Sundering stuff established in the Q&A

[tokinokanatae]

And how is feeling sad the same as having "basically no issues", exactly? Is she callous or not?

Her emotions don't tie into her actions, so she doesn't have issues doing those things. She sees "feeling bad" as an acceptable price to pay as long as her actions lead to the end she desires. In that regard, no sacrifice of lives is too great as long as mankind, in one form or another, lives on.

Maybe I'm being too vague? Most normal people hesitate to do the sort of drastic actions Venat does--even Hermes has an obvious tipping point if you look at the report scene--with the suffering that ensues. Venat does not. That is callous. It doesn't matter how much she cries prettily as the Sundered stands over the dead body of their mother, because feeling that way will never stay her hand if she feels the cruelty she inflicts has a result that is worth it.

EDIT: As for her actions, RE: Emet-Selch, it's not like Venat is cruel for the sake of being cruel. She was dead and Emet-Selch's soul was half-faded. Offering a small kindness when it's within her power to do so and won't impact her larger design is not something out of character for her. We can see that in her escorting Minfilia's soul back to the Source, when it would have been just fine in the aetherial sea of the First.

[Lauront]

She did remind her of her favourite dog, after all.

[Alleluia]

Her emotions don't tie into her actions, so she doesn't have issues doing those things. She sees "feeling bad" as an acceptable price to pay as long as her actions lead to the end she desires. In that regard, no sacrifice of lives is too great as long as mankind, in one form or another, lives on.

Maybe I'm being too vague? Most normal people hesitate to do the sort of drastic actions Venat does--even Hermes has an obvious tipping point if you look at the report scene--with the suffering that ensues. Venat does not. That is callous. It doesn't matter how much she cries prettily as the Sundered stands over the dead body of their mother, because feeling that way will never stay her hand if she feels the cruelty she inflicts has a result that is worth it.

I don't think we have any evidence that Venat didn't hesitate. We are right there with her as she tries to avert the Final Days and avoid having to sunder anyone at all. And we see her reaction when we tell her what happened in the future in the first place, saying she thinks it doesn't sound like something she'd have done b/c she'd have relied on the 14 or whatever she said. Like, she didn't just jump into the sundering plan as a first resort and with no compunctions. She came to see it as something she had to do in order for mankind to ultimately survive an extinction level event.

That's not being callous. You yourself acknowledge she feels sadness for what she introduced to the world. And she cuts herself no slack in our final conversation with her. That's not "having no issues". That's having issues, but still doing it b/c it was the only course that might work, as far as she or any of us know.

"In that regard, no sacrifice of lives is too great as long as mankind, in one form or another, lives on."

I mean, she wasn't the one sacrificing lives. Again, the Ascians weren't forced to do the rejoinings. And she does stop them when she feels she can, like the First. And she opposed the third phase of Zodiark's sacrifices. Venat isn't directly sacrificing lives. And you can argue indirectly she is, by sundering ppl and giving them shorter lifespans, but considering the alternative seems to have ultimately been extinction, I can't really agree. Yes, her actions made life harder. But the alternative, as far as she or we are aware, was life ending all together.

[Skyborne]

We are right there with her as she tries to avert the Final Days and avoid having to sunder anyone at all.

Huh? Did my memories of EW already fall out of my brain? Or are you talking about Ktsis where we failed to stop Hermes/Meteion? After that whole thing she decides she'll gather some trusted followers, but it doesn't seem like she did anything to stop the Final Days from occuring in the first place -- that they showed or told us, anyway. One of my biggest gripes, since they really wanted to sell me on her being a good person who tried her best. They only went for the Answers AMV where she tries to talk to the 'nostalgic boomer' strawmen after the Final Days already hit...

The hill that my corpse will fester on is that the ascians were well within their rights to correct what they saw as a huge mistake born of Hydaelyn's fear of Zodiark's power, and to defy fate as has been the way in many FF games. They and Ardbert & co were the 'dark mirrors' and the actual Warriors of Darkness to the WoL/Scions, who were also within their rights to fight back and defy fate.　Not to mention that those calamities could be thought of as 'toughening up' people as She wanted... I think this has been said a trillion times by others though.

Brinne's post below makes me think of that JP character poll comment... 'she's co-conspirators with Hermes, isn't she?' imo that's where it nosedived for me. It's like teaching a child to swim by throwing him into the ocean in the middle of the night, then sighing and giving up on him when he washes up half-alive and with an intense phobia of all water... these kids in the shallow end of the pool with their water wings are much more resilient!

[Alleluia]

Huh? Did my memories of EW already fall out of my brain? Or are you talking about Ktsis where we failed to stop Hermes/Meteion?

Not just Ktsis, but before that. Her entire goal once we told her the future was that we were trying to figure out how the Final Days happened in order to avoid them. None of the three ancients, Venat included, accepted the Final Days as a foregone conclusion. She even sounds like she has plans to continue to try to avert them after the memory wipe, though I'm sure at that point she was also thinking about how the Hydaelyn plan could be put into action. But, yes, before that she was trying to avoid the apocalypse and therefore avoid having to sunder anyone.

[Brinne]

Not just Ktsis, but before that. Her entire goal once we told her the future was that we were trying to figure out how the Final Days happened in order to avoid them. None of the three ancients, Venat included, accepted the Final Days as a foregone conclusion. She even sounds like she has plans to continue to try to avert them after the memory wipe, though I'm sure at that point she was also thinking about how the Hydaelyn plan could be put into action. But, yes, before that she was trying to avoid the apocalypse and therefore avoid having to sunder anyone.

Yes, before she hears our stories of the future, and before she hears Meteion's report. Venat herself states that something drastic must have changed her mind, since her initial instinct is to, yes, stop the Final Days altogether - and she notes that that doesn't seem to be the priority of her future self. After getting to know us and hearing Meteion's report:

Regardless of how we proceed, if we are to permanently avert the Final Days, we must be equal to Hermes's challenge. We must prove that mankind is worthy to exist. And this hinges, I think, on how we confront the all-consuming despair that accompanies a senseless and seemingly inevitable end.

She fundamentally actually agrees with the premise of Hermes's test, that mankind's right to live is not a given, but something that must be "proven." And she decides that worthiness will hinge on subjecting them to absolute despair and seeing how they respond. In this moment, she more or less strongly implies that's made up her mind to allow Hermes's test to happen, and her strategy is to do her best to prepare people to simply endure it - which is even symbolically reflected in the montage, where she walks past the first Ancient being killed and does nothing to interfere.

[Kozh]

And yet for someone uninterested in the individual she weeps and cries for them, as individuals.

Why would you use song lyrics that aren't even confirmed to be sung by hydaelyn except for Answers? Unless I missed an interview or official confirmation from the devs, and if that's the case I apologize.

I'm pretty sure Dragonsong is sung by either hraesvelgr, tiamat, or vidofnir. Or at least by on of the dragon, considering that the lyric said "children of the land".

Revolutions is harder to interpret, but the grounded feeling I get from the lyrics made me think it's sung by the revolution army.

As for tomorrow and tomorrow, I believe it's either sung by minfilia and the souls lost due to flood of light or Ironworks of 8UC timeline. We might even say that the second verse is sung by the Ancients. The "storm who weeps" most likely talks about hydaelyn.

[MikkoAkure]

Why would you use song lyrics that aren't even confirmed to be sung by hydaelyn except for Answers? Unless I missed an interview or official confirmation from the devs, and if that's the case I apologize.

I'm pretty sure Dragonsong is sung by either hraesvelgr, tiamat, or vidofnir. Or at least by on of the dragon, considering that the lyric said "children of the land".

Revolutions is harder to interpret, but the grounded feeling I get from the lyrics made me think it's sung by the revolution army.

As for tomorrow and tomorrow, I believe it's either sung by minfilia and the souls lost due to flood of light or Ironworks of 8UC timeline. We might even say that the second verse is sung by the Ancients. The "storm who weeps" most likely talks about hydaelyn.

At Pax 2015, Koji Fox said that Dragonsong was sung by Hydaelyn.

Both Answers and Dragonsong are from Hydaelyn’s perspective, Koji confirms. In Answers, the wandering races are lamenting their existence and how life is so hard, while Hydaelyn is explaining that suffering leads you to understand who you are and what role you will play. This is contrasted in Dragonsong, where Hyadelyn doesn’t understand why her children have let the circumstances of the Dragonsong War become what they have. The contents of the songs in the game are, indeed, canon, so keep speculating based on the lyrics – some do have deeper meaning.

Revolutions is sung by the same singer in the same way as the other 2 so I wouldn't be surprised if that was also Hydaelyn.

I don't believe Tomorrow and Tomorrow is Hydaelyn, however.

[Kozh]

At Pax 2015, Koji Fox said that Dragonsong was sung by Hydaelyn.


Revolutions is sung by the same singer in the same way as the other 2 so I wouldn't be surprised if that was also Hydaelyn.

I don't believe Tomorrow and Tomorrow is Hydaelyn, however.

Ah, I see. Thanks for the corrections.

[Rulakir]

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.

I understand, but I can't accept it. There was no evidence that the WoL's future was 'working' when we had to go to extreme lengths of time travel because we had no idea what was causing the Final Days or how to stop it after 12k years. This is certainly not a path I would consider to have been remotely successful. The fact that Venat put all her eggs in the WoL's basket, frankly, shows poor judgment much like her sundering of the world (so I suppose it's still in character). It was always a gamble even if she did try to stack the odds.

I mean, she wasn't the one sacrificing lives. Again, the Ascians weren't forced to do the rejoinings. And she does stop them when she feels she can, like the First.

Except she was. People not only had to die for her they had to give up their souls for her. It's just another aspect of her hypocrisy. There also isn't any evidence she was willing or able to save the shards. They were likely always going to be collateral damage. The First is particularly tricky because the events there shape the WoL into becoming the person she met in Elpis. Her preventing the Flood of Light would dramatically change the course of history. At worst the WoL dies in the 8UC (which happened), at best there's no soul merger with Ardbert, Emet & Elidibus survive, and Fandaniel is prevented from acting upon his plans until a day the WoL faces the unsundered in a different scenario. Now that I think about it, she could've 'forestalled the coming doom' of the return of the Final Days if she had nipped the Flood of Light in the bud.