When are we supposed to stop fighting?

[Lurina]

I'm honestly impressed that a hatred for Venat can be so strong that even though she's already dead at this point in the story, you'd want to double-kill her soul just to make sure she's super duper for real forever dead.

People tend to have a disproportionately negative response to controversial components of media which offer no room - within the text - for disagreement, because it feels like the writers are demanding you abandon your values and accept their own, or else become an 'unwanted reader' for whom the story isn't for. If you've been around fandom circles for long enough, you'll know this is the soil from which a lot of big discourse storms sprout. People might hate characters who are framed more ambiguously, like Emet, but the narrative being mixed in terms of how he's presented serves as a release valve for the reader-author tension, letting people feel like they have permission to draw their own conclusions (though admittedly, Endwalker was also unkind to outright Emet haters, which is another flaw it has, IMO). But if a writer chooses to insist that a character is objectively righteous, or objectively reprehensible, then if there are people they can't bring on board with those outlooks, a lot of them will go crazy. It's the same reason people often hate hypocrites more than actual unrepentant murderers in the real world. The mind is revolted by any dissonance between what it is being told is true and what it knows to be true. (In this case, Venat being a loving goddess worthy of our love and the fact she murdered like a billion people for reasons that were presented kinda ambiguously respectively.)

I think a lot of people on the hardcore Venat hate-train are kinda wrongheaded about the whole thing, because ultimately, she's just a device. How she ended up coming across in Endwalker could just as easily be a product of the too-many-cooks and gameplay/story balance issues endemic to all game writing, or just more general messy writing, rather then the result of intentional choices by the Main Scenario Team. And even if it was wholly intentional, it's pointless to be angry at her and want retribution, because none of this junk is even real. But it's not hard to understand why it makes some people act sorta over the top. Intentionally written injustice within a story has the hope of eventual catharsis, but unintentional injustice feels like it might be there forever. People want some kind of release for their feelings that isn't just dumping the whole game.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Even then... what, do people think Venat's intrinsic character is 'let's shatter the world when it looks too good'? That this was the end goal of all her lives, she just happened to pick the Sundering as her avenue that one time? Reincarnation was a standard part of how the world worked even before the Sundering, wouldn't a soul with a predeliction towards planet-cracking have feasibly, y'know, caused some severe problems before then?

It's hard to get a bead on the 'intrinsic character' of Venat, since we don't have a lot of time with her when she's putting on a genuine face, but I would probably characterize her as 'unyieldingly principled'. With the Sundering, she made the ultimate statement of the Ancients' actual principles, when even most of the Ancients went against them. And even after twelve thousand years of walking the hardest possible road in every possible way (especially emotionally), and never once wavered. And this isn't emotional deadness, or psychopathy or anything someone might want to negatively ascribe to her; she is empathetic to the highest degree, and still goes on.

...which means that, ironically, the Goddess of Light was the greatest Dark Knight we've ever met, as she more than anyone is of Unyielding Principle. She's not someone who chooses violence for fun or for ease, she's someone who will do what's right, no matter what. That's the intrinsic character she would bring, not 'mass destruction because you've got it too good'.

Honestly with the way the writing is, it truly does kind of seem that way. We’ve been down this avenue before though. Unfortunately, it’s a bit difficult to gauge Venat as the writing for her to me is pretty bad. Her character does one of the biggest 180’s i think i’ve seen in the game. Whether that’s actually intentional or not i don’t know.I will argue against her doing what’s “right.” Her doing what’s right would be giving her people a fighting chance and giving them the knowledge they’d need to at least try and combat Meteion. Regardless though this whole side chain started because we were discussing the comparison between sundered and unsundered. It’s pretty clear they’re treated as two completely different people, especially after Eden.

As for all the time travel shenanigans, i don’t know. It just really seems like another case of, it’s okay when the protagonists do it and it’s totally possible and flexible for them, but if the antagonists wanted to do it it’s not possible. Just another case of lore bending to help the protags i guess.

As far as hating on Venat goes, i think people are fairly justified. In the story where they've stated time and time again both sides in this are grey, neither good or bad etc, they consistently bash "Venat was right, shes a hero,shes a supreme deity" etc into our head. Its extremely contradicting to what was said in the past and also....a little insulting tbh lol. We have someone like Elidibus who walked 12000+ years to fulfill his duty and save his people, hes effectively betrayed by two people he once held dear, and then in the end sacrifices himself for said people and isnt even given a hint of thank or acknowledgement. Meanwhile Venat gets all of the endless praise

[EaraGrace]

Which we know, many of them understand their end is assured, so much so they actually see life in death what with reincarnation. They acknowledge that many a time. They still found meaning in doing what they could, and when they were done they would retire, they would be fine with dying, and would have someone else take up their mantle.

No, they didn’t do so under the belief that their end was assured. It was their choice to do so, one made after they felt they fulfilled their purpose. But that’s not an assured end, that’s not recognizing the certainty of their mortality. To say your end is assured is to accept that it will happen regardless of if you desire it, that it is ultimately out of your control whether you will live forever or die young.

And that’s something they vehemently rejected.

Temperamental Spirit: The Final Days taught us to fear a death forced upon us.
The injustice of duties and dreams left unfulfilled. The grief of unexpected partings...
Swift as darkness, cold as ash.
Such tragedy, yet no catharsis! Such truth, yet no consolation...

Regarding what Lyth says about how do we know some other misfortune may come along, yes of course but that’s my point. We can argue that for any society anywhere, that something *could* happen in the future.

It doesn’t matter when or where it is. The problem here is when we bring up how they fought against said misfortune. They did what most anyone else would do, and something that even the scions themselves speak about against the final trial. They will fight against fate no matter the cost. Both Alphinaud and Alisaie state this. This is what the ancients did. They fought against their fate of being destroyed like the countless other civilizations that did crumble. The problem here is when Venat takes it upon herself to then play god, and decide no, they don’t get a chance to try and move on. and possibly combat Meteion all the way.

No, the problem is they did not want to move on, they wanted to move back. They wanted to forget it ever happened, to relinquish any lingering memories of the event and see the world returned to exactly as it was. Not just that Etheirys was livable again, not just that the apocalypse be halted, but that everything went back to the way it was, “To reclaim the perfect paradise we once had.” And they took permanent steps to ensure that would happen, the third sacrifice being that.

But this just loops back to the original topic. When will we stop fighting? We won’t stop striving to better the world and it’s no different from the ancients so i’m just curious exactly what the message with the ancients is. What exactly did they do wrong to warrant all of this. We see with the other civilizations(outside of the dragons i suppose) that each one had some kind of major flaw that led to their downfall and they couldn’t recover.

It’s again not about deserving destruction, none of the civilizations deserved it. They did their best, but in choosing to base their future on “paradise,” they blinded themselves to the reality that so long as they lived they would face suffering.

WoL and Amon (and Zenos) would suggest that people's souls do have an intrinsic character that transcends incarnations. Even with Eden it wasn't so much that Gaia rejected her self-as-Loghrif, rather she didn't want to have her current person and the connections she'd formed destroyed. Of course, Mitron erasing who Gaia was against her will was wrong, but in terms of the connection between the two Gaia acknowledged it and in the end hopes to meet him again after he himself reincarnates.

Amon himself seemed to argue against that however when he stated that his motivations were unrelated to Hermes, for the WoL it’s a bit harder to tell as we don’t get to see the alternatives lives Azems soul may have had if they weren’t consistently chosen due to whose soul they possessed. We’re all Azems shards travelers and adventures? Hard to say.

[KizuyaKatogami]

No, they didn’t do so under the belief that their end was assured. It was their choice to do so, one made after they felt they fulfilled their purpose. But that’s not an assured end, that’s not recognizing the certainty of their mortality. To say your end is assured is to accept that it will happen regardless of if you desire it, that it is ultimately out of your control whether you will live forever or die young.

And that’s something they vehemently rejected.



Regarding what Lyth says about how do we know some other misfortune may come along, yes of course but that’s my point. We can argue that for any society anywhere, that something *could* happen in the future.



No, the problem is they did not want to move on, they wanted to move back. They wanted to forget it ever happened, to relinquish any lingering memories of the event and see the world returned to exactly as it was. Not just that Etheirys was livable again, not just that the apocalypse be halted, but that everything went back to the way it was, “To reclaim the perfect paradise we once had.” And they took permanent steps to ensure that would happen, the third sacrifice being that.



It’s again not about deserving destruction, none of the civilizations deserved it. They did their best, but in choosing to base their future on “paradise,” they blinded themselves to the reality that so long as they lived they would face suffering.

Again, as i’ve mentioned many times before, why is it wrong for them to want to reverse the damage done, but for Ironworks it isn’t wrong? When there was the possibility of them causing the mass death of millions of not more to bring back the WoL and undo the calamity?

[EaraGrace]

Again, as i’ve mentioned many times before, why is it wrong for them to want to reverse the damage done, but for Ironworks it isn’t wrong? When there was the possibility of them causing the mass death of millions of not more to bring back the WoL and undo the calamity?

With all due respect please reread what I wrote. I made a clear distinction between reversing the damage and wanting to forget the event entirely to the point of sacrificing new life to return the lost. The former can be conducive to moving forward, the other is willing ignorance at best. Graha and the others made clear the events of the 8th Umbral timeline, and wished for the actions of those who lived it to be remembered.

[KizuyaKatogami]

With all due respect please reread what I wrote. I made a clear distinction between reversing the damage and wanting to forget the event entirely to the point of sacrificing new life to return the lost. The former can be conducive to moving forward, the other is willing ignorance at best. Graha and the others made clear the events of the 8th Umbral timeline, and wished for the actions of those who lived it to be remembered.

They were bringing back those who were lost yes, however is forgetting the event not what Hydaelyn herself did as well? Someone even Elidibus himself surmises. "They have forgotten, just as you and your followers wanted." They were effectively sacrificing new and old life both to undo the calamity and return the lost in the other timeline. It's really not so different.Could you provide a link or something btw showing that they wanted to forget the final days ever occurred? Genuinely asking because i probably missed that.

[Theodric]

Each to their own, though given that Venat was deliberately withholding key information from the rest of her people then I don't think she was in any real position to judge them based on not conforming to a 'test' that they were entirely unaware of participating in. It's not as if they lacked the means to actually follow through with working towards the restoration of their civilisation, species and loved ones and even the 'controversial' proposed third round of sacrifices is the lesser evil in the fact of subjecting every man, woman and child amongst the Ancients to a cruel and unusual death to satisfy the whims of a self styled 'supreme deity'.

I fully believe that Venat meant well, though that doesn't change the simple fact that the knowledge she held meant she was in a position where her inaction led to the Final Days happening. I know it's pretty common for abusive and neglectful parental figures to deflect and gaslight in an effort to shift the blame onto their children and I see a lot of interesting parallels between such tactics and Venat's treatment of not only the Sundered but the Unsundered as well.

To me, it is simply bizarre that she has the audacity to question both as to why they aren't behaving exactly as she desires them to when neither the Sundered or the Unsundered had consented to or were aware of her shady experiments. Then again, this is the same individual who declared that everybody should 'walk' only to conveniently ensure that she, herself, retained a pair of wings...so consistency and logic does not appear to be her strong suit.

[Lauront]

People tend to have a disproportionately negative response to controversial components of media which offer no room - within the text - for disagreement, because it feels like the writers are demanding you abandon your values and accept their own, or else become an 'unwanted reader' for whom the story isn't for. If you've been around fandom circles for long enough, you'll know this is the soil from which a lot of big discourse storms sprout. People might hate characters who are framed more ambiguously, like Emet, but the narrative being mixed in terms of how he's presented serves as a release valve for the reader-author tension, letting people feel like they have permission to draw their own conclusions (though admittedly, Endwalker was also unkind to outright Emet haters, which is another flaw it has, IMO). But if a writer chooses to insist that a character is objectively righteous, or objectively reprehensible, then if there are people they can't bring on board with those outlooks, a lot of them will go crazy. It's the same reason people often hate hypocrites more than actual unrepentant murderers in the real world. The mind is revolted by any dissonance between what it is being told is true and what it knows to be true. (In this case, Venat being a loving goddess worthy of our love and the fact she murdered like a billion people for reasons that were presented kinda ambiguously respectively.)

I think a lot of people on the hardcore Venat hate-train are kinda wrongheaded about the whole thing, because ultimately, she's just a device. How she ended up coming across in Endwalker could just as easily be a product of the too-many-cooks and gameplay/story balance issues endemic to all game writing, or just more general messy writing, rather then the result of intentional choices by the Main Scenario Team. And even if it was wholly intentional, it's pointless to be angry at her and want retribution, because none of this junk is even real. But it's not hard to understand why it makes some people act sorta over the top. Intentionally written injustice within a story has the hope of eventual catharsis, but unintentional injustice feels like it might be there forever. People want some kind of release for their feelings that isn't just dumping the whole game.

Agreed - it's more a function of how it's all presented, particularly via the time travel invoked, fast-forward flashback of the Sundering and various other plot aspects associated with her, rather than anything solely or simply attributable to Venat as such.

[Cleretic]

They were bringing back those who were lost yes, however is forgetting the event not what Hydaelyn herself did as well? Someone even Elidibus himself surmises. "They have forgotten, just as you and your followers wanted." They were effectively sacrificing new and old life both to undo the calamity and return the lost in the other timeline. It's really not so different.Could you provide a link or something btw showing that they wanted to forget the final days ever occurred? Genuinely asking because i probably missed that.

You want quotes, I got quotes. The benefit of making videos about all this stuff is that I have recorded all of it. This is what she is referring to:

Bitter Ancient: "We can't accept it! We won't accept it! It will be ours again--a world free of sorrow!"

Venat: "No, it will not, for there has ever been sorrow. Mankind was but spared its biting sting for a time. So please, open your eyes. To try to reclaim those lives we lost by sacrificing yet more isn't wisdom. It is weakness. No paradise is without its shadows. If we cannot accept this truth and learn from our pain, then our plight shall be repeated."

At this point the crowd turns around and raises their arms.

Fervent Ancient: "O mighty Zodiark, god borne of our boundless faith! We bid you hear our prayer! Accept this offering of lives, and deliver unto us the lives we once had. Deliver unto us the days of old... the days when the star was a font of love, and we knew naught but bliss!"

All in the scene right after we leave Elpis. While they don't literally say 'we want to forget', they do literally say 'we refuse to accept learning from misfortune, and want to go back to before bad things happened.' It's honestly really clear what's going on here, from what I can see.

[KizuyaKatogami]

You want quotes, I got quotes. The benefit of making videos about all this stuff is that I have recorded all of it. This is what she is referring to:



All in the scene right after we leave Elpis. While they don't literally say 'we want to forget', they do literally say 'we refuse to accept learning from misfortune, and want to go back to before bad things happened.' It's honestly really clear what's going on here, from what I can see.

They say they want to go back to their world before it was completely decimated by a psychopath. Let’s not misinterpret things because nowhere does that even insinuate they presumed to completely just forget the tragedy. Also this is coming from the “memory” of someone. This type of thing we’ve seen is heavily malleable, Cid from Bozja comes to mind so we don’t even know how much is true how much is false.