Well, I am a crier and I was a sobbing mess in both Elpis and Ultima Thule because of Emet and Hythlodaeus. Elpis was by far the worst because despite what Elidibus told us, both Venat and Hythlodaeus comment we may be able to change their fate. Coming off of an expansion where an alternate timeline was created to save the WoL, I felt it reasonable to believe Elpis was going to end similarly. Instead, we get this horrible bootstrap paradox time loop that is excused because bUt AlExAnDeR (which I've never done so my only knowledge of time travel was multiverse from the MSQ). The sheer anger I felt when Hermes whipped out Kairos, the most BS plot device ever. I cried when I realized the writers weren't going to let us save them.

Ultima Thule just felt like a big F-you. I still cried, of course, but I was also angry (again) because now Emet's being manipulated to further prop up Venat, a character I thoroughly hated by that point. The look he gives the WoL when he sees you're sad he's going to leave broke my heart not to mention the smile at the end. I'm still irritated that basically everyone but my favorite characters got a happy ending, even moreso when you realize the writers had to use them for emotional exploitation since they won't let anything happen to the protagonists. This was mostly true for ShB as well.

As for Venat being 'morally grey', once again Lurina said it best: "Venat's brief statement - immediately denied by Y'shtola - that she did something unkind does not offset the universal positivity in which she is framed by the characters, quest log dialogue, the aforementioned minion dialogue, and the range of responses given to the player character, all of which are unabashed in positivity towards her at all occasions. Regardless of whether they end up on our side or not, this is not a treatment that any other NPC who is intended to read as morally complicated (eg: Lolorito, Ysayle, Estinien, Regula, Yotsuyu, Emet, Elidibus, Fourchenault) gets."