What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[Brinne]

It's a bit of both, if there wasn't a time travel or if Venat had lost her memories more people would be inclined to empathize. As it stands she seemed to be the only one with all the cards but went for a dreadful hand.

And I think this still would have been fine if you just let Venat be what she is! I don't find her, removing her from the tone and framing surrounding her, an uninteresting character. I can actually have a lot of fun picking through her thought processes, how she makes her decisions - and even a hint of a certain flavor of tragedy in how she seems to have trouble connecting to individual, living, breathing people rather than abstractions - and most importantly, memeing about THE STRONG EAT, THE WEAK ARE EATEN, THUMPS CHEST - I MEAN, UH, FIND YOUR INNER LIGHT MY CHILDREN WINK WINK in increasingly absurd contexts at her expense.

Venat's writing comes across, to me, as dripping with insecurity. The feeling I get - and again, this is probably speculating irresponsibly - is that they were very self-aware that a lot of people very skeptical and suspicious of Hydaelyn after Shadowbringers, so they really made it their focal point to pull out all the stops and play all the tricks to make her Very, Very Likable first and foremost, and then super jankily had to make this fit in with the pre-existing lore. Uh, do your best to not do this if you are a writer! It's okay if your character isn't traditionally "likable" as long as they are interesting! Let the character play out organically, authentic to both themselves and how the other characters would react to them! Embrace Venat for the very strange and very ruthless person that she is! The material is all there! There were so many options. Alas.

[BrokentoothMarch]

Uh, do your best to not do this if you are a writer! It's okay if your character isn't traditionally "likable" as long as they are interesting! Let the character play out organically, authentic to both themselves and how the other characters would react to them! Embrace Venat for the very strange and very ruthless person that she is!

This is especially important. Sometimes we disassociate from the humanity of characters because they're, well, characters. They aren't real. However, they're meant to act as a construct that we can translate as real. The problem is that humans, like most animals, are pretty good at noticing when something isn't part of their species. The Uncanny Valley is a visual component to this, but writing has it's own version in character-building.

The point is that you're writing a person. People act in ways that can eventually be predicted, analyzed, and judged from. Many of our systems that apply to humans hinge off this fact. When there's a sudden veer in someone's personality or how they're perceived, most other people will be pretty quick to identify that to varying degrees of specificity (This especially applies to Hermes, in my opinion). That's what you don't want. What you want is to make someone consistent. People are consistent. Even in their inconsistency, they can be consistent ("Oh, Bob is always late!"). And not everyone will like that character because, well, not everyone likes everyone.

This is all without mentioning that in stories where it seems we're being forced to do something, the reader's/watcher's natural reaction is to often do the opposite. If Venat was the way she is, but the story played straight that she is a person of rather poor character who suspiciously always errs on the side of Might Makes Right despite her pleas of righteousness, I would have liked her far more. She'd still be an awful person, but she'd be a far better written character with those simple tweaks alone.

[Brinne]

If Venat was the way she is, but the story played straight that she is a person of rather poor character who suspiciously always errs on the side of Might Makes Right despite her pleas of righteousness, I would have liked her far more. She'd still be an awful person, but she'd be a far better written character with those simple tweaks alone.

The vast majority of my favorite characters across tons of stories are basically terrible people in one way or another. I might be in the minority among people who criticize Venat, but I actually think Hermes is a fantastic character who feels very human in his choice to wallow in his own (authentic!) pain to the point of slapping away or ignoring any attempts or opportunities for outreach. The way his natural sense of empathy rotted inside of him until it twisted into a blanketed sort of sneering contempt towards everyone around him, the way the poison just seeps in deeper because of the conflict of his self-loathing, the line between Hermes in Elpis and Amon's full-throated nihilism and shift to open contempt and atrocities when his loathing toward his society actually becomes justifiable. It's great. He is completely and utterly terrible and an absolute hypocrite, while genuinely being in pain. He is great. I can easily see why Ishikawa loves him. Because Hermes is allowed to embrace being Terrible as a person (his ultimate ending is being dunked on by Asahi and calling himself an idiot, for goodness' sake), you then become able to do actually interesting things with him as a character. I truly wish Venat had that freedom. I only want to see her thrive!

(One exception to the "characters I love tend to be terrible people" trend might be Themis, though. Themis did nothing wrong, okay?)

[Kyohei]

And I think this still would have been fine if you just let Venat be what she is! I don't find her, removing her from the tone and framing surrounding her, an uninteresting character. I can actually have a lot of fun picking through her thought processes, how she makes her decisions - and even a hint of a certain flavor of tragedy in how she seems to have trouble connecting to individual, living, breathing people rather than abstractions - and most importantly, memeing about THE STRONG EAT, THE WEAK ARE EATEN, THUMPS CHEST - I MEAN, UH, FIND YOUR INNER LIGHT MY CHILDREN WINK WINK in increasingly absurd contexts at her expense.

Venat's writing comes across, to me, as dripping with insecurity. The feeling I get - and again, this is probably speculating irresponsibly - is that they were very self-aware that a lot of people very skeptical and suspicious of Hydaelyn after Shadowbringers, so they really made it their focal point to pull out all the stops and play all the tricks to make her Very, Very Likable first and foremost, and then super jankily had to make this fit in with the pre-existing lore. Uh, do your best to not do this if you are a writer! It's okay if your character isn't traditionally "likable" as long as they are interesting! Let the character play out organically, authentic to both themselves and how the other characters would react to them! Embrace Venat for the very strange and very ruthless person that she is! The material is all there! There were so many options. Alas.

I don't disagree, but the time travel doesn't help making her likeable at the end of Elpis, this was my point.
She can stays the way she is but then that meant giving up on making her really likeable because as we see many can't appreciate someone who willingly with all the knowledge they posses decides the only solution involves the end of their own civilisation.
It was either one or the other, but they mixed both and thus this thread appears (along with many others reasons, but the way they handled her is one of the main points).
It's not only the players that were sceptical, npcs like Y'shtola had dialogue harbouring doubts too when talking with her in Rising Stones. They made it so we were in doubts and seemed to assume it fully. Then Endwalker arrived and doubts vanished to leave place to acceptance and adoration again out of nowhere. That instead of accepting Venat as a flawed person who made mistakes as much as ascians counterparts.
So I stand by saying both time travel and trying to persuade Venat as good are issues on their own, which mixed lead to even bigger issues.

On a side note, Hermes' development while it might not be rational/logical from the point of view of a sane mind is still understandable, because his emotions devoured him until nihilism. When emotions are unchecked the way it is with him, they are hardly ever rational. He sunk deeper and deeper and I do understand it, the same way I understand Zenos is actually interesting as a product of his environment.

[NanaWiloh]

I don't disagree, but the time travel doesn't help making her likeable at the end of Elpis, this was my point.
She can stays the way she is but then that meant giving up on making her really likeable because as we see many can't appreciate someone who willingly with all the knowledge they posses decides the only solution involves the end their own civilisation.
It was either one or the other, but they mixed both and thus this thread appears (along with many others reasons, but the way they handled her is one of the main points).
It's not only the players that were sceptical, npcs like Y'shtola had dialogue harbouring doubts too when talking with her in Rising Stones. They made it so we were in doubts and seemed to assume it fully. Then Endwalker arrived and doubts vanished to leave place to acceptance and adoration again out of nowhere. That instead of accepting Venat as a flawed person who made mistakes as much as ascians counterparts.
So I stand by saying both time travel and trying to persuade Venat as good are issues on their own, which mixed lead to even bigger issues.

On a side note, Hermes' development while it might not be rational/logical from the point of view of a sane mind is still understandable, because his emotions devoured him until nihilism. When emotions are unchecked the way it is with him, they are hardly ever rational. He sunk deeper and deeper and I do understand it, the same way I understand Zenos is actually interesting as a product of his environment.

Both sides made mistakes, both sides hurt people for their own ends. Its all about who you agree with Venant or the Ascians or neither.

[Kyohei]

Both sides made mistakes, both sides hurt people for their own ends. Its all about who you agree with Venant or the Ascians or neither.

Yes, but that is certainly not something we get out of Endwalker. Your character always smiles at Venat after receiving the flower, and the scions do not have a critical view on what she did. The scions had a critical view on Emet-Selch despite understanding where he's coming from, but no such display happened with Hydaelyn. They lacked showing that she made mistakes in the game, and that is a big issue. If they wanted to show both made mistakes, they failed to bring forth this idea in Endwalker. By this i mean in the general feeling when playing the game, not with interviews. Yoshida did kind of admit she wasn't all good, but he shouldn't have to say this outside of the game, it should've been clear they were saying this inside.

[Lauront]

Youre ignoring my question. If she didnt sunder the world and only Zodiark was around what wouldve that helped the star?

Because your question is predicated on a completely flawed understanding of the story. Venat did not prevent Zodiark from being summoned, nor did she intend this to be the case, because her entire plan relies on it.

To answer the correct question: could they have avoided a fate like the Plenty had they not been sundered and driven back Meteion?

My view is yes.

Notice how the Q&A is worded:

Q: Venat had good intentions and her plan worked out in the end. But as a result the world was Sundered and most of the Ancients suffered. Was Sundering the star really the only way to save it? A: This is a question that I consulted with Nacchan (Natsuko Ishikawa, Scenario Writer of Endwalker) to come up with the answer so it will make sense when we explain it. At the very least, as Y’shtola theorizes, Venat believed that the Ancients, being so dense in Aether, could not control Dynamis. So she thought they could not have stopped the Final Days and its source. So you know there were other Ancients who thought summoning Zodiark would solve everything but she saw that summoning Zodiark and using it to deflect Meteion’s “Despair Beam” and thought, “even if we were to do this and keep going as we are the rest of the Ancients will probably be unable to change as a people” when she’s looking at Hermes, or “we will always be our own undoing”. If you look at the dungeon, “The Dead Ends”, at the very end there’s a boss called Ra-la, and that’s sort of our vision for what probably would have happened to the Ancients if we just let them continue as they were. So for that reason, she chose to Sunder the star to dilute mankind’s Aether so that someday they might be able to use Dynamis and to fight back against despair and the Final Days at the Source.

The idea here is that she did not believe her people could or would change. She does not share the knowledge of the causes of the Final Days with them. We know from the scene with the Watcher (her construct) on the moon that the cause of the Final Days was unknown to the ancients, and by all accounts, even her close circle - certainly the Watcher did not know this. She never specifically says she will tell her followers. Instead, she says this:

Venat: In spite of this, we cannot allow the report that set this calamity in motion to become common knowledge. Were the masses to learn the fates of the other stars, I fear the situation would spiral out of our control.
Venat: I must carefully consider who can be trusted, and bring them into the fold.
Venat: Ordinarily, I wouldn't hesitate to call upon the Fourteen. However, it was the desire for a fair determination that drove Hermes to attempt to erase our memories; were he made aware of his actions, there is no telling whether he would remain a friend or become a foe.
Venat: Alternately, we might try to alienate him from the Convocation. Yet in doing so, we would deprive ourselves of a brilliant mind who would be invaluable in the crises to come.
Venat: Quite the dilemma... Which is why I must work independently of the Convocation.
Venat: 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.

So it is all predicated on beliefs - and on that basis, they give the answer that if the ancients did not change, their potential fate was that of the Plenty, which the story wasn't exactly subtle about when showing that caricature world. Fine, but it's all down to her beliefs and the fact that she did not share the actual facts with her people. As others have noted, her purported reasoning, i.e. how Hermes might react, is weak - the Watcher in particular credits multiple scholars with coming up with Zodiark, not just him. Lahabrea, for example, is an expert in complex creation magicks, and by the Watcher's account we know there's other experts in celestial currents - besides, they could've waited until after Zodiark, since her plan was to piggyback off him anyway. As things stand, the sundering was a very messy solution, and because Zodiark was so potent, she had to sunder more than she originally intended - plus she allowed Emet-Selch an escape route which she knew from your recollection would likely lead to him and any other Ascians going down the route of the rejoinings. And she still deigned to tell them nothing.

Had she given her people concrete answers, which as per others the ancients had the means to verify and investigate further, given that their predominant concern (as per Emet-Selch via Hyth's shade, and Venat's own words in Anamnesis) was the well-being and future of their star, do I think they could've come up with a solution? Absolutely, yes. Unfortunately, they were not given that option. My view is they may well have decided to defer restoring those ancients inside Zodiark given that knowledge, spent their time finding a way to drive back Meteion (the story hints at several workaround methods they had to manipulate dynamis, which other posters brought up; this could include selectively sundering a few ancients if nothing else worked, but not the entire star or their entire race, without their consent), and consider whether they had to make societal adjustments in light of what was learnt on the Plenty. Possibly taking up the cause of seeding new life on the worlds Meteion had attempted to kill off, or at the least any newly formed ones/unaffected ones. Her potentially half-hearted "beliefs" aren't good enough for me here.

As an aside, given that reincarnation is a thing in the setting, those souls on the Plenty would eventually yield new life anyway and see that star seeded with new life... were it not for Meteion trying to destroy everything in existence.

BTW it is very much the case that her summoning consumes her summoners' souls:

Q: Venat said that not even her soul would remain but what does that mean? I’m very fond of her character and would like to see her again. A: The answer is that souls are also made of Aether, and she gives up so much Aether that includes all of her soul as well. By contrast Zodiark was summoned using sacrifices of a lot of people, yes? But he was able to only use their Aether aside from their souls up because Zodiark was really strong and summoned by the Convocation of the Fourteen and so on. Hydaelyn had a much weaker summoning and because of that she didn’t have the option to leave the souls untouched, and that includes Venat she ended up using all of her Aether. In 5.2 there was some discussion of Venat’s group that assisted her in doing this and also how much of the Ancient people were sacrificed to create Zodiark so if you look back at that time it might be of your interest now. At the very end, Hydaelyn still had her own soul, which is Venat’s. That was the very power that she used to fight the Warrior of Light. When she tells you before the final bout she had saved enough Aether specifically to fight you, and that specifically points to Venat’s soul.

The Anamnesis scene does not give the indication that they knew this:



Why would they have any expectation of missing her if they thought they'd be consumed in the process, or end up being sundered as well?

I'm confused by your question, to be honest. Zodiark was created because the Ancients didn't know what else to do to combat what was happening to them. Do you mean what would have happened if Venat had allowed the Convocation to do their third proposed sacrifice to bring back their loved ones? That's a different question. Because the issue that I think most people here have is that Venat knew exactly how to combat Meteion, how to track Meteion and that Meteion was coming to kill her people and she did and said nothing to warn them or afford them an opportunity to find a way other than Zodiark.

Effectively, the Ancients solved their own problem even without knowing what was actually causing it. Zodiark's shield holds well into our time 12 thousand years into the future and this is after he's been split into 14 parts. There's no reason to believe it wouldn't have held for as long as they needed it to. Zodiark, the flawed solution to a desperate problem, is helping the star by being the only thing keeping the world alive and the only reason the WoL draws breath. And he was not created thanks to Venat, she just used him as she uses everything and everyone for her own means.

Exactly this. Zodiark is never shown to be the blood god thirsty for souls some headcanoned him to be. Their reasons for releasing the souls in him seem to tie to wanting their people back, and possibly because these souls in him would not have the chance to return to the star. Had it all been explained to the ancients, they may well have decided that the third stage of sacrifices should be put off until the threat of Meteion is dealt with.

The Zenos philosophy... he's a fun(ny) character but I don't agree with it even if I understand it (also will be very surprised if he/his avatar is actually dead and doesn't pop up the next patch). Or Venat's, as Brinne laid out. To each their own, however, I think people can do what they want with their lives. People don't need to constantly fight each other like Saiyans to have meaningful lives. Suffering being reduced even if it's not totally eliminated like the Ancients succeeded in is nice and cool. All I wanna do is sip my energy drinks, create sharks with mammaries, and grill with Emet-Selch, for Zodiark's sake. Then Ra-La 5 minutes later, which is sad, I guess? Not my problem.

Ironically, Zenos - Mr survival of the fittest - just offs himself after his first big fight in SB, some 20 odd years into his being, and after doing nothing but inflicting suffering. He only comes back unexpectedly thanks to the Resonance. He later dies with the only thing which gives him meaning in life, the WoL answering his call to fight, potentially (depending on reactions) completely rejecting him and treating him as a pest, leaving him to die there on the universe's edge. But the ancients choosing when to return to the star, presumably several thousands of years into their lifespan, after they felt they met their purpose, to re-connect with the star and allow their soul to reincarnate, is a bad thing.

The ancients returning to the star didn't value life less than a knight of Ishgard or warrior of Azim Steppe going to battle knowing full well they can die there. All and none are lives thrown away.

^This. Coupled with the fact that the star was sparing in what it granted souls to, and given that they were the only sapient life on the star we know of, their creations constituting mostly animal/plant life and predominantly soulless arcane entities/familiars, the whole approach made sense. Maybe they'd extend the point this occurred at once they began plumbing the mysteries of the universe (if Y'shtola can just shrug off the Ea's despair at what they found, why not the ancients too?), but to me the approach made sense as a way to keep matters somewhat "fresh" in their society and allow for new blood to enter it.

You need a healer for that? On a more serious note, the Ascians and their struggle confirms Venat's philosophy in an ironic way. Emet most of all. After the sundering, he understood the value of the life he lost. Life that the ancients trivially threw away before the calamity. He then struggled for 12,000 years with every fiber of his being to restore what he valued most. He was not stopped till we literally destroyed his very aethereic being. Struggled to the last, because he had learned the lesson of value he had not in the olden days. Ironically he was rewarded for this by having his people remembered and their souls freed from Zodiark at the end.

Emet-Selch understood this after the Final Days, and arguably even before, given his zeal in ensuring the star did not come to harm from Meteion. There was nothing 'trivial' about this for the ancients. They did not take up this option until they felt they had lived out a good life, and it was a personal decision - they didn't force Venat, for example, to return to the star. She was at worst seen as a little eccentric. And some reward, that comes at the cost of your people's total destruction.

I'd say this actually proved the opposite - that her people (Emet-Selch, Elidibus, what was left of Lahabrea) had an awful lot of fight in them if push came to shove, and that was without being sundered.

[Brinne]

On a side note, Hermes' development while it might not be rational/logical from the point of view of a sane mind is still understandable, because his emotions devoured him until nihilism. When emotions are unchecked the way it is with him, they are hardly ever rational. He sunk deeper and deeper and I do understand it, the same way I understand Zenos is actually interesting as a product of his environment.

Hermes and Zenos in relation to one another are so interesting in a way that leaves Venat completely out of the thematic spectrum, hilariously. Hermes's fundamental problem - both its origin point and his choice to continue wallowing in it until it broke him into something steeped in poison - was isolation. He believed he was isolated, and his attachment to his self-image as The Only One Struggling With Empathy meant that he, subconsciously or otherwise, kept himself isolated, which cycled into his despair and led him to viewing his society and world with contempt that eventually spiraled out of control. Emet makes some (clumsy, admittedly) attempts to reach a hand out to him in Elpis, but Hermes reacts with raw hostility, because on some level, he doesn't want help from people who "don't get it," so to speak.

Zenos is positioned in a similar way - the difference is, while Zenos is also a thoroughly Terrible person, he recognizes his struggle with isolation and rejection from the person he longs to connect with and is willing to re-evaluate himself and his approach, and then start to do the work to amend them. He doesn't fundamentally change himself - he's Zenos through and through to the end, callous war criminal extraordinaire - but he learns, after genuine self-reflection without the accompanying agenda of wallowing in self-pity, to better meet the WoL on their own terms. He recognizes that while there are vast areas of the WoL's person that he will never understand and honestly isn't interested in understanding. He will never "get it," but that doesn't mean he can't recognize them and support them in his own, deadpan dragon sort of way. Zenos, of all people, learns to actually connect with another human being, and this revelation ultimately saves the universe. It's the lesson that Hermes never figured out, even as Meteion worries about him until the end, hoping desperately for his happiness.

Fundamentally, Hermes's speech to the fire wolf was very telling. His empathy and pain at having to put the creature down was sincere and real, but he urges it to "hate, if it be your wont - we are not undeserving" specifically. Hermes is distraught over the way the creations are discarded in large part because he projects himself onto them. And deep down, he has begun to hate. Zenos, for all his massive, massive flaws and crimes, does not actually hate. He'll murder you and look down upon you, but he doesn't hate you. He is driven by love, as twisted and weird and unsettling as it might be, and there is a sincerity in it that allowed him to self-reflect, have an epiphany, and then transform into a giant space dragon after eating a big rock.

In that way, love, support, and connections emerge as the answer to despair, not engineering an environment of suffering to force people through until they just get used to living through it. (Well, a few of them, anyway. Most of them probably just die but, yes, anyway, light everlasting and all that.) That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

There really is some fantastic stuff in Endwalker, I think. I really do. Just, Venat and her albatross of "we must establish she is Likable and a Good Person at all costs." Oof. (Not going to lie, it's maybe a breath of fresh air to talk about the things I actually loved about Endwalker? Maybe the wrong thread, though, so excuse me for the weird tangent!)

[Kyohei]

Hermes and Zenos in relation to one another are so interesting in a way that leaves Venat completely out of the thematic spectrum, hilariously. Hermes's fundamental problem - both its origin point and his choice to continue wallowing in it until it broke him into something steeped in poison - was isolation. He believed he was isolated, and his attachment to his self-image as The Only One Struggling With Empathy meant that he, subconsciously or otherwise, kept himself isolated, which cycled into his despair and led him to viewing his society and world with contempt that eventually spiraled out of control. Emet makes some (clumsy, admittedly) attempts to reach a hand out to him in Elpis, but Hermes reacts with raw hostility, because on some level, he doesn't want help from people who "don't get it," so to speak.
...

There really is some fantastic stuff in Endwalker, I think. I really do. Just, Venat and her albatross of "we must establish she is Likable and a Good Person at all costs." Oof. (Not going to lie, it's maybe a breath of fresh air to talk about the things I actually loved about Endwalker? Maybe the wrong thread, though, so excuse me for the weird tangent!)

That's beautifully said.

One thing I thought after the story is Hermes wasn't mature enough emotionally to occupy his office. His natural tendencies to let's say it really, depression and how he alienated himself from other ancients were overlooked by the mentor who passed the reign onto him. He especially was a poor choice to occupy a function such as overlooking creations in Elpis and making decisions about their fate. Akin to the reason a surgeon should not operate on a family member, he should not have been overseeing creations as he was too emotionally impacted by it.
While it could have been a strength because this would encourage him to to his duty carefully, it was also a weakness and we see why.

[Lauront]

I think Emet-Selch's hope was that he'd be able to put his brilliance, such as it was, to better use in the Convocation, away from Elpis, but by the end of it, he realised the guy is completely unfit to hold such office. He could've used his office to advocate his approach to the other ancients - instead, he chose to doom the entire universe, including his supposedly beloved creations.

Fundamentally, Hermes's speech to the fire wolf was very telling. His empathy and pain at having to put the creature down was sincere and real, but he urges it to "hate, if it be your wont - we are not undeserving" specifically. Hermes is distraught over the way the creations are discarded in large part because he projects himself onto them. And deep down, he has begun to hate. Zenos, for all his massive, massive flaws and crimes, does not actually hate. He'll murder you and look down upon you, but he doesn't hate you. He is driven by love, as twisted and weird and unsettling as it might be, and there is a sincerity in it that allowed him to self-reflect, have an epiphany, and then transform into a giant space dragon after eating a big rock.

In that way, love, support, and connections emerge as the answer to despair, not engineering an environment of suffering to force people through until they just get used to living through it. (Well, a few of them, anyway. Most of them probably just die but, yes, anyway, light everlasting and all that.) That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

In Zenos's case, it's just a pity that his way of expressing that love left him more or less alienated by the end, but yes it was essentially a redemption arc of a sort that kept with his character, even if his philosophical outlook is one the Scions trenchantly reject. Although now that you put it that way, I agree that it's Hermes who in fact ended up living out the philosophy he was exhorting the feral lykaones to adopt - which also opened Emet-Selch's eyes to how poor a fit he was for where he worked. I suspect Hermes was good up to that point at cloaking his true character; at most seen as a bit eccentric.

We saw both through Emet-Selch indulging Hermes's requests (as do many other researchers, frankly) and the Elpis sidequests that 1) the ancients had a very broad array of personalities; 2) some shared Hermes's empathy towards the creations (just not to the same unrealistic, ridiculous degree) and 3) they were quite open to change where they saw the positives in it. They have many of the same anxieties and feelings as do regular humans, and I don't think it's an accident that by the end of one of the sidequests, you're given three options on how to say you perceive them: as gods, as not too different, and as fundamentally inscrutable. I think given their unique mix of traits, there is truth to all three.