NGL with you. the only reason the standard procedure didn't work the first time is cause a clearly battle-fatigued Hermes pulled out a mind-erasing clock that we need to assume can't be destroyed or stopped by any magic at all. I would say that the device is so convenient rather than the ancient procedure being an issue there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cleretic
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08-08-2023, 04:17 AMMagikazam
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08-08-2023, 04:24 AMSannaRAnd those who disagree with them don't do the same? I don't spend time in many other places or out of discords not ran by friends or for my FC. Yet here in the lore section and in the general section of these forms I've seen plenty of those who didn't like the story or like Venat do the exact same things. Excluding the death threats. I've also seen those people tend to be the seemingly first ones to use the claim of bad faith and to paint themselves as innocent victims. I only agree with them as far as liking the story and Venat. I have time and time again stated that even though I like Venat I feel what she ended up doing wasn't the best thing to do. Yet I'm not sure how, if by the time she has chosen to enact the Sundering, if you are aiming so no more sacrifices can be made while also making sure future humanity can one day be able to learn the truth inorder to go and defeat Meteion you go about doing that without well sundering the world. And I mean in a "there's no more time to do anything else. The clock is literally a 0.01" type of situation. And it is derailing as this argument started after I'm pretty sure you claimed Cleretic was mudding the waters. After another replied to commenting about a post of theirs that was a reply to a tangential discussion of something else. I'm not sure if another poster reads the forums while not subbed to the game, but if they do. Then I hope they understand what I said back in a different thread here. In that it'd been really nice if the thing I said tended to happen as people's first responses to the thread or to other's first response hadn't happened.Quote:
Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami
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08-08-2023, 05:50 AMthegreatonemalAct like what chief? Where have I been acting like that. I'm not allowed to say you're wrong? I can't point out how you're leaving out key details, and those key details make your opinion wrong? The fact that you like to dismisses those valid critiques is your own person issue. I've yet to see where this abuse you all claim to be going through is. As for watching the video I don't need to. You and others have already said all these points outlined in the video. This conversations is years old. Why do I need to hear your same talking points in video format? It's not like your arguments or criticisms of the story have changed.Quote:
Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami
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08-08-2023, 06:35 AMAlenoreYou may use the argument of "she cannot trust the Convocation", Cleretic, but it's one of the reason a lot of people find Venat as stupid as Hermes, and disagree with how she's portrayed as a savior instead of as another flawed Ancient who takes drastic measures affecting her whole race at breakfast.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cleretic
Like, seriously :- She was afraid that her people might disappear like the Nibirum, so she chose to... kill them all herself? Make it makes sense ;
- She feared Hermes might turn against them and he wouldn't help to find the problem when she already knows what the issue is? And why do we even care if Fandaniel is against us? Is it really better to Emet-Selch, Lahabrea and Elidibus against sundered people who have a fragment of their capabilities? Which include literally their most powerful sorcerer, a calculating mastermind gifted in creation magic, and the incarnation of Zodiark that she wanted so bad to sunder?
- How exactly did she know any of her choice didn't sidetrack her to another timeline? She had absolutely no idea she was on the right path for all these years until we went to say her "Hi, hello, may I trouble you with Aether please" ;
- She condemned the 3 susmentionned Ancients to walk the path of the genocidial maniacs, and all the other Ancients to either stay in stasis in Zodiark or repeatedly die for 12000 years ;
- She literally states when we leave Elpis that she has to plan an escape. Not a final solution to Meteion. This solution would have doomed 13/14th of the sundered souls, since it would have saved the Source only. Why not literally have her own people escape instead if she thought it was the way?
- And if the other, previously unannounced plan, was to reach Meteion and smash her dynamis beak, why did she have to wait 12000 years until she became so entrenched into Ultima Thule to act?
- On that note, when did she become such an expert on Dynamis, knowing that Ultima Thule is so full of Dynamis that Aether would have no use?
- Which is actually proved to be wrong: if Thancred's sacrifice was enough to actually make UT liveable for everybody, and Aether useful, a countermeasure might have been found. And beings of pure aether are also thriving there: Zenos as Shinryuu is literally a primal, strong enough to break into her nest from the outside, and make her reconsider her position. We also almost exclusively use aether to defeat her, except that Dynamis LB ;
- Besides dooming her whole species, she also pretty much doomed all the other planets that might have thrived were it not for the despair infused Dynamis: the Ea, for instance, lived through the Final Days, so were still alive when Meteion started her Song of Oblivion. And somehow we managed to convince some of them to live on, showing that Meteion is most likely the trigger to their mass suicide. Like, congratulations we killed Meteion! Well she had 12000 years to destroy everybody else but ehhhhh at least our own star survived amirite?
- And like, how could they not unite her people toward the goal of defeating Meteion? They were ready to kill themselves to just erect a new aetherial bubble around the celestial currents. Are we really supposed to believe they couldn't have found
Her whole premise and discourse on why we're better than the Ancient also falls short, when you consider that they were time and time again portrayed as being as flawed as we were:- She mentions how Alisaie never loses sight of her dreams: is 12000 years of pain and suffering to bring back their friends not determination enough for her?
- To Thancred, she praises how he learnt to live with loss. Something that isn't unkown, however rare in their society: Lahabrea and Erichtonios themselves had to deal with grief ;
- The keeper of secret role Urianger holds has no weight here, when their society is full of secrets: Pandaemonium has hidden knowledge, herself refuses to tell people more about the events, Lahabrea hid the truth from Athena from everybody else ;
- Same with Y'shtola, somehow pursuing knowledge is such a quality that the Ancients didn't have? A society built on learning, bettering the star and themselves and going back for a nap? New light is shone upon what you know, and you adapt: the Ancients do that, look how quickly Emet accepted the whole Dynamis thing ;
- From hate to love, for Estinien, is again shown with Erichtonios ;
- To G'raha she says that he didn't give in to despair and led his civilization to salvation. The gall to say that when your own civilization came together to find a solution through sacrifice, while you had the solution all along lol ;
- And finally she congratulates us for always rising to the challenge. What did the Unsundered do the last 12000 years, just lay down whenever a champion defied them? They weren't curled up into a ball when Meteion started her Song, either.
Had we not went to the past to know how the Final Days were triggered, we couldn't have defeated it. The Ancients were never given a chance to rise to the occasion.
All these and more are the reasons why a lot of people don't like how she's portrayed in game, and cannot agree with the "she did what she had to do to succeed and that was the only path". No, she single-handedly decided she'd do better than everybody else and played God with so many lives, and it's no different than the Unsundered rejoinings, or Hermes little self-determination test.
They are not "anti-Venat", or consider that "she's the villain". Not more the villain than Emet or Hermes, at the very least.
And they don't agree that it was the only course of action, when the game shows us time and time again that Ancients had potential, that they overcame the same issues as us, and that even societies like the Nibirum could find meaning to life with time and some guidance.
But you know all these arguments perfectly well, Cleretic, since this subject has been debated ad nauseam on that forum. So I'll just finish with a link to this topic:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/452097 -
08-08-2023, 07:33 AMTeraqZodiark almighty, someone can cook.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alenore
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08-08-2023, 09:19 AMKizuyaKatogamiYou and Cleretic have the same issue of asking for evidence, evidence being given to you, and then you both either saying it’s not worth your time or it doesn’t count. You then claim the video is done in “bad faith” based on one video where you more than likely skipped around trying to find something “incriminating” as to get an excuse to not watch multiple videos of you being proven wrong over and over with in game sources. You mention leaving out key details, how would you know? You didn’t watch the video AND you skipped around most of it. To quote what you and your ilk like to say, it seems you just didn’t pay enough attention and didn’t watch the cutscenes :)Quote:
Originally Posted by thegreatonemal
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08-08-2023, 12:23 PMClereticActually, Kairos is the main reason this entire situation is salvageable in the first place. Let's run through the same events we saw play out, except Kairos isn't there. I think that's a bit of an oversimplification since I think a lot of Hermes' actions are predicated on Kairos' existence.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magikazam
The events in Ktisis play out as we see, but nobody's mind is wiped of them. We can set Hythlodaeus aside since he's not in any position of power.
We can safely assume that Emet keeps to his word and makes sure Hermes is out of contest to become Fandaniel. In terms of searching for applicants, they're back to square one; it doesn't seem like they had other options. We don't know how much time happened between the events of Elpis and the End of Days, but I think it's fairly plausible that in this scenario, there is no Fandaniel by the time the skies ignite. Being generous and assuming there is, we don't get much better: the main thing Hermes brought to the table wasn't being a Fandaniel, but already having an intimate understanding of dynamis, a field so esoteric that it seems he's the only person in Elpis to do so. That's gonna lead to this Fandaniel playing catchup when the End of Days hit, at a time when any time lost is crucial. I think the chances of Zodiark happening in this scenario are slim-to-none, and with higher chance of failures.
Hermes, meanwhile, hits a big unknown in that while he'd definitely be subject to whatever passes for the Amaurotian justice system. We don't know what that is, but let's again take the generous assumption and say he's in some kind of prison. In the actual game, though, remember that he subjects himself to Kairos because he knows that it's basically the only way he'll be able to commit wholeheartedly to what the world needs in defense. At best, without Kairos, he's dead weight; he's not gonna help even if they ask. At worst, we're looking at a potential saboteur: if he slips the confines they put him in (or if they don't have any in the first place), then he's perfectly suited to ruin whatever they come up with.
Venat's technically not in a different position since her memory was never wiped in the first place, but there's suddenly a lot more on her shoulders in the long term. As I quoted on the second page, she does commit to building both defenses and escape plans; but unlike in the actual game where Zodiark was a functional defense, this time it's all on whatever she can rustle up. And judging by the fact we never saw what she could rustle up, it's probably not good. Technically she's in a good position to scout out a non-Hermes dynamis expert to weigh in on the Zodiark situation, but nothing she says indicates she knows anyone that fits the bill, and the issue she mentions of having to select allies carefully for emotional stability reasons is still true here: she can't just scout, even if she had the time for it. Frankly, I don't know what Venat does here, because her capacity to do anything here is pretty meager.
Basically, without Kairos the entire situation gets way messier, and chances of success drop perilously close to 0%. -
08-08-2023, 12:44 PMthegreatonemalYou mean the evidence that was refuted years ago when these discussions were new and the same stuff that disproves what a lot of you say that's on the first page. Your side hasn't disproven any of that. You've just tried and failed to talk your way around how you think it doesn't matter. When you can actually do that we can talk. You can't because its in the game and it's right there plain as day. As for the video. I clicked on one time stamp and within a minutes was hit with some stuff that is unbecoming of a video that has critical analysis in it's title. Not to mention the section where a lot of our points are brought up is labeled excuse Real good faith right there.Quote:
Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami
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08-08-2023, 12:53 PMKizuyaKatogamiPoint to me where we’ve been disproven? Because someone has posted above multiple points refuting these self same claims you keep pointing out as “refuting” us with in game evidence.Quote:
Originally Posted by thegreatonemal
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08-08-2023, 01:49 PMClereticYeah, he made a feast of undercooked meat, in hopes that it'd look like a victory if I choked on it. This is U.S. school debate circuit tactics: rapid-fire through a flurry of arguments with little care to their veracity or a unified argument, secure in the knowledge that since it takes more time to rebut a point than it takes to make it, eventually a point will go through uncountered.Quote:
Originally Posted by Teraq
Unfortunately, there's a problem there: I'm Australian. We don't play that game.
Alenore is not making an argument for most of that post, against me or anybody, as it's just a flurry of disconnected rebuttals against an imagined opposition. There is no cohesive, singular argument here. Some of these points even contradict each other in such a way that it becomes clear that he can't possibly hold them all to be close and true, as their only unifying thread is 'if you hold this view in opposition to this thing Venat did/said, then it makes Venat look wrong'. I truly believe Alenore doesn't actually hold any of those bulleted list points to be important, they're just here in hopes that I waste my time on them. And while I frequently waste my time, I'm not interested in doing it this way.
Instead, I want to zero in on the part of the post that I think Alenore truly believes, rather than just the things they'll say.
You're right.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alenore
She was not more morally justified than Emet or Hermes. Venat herself would be (and in fact is) the first one to tell you that. The Final Days of Amaurot is a clash of three sides who all believe, in their varied, limited and human views (well, human-ish), that they're doing what is best for everyone around them. Hydaelyn being the one that emerged on top was not, and has never been, a moral vindication of her. Her view is no less flawed than Emet's, her hands no less bloodied than Hermes', and I could pick apart all of them were I so inclined. Her view is agreeable to some, just as Emet and Hermes are, but that doesn't make any of them morally right.
However, while she is not morally right, she is tactically correct. The steps she took led to victory over what she set as her opponent. Again, this doesn't vindicate her morals, but the largest and simplest fact of the entire conflict is that she won, in both the short and long term. Could others have succeeded in the same thing? Emet-Selch doesn't think so, and I have no reason to doubt him on this. Trying to tear down her tactical achievements in efforts to declare her morally wrong just seems beside the point to me, but so many times people seem to angle towards that, taking the easy option of picking apart a fictional story's logic rather than the more difficult subject of an imperfect moral conundrum. -
08-08-2023, 02:19 PMKizuyaKatogamiWhat’s funny to me is that it wasn’t that many years ago that you were calling out 90% of what Emet-Selch said as flawed and lies, yet he says an out of character statement that you agree with and all of a sudden he’s right 100% clear cut. Disregarding that though, the fact of the matter is the story doesn’t treat her with such grey morality. She is quite literally referred to as a primal of peace in the codex and a hero in her minion description. You very well know if we got an Emet-Selch minion in ShB depicting him as a hero, you would be seething.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cleretic
As for Alenor’s post? I think you’re the last person that should be trying to downplay someones argument when again, you literally asked for evidence on our claims, we gave you proof and you decided you didn’t want to spend the time to look at it and then claimed it was in bad faith based on a poster who has a history of badmouthing and disrespecting posters here on other sites, but you probably know about that all too well. -
08-08-2023, 02:46 PMAbsimiliardSuspension of disbelief only goes so far for some people, particularly when what you're being told you should think is at odds with what makes sense based on the information you've been provided. There are a number of holes in the story that are rather difficult to simply dismiss with "it's just quirky writing" or "oh, it's only fiction." Even works of fiction need internal logic, after all. I wouldn't say bringing these holes up is taking the easy option. If anything, it's a far more involved process than addressing a moral quandary most people are already in agreement on.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cleretic
As it stands, I think (barring a few people that are being ridiculously obstinate) a majority of the outspoken portion of the playerbase is firmly entrenched in the camp of "everybody did a bunch of really heinous crap for various reasons, and all of them have oceans of blood on their hands." -
08-08-2023, 04:06 PMMagikazamIf the mind erasure doesn't take place, The trio don't forget our story and the fact we already determined Dynamis is the key to the whole issue here. Meiteon doesn't get to escape and they properly study her. Considering Venat could guess we come from the future simply by the fact we had her spell on her despite never meeting her, I think it fair to assume the Ancient, with all key to the problem in hand in this situation, would figure it out. It just create a situation where the Ancient has the same tool and information the Scion had. The only thing the mind erasure clock does is help the whole scenario deal with the usual time travel issue. It just turns it so the WoL going back to the past only affects the present by creating a time loop.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cleretic
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08-08-2023, 04:35 PMClereticYeah, I grew as a person between then and now, realized that I was digesting the story in a way that both wasn't intended and wasn't very healthy for me or anyone. There's a lot of things I regret saying in a lot of times in my life, and I apologize if any of it hurt you, but I think the best I can do with all of those is just to do better in the present. And so, I am. Yeah, I probably wouldn't have liked getting that hypothetical minion at the point when I completed Shadowbringers, but today is not the day I completed Shadowbringers.Quote:
Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami
(Also, you might not know because by your own admission you weren't subscribed at the time, but we do have an Emet-Selch minion depicting him as a hero; my reservations on this are mostly in-universe.)
Why would Meteion not escape, given the only changed factor in this hypothetical is the lack of Kairos? Hermes can still lock down Emet and Hyth, and Meteion can still outrun Argos; I think her escape is a foregone conclusion in this hypothetical unless we want to add in more factors, and I personally don't.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magikazam
I think our main disagreement here is on the notion that, if you let Hermes take himself out of the picture, whether or not there's dynamis expertise. Everyone else in that group know of dynamis far more than they know dynamis. The three of them trying to figure out making Zodiark by themselves would be akin to the two of us trying to make a spaceship: regardless of how much we think we know, unless one of us is an expert on aerodynamics, it's just not gonna fly. So then, it comes to the question of 'are there any other dynamis experts they could ask without Hermes there', and no evidence suggests to me that there is. -
08-08-2023, 04:45 PMLyth
There are a few ways of looking at the discussion in this thread.
If you were simply upset about the decline and fall of the Amaurotine civilization and wanted to let those feelings out, by all means, although there are other forms of media that lend itself better to such a format than a discussion forum.
If your central thesis was simply that Venat is a 'polarizing' character, then that depends on context. Any topic can be 'polarizing' given the correct audience. It's a bit of a passive word, though, that passes responsibility to the subject matter instead of the person reacting to it. You can always choose to not get into arguments on the internet. I would say that Venat, Emet, Elidibus, and even Hermes are all polarizing figures, simply because we have only partial explanations about what happened, and those lorebuilding gaps still remain unfilled. That's neither a good or bad thing.
If you want to discuss the 'morality' around the Amaurotines' actions, you also have to be upfront about what perspective you are actually evaluating them against. Emet Selch was a mass-murderer who destroyed seven populated worlds and destroyed human civilizations on the source multiple times over. He thought that his fellow humans on the planet were inferior to him and not truly alive. He abandoned an ally in a locked-in state for 100 years because they were expendable. Elidibus tried to use chemical weaponry to slaughter an entire continent of both his own footsoldiers and enemies alike, and was rebuked by Zenos of all people for it. Lahabrea murdered his wife in private, concealed it from the Convocation, and buried the evidence around her experimentation even well after the destruction of his society. Mitron forcibly merged his soul with Gaia's against her will to try to force her to love him, and tried to destroy the First to create a utopia where only the two of them would co-exist. And then there's Fandaniel and his desire to just destroy everything. This is just the leadership of Amaurot. I'm not at all surprised that Azem just packed up and left.
That being said, the Amaurotines were alive under different circumstances, and just had different perspectives than we would have as a result. The entire star revolved around Amaurot. At the time of Elpis, the Convocation ruled over Etheirys as a whole, being neither elected nor having any form of oversight. These were the most powerful individuals on the planet, at a time when society was capable of making and unmaking entire species at a whim. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. They were a group of Godlings playing games over the fate of the planet across the past twelve thousand years, and most of them just lacked the insight into the suffering that they casually wrought upon millions. How could they know? Why would they reflect? It's also the reason why Emet's finale ends up being a hearty 'well played, no hard feelings'. These elaborate games over the fates of multiple worlds are another day in the life of the Convocation. This is what they do. The only thing that was missing was a cutscene of him and Venat playing chess in the Rift with glass pieces.
Either way, I don't think that there's any universal moral high ground to be had here, simply short of a conscious decision to not repeat the mistakes of our predecessors, as we cross over to that next horizon. -
08-08-2023, 04:53 PMKizuyaKatogamiUnless i missed something, where does it depict him as a hero here? Venat’s plain out word for word says hero. I don’t see anything of the sort here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cleretic
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08-08-2023, 04:58 PMKizuyaKatogamiThe issue you seem to miss here time and time again however though is the sundered are no different and they do indeed repeat the mistakes of the past. The 8UC with being willing to sacrifice an entire timeline and erase billions of lives just to bring back the WoL because they couldn’t move on yet they’re revered to as heroes. War of the Magi. Uldah with its slavery. Uldah with hosting a colosseum slaughtering animals for mere entertainment and laughs. Thordan,Yotsuyu’s past and the issue of rape being a prevalent thing. The list goes on. The sundered in every aspect here are worse than the ancients where yes, they had one off issues like Athena or Hermes, but in comparison to the Sundered? It’s night and day and the examples i gave outside of the 8UC have very little to do with the ascians causing those events.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lyth
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08-08-2023, 05:53 PMKazharWhy are you mixing up Ascian and Ancient?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lyth
This entire paragraph only works if you assume that people are the same during the entirety of their lives and can't change. The Ascians actions were inexcusable but it all happened after their world was destroyed and they were thrown into madness-inducing despair.
The Convocation in the times of Amaurot were very different, happier people, and the story insist on that point multiple times. Young Themis is treated by the story as a different character than Elidibus. Hades has trouble reconciling his future actions to his current persona (even though he's generally bad at understanding himself, so I'll give you that). Even Lahabrea, while he does understand why he would go to such lengths given the context, does not condone his future actions.
It's true for the Unsundered, but also the Sundered Ascians with Gaia and Amon being explicit exemples given to convey that they're quite literally not the same people, despite sharing a soul and memories.
(Also are we really blaming Lahabrea for getting rid of Athena? She was experimenting on their son.) -
08-08-2023, 06:41 PMClereticIt's very much unquestioned imperialist rhetoric, put forward as the thing the Empire venerates, respects and idolizes with no counter-voice at all. The kicker is that it was given out during The Rising, which in-universe is an event celebrating the fact Eorzea survived Dalamud; I mostly don't care because minions are probably the least important part of the game to me that isn't Frontlines, but I was raising in a mostly good-natured way 'hey this seems in poor taste'. It'd be like the Wind-up Nidhogg being an Ishgardian Restoration prize.Quote:
Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami
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08-08-2023, 10:51 PMKizuyaKatogamiI see what you mean but to me at least if i take it in game it’s meant to be read from a garlean pov. The issue with Venat’s is that i’m supposed to be led to believe she’s morally grey but she’s again, which no one seems to remark upon btw, referred to as a PRIMAL OF PEACE for some reason and also a hero. It just makes no sense and the bias is quite clear there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cleretic
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08-09-2023, 12:21 AMSannaR
Man you all must have been unsubbed when I made my Zodiark Codex entry thread. Seriously though when are you going to move on from this? Yes, I know me and many others don't have to enter these threads but do so anyway. But the fact this topic only gets a breath of fresh air when you all have decided to resub or gain forum access vis the free login campaign just makes it look bad. As it would be like if this was a Star Wars forum and people were discussing things that happened in Andor or getting excited about the new Bobafett season only for a person or a group of people to every few months make threads about they hate the inclusion of Vader saying Nooooo during RTJ. Or some sports fanatic ranting again about how their favorite team or athlete got robbed that one time even if it's been years since said game or event took place.
I mean the only time it feels like a certain 800+ page thread gets back onto the main page is when one of you sub. Or someone who feels the same way just finished EW. Though the just finished types tend to make a new thread more often than bumping. Heck I'm sure that thread is one of the few the residential troll doesn't bump.
We're literally about a year out from Dawntrailer's release and yet you're still claiming that you all have been harshly silenced this whole time? When we all know that's not been the case? How can you be silenced if one of you bring up this topic every other month or so or back when this was fresher once every month. -
08-09-2023, 12:28 AMAbsimiliard
Meanwhile as this thread continues to prove the video's point.
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08-09-2023, 12:32 AMSannaRI'll try to make this my last post to this thread. Meteion's escape already is a thing though even without the mind wipe. Hermes told her to flee and had kicked in a faster speed. Unless you mean that the only reason Venat didn't follow her into actual space is due to the ticking clock of Kiros. Which we don't have enough evidence for. We don't know if Argos has a higher speed than what was already shown. That and Endsinger was already a thing as all the other off planet Meteia had already gone bad and were out there. We were just trying to stop the on planet one from trying to join the others.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magikazam
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08-09-2023, 12:39 AMKizuyaKatogamiAre you being serious right now? You enter a thread about a video. People talk about what’s in the video. Yes you have it right, you don’t need to enter. But i know all of you can’t stop yourselves because you’re literally addicted to trying to disprove “wrongthink.” It’s genuinely incredibly sad. Yes, people feel silenced, and you can go through countless comments on the videos to see countless people thanking the creator for making the videos and creating an outlet where people can freely express their thoughts where they won’t be blasted on on sites like SA,4chan, and elsewhere. Something many people in this very thread have done and they very well know who they are.Quote:
Originally Posted by SannaR
As for people still discussing this....this was a 10 year arc for a story that praises itself and preaches so much about how deep and amazing the story is. Do you really think people who invested 10 years into this story would just go "oh okay" and go? This is the lore forum after all. To even come in here and complain about people discussing lore is beyond ridiculous and this is again what i mean with you Sanna. Actual bad faith posts complaining about people talking about lore in...the lore forum in threads you dont have to enter.
What you're basically saying is this topic only gets a breath of fresh air when you run everyone else out with your invalid complaints and then the lore forum dies when the only thing to talk about is a horrible void arc with nothing of substance happening. -
08-09-2023, 12:58 AMXeroniaWith all fairness the Ancients plot was still ongoing in 6.4 via Pandemonium. Kinda hard to forget them when the most recent patch reminds you yet again "Oh yeah I am leaving all of you to die". Again I hope they never touch this part of the plot again so it can just fade away with time and be as forgotten as Ala Mhigo.Quote:
Originally Posted by SannaR
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08-09-2023, 05:33 AMthegreatonemalThe plot in 6.4 had very little if anything to do with the sundering. It did have to do with an Ancients who thought her own kind were not perfect stewards o the star and sought to become a god so she could remake them. Elidibus was also there to get his sinking into the water closure. A welcome addition, who doesn't wanna hear another rendition of neath dark waters. It's a good song!Quote:
Originally Posted by Xeronia
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08-09-2023, 05:52 AMXeroniaDoesn't Erich's message directly reference the Final Days have started when he is recording it, not really a shock the Final Days would correlate with Zodiark, Hydaelyn, and the Sundering in my mind at least? I don't personally see that as a huge jump in logic but hey different ways our minds work I guess?Quote:
Originally Posted by thegreatonemal
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08-09-2023, 06:48 AMthegreatonemalIt's not particularly something I'd bring up with that story. It's only real relation to it is that it explains where he was when that went happened We now know he wasn't one of the sacrifices. I always thought he was and that's why Lahabrea went so hard and wore himself out, he's trying to get his son back. Like i said It has little to do with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xeronia
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08-09-2023, 07:37 AMAlenoreAh yes, my U.S. school tactic that i learnt growing up in France, as a Frenchmen who never visited the U.S.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cleretic
Two can (not) play this game. The fact you resort to ad hominem attacks as your first argument proves how shaky your tirade is.
The flurry of disconnected rebutals is exactly what it was meant to be: there's so many unrelated things that show how Venat story doesn't hold, that it's not surprising people wouldn't understand or agree with her, and can't understand why she's shown as a parangon of virtue and peace despite being on the same level of greyness as the other Ancients.Quote:
Alenore is not making an argument for most of that post, against me or anybody, as it's just a flurry of disconnected rebuttals against an imagined opposition. There is no cohesive, singular argument here. Some of these points even contradict each other in such a way that it becomes clear that he can't possibly hold them all to be close and true, as their only unifying thread is 'if you hold this view in opposition to this thing Venat did/said, then it makes Venat look wrong'. I truly believe Alenore doesn't actually hold any of those bulleted list points to be important, they're just here in hopes that I waste my time on them. And while I frequently waste my time, I'm not interested in doing it this way.
It wasn't mean to be a treaty about how Venat was PURE EVIL or whatever you think I intended.
Also yes, I, the oh-so-frequent poster who absolutely hates you, spent time posting all this just in hope to waste your time. Do you actually think you're that important?
For her to be more "tactically correct" than the others, it would require them to even have a chance, but she made sure they wouldn't. History is written by the victors, and that's exactly what I'm criticizing.Quote:
However, while she is not morally right, she is tactically correct. The steps she took led to victory over what she set as her opponent. Again, this doesn't vindicate her morals, but the largest and simplest fact of the entire conflict is that she won, in both the short and long term. Could others have succeeded in the same thing? Emet-Selch doesn't think so, and I have no reason to doubt him on this. Trying to tear down her tactical achievements in efforts to declare her morally wrong just seems beside the point to me, but so many times people seem to angle towards that, taking the easy option of picking apart a fictional story's logic rather than the more difficult subject of an imperfect moral conundrum.
I'm not denying that she won, I'm saying this was a pyrrhic victory at best, having doomed pretty much all the other stars and her own civilization in the process.
If that was a choice given to the player character, the Scions would be "no, we shouldn't sacrifice others so that we can live".
It's pretty much the rebutal to why the Ancients shouldn't have gone with a third sacrifice, one people use to explain why Venat thought the Sundering necesary. It's also part of the arguments we make against Emet when he says the star is theirs and we don't count.
But somehow, since it's Venat, all's well that ends well.
And now, as to the "imagined opposition", multiple posts in this topic alone show that you don't understand the main complaint, and how you paint her in a good light and deny sher should be painted as a villain, despite you considering Emet-Selch to be one.
You make arguments saying her plan is the only one that would've left survivors: source? Do you have access to how events would have turned in other timelines, where differents choices were made? One quick remark from Emet that goes against everything he ever said before doesn't count, when you discredited most of what he said before.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cleretic
- The End of Days were done for the Ancients, the world wouldn't have ended more than it did during the last 12000 years.
- The Nibiruns lived in a perfect garden, far from bone dry. They summoned Ra-La to kill themselves, not as a mean to an end, and succumbed to apathy. A fate possible for the ancients, but one that may be thousands of year away for all we know, and clearly didn't save us from other form of destruction.
What do you think would happen is somebody proposed to sunder the source further? Do you think the Scions would argue "But it would make 14 more planets! Can't you see this would be a good thing?!"
You're literally doing the same thing people don't like in game: taking at face value everything she says, and say "Amen, she's right" despite her claims making no sense.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cleretic
1. That's great and exactly what we would want her to do! Unfortunately she didn't fortify anything, in fact she split them in 14. Neither did she plan an escape, except for some lucky souls that would have left on the moon, killing over 13/14 of the sharded souls she created.
Source: her plan to escape with the Moon would have left the shards behind.
2. Of course she can't tell everybody, nothing to say on that.
3. And why she rules them out is illogical. At this point, Hermes isn't even Fandaniel yet. She can use the Echo to show them what happened. Emet and Hythlodaeus who already tried to stop Meteion wouldn't just say "tough luck we're just going to die".
You're also saying "their standard procedure would and already has caused problems", but nowhere in your quote does she implies that. It's however similar to something she says in one of Anyder's cutscene, when Zodiark has already been summoned. So yes, the Convocation followed their standard procedure because someone withheld informations.
Source:
- It happens rightafter Emet speaks with him, and we see Fandaniel taking hisseat while moving back to the present.
- Anamnesis cutscene
4. He's integral to a flawed plan that cost 75% of their population, to find a solution that she already knows (the celestial currents, and the subsequent aether shield from Zodiark), since the Watcher told us about it, and we apparently reported everything that happened during our meeting in Elpis with the trio. It simply doesn't make sense to fear to alienate somebody who may have some inputs when you already know all he had to offer.
Source: Endwalker main scenario. The watcher telling us post Zodiark about the celestial currents.
5. If she doesn't care about the timeloop, why repeat everything and not use the knowledge from the future to actually try to change the situation?
You also left out two interesting parts to the cutscenes you quoted.
The first is the one in Anyder, which starts with :
The part "our fate will be the same" you understand as them telling the Convocation about Meteion and all, is actually put in context here by saying "Zodiark will fail". Yes, in 12000 years, killed by the champion Venat literally coached so they realize her plan.Quote:
By the summoning of Zodiark have we been granted a reprieve. Yet immutable as the laws He has woven may seem, they will not serve to forestall our doom.
The second is her answer to the "Maybe I should stay and help" dialogue choice right before the part you quoted in Elpis:
"That WE must now play". It shows she intends to follow the same path. It is confirmed by the cutscene when you see her in the Atiascope, where she says: "I see... Thou didst journey unto Elpis. And now, the river of time converge".Quote:
I appreciate your sentiment, I truly do, but 'tis a very long game that we must now play.
And while you have maintained a stable presence here thus far, there are dangers in lingering overlong.
No, you must return to your own battlefield. Make use of the knowledge you have attained, that your days here and our friends' sacrifice be not in vain.
You're again mistakenly saying people consider her to be a failure, and again fail to understand the points people are making: it's not that she's good or evil, nor if her story arc is interesting or not, because as you said, she's widely liked as a character.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cleretic
Again, and I don't know how to say it differently this time so that you understand, is that what people don't like is how she's treated (a hero who did the right thing) compared to Emet-Selch (a villain who did bad things, redeemed in the end), when you yourself say they're both equally morally gray and none are justified. -
08-09-2023, 08:10 AMVyrerusALA MHIGO WILL RISE AGAIN!Quote:
Originally Posted by Xeronia
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08-09-2023, 08:29 AMTheodric
I'd have simply liked more consistency. For years certain posters here as well as the game itself took the stance that no matter how sympathetic the circumstances involved, acts of genocide were never to be justified. Then, suddenly, when it turned out that Venat was responsible for deliberate acts of genocide - as well as knowingly allowing the Ascians to roam free - suddenly excuses were conjured as to why it 'had to' happen.
So, no, contrary to what some seem to believe it was never about painting Venat as 'evil' but merely a matter of holding her to the same standards laid down upon every other character thus far.
I imagine quite a lot of people who take issue with her in the current iteration would have been more inclined to root for her if the game had taken such an approach. Little would change, since she could have easily have been painted as a Yunalesca style figure without the - quite frankly, bizarre - attempts to throw large swathes of the setting aside in order to desperately prop her up in a way that doesn't really hold up under even a bit of light scrutiny. -
08-09-2023, 09:26 AMMagikazamMeteion barely escaped when the group was focused on creating an exit path for the WOL. The only thing stopping them is an already battle-fatigued Hermes, Remember he basically limps around after the dungeon fight and he has to be carried out by Emet after the whole Kairos thing happens. We can also assume the group got tools to catch her like spells. Also while Hermes got knowledge on dynamis, he not the only one that know this much about it. He even tell you the reason they lack knowledge about it is that since they are being with lots of Aether, it hard to create practical things out of dynamis and it why the Ancient don't study it that much since they can't make use of it easily. It not that it a hard to understand and study it, they just don't bother because they can't use it in daily QOL stuff.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cleretic
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08-09-2023, 09:37 AMAwesomeJr44
Whoo boy, I haven't been here in a good while. Usually I stay away from this subforum but a friend of mine who had also seen the Venat video series had mentioned that they had seen a thread on it here while skimming various subforums, so I decided to pop in and see what was going on. While I could participate in the various arguments going on here, I think I will opt not to as I know better than to engage with the regulars of the lore subforum. With that said, I shall simply leave my general thoughts here.
I personally think that the video series is a very well thought out critique of the MSQ's failings in 6.0, and successfully points out why many people (myself included) have problems with the morals the writers decided to push. I'd definitely recommend giving it a watch if you can spare the time and you're even mildly interested in that sort of thing. Even if you don't end up agreeing with the viewpoints outlined in the videos, I think that viewing them would at least grant you a deeper understanding of why the 6.0 story didn't land quite right for some people. I'd recommend not letting the fighting here dissuade you from giving it a chance, many of the people here arguing against it have always been firmly entrenched in opposing viewpoints and were never willing to give it a fair shot to begin with. -
08-09-2023, 09:42 AMMagikazamThey were trying to stop Meteion from escaping so they could study her. Emet clearly state this at the start of the cinematic. My point here is that if they catch her (and that easier if 3/4 member of the party ain't focused on creating an escape path for the WOL) they can study the effect of dynamis in a easier way since she got a low ammount of AetherQuote:
Originally Posted by SannaR
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08-10-2023, 09:15 PMKizuyaKatogami
Sad to see the post calling out the bad faith posters in this thread got taken down but it is what it is, hopefully a lot of people saw it and know now to avoid engaging with them.
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08-12-2023, 09:52 AMT-rexpectationFirst time posting on the forums, I just wanted to voice my opinions as a newcomer who beat endwalker last year.Quote:
Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami
I was randomly reccomended the video for no apparent reason(only really listen to ff14 music sometimes), and i decided to voice my disagreement in the comments. I was rebutted by both the channel's account and some other person who responded to every dessenting voice without fail. I had never expierienced this amount of engagement in a comment section before so I was really fascinated. Turns out I'm 2 years behind on this war the forums have had about Venat. Making 2 videos on other characters and then just making a bunch of Venat videos was bizarre until i realized it was supposed to be a safe space for what was essentially discourse refugees. Some of my favourite stories are incoherent messes, so I didn't really care if someone thought that about endwalker. That said, the really specific focus on Venat from her critics to the point of actively fearing backlash in social media is genuinely concerning to me. Are you guys okay? -
08-12-2023, 10:32 AMAbsimiliardMass reporting and threats, my dude. Some people take this game a little too seriously. Some vocal detractors of Endwalker and its characters, but in particular Venat, have met with types of backlash that come with actual consequences. Words on a screen screen can really only rustle somebody's jimmies if they allow it, but getting your accounts mass reported into oblivion because you had an opinion is something I think any reasonable person would agree is a problem, yeah? I'm not going to claim to know who was doing what when or whatever, but I can tell you from first hand experience some people were willing to get downright nasty over it.Quote:
Originally Posted by T-rexpectation
As for the focus on Venat, I believe I can explain that reasonably well:
It's the double standard. It's pretty common for people to have an aversion to such things, and seeing it in action can (whether they realize it or not) leave them with a negative impression. In this particular instance, the issue I've seen people bring forward most often was simply how the narrative approached Venat's actions as compared how it approached the Ascians and their numerous misdeeds. At the end of the day, they all have more blood on their hands than any of us on these forums can possibly begin to comprehend. There's also the fact she played a key role in the story. You could swap Venat's role to just about any other character, and the discourse wouldn't change all that much other than a different name being thrown around.
For my two cents; my personal position on the matter has less to do with the double standard or Venat in particular and more to do with the writers seemingly walking back the morally grey angle they were setting up in Shadowbringers. Nuance in storytelling is something I'm rather fond of, and they did a pretty good job of setting it up. .... Then it largely went out the window. -
08-12-2023, 10:58 AMKizuyaKatogamiI don’t speak for anyone else but i do want to say it’s nice to see someone like you who may not have entirely agreed with our stance be civil and open to debate :) That’s all we want really. I will say though the amount of discourse and just flat out harassment people not just myself but many others have received over questioning a pretty polarizing character is crazy, especially with how much this games community touts itself as being such a loving and open community. It isn’t just us being dramatic as i know a lot of people may think. But originally there’s been people in threads on here who have thanked us for speaking out about it and being open to them as well so it’s thanks to the creator that they created an actual safe space to speak about it where hopefully they can’t be as harassed as on here or other forms of social media.Quote:
Originally Posted by T-rexpectation
I think in the end a lot of this comes down to this being the end of a 10 year long arc where countless players have invested in this games story for years upon years and for the writers to just seem to want to rush through it and not explain many things or even just cover up incoherent plot threads is incredibly agonizing. -
08-12-2023, 11:00 AMTheodric
There's only one Venat video. It's just broken down into different, bite sized segments for the sake of convenience. There's also a Hermes and Zenos video as well to be found on the channel - though as it happens, Venat is the more divisive of the trio.
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08-12-2023, 07:25 PMT-rexpectationThat kind of behaviour is obviously inexcusable, and I'm sorry you expierienced such a thing because of a videogame opinion. I think what induces this amount of vitriol on the forums specifically, is that one, you're associated with your ingame avatar here to an extent that doesn't happen on other sites and two, the writers played fast and loose with the lore of the world that avatar lives in to complete their emotional storytelling. It seems to me that endwalker was written partly backwards like a Nier game with the player's emotions in mind. When it's like that, analysing sets of dialogue is just an exercise in frustration, because framing and music and other aesthetic elements aren't just important, but might have more weight than what characters say and do. Ultima Thule is this writing style made manifest, and it worked for most people I interact with online, (mostly reddit and youtube comment sections).Quote:
Originally Posted by Absimiliard
Venat gets not one but two songs dedicated to her. "with hearts alligned" is from the player's pespective and is basically a gratitude bomb for helping us get this far. The other is "flow" which paints Venat as a gentle observer watching the souls of mortal cycling through the Eitherial sea for the sake of a "tomorrow", which I intrepret to be the day we finally meet Meteion. All this including Yoshi-p crying again and again when watching the Hydaelyn confrontation seems to suggest to me that the game uses all of the tools at it's disposal to make liking and accepting Venat and her actions, "right", from an emotional and thematic standpoint. I understand how that might not work for poster on a lore forum, but I think the emotiononal "go with the flow" angle is the only real way to "get" endwalker the way millions of others have, but that's not everyone's cup of tea.