On Venat's Role in the Story

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Originally Posted by redheadturk

Oh, I dunno, so maybe if the devs happen to see how dissatisfied a significant portion of their player base is with this outcome it may encourage them to resolve this in such a way that it doesn't leave a bad taste in the mouths of that significant portion?

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What kind of resolution do you think would satisfy you, and the other people who did not enjoy/agree with the story of Endwalker?

Maybe a separate timeline where the sundering didn't happen, as I have suggested more than once? Getting rid of the stable time loop wouldn't be that much of a bother, and I daresay it'd satisfy most of us. Beyond that, as fast as possible a rebirth for the Unsundered.

Edit to add: and reborn with all of their memories of Amarurot so they can rebuild on the Source

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

What kind of resolution do you think would satisfy you, and the other people who did not enjoy/agree with the story of Endwalker?

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Not the person you quoted but just wanted to give my thoughts. All i'd want at this point are a few things.

1.Branching timeline for the Ancients.
2.Elidibus and Zodiark given the recognition they deserve for saving the planet not once but twice.
3.The sundering itself to be shown in a cutscene.

So - the resolution to the moral conflict and what you see as unsatisfying writing would be to essentially - retcon it completely, and sidestep it by creating an entirely new timeline?

Which timeline would we follow? The one we know, or the new one. Will there be travel between these timelines. Would you want this new timeline to be explored in the lodestone as a piece of secondary writing, or in the MSQ, or maybe even in a piece of Ultimate content, like the current Dragonsong Ultimate?

The one we know, naturally. I don't care if we never get to see the timeline, just knowing they're happy and not shitcanned in another timeline is personally enough for me.

So, if tomorrow. A short story or piece of content, or even statement from the writers came out and said "the many worlds hypothesis is true in this setting, and any timeline you can imagine exists parallel to the ones we know" that would be satisfying?

It would. The time loop never sat well with me in the least. Why send us back if we can't change anything at all?

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

Not the person you quoted but just wanted to give my thoughts. All i'd want at this point are a few things.

1.Branching timeline for the Ancients.
2.Elidibus and Zodiark given the recognition they deserve for saving the planet not once but twice.
3.The sundering itself to be shown in a cutscene.

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^^^^This^^^^

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Originally Posted by redheadturk

It would. The time loop never sat well with me in the least. Why send us back if we can't change anything at all?

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Really? Even if you never got to see or interact with it in any way? Even if it's never brought up again, or has any narrative significance.

I don't know. If I was unsatisfied with a story, I don't think being told "oh but everything is fine in another timeline, but we won't be exploring that one" would sit well with me at all.

We never got to interact with the 8UC timeline except in a Tales Of, most folk were fine with that. Giving the Ancients the same treatment in a separate timeline would again satisfy most.

I am just loving the fact that folks are now just saying “make the story for me.” I would’ve been laughed at for saying something similar in ShB when the everyone was acting like Hydaelyn was gonna turn out evil. Just honestly incredible.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

I am just loving the fact that folks are now just saying “make the story for me.” I would’ve been laughed at for saying something similar in ShB when the everyone was acting like Hydaelyn was gonna turn out evil. Just honestly incredible.

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You act like a simple Tales Of story is such a hugggggge imposition :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

Really? Even if you never got to see or interact with it in any way? Even if it's never brought up again, or has any narrative significance.

I don't know. If I was unsatisfied with a story, I don't think being told "oh but everything is fine in another timeline, but we won't be exploring that one" would sit well with me at all.

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But that’s specifically what they did with the Ironworks story. They couldn’t deal with killing any of those characters off so they made it a branching timeline where they survive. They could have killed them all and the only thing that would change is Graha’s entire plot would be far more grey than it is now.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

There is debate about what exactly nirvana means or entails and the presentation of the Buddha as being a god-being one with the universe in Journey to the West is just one interpretation, but I was referring to the concept of parinirvana, or nirvana after death more specifically.

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Buddha being a god-being is one of the most common and accepted versions of the belief system. Sure, Buddhism is diverse enough to have many different interpretations of what Buddhahood is, or what nirvana is, but almost EVERY Buddhist would scoff at your implication that Nirvana is something to be overcome or negated. "There is debate" is being used as a weasel word here to imply that Buddhists' belief in Nirvana as an ultimate goal has no wide consensus, when it very surely does.

You are also using the term parinirvana incorrectly. Parinirvana indeed means "nirvana after death", but it likewise does NOT mean oblivion. The difference between nirvana and parinirvana is basically the same as "going to heaven" and "going to heaven after you die". It's literally the same thing -- the latter simply describes that death as a way to get there.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

But, if you want to run with the JttW ideal of the Buddha as a perfect, universal entity free of weakness and suffering - Obviously Endwalker rejects the entire concept of such a being. The idea of perfection, the idea of freedom from suffering as a virtue, even the idea of an infinite universe, Endwalker basically says that all of these ideals are either bad or wrong or not true.

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No, what it says is that these ideas, are impossible within life. The entire point to Nirvana and Buddhism is that it is a state beyond life.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

I also don't think the idea of the aetherial sea is equitable with the idea of nirvana, not in the least because it's only a pit-stop on the path to further reincarnation.

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The Aetherial Sea is presented as part of a person's soul becoming one with the planet, and while other parts of it become integrated into a new consciousness. Exactly how this works is ultimately left nebulous, but it fits within Zen Buddhism's belief that there are multiple parts of the soul, including parts which remain within nature and recycle into the wheel of life and death.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

And bewildered and divided they would perish. Ancient society had never faced a crisis of any sort like this, especially not one of mortal threat. They’re reaction was clearly panic and disarray.

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That's not one person's decision to make. I've said this before, but if someone's life choices would result in them dying at 40 instead of 80, then it's still their right to choose. Not have someone else choose for them.

And besides, what you're saying is ALSO true for the Sundered. The only reason they survived is because they had 12,000 years of help from Hydaelyn, while the Ancients had NONE.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

And the point I would make is you only need enough people to react in a way that would endanger everyone to justify remaining quiet.

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Irrelevant, because it never happened aside from Venat's guesswork.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

And you know what, I disagree with that person entirely. The game doesn’t say “oh the strong will live and that’s good.” It says “all will face suffering, despair and death, and there’s no promise we will overcome. This is a hard existence, but each an everyone of us, no matter their temperament, no matter if theyre brave or courageous or inherently strong willed, they can all find the strength to continue. Can find joy and light in the darkness.”

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Yes, it does. The game literally says that those "too weak" to deal with suffering are doomed. That is the entire POINT to Venat's sundering. That is the entire POINT to Venat choosing the Scions to be the ones to fight Meteion. She literally TELLS you this in person, right to your face.

That is literally social darwinism.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

To me that’s beautiful. But that’s ultimately my interpretation, so let’s I think recognize that different people will interpret differently and that’s actually a good thing.

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No one said you couldn't.

You guys are the ones here telling others are wrong for having a more negative interpretation.

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Originally Posted by redheadturk

You act like a simple Tales Of story is such a hugggggge imposition :rolleyes:

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I’m just saying this is a hilarious thread.

Now I wanna start making demands!

Where’s my tales story showing the calamity of lightning where humans starved and died to horrific diseases as they huddled in caves, to scared to walk outside for fear of being struck by lightning all the while Emet talks about how feeble they are?

Where’s the story of about the young Amdapor child who drowns in the calamity of water while the Ascians stand back and cackles at the wretches?

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

I am just loving the fact that folks are now just saying “make the story for me.” I would’ve been laughed at for saying something similar in ShB when the everyone was acting like Hydaelyn was gonna turn out evil. Just honestly incredible.

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You realize that someone asked it. We’re not just saying it out of the blue. Please read next time thank you.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

I’m just saying this is a hilarious thread.

Now I wanna start making demands!

Where’s my tales story showing the calamity of lightning where humans starved and died to horrific diseases as they huddled in caves, to scared to walk outside for fear of being struck by lightning all the while Emet talks about how feeble they are?

Where’s the story of about the young Amdapor child who drowns in the calamity of water while the Ascians stand back and cackles at the wretches?

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You go and do that then. Not like they've not shown 1) the Void in all its glory 2) the 7UC unfolding, with Lahabrea cackling about it no less or 3) the First in its prelude to a Rejoining, but if you want more, go and ask for it. And as a bonus, I won't even entertain the thought that you're ridiculous for lashing out over some posters here answering a question posed by Kari. :)

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

But that’s specifically what they did with the Ironworks story. They couldn’t deal with killing any of those characters off so they made it a branching timeline where they survive. They could have killed them all and the only thing that would change is Graha’s entire plot would be far more grey than it is now.

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Well, I always thought the Ironworks story was more a resolution to Midgardsomr's story, it was satisfying to learn that even though he sleeps, he might eventually wake up and adopt the people of Ethyris as his children and help them rebuild. The eosteric question about whether or not people still existed after the timeline branched was a more academic one to me.

I also don't think it makes G'raha's actions any less ambiguous. After all, he has no idea what happened after he left his original timeline, for all he knows, they could have blipped out of existance as soon as the Crystal Tower vanished.

Similary, if you think Venat is guilty of genocide, murder, and all those other things, a second timeline doesn't undo that. After all, she still did the sundering in the timeline we know.

Like - really, what's the point? To know that some fictional characters are "okay" in another made up timeline? It feels so hollow. Like with Midgardsomr, I would want any alternative timeline story to have a point that goes a little further than 'and then Emet-Selch sipped tea and thought about how everything was going to be great forever'.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

and then Emet-Selch sipped tea and thought about how everything was going to be great forever

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Sounds great to me. The point of these stories is also enjoyment, which also seems to be the point of your strange circus act.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

I am just loving the fact that folks are now just saying “make the story for me.” I would’ve been laughed at for saying something similar in ShB when the everyone was acting like Hydaelyn was gonna turn out evil. Just honestly incredible.

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People are free to like or dislike whichever characters they so wish and discuss whichever aspects of the story they so desire, including speculation.

I can't consider wading through the latest round of 'wHy DoN't YoU lIkE hEr' appeals to me. Especially when it usually results in strangely personal insults, attempts to rewrite this board's historical harassment towards anyone who spoke up in favour of the antagonists and the inevitable threats to leave a thread only to return less than a day later to post anew.

A large factor in what makes people so upset with the Venat issue is that they feel they, and their WoL, are complicit in what happened. The "gross" feeling a lot of people describe is because they feel railroaded into agreeing with Venat that the massacre of the Ancients is an acceptable price to pay and it's not worth putting forth the effort to try to help them, despite being granted continuous opportunities - and a direct parallel to a time travel situation in just the last expansion where someone chose to rewrite history, at great risk to countless people, to save someone they cared for.

A story can be what it is. Venat can make her decisions, and people can decide for themselves if she's understandable or a terrible person, just like any other character in any other plot development. But when the game goes "YOU, your avatar, are happy to leave the Ancients to their fate," they are going to get a little crazier.

That is why so many say they would be okay with the existence of an alternate timeline, even if we didn't get to continue interacting with it. The existence of an alternate timeline would establish that, at the very least, the WoL is not complicit, and wanted to take steps to help the Ancients instead of shrugging off their deaths while still accepting quests from them.

It's utterly bizarre to me that a happy ending for the ancients, in their world, where we can explore it further via an AU and interact with them, freed of their sacrifice on the altar of dubious "themes" and caricature worlds, is such an anathema to some posters.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

Well, I always thought the Ironworks story was more a resolution to Midgardsomr's story, it was satisfying to learn that even though he sleeps, he might eventually wake up and adopt the people of Ethyris as his children and help them rebuild. The eosteric question about whether or not people still existed after the timeline branched was a more academic one to me.

I also don't think it makes G'raha's actions any less ambiguous. After all, he has no idea what happened after he left his original timeline, for all he knows, they could have blipped out of existance as soon as the Crystal Tower vanished.

Similary, if you think Venat is guilty of genocide, murder, and all those other things, a second timeline doesn't undo that. After all, she still did the sundering in the timeline we know.

Like - really, what's the point? To know that some fictional characters are "okay" in another made up timeline? It feels so hollow. Like with Midgardsomr, I would want any alternative timeline story to have a point that goes a little further than 'and then Emet-Selch sipped tea and thought about how everything was going to be great forever'.

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He does know though. It’s why he acted surprised when he didn’t disappear. It means the other timeline is still intact.

Why would you ask us what we want and then try to pose a question of what’s the point? I could ask that question all day. What’s the point of keeping all the scions safe and giving them bucketloads of plot armor. What’s the point of all the fakeout deaths. What’s the point of them reiterating the final days if it didn’t amount to anything major. The point could be us getting to see an insight on what their society would look like without the final days looming over them. I figured that was pretty obvious. It’s ironic you talk about it feeling hollow, when many things in this expansion felt hollow, the aforementioned fakeouts for example.

As an aside, it's interesting how the same posters insisting that any sort of mitigation of the tragedy the Ancients endured would somehow take away from the 'consequences' yet whenever it is suggested that the Scions are held accountable for their misdeeds or are at risk of permanent harm somehow the story suddenly doesn't need anything dark or gritty. Funny, that.

As for what I'd like to see? Consistency. I care less about any given character and more so about interesting world building. I want to be able to explore new lands, mingle with the inhabitants and come to my own conclusions about their culture and people. I'd like to see the same morals enforced across the board, rather than specific acts being branded 'unforgivable' when the antagonists do it but whitewashed when the protagonists do it.

A wider variety of characters to suit a broader range of personal tastes would be great, too. The single player games all have a broad range of interesting characters amongst the playable cast. In FFXIV, however, the Scions are all a bunch of scholars with no real conflict or disagreement between them. Inevitably ending up with them almost always agreeing on everything.

One other thing I'd consider an improvement - removing that post-Elpis cutscene and replacing it with a proper rendition of what's shown in Elidibus's short story leading up to and including Anamnesis Anyder's events, and the sundering itself. EW had more than enough screen time to do this and plenty of redundant fluff to cut out if necessary. This is pivotal stuff. That 10 min scene does not cut it.

Just to give the crowd a new target person to pile onto and continue this shouting past each other on our subjective opinions of what characters we like and parts of the story we wish focus on, I'll be the actual person and not a vague strawman to state once more that I am that fan beyond delighted and grateful that the Ancients and their world is utterly gone. All Hail the Sundering, non-facetiously. Good riddance.

I found the worldbuilding of the Unsundered World under-baked and underwhelming when not outright unsettling and skin-crawlingly awful. Just as several posters have made it clear over and over that they prefer the Unsundered to the Scions (and 95% of the rest of the game's cast and setting), to me they are about the last characters and zone setting that I'd want ANYTHING to do with. Visual design of the NPCs limiting and ugly, majority of NPCs unlikeable and repetitive, the story opportunities like Pandaemonium's raid only furthering to contradict the 'paradise' that it utterly failed to convince me it was- that in particular Emet's ableism and fascism made him revolting and unpleasant to interact with and that I saw a direct line from his creation of the horrific empires of Garlemald and Allag to the attitudes of the Ancients that so unsettled and upset Hermes.

That the Ancients provide to XIV little beyond the Doylist answer to where certain mobs and concepts originated and the other tropes and character archetypes else could be provided by the Sharlayans, Loporrits, Ea and the Omnicrons, or other present-day or more recent groups (the nation of scholarly pacifistic debaters confronting their neutrality and arrogance of deeming who/what worthy of survival, naïve creation magic wielders who all look exactly the same and are removed from the rest of the world, powerful emotion-suppressed aliens seeking perfection). And the creation magic element to them means that any gameplay as Azem would not work for this MMO but would need to be a simulation game.

I understand fans with the polar opposite feelings to me want that possibility that in some branching timeline the Sundering didn't happen. Hey, even though I doubt that said timeline had a snowball's chance in hell of surviving or defeating Meteion, I agree with the desire to have it exist. In-game our timelines converged, but it doesn't completely eliminate the possibility that some unplayable version where the timelines didn't converge happened. My interest in that timeline? Negative. Do I think it playable as part of XIV's MMO? Not until it reaches what Ishikawa strongly implies that it would be ..aka the final third of the Dead Ends dungeon. Other fans HC that it exists? Doesn't matter to me, it's not part of the game, go ahead.

I'm not going to argue you into agreeing with any more than you I. But now you can yell at me in addition to others.

My problems with Venat are what magnified a hundredfold I find disgusting in the Ancients and Ascians.

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Originally Posted by CrownySuccubus

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While I'd love to hear Ishikawa talk about her influences, and while you certainly can interrogate the text from a Buddhist, Hindu, or Stoic lens, these are simply a handful of the many ways of reading it. The question of why 'bad things happen to good people' is older than literature itself, so it's not surprising that multiple cultures have commented on suffering and resilience.

Akasha is actually really interesting. Aether, as you know, has its etymological roots in a Greek word that literally means 'sky'. Not only does it have place in Greco-Roman philosophy, it also had a place in Western scientific tradition up until the Michaelson-Morley experiment of 1887. It's role in-universe for FFXIV is very similar, being the primary subject of scholarly study.

Akasha is a Sanskrit word that literally means 'sky' as well. It has a role in Vedic philosophy and Eastern mysticism/spirituality. When you put the two together, you get a clash of polarities and of values - thought/feeling, science/mysticism, Aether/Dynamis, among others. You could argue that this thematic clash symbolically underpins the unravelling of Amaurotian society throughout the events on Elpis and the Final Days, and by bringing the two into harmony with each other is the conflict ultimately resolved. Either way, the etymological parallel set up here is either clever or fortuitous, and makes me interested in where they'll take the lore around these two forces in the future.

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With regards to your comments on depression, the story isn't making a comment about feelings of despair being 'weak'. The central theme is about resilience, which actually is an important part of the clinical literature on depression, if you really want to go into it. Some of those factors are biological, and others are psychosocial, like your network of social supports. The scene with Matsuya and the villagers of Palaka's Stand in 'When All Hope Seems Lost' is a beautiful illustration of a community coming to support each other in their time of grief. It really has nothing to do with 'being strong-minded'. There's also a scene in 6.1 where you honor the life and memory of Khalzahl, the compassionate merchant whose trading operation fell into hard times and ultimately transformed him into Svarbhanu.

'In that time of strife, any one of us could have broken. Any one of us may have been taken in by despair.'

Sorrow and suffering are part of the human condition. We are never alone in that, no matter how our disconnected society may make people feel otherwise at times. It's not about using your mind, your thought, to overpower and master some 'inner weakness' (that's a bit like trying to use aether to conquer dynamis). It's about acknowledging, understanding, and supporting each other in your times of need.

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Your personal response to Venat largely comes down to whether or not you like her character, when the dust settles from the Gestalt response of your first meeting. Whatever conscious justification you can derive for this, necessarily comes after the fact. I can't say that I've ever personally sat down to resolve out an ethical dilemma and suddenly come out with the epiphany that I detest someone. It is, however, very easy to condemn the ethics of someone whom you already dislike.

I do think that Venat is polarizing, and I think it's more interesting to look at why. Often, that comes from transgressing the neat bounderies around a character archetype. I think if you take the Amaurotians' descriptions of themselves at face-value (i.e. a paradise of the gods), the story itself reads very similar to the Greek Titanomachy, with a seasoning of Eden and a sprinkle of Babel. Gods fight gods in accordance with their whims and personal ideologies, and everyone else tries to stay out of their way. I can't say that I've ever seen an ethical treatise on the politics of divine coups, but that's largely because you subconsciously accept the cadre of muscular old men with flowing white beards as authority figures without question. So what's the problem this time around?

While Venat's primary role in the story is as Hydaelyn, a supreme deity for the planet, she also has a role to play as the previous Azem. This is critical in that she allows us to experience what the 'Azem' role means within Amaurotian society, much like the 'Tales from the Shadows' stories, without encroaching on the character that you, the player, have built. The result is an eclectic mix of bunny ears lawyer and decisive leader that's oddly reminiscent of Sheryl Nome, of Macross Frontier fame. And it's perhaps not at all surprising to similarly see questions of 'authenticity' be front and center from people who are unable to mentally resolve these two seemingly contradictory facets of her character. This becomes especially obvious when you read some of the reactions to the Sundering scene and its Garden of Eden decree. But that's part of what I find particularly intriguing about her portrayal.

Perhaps we just need to rethink Gravitas, and consider that there's more than one way to portray inner strength.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Your personal response to Venat largely comes down to whether or not you like her character, when the dust settles from the Gestalt response of your first meeting. Whatever conscious justification you can derive for this, necessarily comes after the fact. I can't say that I've ever personally sat down to resolve out an ethical dilemma and suddenly come out with the epiphany that I detest someone. It is, however, very easy to condemn the ethics of someone whom you already dislike.

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I've mentioned this before elsewhere, but this was absolutely not true in my case. The second Venat got name-dropped in 5.2, I don't think I've ever been more hyped for a character in this game. My friends had to endure my constantly gushing about I WANT VENAT TO BE COOL I WANT VENAT TO BE COOL! A friend who was ahead of me in Elpis mentioned meeting Venat, and my immediate response was "PLEASE, TELL ME SHE'S AWESOME!" I found her very, very likable in Elpis and noted to that friend when I reached that point I found her super charming, and she had won me over! I was so happy! Even back in Shadowbringers, as much as I sympathized with and loved the Ancients, with the description 5.0 gave of the Hydaelyn vs Zodiark conflict at the time, I would have sided with the Hydaelyn faction being in the right, and discussed with others at the time how horrible it must have been for Venat (though we didn't know her name yet) to be confronted with an unreasonable Convocation under Zodiark's thrall.

Then things turned out the way it did, and the most generous response I could provide at the time was: "...huh?" And all further interrogation simply deepened the sense of, "Wait, wait wait. Are we actually doing a Deliberate Genocide Apologism now? Like is that point blank what we are doing? Huh???"

Even after everything, I would find Venat very compelling, interesting, and likable in a vacuum, if the story wasn't hellbent on taking her side and enforcing she was absolutely correct in her decisions and emphasizing how so very sad and guilty SHE felt over the position she found herself in (due to her own choices) over the harm inflicted on her victims.

I'm not sure where the idea that people hate Venat is even coming from. Plenty of people are on record as stating that they found her to be likable during Elpis, myself included. Yet the ending cutscene for Elpis is very much this game's 'Burning of Teldrassil' moment. A highly controversial and divisive event that divides even many of the fans of a particular character.

Some of us also draw a specific distinction between Venat and Hydaelyn since in many ways they are essentially two different entities even if they're essentially the same character on a technical level.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

No, I'm really trying to understand where this is all supposed to be going. I am even conceding, for the sake of moving the discussion along - that the sundering was genocide, that Venat murdered her own people, and that she did not have faith in them.

So, what now? Is the entire point of this discussion to just repeat the same points endlessly? I am desperate pleading with you all the actually talk about something now. Instead of just going in circles forever about how Venat bad.

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I've said before that the main reason I still discuss this stuff on the official forums is so that people's sentiment about it reaches the developers, but let's be honest: That's obviously not all that's going on. Really, I think the main reason people are still fired up about the issue (both for the people making a stink, and those defending it) is that it's human to want to defend an emotional response you have as legitimate in the public sphere. We're social animals - people putting down our feelings as stupid or illegitimate does hurt us and weaken our sense of identity, even when it's about dumb video game stories. Establishing an outlook we have as the consensus allows us to enjoy a validating feedback loop, even if nothing fundamental actually changes.

With that said, I don't agree with the people saying that an alternative timeline would really be a great solution. I wouldn't hate it or anything - it'd be nice to know the Ancients were still out there somewhere, and I do think they'll 'bring them back' in some form just because they're so popular - but what's wrong with EW isn't that the Sundering happened, it's that the plotting is a janky mess. The time loop relies on an information paradox which makes no sense. Venat's fundamental motives and to what extent her actions were informed by a desire to preserve the timeline versus preventing the sacrifices/losing faith in her people generally versus the utilitarian knowledge that people without control over dynamis and could never defeat Meteion is completely unclear, even though these motives are contradictory under scrutiny - especially given we know she chose to spare Emet and allow the Rejoinings to happen (or at least potentially happen) on purpose. And that's all without getting into the fact that the text treats her with unambiguous positivity despite the gray nature of her actions, and the awkwardness of the whole scenario (the hermes excuse for why she didn't tell the convocation makes no sense after zodiark plan is already in place, why didn't she tell more people, etc) or the plain unanswered questions (what happened to her followers? did they know everything?)

But this is just describing Elpis-specific symptoms of the real problem with Endwalker, which is that it's a thematically muddled work that feels like it was written by a team that didn't quite agree with each other about what they were trying to do. If you talk to people who've played the expansion and go beyond the superficial, they often have radically different ideas on what it was even trying to say. Is it saying that suffering an intrinsic necessity for good, with paradise another sort of hell, or just that suffering merely inescapable? What exactly is it's message about depression and the human condition beyond "keep moving forward" in a vague sense, since it spends a weird amount of time judging people and groups for being too depressed or too positive in the wrong ways? The whole story feels less like a thesis and more like the writers struggling with questions they don't really have answers to and welding that struggle into a narrative, and while I sometimes like stories with that vibe, EW's absolute confidence in its vague positivity mixed with that sense of judgement creates a really gross-feeling cocktail to me.

The truth is that a lot of this stuff isn't really fixable; it's not like they're going to go back and redo the expansion. But they could, and I expect will to some extent, do a lot to help it by going back and expanding on these ambiguous points during the post-expac content, and maybe doing some light retconning to make certain plot beats feel less "????". I hope this discourse will give them some ideas of what to do.

Like, lemme be clear: It's not like I want them to burn the story you guys liked to the ground. I want to like Venat, and feel catharsis through the whole arc of the Ancients as it exists already, rather than frustration. This isn't a WoW-esque situation where the core beats of the story are irredeemably flawed, it's that they're executed awkwardly.

Here we go. Re: Hermes

The Final Days had been forestalled, that's why the focus shifted to Venat. One of my gripes with EW is things that were a result of the sundering were shifted to the Final Days while Hydaelyn receives credit for Zodiark's actions. The entire narrative from character interactions to denial of history exist to gaslight the player into believing Venat was a good person who saved the world when in reality she's one of the lore's primary antagonists with the sundering arguably causing more death and destruction than the Final Days themselves. She gets the bulk of the criticism and discussion because we are presented with someone whose actions are antithetical to her characterization. Add to this her motivations are fear and ideology combined with being given an opportunity to do things differently and still choosing genocide, it's unconscionable.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

1.Branching timeline for the Ancients.
2.Elidibus and Zodiark given the recognition they deserve for saving the planet not once but twice.
3.The sundering itself to be shown in a cutscene.

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I'd add to this that the game quit fawning over Hydaelyn. She's no heroine and her codex entry is vomit inducing. The Convocation, Elidibus, Zodiark, those are the world's saviors. Hydaelyn destroyed Etheirys and its people on a gamble driven by irrational fear and permanently peaced out before even learning whether or not her grand plan yielded a favorable result. She is truly the worst person in every conceivable way particularly because she's supposedly well-intentioned and the sundering is portrayed as some kind of necessary evil (despite her literally never trying anything else). It's galling to see it celebrated to the extent of genocide apologism as mentioned earlier. I'm frankly shocked this made it past SE's ethics department.

I also find it ironic the amount of debates we've had here over unmaking creatures without souls when Venat consistently does not care about souls. She didn't actually care about the sacrifices, that was a red herring. She burnt through the souls of those who helped her become Hydaelyn. She sundered the souls of her people, which also made them (knowingly) more susceptible to dynamis to the extent that the Song of Oblivion extinguishes their souls. She was either never able to (irresponsible) or willing to (monstrous) help the shards, all of which appear to be collateral damage to her dynamis science project on the Source.

As a personal note, I was deeply uncomfortable with being forced into a trusting, favorable relationship with the person responsible for killing my original self. Perhaps if they'd made Azem a separate character, but they didn't they made them you to such an extent that players like myself feel they're one in the same. This is a woman who had no qualms with, in fact, decided tearing you (her protege) apart sounded like the best plan course of action (to later manipulate your reincarnation to kill your former BFFs which is sinister AF) but, sure, we love her now because she's on our side (until she isn't). Venat has no love or loyalty to any individual, it's to her vision. She would have 100% thrown the WoL under the bus if it would've furthered her goal, so this idea that she loves her "brave little spark" champion is pure nonsense. I'm sure she "loved" Azem too, as much as someone like her is capable of it.

Then, at the end of all things, one of the characters she wronged the most essentially says, "Oh, Venat, you scamp. You're such a good matchmaker!" What the actual F? Given that Yoshi-P admitted he manipulated Emet's character to give the WoL the infamous list of destinations I wouldn't at all be surprised if he's responsible for that lapse in character consistency too. After all, this is the man who spent a month crying at the Mothercrystal cutscene trying to get Hydaelyn's face just right. At least Elidibus remained bitter because somebody she wronged needed to.

I wish I had more to say about Hermes, but aside from hitting a kill switch out of spite what is there to talk about? Venat is the bigger mess of not only EW but the lore as a whole. The sad part is that she would've made one Hell of a villain had they the stones to commit to it (or at least that she tempered in which context EW makes a lot more sense), but instead we get her acting like a villain but portrayed as a heroine which is jarring. I don't know if it's subverting expectations nonsense or someone on the team just couldn't handle Hydaelyn being a "bad guy".

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

Oh, I see the issue. I don't believe the ancients are "humanity" they are essentially - the Deva and Asura, incapable of escpaing suffering because thier lives were too blissful to meaningfully understand it. They would have become like the Plenty - at least that's what Venat believes.

In this view, Venat is essentially creating a mankind that is capable of escaping suffering by sundering the ancient dieties into mortals.

Venat as a god is responsible for the world we live in, she had faith in us, and comparatively little faith in her fellow ancients. I think condemning her for that is as meaningful as condemning Prometheus for betraying Zeus and giving fire to humanity. I guess that's where I'm struggling with this discussion, yes - you can argue that Venat did a wrong to her fellow ancients, she would even agree with you. So what?

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Ancients were not gods. Venat was the one who decided to play god, which leads me to think she also had a mental illness (Considering all those people claiming to be gods in institutions...)

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

As a personal note, I was deeply uncomfortable with being forced into a trusting, favorable relationship with the person responsible for killing my original self. Perhaps if they'd made Azem a separate character, but they didn't they made them you to such an extent that players like myself feel they're one in the same. This is a woman who had no qualms with, in fact, decided tearing you (her protege) apart sounded like the best plan course of action (to later manipulate your reincarnation to kill your former BFFs which is sinister AF) but, sure, we love her now because she's on our side (until she isn't). Venat has no love or loyalty to any individual, it's to her vision. She would have 100% thrown the WoL under the bus if it would've furthered her goal, so this idea that she loves her "brave little spark" champion is pure nonsense. I'm sure she "loved" Azem too, as much as someone like her is capable of it.

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To be the personal note on the opposite perspective again - Endwalker further entrenched a deep separation between the Azem and who I think of as the WoL. In part because I could under no circumstances chose to befriend Hades, even his 'kinder' Elpis self -and I found Hythlodaeus annoying and as blatantly fanservice bait as the worse moments of Haurchefant and G'raha. Every extra lore statement of the three's friendship only hammered home how much the writing failed to engender any resonant feelings. They might be Azem's BFFs but there's no way to write them that would make me feel the same. Azem was no more my WoL than Ardbert was- and I feel more kinship with Ardbert than them. The only part to being the Seat of Azem that I find at all palpable was that the last Azem did not want a job that entailed working as part of the ruling government of a society that thankfully they were travelling away from. The only time I would stomach having our Azem as an actual in-game character is if we get to continue the XIV tradition of punching them in the face. Or that they are willingly Sundering themselves.

I agree with Kari that the Ancients do feel more like the Deva and Asura, and what feels human is the brand of privileged 'immortality' and hiding from consequences that one finds in teenagers, a sort of pathetic pitiable immaturity and incompleteness. And yes, that comes because I as the player character am mortal, so the immortal Ancients -who aren't a very deep or well-crafted and complete example of immortal beings in my opinion- come across as such, and thus Zodiark as a shield to avoid the maturity that I felt little remorse to remove. The Greek Myth that I find most resonant with the Ancients who summoned Zodiark is that of Cronos eating his children - and how that failed in the end.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I'm not sure where the idea that people hate Venat is even coming from. Plenty of people are on record as stating that they found her to be likable during Elpis, myself included. Yet the ending cutscene for Elpis is very much this game's 'Burning of Teldrassil' moment. A highly controversial and divisive event that divides even many of the fans of a particular character.

Some of us also draw a specific distinction between Venat and Hydaelyn since in many ways they are essentially two different entities even if they're essentially the same character on a technical level.

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Maybe it'd be more clear that even when we re-reach the conclusion that most agree that her keeping quiet was one of the worst ideas ever that that would be it. But no we have to make quadruple-ie sure that we've counted all of the ways that it didn't sit well with some. It doesn't come off as there's any distinction between hating her actions and her as a character from some in this thread. It comes off as an oh hey did I not tell you how much I just hate her? Like I super hate her, her dumb face and her choice to keep quiet. Even when we say that we agree that her choice is dumb and that we'd love to have seen more could we please move on. We just get dragged back to the loop. So, sorry if it doesn't come off as a "We like her, but holy smokes her keeping mum about Herme's dumb blind scientific test was the worst." I mean heck I think most even at some point has said they'd of liked more information or to have seen more of what the bloody hell went on post Final Days up to the sundering. It'd be nice if we could move on or not have other discussions turn into round 574 of "But what about Venat staying silent?".

I'd have to agree that there's not really much to discuss at this point since people have exhaustively gone into all the myriad reasons why they didn't like how Venat/Hydaelyn was portrayed and how it could've been done better.

Unfortunately, it's going to keep returning to our minds whenever the subject inevitably comes up in the MSQ and other content. I think a "best case" scenario would be that the Sundering starts to cause some very serious problems for the Source and the shards in her absence and it forces the cast to recognize that maybe she did screw up and make a very short-sighted decision that we may end up having to clean up the aftermath of.

It's also largely a consequence of deciding to tie the Ancients to pretty much everything of note. That in itself makes it hard to discuss anything without re-treading old territory.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I think a "best case" scenario would be that the Sundering starts to cause some very serious problems for the Source and the shards in her absence and it forces the cast to recognize that maybe she did screw up and make a very short-sighted decision that we may end up having to clean up the aftermath of.

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I'd love to see this. My theory has been just as Zodiark shielded the world so did Hydaelyn keep the sundering in place, so without her the barrier separating the Source from the shards is fading. I could easily see this as being intended too. As far as we know, there's no further need of dynamis and she's forced souls to know suffering and despair now, so goals accomplished.

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Originally Posted by Denishia

I agree with Kari that the Ancients do feel more like the Deva and Asura, and what feels human is the brand of privileged 'immortality' and hiding from consequences that one finds in teenagers, a sort of pathetic pitiable immaturity and incompleteness. And yes, that comes because I as the player character am mortal, so the immortal Ancients -who aren't a very deep or well-crafted and complete example of immortal beings in my opinion- come across as such, and thus Zodiark as a shield to avoid the maturity that I felt little remorse to remove.

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Putting aside the rest of the post, if you don't think that the Ancients are particularly deep examples of immortals - at least by the standards of fantasy pop media - then I'd kinda be curious what you do, because most immortals and near-immortals are written terribly. The overwhelming majority I can think of don't even bother exploring what implications an immortal lifespan would actually have for a society or the mentality of individuals, and just present them as generic-wise-Elf-adjacent-race #4732, with the same social structures and conventions as normal humans, just with larger numbers on the timeline.

FFXIV's attempt has flaws, but they made an effort.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

I'd love to see this. My theory has been just as Zodiark shielded the world so did Hydaelyn keep the sundering in place, so without her the barrier separating the Source from the shards is fading. I could easily see this as being intended too. As far as we know, there's no further need of dynamis and she's forced souls to know suffering and despair now, so goals accomplished.

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That ominous prophecy from the Studium quests is honestly making me entertain the notion of Etheriys itself eventually becoming our new "antagonist" in the sense that without Hydaelyn to maintain the stability of the Source and shards the Lifestream is going to try to forcibly rejoin everything and return the world to its original state; hence the bit about the "serpent" needing to be subdued with "seven wedges".

Now that Zodiark is gone wouldn't the aetherical rivers try and go back to how they were before he made them better? I can't quite remember what the Watcher said about what Zodiark did to them.