Quote Originally Posted by Lauront View Post
I suppose, but when he has stated in prior interviews that Emet-Selch is a character intended to render the Ascians understandable and more sympathetic to the players, surely him achieving that is the character playing his role to perfection? Plus Yoshi is angling it around the topic of forgiveness, so I'd say it ties perhaps a bit less into how thoroughgoing a villain Emet-Selch portrayed.

As for Venat, seconded - I presume they also felt that the Q&A had covered her in enough depth without wanting to draw more attention to her as a character.
As I recall, Yoshida said they intended for Shadowbringers to flesh out the motives of the Ascians, but it was Ishikawa specifically who wanted to "humanize" them, and also her who had the idea to have Emet travel with the party so the player would grow attached to him and give more weight to his perspective. Yoshida was actually skeptical of that at first. And he was definitely pretty baffled about the overwhelming response to him in the space immediately after Shadowbringers - I recall him having a tone along the lines of "okay, but, he's killed so many people...?" and "I'm surprised so many people took him at his word?" and wondering if the giant Talos scene was the reason so many people were praising Shadowbringers's story? He did come around to Emet later, and that the majority of the playerbase liked him and wanted to honor his wishes, but there was definitely a learning curve involved.

I'm not being really serious, but a friend joked that with the approach to Venat post-game, she wouldn't be surprised if they just quietly saved the Ancients in an alternate timeline in a Lodestone sidestory and basically never speak of Venat again. I-it maybe doesn't feel entirely implausible at this point...