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

[Rulakir]

Can't believe these guys, representative of Ancients in general, were so far gone they just forced poor Venat's hand, etc, etc. Try to mentally replace Emet-Selch or Themis in that scene, debating Venat, and boy does it fall apart fast.

It completely ignores that "no small number" were against the 3rd sacrifice too. I can't help but be reminded of Sodom and Gomorrah where Lot pleaded with God if he could find just 10 righteous people would he spare destroying the cities. Venat apparently had a lot more than that and it wasn't enough for her.

Plus, the sundering happening after Elidibus had exited Zodiark to mediate is also a bad look. I can understand it from a strategic point, what better time to go after Zodiark than when he's sans pilot, but it's also implied they were in the middle of negotiations when she went on the attack. It lends further credence to the belief that it didn't matter what any of the Ancients did, she'd already determined they needed to be 'reset' for their own good.

It's also why The Plenty irritates me because it's based on the premise that the events at Elpis didn't happen. The Ancients were never going to be the same after the Final Days no matter how hard they tried and we'll likely never know what would have happened had Venat simply been honest with everyone. They built up Ancient society as one that thrived on debate, yet both Venat and Hermes make executive decisions for the whole race with the writers claiming it's just a very Ancient thing to do.

[CrownySuccubus]

It completely ignores that "no small number" were against the 3rd sacrifice too. I can't help but be reminded of Sodom and Gomorrah where Lot pleaded with God if he could find just 10 righteous people would he spare destroying the cities.

To be fair, I find God's methodology there to be stupid, also, but I digress.

I think Venat's faction (if it can truly be called that) was in a pretty hefty minority that would not have been able to stop the third wave of sacrifices. Again, I wish the story had shown us that 1) Venat had told someone (ANYONE) about the truth but they simply ignored it and 2) the faction came to a consensus together rather than Venat making the decision all by herself. But as Brinne said, they declined doing that because the image wasn't emotional enough.

Just bad writing through and thorugh.

[Brinne]

I would say I have two layers of objections to the writing approach to the Ancients in EW: the first is the very premise of "sometimes enacting the annihilation of an entire race of people is, in fact, justified and for the greater good!" is not where I wanted this to go to begin with. That is the biggest level of Do Not Want, Oh God, No Thank You, I Loved Shadowbringers For Specifically Not Doing This, Why.

But hell, if we're going there, the second layer on top of that that is: well, we sure went there, and the execution was terrible. "Unconvincing" would be a generous description of it on several levels. So between the two, the dissonance reaches critical mass, I lose my mind, start making awkward walls of text on forums I was certain I'd never post in, and meanwhile succumb to the wholesale yearning of narrative junk food for the very rare piece of lore worldbuilding I truly fell in love with, along with the characters within. We'd better be able to do something for poor Themis or I may actually evolve into a ravenous three-headed monster whose only purpose is chaos and destruction.

[KizuyaKatogami]

We'd better be able to do something for poor Themis or I may actually evolve into a ravenous three-headed monster whose only purpose is chaos and destruction.

At this point i've lost all hope for it. The final sign was the fact we learn that both him and Zodiark are the only reason the planet and us are around to this day and are still alive, yet not once do we ever thank either of them, and instead all of that praise is instead given to Venat. It makes it pretty clear where the devs bias stands, and i dont see how anyone could argue otherwise. Elidibus got the short end of the stick through and through and outside of garlemald i think he was the one of the biggest ones impacted by the change from 2-3 more expansions to only 1.