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

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Originally Posted by CrownySuccubus

The flaw with this argument should be obvious: where is the magical line where progress should be halted? Should human beings go back to sleeping on rocks and hunting for our meals? Should we surrender all medical progress and go back to letting diabetics who need insulin to live die without it?

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Yeah that's been a lot of my problem with Venat, the suffering she inflicts is very uneven and petty and doesn't really seem to be about character building most of it is just people leading intentionally short painful lives and the people that care about them being broken by the grief. the game kept pushing that love angle but Venat is so abusive with it, and she doesn't seem to actually care for anyone....she's just horrible

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Originally Posted by CrownySuccubus

The usual cop-out answer to this is "Of course not. But we should strengthen our society to be ready for the inevitable moment that we DO lose these comforts." And sure, that COULD and probably WILL happen at some point in humanity's future, but....so what? How exactly do I prepare for a world in which my relative, who has survived on insulin for 40 years, dies because the apocalypse made finding that medicine impossible? By not giving it to them?

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I also find it odd that the culture that most seem to meet this ideology is the Garleans and the game has spent most of it time demonising there culture and the brutality there suffering caused them to turn to.

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Originally Posted by Teraq

Re: Wanting Hydaelyn to turn out to be an antagonist

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I thought she'd be an antagonist in the same way Emet was. Sympathetic motivations, but someone who needed to be stopped. I'd say it almost worked out that way except for the fact she is commended while he is vilified.

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And the time loop being an explanation for things is, as we all know, an objective proof of the plot sucking ass, and I will not hear any opposing views on this particular matter, thanks.

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This.

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Originally Posted by CrownySuccubus

"Oh my God. They're going to contrive some reason for Hermes to hit us with the mind-eraser ray, aren't they?"

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Similar experience. Once they busted out Kairos I just started sobbing. Not the kind that Ishikawa would want either because it was out of anger that the writers would do this. Then when Venat gave every excuse in the book why she wasn't going to do anything differently I tapped out, no longer interested in the story. Quoting Brinne because this accurately described my reaction during the infamous cutscene as well:

"The fury of one friend in particular over the montage sequence was based around how it was contorting itself to uplift the struggles of Venat as a tragic individual, asking us to focus on her perspective and how much the Sundering was hurting her, and used everyone she had killed and subjected to suffering as narrative accessories for her noble torment."

It was repugnant. The fact that my WoL canonically loves Venat is so galling to me. There is no reality in which I would ever speak fondly of her.

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Originally Posted by jameseoakes

Yeah that's been a lot of my problem with Venat, the suffering she inflicts is very uneven and petty and doesn't really seem to be about character building most of it is just people leading intentionally short painful lives and the people that care about them being broken by the grief. the game kept pushing that love angle but Venat is so abusive with it, and she doesn't seem to actually care for anyone....she's just horrible

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Venat's "love" for mankind feels a lot like an abusive parent who "accepts" their child while doing nothing to actually show that love.

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Originally Posted by Teraq

have you tried telling their pancreas to forge ahead

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oh shit i gotta get right on that, how did i never think of trying this

edit: as someone who has unironically looked up a number of "surviving the zombie apocalypse as an insulin-dependent diabetic" thinkpieces which all essentially have the conclusion as "you don't," can't believe they've all been debunked by this post's, and 6.0's, insightful genius

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

I thought she'd be an antagonist in the same way Emet was. Sympathetic motivations, but someone who needed to be stopped. I'd say it almost worked out that way except for the fact she is commended while he is vilified.

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This is my big problem, there seems to be no reason why Venat is viewed so differently....she's as bad a Emet but we in my opinion rightful condemn and stop his actions but we praise her actions....

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Originally Posted by jameseoakes

I also find it odd that the culture that most seem to meet this ideology is the Garleans and the game has spent most of it time demonising there culture and the brutality there suffering caused them to turn to.

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Probably because it's easy to find parallels to the Garleans and Imperial Japan (and other fascist regimes, to be frank). A people that were destroyed by outside forces, rose from said destruction stronger by being better at playing by the rules everyone else forced them into, only to then see themselves as the "one true" ethnic group destined to "unify" all the rest under their banner.

Also, remember that the entire point of EW is that ALL ideologies will eventually fail. Every. Single. One. No exceptions. The second section of the Dead Ends was specifically crafted to show what would have happened to Eitherys if the Garleans had won.

I think a lot of people mistaken believe that EW claims "All ideologies will fail, except Venat's which is the correct one".

More accurately, it says:

"We already see how those other ideologies failed, so let's not repeat them. Instead, we need to go somewhere different."

"But won't that different way also eventually fail?"

"Yeah. But it'll be on our own, unique terms."

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Originally Posted by Xirean

Venat's "love" for mankind feels a lot like an abusive parent who "accepts" their child while doing nothing to actually show that love.

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Yeah my opinion exactly, though I'd say she only accepts them if they deal with things the correct way if not they're dead to her (If they can't deal with suffering right they don't deserve her love and deserve there fate)

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Originally Posted by jameseoakes

This is my big problem, there seems to be no reason why Venat is viewed so differently....she's as bad a Emet but we in my opinion rightful condemn and stop his actions but we praise her actions....

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She's worse actually. Every bad thing that he and other Ascians do falls onto her. She knew they would do those things and specifically set them up to do those things. Every rejoining is a bad thing that the Ascians did that she allowed to happen.

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Originally Posted by jameseoakes

Yeah that's been a lot of my problem with Venat, the suffering she inflicts is very uneven and petty and doesn't really seem to be about character building most of it is just people leading intentionally short painful lives and the people that care about them being broken by the grief. the game kept pushing that love angle but Venat is so abusive with it, and she doesn't seem to actually care for anyone....she's just horrible

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The insistence on the "love" angle was another part of what made Venat's writing so insecure, and the sense that deep down, it knew that what it was trying was shaky and didn't work. And the hard overcompensation on it - especially because the technique of "NPC loves the WoL = popular NPC" has usually been very effective up until this point - led to a lot of us making connections towards the absolute cliches of abuse rhetoric and victim-blaming. Which I'm sure never occurred to the writers, but here we are.

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I also find it odd that the culture that most seem to meet this ideology is the Garleans and the game has spent most of it time demonising there culture and the brutality there suffering caused them to turn to.

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The single member of present day humanity who embodies Venat's ideology and methods most is unironically Ilberd Feare.

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Originally Posted by CrownySuccubus

Also, remember that the entire point of EW is that ALL ideologies will eventually fail. Every. Single. One. No exceptions. The second section of the Dead Ends was specifically crafted to show what would have happened to Eitherys if the Garleans had won.
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I think that all Venat really did was put Eitherys on that parth, the people she made are petty and cruel and she's pushed that trait as that's what suffering breeds. I don't see how they've done anything to not make that the eventual fate when at some point things get out of hand (Xande almost did that)

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

Not Thordan? Replaying HW I noticed quite a few similarities.

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It's really odd that the villains suit Venats ideology far better than any of the protagonists....