Endwalker's message (spoilers!)

[Rulakir]

If the Ascians looked like Vauthry people wouldn't be nearly as sympathetic to them either, they struck fanboy/fangirl gold with with pretty much all the Ancients.

Eh, debatable. The Ascians ultimately had a sympathetic backstory regardless of their appearance. I can't say the same for Venat.

Taking appearances out entirely, I tell you there's someone who knows the future. They know all the details including not only the end of their civilization, but the deaths of numerous worlds. Knowing this, they not only do nothing to prevent it, but actively ensure that the future they know about comes to pass. Would you think this person a protagonist or an antagonist?

I tell you there's 3 people who's world was destroyed. Their civilization is gone, their loved ones have been turned into malformed creatures with no memories. They spend the next 12k+ years trying to make everyone whole again and restore what was lost. Would you think them antagonists or protagonists?

[Yencat]

Tbf, most of them we dont even know what they look like behind their mask lol.

Sure, but I'd be shocked if any of them looked like Vauthry lol

The pining for Emet started in Shb, and now the headcanon throuple-fantasies between Emet/Hythlodaeus/WoL(Azem) is off the charts.

[KizuyaKatogami]

This. I still see people throw Zodiark under the bus even though he is literally the reason why the star exists today. Without Zodiark’s aether shield and restoring life there wouldn’t be anything left of the star. Yet Venat gets all the credit for some reason.

They honestly did Zodiark really dirty this expansion in numerous ways. It’s pretty hard to take the devs seriously when they say they’re both equal but paint one in a benevolent light and then have the other be used in a negative manner and hardly spoken of his good deeds afterwards. Maybe instead of playing dress-up with rabbits we could’ve had more insight on that but alas it wasn’t meant to be.

[FrogDog]

That’s abuse mentality right there, especially when she has the audacity to call them all her children, but then was going to leave all of the shards to die and only the source would evacuate should worst come to worst. Amazing Mother.

How DARE you criticize mommy Hydaelyn's parenting!

In all seriousness though this expansion's story felt like anime schlock to me and Hydaelyn's motives are very weak, I'll admit.

[Yencat]

Eh, debatable. The Ascians ultimately had a sympathetic backstory regardless of their appearance.

I'm not suggesting they're only sympathetic characters because of how they look, because of course they are. But their appeal is massively enhanced by all being very handsome/pretty people, Venat included of course.

[Yencat]

Incidentally, though, Vauthry ended up as far more sympathetic to me than Venat. I found him to be entertaining throughout Shadowbringers, much in the same way as Queen Brahne from FFIX

His story was definitely pretty sad, he never even had a chance to be a different kind of person.

Brahne is a good example because she's also pretty much seen as a joke character because of how she looks.

[Lauront]

Eh, debatable. The Ascians ultimately had a sympathetic backstory regardless of their appearance. I can't say the same for Venat.

Taking appearances out entirely, I tell you there's someone who knows the future. They know all the details including not only the end of their civilization, but the deaths of numerous worlds. Knowing this, they not only do nothing to prevent it, but actively ensure that the future they know about comes to pass. Would you think this person a protagonist or an antagonist?

I tell you there's 3 people who's world was destroyed. Their civilization is gone, their loved ones have been turned into malformed creatures with no memories. They spend the next 12k+ years trying to make everyone whole again and restore what was lost. Would you think them antagonists or protagonists?

Plus she just springs it on them after a disagreement, and had no clear rationale initially other than a preference for ambiguous "new lives", which based on the cool-headed approach her summoners were taking, could very well have been similar to the creatures the ancients created to integrate in the world. So she had to be supplied said rationale through time travel antics to make it not seem totally capricious and unreasonable.

[Rokke]

If the Ascians looked like Vauthry people wouldn't be nearly as sympathetic to them either, they struck fanboy/fangirl gold with with pretty much all the Ancients.

To an extent... but at the same time, people first fell in love with Hyth back when he was literally faceless in SHB lol

[Iscah]

Plus she just springs it on them after a disagreement, and had no clear rationale initially other than a preference for ambiguous "new lives"

The presentation we get of the Sundering is frustratingly non-literal and I don't know if we're supposed to take that as how the confrontation went or not. In the same sequence we see Hyth farewelling Hades, which can't be part of the same event as he must have been one of the first two successful sacrifices to Zodiark (since his soul is up there on the moon) some time before Venat/Hydaelyn prevented the third from taking place.

If nothing else, from the cave paintings in Qitana I was expecting to see more of an epic clash of goddess-Hydaelyn against Zodiark than "Venat walks in and stabs the ground".

[Yencat]

To an extent... but at the same time, people first fell in love with Hyth back when he was literally faceless in SHB lol

And with Hydaelyn when she was still just a big floating mommy crystal.

I'm not even saying it's a bad thing at all, just saying the ones we've seen turned out to be very gorgeous people and it helps their appeal.

I'm not team Venat (or anyone else) and I'm not even a huge fan of how they decided to wrap this up, it kind of felt like they had already committed to closing this story arc so they ham-fisted it a bit leaving a lot of questions on all sides.