Endwalker's story had me, but lost me. Ethical issues especially (spoilers)

[KizuyaKatogami]

From a certain point of view it will appear she kept it all a secret from everyone in Ancient times but as Venat said, she had gathered people she could trust during the time between Elpis and the Sundering day when WoL left back to his/her time. The issue is that we did not see her journey between Elpis to the Sundering day so it looked like she kept it a secret from everyone when she did not since she said before WoL left she went on gather allies she knows won't try to stop her plans to defeat Meteion.

That is why I believe Venat's story is badly handled because we are missing a large chunk of her story that lead to that moment and by missing that large chunk of the story people will assume many negative things about Venat similar to how people assumed alot of things about charaters we know little about since we only see the beginning and end of the journey but never the journey that lead to the end.

Are those allies presumably not just her followers that she summoned hydaelyn with? All she had to do was tell Emet and Hythlo, which we know she didn’t.

[Rulakir]

From a certain point of view it will appear she kept it all a secret from everyone in Acient times but as Venat said, she had gathered people she could trust during the time between Elpis and the Sundering day. The issue is that we did not see her journey between Elpis to the Sundering day so it looked like she kept it a secret from everyone when she did not since she said before WoL left she went on gather allies she knows won't try to stop her plans to defeat Meteion.

Dialog from the Anamnesis Anyder cutscene:

Diplomatic Ancient One: Venat, please... Why must it be you? If I may speak plainly, I would sooner it were another... any other. You are our leader. None can take your place.
Venat: You know as well as I that but few support our cause. Far fewer than they who place their faith in Zodiark. If Hydaelyn is to stand a chance of opposing Him, I am the only one who might suffice as Her heart. Rest assured, however, I shall not vanish from this world. The form I take shall ever remain my choice.
Diplomatic Ancient One: Then I will press you no more. Only know this... you will be sorely missed. I wonder... is this how the Convocation felt about Elidibus?

This sounds to me like those closest to her were were oblivious to the sundering, so whatever she did tell them didn't seem to include the destruction of their civilization as they knew it. I doubt she'd have any followers if she had.

[Denishia]

From a certain point of view it will appear she kept it all a secret from everyone in Ancient times but as Venat said, she had gathered people she could trust during the time between Elpis and the Sundering day when WoL left back to his/her time. The issue is that we did not see her journey between Elpis to the Sundering day so it looked like she kept it a secret from everyone when she did not since she said before WoL left she went on gather allies she knows won't try to stop her plans to defeat Meteion.

That is why I believe Venat's story is badly handled because we are missing a large chunk of her story that lead to that moment and by missing that large chunk oif the story people will assume many negative things about Venat similar to how people assumed alot of things about charaters we know little about since we only see the beginning and end of the journey but never the journey that lead to the end.

I agree with the lack of showing Venat's co-conspirators (and if then-current Azem was one of them, which might be the reason for the intentional vagueness) and their efforts though ultimately futile in actually changing the course of events to stave off their future hurting the narrative - but I'm also torn because I really don't want to spend more time with the Unsundered World when we can be spending story time on the Sundered Worlds. I'm not sure if it's because of the underlying 'fantasy ableism' subtext that it invokes in me involving the Unsundered, but I don't weigh their society as truly better than the Sundered Ones (Elpis as a zone minus the NPCs is very pretty), but I weigh the fiction Unsundered life/world as wholly equal to one Sundered life/world, and since the Sundering created Fourteen of them, how I judge my fantasy math is that sure, if there was a way to do the timeline split that occurred in ShB with the post 8th Calamity timeline surviving while G'raha's time-travel restored the 1st Shard, bumping our total from 6 to 8 worlds, then if this EW time-travel added another bonus branching timeline world, that'd be nice, even if I have far more personal interest in visiting the 'Alternative post-8th Calamity Timeline World' than 'Maybe It didn't Doom Itself Unsundered Future Elpis', but not at the cost of stranding the WoL in the new branching timeline or sacrificing any of the to us current worlds.

[EdwinLi]

Are those allies presumably not just her followers that she summoned hydaelyn with? All she had to do was tell Emet and Hythlo, which we know she didn’t.

Dialog from the Anamnesis Anyder cutscene:

Diplomatic Ancient One: Venat, please... Why must it be you? If I may speak plainly, I would sooner it were another... any other. You are our leader. None can take your place.
Venat: You know as well as I that but few support our cause. Far fewer than they who place their faith in Zodiark. If Hydaelyn is to stand a chance of opposing Him, I am the only one who might suffice as Her heart. Rest assured, however, I shall not vanish from this world. The form I take shall ever remain my choice.
Diplomatic Ancient One: Then I will press you no more. Only know this... you will be sorely missed. I wonder... is this how the Convocation felt about Elidibus?

This sounds to me like those closest to her were were oblivious to the sundering, so whatever she did tell them didn't seem to include the destruction of their civilization as they knew it. I doubt she'd have any followers if she had.

As I said, we are missing a very big picture of events about her journey to the end.

Due to this we easily make assumptions based on what little we know and assume a lot about a character's action.

I cannot say if all of her actions are right nor wrong because we only known about certain moments SE story writes made but never the full journey leading up to specific moments we know about.

It is after all flaws of rushed writing and only given the beginning and end of a joruney with maybe a small moment during the journey because we never see important moments that will have solidify her choices such as her choice to reveal the truth to Emet and Hythlo or not somewhere during her journey to the sundering day. Not to mention how many times this may have crossed her mind and at certain points she may have come close to do so but something happened that interrupt or resolidify her choice. After all Venat was very close friends to them and Azem but without knowing the full journey we can never be certain of the full picture that lead to her actions.

[Anonymoose]

I'm just holding out futile, naive hope the two raid series solve both these issues, lol.

Pandaemonium can explain the sounds underground and tell how Lahabrea, Elidibus, and Emet-Selch avoided the sundering.

Myths of the Realm can go back to the Twelve and how their true identities descend from Venat's time-conjunction orchestration.

One of the things we rarely talk about since Endwalker threw us for so many unexpected loops:
Venat was the previous Azem and was very close to her successor. They could have been in on all of this.
We already know they have a hand in Pandaemonium...

The interesting thing to me, especially in terms of the character dynamics explored in this thread, is that - in Elpis - Emet-Selch speaks of Azem as if they're even more of an annoyance than Venat was. Except we know they're best friends. Emet-Selch and Venat were probably closer than they appear, too. It's tragedy all the way down.

In that vein, when we talk about what Venat did/didn't do, who she did/didn't trust, maybe people aren't taking into account that - in all the unpredictable craziness going on - Venat chose to put faith in the hardest but most necessary place: in herself. Her future self. The only thing that made any sense of it all, to the degree she instantly opened her mind to, "Huh, weird, are you from the future?" like that was nothing, lol.

[Ryaz]

Why do people still keep insisting that if you change the past, you erase the future? We know for a fact that this isn't the case. It's not called a split timeline because one is erased, it's called that because they both continue to exist at the same time.

EDIT: So folks know what I'm referring to: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../sidestory_08/

tl;dr: Eighth Era timeline, the one G'raha allegedly erased, was not erased at all. The timeline split, and now there's two of them. One where the people of the Eighth Era continue to live on, and one their future never came to pass. They exist simultaneously, neither merging nor negating the other's existence. I can not stress this enough. Nobody was erased from existence because G'raha changed the past, and nobody would be erased from existence if we set the people of the Unsundered World upon a different path. Best case scenario, we make like Future Trunks and dip back into our own timeline. Worst case scenario, we're stranded there—in which case things get very bad for the people who were counting on our return.

Well, if the WoL did change the future, wouldn't they return to the new future like G'raha did? Meaning, they wouldn't bring the answers back with them as to the cause of the Final Days (might not return at all actually) and would doom that branched path to annhilation by the Song of Oblivion. So that source and shards would be destroyed while possibly saving Elpis.

I also have to wonder how many people decrying Venat as a monster thought embracing Zenos in his final battle, and not having the agency to walk away (despite him saying he'd accept it if you did) was a good thing.

[Rosenstrauch]

Well, if the WoL did change the future, wouldn't they return to the new future like G'raha did?

Er, G'raha didn't return to any future. He stayed right where he was.

And whether or not we'd return to our future is a tossup. Actually, I can't remember how we did that in the first place. All the technology needed to send us back in time... we didn't exactly stick it in our pocket and take it with us. How did we leave Elpis?

[Ryaz]

Er, G'raha didn't return to any future. He stayed right where he was.

And whether or not we'd return to our future is a tossup. Actually, I can't remember how we did that in the first place. All the technology needed to send us back in time... we didn't exactly stick it in our pocket and take it with us. How did we leave Elpis?

His soul and memories came back with us to our timeline, he didn't end up back in the other branched path, so it does show that they can end up in a different timeline. Though I suppose that could be explained away due to him being in the crystal.

[Anonymoose]

EAll the technology needed to send us back in time... we didn't exactly stick it in our pocket and take it with us. How did we leave Elpis?

Seeing as we destroyed the Tycoon, how did we even get there in the first place? Elidibus just says he "mastered the tower" and "stole G'raha's memories". I'm stuck forming my own head-canon that Wundercatte's super duper eidetic memory still held all the Wings of Time (/ Omega) computations to lower my blood pressure.

But it looks like the ocular's portal to Elpis is just...open. And then there's the FSH quests where the Sharlayans are like,
"Oh, yeah, we knew about time travel but you need authorization."

This was the price I paid for "Crystal Mom Loves You and Tried Her Best."

You could hear the monkey's paw curling behind me.

[Denishia]

I still hold out hope that the Twelve are in some way connected to Venat's group or Then-Current Azem's companions and that they are probably the same group (and as someone who still can't stand Emet and to whom the Elpis section of the MSQ trying to make him a tsundere fell painfully flat and who grew to dislike Hythlodaeus by the end of the 87 dungeon, the largest disconnect between my WoL and Azem is choice of who can be considered friend potential. I really wanted to meet who Azem considered close friends and companions to whom I would share a similar feeling, besides Venat herself).

I do love that Shadowbringer's theme of planting trees for future generations to find shade under was echoed by how Venat places her trust and the fate of the world into this strange person from the future and the actions of her future self that empowered them.