On Venat's Role in the Story

[Cleretic]

There is definitely some plot holes. And what I don't like is we are supposed to accept that what happened in the flashback of the sundering is a "metaphore". I waited 11 years to see how it really went through but I got is, Venat is the all so powerful and summoned/became Hydaelyn on her own. If we are led to believe that "no there are also people who opposed Zodiark and pray for Hydaelyn etc etc" Why the hell did you not show that or at least add the line Venat: "me and my comrades call upon Hydaelyn etc" and then just show a bunch of random people. The whole Elpis story was great but the flashback of Venat didn't work for me.

Edit: I don't know what happened to Azem, why I am Azem or have his essence. Am I Azem and am I sundered? I was led to believe in ShB that I am part of him. A lot not explained and this one I'm looking forward for future patches/expansion to learn more.

The post-Elpis cutscene isn't a metaphor (or at least, most of it isn't), it's compressed time. We see three, maybe four events that we do know didn't happen within a single ten minute chunk.

1. Actual events of the End of Days, before the first summoning of Zodiark (which takes Hythlodaeus from them).
2. Venat meets a desperate people in the wake of the destruction, after the summoning of Zodiark. Rather than listen to her plea that they need to accept the pain and move on, they take the easy way out and initiate the second summoning of Zodiark to undo the damage. This is the point where she realizes that Plan Hydaelyn is unavoidable; that if she doesn't stop them somehow, the Ancients will over time destroy their star in an effort to keep a blind comfort going.
(5.2's recording from Anamnesis Anyder goes here, somewhere between the second sacrifice and the summoning of Hydaelyn; she has assembled her group of loyalists, and they have their plan, although they wish they didn't have to do it)
2.5: The summoning of Hydaelyn. Actually kind of unclear on if what we see is this or some other show of defiance.
3. The actual metaphorical point, of Venat walking through the void after the Sundering, surrounded by sundered people. She regrets that she's given them a life of suffering that the Ancients didn't have, but is still bearing the burden of protecting them from Meteon and other evils.

And the Azem stuff is pretty clear: you are a sundered fragment of Azem's soul. Similar to how Amon was a sundered fragment of Fandaniel's, except you have no way of getting Azem's memories, and also no real need to, as while you have Azem's soul, you are not Azem, and have your own journey to take, separate from the past.