What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[Garet]

See I think we’re actually fairly close to an understanding. I just think the criterion you laid out makes the third sacrifice an abhorrent act of selfishness born out of an attempt to hide from pain, a sign both of the Ancients inability to see life beyond their own as being deserving of true moral consideration and of their refusal to accept the inevitable of suffering in the world. The former is a moral failing, the second would lead to extinction.



The first sentence is literally refuted by an entire voiced cutscene, the second the following voiced cutscene after it. If you want to have those answers then you may wish to go back and watch the cutscenes at the end of our time in Elpis again.

Yea I think some people just do not want to accept Venat's positive portrayal and therefore are trying to justify their negative views on her. On my part I do hope Venat makes some cameo in the future along with Emet if at all possible. Really liked their characters haha Venat is gone too soon for me haha. Her Voice Actress was also perfect for the role just like Voice Actress for Meteion is for her character.

[Theodric]

Presumably if the opposition to the third set of sacrifices is genuine, then one would be even more horrified by the Sundering. Which is in itself a non-consensual act of genocide that not only wiped out the Ancients and their civilisation but forced every living being upon Etheirys to devolve and become weaker. Worse yet, it robbed them of all but a few patchwork memories of the world that once was.

I'd also argue that the Sundered didn't succeed through their own merits, either. If not for the aid of higher beings (namely the likes of Venat, Midgardsormr, Elidibus and Emet-Selch) then they would not have been able to defeat Meteion.

A large part of the reason as to why the Ancients struggled to overcome the Final Days was in no small part due to Venat deliberately withholding key information. She knew where Meteion had ventured to. She knew the real cause of the disaster and then blamed the failings not on her own inability to have a conversation but a bizarre standard she insisted everybody adhered to...which she then came to regret and apologise for after the damage was done and could not be easily reversed, if at all.

Yea I think some people just do not want to accept Venat's positive portrayal and therefore are trying to justify their negative views on her. On my part I do hope Venat makes some cameo in the future along with Emet if at all possible. Really l iked their characters haha Venat is gone too soon for me haha. Her Voice Actress was also perfect for the role just like Voice Actress for Meteion is for her character.

I disagree. Some posters are looking at the story as a whole and simply aren't seeking to excuse everything and anything that Venat has done. To many, her motives and actions simply don't make sense and the fact that she's a pretty woman with a nice voice does nothing for those of us who are, you know, not into women and thus don't fall easily to their charms!

[Nilroreo]

That is a very big IF lol.

Same for us. Venat had no idea whether or not we would succeed past her death. She gambled the fate of the star on a hunch that her new best friend would be able to take care of the rest. We then proceed to power of friendship our way to the end of the game proving her right, but that doesn't change the fact that it was still at the end of the day just that, a gamble. The biggest difference between the sundered and unsundered wasn't our difference in susceptibility towards dynamis, nor was it how much more we supposedly respect life on our star (which we dont lol), the biggest difference between us is simply that Venat chose us.

[KizuyaKatogami]

This is absolutely disingenuous and false. The First Rejoining and Black Rose decimated both Aldenard and Ilsabard. There were survivors, in a broken and bleak world. The stories of the WoL gave them hope. It wasn't just Ironworks deciding for everyone. It was the survivors coming together and working toward that goal. And they worked on it for 200 years. 200 years in which nothing improved enough in their reality to weigh against that risky venture. They were looking to the past, no arguments there. But what future could they look forward to if nothing changed in that long to make them think another path was possible? They knew their timeline might disappear. It was worth it for them if another timeline had a better future.

Just like how the final days decimated not just a couple continents, but the entire world. What other choice did they have but to summon Zodiark? Did they rely on him? Yes. But it literally isnt any different from how people rely upon the WoL, or how we ourselves are constantly relying on higher up entities to help us. We're shown in the short story that they actually do eventually choose to live on, along with Midgardsormr i believe. So it was very much possible for them to continue through instead of erasing an entire timeline of people to resurrect one person. The whole problem here is Zodiark not being a permanent solution to the final days. That is Venat's main gripe, which is interesting in and of itself because she had the means to communicate and help before they even occurred. Thats the overall problem here.

Rewatch this since it is basically a summary of what led to venat's final decision
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlA0lGrSRqM

If you need further and more detailed accounts of what this scene represented. Rewatch all cutscenes from 2.0 till present that involved ascians



That is a very big IF lol.

Venat's entire plan is a very big if. Literally relies on one person, whom of which failed and required time manipulation to be brought back. I've already explained to you as best as i can about the sacrifices. I dont need nay videos to be shown to me as i already know the whole deal about the sacrifices and her decision. None of it changes the fact she couldve told them beforehand and didnt. She kept secrets,manipulated, and lied. End of story.

Yea I think some people just do not want to accept Venat's positive portrayal and therefore are trying to justify their negative views on her. On my part I do hope Venat makes some cameo in the future along with Emet if at all possible. Really liked their characters haha Venat is gone too soon for me haha. Her Voice Actress was also perfect for the role just like Voice Actress for Meteion is for her character.

No, most people just dont agree with her diabolical actions and horrible mindset. To me, shes nothing more than a psychopath. She preaches about suffering and walking forward but then has no hope for her own people and doesnt face the problem head on.

[TaleraRistain]

It's not merely down to what those entities were. A possible consideration would be how those ancients inside Zodiark might have felt about being plucked out of him, which some might've viewed as dishonouring their sacrifice. You will recall that in the original source on the matter, Ere our Curtain Falls, it mentions that the dissidents formed what is described as "no small number". We know Elidibus returns at this point to mediate the dispute. By the time we see Anamnesis Anyder's scene, that support has reduced to just a few. So if I had to speculate? Elidibus conveyed the agony of those ancients caught inside the primal and unable to make a return to the star and swayed the decision on the matter. Because sapient life exists on a spectrum in the setting, and because even the killing of creations was a painful decision for some ancients, it is not possible to simply conclude they were ancients. There are also further practical questions that'd arise, such as how would we achieve this etc.? Too many unknowns, which Elidibus may have helped reduce in number through his firsthand experience of having been the primal's heart.

Once more: I am not saying the route of the sacrifices was the right option, because we lack too many specifics on it, including how they might've reframed this decision if Venat had been upfront about all the information she had. What I am pushing back against are some very frequent assumptions I've seen made on the topic, which don't really follow from the textual material available.

I'm not arguing it was necessarily full fledged Ancients. There could have been new sentient life or new people that weren't the same as the Ancients. I just see a lot of people argue that the 3rd sacrifice was okay because we don't know that it wasn't just plants. Even if it was plants, the life was important enough to make people in society hesitate to sacrifice it.

It also doesn't sit well with me especially after Elpis that the Ancients are the arbiters of what happens on the planet. As far as I understand in lore, they didn't create the star. So...who...put them in that position exactly to decide for the planet what was beneficial and what wasn't? And thus putting them into a position where they can even consider sacrificing new life? We also don't know if there were other types of beings on the star already since we just see these small slivers of Ancient society. I'd love to see some flashbacks of our Azem's forays into the world and what they found.

[Garet]

Same for us. Venat had no idea whether or not we would succeed past her death. She gambled the fate of the star on a hunch that her new best friend would be able to take care of the rest. We then proceed to power of friendship our way to the end of the game proving her right, but that doesn't change the fact that it was still at the end of the day just that, a gamble. The biggest difference between the sundered and unsundered wasn't our difference in susceptibility towards dynamis, nor was it how much more we supposedly respect life on our star (which we dont lol), the biggest difference between us is simply that Venat chose us.

This is why she had prepared the moon ark in case we failed. She did not go into it blindly believing we would surely win. Hence she even tested us before allowing us to fight meteion to measure if we even have a fighting chance.

Venat fought with the other ancient till the end. This is one of the reason she did not reveal what happened with the mind wipe because she feared Hermes might go against them against if he regained his memory of meteion and she wanted him as part of the convocation and an ally against the final days instead of an enemy. The vidoe posted here by me and another poster basically show a lot of her reasoning.

[Theodric]

It felt all very surface level and also fell apart for me when I looked deeper. By the time I watched another scion stand there with a determined look on their face giving a monologue about hope I had checked out already.

An apt summary. It's as if the game shifted from appealing to players who read between the lines and piece things together to make sense of a deeper narrative...to directly pandering to those who burst into tears the moment another fake death happens whilst sad music plays only to rush to Reddit to tell everybody how they were 'screaming' and 'crying' and they 'can't even right now'.

Meanwhile the characters and factions that actually do face incomprehensible levels of loss and dread are urged to just get over it whilst desperate comparisons are made to pretend as if the loss of the likes of Moenbryda is anywhere near as tragic as the loss of literally every single member of one's family, their friends, neighbours and every single person they have ever known.

It's why I'm raising an eyebrow at the implication that people 'just don't like venat' when the criticism is aimed at more than just a single character!

[Garet]

To many, her motives and actions simply don't make sense and the fact that she's a pretty woman with a nice voice does nothing for those of us who are, you know, not into women and thus don't fall easily to their charms!

This really says a lot about your character LOL. But I guess this just proves the statement I made that you replied to hahaha

BTW Emet is a guy does it mean I am into guys as well is the reason I like his character as well? )

[Nilroreo]

This is absolutely disingenuous and false. The First Rejoining and Black Rose decimated both Aldenard and Ilsabard. There were survivors, in a broken and bleak world. The stories of the WoL gave them hope. It wasn't just Ironworks deciding for everyone. It was the survivors coming together and working toward that goal. And they worked on it for 200 years. 200 years in which nothing improved enough in their reality to weigh against that risky venture. They were looking to the past, no arguments there. But what future could they look forward to if nothing changed in that long to make them think another path was possible? They knew their timeline might disappear. It was worth it for them if another timeline had a better future.

Exactly! They were only doing what they could for the salvation of their star! They had their worlds shattered by a doomsday event and longed for the world they've lost. They determined that erasure of an entire world is preferable to living in hell. It's as you say, "It was worth it for them if another timeline had a better future."

Btw, can you guess which of the two I've been talking about?

[Theodric]

This really says a lot about your character LOL.

How so? I'm specifically referring to rhetoric along these lines:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...l-Opinion-Vent

A not insignificant number of Hydaelyn fans have made it clear that they are invested in her purely based upon being a 'benevolent mother figure', or because she has a 'soft voice' or 'pretty features'. If that doesn't apply to you, then fair enough but I'd point out that you reduced any criticism of Venat to:

Yea I think some people just do not want to accept Venat's positive portrayal and therefore are trying to justify their negative views on her.

As such, I think it would be rather disingenuous to take issue with similar broad statements shot back in turn. Besides, nobody is obligated to like or support specific characters. The writers themselves are on record suggesting as such, so I'm not really sure why some players seek to portray it as a bad thing not to agree with Venat.