Sundering stuff established in the Q&A

[EaraGrace]

I think it's worth noting that Hythlodaeus points out in Elpis that Emet-Selch did the same thing, travelling far and wide in order to help those in need. Furthermore, in Emet's case he was described as doing so in a humble manner and didn't seek out praise for doing so.

Because Venat just did so for vainglory right?

Honestly, people here approaching parody with how much they want to make her evil.

If only the story itself didn’t contradict said premises and themes just to make specific characters look good or to keep them alive

Yes, Kizuya, Graha ruined everything. You’re doing great.

[jameseoakes]

Because Venat just did so for vainglory right?

Honestly, people here approaching parody with how much they want to make her evil.

I'm still struggling to see how she was not evil for what she did to her own people.

Edit: I might be being a bit flippant with this but I struggle with how Venats actions were good, the actions she takes is beyond extreme with both how she treated her own people and what she did to the people she left in the wake of her actions.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Because Venat just did so for vainglory right?

Honestly, people here approaching parody with how much they want to make her evil.



Yes, Kizuya, Graha ruined everything. You’re doing great.

She took it upon herself to try and give her the holy title of a “supreme deity,” seems like quite the ego. Also for once i wasn’t even reference Graha heh. Just the contradictions and double standard with the scions.

[Theodric]

Because Venat just did so for vainglory right?

Well, given that she was compelled to inflict genocide upon her own people and then declare the shattered remnants to be her 'children' whilst masquerading as a self declared 'supreme deity' then it's certain something that can be taken as such.

Honestly, people here approaching parody with how much they want to make her evil.

Given that Venat is ultimately responsible for both the Sundering and the Rejoinings, it's a pretty fair reading of her character.

[jameseoakes]

Well, given that she was compelled to inflict genocide upon her own people and then declare the shattered remnants to be her 'children' whilst masquerading as a self declared 'supreme deity' then it's certain something that can be taken as such.

Given that Venat is ultimately responsible for both the Sundering and the Rejoinings, it's a pretty fair reading of her character.

That's another part of the issues she set herself up as a god and while pushing that the peoples that inhabited the world are her Children while they were nothing more than fodder for her plans (especially the ones on the reflections who were nothing but fodder for the rejoinings she needed)

Edit: I know I've picked quite biased wording for this but I do feel the game did a very poor job fleshing out the other side with how they have depicted Venat in Endwalker

[tokinokanatae]

There's something deeply ironic about using the lyrics of Answers and Dragonsong especially in this argument.

Gee, Venat, if the idea of war is so confusing to you, maybe you should have thought things through a little better before introducing things like violent death and war when you Sundered the post-scarcity society that existed prior. You think it makes her more sympathetic that she's chastising her "children" that are perpetuating the singular violence she enacted upon them? Come on, now.

Mired by a plague of doubt the land she mourns.
Tell me why create, a circle none can break. Why would you let go, of the life you were bestowed. This I fear I’ll never know.
One kingdoms fall is another kingdoms freedom. One sovereigns war, is another sovereigns peace. One mothers pride is another mothers sorrow. Their tears both soak the land they love.
Stand tall, my friend. May all the dark lost inside you find light again.

Who are the individuals she's referring to in the lyrics again? Seems to me it's just more generalizations and vague sadness over the consequences of her own actions.

[EaraGrace]

I'm still struggling to see how she was not evil for what she did to her own people.

Edit: I might be being a bit flippant with this but I struggle with how Venats actions were good, the actions she takes is beyond extreme with both how she treated her own people and what she did to the people she left in the wake of her actions.

Both are extreme by necessity. Zodiark was the most powerful being to exist in Etheirys and Meteion the universe (that we know of, there’s of course other the chance future developments change things). Accomplishing both restraining Zodiark and giving humanity the chance to fight against Meteion we’re both solved but the Sundering. If she succeeds humanity and all life flourishes. If she fails, the universe ends. To me, I see her actions as not kind or particularly good (as in fun, enjoyable, etc.) , but necessary. Sundering the planet, and I know I’m not popular for saying it, was to help humanity. In this way it’s not evil.

She took it upon herself to try and give her the holy title of a “supreme deity,” seems like quite the ego. Also for once i wasn’t even reference Graha heh. Just the contradictions and double standard with the scions.

Yes it was very ostentatious. And yknow what, I’d say find someone who wouldn’t refer to themselves like that. Whether out of necessity or a simply a product of becoming a primal. Elidibus certainly didn’t pass that test.

Well, given that she was compelled to inflict genocide upon her own people and then declare the shattered remnants to be her 'children' whilst masquerading as a self declared 'supreme deity' then it's certain something that can be taken as such.

Either Sunder or accept death, which is better to you Theodoric. If the latter is more moral to you I’ll respect that. But let’s lay the dilemma out on the table.

Given that Venat is ultimately responsible for both the Sundering and the Rejoinings, it's a pretty fair reading of her character.

Oh now she’s responsible for the Rejoinings! Leaving a crack for Emet somehow means that she’s the one responsible, despite resisting the Rejoinings and failing seven times. She totally forced Emet and Lahabrea and Eldiibus to kill those people. She totally knew Emet would be with Lahabrea and Elidibus at that moment, knew they would escape and manipulated them to kill billions.

Totally.

[jameseoakes]

Both are extreme by necessity. Zodiark was the most powerful being to exist in Etheirys and Meteion the universe (that we know of, there’s of course other the chance future developments change things). Accomplishing both restraining Zodiark and giving humanity the chance to fight against Meteion we’re both solved but the Sundering. If she succeeds humanity and all life flourishes. If she fails, the universe ends. To me, I see her actions as not kind or particularly good (as in fun, enjoyable, etc.) , but necessary. Sundering the planet, and I know I’m not popular for saying it, was to help humanity. In this way it’s not evil.

I don't see any reason why the sundering was needed to fight Meteion, I see no reason why the Ancients could not of fought Meteion, they could work with Dyanamis. So once the nature of the threat was made clear to them there seems to be no reason why they couldn't have done something about Meteion with time.

Oh now she’s responsible for the Rejoinings! Leaving a crack for Emet somehow means that she’s the one responsible, despite resisting the Rejoinings and failing seven times. She totally forced Emet and Lahabrea and Eldiibus to kill those people. She totally knew Emet would be with Lahabrea and Elidibus at that moment, knew they would escape and manipulated them to kill billions.

Totally.

She needs multiple rejoinings to happen so we can be sufficiently re-joined to kill the unsundered acians so most of the shards were nothing but fodder and the people on the source exposed to the full horror of multiple cataclysms by her actions. The rejoinings are part of her design

[KizuyaKatogami]

Both are extreme by necessity. Zodiark was the most powerful being to exist in Etheirys and Meteion the universe (that we know of, there’s of course other the chance future developments change things). Accomplishing both restraining Zodiark and giving humanity the chance to fight against Meteion we’re both solved but the Sundering. If she succeeds humanity and all life flourishes. If she fails, the universe ends. To me, I see her actions as not kind or particularly good (as in fun, enjoyable, etc.) , but necessary. Sundering the planet, and I know I’m not popular for saying it, was to help humanity. In this way it’s not evil.



Yes it was very ostentatious. And yknow what, I’d say find someone who wouldn’t refer to themselves like that. Whether out of necessity or a simply a product of becoming a primal. Elidibus certainly didn’t pass that test.



Either Sunder or accept death, which is better to you Theodoric. If the latter is more moral to you I’ll respect that. But let’s lay the dilemma out on the table.



Oh now she’s responsible for the Rejoinings! Leaving a crack for Emet somehow means that she’s the one responsible, despite resisting the Rejoinings and failing seven times. She totally forced Emet and Lahabrea and Eldiibus to kill those people. She totally knew Emet would be with Lahabrea and Elidibus at that moment, knew they would escape and manipulated them to kill billions.

Totally.

She relied on said rejoinings though, that’s one of the major flaws in her plan. She required events to play out in such a specific manner. If not, who knows what would have happened. She needed Elidibus,Emet, etc to play their specific roles. Hell, had Elidibus not been on the First, her entire plan would be screwed as we needed him to even give us that time travel in the first place.

[Alleluia]

She relied on said rejoinings though, that’s one of the major flaws in her plan. She required events to play out in such a specific manner. If not, who knows what would have happened.

Isn't that probably the point, though? As Elidibus says, you can't change the past b/c your present is built on it. The present where everyone is currently alive and not a self destructing society, though it is under threat from the remnants of the past.

Venat could have taken a chance on a future that was completely unknown, maybe. I mean, if she hadn't sundered the world and neutered Zodiark, literally who knows what would have happened? It was a devil you know vs the devil you don't situation. The classic question for time travel stories: do you let events play out as you know they are "supposed" to or not? She knew that the end result of the sundering timeline seemed to result in people who had a unique perspective to understand suffering; who had a chance of ending Metieon's threat. And she assessed the ancients, as they were, to be incapable of ultimately surviving; an opinion Hades later affirms in Ultima Thule when he says "Our methods would not have carried us this far."

Yes, she could have tried to change that. I, personally, wish the timeline had branched instead of looping, with an alternate timeline where we did just that. Tried to avoid the sundering and saved the Ancients as they are. Meteion asks us to do so. Hythlodeaus tells us that its their problem to fix, implying it is a problem that they're going to tackle. Venat, as well, talks about averting things. Hades refuses to accept our present as his future, and I didn't want him to go through it, either. Elpis is full of so much hopeful sentiment that ultimately proves futile. It turns out we're just watching people doomed to die go through the motions and I kinda hate it.

But Venat was faced with a choice: To go with the unknown where maybe she can save her people as they are, even though signs point to them going down a path that will ultimately doom them all (Mr. "when we knew naught but bliss!" with his nostalgia goggles); Or to go with the path she knows for a fact seems like its working. She chose to put her trust in us and our path. Its not kind to anyone, even herself, but it is pragmatic. She honestly thinks its their best chance. And, ultimately, the other two representatives of the Ancients seem to agree with her: Hyth encouraging us to protect the sealing brand on the moon, Hades saying her method worked out better than how their own would have. Not that that means that they can't all be wrong and there wasn't actually another way, but in the end, her way *did* work. And that was the goal.


And, as a side note, saying she's ultimately responsible for the rejoinings is kinda blame shifting. Everyone is responsible for their own actions. She didn't make the Unsundered go through with their rejoining plan. If she had free will to go a different way at any point and not sunder people, they too had the option to not Rejoin. Even if tempering is a thing that compelled the unsundered to do it (and I'm not entirely sure anymore that it was), the sundered ascians could have stepped in and rebelled or something. Either everyone had free will here or no one does.