*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[Lyth]

Evidently lot of people in this argument are being quite silly - though this is an official forum for an MMO, so I'm going to guess that at least some are literal kids - but if you create a bizarre caricature based on a generalized impression and apply it to everyone who holds some flavor of opposing perspective to you, the environment will just become even more ridiculous.

It is ridiculous, and it absolutely does deserve to be portrayed as such. You can only take offense to such a caricature if you see your own likeness in it.

I think there are times when it can be instructive to look at the arguments around 'what ifs', because it challenges you go back and reread the story, and there will always be details that you miss on a first pass. That can be actually pretty fun especially if the people involved are genuinely interested in the lore (sometimes even if they aren't). What gets really tiresome is when someone starts out with 'Venat killed everything on the planet!' and the next person comes along and says 'Venat sundered everyone without their consent!' Then the first poster realizes that they can add in a bit more punch to their claims and follows up with 'Yeah, yeah! She killed everything on the planet and she didn't even bother to get their consent first!' At which point you have to ask yourself, 'Where's the actual lore discussion in any of this?' You can't hear it for all the angry shouting.

[Veloran]

It's made clear in no uncertain terms that her plan worked and no others would have,

If it wasn't obvious, Emet stating that his plan wouldn't have brought mankind to Ultima Thule isn't equivalent to a fact that no other plan could ever have been viable.

[KizuyaKatogami]

As much as I have my issues with Venat, this isn't factually correct. Even as early as Hades EX, the game frames Emet-Selch as a hero who fought nobly for the lives of his people. The game has the Scions expressing sympathy for his cause all through your exploration of Amaurot, with Alisaie even outright saying that she would have done the same thing in his shoes. In 5.3, the Scions even evidence bittersweetness over Emet-Selch's passing when they plan to leave the Ocular one last time, pointing out that he would have been with them in there through their Shadowbringers journey, too. You are also given the option to mourn Elidibus and apologize for what happened to him in EW.

So, to me, the issue is less that Venat is painted as a hero and more that her actions don't get the in-game scrutiny that Emet-Selch's did. Now, it's logical that Emet-Selch was met with hostility and skepticism on behalf of the Scions. Emet-Selch was a part of your opposition whereas Venat had been assisting you with your goals as far back as ARR. However, ShB brought up several facts about the shady manipulation that "Hydaelyn" engaged in that needed better answers than, "yeah, it's weird that she lied about that lololol." Emet-Selch really had to prove himself to us--with several of the Scions, like Thancred, never giving him even an iota of trust--but when our confidence in Venat was badly shaken, it's as though the game didn't think she would be obligated to do anything to win it back. It was enough that she was lonely and sad because her actions left her isolated for millennia.

Nope, that doesn't work for me.

My point was moreso that, he is painted as a hero from his perspective as it’s a part of the whole “everyone is a hero of their own story” theme, however in venat’s case, she is painted as the hero of everyone’s story. I do agree with your points though, it especially annoyed me how we finally get to call out Hydaelyn’s lies to the watcher and it’s just immediately handwaved. Meanwhile we’re still making angry grr faces at the slightest mention of Lahabrea… the bias is just too much for me lol.

It is ridiculous, and it absolutely does deserve to be portrayed as such. You can only take offense to such a caricature if you see your own likeness in it.

I think there are times when it can be instructive to look at the arguments around 'what ifs', because it challenges you go back and reread the story, and there will always be details that you miss on a first pass. That can be actually pretty fun especially if the people involved are genuinely interested in the lore (sometimes even if they aren't). What gets really tiresome is when someone starts out with 'Venat killed everything on the planet!' and the next person comes along and says 'Venat sundered everyone without their consent!' Then the first poster realizes that they can add in a bit more punch to their claims and follows up with 'Yeah, yeah! She killed everything on the planet and she didn't even bother to get their consent first!' At which point you have to ask yourself, 'Where's the actual lore discussion in any of this?' You can't hear it for all the angry shouting.

Reminds me of when people were constantly going around preaching about "emet bad, ascians bad, how dare they fight for their own people, hear ye hear ye, ascians commit genocide!Omg Mitron didnt get consent from Gaia how dare he! hes so gross!" Didnt see many people speaking up about it back then. Now that it affects our benevolent Mother though, everyone is up in arms. How interesting...

[SpectrePhantasia]

I will preface by saying that neither Emet-selch nor Venat are correct in my eyes, but something I've noticed from the Hydaelyn-sided end of the discussion is that it is often layered in a thick condescension, where anyone who has qualms with the Sundering and its larger context either 'doesn't get it' or is automatically assumed to endorse Emet-selch and the Unsundered doing much the same thing, when the truth is I don't think much of anyone does. We all played the same story, and while reminders of lines of dialogue and factual information is more than encouraged, the smug aura is not. Not to say the other end of the spectrum is free of sin either, but I think we should be welcome to good-natured debate on the subject. Its morality was grey by design.

[redheadturk]

Originally Posted by Lyth View Post
It is ridiculous, and it absolutely does deserve to be portrayed as such. You can only take offense to such a caricature if you see your own likeness in it.

I think there are times when it can be instructive to look at the arguments around 'what ifs', because it challenges you go back and reread the story, and there will always be details that you miss on a first pass. That can be actually pretty fun especially if the people involved are genuinely interested in the lore (sometimes even if they aren't). What gets really tiresome is when someone starts out with 'Venat killed everything on the planet!' and the next person comes along and says 'Venat sundered everyone without their consent!' Then the first poster realizes that they can add in a bit more punch to their claims and follows up with 'Yeah, yeah! She killed everything on the planet and she didn't even bother to get their consent first!' At which point you have to ask yourself, 'Where's the actual lore discussion in any of this?' You can't hear it for all the angry shouting.

Like many of the others here have said, yer dang right I have a crap ton of issues with people having their world flipped upside down the way Venat did. I have the same issues with the Ascians' multiple genocides, which I have already stated. My biggest issue with #teamhydaelyn is them not being willing to call what Venat did genocide when it was just as much so as the Rejoinings were. It was, and there is no excusing it, it was objectively wrong, in a moral sense, just as much as the rejoinings. Instead of saying "Oh, but she was riigggght in the end" call a spade a spade and admit both sides did some pretty morally screwed up things.

[RyuDragnier]

I'm tired, in all honesty. I love talking lore, but over the past month-and-a-half a lot of 'talking lore' has been focused on a single part of the story and people not really getting it. I really want us all to just... move on, but it isn't exactly happening very fast.

Which may be part of why Yoshi-P is doing those interviews on story interpretations. He may be attempting to set the record straight so we can all move onto a different topic of focus. Because I agree, it's been getting really tiring. There's loads of other things we can talk about, but we keep ending up on this one subject across multiple threads.

[EaraGrace]

The planet reincarnates souls into naturally occurring life, or life that is at least approximate to naturally occurring. It does not birth entirely new species wholecloth out of nothing, much less fully formed sapient humanoids.

Life would naturally develop as it has previously. Beings that survived the Final Days would propagate, new species would develop. We know that when influenced with aether life can and does spring back quickly. Eden and life after the Seventh Umbral Calamity prove that.

If morality can be reasoned and discovered from the universe itself, then it is also the case that life's meaning can be reasoned and discovered from the universe itself, as morality includes precepts of behavior, things that should and should not be done. However Endwalker rejects this entirely, and posits that meaning can only be individually determined, and if the meaning and value of life can only be determined by the individual, it then follows that morality is unique and relative to each individual.

This is just simply not true. Morality is interested in finding what we ought to do. Existentialism is concerned with what is. This is called the is/ought gap. The recognition that meaning is dependent on the person is about what the universe is. Determining whether you should do something is about what you ought to do. These are distinct. For example, Kierkegaard was a Christian, yet you would say he doesn’t believe there’s an objective morality?

The Ironworks were operating under the belief that the world would be erased. Obviously this would not aid in their survival.

Could just as easily be a reference to the their belief that the world is doomed. Regardless, that wasn’t what drove people away, the text is clear in the story.

This highlights an interesting contradiction in Venat's ideology. Namely that she was fiercely opposed to her people thinking to return to their ideal past, to the point of destroying them for the notion - Yet her solution was just that. She sacrificed the Ancients in order to force them into what was, to her, a more "ideal" state of being, free of the moral decay and unsustainable nature that she perceived was their future.

In essence Venat is an extremist Primitivist.

This is such a misreading of Venats motivations. Venat makes clear she is not prejudiced to believe in any certain way to live, only that they are able to do so. She believes in virtue, aye, but her primary desire is to see humanity exist into the future:

Venat: Safe in the knowledge that mankind will find his own way.

The issue, the reason for the Sundering, is that humanity was committing itself to a path of extinction, and even then she makes clear she doesn’t judge those doing this as she understands their reasons, even if she disagrees with the goal and the means to achieve it. This is something a lot of those criticizing her miss in my opinion. She doesn’t judge those choosing to escape suffering, she doesn’t want this to be what needs to be done either. But it must.

What's to stop anyone from disapproving of the way any society lives and taking matters into their own hands? Judging you because you just don't have just the right amount of suffering needed to not focus on the meaning of life so much that you want to die (because you're too busy paying bills and taking care of your family to contemplate it?). That means that anyone can look at a society and find them lacking, and as long as that person ends up winning in the end, then it doesn't matter what suffering that society goes through in the end.

People of course do this all the time. Millennia of history shows people arguing, disagreeing, advocating, etc. in an effort to see their judgement made manifest.

[Jandor]

Time to drop a scalding hot take.

Mankind showed it didn't have the intelligence or the wisdom to wield creation magic responsibly when one sad boi researcher proved capable of launching an experimental universe threatening hive mind side project into the depths of space in order to satisfy his own curiosity. Venat was right to sunder the world, Etheirys was a ticking time bomb, ready to blow up and take the rest of the Universe with it at a moments notice.

[Lyth]

Like many of the others here have said, yer dang right I have a crap ton of issues with people having their world flipped upside down the way Venat did. I have the same issues with the Ascians' multiple genocides, which I have already stated. My biggest issue with #teamhydaelyn is them not being willing to call what Venat did genocide when it was just as much so as the Rejoinings were. It was, and there is no excusing it, it was objectively wrong, in a moral sense, just as much as the rejoinings. Instead of saying "Oh, but she was riigggght in the end" call a spade a spade and admit both sides did some pretty morally screwed up things.

This has been pointed out before multiple times by several different people, but genocide is a hate crime with intent to systematically destroy part or whole of a group of people who have been targeted on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, nationality, and so on. The root 'genos' in this case doesn't simply mean 'people', but rather 'a people', such as in a racial group. The reason why it shouldn't be thrown around flippantly to 'spice up an argument' is because while you personally might be privileged enough to live a life unaffected by persecution, not everyone reading your posts might be so fortunate. I understand that in most cases this comes from a place of ignorance rather than malice. Still, I'd personally prefer if you didn't misuse the word, or try to justify your misappropriation of it after the fact.

What you consider to be 'right' as far as the story is concerned is largely up to you, be it the Ascians, Venat, or some middle ground between the two. No amount of in-game lore can answer that question for you, and you don't need a consensus, moral argument, or even a rationale to rubber stamp your opinion.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Which may be part of why Yoshi-P is doing those interviews on story interpretations. He may be attempting to set the record straight so we can all move onto a different topic of focus. Because I agree, it's been getting really tiring. There's loads of other things we can talk about, but we keep ending up on this one subject across multiple threads.

Tbf, theres nothing forcing people who are tired of this topic to keep commenting on it, but people do. It's their own decision. If theyre truly tired they can step away and take a break or go to other posts. It's like people who enter threads that are very clearly showing some criticisms for the story and getting offended and complaining about criticism. Just leave the thread lol. But yes i agree, im curious to see how yoshi p explains some things as there are many unanswered questions.

This has been pointed out before multiple times by several different people, but genocide is a hate crime with intent to systematically destroy part or whole of a group of people who have been targeted on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, nationality, and so on. The root 'genos' in this case doesn't simply mean 'people', but rather 'a people', such as in a racial group. The reason why it shouldn't be thrown around flippantly to 'spice up an argument' is because while you personally might be privileged enough to live a life unaffected by persecution, not everyone reading your posts might be so fortunate. I understand that in most cases this comes from a place of ignorance rather than malice. Still, I'd personally prefer if you didn't misuse the word, or try to justify your misappropriation of it after the fact.

What you consider to be 'right' as far as the story is concerned is largely up to you, be it the Ascians, Venat, or some middle ground between the two. No amount of in-game lore can answer that question for you, and you don't need a consensus, moral argument, or even a rationale to rubber stamp your opinion.

I'd just like to say, again, that none of this was ever an issue before when it was used for the ascian side of things, or when people continuously called garleans nazi's. It seems its only now become a problem because it affects a character some people like. I think theres different definitions of words that vary all around the world, so its difficult to dictate specific versions that can or cant be said. However, i dont thin we should really be policing it so long as it isnt something harmful directed to another player here, i think using the term in question to describe specific acts in the game is fine as the definition varies, nazi on the other hand is far less bendable, and i think thats far more insulting than whats being said here. But like i said, how convenient no one brought it up as an issue before when it was issued against antagonists.

Time to drop a scalding hot take.

Mankind showed it didn't have the intelligence or the wisdom to wield creation magic responsibly when one sad boi researcher proved capable of launching an experimental universe threatening hive mind side project into the depths of space in order to satisfy his own curiosity. Venat was right to sunder the world, Etheirys was a ticking time bomb, ready to blow up and take the rest of the Universe with it at a moments notice.

Its a good thing the devs themselves kind of stated the sundering was a bad thing then.You can argue this about any society really. Everyone is a ticking time bomb. The sundered world isnt any different, in fact in a way its kind of worse. Once the source goes, so too will the shards follow and be doomed due to other peoples mistakes.