Endwalker was a great mess(SPOILERS)

[KizuyaKatogami]

"hey mark, why are we using time travel in the plot again??" "Idk we needed an excuse to shoehorn more Emet Selch into the plot because twitter made a lot of yaoi with him".

You have no idea how much this annoys me. I love Emet-Selch but he’s become the new Graha where the devs realize he’s popular so they throw him into everything and it overshadows a lot of people. Elidibus basically lost his entire role and purpose in the story because of Emet sadly…and they threw him in EW again all over the damn place.

[AnotherPerson]

Sorry, didn't see your edit until after I replied.

Why not? The reason why the Echo doesn't solve all the WoL problems is because the WoL can't control it and happens at random, but Venat was shown to be able to use it at will. Surely they have other mind probing methods in the past. Not to mention that Hermes' involvement in the resolution of the Final Days can only happen if the Final Days actually happen, an event that does not happen immediately after Meteion leaves Planetos. If Venat warns them early on, even if Hermes decides not to cooperate they can preemptively do something about the whole thing. Hermes resolution happens as a last ditch effort after half the planet had already been destroyed.

And finally, Venat knows what solution Hermes proposes (ie. summon Zodiark to sugar coat the planet in aether) so he really isn't needed.

The echo was a natural power that the ancients had. Venat was able to use it at will because as another Ascian mentioned (don't remember if it was Elidibus, Lahabrea, or Emet), they could peer into the past at will by reading the surrounding area, even though it's a difficult thing to do. The echo is only a derived fragment of that power. If Memory manipulation was a thing at Fanandiel's time, Kairos would most likely made those memories inaccessible in the surrounding space and past, rendering the natural power of the Ancients useless. Otherwise, Emet would've just went and read the past himself to see the events that happened following to his memory loss.

She could literally just tell Emet what happened and why Hermes is a bit of a danger. He knew he was mind wiped. He has a duty to protect the star and it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t believe the person telling him or not he would investigate, they specifically showed us this when we went there and he said that. He didn’t necessarily believe us but due to his duty he had to take precautions and hear us out. Zodiark wasn’t a permanent solution but he could buy them a lot of time, time in which they could figure out how to combat Meteion. She gave up far too soon, she had no hope ironically. She instead decided to risk everything on a plan that wouldn’t come to fruition for 12000 years, instead of just work with her people. Her solution being to split literally everyone she knew apart effectively killing them, as opposed to having hope that they could all come together and live in the end. Sorry but that just rings hollow to all of the themes they’re trying to convey in this expansion. But it’s not only that, but they then decide to try and paint HER as benevolent, meanwhile Zodiark isn’t even hardly mentioned despite him being the main safeguard preventing the final days. It’s all about Hydaelyn and Venat despite her being the reason this entire chaos exists.

Yes, she could tell Emet that Hermes is a danger. However, what then? Emet will obviously question Hermes if he's in doubt, or maybe even deny him his position. He could treat Hermes differently. Hermes is still a needed member of the Convocation. Simply distrusting a member of the Convocation could've changed the future events as well. Hermes could've also found things suspicious and decided to read the past, thereby potentially raising a problem of him turning against the Convocation and working against them in secret. The risk would be too big. The more people who are involved, the bigger the chances of Hermes finding out becomes.


As for Combating Meteion, that was NOT in the Convocation's mind at all. Remember, their goal was to reclaim their paradise. It wasn't to move forward. The events that caused the Final Days made them lose hope. Venat only decided to sunder the world after she realized there was no way to get the Ancients to stop sacrificing themselves to Zodiark to restore their world. Even if they could've used Zodiark to fight against Meteion, before Venat could get the Convocation to sacrifice -half- the inhabitants of the star, they would have to accept that half of the population had to die for this mad plan to succeed. That's utterly unbelievable to anyone who haven't witnessed the Final Days and haven't given into Despair to consider such a plan. Remember, it's half to Summon Zodiark. Then, the remaining half sacrificed themselves to remake the world. Basically, 3/4 of the inhabitants was willing to die to get their paradise back. Something this big of a scale would've had Hermes finding out what happened way earlier and would've betrayed them before it could've succeeded.

[Raven2014]

You haven't answered my previous point as to WHY

- The final day to her is a known catastrophe.
- She also has the assurance that it would be deal with temporary (by Zodiak), and thus the world have time to prepare for it.

Basically by ensuring the timeline does not change, she has a few millennia to prepare both a counter and a contingency plan, which she did, again with the knowledge that the world while suffer greatly during the first Final Day would not risk facing a permanent end. And eventually man kind will grow to a point that they can deal with the threat permanently. If she does anything to change the timeline, then those are no longer guarantee. The threat could have come in a different one where she would be completely blinded side, and world would risk a permanent end.


tl;dr: She wants to deal with a known disaster, and thus can be planed for, rather risking an unknow one.


For example, let's say Hitler could travel back in time and know about D-Day, would he try to make sure it doesn't happen? I would think not, 'cause even if the Allied somehow don't strike on D-Day, it would just mean they would spend all those resources to strike somewhere else, one that he would have no knowledge of. Rather, Hitler would prefer to make sure the D-Day invasion still gonna happen, but he will use that knowledge to make sure his force can counter it.

[Lauront]

As for Combating Meteion, that was NOT in the Convocation's mind at all. Remember, their goal was to reclaim their paradise.

Because they didn't know the cause. Hence, people are asking why, knowing what we do of time travel splitting into AUs, she did not divulge it. His point is predicated on her sharing that knowledge. Also, leaving aside the speculative parts over whether Kairos would render the Echo unable to access those memories, Hythlodaeus had already meant to ask about the companion that had joined him and Emet during those days. She had potential in-roads. She just chose not to utilise them. The real reason here is the writers wanted to wrap up the story, not create a rationale for an AU, and searching for reasons beyond that is likely to prove a sterile activity. It's just unfortunate that they chose such a convoluted way to do it.

It wasn't to move forward. The events that caused the Final Days made them lose hope. Venat only decided to sunder the world after she realized there was no way to get the Ancients to stop sacrificing themselves to Zodiark to restore their world.

Citation needed. I'll save you time and tell you that this isn't quite correct. They were not committed to on-going sacrifices. The first set had driven back the Final Days, and the second set re-established the star's functionality; the final set was to release the ancients within Zodiark and restore them. A possible motive being that they placed value on being able to one day return to the star, and it's not clear they'd be able to do that while in Zodiark. Her reason for disagreement with the Convocation was that she and her faction preferred the new life (unspecified in nature, therefore could just as easily be the sort of creatures being created in Elpis as we now know these could gain souls subject to the right conditions) over her own people as inheritors of the star.

[Theodric]

I doubt there's much logic to be attributed to Venat's actions. At the end of the day, she caused her entire race to be wiped out based on her own misguided, biased judgement and because she decided to fawn over an individual who gave her a very biased account of what happened in the future.

She gambled everything on a big 'maybe' and the only reason everything worked out was due to Zodiark's continued barrier against the Final Days and the direct aid provided to the Warrior of Light by two of the three Unsundered Ascians. Which further contributes to it all becoming one needlessly contrived mess.

Then there's her hypocrisy in granting the Warrior of Light the ability to bring the Scions back to life despite criticising her own people for wanting to do the same thing. To say nothing of the fact that the 'power of friendship' trope is pushed as the reason for why the Scions and Warrior of Light succeed.

Yet a very strong friendship was established between Azem, Hythlodaeus and Emet-Selch. Assuming they would be able to get at least some of the Convocation on board with their plan to resist until the very end and work to oppose Meteion...surely they would have stood a solid chance due to their bond and shared love of the Star.

Venat herself even acknowledges that the Sundering itself was an act of cruelty and that were was no justice in the act - so I'm not convinced that it, specifically, factored into her plan directly so much as it ended up being something she misjudged as a necessity.

[Shuuli]

-

tl;dr: She wants to deal with a known disaster, and thus can be planed for, rather risking an unknow one.


For example, let's say Hitler could travel back in time and know about D-Day, would he try to make sure it doesn't happen? I would think not, 'cause even if the Allied somehow don't strike on D-Day, it would just mean they would spend all those resources to strike somewhere else, one that he would have no knowledge of. Rather, Hitler would prefer to make sure the D-Day invasion still gonna happen, but he will use that knowledge to make sure his force can counter it.

What do you mean known future for unknown? She has no idea if WoL is going to succeed after WoL returns to their timeline... this as much a 50 - 50 as it was before... WoL came to ask for help, we got more info, but not more power. If she knew the future is safe with us, she would not needed to put us through a final test.

The Ancients seemed very open about whatever we were saying to them. I doubt if the retired Venat would have said her story they would not even try to be open to the opportunity. Even Emet, who was being all angry about him being protrayed as the baddy, even he did try to help figure out the truth.

This whole issue could have been solved, if they made a cutscene where Venat talks to the convocation and explains the situation to them but after a through investigation they decline her or stamp her as "crazy" or something. But even then, when the final days would approach they would surely remember her words...

I think this is a basic issue with time travel stories. They used it inconsistently. Graha could change the future of his past by creating a new one, we could not change the future of the past of Elpis cause story needed to be sad and ending...

It does not mean that it was not a good story, it just has holes that could have been filled in that would perhaps better cover the questions asked.

[AnotherPerson]

Because they didn't know the cause. Hence, people are asking why, knowing what we do of time travel splitting into AUs, she did not divulge it. Also, leaving aside the speculative parts over whether Kairos would render the Echo unable to access those memories, Hythlodaeus had already meant to ask about the companion that had joined him and Emet during those days. She had potential in-roads. She just chose not to utilise them.

That's true. I figured she just didn't have a way to tell them, since Hermes was also traveling with them to Amaurot. It would be more suspicious if she approached Emet and Hythlodaeus and then they wanted to know the truth, including why Hermes wasn't there. Though I'm more inclined to believe what Raven2014 said about she wanted more time to combat a known disaster than an unknown one based on what we told them about how the Final Days was inevitable. It was also unknown how much actual time they had before Meteion caused the Final Days. However, we defeated Emet (which showed we had power to contest with the strongest of the Ancients), so she probably thought it would be better to have more time to plan things out and rely on the ones in the future. She also tested us too. If she didn't have the belief, she probably wouldn't have saved her power for the Final Trial. The other thing to note is that she believed in us probably because we can use Dynamis and the result of the Final Days caused the Ancients to lose control of their Creation Magicks (aka control over aether), so the ancients weren't exactly a reliable source to contend Meteion with.

Citation needed. I'll save you time and tell you that this isn't quite correct. They were not committed to on-going sacrifices. The first set had driven back the Final Days, and the second set re-established the star's functionality; the final set was to release the ancients within Zodiark and restore them. A possible motive being that they placed value on being able to one day return to the star, and it's not clear they'd be able to do that while in Zodiark. Her reason for disagreement with the Convocation was that she and her faction preferred the new life (unspecified in nature, therefore could just as easily be the sort of creatures being created in Elpis) over her own people as inheritors of the star.

The cutscene in Thou Must Live, Die, and Know.

You can tell everyone ignored Venat's words about moving forward. They simply consigned themselves to offering themselves to Zodiark, depending solely on Zodiark to deliver themselves out of this fate. She disagreed with the Convocation about life, but I'm pretty sure this cutscene was referring to all life on the Star, including the Ancients. Her facial expression went from shock to grit and grief, before she draws her sword. "Let there be no way back. From this temptation, I sunder us."

This temptation, refers to relying on Zodiark.

[lezard21]

Otherwise, Emet would've just went and read the past himself to see the events that happened following to his memory loss.

They don't need to use that power to find out what happened, they need to use it to find out Hermes' knowledge about Dynamis should he be unwilling to do so.
And again, they don't really need to do that because Venat already knows the solution Hermes will present for the Final Days due to our retelling of the events.

The cutscene in Thou Must Live, Die, and Know.

You can tell everyone ignored Venat's words about moving forward.

Yeah, this is perphaps the worst cutscene in the expansion due to the massive retcon it does to fit it's narrative. In ShB we saw the records in Anamnesis Anyder in which Zodiark is summoned and then Venat and her close followers discuss "woops, Zodiark is actually too strong we need to do something".

Here in this cutscene, the Ancients summon Zodiark and Venat goes "ahaha sundering goes brrrrrrrrrrr" immediately afterwards.

[Lauront]

That's true. I figured she just didn't have a way to tell them, since Hermes was also traveling with them to Amaurot. It would be more suspicious if she approached Emet and Hythlodaeus and then they wanted to know the truth, including why Hermes wasn't there. Though I'm more inclined to believe what Raven2014 said about she wanted more time to combat a known disaster than an unknown one based on what we told them about how the Final Days was inevitable. It was also unknown how much actual time they had before Meteion caused the Final Days. However, we defeated Emet (which showed we had power to contest with the strongest of the Ancients), so she probably thought it would be better to have more time to plan things out and rely on the ones in the future. She also tested us too. If she didn't have the belief, she probably wouldn't have saved her power for the Final Trial. The other thing to note is that she believed in us probably because we can use Dynamis and the result of the Final Days caused the Ancients to lose control of their Creation Magicks (aka control over aether), so the ancients weren't exactly a reliable source to contend Meteion with.



The cutscene in Thou Must Live, Die, and Know.

You can tell everyone ignored Venat's words about moving forward. They simply consigned themselves to offering themselves to Zodiark, depending solely on Zodiark to deliver themselves out of this fate. She disagreed with the Convocation about life, but I'm pretty sure this cutscene was referring to all life on the Star, including the Ancients. Her facial expression went from shock to grit and grief, before she draws her sword. "Let there be no way back. From this temptation, I sunder us."

This temptation, refers to relying on Zodiark.

The cutscene appears to be stylised in nature, but she is describing what occurred after the first stage of sacrifices to forestall the Final Days. There was a second set, that took place after, to revive the star. That is what that scene appears to be referring to, seeing as the skies are still aflame. Here is the established sequence of events. If I were to take it literally, it'd make an even greater mess of the story than it already is and imply outright retcons, on top of which it is utterly ludicrous to expect me to believe this change in sequence in events would not affect the future timeline at all... so I assume they're playing a game of fast-forward to slip her narrative justification for her mindset in. In either case, the timing appears to be before the second set.

I am not surprised that the ancients, still walking upon a star that had been eaten inside out, rejected the platitudes she's babbling about in that cutscene, while providing zero explanation for them.

[AnotherPerson]

They don't need to use that power to find out what happened, they need to use it to find out Hermes' knowledge about Dynamis should he be unwilling to do so.
And again, they don't really need to do that because Venat already knows the solution Hermes will present for the Final Days due to our retelling of the events.



Yeah, this is perphaps the worst cutscene in the expansion due to the massive retcon it does to fit it's narrative. In ShB we saw the records in Anamnesis Anyder in which Zodiark is summoned and then Venat and her close followers discuss "woops, Zodiark is actually too strong we need to do something".

Here in this cutscene, the Ancients summon Zodiark and Venat goes "ahaha sundering goes brrrrrrrrrrr" immediately afterwards.

Can you link the point in Anamnesis Anyder's cutscene again? I only found this link, which aptly implied they opposed Zodiark because it only forestalled the Final Days, not a means to prevent the calamity (which we didn't know about until Endwalker).