What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

I both agree and disagree with the "MSQ time is too precious to waste on mundane scenes" sentiment because, on the one hand...it's pretty clear that MSQs by design reject economical storytelling. They're designed to primarily waste your time with as much inanity and busywork as possible so that game time is stretched out for as many hours as feasible. There's a ton of segments that could and should have been cut down or cut out entirely.

On the other hand, I don't think the scenes in question are examples of that. If I were to cut down on MSQ fluff in 6.0, first on my list would be chasing Meteion over and over again in Elpis, wasting time in Yedlihmad, and looking for random people in Labyrinthos. I don't see the character segments in FFXIV as actually detrimental to the story in any significant sense, even though (and I can't repeat this enough) the jokes didn't land for me. I didn't find them particularly funny, but that's okay -- I personally don't have to find everything to my tastes. If I wished that everything I personally didn't care for got removed, we never would have had Return to Ivalice or the Bozja arcs. I've mentioned before that Matsuno's writing just really doesn't do it for me...but again, that's okay, because other people sing his praises and love the man's work.

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Originally Posted by Raoabolic

History has shown us that when the rot has become this bad then there is very little chance of the devs to fix it, doubly so if the income is still there. In hindsight I feel like I got bamboozled by buying the two encyclopedia eoreza books since the lore seems to change from expansion to expansion. At this point it feels like i'm playing WoW again and seeing everyone go "No, cata's story is actually pretty good!" while those that point out how cata is stretching the lore at best and flat out breaking it at worst are just "haters". XVI looks pretty good but it is a SE product so I do worry that half of the story will be broken up and sold as dlc and I do worry about what "online features" the game will come with, and let's not forget SE's ethics department. The worrying part is that I am playing less and less of XIV and more of my backlog but that backlog is starting to dry up. I need to expand my horizons, lol.

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Yeah, in hindsight I regret purchasing the lore books. The WoW comparison is very apt since it, too, decided to make sweeping retcons to large swathes of the existing lore and characters in order to prop up something else. It's a delicate balancing act because introducing new stuff is fine but if it's coming at the expense of what came before it then it's going to lead to a lot of disillusionment.

FFXVI is supposedly going to be 'complete at launch' so I guess we'll see if that remains the case. As for my own backlog, I've still got a decent amount of things to get through - it's mostly a new, fresh MMO I want at this point though the intriguing options to me are at least a year or two out.

I wonder where OP went. Maybe she found a good story elsewhere.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

They're thankfully being designed in such a way as to not really appeal to the 'Second Life' and 'Twitter Enthusiasts' that this game has unfortunately come to attract in droves.

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You might have said this part in half-jest, but browsing twitter lately I've seen a shocking number of peope who quite literally mod their characters to look exactly like Second Life character models. Don't even want to imagine what these people actually do ingame.

But this is what the devs see when they look at FF twitter. Mayhap it explains the increased amount of modern-style clothing glams being put onto the mog station of late. They've realized the audience they've attracted and are banking off of it.

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Originally Posted by YukikoKurosawa

You might have said this part in half-jest, but browsing twitter lately I've seen a shocking number of peope who quite literally mod their characters to look exactly like Second Life character models. Don't even want to imagine what these people actually do ingame.

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You don't want to know. All I have to say is Miss Triss was a mistake and each day we stray further and further from the crystal.

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Originally Posted by Lustre

I wonder where OP went. Maybe she found a good story elsewhere.

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...or they became Meteion.

"I have scoured the cosmos for a better story. There is no good story anywhere. Everything is subjective. My whole life is a lie! I shall sing a song of how subjective things are, and those who listen will feel an overwhelming urge to say they disagree with my song because it too is subjective!"

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Originally Posted by Raoabolic

Miss Triss

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Whomst? Some mod creator or something?

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Originally Posted by Midareyukki

...or they became Meteion.

"I have scoured the cosmos for a better story. There is no good story anywhere. Everything is subjective. My whole life is a lie! I shall sing a song of how subjective things are, and those who listen will feel an overwhelming urge to say they disagree with my song because it too is subjective!"

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Maybe the quite lackluster story was the friends we made along the way.

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Originally Posted by YukikoKurosawa

Maybe the quite lackluster story was the friends we made along the way.

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*looks at the Scions and their "sacrifice" in Ultima Thule*

...you are eerily on the nose with this.

Thread Discord shill. :P

https://discord.gg/rhY7pJez

There's now a lobby area because we were having a lot of people join and never say anything, so if you want to be added to the main chat you need to introduce yourself and give some brief thoughts on the story (especially as we've gotten several thread lurkers who read but never post).

I know it's inconvenient, especially if you're socially shy, but we want to make sure people are joining for the right reasons.

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Originally Posted by YukikoKurosawa

You might have said this part in half-jest, but browsing twitter lately I've seen a shocking number of peope who quite literally mod their characters to look exactly like Second Life character models. Don't even want to imagine what these people actually do ingame.

But this is what the devs see when they look at FF twitter. Mayhap it explains the increased amount of modern-style clothing glams being put onto the mog station of late. They've realized the audience they've attracted and are banking off of it.

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Sadly it wasn't a jest! It's definitely one of the things that made the game world feel less interesting and magical to me. I think there's plenty of ways for the development team to make money off of players without necessarily compromising the established tone and aesthetics of the setting itself.

It's reached the point where I wish there was a filter to just sort of block out other players in cutscenes and stuff.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

It's reached the point where I wish there was a filter to just sort of block out other players in cutscenes and stuff.

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Can't filter out other players in trial cutscenes where the player is summoning other players who show up wearing clownsuits and ERP outfits to aid them for a serious climactic battle, sadly.

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Originally Posted by YukikoKurosawa

Can't filter out other players in trial cutscenes where the player is summoning other players who show up wearing clownsuits and ERP outfits to aid them for a serious climactic battle, sadly.

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They could probably add a toggle that allows 'immersive' generic NPC's to appear instead but honestly that seems like a waste of time in the era of 'you guys really care about the story, huh' in a game actively advertised for...its story.

(This started off with a point and ended with an emotional ramble, sorry. :P)

I keep thinking about the Christian connotations in EW. They were obvious with Venat, but less so (for me) for Hermes. I didn't put it together until I started seeing fanart of him with a serpent and apple. So, he is supposed to somehow be Eve in this scenario who ate from the Tree of Knowledge? I honestly don't know what to think of that.

It was a lot more egregious with Venat, particularly the "Footsteps in the Sand" implication with her walking towards Emet which I found particularly appalling. Not to mention that Venat is more ruthless than the Old Testament God. She deemed no one righteous to save, in fact, her most devoted were destroyed soul and all. She only intends to spare one man who she expressly needs to safeguard her plan (that's if we ignore maintaining the time loop). This is less clear in the EN translation (as most context of EW is), but Emet says in other translations that she doesn't like to lose so he was basically her insurance policy.

Then there's the theme of being cast out of paradise, of course. The problem, as usual, is Venat was no god but a woman who quite possibly misled others into turning her into one so she could pass judgment on the world for not living up to her ideology. This ultimately fails as a message to many because we see the Ancients were regular, if not 'good' people. We're not shown Sodom & Gomorrah (which would be Limsa Lominsa and U'dah :P), we're shown Eden. Even after the Final Days we're not shown anything that warrants the annihilation of the Ancients, but instead an incredibly tone deaf cutscene of people trying to cope with having narrowly survived an apocalypse and not meeting Venat's lofty standards.

Also, I didn't realize how prevalent this "forge ahead" narrative is in modern media. Having seen it applied now in other recent sci-fi/fantasy franchises, it seems to essentially be code for "the past sucks, moving on". I read someone say that they fell in love with the world of Hydaelyn, not Etheirys and that's probably the simplest way to describe my disconnect because I felt the opposite. Outside of HW, I can't say I've particularly enjoyed my time on "Hydaelyn". ARR was a chore to get through because I found it so boring. SB wasn't much better. Then I was immediately hooked heart and soul by ShB. I love the Ancients, I love the old world (Etheirys), I love the characters more than the ones I've been forced to group with since being recruited into the Scions. Everything was just better. Now I feel like "Bitter" Ancient (incidentally "hopeful" or "inspiring" Ancient in other languages, but no bias on EN localization's part of course) being told to "forge ahead" to a "new" adventure and ... that's not what I want.

Kind of rambling to myself now, but I only know to describe it as a relationship you wish you could make work, but you know can't because you want different things. That's how I feel. I appreciate this thread and the many people I've met through it who've tried to help me work through this, well, grieving process. Not to sound overdramatic, but I always feel sad when I finish a game. This time just feels doubly worse because the ending was so, so bad. I'm trying to not let it retroactively ruin the positive memories I have of ShB. I'm apprehensive about what's coming in 6.2 and preparing myself for the worst. I'd still like to get my SO through 5.0-5.3 (currently in post SB patches), but it's just getting harder by the day to keep playing and I guess I needed to rant a bit about that.

I've been thinking lately about how I'd have liked Meteion more as the final boss if she actually acted more like a villain instead of the game hammering the idea she was a victim of Hermes' misguided experiment all over again in the last hours.

Anyone old enough to play this game got the message by the end of the Elpis nonsense. The endsinger we meet at the end has NOTHING to do with the threatening giggling voice we hear upon Zodiark's defeat and I wish they had went with that instead. She's boring and the game had enough scenes where we hug literally or figuratively an antagonist.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

They could probably add a toggle that allows 'immersive' generic NPC's to appear instead but honestly that seems like a waste of time in the era of 'you guys really care about the story, huh' in a game actively advertised for...its story.

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To be fair, Twilight and Dragon Age 2 was advertised for it's story as well. Advertisers and businessmen really do run the show, don't they? lol

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

I've been thinking lately about how I'd have liked Meteion more as the final boss if she actually acted more like a villain instead of the game hammering the idea she was a victim of Hermes' misguided experiment all over again in the last hours.

Anyone old enough to play this game got the message by the end of the Elpis nonsense. The endsinger we meet at the end has NOTHING to do with the threatening giggling voice we hear upon Zodiark's defeat and I wish they had went with that instead. She's boring and the game had enough scenes where we hug literally or figuratively an antagonist.

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Reject sympathetic villains, return to villains that actively make you want to wrap your hands around their throats.

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Originally Posted by BaconBits

Reject sympathetic villains, return to villains that actively make you want to wrap your hands around their throats.

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But didn't we have that for the final battle?

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

But didn't we have that for the final battle?

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In my opinion, not really.

Zenos really outstayed his welcome, what with most of his Shadowbringers appearances being dedicated to him sitting around in his throne looking bored out of his mind while Damn Daniel danced around like a madman. Then the few antics he manages to get up to before Fandango Moneybags stole the show in Endwalker amounted to nothing.

By the time he finally got to square up with us at the edge of the universe I didn't want him dead, I wanted him gone.

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Originally Posted by BaconBits

Reject sympathetic villains, return to villains that actively make you want to wrap your hands around their throats.

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That probably won't be a bad idea. 3.0 and 4.0 both had extremely unsympathetic main villains, with some secondary villains with deeper nuance. Naturally, for 5.0 they took a chance with Emet-Selch and it paid off, but then they tried the same thing in 6.0 to questionable results.

The only question is if SE accepts that and stops trying to recapture the Emet-Selch lightning.

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Originally Posted by CrownySuccubus

That probably won't be a bad idea. 3.0 and 4.0 both had extremely unsympathetic main villains, with some secondary villains with deeper nuance. Naturally, for 5.0 they took a chance with Emet-Selch and it paid off, but then they tried the same thing in 6.0 to questionable results.

The only question is if SE accepts that and stops trying to recapture the Emet-Selch lightning.

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I mean even then Thordan and Zenos weren't without some degree of depth: Thordan was right in that Nidhogg would never accept any apology or attempt at restitution, to the point that even Midgardsormr had to admit he needed to be put down, and Zenos was, if I remember rightly, our first look at a non Cid Garlean who didn't actually have much good to say about Garlemald, outright declaring what moved them wasn't a sense of justice or righteousness but fear.

Zenos was originally intended to be completely without redeeming qualities. The writers just backtracked on that and tried to awkwardly tack on a sob story and push him as a 'mirror' to the player character.

In itself both likely done to make up for the fact that even the outright unhinged bad guys are never really allowed to do anything truly messed up unless it affects minor, meaningless characters or other antagonists.

The solo duty in Garlemald was an excellent opportunity to have Zenos eliminate a Scion or at least severely maim them. The one sided trauma trains are wearing rather thin.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Zenos was originally intended to be completely without redeeming qualities. The writers just backtracked on that and tried to awkwardly tack on a sob story and push him as a 'mirror' to the player character.

In itself both likely done to make up for the fact that even the outright unhinged bad guys are never really allowed to do anything truly messed up unless it affects minor, meaningless characters or other antagonists.

The solo duty in Garlemald was an excellent opportunity to have Zenos eliminate a Scion or at least severely maim them. The one sided trauma trains are wearing rather thin.

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Thancred fulfilling his role as protector by giving his life to shield the party from Zenos would have made for a far more impactful sacrifice than turning into the atmosphere in Ultima Thule. There was so much anticipation and buildup in the Shadowbringers patches surrounding Zenos but almost all of it amounted to nothing. I'm not sure who deserves the crown of worst villain in the entire Final Fantasy franchise. Him, Hermes, or Venat.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Zenos was originally intended to be completely without redeeming qualities. The writers just backtracked on that and tried to awkwardly tack on a sob story and push him as a 'mirror' to the player character.

In itself both likely done to make up for the fact that even the outright unhinged bad guys are never really allowed to do anything truly messed up unless it affects minor, meaningless characters or other antagonists.

The solo duty in Garlemald was an excellent opportunity to have Zenos eliminate a Scion or at least severely maim them. The one sided trauma trains are wearing rather thin.

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I despised Zenos as a character and as a villain (not in a good way) ever since our long haired, three gorillion times folded katana wielding friend stepped onto the screen, defeated everyone with his pinky finger, and then uttered the word "Pathetic..." without any hint of irony.

But I am also a person who can't stand shonen anime villain tropes like that. Micah from RDR2 is an example of a villain with no redeeming qualities that I loved but Zenos? God I wish he'd just go and stay go. At the very least let him do something of value while he's here. Otherwise, why did they bother resurrecting him at all? I was so happy when we "killed" him in Stormblood.

Zenos is a case of a villain who I can understand without redeeming. I kind of put him in the same category as Emet - given what we know about how they got here, I can understand why they do what they do, but I still think it's not okay. We know, at least to some extent, why Zenos does what he does. I can understand that feeling of emptiness, and being willing to do anything that makes you feel something again. They were trying to make him more sympathetic; I don't think they were actually trying to redeem him. I didn't really view him as a mirror to WoL, though - I can see how he was meant to be one, but Zenos's reason for what he does is the thrill of the fight, whereas WoL is generally actually trying to help people.

Zenos was one of the few things I liked about EW (despite not liking him in SB or ShB). His crashing in on Endsinger was one of the highlights of the entire, awful experience for me. I also probably would've loved "In from the Cold" had it resulted in more than trolling.

I didn't find him to be sympathetic, so if that was the intent then chalk that up to another writing failure (similar to Hermes). I saw him as more akin to Vegeta in DBZ, which I personally loved. I wanted to say, "I'm constantly facing increasingly tougher challenges. Instead of you going off alone trying to become Super Saiyan in a vain effort to beat me, you should just come along for the ride." :P I know that's not a popular opinion, but I easily would've traded most of the Scions for him. He'd have made things a lot more interesting from my POV!

I did not like the mirror comparison though. Matter of fact, I hated all of the personality that EW tried to impose not only upon the WoL but Azem as well. No, my Azem is not a "chaos gremlin". No, my WoL is not in it because they're a murder hobo. Writers, get your headcanon off my characters.

As for Meteion/Endsinger, I agree she was a terrible 'final encounter'. I was completely unmoved by everything from her falling to her knees at the Elpis flowers to the lame hand holding with the WoL at the end. (Not to mention the forced narrative that the unsundered world wasn't capable of producing an answer to Hermes' question, but that's another rant.) I wonder how much of a translation issue this was too because Meteion seemed to care a lot more about Hermes than he did about her (or really anyone but himself).

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

Thancred fulfilling his role as protector by giving his life to shield the party from Zenos would have made for a far more impactful sacrifice than turning into the atmosphere in Ultima Thule. There was so much anticipation and buildup in the Shadowbringers patches surrounding Zenos but almost all of it amounted to nothing. I'm not sure who deserves the crown of worst villain in the entire Final Fantasy franchise. Him, Hermes, or Venat.

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Again, why is Venat a villain when she theoretically prevented the extinction of intelligent life?

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Originally Posted by Katoar

Again, why is Venat a villain when she theoretically prevented the extinction of intelligent life?

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Because she hid what she knew from her people and decided to cover it up entirely by sundering them instead of telling them what she knew so they could devise an actual counter measure to Meteion.

It's like a Scientist that covered their mistake in a project that ended up killing people and only years after the fact on their deathbed do they start to tell the truth of what happened.

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Originally Posted by Katoar

Again, why is Venat a villain when she theoretically prevented the extinction of intelligent life?

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The reason the Reapers are the villains in Mass Effect when they genocide the galaxy because they can't possibly stop the imminent genocide (that they will supposedly bring upon themselves.) Venat committed genocide to avert genocide that may not actually happen because there may yet be other ways to prevent it.

Additional edit: It all really comes full circle. The Ascians are attempting to do exactly what Venat did but in reverse, and yet only one is a villain? In Shadowbringers I was pumped to stop Emet-Selch because his plan was madness. Kill EVERYONE to restore the true world that Venat destroyed. Only the ancients are fit to live and stop all the madness. Meanwhile Hydaelyn sunders the world, killing so many, because only the future people are fit to live and stop all the madness. Only they with far less resources, knowledge, and perspective (spread across several different worlds with no contact with one another) can possibly solve this problem. It reminds me of the "Cycle of Eternal Return" in Dragon's Dogma. There is no real happy ending.

It's basically just Ouroboros. The Ascians now are wrong. Venat back then was wrong. And now because of time travel BS the cycle just kind of repeats itself when it never had to happen (and may not have happened) to begin with.

Additional ADDITIONAL edit: You may not realize it, but you are inadvertently arguing in favor of a peculiar form of eugenics. Venat basically wiped out the ancient race to create new races she thought were better fit to survive and stop all of this rather than giving her own people a chance.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Because she hid what she knew from her people and decided to cover it up entirely by sundering them instead of telling them what she knew so they could devise an actual counter measure to Meteion.

It's like a Scientist that covered their mistake in a project that ended up killing people and only years after the fact on their deathbed do they start to tell the truth of what happened.

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If she tells them all that she knows about the Final Days and works with the Ancients to successfully avert the looming tragedy a time paradox is created. The Warrior of Light would have never existed. No one would have ever travelled back in time to inform her of the calamity that is yet to unfold. Venat will not have been able to avert the Final Days because she doesn't know anything about them. And we are at the place where the Ancients never survived through the Final Days and everyone either died out or sacrificed themselves to Zodiark because Venat didn't set the world asunder because she held to no hope for a brighter future since no Warrior of Light came from the future to her time to inform her of what lies ahead.

Venat having to stay silent and let the calamity unfold was the least illogical way of preventing or handling the Time Paradox created by our Time travel.

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Originally Posted by Katoar

If she tells them all that she knows about the Final Days and works with the Ancients to successfully avert the looming tragedy a time paradox is created. The Warrior of Light would have never existed. No one would have ever travelled back in time to inform her of the calamity that is yet to unfold. Venat 2.0 will not have been able to avert the Final Days because she doesn't know anything about them. And we are at the place where the Ancients never survived through the Final Days and everyone either died out or sacrificed themselves to Zodiark because Venat 2.0 didn't set the world asunder because she held to no hope for a brighter future since no Warrior of Light came from the future to her time to inform her of what lies ahead.

Venat having to stay silent and let the calamity unfold was the least illogical way of handling the Time Paradox created by our Time travel.

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There is a timeline according to short story where the world persisted after Black Rose killed the WoL so it is clearly possible to have multiple timelines. There is also the issue of if she had full faith in the time loop what was the whole plan with the Lopporits about? She set them up to have a safe haven spaceship to flee but it would only save residents of the Source, she in that plan was willing to let the rest of the shards she created die which makes me really question why it was even a thing at all. She also could have told the WoL prior to this unfolding at any point she still had the ability to do so but she spent all her ARR time just telling you to kill Ascians and they are evil, even when speaking with her in the future expansions there is no mention of some greater threat which is kinda odd for a game that usually eludes to storyline expansions ahead of time.

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Originally Posted by Katoar

If she tells them all that she knows about the Final Days and works with the Ancients to successfully avert the looming tragedy a time paradox is created. The Warrior of Light would have never existed. No one would have ever travelled back in time to inform her of the calamity that is yet to unfold. Venat will not have been able to avert the Final Days because she doesn't know anything about them. And we are at the place where the Ancients never survived through the Final Days and everyone either died out or sacrificed themselves to Zodiark because Venat didn't set the world asunder because she held to no hope for a brighter future since no Warrior of Light came from the future to her time to inform her of what lies ahead.

Venat having to stay silent and let the calamity unfold was the least illogical way of preventing or handling the Time Paradox created by our Time travel.

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This sort of thing in general is why time travel is bad writing and very difficult to pull off. Personally, I didn't like in Attack on Titan, and I didn't like it here. A character in the present goes into the past to engineer the situation that happens in the present that can't even exist without them existing in the future to return to the past from their present to resolve their future. I don't even know what I just said because it makes no sense. Time travel will never not be a paradox and cause you to write yourself into a corner.

The bottom line is that we never should have time traveled or had memory wipes in Endwalker to begin with.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

Writers, get your headcanon off my characters.

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The thing is, in JRPGs you're always roleplaying the writers character. You never have any control on what the character does, why they do it nor what motivates them. It's never your character.

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Originally Posted by Xeronia

snip

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This is not a matter of multiple timelines but that of an impossible situation that cannot exist.

Past the point where we return back to the past, anything regarding the second Final Days is not connected to the time loop.

The Source was fragmented in order to bind Zodiark as he is tied to it.

The Final Days are an apocalyptic event caused by the negative emotions of people themselves. Venat's initial plan was to give the Star a second chance at preventing the Final Days, to put them in miserable conditions by sundering the Ancients. By doing so people may learn to overcome the feelings of hopelessness that brought the end of the fake utopia they lived in. The plan for the moon was a safety precaution in case humanity fails once again and succumbs to despair. Most of the people from The Source wouldn't have made it either.

For a character to be a villain their actions need to be motivated by evil intentions which Venat lacks.

For a character to be a villain they need only engage in villainous acts. Deliberate acts of genocide qualifies as such and the only reason the game pretends otherwise is because the protagonists stand to benefit from the arrangement. However, if someone else with the same motivation were to target the Sundered with the exact same end result then by their own admission they would oppose it and consider it to be a villainous act.

It's also up to the player themselves to decide who is a villain and who is a hero. Especially when dealing with heavy issues - certainly, I find myself reluctant to believe that the typical MMO player or video game developer has the correct stance on exceedingly complex moral issues.

Though this thread is very long for a reason and many people have clearly outlined why they felt that the writing around Venat simply wasn't up to scratch and failed to make much sense/induce sympathy.

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Originally Posted by Katoar

This is not a matter of multiple timelines but that of an impossible situation that cannot exist.

Past the point where we return back to the past, anything regarding the second Final Days is not connected to the time loop.

The Source was fragmented in order to bind Zodiark as he is tied to it.

The Final Days are an apocalyptic event caused by the negative emotions of people themselves. Venat's initial plan was to give the Star a second chance at preventing the Final Days, to put them in miserable conditions by sundering the Ancients. By doing so people may learn to overcome the feelings of hopelessness that brought the end of the fake utopia they lived in. The plan for the moon was a safety precaution in case humanity fails once again and succumbs to despair. Most of the people from The Source wouldn't have made it either.

For a character to be a villain their actions need to be motivated by evil intentions which Venat lacks.

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The bolded is a joke, right? That's an absolutely childish way of viewing the difference between good and evil, or are you seriously implying that Ozymandius from Watchmen (for example) is not a villain after he murdered several heroes, vaporized Moscow and Manhattan (killing millions in the process,) and then framed Dr. Manhattan because he thought it was the best way to avert nuclear war? Some of the worst real human beings in history thought they were doing the objectively right thing, morally, politically, and however else.

You can ABSOLUTELY be a heinous villain and have good intentions. It's not so black and white.

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Originally Posted by Katoar

This is not a matter of multiple timelines but that of an impossible situation that cannot exist.

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When the writers can be bothered to provide a proper explanation of this, I'll take this more seriously. Until then, we know AUs can spawn in the setting based on what happened in the 8UC timeline, and they refuse to really be drawn out and say whether Venat's actions are constrained by the time loop (she herself claims she'll take nothing for granted and Yoshi advanced the point that she could be taken as actively striving to maintain it, supported by her decision to 'spare' Emet-Selch, knowing what he'd go on to do.) Yoshi's attempt at a defence of her is to compare her to SHB Emet, then claim she's not a bad guy (despite using the term villain when discussing Emet in interviews at the time), and throw in "lmao she's an ancient I guess." Not so much "if she didn't do all this, the current timeline would vanish and all existence would be doomed". People can invent whatever explanations they like for how this time loop works but the stark truth of it is, only the writers know this (one would hope, anyway) and they've yet to properly outline it.

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Originally Posted by Katoar

For a character to be a villain their actions need to be motivated by evil intentions which Venat lacks.

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Of course she is evil. You can't look at a character killing a whole race of people and then say "oh that wasn't evil because she meant well". No matter how much media likes to push the approach of "the end justifies the means", no, it doesn't. It absolutely doesn't.

Otherwise that guy pushing the button in The Dead Ends to kill everyone on his planet also isn't evil because he meant well and ended the war. Sure he meant well, but it's still evil. And unlike Hydaelyn he still has his "I...killed everyone..." moment. How mysterious.

And even if you think murder isn't evil enough, she is pretty darn evil on a personal scale too. Sure, the WoL has devolved into a pretty mindless muppet at this point, but it's important to point out that we only got to that point because she manipulated, lied and tampered with them from the very start. But if that still isn't evil enough, how about deleting every trace of her own people's culture from the face of the planet? Every memory of them? Making a flesh puppet (forum alt, hydaelyn taught me to use one) to talk through by killing a girl and then discarding her once she is done? How about not being interested in all the shards and what happens to them unless provoked into action?
How about her own servants on the moon? The Watcher doesn't have memories of his past life as she intentionally didn't give him any, basically being a glorified familiar. And the loporrits, even if they are annoying as heck, never got any communication from her for 12k years while she was apparently able to talk to Sharlayan. Didn't even send them a message. I guess it was funnier to watch their rabbit hearts explode when they realized they built everything wrong.

But I guess that's all benevolent gentleness. After all she speaks with a soft and calm voice.

Remember when we were just investigating crystal thefts on Highbridge? Now we're arguing over who's the worse genocider.

Wild.

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Originally Posted by Tama-Kanzashi

Of course she is evil. You can't look at a character killing a whole race of people and then say "oh that wasn't evil because she meant well". No matter how much media likes to push the approach of "the end justifies the means", no, it doesn't. It absolutely doesn't.

Otherwise that guy pushing the button in The Dead Ends to kill everyone on his planet also isn't evil because he meant well and ended the war. Sure he meant well, but it's still evil. And unlike Hydaelyn he still has his "I...killed everyone..." moment. How mysterious.

And even if you think murder isn't evil enough, she is pretty darn evil on a personal scale too. Sure, the WoL has devolved into a pretty mindless muppet at this point, but it's important to point out that we only got to that point because she manipulated, lied and tampered with them from the very start. But if that still isn't evil enough, how about deleting every trace of her own people's culture from the face of the planet? Making a flesh puppet (forum alt) to talk through by killing a girl and then discarding her once she is done? How about not being interested in all the shards and what happens to them unless provoked into action?
How about her own servants on the moon? The Watcher doesn't have memories of his past life as she intentionally didn't give him any, basically being a glorified familiar. And the loporrits, even if the are annoying as heck, never got any communication from her for 12k years while she was apparently able to talk to Sharlayan. Didn't even send them a message. I guess it was funnier to watch their rabbit hearts explode when they realized they built everything wrong.

But I guess that's all benevolent gentleness. After all she speaks with a soft and calm voice.

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I was under the impression according to Shadowbringers and Emet-Selch's explanation is that people weren't killed when the sundering happened, just their souls were split. All the current shards that happened right after had all the remaining people were identical in appearance/intelligence/ect (when he demonstrated on Ryne) but had forgotten about being long lived beings or about their past and whatnot and then they just died due to the normal things like happenings of war, sickness or old age. I don't see how that is "killing everyone."

What Venat did was the same exact thing as what God did when he cast Adam and Eve out of paradise for not learning and heeding His lessons. She tried reasoning with them and making them learn, they refused, so they were cast out of paradise (Unsundered world). Minfilia is akin to what happened to Jesus. God also flooded the entire world in what He deemed to be a greater good for the world. Yet I don't see people ranting about how God is evil for doing that.