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

[FatalFatalis]

Venat is like Mcdonalds. Food tastes good and makes you happy but is ultimately bad for you if you keep eating it.

Fortunately for us, she doesn't exist anymore

[tokinokanatae]

Perhaps it's just me as a Hermes fan (I also love Meteion, for what it's worth!), but I don't have any problem with connecting that sniveling hypocrite with either Fandaniel or Amon.

In fact, part of the reason I love Hermes so much is because I think he's an excellent depiction of the type of person that can seem very different depending on the society in which he finds himself, but the core of depression and nihilistic self-loathing (that he then contemptuously focuses outwards on the people around him) remains. He was happiest as Amon because the people around him were so obviously worth judging, but we can see hints of his contempt towards Zenos even as Fandaniel.

[aveyond-dreams]

All I know is I hope that someday we get to go on an adventure with the "spiritual successors" of Venat, Hades, and Hythlodaeus. I vastly preferred the interactions we had together with them all compared to the time I've spent with the other Scions-besides Estinien as the most recent addition, who I've always generally accepted.

The scions are basically each other's yes men for the most part. There is hardly any bickering besides an occasional stern single line of dialogue from Y'shtola whenever Urianger tries being sneaky or something. Thancred's storyline is stale, and Alphinaud being our obligatory diplomat has gotten so old. How about we get someone with Hades' personality to tell someone like G'raha or Aymeric off when they start going off on their grandoise heroic sacrifice ideas? Alisae at least straight up told Ryne off at one point towards the end of the 5.0 MSQ when there was no gurantee we wouldn't become a sin eater. Ironically, I think I would have preferred to keep Ryne in the party instead of G'raha because I feel there were more opputinities for her to grow bolder and show us what she's made of, as opposed to another "wise" personality.

Overall though, moments like those are so few and far between. Elpis however was a breath of fresh air to me-Contrast the behaviour of the scions with Venat's teasing of Hades and with Hythlodaeus...being Hythlodaeus, it's clear which group provides more actual variety with a smaller amount of characters. They remind me of my favorite party composition from Dragon Age: the myriad interactions between Alistair the knight, Morrigan our witch, and Leliana our faith-driven rogue. Anyone whose played with that party knows how entertaining it was to watch them interact with each other, please give us more of that instead of stoic nodding and "yes, we believe in you!" dialogue from our party.

[Teraq]

Azem being responsible for the Unsundered would be real heavy tragedy. Although I'm not sure how Lahabrea would fit in there given that it doesn't reaaally seem like they would have gotten along (speaking of, I hope Pandaemonium ends up portraying him as socially awkward and a deadbeat father but still a good person nonetheless, with probably a damn good reason not to have gotten involved in events so far; personal theory is that the root cause of events involves Athena and something gone horribly wrong in some way), but his role as the expert on phantasmogeny would have come in handy regardless.

My problem about involving Azem is that I think the writers and devs probably don't want to touch Azem too much, or are being very careful with what they give us. Even though our character explicitly isn't Azem, we're still meant to identify ourselves as Azem somewhat, and people might be rather particular about their own character so the writers weighing in would feel "intrusive" so to speak.

Imagine how a certain puritanical Twitter crowd would react if they were told their character's Ancient self was personally responsible for Emet-Selch's continued existence. (Though I'm not sure how they cope with the canon of Azem being veryvery good friends with Emet in the first place. Probably by hardcore dissociating their character from Azem.)

[Lauront]

It may even be a case of grab whoever is still alive plus the two husbandos friendos - plus whatever Lahabrea's personal relation to Azem, he is described as highly competent and able to face off difficult situations calmly, so there's that.

Azem being responsible for the Unsundered would be real heavy tragedy. Although I'm not sure how Lahabrea would fit in there given that it doesn't reaaally seem like they would have gotten along (speaking of, I hope Pandaemonium ends up portraying him as socially awkward and a deadbeat father but still a good person nonetheless, with probably a damn good reason not to have gotten involved in events so far; personal theory is that the root cause of events involves Athena and something gone horribly wrong in some way), but his role as the expert on phantasmogeny would have come in handy regardless.

My problem about involving Azem is that I think the writers and devs probably don't want to touch Azem too much, or are being very careful with what they give us. Even though our character explicitly isn't Azem, we're still meant to identify ourselves as Azem somewhat, and people might be rather particular about their own character so the writers weighing in would feel "intrusive" so to speak.

Imagine how a certain puritanical Twitter crowd would react if they were told their character's Ancient self was personally responsible for Emet-Selch's continued existence. (Though I'm not sure how they cope with the canon of Azem being veryvery good friends with Emet in the first place. Probably by hardcore dissociating their character from Azem.)

True but with how they've separated say, Fandaniel from Amon, it's slightly peculiar. They keep belabouring the point that sundered have distinctive personas from their unsundered former counterparts. However, I do see your point here; the nuance would be lost on some that just because that Azem made a decision in a particular way, even with their soul having certain inherent tendencies, it does not imply they might not have decided differently for xyz reasons, and it'd be used to batter people over their head as to how their character now would act, and you'd get the "us" and the "we" nonsense which I already find tedious. Still, it's not going to go away even if unfortunate. Nonetheless, one could not blame Azem, just before the sundering, for trying to save their colleagues/friends, especially if as a result of staying neutral up to that point, the whole thing hit them out of the blue and they didn't realise just how desperate (to be polite) their mentor had become. Asking them to maintain neutrality in such a way surely isn't too much especially since SHB established some grounds for it.

[Rulakir]

My problem about involving Azem is that I think the writers and devs probably don't want to touch Azem too much, or are being very careful with what they give us.

I would hope so, but after EW I feel like Azem is at high risk of being retconned from not having chosen a side since the portrayal of Venat/Hydaelyn being right and good was so over the top. I am more anxious than excited about Pandemonium because of it.

Imagine how a certain puritanical Twitter crowd would react if they were told their character's Ancient self was personally responsible for Emet-Selch's continued existence. (Though I'm not sure how they cope with the canon of Azem being veryvery good friends with Emet in the first place. Probably by hardcore dissociating their character from Azem.)

Twitter is just the plague of humanity, isn't it? :P Well, on Reddit due to the aforementioned portrayal of Venat popular headcanon is that Azem had to have been secretly working with her.

[Lauront]

Yeah, it'd be annoying, especially if thus far they shied away from giving an Azem much of a distinctive persona out of fear of fan reactions, and then suddenly it's rah-rah Venat. Particularly since they already set up a groundwork for them to be neutral.

[Sicno]

With input from the head of the Bureau managing creations and the greatest sorcerer to living. Both were amazed.

I already responded why those creations wouldn't make it to the Bureau, and Emet needed a guide through Elpis and didn't know the researchers personally nor their work. "The greatest sorcerer to living" didn't even know the person he was gonna try to convince to take a seat next to him in the Convocation.

Even children toys were submitted though. Creations as a whole are very tightly controlled in Amaurot, especially as it was one of the few things that the Ancients had creative control over.

Like I said, they were ENCOURAGED to submit their creations and I don't recall them having an OBLIGATION to do so. And in the case of the children toys you mention they would benefit kids in their society, meanwhile we stablished the entelechies would have no practical applications so they would be more personal projects, without a need of being shared with society at large.

But to the contrary She repeatedly refers to us with reverence and admiration, to the point that She saw us as an inspiration. Being maternal as well doesn’t denote viewing anyone as lesser. Mothers all the time respect who their children become, and indeed remain maternal even if they feel they’ve been “surpassed” by them. My point is that the faith she had when she sundered the world was not in some nebulous unconnected group in the future, but rather in the people she sundered and their descendants.

What I mean is that when she talks of the people, ourselves included, she doesn't see us as the ancients we all were once, not even us who once held a seat in the convocation, and the same one she once held. She speaks to us from a perspective of being our "creator". Venat didn't create the ancient humanity, she was just another person who once walked among the rest, so everybody else were her equals. But now she no longer refers to anyone in that way. Rather, she now refers to everybody as her creations despite us supposedly being the same humanity. Why would that be if this was "the same humanity" she didn't create? If humanity was merely transformed and not created by her why would she be the mother?

She’s talking about the Ancients. That they, despite being molded by a harsher world, would overcome despair and find meaning for themselves. That’s the point of this disagreement and the reason I’m arguing over it. Not that there’s no difference at all, but that even with those differences they are still members of the same overall group, humanity.

Like I also said earlier, she changes her tune about referring to us and to "humanity" depending on whatever narrative they were going for in the particular scene. Acknowledge she's inconsistent, she'll talk about mankind and "our journey" when that sounds like a prettier, more poetic narrative for defeating the ultimate baddie with all the power and memories and love and friendship and sacrifice from all the entities who live and once lived upon the star and at other times she'll make the distinction between us to justify her sundering.

That doesn’t preclude the both at all. Sundering the world to diminish Zodiarks power can simply be the biggest reason and the thing that made the act necessary, with the other potential benefits being that it would allow better control of Dynamis, and that it may prepare humanity for the struggles ahead. The
last two can simply be “this isn’t at all what I wanted and if Zodiark wasn’t here I wouldn’t do it, but these are benefits that may help in our fight.”

First of all you quoted the part that I scratched. Second, yes the act she was """forced""" to make could also fit a 2nd purpose but don't claim that 2nd purpose is WHY you did it when you were really forced by the first.

Perhaps this cuts to the core of the disagreement. I simply do not see much evidence to suggest that Hermes could’ve been easily replaced, or replaced at all without compromising the Ancients ability to respond to the Final Days. The conversation with the Watcher reads very different to me, heavily focusing on Hermes’ contributions as it did. Combined with the conversations with Elidibus, the researchers at Elpis and Venats own perspective, Hermes is clearly special, dare I say one of kind.

Because until the very end they weren't aware that there was a conscious entity causing the Final Days, and an entity that one of their own created, as oppossed to let's say a natural anomaly completely unkown to them. And since they had something super important to take care of, namely a phenomena that could erradicate them, I can see researchers abandoning their hobby projects about an impractical energy source and putting all their efforts into finding a solution. But do you honestly believe if they had known that dynamis was at the core of the problem and that one of their own creations was responsible they wouldn't have put all those efforts into its research?

[dapperfaffer]

Azem being responsible for the Unsundered would be real heavy tragedy. Although I'm not sure how Lahabrea would fit in there given that it doesn't reaaally seem like they would have gotten along (speaking of, I hope Pandaemonium ends up portraying him as socially awkward and a deadbeat father but still a good person nonetheless, with probably a damn good reason not to have gotten involved in events so far; personal theory is that the root cause of events involves Athena and something gone horribly wrong in some way), but his role as the expert on phantasmogeny would have come in handy regardless.

while referring to the 14 seat and is primarily a title of office, its unlikely that Azem would be involved in the events of the Sundering or even being responsible for the Unsundered. so far, we know of 2 potential Azems that we have interacted with being Venat who we know was a previous Azem, and Themis who may be an Azem or could be an Azem based on the He/She dichotomy used by Venat when referring to the current sitting Azem with Emet and Hyltho, and Themis on his initial introduction where he referes to Azem as she probably referring to Venats time as Azem.
While I don't think Pandaemonium may shed some light on the idea of sundering a soul to separate it from something it became like the creations/transformations in Pandaemonium leading to what Venat did to sunder Zodiark it is an interesting theory.

My problem about involving Azem is that I think the writers and devs probably don't want to touch Azem too much, or are being very careful with what they give us. Even though our character explicitly isn't Azem, we're still meant to identify ourselves as Azem somewhat, and people might be rather particular about their own character so the writers weighing in would feel "intrusive" so to speak.

There are technically 2 or 3 potential Azems that would be involved in the story. Venat, Themis/an unknown, make it really hard to pinpoint exactly who is what given that there is no direct involvement and only an idea of a wandering persons. I think this is why all the Ancient locations like Amarout work the way they do, why we collect 14 crystals of the seat of the convocation, why the Zodiac is represented, why Hythlo explains Azems crystal creation and questions if it is his actions or his recreators, and even why Elidibus doesn't seem to recognize the WoL after we use Azems crystal to use Azems favorite spell to summon our "friends" to our side, and why there is so much misdirection in general when it comes to Azems identity.
Azem for better or worse has either a large connection to the WoL and the story or the writers are 7 heads, or the Azem that the story indicates we are potentially involved with really is the root of corruption.(which I favor because it makes more sense to be Hydaelyns familiar/ and at worst Azem after Hydaelyn created the familiar itself to act as her proxy. only because of the dialogue with hythlo when we get to Elpis where he states that it is odd that a familiar would have a soul)

[Theodric]

Simply based on the player character being an adventurer at heart I would have expected a near insatiable desire to learn as much as possible about the Ancient world once it was revealed as well as anger towards Hydaelyn for trying to obscure it.

It wears thin when the Garleans are criticised endlessly for eroding away elements of the cultures of the nations that they conquer but it's all conveniently brushed under the rug when Venat not only inflicts genocide upon her own people but tried to deflect blame onto Zodiark when we thankfully know he did nothing wrong.

It's why I always have a big grin on my face whenever someone brings up the 'themes' of the game. They're not consistent and the game has long since been plagued by a tendency to view certain acts as 'utterly unforgivable' when the antagonists partake of them only to make excuses when the supposed 'good guys' do the very same thing.