Disappointed in one Endwalker Aspect [SPOILERS]

[OhNooo]

I have to say I'm amazed and baffled at how many people on the forums seem to think Venat was some kind of malicious, evil person who sundered the world on her own selfish whim.

The truth is Venat was a good person. Emet-Selch was a good person. But when faced with a world ending event, they both did what they believed was best for the survival of the planet, they just disagreed on the direction it should go in. Emet's group wanted to return things to the way they were, Venat's group (yes, group, she did NOT act alone. Believing so completely disregards what we learned in 5.2) believed the only way to survive was to move forward and not cling to what they lost. They didn't have any easy options. They both had to make extremely difficult choices...

It's all about perspectives. Each side thought they were doing the right thing - doing what they had to do. Each side thought they had no other option. I see parallels between Hermes, Venat and Emet-Selch in that all three of them looked at mankind and made a judgement. After thousands of years of observing the sundered, Emet made a judgement that they couldn't be trusted with the star and were not worth saving. Venat also looked at her own people and made a judgement that they were hopeless and could not be trusted to come up with a solution. Hermes made a judgement that his people should be tested to see if they truly deserved to live. From each group's perspective, they are the heroes in their own story. I agree with you that they aren't bad people - they all had good intentions.

I think one of the issues people have is how there seems to be a bias in Venat's favor, pushing a more sympathetic view towards what she did. That's definitely the impression I got throughout the game. In the other expansions it was like the writers left a lot of things up to the players to interpret. But this time it was like they were trying to tell me how to feel instead of letting me interpret things for myself? That's just the vibe I felt on my end.

[Ayche]

There are some premises that sometimes feel go unremarked. Like there is the premise of "amaurotine paradise", that everything was perfect for the ancients. Not really, there is a lot of subtext and clues hidden in side quests and the main quest, especially the coming raid series seems to be going into the direction, that their society was very good at hiding its ugly side and people kept a stiff upper lip about it. And then there is a premise that is ... all too relevant to our actual, real life world. The premise that there is a normal you can return to after an event that shocks the everyday. But since there is no actual way to relive the past, it is always impossible to return to what was. Regardless of the intent, any motivation built on the idea that if we just do this thing and that thing, we can all return to the status quo and continue from there involves some amount of self-deception.

Also I should resist, but ... ideology motivated by return to a glorious past has ... very bad echoes to certain movements.

[EaraGrace]

Unfortunately, it has the unintended consequence of meaning that Venat also sundered most of the dead, too. And the unborn. And those awaiting rebirth. It turns out that in some, so far unexplained, maneuver that a few of the Ascians and those within Zodiark weren't sundered, somehow.

Then it's even told to us that the shards rely on the Source as a nucleus of sorts, so that the stakes rise higher, but this also intrinsically means that the shards are explicitly lesser to the Source, too. This opens up the sticky mess, that is a fact, that Hydaelyn's Sundering caused there to be Nucleus Lives and Orbital Lives, the Orbital Lives aren't even on the same dimensional plane. They can't even be made to come and combat Meteion, unless they are Ascian or unless they are Rejoined. Even the mechanism most important to our time conundrum and story came from an alternate Source, made by Nucleus Lives.

It's actually an incredibly complex vilification, and the real rub comes from essentially being told by the story to push that complexity out of your mind.

"Don't think too hard about all this, just go out and save the universe. It's for your own good."

"Her cannibalization of her own people was noble. They was no other way to live and win."

Survival is not intrinsically noble.

"Killing and eating my companion on the mountainside was noble. There was no other way for me to live."

It is actually a choice that debases her. Literally everyone who has said that the Ancients couldn't find a way and had no future are just echoing what Emet-selch said about the sundered.

So no, Hydaelyn wasn't a good girl all along. She was a survivor, willing to be morally unsound to live at the expense of everyone she ever knew.

I fail to see how a being that condemns themselves to a multi millennia vigil, stuck in the aetherial sea and forced to give up their life force bit by bit is just acting out of selfishness. I also fail to see how a person who sacrifices themselves for the lives of others is “living at the expense of everyone she knew.” We know her, we know her passion and purpose in life was to journey forth, helping those in need. She was not “killing and eating her companion.” She was trying to save life, not hers but everyone’s. And She gave her own life to see that happen. A person concerned only with survival would not do that.

[Lauront]

There are some premises that sometimes feel go unremarked. Like there is the premise of "amaurotine paradise", that everything was perfect for the ancients. Not really, there is a lot of subtext and clues hidden in side quests and the main quest, especially the coming raid series seems to be going into the direction, that their society was very good at hiding its ugly side and people kept a stiff upper lip about it. And then there is a premise that is ... all too relevant to our actual, real life world. The premise that there is a normal you can return to after an event that shocks the everyday. But since there is no actual way to relive the past, it is always impossible to return to what was. Regardless of the intent, any motivation built on the idea that if we just do this thing and that thing, we can all return to the status quo and continue from there involves some amount of self-deception.

This has come up and has been remarked upon. It's more that said premises are considered to be irrelevant or side considerations by some of us, particularly to the sundering. If their world is less than perfect (but in relative terms I find them to be quite remarkable beings compared both to RL humans and the sundered), should they not strive to regain what they lost, even if that exact thing cannot be regained? After their star had nearly been desiccated and most of their people sacrificed to staunch it? As if many of the sundered would not desire and act towards the precise same thing? Note that the dispute between Venat and her faction and the remaining ancients was less to do with any of their imperfections, real or imagined, but more to do with the attitude she thought they should have to suffering, based on context she had and which they were not given and thus lacked.

Also I should resist, but ... ideology motivated by return to a glorious past has ... very bad echoes to certain movements.

Yes, much as ideology focused on discarding the past (except when it comes to using it caricatures of it to ideologically browbeat opponents), fixating on "brighter tomorrows", destroying all opposition to withering away the status quo and ushering in their own new glorious revolution, thriving on crises as pretexts for doing so, has very bad echoes to certain movements.

[OhNooo]

I fail to see how a being that condemns themselves to a multi millennia vigil, stuck in the aetherial sea and forced to give up their life force bit by bit is just acting out of selfishness. I also fail to see how a person who sacrifices themselves for the lives of others is “living at the expense of everyone she knew.” We know her, we know her passion and purpose in life was to journey forth, helping those in need. She was not “killing and eating her companion.” She was trying to save life, not hers but everyone’s. And She gave her own life to see that happen. A person concerned only with survival would not do that.

I really do feel like she saw herself as a messiah. She really did believe that she and her supporters were the last hope left.She saw the ancients as flawed and made the judgement to change them by force for what she truly believed was the greater good. She did sacrifice herself for her ideals.

I wonder if she could hear those souls that were trapped inside of Zodiark crying out the whole time he was imprisoned.

[RyuDragnier]

Yes, much as ideology focused on discarding the past (except when it comes to using it caricatures of it to ideologically browbeat opponents), fixating on "brighter tomorrows", destroying all opposition to withering away the status quo and ushering in their own new glorious revolution, thriving on crises as pretexts for doing so, has very bad echoes to certain movements.

Yes, we know the Bozjan Resistance was as horrible as the IVth Legion, can we leave the Save the Queen storyline in the past?

[Rulakir]

And because people were already given to liking Emet-Selch and Elidibus from Shadowbringers, and they really wanted people to like Venat, actually having a scene pitting them against each other wasn't feasible. So instead of showing the actual sundering, which would either paint one side worse than the other or at least leave both very morally ambiguous, they just show Venat versus thirteen strawmen.

I hadn't thought of that, but you're right. Given Emet's popularity if they had visually pitted them against each other it would not have worked well. It barely did with the direction they decided to go.

Also I should resist, but ... ideology motivated by return to a glorious past has ... very bad echoes to certain movements.

Please point me to who would not choose to have the world of 2019 back unless they have their head so far up their own backside of the opposing ideology.

[RyuDragnier]

Please point me to who would not choose to have the world of 2019 back unless they have their head so far up their own backside of the opposing ideology.

I believe they're referring to White Supremacists and other fascist movements that talk of a return to a "glorious past", which often consisted of "lessers" knowing their place.

[Rulakir]

I believe they're referring to White Supremacists and other fascist movements that talk of a return to a "glorious past", which often consisted of "lessers" knowing their place.

Well, apologies if I misinterpreted then. Given the polarized political climate of the past two years it's impossible to tell anymore, so they probably should've been more specific. Regardless, wanting to return to better times is common outside of political movements. It's just that everyone's definition of better differs. I would like to go back to when buying a home wasn't a considered a luxury, for example. :P

[Veloran]

I fail to see how a being that condemns themselves to a multi millennia vigil, stuck in the aetherial sea and forced to give up their life force bit by bit is just acting out of selfishness.

I know right? Lahabrea was the coolest guy.