Sundering stuff established in the Q&A

[Slatersev]

Actually in Elidibus' relative lack of focus compared to the Elpis trio, I'm pretty positive it worked out that way specifically because they already planned for him to have a big focus in Panda, and decided the time spent on Ancients in the MSQ would be better used fleshing out Venat and Hermes when Themis was going to get his own specific story content anyway.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Actually in Elidibus' relative lack of focus compared to the Elpis trio, I'm pretty positive it worked out that way specifically because they already planned for him to have a big focus in Panda, and decided the time spent on Ancients in the MSQ would be better used fleshing out Venat and Hermes when Themis was going to get his own specific story content anyway.

Except Panda is mostly themed around Lahabrea and Erich. Themis is essentially the Ryne of the story whereas Erich is Gaia of whom the story is revolving around. The fact though remains despite this expansion being about ending the arc of the two elder primals one of them is extremely neglected both in regards to the actual primal itself and it’s heart.

[Rulakir]

Regardless, this means she had committed to "our" timeline

It also doesn't change the fact that she had no assurances the WoL would be successful. She gambled trillions of lives on a 1-2 day meeting, which is Disney levels of love at first sight leads to happily ever after type nonsense.

If they're standing on the hill that Venat is no different than the other Ancients who judged the world by their own standards and let lives fall by the wayside to do it, akin to Hermes and Emet, it certainly was not portrayed as such by the MSQ or anything in it. Someone complicit in this much tragedy should not ever be portrayed as a hero, and it is undeniable that is how she is seen.

Antagonists who've done less were raked over the coals, but Venat is celebrated. I'll never understand it. I can only assume the backlash from Japanese players was worse than it was here because Reddit and western streamers/YouTubers have done nothing but gush about EW. I've only see dissent here, on the official forums, which Yoshi-P never cites as one of the places he goes for game feedback (oddly).

We’re still back at where we were before, left wondering what would have actually happened had she told the truth.

Sadly. Given how much the unsundered changed after the sundering the excuse that their people couldn't change (also ignoring those who were on Venat's side) isn't accurate, it's just the Zodiark Cultist Strawmen group at the end of Elpis all over again. Though, Yoshi-P was explicit that's what Venat thought and clearly she did not have a favorable opinion of her own people.

[polyphonica]

- The player races are descended from Sundered Ancients. Non-Hyur developed their inhuman traits over time to compensate for deficiencies created by their essence being broken unevenly and trying to recover - for example, Miqo'te grew bigger ears because of loss of hearing.

Just one important point about this. During the Live Letter, Yoshida specifically said that this latter part was not the lore reason, but only his own personal speculation. So the part about growing bigger ears due to being hard of hearing, or Lalafells being small because they were under pressure, were basically joke answers and shouldn't be taken seriously (unless it actually gets written into the lore, but this was just Yoshida spitballing at the end). The fact that the player races are descended from Sundered Ancients didn't get this disclaimer though, so we can assume that part to be as canon as we get for now.


Also regarding this:

- Venat left Emet, and ambiguously the other Unsundered, alive on purpose because of their utility in bringing about her plans.

Yoshida clarified that because she was at the limit of her power, she couldn't truly control the result, so she did her attack with the assumption that Emet-Selch could survive it rather than any kind of guarantee. Lahabrea and Elidibus happened to be with Emet-Selch at the time, so that's how they survived. But at the same time, I think that because she already knew the future from us to begin with -- we specifically told her that these three survived the sundering -- once she realized she was going down the same path, she would have figured he (and they) would survive regardless.

In other words, having decided that the Ancients were going down the wrong path that would never work, she embraced the future the WoL told her was going to happen, believing that the WoL would be able to defeat Endsinger after all. So she was aware of all the pain everyone would have to suffer to get to that point, but she chose that path regardless believing it was the best shot they had. If she had tried to do something to alter that (to make sure Emet-Selch would *not* survive, for instance), even if she could, she would end up going down an unknown path.

Yoshida's main point in this whole discussion (that came up in the later answer) was that the ability to unilaterally declare the world's fate like this made her just as much of an Ancient as Emet-Selch, Hades, and the rest (very literally playing god), but, as we saw, her answer just happened to work out. (As Emet-Selch admitted, their methods wouldn't have gotten them that far.) So Yoshida said that, although the game did show that she wasn't evil, it'd be fair to have the same kind of objection Alphinaud had about Emet-Selch at the end of 5.0, since Venat too didn't really have the right to pass judgement on all people the way she did, even though he (and the game) pointed out that she agonized over this very thing.

To the point some others raised in the thread about the idea that maybe if she had come clean to all the right people they could have come up with a different way is obviously the question of the ages. But I suppose the argument here is that she reached a crossroads where the ancients were going to sacrifice even more of themselves to Zodiark (despite attempts to convince them otherwise, which we see symbolized in that scene), so at that time Venat thought she had to commit. No one can say if she was Right, but in the end it got the job done.

It also doesn't change the fact that she had no assurances the WoL would be successful. She gambled trillions of lives on a 1-2 day meeting, which is Disney levels of love at first sight leads to happily ever after type nonsense.

I mean, in fairness, it's not every day you meet someone from the future who seems to possess the exact qualities that appear to be needed to face the enemy (and had already shown an ability to communicate with her in ways that all the other ancients could not). Granted there may be infinite possibilities, but this certainly helps to bias the selection of options. (If it were just some random encounter, that'd be one thing, but as you see everything around you falling into place exactly the way they described despite clear efforts to stop it...)

[Shookbeast]

Given the Q&A answer, I think there might be a little wink at the “Our WOL might literally be Azem” theory (After attaining all 14 soul-bits, we time travel back to become Azem).

Indeed, the idea that whatever we think Azem might be doing during the Sundering is our headcanon - but that answer could also be read as “you can decide what you are doing when it happens, as you are VERY similar to Azem after all. (Wink wink wink)”

The info on the way races evolved definitively post-sundering is interesting. If we do go back in time as the WOL (perhaps in the final expansion) then the writers will have to hand-wave our appearance. (Although we already have that hand-wave with the Ancients’ ability to transform).

The Zenos Reaper comments seem to point to his story not being finished - or perhaps the theory about his Void-critter being important. (The 13th’s Azem shard perhaps?)

[KizuyaKatogami]

She literally lived to watch and guide the world she created, she didn't just ollie out of everything. She had the hardest road of all; she didn't just see her world end, she had to go on knowing it could never come back, and that the world she did make would be filled with suffering that she'd ascribe to herself.

And there's no evidence Ra-la killed souls so much as just terminated the lives they were living, which they no longer wanted to do. So yeah, Venat's death is different from the Plenty's both there and in intent; the Plenty essentially committed empty suicide, Venat and company sacrificed their life for the sake of others. Selfish versus selfless.

And yes, the game generally does consider existence to be preferable to nonexistence, which is why it initially sits weird that Emet gets to keep going but Venat doesn't. The big thing splitting Endwalker's cycle of rebirth from Buddhism's belief is ultimately that Endwalker's is just rebirth, while Buddhism includes the beliefs of karma and liberation from mortal 'poisons' that sort of govern your place and ultimate liberation from the cycle.

In Buddhist beliefs, you could see Venat's cessation as reaching that goal of nirvana, while Emet-Selch still has growing to do. But those Buddhist notions don't exist in this text, and the game generally looks at it as 'continuing to exist is good and you should generally do that if possible', so suddenly it flips; Venat faces the ultimate punishment of total death for what she did, while Emet-Selch, positioned as essentially her moral mirror, gets to keep going.

I’d say the hardest road of all goes to Elidibus personally. Having to watch his own world and people shattered apart while trying to save them, only to spend 12000 years trying to piece it back together, only to be betrayed by another one of his own people, sealed into a tower with his sorrowful memories of his dead friends and family, and then forced to sacrifice himself and extinguish his soul completely….and then not even be mentioned or regarded once after for his deeds.

(As Emet-Selch admitted, the Ascians' methods wouldn't have gotten them that far.)

Small correction, the french version highlights that when he says this, he's meaning getting to Ultima Thule. Not anything else.

[Kozh]

I mean I really doubt that we would tell her every little detail about the history of our planet. Maybe we simply said that the world was sundered, Emet, Lahabrea and Elidibus escaped the sundering and that right now x amount of shards got rejoined. Also that seemingly Emet recreated Amaurot and that we defeated him there. So maybe she knew that the First was important but I doubt that she knew exactly which shard would get a rejoining and when it would happen. (I am not even sure if our WoL knows that)

I don't even say the WoL told her about every calamity or the world's history. Dunno where people get this from - _-

I'm just saying it's possible we told about ultima, because we directly fight it and it was quite a big deal.

Of course she could have sat there, counting the amount of rejoinings and the remaining time until we are born and be like "welp time to help or it will be out of order" but I really doubt that.

I personally don't doubt that. She intentionally let the unsundered survive to do rejoining after all. She knew the world would survive despite being rejoined 7 times. She only need to do the bare minimum, by making warrior of lights and let them sort it out by themselves. After all, rejoining is a vital part of her plan to introduce despair to the sundered.

[Lyth]

...

That really highlights the problem with doing a literal script translation instead of transcreation. Koji outlined this back in 2013. Sure, it's easier to do when you only have access to the script and not the actual author in house, but you lose intent, style, tone, and context. That's why localization gets done on site. Nobody with common sense is going to interpret Emet's line to mean 'Our Amaurotian spaceflight technology was not advanced enough to get us to Ultima Thule.'

[MikkoAkure]

I’d say the hardest road of all goes to Elidibus personally. Having to watch his own world and people shattered apart while trying to save them, only to spend 12000 years trying to piece it back together, only to be betrayed by another one of his own people, sealed into a tower with his sorrowful memories of his dead friends and family, and then forced to sacrifice himself and extinguish his soul completely….and then not even be mentioned or regarded once after for his deeds.

Elidibus isn't forced to do anything. He sends us back of his own volition as his Ancient self and not his Ascian self. Where are you getting that he was forced?

"Betrayed by another of his own people" is equally a highly exaggerated way to describe the situation, considering when his soul was rent and he returned to his personality before he summoned Zodiark, he helped us just as Emet-Selch had when Emet was no longer an Ascian.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Elidibus isn't forced to do anything. He sends us back of his own volition as his Ancient self and not his Ascian self. Where are you getting that he was forced?

Forced as in if he doesn’t the world literally ends. It’s a bit strange to me Venat gets all the credit when were it not for him we’d literally be doomed. I should remember i need to word things clearly for some.