Endwalker's message (spoilers!)

[KizuyaKatogami]

Considering how much art and fanfic Emet gets for being a hot sad dude, this is debatable at best, hypocritical at worst. Its so easy to reduce characters popularity to something basic

There is absolute no way to prove people who like Venat do so for her looks more then her character then there is to prove the same for the Emet.

Perhaps not but i think there’s signs even in the game itself that point to this. Look at Omega for example, who chose to use his “hot” female form when talking to us. I think it’s also the pretty clear cut reason as to why they decided to make Meteion a “cute” little bird girl, so it would be easier for people to sympathize with her. It’s a typical trope anyhow, with the beautiful nice seeming lady or child who ends up being evil etc, and i believe that’s used far more than there is an attractive or cute guy turning out to be evil(but obviously there’s examples of that as well).But i think theres a noticeable bias where yknow, we go and hug Meteion or dont harbor any hard feelings for Venat, yet in for example (pandaemonium spoilers)

We're constantly seen giving a dirty look and having negative dialogue whenever Lahabrea is mentioned. There seems to be some bias in that regard.

[Slatersev]

Perhaps not but i think there’s signs even in the game itself that point to this. Look at Omega for example, who chose to use his “hot” female form when talking to us. I think it’s also the pretty clear cut reason as to why they decided to make Meteion a “cute” little bird girl, so it would be easier for people to sympathize with her. It’s a typical trope anyhow, with the beautiful nice seeming lady or child who ends up being evil etc, and i believe that’s used far more than there is an attractive or cute guy turning out to be evil(but obviously there’s examples of that as well).But i think theres a noticeable bias where yknow, we go and hug Meteion or dont harbor any hard feelings for Venat, yet in for example (pandaemonium spoilers)

We're constantly seen giving a dirty look and having negative dialogue whenever Lahabrea is mentioned. There seems to be some bias in that regard.

This argument would hold more weight if we didnt spend a significant chunk of 5.3 and EW being very sympathetic to Elidibus AND Emet.

Were literally given the option to

apologize to Eli before he sends us to the past. We redouble the how to Emet to not waste his legacy/his peoples legacy. We are offered a chance to promise Amon will help him find an answer to his question in the next life. Laha is the singular expectation and that includes Mitron and Loghrif from Eden. Its also not a guarantee at all that it stays that way.

Really in general EW treats ALL the Ancient aligned characters with tons of sympathy, it gives us chances to bond/mourn/forgive ALL of them if we so choose. The idea that they played favorites based on gender or alignment just rings false when so much times is spent with each of them.

Which goes back to the main point. Not that people have to like Venat, but implying people that do are more influenced by her looks and people who love the Unsundered only do so on the strength of there backstory just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Firstly cause there is no actual way to prove that, but secondly because ALL the Ancients are going to appeal to large swaths of people based off looks AND writing. None of them pass for anything less then beautiful or cute. There backstory's all come from the same root.

If you have preference for one over the other that's fine, but its down to preference, not some objective but totally unprovable fact that people who like the pretty sad girl do so mostly because she is pretty while people who like the pretty depressed man do so mostly off the strength of his writing.

Reality is its a mix of both and there is no real way to quantify it at all.

You can also really like both (Which is where I stand)

[Rulakir]

I have never been a fan of Hydaelyn starting from ARR, so I certainly didn't go into EW expecting to like her, but even I liked Venat in Elpis. It's the decisions she made afterwards that are the problem. I understand people don't want to dislike her, especially as the game strong-armed the WoL into being BFFs with her. It's funny, I figured they wouldn't make her evil because players might be upset they were championing an antagonist, but I didn't expect that they would be so heavy handed in that you must like her and think what she did was for the best. Honestly, between her and Hermes I felt like the narrative was gaslighting me.

We're constantly seen giving a dirty look and having negative dialogue whenever <redacted> is mentioned. There seems to be some bias in that regard.

This has become one of my pet peeves in the game. My character emoting/expressing in ways that don't match how I feel as a player. It's never been as insufferable as it has been in EW though. It felt like being able to name and customize my WoL was just a technicality, ultimately I'm RPing someone else's character who feels very differently about certain things than I do. Maybe it's always been this way and it's taken me until EW to realize it, but it sucks. I may as well just fantasia into Ardbert. :P