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

[linayar]

She's a Mary Sue.

Isn't a "Mary Sue" an idealized character to the point of being the center of attention? I don't see how Venat/Hydaelyn is such a character.

[Enla]

Isn't a "Mary Sue" an idealized character to the point of being the center of attention? I don't see how Venat/Hydaelyn is such a character.

These days the term gets thrown around to describe female characters someone doesn't like more often than not. Diluting it to the point it basically has no meaning in these sort of conversations. Ask ten different people their definition of Mary Sue and you'll get thirteen different answers.

[Theodric]

The term isn't solely used to describe female characters and nobody in this thread is taking issue with her on the basis of being a female character. There's also a male counterpart - gary stu - for the term, though often the two bleed together because they essentially mean the same thing.

[Fayt1203]

That would mean that the WoL is the familiar of Azem, and not actually Azem, since its both the rejoining with Ardbert and the Blessing of Hydalen that give the color of Azems soul.

Dont think the blessing has any impact on the color of the soul seeing that only what the blessing do is to protect the aether from corruption. like invisible sphere around the soul.

[Lauront]

It is indeed subjective, especially when it comes to beings who literally made it their mission to direct the fate of the star. Beings who can just offer up prayer to have others be killed. What is "excessive and unnecessary force" in that case?

There is nothing in the sources that specifies what it was they were going to sacrifice, or if they were even "people". Again, the sources on the matter state new life (presumably what was seeded by Zodiark as per this.) Things that can have souls span from animals to some rarer familiars to ancients. It is a very broad spectrum. Is it things that could potentially be guided to inherit the star but would take a lot of handholding? E.g. familiars? Maybe ancients? Neither? We can't say, because the sources don't tell. If you're referring to the cutscene in EW, that stylised scene takes place when the star is still on fire, and so presumably refers to the self-sacrifices that were made to restore it, i.e. the second set. It's too vague to infer much else from. The textual sources on the other hand are emphatic on it being "new life" for the final phase and not specifying beyond that.

Moreover, even if I were to grant that they were sacrificing "people", they were initially divided on this (see the sources here - yes, it includes the Convocation as per FR Elidibus dialogue.) Had she been more forthcoming about what her concerns were, they may have been persuaded not to.

To add to this: her faction does not premise this in moralistic terms. They even grant that the Convocation is trying to act in the best interest of the star. See here:



All premised on pragmatic terms about avoiding their "doom". We know from EW she heard the report of the Plenty, and her real beef in the EW cutscene is that she thought, based on the chit-chat with the strawman ancients, that they weren't willing to put up with yet more suffering (I'll put aside how unreasonable she comes across in that scene), and that is why she believes they'd eventually doom themselves. Plus, the issue of Meteion. The sacrifices are ancillary to this because their role is to alleviate suffering by restoring their civilisation. She is not at any point chastising them for the morality of it.

I think at this point people are trying to invent crimes (or at least read known sources in ways that go beyond what they say) to try justify the genocide of the ancients. It is the eradication of their species, and yes, it is excessive. Not materially different to the Ascian view of the sundered, IMO, although they at least had the excuse that the Sundering was sprung on them out of the blue and that they saw it as their role to undo what she had done. Something she knew full well that they'd do when committing to her course of action, and after choosing not to inform them on what motivated her actions. A lot of this is driven by the fact that we're dealing with a closed time loop, but I for one am not going to pretend that if what the Ascians did is genocide, that what she did isn't. Nah.

Regarding intent, if she did not know what this novel power she was wielding did, she should've tested it. I am quite certain she did know, though, because she alludes in the EW cutscene to man no longer flying but walking. So I think she had an inkling of what it'd so. It only makes the difference between negligent and intentional manslaughter in the end...

You literally rejoin with Ardbert, and Emet saw a vision of your whole soul. The Rejoining itself is what they were doing to bring back all of the ancients, which means they weren't gone...

On this logic, what's the objection to it? If we're going to overlook the fact that the ancient would have had to physically die to become sundered (implied by the reduction in their lifespans alone - really, the differences in life forms are drastic but for some reason this is being ignored), and that the sundered will physically die to be rejoined, then surely neither act is a problem?

The story in Endwalker is lackluster if you have taken any Philosophy 101 class or read any philosophical books. I do not understand why some people are so obsessed with Friedrich Nietzsche, Nihilism, and Existentialism. It almost feels like Deus Ex Machina in terms of another villain coming out of nowhere invalidating the previous plot too.

I like the parts where they tried to make you care about the other Scions, the artistic setting, and what emotional formula they were trying to convey to the player. The logical part of my brain just cannot accept the plot holes and lack of rationale thought by the character's actions and belief systems. The story and plot just became melodramatic fluff to me.

Same for me.

The collateral damage is what's important in this case. I only brought up the idea of excessive force in referencing concept of unwarranted defense generally.

Though if you wanted to be picky about it, it's bizarre and excessive in retrospect that Hydaelyn sundered the world into 14 parts instead of just, like, 2, presumably causing far greater damage to the selfhood of the people currently living on the planet as a result. We beat Meteion while 9/14 rejoined, so that would have been fine.

The worst thing about it is that it means that singular solution, sundering, could've been implemented more selectively (i.e. on a subset of the population) if other solutions were not found, with the agreement of her people if they had been given the full story. Really, the reason she had to sunder the entire world is she wasn't being forthcoming with her goals, so naturally Zodiark got in her way and he was so much more powerful that she couldn't defeat him without dragging the entire star into it, as per her own admission. I get the impression that this is why she concedes the sundering was neither kind nor just.

[Rulakir]

She's a Mary Sue. There's no hate or animosity behind that statement. That's just what the character is. I find the distinct similarities with Venat/Hydaelyn and Zenos much more interesting since a lot of battle mechanics, ideology, and dialogue are mirrored between the 2.

She shared a disturbing amount of similarities to Hermes, IMO. Having recently played through ShB again, one of Alphinaud's lines about the rejoining struck me: "But what value is there in surviving when all our history, all our struggles will be erased? I cannot conscience such an act." Yet, this is exactly what the sundering did and Venat is shown to have made no effort in preserving any part of everything she supposedly held dear. Once again illustrating that if it's an Ascian responsible = bad, if it's Hydaelyn responsible = good.

She is at least some kind of Swiss Army Knife. She has a fraction of the power Zodiark does and, despite this, was able to defeat him as well as slice, dice, and julienne fry reality. Additionally, she created a moon and a race of sentient beings capable of engineering and piloting a spaceship for interstellar travel. She also has enough control over the afterlife to usher the souls of Minfilia and Emet from the First to the Source and give the WoL the ability to reconstitute the dead.

I'm sure there's a lot I'm forgetting to mention, but there doesn't seem to be much she can't do other than apparently (conveniently) prevent shards from being rejoined. Her greatest superpower may be that within the story she's above reproach with the added ability of making every character (including the player's, unfortunately) love or forgive her, even those she wronged the most, which I'd say is impressive but is likely more the result of her being the pet of the writing/dev team.

[Lauront]

She shared a disturbing amount of similarities to Hermes, IMO. Having recently played through ShB again, one of Alphinaud's lines about the rejoining struck me: "But what value is there in surviving when all our history, all our struggles will be erased? I cannot conscience such an act." Yet, this is exactly what the sundering did and Venat is shown to have made no effort in preserving any part of everything she supposedly held dear. Once again illustrating that if it's an Ascian responsible = bad, if it's Hydaelyn responsible = good.

She is at least some kind of Swiss Army Knife. She has a fraction of the power Zodiark does and, despite this, was able to defeat him as well as slice, dice, and julienne fry reality. Additionally, she created a moon and a race of sentient beings capable of engineering and piloting a spaceship for interstellar travel. She also has enough control over the afterlife to usher the souls of Minfilia and Emet from the First to the Source and give the WoL the ability to reconstitute the dead.

I'm sure there's a lot I'm forgetting to mention, but there doesn't seem to be much she can't do other than apparently (conveniently) prevent shards from being rejoined. Her greatest superpower may be that within the story she's above reproach with the added ability of making every character (including the player's, unfortunately) love or forgive her, even those she wronged the most, which I'd say is impressive but is likely more the result of her being the pet of the writing/dev team.

Fundamentally I struggled to see how the lone soldier plot line is much different in character to the sundering. Fandaniel intended it just because he was a sadist. She did it because she felt it was necessary for a greater good. But the pathway is similar.

[Conundrum]

She shared a disturbing amount of similarities to Hermes, IMO. Having recently played through ShB again, one of Alphinaud's lines about the rejoining struck me: "But what value is there in surviving when all our history, all our struggles will be erased? I cannot conscience such an act." Yet, this is exactly what the sundering did and Venat is shown to have made no effort in preserving any part of everything she supposedly held dear. Once again illustrating that if it's an Ascian responsible = bad, if it's Hydaelyn responsible = good.

She is at least some kind of Swiss Army Knife. She has a fraction of the power Zodiark does and, despite this, was able to defeat him as well as slice, dice, and julienne fry reality. Additionally, she created a moon and a race of sentient beings capable of engineering and piloting a spaceship for interstellar travel. She also has enough control over the afterlife to usher the souls of Minfilia and Emet from the First to the Source and give the WoL the ability to reconstitute the dead.

I'm sure there's a lot I'm forgetting to mention, but there doesn't seem to be much she can't do other than apparently (conveniently) prevent shards from being rejoined. Her greatest superpower may be that within the story she's above reproach with the added ability of making every character (including the player's, unfortunately) love or forgive her, even those she wronged the most, which I'd say is impressive but is likely more the result of her being the pet of the writing/dev team.

You hit on something that really annoys me, based on what we know Zodiark should be several orders of magnitude more powerful than Hydaelyn...he should have swatted her like a bug.

Hydaelyn is pretty much a textbook example of a Mary Sue character, always right, stronger than everyone...had to save the world from the stupid MEN.

P.S. Can someone remind me what Zodiark did that was so bad that he needed to be shackled? "We thought he might hypothetically do something bad at some point in the future" is some pretty crap tier reasoning for what she did. All of the bad stuff around Zodiark seems to have come from his fanclub and not him.

[KizuyaKatogami]

You hit on something that really annoys me, based on what we know Zodiark should be several orders of magnitude more powerful than Hydaelyn...he should have swatted her like a bug.

Hydaelyn is pretty much a textbook example of a Mary Sue character, always right, stronger than everyone...had to save the world from the stupid MEN.

P.S. Can someone remind me what Zodiark did that was so bad that he needed to be shackled? "We thought he might hypothetically do something bad at some point in the future" is some pretty crap tier reasoning for what she did. All of the bad stuff around Zodiark seems to have come from his fanclub and not him.

The same reason that, despite him being a primal born of Salvation by a mostly peaceful race, he somehow has a demonic appearance. Whereas the opposing primal whose purpose was eventually to shatter the entire world(and is portrayed as a hero) gets an angelic appearance. Bias at its finest ;^).

[Fayt1203]

P.S. Can someone remind me what Zodiark did that was so bad that he needed to be shackled? "We thought he might hypothetically do something bad at some point in the future" is some pretty crap tier reasoning for what she did. All of the bad stuff around Zodiark seems to have come from his fanclub and not him.

Think the problem was not technical Zodiark himself more so how the plan was.

Zodiark stalled the Calamity by creating a barrier to replenish Etheirys's aether, he and the Convocation were now driven by an obsessive need to restore the planet as it was before the Final Days. This resulted in a series of sacrifices, first by offering another half of their population to restore Etheirys to habitability, and the plan on harvesting the lives of the new races that would develop on the planet in the future to resurrect those they had sacrificed earlier. Venat, the only one to know the true cause of the Final Days as Meteion's doing, disapproved of the Convocation's resolve to offer the "lesser" lives they would develop to Zodiark to resurrect the ancients originally sacrificed in the primal's creation. So it more of disagreement between two factions how things should be handled even Elidibus sensed this conflict from within Zodiark and separated himself to resume his duties in the Convocation as a primal to peacefully resolve the issue between the two groups but was a bit late for that. Venat knew that killing Zodiark would only renew the Final Days, she sealed her counterpart on the moon after sundering both Zodiark and the world.