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

[Teraq]

To be fair, I'm not sure why people are 100% convinced Zenos is definitely dead, because this is not really what I got from the tone of this... (going off the main subreddit Discord, not sure if/where there's another translation)

Q: Will Zenos come back to life again?
A: So as we saw Zenos’ body right now remains in the dimension that is separate from our universe and all of its laws. I mean, we depicted his ultimate fate at length in the cutscene so I think the answer is to watch that and see how you’d feel. I mean we did show him stop breathing and his heart stopped beating…right?

Not to mention, we left him in a place that doesn't make any kind of damned sense because emotions. I mean. I am not excluding the possibly of him emoting hard enough to conjure up an IV of epinephrin entirely yet.

I hadn't seen the big ol' answer on Venat. It's pretty telling he (explicitly says he) had to fetch Ishikawa for this long answer. The sole positive I'm taking from this is that her character seems indeed to be pretty hotly contested. That's a relief, at least. And he compares her to Emet-Selch, wringing his hands about "I knoowww you guys totally love him, BUT...", and yeah okay but here's the thing: Emet-Selch is quite explicitly an antagonist. As YoshiP even says, the protagonists challenge him over his claims. The lead-up to the fight is epic, well-written so you know exactly what his convictions are after 12,000 years of toiling in relative emotional isolation, and we very much kick his ass in a climactic moment because it was him or us.

And then there's Venat. It's all well and good to explain at length she was conflicted and agonizing and wasn't a saint, but then why is she treated so well in-universe? Her claims and beliefs that led to her genociding her people are never challenged by anyone at any point. For Zodiark's sake, the game gave me her minion and her dog! I'm sorry, Emet, but if I had been you in Ultima Thule, I would have torn her an entirely new orifice rather than go "hah, oh you! I get it. gg tyfp". All the arguments we've offered in these hundred pages –– what if she had actually told them everything instead of being paralysed by her own lack of faith in her people, what if Hermes was treated for his goddamned depression and eventually cooperated, what if there had been other experts in Dynamis in this society of scholars and scientists (haha, jk, it can't be because we need this plot to be as contrived as possible for it to work) – maybe Hermes is just like me and writes papers he never submits to the Amaurotine Journal of Astrophysics out of sheer procrastination because their guidelines are annoying? #relatable – what if they had researched Dynamis familiars with the proper information, what if they actually seized the apparently illegal AMNESIA MACHINE and investigated events, what if they could use the Echo, as one does, to see what actually happened, what if she'd brought out the space-faring bunnies to make spaceships ("but they said it took them super long to craft!" yes, and Zodiark kept up his shield for 12,000 years while missing 3 arms, 2 wings, his entire abdomen and at least 6 crotch tentacles, I'm not too worried there), what if they could have researched "sundering"/depowering themselves selectively, what if she had given them time to heal from the trauma, what if she had told them exactly the outcome she feared re: Ra-La dudes (which she indeed knew a single line from Meteion about, lmao context doesn't matter have this strawman) in a way that wasn't just offering patronising platitudes at the worst time after unprecedented disaster by her own fault so they could reflect upon it as she has had the luxury to do, what if they had changed in spite of her arrested beliefs, what if Azem had been anywhere at all to do something, anything –– literally none of this is even suggested in-game. This is what feels wrong. The only counter-argument we're presented with is her own self-flagellation while the plot very much wants you to infer this was the only solution anyway because DYNAMIS! VERY SUBTLE RA-LA! As Kizuya brought up like a hundred pages earlier, there is no actual balance to be found in this narrative. It's one thing to say your character was meant to be interpreted this way, it's another to write the story in a way that enough people seriously question how we were meant to interpret them.
It doesn't help that we get to fight her but we never get to kick her ****ing ass like we did with Emet. This is quite the difference. I wasn't here to have a friendly little spar with you on your own terms so you could test us, sis (test us how? didn't we just establish that Ancients and Dynamis... oh, whatever). I was here for the catharsis I never got outside of writing long-ass forum posts.

I do get that Emet-Selch is really popular but I sort of agree with Alphinaud when Emet is talking about judging people and think, “What right does he have to do that?”, and that might be applicable to Venat too, like “What right does she have to do that?”

I mean, first of all, "that might be applicable to Venat"? Uh... yes, it unambiguously is (this might be an artefact of translating Japanese politeness?). And secondly, I'd say context matters and is very different in both cases, re: Emet being a 12,000+ year-old tired old queen of eld who's had just about enough with these very biologically-different people he couldn't relate to.

Even Hermes doesn't go down as smoothly as Emet even though he's very much an antagonist no matter how much of a depressed vegan he is, because the overarching narrative (and YoshiP here, tbh) absolutely tells you he's making a fair point about his people even though this man is burned out and absolutely not okay, with Ismene here stating he isn't really a people person (gee, thanks Ismene, I could tell), but no, his view isn't warped by bias or illness, he's so intent on fairness that he doesn't bother giving humanity a chance to fight back as, again, we are to understand he is a very unique boy with knowledge totally no one else had, so what fighting chance did they have, frankly? And Venat, too, is very keen on preserving the objectivity of his insane test and offering an answer she decided her people would never get right in any circumstances. Who CARES about the rules he set? We outright told you this is going to go to shit!! The world is going to end! Stop following the rules of his stupid game! Everyone and everything is going to DIE! She's walking along the streets of Amaurot with this sad look on her face like "oh no so much pain and suffering", like WOW, pity nobody could have ever done anything!

Q: Will we have a chance to learn the identities of the full Convocation of Fourteen members?
A: So yes we have already decided the true names and identities of every Convocation member. Whether we will tell you or not however will depend on how the plot develops
Sorry to tease you however.

I'm not feeling super confident on that sentence, but I can appreciate the apology that follows at least.

tl;dr Ascian stan mad