Sundering stuff established in the Q&A

[Theodric]

You're certainly correct in your assessment, though I do feel SE's method of keeping biases to a minimum had the rather unfortunate side effect of making the Scions far less relatable than what I suspect was intended.

Yep.

My favoured approach is to let the player come to their own conclusions and give us one of three options to respond to major plot revelations. One of approval, one of disagreement and one of neutral indifference. It's a tried and true model implemented in many games, to the point where even many games that aren't even primarily RPG's have took it on board.

[Iscah]

Elidibus in X.x

Prettymuch.

It also was a really big deal at the time that Urianger was able to outsmart Elidibus at his own game in 2.X, and now that's kind of ruined too. :/

---

(I'm a little unclear whether he counts as "really Elidibus" or not once reconstituted, though. I would tend towards not, but we've never had any hint of him being elsewhere.)

[Lauront]

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.

This was what I was expecting with Venat, coupled perhaps with greater use of the Telophoroi brand in ancient times, allied to the intercession of a third party to stoke conflict between the two factions to complete its goal of destroying the star. Thus potentially resulting in an antagonist that is tragic and sympathetic, a bit like Yunalesca. Instead I felt we got Yunalesca but you thank her service rather than rebuking her "vision". People obviously differ in their desires for how to handle Hydaelyn, but in trying so hard to influence how the player reacts to her, it came across as extremely muddled and I have very little liking for her or the way it was handled as a result. Though I am far more partial to the ancients and Ascians, I was expecting they'd do a better job with setting up her motives and not having to resort to another round of time travel and have the story bend over backwards as it succumbs beneath the weight of the gymnastics required to make them comprehensible, coupled with heavy-handed use of "themes", transplanted from different contexts, to the point that the setting's metaphysics makes some of them seem like little but a caprice. This approach was never going to succeed in my case, although at least now in the Q&A they acknowledge that she is controversial in the same vein as SHB Emet, whether the game is written to convey that, or not.

In terms of reactions, you get the option of a single dismissive sneer initially from the WOL, and then the Watcher and Y'shtola (of all of the Scions) tripping over themselves to repackage what she had done in a "brighter" light.

[Theodric]

I don't think you've been paying attention to this subforum, it has been really nasty about Venat for months now.

I don't think that is a fair assessment. You do realise, I hope, that some of us have been posting here on and off for almost a decade? During that time, anyone who dared to bring up Garlemald or the Ascians or any other antagonist for that matter was implied to be a 'bad person' with 'a poor grasp of morals'.

That's the light commentary that they received, the worst would get be banned if I repeated it. I also know that certain posters - who use the exact same forum name here as they do on Reddit as to be easily identifiable - spent a significant amount of their free time deliberately seeking out posts there relating to the Ascians to bash Emet and call him 'evil'. That was happening before Endwalker and the recent controversies surround Venat. Surely what's good for one is good for the other?

I've heard MMOChampion has reached the level of 'arguing that Venat is a Nazi'.

That's an interesting take. I post there myself and many Venat enthusiasts went out of their way to harass and abuse posters for their dislike or criticism of the character. To the point of being banned and then making alternate accounts to continue before inevitably being banned once again.

Here's a link, for clarity:

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...Spoiler-thread

The most efficient way to find it would be to skip to the final page and work your way backwards. Who knows? Maybe you could make a video on the subject.

[AlexionSkyllark]

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.

Now... good luck forum, trying to explain how Lalas came to be. What did they compensate when reducing their size and blowing out their cheeks?

[Anvaire]

To be honest there is a conflict in YP's answers around the races and the sundering. In his answer to the sundering and the Unsundered surviving. He stated that she "Let them survive" implying the attack killed the others. But if that was the case then, his answer around the races evolving over time is in conflict to this.

To be honest, it may be that they are going to delve into some aspects in the future.

My personal headcanon is that the Sundering killed everyone, bar the unsundered and then she utilised concepts to recreate life on all of the shards. This is why the other races ultimately look the same and also why she referes to WOL and co as her children. It would also explain the disparity between the races, as we know that the Ancients creations... are not exaclty logical.

[EaraGrace]

To be honest there is a conflict in YP's answers around the races and the sundering. In his answer to the sundering and the Unsundered surviving. He stated that she "Let them survive" implying the attack killed the others. But if that was the case then, his answer around the races evolving over time is in conflict to this.

To be honest, it may be that they are going to delve into some aspects in the future.

My personal headcanon is that the Sundering killed everyone, bar the unsundered and then she utilised concepts to recreate life on all of the shards. This is why the other races ultimately look the same and also why she referes to WOL and co as her children. It would also explain the disparity between the races, as we know that the Ancients creations... are not exaclty logical.

I believe the phrase specifically was “let them live Unsundered” which obviously would point things in a different direction.

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.

There may be an explanation with the Q and A info we now have. Zodiark maintained the souls used in his creation, whereas Hydaelyn by design used everything possible, including the soul aether of those who volunteered. In 5.3 the reason for Elidibus’ deterioration is posited by Y’shtola to be the effect of all those voices overwhelming him, drowning him out. Venat however would not have that problem, as hers was the only voice left.

And I think the memory concept stretches back to 2.0, with the memories of the WoL being wiped due to the surge of aether, (or for legacy players, Hydaelyns aid).

[YukikoKurosawa]

So is there an explanation why the First has the same racial variations as the Source with this new information? I just assumed Hydaelan intentionally turned everyone into the same multitude of races then repeated that variation accross the reflections, now it's evolution? I get that The source and the reflections were carbon copies of eachother straight down to insigificant details and so it's possible whatever environmental conditions combined with the unique physical deficiencies the sundered ancients had would end up eovlving in the same ways, but I mean it's kind of a stretch of believability. "It's just Hydaelan's magic" was a simpler explanation.

Then again the Amal'jaa, whom I guess are also sundered ancients since they appear on the First too, are hairless on the Source but their First equivalents are covered in fur suggests evolution was similar but not 100% the same for everyone across reflections.

But I'm really curious how the sundered ancients would evolve into actual beast races like the Hrothgar.

[RyuDragnier]

But I'm really curious how the sundered ancients would evolve into actual beast races like the Hrothgar.

If it's gaining back something they lost...then maybe their ability to transform into beasts? By becoming beasts they wouldn't need to transform into them. I know that sounds ridiculous but evolution often can be. *points to platypus*

[Lyth]

During the conversation on the Moon, the Watcher explains that if life on the Source was to perish, then the same would happen on all the reflections. There's probably some degree of influence exerted by the Source that results in convergent evolution across its reflections. There are a lot of parallels between the First and Eorzea, so it makes sense for it to be reflected in the people as well as the locations.

That doesn't really explain Ardbert, of course, and why an sundered soul can take on the form of different races in different reflections. I was hoping for an answer closer to Bunny Link from LttP.