Nobody is obligated to like Venat nor do they need to agree with or approve of her actions.

As for posters supposedly tying themselves into knots? Eh, I daresay that applies much more readily to certain posters who spent a considerable amount of time both here and elsewhere insisting that if someone liked the Ancients or the Garleans then they were 'bad people' or 'morally lacking'. The Rejoinings and campaigns of genocide - despite being fictional events - were cited as evidence of such.

Now we're at a point where it has been revealed that, actually, those supposedly 'utterly unforgivable' acts are entirely at the feet of Venat for allowing them to happen in the first place due to them being a necessity for her 'grand plan' to succeed.

Which, I rather suspect, is the reason why some are now insinuating that fondness for a certain 'mommy goddess' is mandatory. If you want to like her? Go ahead - nobody is stopping you. Just please try to avoid forcing character preferences upon everybody else.

The idea that Venat's solution was the only possible solution has also been picked apart many times as disingenuous framing given that the Ancients were not bestowed the information of what fate awaited them. As such, we cannot say how things would have transpired as Venat opted to sell out her own species and subject them and even many of her precious 'children' to brutal and horrific genocide in both a direct and indirect capacity.

It isn't rocket science as to why a character complicit in such treachery and cruelty is disliked. I'm all for sympathetic antagonists and flawed heroes but Venat, in context, does very little to excite me on that front.

I don't think anybody is suggesting that other posters can't like or root for the character, though.