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

[CrownySuccubus]

I completely agree Hermes is an idiot and should be held accountable for his stupid decisions, many of which were made from arrogance, but he didn't have the warning about it resulting in the deaths and suffering of countless people until very, very shortly prior to Meteion breaking. Most of those decisions were subconsciously based in some amount of contempt and the hopes of showing the Ancients they were stupid and wrong, yes, but he genuinely had absolutely no idea they would result in an outcome that involved people actually being harmed. I don't think you can compare that to the knowing action of removing brakes or headlights, when everyone understands the potential consequences of doing so.

There was no foreknowledge from Hermes that "sending the Meteia out into space will result in the deaths of everyone on the planet" or even that that was a meaningful risk. He had no idea.

Hermes was the director of a center that literally existed to beta-test concepts before sending them out to the wild, to prevent the very thing that he caused by ignoring the process. That's what I'm calling the equivalent of cutting the brakes of your own car. What you describe is pretty much the same as someone deciding to cut their brakes out of contempt because "brakes are stupid". The entire point of Elpis is to prevent letting out concepts that could prove harmful to ecosystems and you literally cannot get more harmful to ecosystems than destroying entire stars. Hermes also knew exactly how much power he was dealing with when he described how much more abundant dynamis is than aether, so he knew how powerful the Meteia could conceivably be with their abilities to manipulate it. He specifically built them to be self-sufficient space explorers. Even if he didn't realize how powerful they could get, that just proves he was even MORE incompetent.

Then, when he is informed of what transpires and the countless deaths that can come about from his actions, he ignores Emet-Selch and Venat and decides he must "consider the Meteia's answers" alone, and come to his own selfish decision about the worth of life even though he had minutes ago just gotten schooled by Emet-Selch pointing out why he was too incompetent to actually do so.

So yes, Hermes removed all safety precautions from his vehicle, ignored the people who told him he had no business driving it, fought them and "knocked them out" when they tried to stop him, and then got drunk and intentionally drove full speed into a crowd of people just to prove that they were "wrong".

[tokinokanatae]

Hermes is a villain, though. To do ill-thought out, reckless things (that are acknowledged as evil by the narrative) is a villain's bread and butter.

Venat is the weird "non-villain" that watches the man modifying his car in the way you described and goes, "ah, what a wonderful test of the bystanders' reflexes!"

[CrownySuccubus]

Hermes is a villain, though. To do ill-thought out, reckless things (that are acknowledged as evil by the narrative) is a villain's bread and butter.

Venat is the weird "non-villain" that watches the man modifying his car in the way you described and goes, "ah, what a wonderful test of the bystanders' reflexes!"

She did try to stop him initially, though. But again, I will never defend the point where she just gave up and decided "Welp. Guess I don't need to tell anybody about it." And I do agree that the Sundering was probably a last-ditch decision on her part, but (again) I don't agree with the logic.

[Brinne]

I don't fundamentally disagree with your overall assessment of Hermes's actions, and that they were cowardly and despicable. However, in terms of premeditated intent, the scale of potential consequence is something to consider. The concern of most of the creations on Elpis is to prevent damage to the Star through harming its ecosystems. A potential apocalypse didn't seem to be on the mental table for most of them. Someone who removes the brakes on their car is not going to anticipate that, through a series of absolute freak circumstances, the removal of those brakes is going to go as far as blowing up their entire city and/or destroying the world.

Ishikawa, in Famitsu, also made the point that because how drastically wrong Meteion's search for answers went was without precedent - so was much of Hermes's existential angst in general - so of course Hermes's attempts to reconcile them was, well, messy, to say to the least. (I would say a lot more than that, but nonetheless.) There are implications that Ancient society was built off of what was once an "untamed wilderness," but if any disaster of this scale was ever possible, it was apparently so far enough in the past that it doesn't warrant real consideration these days. One doesn't anticipate removing the safety fixtures on their car as prompting another round of the mythological Great Flood - though of course, they're accountable for deciding in that moment when realizing that's somehow what's happened, out of spite and depression "yeah, screw you guys, bring on the flood!"

So, yes, on the broader scale, it's incompetence rather than active malice. He black and white, in the text, did not anticipate this outcome and was genuinely shocked that it happened - then his need to lash out overrode everything else because Emet-Selch made him mad. It's fine if you don't draw a distinction between the two after a certain point, but I also think it's fine if some do, when Venat was fully aware that the city was going to blow up for, presumably, at least years, and seemed to see its destruction as for the greater good, actually. Some people will even find it specifically repulsive to have violence inflicted on them by someone who insists they are doing it out of "love" and "for their own good," far more than someone who is clearly doing it out of malice and spite.

I completely understand your wariness of this becoming an echo chamber or being ruled by mob anger against a character who is still a charismatic woman - and I sometimes have similar concerns - but I don't think it's unreasonable for people to have a range of valid different personal responses regarding one's takes on the culpability regarding the Final Days and Sundering re: Hermes and Venat, both for in-universe reasons and narrative framing reasons.

[CrownySuccubus]

(snip)

Again, that doesn't matter. If you remove the brakes from your car before driving because you think, "well the worst that'll probably happen is that I'll hit a tree or something", and then you barrel out of control and wind up killing hundreds of people, you aren't off the hook just because you didn't expect the consequences to be as bad as they were. I can give Hermes slack for not believing wild Meteia could cause apocalyptic levels of damage (but, as I said, that still makes him an incompetent idiot who basically played with nukes without fully studying them first), but he doesn't deserve less outrage just because he didn't think the consequences were going to be as bad as they were. He ignored the very reason why the safety protocols were there, and it blew up in the entire universe's face.

Again, Emet-Selch pointed out exactly how stupid Hermes' actions were within 10 seconds. Just one other Ancient immediately called BS on Hermes' methodology. Emet-Selch heard what Meteion had to say and immediately realized the incompetence of Hermes' question and the dire consequences of what that incompetence entailed. I repeat: Elpis (and the ENTIRE Ancients society that Hermes despised) was designed specifically to stop situations like this from happening, and Hermes abused his power as its director to circumvent those precautions. The moment Hermes learned the flaw in his plan, he could've immediately course-corrected and tried to reevaluate, since it absolutely proven that his premise was flawed. But not only did he NOT do this, he decided to completely eliminate the ability for anyone else to discover what he did and doomed countless people to die.

I don't think having different opinions is a bad thing, either. But I'm trying to explain why I personally cannot agree with the "Venat is worse than Hermes" argument. Hermes made selfish and stupid decisions that put entire ecosystems at best at risk, only to find out that OOPS, his incompetence actually puts the entire UNIVERSE at risk. Then, when confronted by how stupid his actions were and how dire the consequences might become, he decides to double down on this and ignore the very people telling him why what he's doing is stupid and apocalyptic. Then, when beaten, he decides to not only violate the minds and bodies of all those present that could stop him....not only to enable his own creation to murder countless people throughout a dozen millennia....but ALSO to erase his own memory so that he can just blend back in and live his life as if nothing happened.

I mean, if we can admit that Venat is the murderer of millions of Ancients and the incidental cause of the deaths/suffering of billions of other people across the 14 stars, can we at least also acknowledge that Hermes is the deliberate cause of not only millions of deaths of Ancients and sundered people, but also however many planets Meteion directly had a hand in destroying? We don't know how high that number is -- it can be as low as 3 or as high as infinite.

There is just no way. No POSSIBLE way I will ever consider what he did even comparable to Venat. That's just me, and I won't lie that it disturbs me that other people don't see it that way. But you're entitled to your opinions.

[Rulakir]

The fact that Meteion could commune with the dead was disturbing. I can't imagine why Hermes would give her the ability to do that, especially as he did not hold the belief that death was "beautiful" as the others did. Despite my hatred of his character, depending on the dialog options you choose, he does express regret and apologizes for his actions. Venat's not sorry for anything and would do it again, and did if you consider she changed nothing after hearing about the future.

I thought for sure the fact that they chose the name Venat for her spoke volumes based on the character of the same name from FFXII, who was only morally grey if you're feeling generous but definitely presented as an antagonist. It's another reason why I think the gaslighting surrounding her character came after the fact and likely due to someone's insistence that Hydaelyn had to be portrayed/viewed favorably.

As far as her being the main antagonist, it's because for all intents and purposes the Final Days was averted. Mankind had passed Hermes' test and were trying to get back to normal. Her belief that they needed to be able to interact with dynamis was only part of the equation. Mankind had failed her test. It was also premeditated. Not only did she know since Elpis that she was responsible for sundering the world, she gathered people to her cause possibly under false pretenses to help her become Hydaelyn as we saw in the Anyder cutscene in ShB. Everything that happened after that point was a result of the sundering, not the Final Days. I'm not saying that eventually the Ancients wouldn't have had to address Meteion, but they had at least 12k years to figure something out and that was with Zodiark at substantially diminished power.

[CrownySuccubus]

Despite my hatred of his character, depending on the dialog options you choose, he does express regret and apologizes for his actions.

When?

The guy literally continues trying to kill you and keeps mocking you about the coming apocalypse right until you kill him as Amon within the goddamn afterlife. Yeah, Amon didn't see himself as Hermes entirely, but he sure as hell saw himself as Hermes when he asked "Was this the answer I was searching for?" In the end, it was still all about himself.

Also, even if Hermes himself was sorry about his actions right at the end, this changes nothing because he still got to live with his erased memories and get everything he wanted.

As far as her being the main antagonist, it's because for all intents and purposes the Final Days was averted. Mankind had passed Hermes' test and were trying to get back to normal.

Not really. If anything, the pre-Sundering cutscene showed that most Ancients had become horribly unhinged by the Final Days. Sacrificing other lives to revive their people aside, they were now twice as determined to live their lives as a paradise, and their disregard for non-Ancient lives was more pronounced than ever.

Doesn't excuse what Venat did, but this "And then all was well" narrative just isn't true.

EDITING to reply to below so I don't use up my daily post allowances:

I think you can also understand how someone who has a history with certain forms of abuse would find Venat's approach to murder far more personally disturbing, and thus prompting more outrage, versus Hermes's. (Not that Hermes wasn't abusive to Meteion. Oh boy, is that a can of worms.)

By the same token, I hope you can understand how someone who has suffered at the hands of privileged idiots who ignored various rules and warnings that are put into place for a reason would not give a damn about how premeditated Hermes' actions were before Ktisis. And then, after Ktisis, how someone who may be the victim of gaslighting, assaulted in a manner that they can't remember said assault, or may have lost loved ones due to one person's selfishness (for example, the millions of people who have died from COVID because of other peoples' stupidity) can see how evil Hermes was.

[Brinne]

Again, I understand, and I don't disagree with a single way you described Hermes's actions and his failures there. I would never suggest he should be off the hook or should be cut slack or doesn't deserve outrage. He deserves all of those things. He is a bad, hateful, cowardly person. It's just that there is nuance that can be explored in terms of his intentionality regarding the harm he caused, versus Venat's intentionality.

I mean, if we can admit that Venat is the murderer of millions of Ancients and the incidental cause of the deaths/suffering of billions of other people across the 14 stars, can we at least also acknowledge that Hermes is the deliberate cause of not only millions of deaths of Ancients and sundered people, but also however many planets Meteion directly had a hand in destroying? We don't know how high that number is -- it can be as low as 3 or as high as infinite.

I'll happily agree to both of those things! They are both horrific mass murderers who, on some level, can be said to have done it for their own emotional or ideological satisfaction. It's just that, for example, I think you can also understand how someone who has a history with certain forms of abuse would find Venat's approach to murder far more personally disturbing, and thus prompting more outrage, versus Hermes's. (Not that Hermes wasn't abusive to Meteion. Oh boy, is that a can of worms.)

EDIT:

By the same token, I hope you can understand how someone who has suffered at the hands of privileged idiots who ignored various rules and warnings that are put into place for a reason would not give a damn about how premeditated Hermes' actions were before Ktisis. And then, after Ktisis, how someone who may be the victim of gaslighting, assaulted in a manner that they can't remember said assault, or may have lost loved ones due to one person's selfishness (for example, the millions of people who have died from COVID because of other peoples' stupidity) can see how evil Hermes was.

Sure, absolutely. And I'm genuinely sorry if/that you've experienced that kind of injustice. The more understanding the better, I think. \o/

[KizuyaKatogami]

Personally i’d say Venat and Hermes are just about the same in terms of evil and villain scale. Both led to the extinction of their race. Venat lied and kept secrets, instead of trying to help her race and tell them the truth of everything she kept it all a secret and then tried to play the victim, whilst also trying to paint the ancients in a bad light. I think people take the final days ancients meeting way too wrong. Yes they’re saying they want to return to their paradise, because in comparison to the literal end of the world, any functioning society without that happening would seem like a paradise.

The whole disregard for non-ancient lives means nothing. The sundered are far worse in that regard. They literally hold colosseums for animals and creatures to be slaughtered for entertainment. Sorry but there’s no correlation there at all. But a lot of this is moot because Venat had the knowledge to potentially avert the whole event entirely. They might not have even needed to summon Zodiark, so all of that final days and onwards events is also on her hands. Both her and Hermes are two peas in a pod. Both damned their own society, and some of the planets that died due to Meteion? That blood can also be put on Venat’s hands. Had she told everyone what happened and they stopped Meteion early, numerous planets would have been saved.

[CrownySuccubus]

The whole disregard for non-ancient lives means nothing. The sundered are far worse in that regard. They literally hold colosseums for animals and creatures to be slaughtered for entertainment. Sorry but there’s no correlation there at all.

The big difference here is that sundered beings don't have the power to instantly delete entire species out of existence with creation magic.

Again, I'm doing my best not to slip into apologia for Venat's actions...but I think people are ignoring all nuance of how the post-FD Ancients were behaving. Venat's biggest crime is allowing things to ever get to the point that she "had" to make that decision.

Sure, absolutely. And I'm genuinely sorry if/that you've experienced that kind of injustice. The more understanding the better, I think. \o/

No, not me personally. At least, not to such horrifying degrees.

But as part of my work, I have met many, MANY people who have.