Quote Originally Posted by vormela View Post
(and, of course, her answer to eternal suffering was the song of oblivion...they had to find their own answers to make life worthwhile and meaningful)

This is why I think back and forth, Venat is bad, Emet-Selch is bad, Hermes is bad...is not helpful. The game paints their motivations and reasoning out very clearly. It is, in fact, not easy to paint them out this clearly, and yet they have.

There are ways to read the subtext of stories as well, and I don't mean to sound condescending because people have different levels of interacting with the story. But this is how it is presented in-game over and over again, in the actual text. Discussions are interesting when people are engaged and read into the subtext. But in not presenting flat-out evil characters the game kind of forces you to go beyond "person is evil" and actually ask questions and try to empathize. Not sympathize! Empathize.

The main character is only a paragon of "goodness" because the people around them keep talking about their good deeds and traits that make them a good ambassador and respectful, successful traveler. We have never met Azem, for example, so have to trust in others' judgment. We believe that story of the volcano because they believe. That doesn't mean their plans, motivations, etc. can't be flawed in some way. And the story seems to have made that point clear several times.
Tbh ignoring all of the venat bad emet bad stuff for a second, one of my beyond biggest gripes this expansion is just how absolutely biased the story is in favor of Venat/Hydaelyn. We’re told and shown basically that…Zodiark saved the world, essentially twice, once during the final days and then again with the whole meteion shield, and Elidibus basically sacrificed himself to help us go back in time yet…they don’t even get a passing mention for what they did. It’s all venat venat venat. She gets her own minion depicting her as a hero, the whole minstrel’s ballad paints her as this tragic heroic figure….so where is all this attention for Zodiark? It’s just a very strange double standard in how we’ve treated Zodiark and Elidibus vs her.