Quote Originally Posted by Brinne View Post
When I talk about my problems with Venat and how she was portrayed, I can only hope I articulate my thoughts and observations well enough that it resonates with someone - ideally, with the team, even though it's a long shot, though it's still worthwhile even if it's with at least one other player. I'm not going to proclaim that the devs should change their approach to her because I'm pretty sure actually, tons of people dislike Venat, or whatever. That's demonstrably not true and also a sort of absurd argument if we're looking for any kind of quality storytelling decisions.
I both like and dislike Venat. I thought she was a very cool and interesting character, and I loved her charisma.

But I dislike her pseudo-Buddhist "suffering fetishism". The entire Endwalker story, for example, struck me as a constant example of "Perfection Fallacy". We're flat out told that since no civilization can achieve perfection, then they should stop striving for it. The Ea became depressed about the fact that, despite eliminating every other problem on their star, they couldn't do anything about the heat death of the universe, which led to their inevitable demise.

The premise feels laughably juvenile. Real-life academics and skeptics have long accepted the relative meaninglessness and finite measure of life for centuries, and most of them haven't shriveled into a ball of nihilism. Yes, you can't live life without some measure of suffering, but not all suffering is equal, not all suffering has the same consequences, and not all suffering is necessary. My entire problem with Endwalker's plot (and thus Venat's characterization) is that they act like it is.