*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[EaraGrace]

I think a distinction needs to be drawn here between moral ambiguity as a narrative device, and moral ambiguity as experienced by the player. For me, many of my issues with Endwalker don't stem from the fact that Venat was a grey character - I'd have been fine with that - but that as many people on both sides have pointed out, we are clearly meant to view her unambiguously as right and good. A lot of keys have been tapped here about how no character given any credence really speaks against her and the framing during her scenes is relentlessly positive and affirming of her perspective, but a better example might be the description for her minion, which more or less just lavishes praise on her.

Venats status as a hero in the story is firmly rooted in her intentions and the beliefs and values she holds. But that that isn’t saying Her actions cannot be grey. While the game doesn’t outright condemn her, it does give food for thought on the nature of her actions and the morality of it. She alone is held responsible for the Sundering. She herself states that the Her defining action in the narrative, was neither good nor just. Therein lies ambiguity, it’s just that unlike Emet and the Rejoinings, our presence was limited in the narrative when it came to Venat and the Sundering. If we were playing as an Ancient, I’d see the question of the Sundering and who side to take igniting an incredible amount of discussion. The Rejoinings meanwhile, aren’t ambiguous in the slightest.

Characters might be biased and framing can be argued, but when the narration of the game itself describes a character as a wonderful person, it's pretty clear you're meant to think of them as a wonderful person. When contrasted with her actions, this creates an uncomfortable dissonance that doesn't make the story more compelling, but less. Rather than having a sense that the story is giving me a choice of what to believe, it feels like the story is telling me to believe something - that a mass-murderer is a great person - I find kinda gross. It makes me want to quit the game because it feels like I'm not on the same page ethically as the writers.

But I don’t think the gross feeling is necessarily the result you think it is. You can hold that Venat had virtue while still believing the Sundering was beyond the pale. I felt gross when the game kept explaining how these mass murdering mad men were actually motivated by love, but I recognized that grossness wasn’t a result of the messaging, but rather the result of how that information makes the situation more complicated. I fail to see how the same can’t apply to Venat. In both cases the narrative gives ample reason to empathize, while still leaving the moral question up to the player. The only difference is we know now that Venats goals were predicated on information she and ourselves were left to keep to secret, and that ultimately Venat was playing the long game. None of this changes the moral questions of the actions involved. I think it perfectly consistent to have seen everything the narrative has to show, and still go ”that wasn’t right.” I think the writers would even be thrilled at that.

Even though Emet-Selch is also a mass murderer, I never got that sense from Shadowbringers. Characters call him out, and the narrative voice about him swings from negative to neutral to positive depending on the context. Even if it produces less discourse (though certainly no shortage), I'd say that's a better example of moral ambiguity.

But there’s no ambiguity. The moral question doesn’t exist here. He’s wrong, and that’s that. On this the narrative is even more clear than with Venat.

Honestly, the existence of other nations and cultures in the ancient world is one of the biggest bugbears I have about the Sundering. It's one thing to pass judgement on your own culture, and quite another to pass judgement on all cultures, or at least consider them reasonable collateral damage.

Amaurots influence was far reaching, and given the lack of organized conflict I think it reasonable to believe that differences between the cultures of Etheirys were not pronounced, as they wouldn’t be limited by time, location or resources. The world of Etheirys seems even more interconnected than our own.