When are we supposed to stop fighting?

[EaraGrace]

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.

From a cutscene compilation that’s not mine but still an additional piece of e evidence pointing to that conclusion.

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.

That’s not true. She implored them to accept the memory and they rejected that. What does “we cant accept it” mean in your eyes? What is “it” in your view?

[Cleretic]

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.

Don't msinterpret the extremely, blatantly obvious meaning of that scene. Venat is directly saying 'we cannot go back to a perfect world, because a perfect world does not exist, all we can and should do is learn, recover, and rebuild', and then everybody literally turns their back on progress and begs for a rewind.

To a literal degree, you could say both sides are doing the same thing; both sides want things to not be on fire, the question is just between 'put it out' and 'go back to when there wasn't a fire there'. But to reduce it to that is to ignore... not even the subtext of the scene, it's literally stated directly in the dialog itself. They want to block their ears and go back to when bad things hadn't happened, outright refusing to learn, change, and grow.

[Theodric]

Thankfully we are ourselves as individuals afforded a freedom that the Ancients themselves were cruelly denied - agency. We're not all obligated to entertain the idea that Venat was the most important and wisest individual ever to exist in the story or pretend that genocide is a sane, rational or justified reaction to Venat's own people not doing exactly what she wanted of them when they were not only in a state of mourning and heartache but also subjected to a 'test' without their knowledge or consent.

Everybody is free to interpret Venat however they so wish. Just as they're free to do the same with the Ancients themselves.

[redheadturk]

Thankfully we are ourselves as individuals afforded a freedom that the Ancients themselves were cruelly denied - agency. We're not all obligated to entertain the idea that Venat was the most important and wisest individual ever to exist in the story or pretend that genocide is a sane, rational or justified reaction to Venat's own people not doing exactly what she wanted of them when they were not only in a state of mourning and heartache but also subjected to a 'test' without their knowledge or consent.

Everybody is free to interpret Venat however they so wish. Just as they're free to do the same with the Ancients themselves.

This. To those saying they "wanted to go back", I again point out they reacted just as any traumatized human being would. The only difference between them and us is they had the power to do what every single traumatized human being on the planet would do if they had the power of creation on their side to be able to do so. For Venat to stand in judgment because they acted like human beings do to trauma is simply morally reprehensible to me. Again, any of us would try to bring back the world we had lived in before if we held the power in our hands to do so. There isn't a person on this forum that could claim they wouldn't if they could.

[Rulakir]

I love how it's agreed the post-Elpis cutscene shouldn't be taken literally, yet is frequently cited as an accurate depiction of the Ancients at the time of the sundering. We know for a fact that strawmen group wasn't representative of everyone and that the entire exchange was from Venat's POV, hence biased. We also know that it would've been impossible for them to forget the Final Days as the entire experience was burned into the aether of their souls. They could try, but their civilization was never going to go back to the way it was.

Not trying to debate the writers' intention, which was clearly to make the player believe that the Ancients were a lost cause and Venat was their lord and savior who delivered them from temptation, only that the game failed to make that case. There's simply too much evidence to the contrary of that message, which is why many have an issue with it.

As for hatred, I just wanted the Ancients to have a happy ending. 'Retribution' on Venat doesn't make that happen.

[Lurina]

The post-Elpis scene is effectively useless at conveying anything other than like, a vibe. Which would have been fine if we didn't have a whole expansion before it that was heavily concerned with the complexity of the situation, and how no one involved was a bad actor.

People have said as much before, but it's cowardly storytelling and revealing of the writers priorities that they had Venat arguing with a bunch of faceless strawmen Ancients and not, like, Elidibus, which we know canonically happened. Based on how he's characterized, I can't really imagine him screaming immaturely about how everything needs to go back perfectly to the way it was. As it is, we're shown one eloquent and nuanced side of the argument and one caricature.

As for hatred, I just wanted the Ancients to have a happy ending. 'Retribution' on Venat doesn't make that happen.

I mean, I guess that's another sort of 'release' for the tension I mentioned. I would've - and I expect most people would've - been fine with the Ancients being tragically unsaveable if the story wasn't shrouded in the strange moral dissonance it is where their destruction feels awkwardly justified and and thematically messy on top of being deliberately upsetting. I want some form of textual resolution to the whole situation, whether it's an alternate timeline, further elaboration on the situation to make it more factually (and by extension, hopefully morally) cohesive, or just the ability to tell an NPC that, actually, I thought Venat was kind of a jerk.

There are a lot of ways to skin a cat! But right now, just thinking about the story feels frustrating.

[Theodric]

The post-Elpis scene is effectively useless at conveying anything other than like, a vibe. Which would have been fine if we didn't have a whole expansion before it that was heavily concerned with the complexity of the situation, and how no one involved was a bad actor.

People have said as much before, but it's cowardly storytelling and revealing of the writers priorities that they had Venat arguing with a bunch of faceless strawmen Ancients and not, like, Elidibus, which we know canonically happened. Based on how he's characterized, I can't really imagine him screaming immaturely about how everything needs to go back perfectly to the way it was. As it is, we're shown one eloquent and nuanced side of the argument and one caricature.

I rather suspect that they may have toyed with the idea of showing the confrontation between Elidibus and Venat only to realise that they wrote themselves into a corner that they could not easily get out of. We know that Elidibus was a well meaning and pure individual who genuinely wanted to help diffuse the tensions that were simmering amongst his people. Yet because they decided to have Venat be privy to information that she refused to share with anybody else, the situation becomes especially awkward. Had she simply explained what she knew, then I don't doubt that the likes of Elidibus and Emet-Selch would take her words to heart and seek to do everything possible in order to save Etheirys.

As it stands, we know that Zodiark and Hydaelyn clashed at some point - and all signs point to Venat being the one who initiated that particular conflict. Likely sprung completely out of the blue. Since Elidibus wasn't present at the time, that again makes Venat look particularly spiteful and unreasonable.

I suspect the writers backed off on that front, too, since they probably realised that if they showed Elidibus looking on as Zodiark was cruelly assaulted out of the blue then Venat wouldn't come away looking particularly good there, either.

In the end, somehow what was meant to be the finale of the Zodiark and Hydaelyn story arc somehow managed to greatly downplay both of them. I suppose that's what was meant by Yoshi-P's cryptic comments pre-Endwalker about not knowing what would happen to Zodiark and Hydaelyn.

Except, for many of us, we waited nearly a decade for such a conclusion.

To me, at least, the story simply jumped the shark during Endwalker on multiple fronts and practically became a parody of itself at times. I suppose we'll have to wait for lore related interviews to properly read into the 'intent' of the writers.

[KizuyaKatogami]

From a cutscene compilation that’s not mine but still an additional piece of e evidence pointing to that conclusion.





That’s not true. She implored them to accept the memory and they rejected that. What does “we cant accept it” mean in your eyes? What is “it” in your view?

I’m talking about post sundering. Everyone lost their memories and she kept everything that happened a secret, even blatantly lying when we speak to her in HW. We had to rely on an ascian of all people to actually tell us some semblance of truth and give us a glimpse into the past. She herself kept it all a secret from the children she so supposedly loved. This is cemented again with Elidibus’ dialogue that i cited. If we’re talking about the Venat memory ordeal, i’d rather not get into that because who even knows what’s true or fake at this point, and before anyone even mentions “oh so now you’re just getting rid of the piece of evidence because you disagree with it.” No, i’m not heavily using it as evidence because again, we have constant proof of things like that being extremely malleable and not subject to the whole truth. The fact it was shown so heavily in the expansion prior to this one in fact, almost makes me think it’s done on purpose, to promote distrust in that scene.

[Veloran]

...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'.

Her principles very clearly fall by the wayside though. Like the parts about always believing in her people and always believing that anything is possible.

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.

Ultimately, the core of Amon and Hermes' characters' are the same, that underlaying belief in the meaninglessness of life.

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.'

More specifically, they refuse to learn the particular lesson that Venat wanted them to learn.

We also know that it would've been impossible for them to forget the Final Days as the entire experience was burned into the aether of their souls.

I think this point often goes unremembered. That the Final Days was so brutal that the trauma of it was literally burned into their souls permanently. By all accounts this was outright the worst thing that has ever happened to anyone.

[Necrotica]

Don't msinterpret the extremely, blatantly obvious meaning of that scene. Venat is directly saying 'we cannot go back to a perfect world, because a perfect world does not exist, all we can and should do is learn, recover, and rebuild', and then everybody literally turns their back on progress and begs for a rewind.

To a literal degree, you could say both sides are doing the same thing; both sides want things to not be on fire, the question is just between 'put it out' and 'go back to when there wasn't a fire there'. But to reduce it to that is to ignore... not even the subtext of the scene, it's literally stated directly in the dialog itself. They want to block their ears and go back to when bad things hadn't happened, outright refusing to learn, change, and grow.

How can they learn from the mistake if they aren't told what it is? The lesson should have been, "Don't make Dynamis powered homunculi that are prone to depression." But Venat would not tell them how this all happened. So in their minds they made no mistake. An outside power attacked them. They had no idea it was the result of their own creations going crazy at the edge of the universe.