outweighs the other, but I would hope you consider the entirety of both when deciding where you stand, and know that whatever stance you land on is yours and not some universal truth.

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Originally Posted by Talonk

I finally broke my silence on why I think the team struggled with endwalker because ff16 divided the team. Then I finally got to talk about why I did not like venat because the people in this community tell me im not allowed to have my own opinions unless they are positive but I finally manned up and talked about it so let's no argue anymore then. The story is not great it was subpar. Thanks to ff16. There you go sir. SOMEONE had to say it.

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And you were trolling by necrobumping. Next time either make a new topic, or be quiet

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Originally Posted by Cassar

I never thought of Venat's decision to sunder mankind as a way to defeat Meteion, that was never her main focus. I think that regardless of Meteion, Venat has always held strong to the ideal that mankind has the potential to move forward and overcome difficulties, and for that she needed to create a world where there was pain, suffering and death. Because only in doing so could humanity truly thrive - by overcoming difficulties. Meteion can be seen as the spark she needed, or perhaps a more "moral reason" that she took advantage of.

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This is scary.

Like, it's genuinely a little harrowing to me that you - or anyone - can read the Sundering like this and still be like "yeah, cool!" Framed as such, it's such an overtly primitivist, Hard Times Make Strong Men, borderline Social Darwinist premise. The idea that people and cultures are degenerate and ignoble when they're too comfortable, and need to be forged into righteousness through suffering and conflict...

Look, unless someone really wants, I'm not even going to go into all the ways this has been academically debunked - and that in fact cultures that experience less hardship across all levels of society tend to produce more emotionally stable, rational people - and therefore that this is a message that not only has no real-world value, but is actively harmful. But just like, take a second to think about this idea removed from the framing and subject matter of the fiction. Think about the kind of places you would normally see this sort of mindset espoused. And now think about the fact that its implementation in FFXIV literally entails the extermination of a race of people.

I have no idea if the developers knew what they were doing in writing Endwalker. But at the risk of being hyperbolic, the apparent fact that most people will swallow this whole when it's delivered lovingly by a pretty anime lady with nice music playing, and when the unwilling victims fall into old tropes of decadence and stagnation and being Yesterday's Men-- Again, it's scary! There's no other way to say it!

Dang it look what happened Firemage got in here and made me laugh. He probably won't go away right away either.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

They're focused on stopping the unsustainable continued reliance on Zodiark. The sacrifices aren't stated explicitly, but are EXTREMELY strongly implied.

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No, they're the opposite of implied, to the point that it stood out as puzzling to me even at the time. In the Anamnesis meeting, the only concern brought up is "if we stay on our current course, it will still lead to our doom." In other words, the concern is with the fate of mankind. Explicitly non-sacrifice. Which is exactly what they name about what they were arguing about with the Convocation -that continued reliance on Zodiark would still lead to a bad end for the Ancients. This is actually consistent with the information we get with Venat's POV in Endwalker and beyond, where the sacrifices still are only named as an aside. Again, at the point in time when "sacrifices" was suggested as a primary motivation, we were told we were still ignorant of Hydaelyn's side of the story. Ergo, that was not meaningfully it.

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And... yeah. She's driven by ideology. That's not a sin.

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FFXIV's stance is that it, in fact, is when it's your primary motivation in controlling or eradicating people, when it makes you think you can decide on peoples' lives in the balance, as opposed to actually saving or protecting something materially living. "I have a moral code where People Probably Shouldn't Be Needlessly Murdered" isn't the same as an "I have a belief system regarding guidelines about how People Should Live and Exist"-type ideology. Killing someone because you're protecting yourself or someone else is not the same thing as killing them because they aren't Behaving Right. Again, as Kage has pointed out, that is something that FFXIV has actually condemned up until Endwalker. And I would argue that up until this point that actually, the Scions made the efforts to make themselves anti-motivated by ideology, hence the constant point and struggle in ARR about staying neutral outside of pure harm reduction in regards to the Primals. Hell, the Scions act against their personal ideologies for the sake of saving living and breathing people - such as when Y'shtola thought Merlwyb was in the wrong regarding the Kobold conflict, but still cooperated to kill Titan because it would flat out save lives.

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Venat and her crew believed that mankind should not put themselves ahead of the planet they live on, and that problems should be akcnowledged, dealt with and learned from rather than ignored and acting like they never happened. And of course, they were willing to put everything on the line, including themselves, to stand by what that means--and weren't 'consequences and morality be damned' about it, Venat was rather clearly haunted by what she did, as was the Watcher as far as we can see. But that's true both in the negative (they did do the Sundering, that cannot be denied) and the positive (they did their utmost to both protect and aid the world that resulted, in keeping with their ideals). You can think one of those outweighs the other, but I would hope you consider the entirety of both when deciding where you stand, and know that whatever stance you land on is yours and not some universal truth.

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"Mankind should not put themselves ahead of the planet they live on" is, I think, you projecting - you've talked about how you're an environmentalist and that informs how you see the importance of the sacrifices in this plotline. However, looking at Venat's actions and what she says about those actions, once again, she speaks to the opposite. Her chief concern even in the moment of Sundering is always mankind. If we acknowledge the Sundering at minimum as an action of violence and wrecking the core integrity of, then actually, Venat was willing to do irreparable harm to "the planet they live on" in order to shape it as an environment to help mankind live up to her vision of its potential. This is consistent with the fact that she was willing to abandon the planet altogether if it meant salvaging some small amount of mankind. If her priorities were what you say they were, rather than your own, she would have been telling Sharlayan to take every measure to defend Etheirys to the last, not abandon it.

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(they did their utmost to both protect and aid the world that resulted, in keeping with their ideals).

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"They did their utmost to both protect and aid the timeline that resulted, in keeping with their ideals" would probably be more accurate, considering the intentional sparing of the Ascians.

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but I would hope you consider the entirety of both when deciding where you stand, and know that whatever stance you land on is yours and not some universal truth.

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Of course it's my stance. I explicitly say "YMMV, I personally" in regards to my response to it. Likewise, pointing out what exactly that ideology is as opposed to idealistic projecting and wishful thinking is not pushing my take on it as a universal truth. Of course people exist who believe things similarly to Venat. It simply is what it is, when we actually examine the text for what it is.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

This is scary.

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Yeah, I wasn't quite sure how to gracefully say "wait, loving mother to, and 'always for the best' for whom? The chosen survivors, I guess, who managed to make it out of the Suffering Grind and 'thrive' - as opposed to those who couldn't 'overcome difficulties' and just died or were broken?" and "my ability to continue engaging with this game is pretty much contingent upon the hope/belief that the writers didn't actually intend to say this in the way they did."

It's rough.

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Originally Posted by FireMage

And you were trolling by necrobumping. Next time either make a new topic, or be quiet

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Is that a forum rule I missed? Im not trolling im speaking my mind. There is no rule of speaking on an old topic. The thread hasn't been locked and it was actually at the top for lore related topics. But thank you for caring about my post.

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Originally Posted by FireMage

And you were trolling by necrobumping. Next time either make a new topic, or be quiet

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And if trolling sparked new conversation about the topic of venat's actions from what I see looks pretty healthy for discussion in whether or not venats involvement in the story was right or wrong or confusing. Just like I feel like the retconning of the great battle between zodiark and hydaelyn was a mistake and now makes venat as a person look wrong and she even admits it. I brought up the fact that venat calls us her creation when we are the result of her attack and not a creation at all. But im not allowed to post here because of a rule you made up because I dont agree with you or something. Interesting.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

thread closed everybody go home

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The sole entertainment value of the "lore forums" these past months has been watching Kage, Brinne and Lurina take turns with dunking on its residents. A fruitless yet noble endeavor, one that always brightens my day...

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Originally Posted by Talonk

Is that a forum rule I missed? Im not trolling im speaking my mind. There is no rule of speaking on an old topic. The thread hasn't been locked and it was actually at the top for lore related topics. But thank you for caring about my post.

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You brought nothing new of worth or value, and thus the necrobumping was unwarranted

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Originally Posted by Talonk

And if trolling sparked new conversation about the topic of venat's actions from what I see looks pretty healthy for discussion in whether or not venats involvement in the story was right or wrong or confusing. Just like I feel like the retconning of the great battle between zodiark and hydaelyn was a mistake and now makes venat as a person look wrong and she even admits it. I brought up the fact that venat calls us her creation when we are the result of her attack and not a creation at all. But im not allowed to post here because of a rule you made up because I dont agree with you or something. Interesting.

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You could also stop with the misinformation about retcons where there are none at anytime. You not understanding the story is a you problem

I can talk about what I want to talk in this thread pertaining to venat regardless of your views on it. I am well within my forum rules to do so. You harassing a forum poster for posting in an open thread about venat is against the rules so I guess you can say what you want. I am here to talk about venat. Don't like it? Go to a different thread. Thanks.

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Originally Posted by Talonk

I can talk about what I want to talk in this thread pertaining to venat regardless of your views on it. I am well within my forum rules to do so. You harassing a forum poster for posting in an open thread about venat is against the rules so I guess you can say what you want. I am here to talk about venat. Don't like it? Go to a different thread. Thanks.

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Or I can and will continue to call out your trolling

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Originally Posted by Talonk

I can talk about what I want to talk in this thread pertaining to venat regardless of your views on it. I am well within my forum rules to do so. You harassing a forum poster for posting in an open thread about venat is against the rules so I guess you can say what you want. I am here to talk about venat. Don't like it? Go to a different thread. Thanks.

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Originally Posted by FireMage

Or I can and will continue to call out your trolling

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Go ahead and you will be reported for harassment.

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Originally Posted by Talonk

Go ahead and you will be reported for harassment.

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Cool, now back to you not getting the story and making up retcons where there aren't any

Yeah about that. Did the fight not cause an accidental sundering before and now its intentional?

Eh when Emet tells us about the fight between Zodiark and Hydaelyn he just said it sundered him not that it was accidental or not. Doesn't mention that the source being sundered was accidental either. And he doesn't mention her powers to be accidental when demonstrating on Ryne what happened with the source.

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Originally Posted by Talonk

Yeah about that. Did the fight not cause an accidental sundering before and now its intentional?

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It was always intentional

See, think about how this could have been avoided if people had just said "yeah it's a little weird" instead of trying to seriously explore the minutia of the Sundering plot. Don't touch the scab.

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Originally Posted by FireMage

It was always intentional

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That's probably not the case - or at least, they hadn't decided. Banri Oda (I think it was Oda; it might've been Yoshi-P) stated in a Famitsu interview last year that, at the time ShB was finished, the developers had no firm plan about how the Hydaelyn vs. Zodiark conflict would be resolved, including which of them would be the final villain. Meteion and the concept of dynamis also didn't exist at that point.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

That's probably not the case - or at least, they hadn't decided. Banri Oda (I think it was Oda; it might've been Yoshi-P) stated in a Famitsu interview last year that, at the time ShB was finished, the developers had no firm plan about how the Hydaelyn vs. Zodiark conflict would be resolved, including which of them would be the final villain. Meteion and the concept of dynamis also didn't exist at that point.

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Do you have a source on that? Unless we’re having completely different readings of the same source, I don’t remember anything about Hydaelyn ever being given the possibility of being the villain. I do remember an interview where it was said that we shouldn’t take Emet-Selch at face value and to wait until we have Hydaelyn’s story, even if that didn’t exactly pay off.

Meteion’s child birdgirl form and story behind her wasn’t written, but the concept of a surprise end boss behind everything was by the time EW writing first began in the autumn after 5.0’s release in 2019.

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Interviewer: In the plot at that point, were elements such as Meteion already included?

Ishikawa: The name Meteion wasn’t there yet, but the base form of what she became had been decided.

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The devs played around with some off-the-wall ideas but I didn’t read into this as it always having been up in the air whether or not she’s good, just possibilities that they never took.

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Oda explains that the devs seek to balance delivering on players’ expectations and also having unexpected developments. Players were already expecting to fight Hydaelyn and
Zodiark, so it was debated among the devs whether to deliver the fights straightforwardly, or have a surprise development where one of them would take over the other and fight you. In the end, the team decided to go for the straightforward route, and the last boss would be something unexpected.

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Especially since that idea contradicts against what Yoshi-P says right after:

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Yoshida: At the residential no one thought Hydaelyn or Zodiark should be the last boss.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

See, think about how this could have been avoided if people had just said "yeah it's a little weird" instead of trying to seriously explore the minutia of the Sundering plot. Don't touch the scab.



That's probably not the case - or at least, they hadn't decided. Banri Oda (I think it was Oda; it might've been Yoshi-P) stated in a Famitsu interview last year that, at the time ShB was finished, the developers had no firm plan about how the Hydaelyn vs. Zodiark conflict would be resolved, including which of them would be the final villain. Meteion and the concept of dynamis also didn't exist at that point.

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It has always been presented canonically as intentional. Provide IN GAME evidence otherwise as behind the scenes is irrelevant