Sundering stuff established in the Q&A

[KizuyaKatogami]

I do have to say, I think seeing people work through their feelings on this is funny, because when people are actually talking about their feelings they're pretty much exactly how I felt about Emet-Selch pretty much all through Shadowbringers and its patches.

Emet similarly got a pretty rosy and unjudging response from characters in the story through Shadowbringers, especially in and after Amaurot, and similarly I could never swallow it, because I never found his motives sufficient for what he did, or his character all that pleasant (pretty much my very first response to the character in Shadowbringers was 'I hope the Scions spend the expansion throwing successively larger things at him to shut him up', and was very disappointed this didn't happen). In fact, I still kinda think less of a lot of the Scions for Alisaie being the only one to actually take him to task for what he did, and even that wasn't much at all.

All of this has happened before. It's just that a bunch of you never noticed because you liked and agreed with it last time. Now you're all in the same position I have been in the last two years; being faced with moral ambiguity that the game doesn't take the stance about that you would, and being uncomfortable with that. Especially because people just keep talking about it (in this subforum, at least), so you can't just file it as 'part of the game that I don't like' and move on in the same way you could if, say, you just didn't like Thordan or Nidhogg. It just keeps coming up, which means you keep having to stay in the space you hate.

But it seems that outside of this bubble that gamble paid off. There hasn't been a lot of time since Endwalker and so very little in the way of known public feedback, but one of the Japanese fansites held a character popularity poll and Venat was right up in the top three with Emet and Hythlodaeus--rather impressive for her, honestly, since she had one expansion (actually, basically only one zone) to get that following, and managed to break into what was kind of a boys' club of favorite characters.

For what it's worth, it was NOT close between her and fourth place, either, she got more than twice as much as #4 (G'raha, if it matters).

At the very least we had some dialogue options to give disdain and disagree with Emet. We didn’t even get that with Venat. The only thing we get is to call her out on her lies to the watcher and it’s immediately handwaved. She also gets her own minion calling her a hero. Emet didn’t get that(Emet hasn’t gotten any minion sadly).

[Rannie]

Hey he may get a minion... I want him as a minion... that was said in the live letter. And he did say he holds off on people in the game who aren't finished (minus the scions obviously) to have minions made of them.... so *crosses fingers*

[Veloran]

I do have to say, I think seeing people work through their feelings on this is funny, because when people are actually talking about their feelings they're pretty much exactly how I felt about Emet-Selch pretty much all through Shadowbringers and its patches.

Emet similarly got a pretty rosy and unjudging response from characters in the story through Shadowbringers, especially in and after Amaurot, and similarly I could never swallow it, because I never found his motives sufficient for what he did, or his character all that pleasant (pretty much my very first response to the character in Shadowbringers was 'I hope the Scions spend the expansion throwing successively larger things at him to shut him up', and was very disappointed this didn't happen). In fact, I still kinda think less of a lot of the Scions for Alisaie being the only one to actually take him to task for what he did, and even that wasn't much at all.

All of this has happened before. It's just that a bunch of you never noticed because you liked and agreed with it last time. Now you're all in the same position I have been in the last two years; being faced with moral ambiguity that the game doesn't take the stance about that you would, and being uncomfortable with that.

How Emet was handled and how Venat was handled are nowhere near equivalent. In Shadowbringers the Scions were standoffish and hostile to Emet 90% of the time, the closest they got to him was coming to understand his motivations and admitting they would have done the same thing if their positions were reversed. The most friendly they got was after his death, when Urianger quips that their meetings in the Ocular just won't be the same without Emet-Selch leering in from the sidelines. Meanwhile Venat receives glowing praise from just about everyone, and zero acknowledgement of her wrongdoing - In fact when she tries to call herself out it's practically dismissed. If you recognize your own prior dissatisfaction with Emet-Selch's presentation, surely you can see how much worse Venat's is?

This is to say nothing of how hodgepodge her writing is. With Emet-Selch, there's room for interpretation in some aspects (such as his interactions and intent with WoL), but on the whole his motivations and actions are all fairly clear. With Venat the idea of what she wanted, what she planned for, and what she actually did is incredibly vague. There are tons of contrasting notions of her ideals and intent, and the game never really goes into detail about what she did or what she knew, despite taking great pains to emotionally ingratiate her to the player.

Something I've realized recently is that there was an out to satisfy just about everyone on Venat whether they opposed her or truly loved her. The story tries to play up the tragedy of her situation, but for me it never hit because she was always in a position of power, authority, and control. Whereas if they had just written her to follow the exact same crisis as Elidibus, it would have paid off much more. As it is the fact that she isn't just as much an amnesiac as him, due to existing as the heart of Hydaelyn and not possessing a memory crystal, is a bit of a plot hole. Even if she hadn't gotten mindwiped in Elpis, and acted as she did back then with full knowledge, it was possible to write her modern interactions with WoL as not being so manipulative simply by virtue of having lost her memory over time while still being driven onward by her underlaying sense of duty like Elidibus was. They could have even had the Hydaelyn trial be legitimately antagonistic instead of a ridiculous test by virtue of past-Venat leaving a message to collect the power of the Mothercrystal in the future, with Hydaelyn not understanding and wishing to safeguard the planet's energy for it's protection.

With something like this, writing her as having become something of an enemy to her own ideals, then she would be a truly tragic character. Imagine the emotional impact of the choice to call her Venat in that situation, if she had forgotten her own name in lieu of the Hydaelyn persona after so many thousands of years, only to finally get it back when everything comes full circle. In that way she would even be making the same sacrifice she imposed upon everybody else through the loss of her identity, instead of just playing pretend for millennia.

[Rosenstrauch]

As an aside, it is pretty weird in hindsight that Elidibus had such glaring memory issues when Venat, sitting in the heart of the aetherial sea, did not. But it's also pretty weird that Endwalker introduced Kairos, a fantastic device that can irresistibly erase and rewrite memories, and then just sort of discarded it after the Elpis climax.

Not gonna lie—I'm not terribly enthused at the idea of Kairos coming up as an explanation for that, though. I can only imagine one character having any reason to use it on him, and it would just feed into this even more.

[Iscah]

I still think the main issue is her portrayal. Emet was called out multiple times for the deaths he caused and while the Scions may have come to have sympathy for him they were never warm towards him. The only person to call out Venat was herself and the Scions have a history of borderline zealotry towards Hydaelyn, including forgiveness of highly questionable acts.

Certainly, there's a mismatch between the degree of reverence for Hydaelyn and her actions, but rather than wishing to see her equally admonished, I wish the reason for the admonishment never happened.

I don't find any joy at all in this "actually everyone was flawed and did terrible things by choice" revelation. I just wanted a story about likeable people doing their best to make the world better, even if (for the ancients) things went wrong in the end.

[Absimiliard]

As an aside, it is pretty weird in hindsight that Elidibus had such glaring memory issues

That we at least have a proper explanation for. The truth of the matter is that the Elidibus we interacted with wasn't actually Elidibus. That was a primal constructed using what remained of him within Zodiark, but it wasn't him in the true sense. A great many things were either lost or changed in the transition, though he did apparently regain access to many of his lost memories after being defeated.

[Kyohei]

I feel like there must be two factions at work in the writers' room and one wanted to maintain her being "all-loving mother Hydaelyn" and the other wanted to drag the story as far into edgy "no right answer" territory as possible, and we've ended up with fragments of both in a story that's trying to be too many things at once.

It felt like this to me as well, some things didn't add up naturally on her behaviour and the general setting and I can very easily imagine writers' team being split on how to handle Hydaelyn/Venat. We shouldn't forget that in the end of the day they are writing on a base story they didn't start, and somehow had to try being coherent with this beginning while also wishing to pen what they themselves want. Maybe that too had a play in how some bits of the conclusion were shaky...

[KizuyaKatogami]

As an aside, it is pretty weird in hindsight that Elidibus had such glaring memory issues when Venat, sitting in the heart of the aetherial sea, did not. But it's also pretty weird that Endwalker introduced Kairos, a fantastic device that can irresistibly erase and rewrite memories, and then just sort of discarded it after the Elpis climax.

Not gonna lie—I'm not terribly enthused at the idea of Kairos coming up as an explanation for that, though. I can only imagine one character having any reason to use it on him, and it would just feed into this even more.

Honestly, especially now after EW, 5.3 has so many issues i can’t even address them all, but yeah i guess they needed some way to rush Elidibus out of the picture for whatever reason and replace him with fandaniel and zenos as antagonists, which clearly did not go very well. The memory issues were their way of doing that. Doesn’t make sense in the slightest but sigh.

[Iscah]

I feel it's more that they built Elidibus up to be too good an opponent previously, and they couldn't find a way for the protagonists to convincingly beat him so his ability had to be undermined instead.

(And then took a further jarring shift with Tales From recasting him as an "adoring younger brother" type to the group, which is... what.)

Additionally, his presumed role in Pandæmonium means that he doesn't get to appear in the credits "passing the torch" scene with the others, because they can't officially show him as an ancient and identifiably Elidibus yet.

[Skyborne]

I feel it's more that they built Elidibus up to be too good an opponent previously, and they couldn't find a way for the protagonists to convincingly beat him so his ability had to be undermined instead.

(And then took a further jarring shift with Tales From recasting him as an "adoring younger brother" type to the group, which is... what.)

Additionally, his presumed role in Pandæmonium means that he doesn't get to appear in the credits "passing the torch" scene with the others, because they can't officially show him as an ancient and identifiably Elidibus yet.

Elidibus in 2.x: Scheming manipulator who always seems to be a step or two ahead of the heroes, mysterious, seems to have more going for him. May or may not 'help' us. Told Nabriales to not harm Minfilia, and attempted to put a leash on Lahabrea.
Elidibus in 3.x+: Essentially takes over Lahabrea's role now that he's gone, sets the stage for the 8th calamity with multiple backup plans. Attempts to take us out directly afterward, with no room for negotiation.
Elidibus in 5.x+: reeeeeeeeEEEEEEEeeEEEEEEeee I am an amnesiac hero running on fumes, I will now proceed to drop everything and just throw myself at you, ungabunga. I am also not actually Elidibus, but a copy of him reconstituted from Zodiark goo. Please be sad and clap. Though, to be fair, he actually had the smartest plan of just dropping us into the Rift to suffocate and die. Not his fault Emet-Selch decided to help us.