Endwalker's message (spoilers!)

[Sylve]

What arrogance btw? The final days wasn’t their own doing lmao.

... Final Days were not their own doing? Really?

just 8n case, I'll spoiler block this.
- what caused the Final Days? Meteion.
- what was Meteion? A creation of Hermes, an Ancient.
- why did Meteion trigger the Final Days? Because she was empath drowning in the negative emotions of every sentient species she came across while asking (As Emet puts it) a flawed question.

Hermes, an Ancient who could never understand who condone the lack compassion his fellow Ancients had for the lives of their creations, not only triggered the Final Days but also wiped the memories of the people who could prevented it.
Hermes is literally responsible for the deaths of entire planets through his creation of Meteion.

Zodiark was never the final solution. He was a literal bandaid fix.
Y'shtola tells us why when she witnesses the first transformation.
Zodiark created a shield of Aether around the planet.
Meteion was eroding that shield.

The message of the expansion was the solution the Ancients never even bothered to try.
Had they the resolve to not let fear and despair rule them, The Final Days would have never happened.

The first sacrifice was to form Zodiark and create the barrier between them and Meteion.
The second one we see when Venat confronts the group of Ancients who ignore her pleas and instead of working to make the planet better, suicide into Zodiark so he can "bring perfection back"

Their goal from the start was to stop the Final Days and them sacrifice whatever life arose in the meantime to bring back the Ancients.
Literally opting to genocide life to have their own vision of utopia.
Only they never needed to die in the first place. If the people of today had the resolve to halt their transformations brought on by falling I to despair, so too could the Ancients have done.
But they chose sacrifice and more death for their own arrogant vision of perfection.

They absolutely brought the Final Days upon themselves.

[Theodric]

They absolutely brought the Final Days upon themselves.

I disagree. Hermes being unable to handle death/follow established protocols and Venat adopting a defeatist world view is why the Final Days happened. I'm also not sure why Hermes and Venat doing shady things means that the Ancients as a whole are responsible for their actions and apparently deserving of death? The Ancients as a whole were not callous and cruel. They sought to benefit the Star and took care in ensuring that creations were not dangerous. Hermes could not understand that some creatures are simply incapable of living side by side with civilised beings - much in the same way as how some foolish individuals will approach a wild animal and then claim to be surprised when it starts attacking and devouring them.

It's pretty clear to me that the message of Shadowbringers was a clash of like wills between Emet-Selch and the Warrior of Darkness. Both sides were carrying the burden of doing whatever was required in order to defend their people - and improve their situation. Which is an reasonable expectation. It makes sense for the Sundered to not want to roll over and die for the sake of the Unsundered...but equally, it makes perfect sense for the Unsundered to not want to roll over and die for the sake of the Sundered.

Endwalker follows through on that by confirming that Venat was far too hasty to pull the trigger and never gave her people a fair chance due to being an unhinged saboteur and abusive mother figure with delusions of godhood. In the end, as Meteion confirms, the answer to Hermes' question lay on the Star all along. We know the Ancients were capable of friendship and exploration, so nothing the Sundered did is anything that the Ancients themselves could not have done had they been given the possibility.

I rather suspect that Venat being very pretty will also factor into the eagerness for many to rush to defend her, though. Much in the same way as how Meteion has her hand held because she took the form of a little girl...whereas many of the male antagonists, no matter how sympathetic, simply end up getting a stoic nod or frown. Funny, that!

[crimsonwitch]

Endwalker follows through on that by confirming that Venat was far too hasty to pull the trigger and never gave her people a fair chance due to being an unhinged saboteur and abusive mother figure with delusions of godhood. In the end, as Meteion confirms, the answer to Hermes' question lay on the Star all along. We know the Ancients were capable of friendship and exploration, so nothing the Sundered did is anything that the Ancients themselves could not have done had they been given the possibility.

I rather suspect that Venat being very pretty will also factor into the eagerness for many to rush to defend her, though. Much in the same way as how Meteion has her hand held because she took the form of a little girl...whereas many of the male antagonists, no matter how sympathetic, simply end up getting a stoic nod or frown. Funny, that!

Not understanding your point.. What did you expect her to do? Expose Hermes in front of Emet and Hythlodaeus who lost their memories ? Tell all of the ancients that Hermes created a monstrosity that is now far away in the galaxy?
I think the ancients might've thought she lost her mind and needed to return to the earth then. EVEN back then dynamis(the emotional aether) was a concept they didn't know much about. They wouldn't have believed Meteion was brewing a storm far far away to end the world.

[Theodric]

Not understanding your point.. what did you expect her to do, expose hermes in front of emet and hythlodaeus who lost their memories ? Tell all the ancients that hermes created a monstrosity who is now far away in the galaxy?
I think the ancients might've thought she lost her mind and needed to return to the earth then.

...she had the capability of tracing memories and exposing them, which is precisely what she did during the quests in Elpis with the Warrior of Light. Furthermore, given how tirelessly the likes of Emet-Selch worked towards the goal of saving not only his people but the Star itself, it felt very forced for Venat to not even bother to pull him aside and inform him of what she had learned. The memory wipe only extended within the facility itself, thus Venat could have taken Emet-Selch to a place where he had interacted with the others before entering the facility to ensure her warning carried weight.

...and even if he initially brushed off the warning, when the Final Days began to manifest, would he not then realise that Venat was telling the truth? Let's not forget that Venat's word carries a lot of weight in itself, given that she is a respected figure within the Ancient world.

Much of the story rests on flimsy reasoning which is a shame because Venat went from a very likable and well meaning character during the Elpis arc to one of the most horrid. I think she deserved a better ending than what she's now stuck with. Simply having Venat lose her memory alongside Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus would have worked much more smoothly and made her a more tragic figure than having her deliberately avoid telling anyone anything.

[crimsonwitch]

...she had the capability of tracing memories and exposing them, which is precisely what she did during the quests in Elpis with the Warrior of Light. Furthermore, given how tirelessly the likes of Emet-Selch worked towards the goal of saving not only his people but the Star itself, it felt very forced for Venat to not even bother to pull him aside and inform him of what she had learned. The memory wipe only extended within the facility itself, thus Venat could have taken Emet-Selch to a place where he had interacted with the others before entering the facility to ensure her warning carried weight.

...and even if he initially brushed off the warning, when the Final Days began to manifest, would he not then realise that Venat was telling the truth? Let's not forget that Venat's word carries a lot of weight in itself, given that she is a respected figure within the Ancient world.

Much of the story rests on flimsy reasoning which is a shame because Venat went from a very likable and well meaning character during the Elpis arc to one of the most horrid. I think she deserved a better ending than what she's now stuck with. Simply having Venat lose her memory alongside Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus would have worked much more smoothly and made her a more tragic figure than having her deliberately avoid telling anyone anything.

The problem with this argument is that

A. If she lost her memories to become a tragic hero, she never would’ve become hydaelyn
And
B. If she did solve it all back then with emet and hythlo, we wouldn’t even exist in the game since the world would be whole.
Somebodies lapse of judgement is what lead to our story now. I’m not saying she was good but not completely bad either. sorry you didn’t like the story , but it’s all we got.

[Iscah]

A. If she lost her memories to become a tragic hero, she never would’ve become hydaelyn

I disagree on that front. Prior to this game releasing, we had absolutely no issue with the concept that Venat's team had simply looked at the Convocation's creation of Zodiark, concluded that there was some critical flaw in the design and created Hydaelyn to fix it.

I think the plot would have been neater if Venat had lost her memory along with the others and later created Hydaelyn for her own reasons, not because the mysterious time-traveller said she would. Given the focus on "regaining lost memories upon death and return to the aetherial sea", she likely would have remembered the truth upon becoming Hydaelyn, so the conclusion in the present day would play out the same.

[Larirawiel]

The problem with this argument is that

A. If she lost her memories to become a tragic hero, she never would’ve become hydaelyn
And
B. If she did solve it all back then with emet and hythlo, we wouldn’t even exist in the game since the world would be whole.
Somebodies lapse of judgement is what lead to our story now. I’m not saying she was good but not completely bad either. sorry you didn’t like the story , but it’s all we got.

That is the reason why time travel and/or parallel universes are so troublesome. If you overlook something then you create a story which retcons itself.

There is one more error in the story: who created the name "Hydaelyn"? We did not create this name because we got told it. And Venat did also not create it because we told her that she will become Hydaelyn. She knows the term "Hydaelyn" from us. So the term "Hydaelyn" should not exist because nobody created it. I guess, this falls into the famous "grandfather paradox".



Cheers

[Vyrerus]

Not understanding your point.. What did you expect her to do? Expose Hermes in front of Emet and Hythlodaeus who lost their memories ? Tell all of the ancients that Hermes created a monstrosity that is now far away in the galaxy?
I think the ancients might've thought she lost her mind and needed to return to the earth then. EVEN back then dynamis(the emotional aether) was a concept they didn't know much about. They wouldn't have believed Meteion was brewing a storm far far away to end the world.

So, take the whole game into consideration. This line of reasoning becomes very flimsy. Why? Because the Ancients have the Echo. They can control it at will. Sure, Hyth and Emet had their memories wiped, but if Venat presented herself and said, "Look into my memories, and the memories of the traveler." They would then see and feel exactly what we felt in Ktsis Hyperboreia. They would see and feel the WoL defending Hythlodaeus. They would see Meteion streaking off into the cosmos.

This power that every Ancient possesses is conveniently sidelined in the most egregious way, since Venat makes use of it just a few quests earlier to see Hermes speaking to Meteion about launching her sisters off into the cosmos. They all possess this ability. To see and experience the memories of others through the environment and their living aether. We ourselves have inadvertently used it to resolve earlier plots in the game hundreds of times. Yet in this instance it had to be discarded so that the narrative could be obeyed, while the writers pray that we somehow don't notice it.

It would have been easy to fix. Just have Venat lose her memory and create Hydaelyn completely of her own volition. OR just have her try it, only for something with the Memory Wiping spells impact how her memories are perceived as well, leading to reasonable doubt. They just had to nip this hole in the bud with one or two lines or one extra cutscene, and they did not. It is insulting.

[Fayt1203]

This power that every Ancient possesses is conveniently sidelined in the most egregious way, since Venat makes use of it just a few quests earlier to see Hermes speaking to Meteion about launching her sisters off into the cosmos. They all possess this ability. To see and experience the memories of others through the environment and their living aether. We ourselves have inadvertently used it to resolve earlier plots in the game hundreds of times. Yet in this instance it had to be discarded so that the narrative could be obeyed, while the writers pray that we somehow don't notice it.

She also said that aether memory in environment fades away with time but it never explain if it is fast process slow or just fades off randomly

we dont know ether the full effect of kairos, we know it affects everyone in area its command to use but. dose it also affect the persons aether in environment we just don't know unless its was explained and i did just missed it.
.
Also after playing Pandæmonium quest line i dont think that
every Ancient has the power to see the memory of the past.

It could be that Venat did not want to change the course of history, Doing so could well unmake us, or make alternate timeline, list goes on or u can use Dr who line, fix point in time cant change that sorry

Putting time travel in a story will always be a mess, A Lot of unknowns seeing there a lot of how time travel work versions

[crimsonwitch]

So, take the whole game into consideration. This line of reasoning becomes very flimsy. Why? Because the Ancients have the Echo. They can control it at will. Sure, Hyth and Emet had their memories wiped, but if Venat presented herself and said, "Look into my memories, and the memories of the traveler." They would then see and feel exactly what we felt in Ktsis Hyperboreia. They would see and feel the WoL defending Hythlodaeus. They would see Meteion streaking off into the cosmos.

This power that every Ancient possesses is conveniently sidelined in the most egregious way, since Venat makes use of it just a few quests earlier to see Hermes speaking to Meteion about launching her sisters off into the cosmos. They all possess this ability. To see and experience the memories of others through the environment and their living aether. We ourselves have inadvertently used it to resolve earlier plots in the game hundreds of times. Yet in this instance it had to be discarded so that the narrative could be obeyed, while the writers pray that we somehow don't notice it.

It would have been easy to fix. Just have Venat lose her memory and create Hydaelyn completely of her own volition. OR just have her try it, only for something with the Memory Wiping spells impact how her memories are perceived as well, leading to reasonable doubt. They just had to nip this hole in the bud with one or two lines or one extra cutscene, and they did not. It is insulting.

Oh yeah I definitely think she could’ve just said “look at my memories “ but she didn’t, and that’s how the world become sundered anyways. Idk, somebody dropped the ball a bit with the writing this expansion.

It reminds me of lightning in ff13 when she becomes a god and goes through time. (Which, I think they had two different people writing that sequel lol)