*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[Lurina]

I've been wondering why people are desperate to argue that the third sacrifice would have just been some plants and non-sentient animals - when it flies in the face of the thematic meaning of the story, makes every character involved look like an idiot, and has not been mentioned once by a single character, ever. And the only conclusion I can see is that it's because it makes Venat look bad. If she tried to prevent the ancients from sundering a bunch of cows and chickens, she would be silly and callous - if she tried to prevent them from sacrificing ensouled peoples, she'd be sundering them in order to prevent her own people from committing genocide. I don't know about anyone else, but I know which one I think is more in keeping with the themes of the story being told.

No matter how unsupported by any textual evidence it is, and how frankly, silly and absurd it is, people are going to keep bringing up the possibility of a livestock powered Zodiark because they have an axe to grind against Venat.

I can only speak for myself, but my axe to grind with Endwalker isn't with Venat - I liked her character overall, and don't even per-se object to the idea that the Sundering could have a 'valid' reason; obviously the writers intended for us to feel it did. Rather, my complaint is with the writing and presentation itself. If the sacrifices were intended to be people, why is the script so shy about saying so, absent Emet's single line about sacrificing the 'remaining population of the Source' which is only applied in the present-day scenario and obviously influenced by the context of the conversation around his broader negative feelings towards Sundered life? Why does the script use phrasing like 'a portion of life' instead of just saying what they're killing, especially in the scene at the end of Elpis?

Like many details about Venat's actions and motives, the whole thing is written in a way that feels deliberately fuzzy, and I can't shake the sense that the writers were trying to have their cake and eat it. That they wanted us to sympathize with both the members of the Convocation and Venat, but realized that clearly establishing the nature of what the Ancients wanted to do would make doing so impossible. Either their entire culture comes across as monstrous in a way that clashes with the heroism we're obviously supposed to see in past-Emet and Themis, or Venat comes across as some kinda fanatical environmentalist willing to murder her people to save some cows, clashing with our own mainstream real-world values about non-sentient life.

I write for a living, and I know when you've written yourself into a corner, it's incredibly tempting to keep things abstract in the hopes that the reader will kinda 'find their own answer' based on the vibes of the story. If everything is clearly defined, it's impossible for both Emet and Venat at the time to have been acting in a way we'd broadly consider moral or heroic. However, if the situation is abstracted and left to our imaginations, that becomes possible - either through not thinking about it, or simply interpreting the story differently based on which character we were more invested in to begin with.

[Rulakir]

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised after the events of the past two years, but I never cease to be amazed how people when presented with the same information can arrive at different conclusions. I often think a study on the different perspectives of players would be fascinating. Does it come down to culture, values, personality type? I'm almost tempted to make a survey. :P

Like many details about Venat's actions and motives, the whole thing is written in a way that feels deliberately fuzzy, and I can't shake the sense that the writers were trying to have their cake and eat it. That they wanted us to sympathize with both the members of the Convocation and Venat, but realized that clearly establishing the nature of what the Ancients wanted to do would make doing so impossible. Either their entire culture comes across as monstrous in a way that clashes with the heroism we're obviously supposed to see in past-Emet and Themis, or Venat comes across as some kinda fanatical environmentalist willing to murder her people to save some cows, clashing with our own mainstream real-world values about non-sentient life.

I write for a living, and I know when you've written yourself into a corner, it's incredibly tempting to keep things abstract in the hopes that the reader will kinda 'find their own answer' based on the vibes of the story.

Exactly this. I suspect that's why the "new life" angle was largely dropped in EW once they realized there was no way to rectify it without vilifying one side or the other. However, the alternate route they took wasn't any less controversial. It could've been avoided had the sundering been unintentional outside of Zodiark or without memories of the future, unfortunately they chose to do both. I think they fell in love with both the idea of everything coming 'full circle' and the WoL being able to interact with the past without thinking through the details as much as they should have.

[MikkoAkure]

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised after the events of the past two years, but I never cease to be amazed how people when presented with the same information can arrive at different conclusions. I often think a study on the different perspectives of players would be fascinating. Does it come down to culture, values, personality type? I'm almost tempted to make a survey. :P

My angle is "making sense of the lore in a manner that supports the story that the writers are trying to tell".

This isn't a historical record of events, this is a video game. And as many on both sides have said, the video game is pretty heavy-handed in portraying Venat/Hydaelyn and her actions as benevolent regardless what the player thinks. That means that's the story the writers wanted to tell. I personally feel like it's an exercise in futility to try to poke the story in a way that makes the Ascians indisputably right when to me, the end result of the game is that the writers put Venat on a pedestal. That doesn't mean that I agree with how the story got there. There were more than a few headscratchers throughout EW especially, but it is what it is I guess.

Ultimately, the story the writers wanted to tell is that Hydaelyn was on our side and the Ascians were the force we were fighting in order to stay alive and protect people. The revelations of the Ascians in Shadowbringers gave much needed nuance and depth to the story, but I don't believe that the intention was for players to take that and immediately go "everything that we've done is bad and we need to kill Crystal Mom as well as the whole world in order to make sad grandpa's dream a reality".


I suppose if I were to make sense of my views in some sort of relation to my personality, I think "edgy" or "grimdark" stories are typically cringy and I really dislike the trope where a media (show, video game, book, etc.) starts off typical but then it turns out that the force of "good" was bad all along. I feel like that works better in stories like the Drakengard series where it doesn't take itself seriously at all without any attempt at a "moral dilemma".

[Lurina]

My angle is "making sense of the lore in a manner that supports the story that the writers are trying to tell".

This isn't a historical record of events, this is a video game. And as many on both sides have said, the video game is pretty heavy-handed in portraying Venat/Hydaelyn and her actions as benevolent regardless what the player thinks. That means that's the story the writers wanted to tell. I personally feel like it's an exercise in futility to try to poke the story in a way that makes the Ascians indisputably right when to me, the end result of the game is that the writers put Venat on a pedestal. That doesn't mean that I agree with how the story got there. There were more than a few headscratchers throughout EW especially, but it is what it is I guess.

Ultimately, the story the writers wanted to tell is that Hydaelyn was on our side and the Ascians were the force we were fighting in order to stay alive and protect people. The revelations of the Ascians in Shadowbringers gave much needed nuance and depth to the story, but I don't believe that the intention was for players to take that and immediately go "everything that we've done is bad and we need to kill Crystal Mom as well as the whole world in order to make sad grandpa's dream a reality".

Something you often see with long-running franchises, especially MMOs, is that people will express their reactions to what they see as bad writing not primarily as distaste for the writers, but instead towards specific characters or factions within the narrative. If you're married to a story in a long term way where you can't just say "lol, this was bad, goodbye" (such as it being part of an online game you play with all your friends for other reasons), the only way you can 'resolve' feelings of discomfort or disquiet with it is to redirect them towards something in-universe.

Like, take this whole Venat/Sundering thing. If you point your frustration where it belongs - towards the choices and beliefs of the Oda, Ishikawa and Yoshida, for whom the characters and setting elements are just devices - then the whole universe of FFXIV is fundamentally something you can't agree with, and the only way to express that disagreement is to quit the game. However, if you instead shift your perspective towards seeing Venat as an independent entity, and then judge her choices by taking the jank and vagueness of the story as literal in-setting facts, you can instead just see her as a bad person within an otherwise morally neutral setting, and continue enjoying the rest of the world without any cognitive dissonance.

People did this a lot in WoW.

[OhNooo]

...then the whole universe of FFXIV is fundamentally something you can't agree with, and the only way to express that disagreement is to quit the game...

Or you could stop paying attention to the story, skip all the cutscenes and just focus on gameplay. That's what I did all through Stormblood and had lots of fun.

[Rulakir]

This isn't a historical record of events, this is a video game. And as many on both sides have said, the video game is pretty heavy-handed in portraying Venat/Hydaelyn and her actions as benevolent regardless what the player thinks. That means that's the story the writers wanted to tell. I personally feel like it's an exercise in futility to try to poke the story in a way that makes the Ascians indisputably right when to me, the end result of the game is that the writers put Venat on a pedestal. That doesn't mean that I agree with how the story got there. There were more than a few headscratchers throughout EW especially, but it is what it is I guess.

The problem is the narrative is telling me what I should think and feel rather than my arriving at that conclusion myself through the story. It is what it is, sure, but that means it's poor writing from my perspective. I don't know if you've ever watched Critical Drinker on YouTube, but I'm reminded of whenever he's doing a review and asking questions regarding the plot when the answer to them is, "Don't know!"

Like, take this whole Venat/Sundering thing. If you point your frustration where it belongs - towards the choices and beliefs of the Oda, Ishikawa and Yoshida, for whom the characters and setting elements are just devices - then the whole universe of FFXIV is fundamentally something you can't agree with, and the only way to express that disagreement is to quit the game. However, if you instead shift your perspective towards seeing Venat as an independent entity, and then judge her choices by taking the jank and vagueness of the story as literal in-setting facts, you can instead just see her as a bad person within an otherwise morally neutral setting, and continue enjoying the rest of the world without any cognitive dissonance.

People did this a lot in WoW.

My anecdotal experience with WoW is people are painfully aware the issue is with the writers. Danuser, in particular, is frequently called out especially as it's implied Nathanos is his self-insert. People may hate Sylvanas, but they also recognize she got to where she is because it's her fans who are writing the story.

As for FFXIV, I didn't have a problem with it until EW. I've only been playing a few months, for what it's worth, so my POV is from having gone through all of the MSQ relatively recently. I don't know how much of a difference that makes since I know long time players who share my thoughts.

[MikkoAkure]

Something you often see with long-running franchises, especially MMOs, is that people will express their reactions to what they see as bad writing not primarily as distaste for the writers, but instead towards specific characters or factions within the narrative. If you're married to a story in a long term way where you can't just say "lol, this was bad, goodbye" (such as it being part of an online game you play with all your friends for other reasons), the only way you can 'resolve' feelings of discomfort or disquiet with it is to redirect them towards something in-universe.

Like, take this whole Venat/Sundering thing. If you point your frustration where it belongs - towards the choices and beliefs of the Oda, Ishikawa and Yoshida, for whom the characters and setting elements are just devices - then the whole universe of FFXIV is fundamentally something you can't agree with, and the only way to express that disagreement is to quit the game. However, if you instead shift your perspective towards seeing Venat as an independent entity, and then judge her choices by taking the jank and vagueness of the story as literal in-setting facts, you can instead just see her as a bad person within an otherwise morally neutral setting, and continue enjoying the rest of the world without any cognitive dissonance.

People did this a lot in WoW.

I actually didn't think about it that way and I really like the way you worded this. Funnily enough, one of the posters in this thread themselves said that they're letting their sub lapse as a result of the story and said that they don't like Ishikawa.

As for FFXIV, I didn't have a problem with it until EW. I've only been playing a few months, for what it's worth, so my POV is from having gone through all of the MSQ relatively recently. I don't know how much of a difference that makes since I know long time players who share my thoughts.

I've been playing since 1.0 where the Ascians from the very beginning have been portrayed as being floating, skeletal, shadow monsters. Having years since then while consistently seeing the Ascians portrayed as being bad and doing bad things and trying to kill you while being associated with the powers of darkness at the same time a soft-spoken power protects you who is associated with light ends up coloring your opinion a bit.

If this were a shorter-form story across a drastically reduced amount of real-world time, then I can see the possibility of a twist where our character gives serious thought to changing sides. But this is the narrative the writers have been pushing for over a decade and anyone who has played the game as long as I have but failed to see this outcome was distracted by their own opinions of the characters and how they themselves thought it should go rather than what the actual intention of the writers was. It gives a lot of credit to the writers that enough people were swayed by the characterization of the "enemy" in Shadowbringers that they start to take their side, but anyone taking a step back to look at the narrative as a whole could have seen "Hydaelyn is still the big good force at the end" from a mile away.

I do wish Endwalker's story had as much care as Shadowbringers though. It felt like they were in a rush to bring it all to a close and things happened too quickly or in a contrived manner that didn't feel as satisfying as it would if it were more detailed over a longer period of time.