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

[Kyohei]

Trying to find a justification rather than a plot hole (because whether we like the story or not, we're stuck with it and I'd rather make it make sense), it strikes me that whatever Kairos does to erase the subject's memories in the first place could easily also obliterate any Echo-traces hanging in the air around it.

It's also possible that Venat went on the run after this, and nobody from the Convocation ever caught up to her to ask the difficult questions.

"I'd rather make it make sense", precisely, it's a bit sad to have to do that however.

Though, I still don't find the echo as a necessity to explain everything again. It sure would be an absolute way to prove it, but there were many other elements and witnesses to rely on.
It does feel she intended to avoid contact with them and possibly also went on the run, at least to find and gather her "trusted" people.

[Vahlnir]

"I'd rather make it make sense", precisely, it's a bit sad to have to do that however.

Though, I still don't find the echo as a necessity to explain everything again. It sure would be an absolute way to prove it, but there were many other elements and witnesses to rely on.
It does feel she intended to avoid contact with them and possibly also went on the run, at least to find and gather her "trusted" people.

The thing is though that she probably shouldn't have been "on the run" to begin with if that was indeed the case. Everything we saw indicated that she was highly respected by her peers, though they did seem to think she was a little too worldly by their standards. Either way it wouldn't have been difficult to for her to make her case to the Convocation. It sort of comes down to SE writing themselves into a corner. If she had been able to change the course of their history, our characters and the world we know would cease to exist. Kinda hard to do that in an MMORPG when our characters and the game world sorta need to continue existing.

[Kyohei]

The thing is though that she probably shouldn't have been "on the run" to begin with if that was indeed the case. Everything we saw indicated that she was highly respected by her peers, though they did seem to think she was a little too worldly by their standards. Either way it wouldn't have been difficult to for her to make her case to the Convocation.

Yeah I'm very aware of this and even said it in many of my replies.

We can see in Elpis how revered she is by the ancients (even Emet-Selch, you can see that if you talk to him between quests though I don't remember which ones). Honestly she's what's the closest to what royalty would be if such a thing existed in ancient times. Sure, that manifests as an ancient telling her to go and die, but dying peacefully is the highest reward according to them and proof of a fulfilled life.
Anyway, added to this we know that people in the area were aware of the WoL's presence who took the identity of "Azem's familiar".
Then when also taking into account that Venat, Azem, Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus seemed to actually be very close, and that the two latter knew something happened to their memory after Ktisis.
Taking all this into account, how we get to the conclusion that it's better to not try to retell the story as it really happened is hard to take at face value. The whole decision screams lack of faith from Venat in her friends and the ancients in general. Because again, they wouldn't have simply dismissed Venat's words considering the way she was viewed.

Also think they did write themselves in a corner. The way it ended up looking, in order to avoid making the game not needing to exist, is her lacking trust in her fellow ancients.

But her dialogue I meant, felt she implied she would avoid the Convocation while trying to find people. Not saying it's what she should've done, just what it seems she did for reasons.

[Iscah]

It sort of comes down to SE writing themselves into a corner. If she had been able to change the course of their history, our characters and the world we know would cease to exist. Kinda hard to do that in an MMORPG when our characters and the game world sorta need to continue existing.

They wrote themselves into a corner by not wiping her memory alongside the others. We should have fled alone with Argos and she stayed behind to (perhaps deliberately) forget what she had been told of the future. It wouldn't make it any less likely to happen, but she would do it for more immediate logical reasons.

[Lauront]

The thing is though that she probably shouldn't have been "on the run" to begin with if that was indeed the case. Everything we saw indicated that she was highly respected by her peers, though they did seem to think she was a little too worldly by their standards. Either way it wouldn't have been difficult to for her to make her case to the Convocation. It sort of comes down to SE writing themselves into a corner. If she had been able to change the course of their history, our characters and the world we know would cease to exist. Kinda hard to do that in an MMORPG when our characters and the game world sorta need to continue existing.

I don't see it as a particular issue, not when prior examples of time travel result in AUs... and I don't recall any of them having an issue with her worldliness. Emet-Selch is also stated to be very well travelled. He just doesn't go advertising it at every opportunity. What she was considered to be was very eccentric/quirky.

Honestly, I think it would been better if the Ancient World was a lot more like Numenor from LotR. An Ancient nation that was the peak of Men, with wonders and might the world had not seen since then, with following nations not even coming close to its splendor. However, its people grew arrogant, vain and prideful, leading to discard the old ways and spit on old friendships. Eventually they tried to invade Aman and the Undying Lands, leading to Eru to make the World round, leading the sinking of Numenor beneath the ocean.

If the Ancient had been more like that, making them brush other concerns under their notice, if they only had a purpose of making the world better only for themselves, it might of been easier to understand Venat but sadly they didn't go that route.

No thanks. Already enough of that in fantasy settings and it'd just encourage the community's more unreasonable elements to start using it to justify their downfall... as it is they're already doing that with aspects where they're having to really twist certain aspects of the ancients to do so. That would've been even worse.

And I thought that would also explain why they had to be sundered, as they had too much power they could lose control over at any moment, so splitting them into less powerful beings was seen as a necessity. And since the Final Days would have been a mess of their own making then sacrificing others to undo its aftermath could have been deemed more inexcusable.

And instead we got... this mess I'm still scratching my head about.

My assumption was that she confused a symptom (loss of control of creation magicks) with the cause and so decided to remove creation magicks from the equation.

We'll have to agree to disagree then because I find this to be an absolutely wonderful aspect of their culture. To find what it is you personally want to do in life and to be able to pursue that goal to the fullest and then when you're tired and feel there is nothing more for you to do, to pass on and rest for a while before being reborn? Sounds great to me. And it's obviously something that is the individual's choice. No one is forced to move on and while people may not fully understand the desire to stay, they certainly don't seem to be shunning those who do decide to.

Every day I see people around me who are just going through the motions. Ever watch faces on a subway in the morning? Most people don't get to do what they truly love for a living, they just do what they have to do to pay the bills and there is no joy in it. Slow march to the end. So yeah, I find a society in which one can embrace their talents and use them to the fullest as well as live out their lives in peace with their loved ones before choosing when they want to rest to be pretty ideal. Why should one choose to drag life out for the sake of finding a new purpose? If one feels content with what theyve accomplished in their life then why should it be odd to move on? Who the hell would want to live forever? Sounds like a nightmare.

And to be honest, Venat strikes me as being one of those people who thinks that nothing can be done correctly if they're not the ones doing it. Not surprising at all that she stuck around.

Agree, I think they had a happy medium between some of the races that just went on forever and ever (although I think the setting's depiction of the Ea is a bit silly, if I'm honest, especially when they throw in Y'shtola simply shrugging off what vexed them), and the sundered, whose lives are ended whether they like it or not when their briefer lifespan ends, i.e. the choice is out of their hands. That latter aspect is something we humans have to accept and try make peace with (and many do e.g. through belief in an afterlife), but the ancients don't have to do this as they can elect when they go, and we ourselves could one day find ourselves in that position as our technology progresses. I recall this when I was a teen, and my grandfather was close to passing away, my parents just remarked about how he wasn't fighting it because he was content with all he'd done in his life and was ready to move on. So it's certainly a relatable sentiment; with a bit of lateral thinking, you can see how it might come to dominate in a civilisation with the traits of the ancients and the rules of the setting.

Obviously there's no reincarnation (that we know of) IRL, so it's a slightly different dynamic in that regard, but it's reasonable to think truly living forever may be unappealing to many - on the other hand, being able to extend that time, live without diseases (including the effects of ageing) which hinder you and use it to enjoy and see more of the world and focus on pursuits you truly find intrinsically satisfying? That's a more appealing proposition. I do suspect it's possible that many ancients may have shifted their perspective if they had learnt the truth of what was happening to the broader universe to re-populating/reviving other stars, especially if Meteion was brought down sooner rather than later, and serving as guiding figures to them like the dragons do in some cases on Etheirys.

[BaconBits]

Somewhere out there, there's an alternate universe where Ishikawa went full throttle on the time travel shenanigans and our actions on Elpis not only created an alternate timeline where the Ancients didn't get sundered and survived, but 12k years later they finally discovered how to freely travel between said timelines and sent a few familiar faces to aid the Sundered in their time of need.

Cheesy as all get out? Absolutely, and it would more than likely cause just as much criticism as the "Big Mommy Venat" debacle, but I think it would be funny. If a bunch of technicians, a space robot and a time-warping robot primal on a dying planet can figure out how to send a giant crystal tower back through time and space, then so can a bunch of nigh-immortal Space Wizards.

[SpectrePhantasia]

Speaking for myself, I'm fine with the Ancients not getting a happy ending. Despite being huge fans of them, their loss and extinction adds weight to those final clashes in Shadowbringers. As mentioned previously, its a terrible thing that the WoL resolved to do, and the acknowledgment and weight of that is what keeps it effective. There's that, as well as that it adds to Emet-selch's decision to finally pass the torch to the Sundered, and assist you in giving his friend Elidibus his rest, so that he won't suffer on alone. It's painful, but Emet fought and lost, and can no longer lie to himself in saying the Sundered aren't alive, which I think is really bittersweet and wonderful writing.

Elidibus comes to see things similarly, and while I do love the English localization's poetic writing of "The rains have ceased..." in truth, his actual last words in Japanese were rather simple, and included a common Japanese saying of "Shikata ga nai" essentially meaning, "It can't be helped," which I think is also very potent. I took it as him realizing there's nothing they can do to bring the ones they love back, because the Sundered are real living people, just like them, and they can't deny that anymore. So while it hurts, there's nothing to be done about it now.

Sometimes bad things happen to good people for no reason at all, and at the end, came a struggle between two groups of people who simply wanted to save the ones they loved. That Shadowbringers climax instilled in me far more that idea of humanity's willingness to exist than anything in the following expansion—that was entirely dedicated to that predicament. Hence my grievances.

Where my issue arose was that there never was any justice for them. Never, after being clearly affected by the Ancients and their struggle, did the WoL ever question the person who singlehandedly ended them (Got our one dialogue option and a fat load of good that did). I genuinely think Meteion was a scapegoat to avoid this. No matter how noble Venat's intentions were, no matter how deep her guilt, I simply refuse to believe our character would nod and smile at her, a person who has done so much bad and has never answered for any of it. If the WoL opposes Emet-selch despite understanding his reasoning, why is this treatment not given to the even more dubious person? The initial aggressor? I understand not outright attacking her, because she isn't acting against Sundered life, but anything that isn't this mom-mentor nonsense they tried to sell me. I will never understand that...

[Brinne]

Speaking for myself, I'm fine with the Ancients not getting a happy ending. Despite being huge fans of them, their loss and extinction adds weight to those final clashes in Shadowbringers. As mentioned previously, its a terrible thing that the WoL resolved to do, and the acknowledgment and weight of that is what keeps it effective. There's that, as well as that it adds to Emet-selch's decision to finally pass the torch to the Sundered, and assist you in giving his friend Elidibus his rest, so that he won't suffer on alone. It's painful, but Emet fought and lost, and can no longer lie to himself in saying the Sundered aren't alive, which I think is really bittersweet and wonderful writing.

This was a lovely post, thank you. And I think you nailed it with the "lack of justice" aspect being the core of the unease. Shadowbringers illustrated, to me, something incredibly important about "bad things happen to good people for no reason at all," but I would hope that the response and resolve formed from that, from a heroic figure who wants to make the world a better place, would be different from what we got. Something that always bothers me is that both Venat herself, and the comments we've gotten from the writing team afterwards, when speaking of her guilt, rhetorically continue to center her feelings. "What I did," "the tragedy I wrought," "she agonized over this," "she felt incredible guilt," so on and so forth. It's not, narratively, actually an invitation to criticize her or see her more negatively - it's an indirect attempt to garner more sympathy, because "she had no choice, but she felt so bad." It's always All About Venat. I think my feelings would have softened a lot if her comment about her actions actually showed her thinking of her victims; had been more along the lines of "They were good people and did not deserve what I did to them."

But going from Shadowbringers, my feelings were basically exactly as you described. I loved the Ancients, I very much wanted to save them, but still saw it as the narratively correct choice, the choice that reflected writing integrity, so to speak, would be to leave the situation as it was, in all of its bittersweet catharsis. What happened to the Ancients was absolutely terrible, absolutely senseless, and basically irreversible, but that small, precious glint of compassion and understanding between Emet-Selch and the WoL managed to slide through the cracks nonetheless. The understanding that it was terrible and senseless and in a perfect world, we could save both, as both deserved to be saved. Those are the small victories people can grasp from the cold, indifferent nature of the universe that resonate with me - even as things are terrible and unjust and unfair, making those small spaces for kindness and understanding.

That was how I felt from 5.0, in all my admiration of it. Then the dissonance and injustice flowing from Endwalker's approach to Hydaelyn and the Ancients broke my brain and now I am quietly yet shamelessly internally clamoring for a chance to actually save them, whether through further time travel nonsense or however. Handwave it with more dynamis, I don't care! The writing integrity that mattered to me has already been largely thrown out the window by how 6.0 followed it up, so screw it, give me all the self-indulgent garbage now! I know the story, however the tone might change in response to criticism, will never concede Venat not being a good person, so I want my damn junk food consolation prize! This is what I have been reduced to.

[SpectrePhantasia]

That was how I felt from 5.0, in all my admiration of it. Then the dissonance and injustice flowing from Endwalker's approach to Hydaelyn and the Ancients broke my brain and now I am quietly yet shamelessly internally clamoring for a chance to actually save them, whether through further time travel nonsense or however. Handwave it with more dynamis, I don't care! The writing integrity that mattered to me has already been largely thrown out the window by how 6.0 followed it up, so screw it, give me all the self-indulgent garbage now! I know the story, however the tone might change in response to criticism, will never concede Venat not being a good person, so I want my damn junk food consolation prize! This is what I have been reduced to.

Broke? My brain has been sundered into ten and three reflections. It feels so horrendously out of touch with the story that came before, that I can only assume that someone higher up the food chain stepped in and said "No you cant put her in a negative light," so they bent over backwards to play take-backsies.

Ah, to see a 6.0 that you and I could enjoy...

[Brinne]

Broke? My brain has been sundered into ten and three reflections. It feels so horrendously out of touch with the story that came before, that I can only assume that someone higher up the food chain stepped in and said "No you cant put her in a negative light," so they bent over backwards to play take-backsies.

Ah, to see a 6.0 that you and I could enjoy...

You know what's funny? Back in 5.0, based on the information we got there, while I completely fell in love with the Ancients and my heart broke for them - as the Zodiark and Hydaelyn conflict was described back then, I would probably say I'd lean to siding with Hydaelyn, even if the situation was just tragic all around.

My assumptions were that a) the third sacrifice was People in some form or another, b) the Sundering was likely an unintended consequence due to the civil war, and c) the people sacrificed to Zodiark were truly dead-dead. With that in mind, my feelings were somewhere along the lines of "I understand their feelings, but yes, sacrificing others to revive your dead is still probably a moral wrong and sets a troublesome precedent. And consistently with Shadowbringers's presentation and themes, sometimes terrible things like the Sundering are just what happens for no rhyme or reason, and all we can do is deal as best we can and with as much kindness as we can with the fallout." The main source of suspicion and aggravation I felt toward Hydaelyn was her subsequent choice to erase the Ancients from history and lie about what had happened - something Shadowbringers seemed to be clear was wrong, given its emphasis on honoring the past, even if your choices differ from theirs. There was a line about "remember us" that was presented with some significance, if I recall correctly.

So EW's clarification on all of those points was an absolute trip to me. In particular, I felt, uh, gut-punched? By our exploration of the moon and the reveal that the souls were in fact trapped, in anguish, suffering in purgatory, permanently within Zodiark if something wasn't done. That immediately flipped me from "Yeah, it sucks, but the Hydaelyn faction was probably more right" to "oh god what in the hell was WRONG with the Hydaelyn faction!?" To me, Emet-Selch would have been a terrible person if he had truly just shrugged and accepted Hythlodaeus and his people being stuck in there, forever unable to return to the Star. And then the Sundering was deliberate - a deliberate, specific attempt to inflict harm upon the Ancients because of them being a disappointment to Hydaelyn. And then the Q&A clarified that actually, at least most of the People we know are in fact descendants of Sundered Ancients, so the seemingly far-fetched idea that the potential third sacrifice was mostly flora and fauna turned out to be the real implication?

I mean, the information we initially got about the third sacrifice was essentially from Emet-Selch, so I guess I have to assume that's what he thought the civil war was about. Soft-hearted as he is, perhaps he was projecting, and truly felt terrible about having to sacrifice those chickens? Heck.

But either way, all of this piling up alongside EW acting like its clarifications were grounds to side more with Hydaelyn, not less, was, um, a strange experience, to say the least.