[Spoilers] Venat's motive

[Lurina]

Time travel hurts my brain. Others have probably explained this better elsewhere, but...

We are the Warrior of Light, Hydaelyn's chosen champion. For that to happen, we needed Venat to know who we were, awaken the Echo in us, and give us her Blessing of Light, alongside creating a race of rabbits with a spaceship that could eventually take us to Meteion. In order for Venat to know to do that, we needed to go back in time and tell her these things - the idea being that the events that led us to travel back in time to Elpis were only ever possible because we did go back in time. So nothing that we did in the past could have changed what Venat did - she was always going to do what she did, because it needed to be done so that the exact circumstances that allowed for us to go back in time to tell her could happen.

A similar causal loop theory of time travel was used in the Alexander raids as well, I believe.

This is the "venat as causality slave" interpretation I was talking about, to be clear.

[Vyrerus]

Yes. Yes, exactly, all of that.

In fact, you stated the biggest piece of evidence we have: the Mothercrystal. She can't have created the Mothercrystal as part of just following a script we gave her, because we didn't know she did that until later.

What do you mean? We told her eveerything. All of our visions with her, were of her as the Mothercrystal.

[Veloran]

Yes. Yes, exactly, all of that.

In fact, you stated the biggest piece of evidence we have: the Mothercrystal. She can't have created the Mothercrystal as part of just following a script we gave her, because we didn't know she did that until later.

She made it as part of her promise to you. There's no point in even having it without WoL.

[Cleretic]

What do you mean? We told her eveerything. All of our visions with her, were of her as the Mothercrystal.

And then we learned she wasn't, because she had a whole other level of plan about the Mothercrystal that we weren't privvy to until several levels later.

Again, she can't be completely robbed of agency by claiming 'predestination paradox', because even if you do that (and you shouldn't), she still had tricks up her sleeve.

[Vyrerus]

And then we learned she wasn't, because she had a whole other level of plan about the Mothercrystal that we weren't privvy to until several levels later.

Again, she can't be completely robbed of agency by claiming 'predestination paradox', because even if you do that (and you shouldn't), she still had tricks up her sleeve.

Yeah, but we still told her, "You gifted me the blessing, but you were a giant crystal." In our silent, up to some interpretation, recounting of our adventure. We later learn she was hiding behind it or something, but it's still part of what she was told. So it still falls into a predestination paradox claim under the guise of, "The WoL told me that I was a giant crystal... wonder what that was about?" I mean we could still attribute her plan for it to a tinge of agency, but the idea of a giant crystal is still the starting point for giving her ideas what to do with it.

And I never robbed her of agency. The scriptwriters did. :P They wrote the paradox in, and the paradox gets to give a lot of character agency the middle finger.

[h-alpha]

This is the "venat as causality slave" interpretation I was talking about, to be clear.

The thing with causal loops is that there are generally two ways it can happen:

1. All actions are set and characters have no free will. Following a script, like you said (Novikov’s self-consistency principle)

2. Characters are not necessarily following a script, they can act against it, but the universe will protect the timeline in any way it can by adjusting to those new actions so that they ultimately result in the same outcome regardless (timeline-protection hypothesis)

There's a chance that she did try to change things - maybe her monologue is one of those attempts, maybe she did try to warn the Convocation. But because of the nature of that second one, it wouldn't matter. She'd give a speech and nobody would listen to her. She'd warn Emet-selch and he'd think she was hallucinating under the stress of the world falling apart around them, or happen to be unavailable at the exact moments that she tries to speak with him about it, or whatever. The universe would find a way, however improbable the event, to keep the timeline on the correct course.

[KariTheFox]

I do not think a closed time loop necessarily turns Venat into an agency-less slave to causality. Armed with foreknowledge, she could at any time, choose to act in a way that would change the future. We know she could have done that, because the entire plot of Shadowbringers involved taking action to change a known future. That she chooses not to is something she has agency over, she goes with her plan in order to give our future a fighting chance.

In that sense, she is choosing to value an uncertain and imperfect future known to have suffering and pain - over the seemingly perfect world of the ancients.

(if anyone are slaves to causality it's Emet-selch and the rest of the ascians. Whose actions were known by Venat, and acted exactly how the WoL told them they would, and had no ability to alter that course. But even then, I think their choices were still their own.)

[Cleretic]

Yeah, but we still told her, "You gifted me the blessing, but you were a giant crystal." In our silent, up to some interpretation, recounting of our adventure. We later learn she was hiding behind it or something, but it's still part of what she was told. So it still falls into a predestination paradox claim under the guise of, "The WoL told me that I was a giant crystal... wonder what that was about?" I mean we could still attribute her plan for it to a tinge of agency, but the idea of a giant crystal is still the starting point for giving her ideas what to do with it.

And I never robbed her of agency. The scriptwriters did. :P They wrote the paradox in, and the paradox gets to give a lot of character agency the middle finger.

'Hiding behind it' was basically just a joke explanation for what happened, which was some amount more elaborate. She wasn't literally doing that, she more just actually pulled off the Wizard of Oz deceit. But remember that the Mothercrystal factors into the whole plan rather than just being a 'well actually'; it's the overall reason we can get to Ultima Thule in the first place. Which, in turn, we also knew we had to go to because of Venat.

Please, just push the idea of the predestination paradox out of your mind for a while. Ask the question of 'what would Venat have done if she didn't have the guide', and realize that nothing actually needs to change. Everything she does is internally consistent without the need to add in 'but stable time loop'. Sure, not all of it is necessarily what you might think of as 'Plan A Material', but once you concede that what we saw was probably around Plan E, with A-D proving various forms of unfeasible (basically proven by the 5.2 Anamnesis scene, where they're still trying to find an alternative), it all checks out.

[Veloran]

Please, just push the idea of the predestination paradox out of your mind for a while. Ask the question of 'what would Venat have done if she didn't have the guide',

Without knowledge of the future she has no reason to hide the truth from anyone else in Elpis. Assuming WoL never shows up and Venat never even gets involved, then Hermes should have just heard Meteion's report and turned traitor the whole way. If Venat knows nothing she has no reason to even design a concept capable of sundering souls to begin with, nor does she have reason to oppose anyone else because she wouldn't know the true cause of the Final Days, thus Meteion wouldn't be tracked by her, and so she has no reason to create the Mothercrystal to provide energy for a flight to the edge of the universe nor would she have a reason to conserve energy for a theoretical battle to test anyone going to confront Meteion.

None of Venat's actions even begin to make sense in a world where WoL doesn't go back and give her spoilers.

[Lurina]

I do not think a closed time loop necessarily turns Venat into an agency-less slave to causality. Armed with foreknowledge, she could at any time, choose to act in a way that would change the future. We know she could have done that, because the entire plot of Shadowbringers involved taking action to change a known future. That she chooses not to is something she has agency over, she goes with her plan in order to give our future a fighting chance.

In that sense, she is choosing to value an uncertain and imperfect future known to have suffering and pain - over the seemingly perfect world of the ancients.

(if anyone are slaves to causality it's Emet-selch and the rest of the ascians. Whose actions were known by Venat, and acted exactly how the WoL told them they would, and had no ability to alter that course. But even then, I think their choices were still their own.)

Sure. I talked about this in the OP, though. If that were the case, why did the other reasons even come up? If her motive was always to make the one choice to close the loop, then nothing else is applicable. Her moral judgement of the ancients, emphasized considerably by the narrative, becomes weird and hollow because there was never an alternative.

Ask the question of 'what would Venat have done if she didn't have the guide', and realize that nothing actually needs to change.

If you don't mind me saying so, this is giving the writers a lot of credit for what is a pretty contrived scenario - in an interview, the scenario team expressed that they hadn't planned any of the later parts of the ancient plot in advance until Shadowbringers, so from the top down the situation needs to be seen as them trying to construct this new logic for Hydaelyn's actions on top of the already established events.

With that in mind, if we're operating on the assumption that Hydaelyn wasn't trying to close the time loop intentionally, then the idea that she would have this foreknowledge and no compunctions against putting it to her her advantage, only to end up creating the exact same circumstances she heard about to begin with, is inherently very silly to me. She knew about everything the Convocation would ultimately do with Zodiark, and how the sacrifices would happen. She knew about how Emet would respond to her actions, about the Rejoinings. She knew that she herself would goof in the First and contribute to causing the Flood of Light in her guidance of Ardbert. The idea that she would not be able to exercise any agency in changing these events whatsoever from the course described to her despite this is, if it was what the writers meant to do, an incredibly janky contrivance.