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

[Nilroreo]

Venat was forewarned, and already saw the best thing the Ancients could come up with. Zodiark.
Blanket the world in Aether. Drown it in an aetheric shield, so dynamis is too weak to be of consequence.
Nothing more than a band-aid, but it was all they were capable of doing against it.

Well no shit he was a band aid solution, they didn't know what the final days was to begin with lol! Venat actively prevented them from understanding the true nature of the final days, and thus, the were only able to discern HOW it was targeting them, not the who, what, where, when or why, just the how. Zodiark's limitation exists because of her.

[HollowedDoll]

Well no shit he was a band aid solution, they didn't know what the final days was to begin with lol! Venat actively prevented them from understanding the true nature of the final days, and thus, the were only able to discern HOW it was targeting them, not the who, what, where, when or why, just the how. Zodiark's limitation exists because of her.

For a band-aid it worked pretty well, seeing as it outlasted them by thousands of years.. with no signs of stopping, but of course some would tell you that "Well akshully Meteion was speeding up the heat death of the universe so they would've died." It's like.. the inevitable is inevitabling faster? Oh no! Anyway...

[PawPaw]

So, for all the replies, there are plenty of reasons WHY Venat didn't tell the other Ancients.

Simply put, there was no point.

I'm sorry, what? There was no point in telling the race of godlike beings who can create anything they can imagine about an enemy who was going to attempt to destroy them? Putting aside that this a subversive and traitorous act in and of itself, the fact that they came up with an effective solution to the Final Days by chance was pretty amazing. IMAGINE what they could have done with forewarning about the enemy, the nature of the enemy, the enemies weaknesses and a chance to prepare. Maybe find a way to shield the planet that didn't involve sacrificing 75% of the population? Who knows, they were never given the opportunity to try because apparently, there was no point.

The best they could come up with was Zodiark? Um, yeah, when you have NO IDEA what is happening to your world and you have to make quick and rash decisions as you watch everything burn around you, it's not going to feel as though you have many options. And the whole time, Venat sat back and said nothing. Not a thing. She watched the world burn. She watched her people die. She watched them fumble. And only at the end did she claim moral supremacy and destroy her world, her people, everything she claimed to love so very much. Genocide. All for the sake of a nobody she met in Elpis for a few hours.

And band-aid? man I wish I could find a band-aid that's half as effective after being ripped into 14 pieces for 12k years.

[Laphicet]

The Ancients are only one of two cases of sympathetic characters not getting a happy ending and the tragedy of it being completely ignored/handwaved. They're the only group that the story gives the Scions and/or the WOL the option of a happy ending but just saying "Nope. You don't get to do that".

The only other one I can think of is Hingashi, where we're told how monstrously corrupt the shogunate is, but for whom the story takes an uncharacteristic "Overthrowing them would be bad" standpoint, and makes us fight against the rebels instead of with them.

What questline are you talking about here, exactly? If you're talking about the kugane castle rebellion I thought that was one merchant who just wanted even more control so he wanted to take the throne for himself?

[CrownySuccubus]

What questline are you talking about here, exactly? If you're talking about the kugane castle rebellion I thought that was one merchant who just wanted even more control so he wanted to take the throne for himself?

Samurai questline. Ugetsu starts a rebellion against the Shogunate because of how cruel they are (one person mentions watching his parents being burned alive on unjust charges) and because they have a strict caste system where the rich stay in power and work the poor like dogs. When Ugetsu rants about all of this, everybody (even the heroic characters) acknowledge that he's 100% right...but oh noes...rebellion might, like, cause war and stuff. (Civil war? In Stormblood? Le GASP!) So instead, we'll just rely on one person to slowly change the system over the next several generations. And...all the people who get killed and oppressed before that are just unlucky, I guess.

[Theodric]

I'd argue that the various caricature worlds were extremely far removed from any realistic trajectory and served as little more than a heavy handed way in which to undo the nuance and consequences of Shadowbringers.

'Venat had no choice' is suggesting that genocide is alright. That sometimes there's a good reason to partake of genocide. By that logic, the Rejoinings are entirely acceptable - except the story doesn't pretend that they are. Funny, that.

[Valfreyja]

@HollowedDoll
Headcanon? It is part of the story that the best the Ancients could come up with was Zodiark. They couldn't even figure out WHAT was causing the Final Days.
Yet everyone here is acting as if somehow if they knew, they could? Apparently not, since they weren't even capable of figuring it out, for all their intelligence.
The best they could manage was a shield that required them to sacrifice countless lives.

@Kizuya
No, I can admit that I hadn't thought about the echo, and so yeah, Venat could have shown everyone. To what end? The Ancients were too strong in aether to use dynamis, so there was little they could do in the way of stopping it. It took aetherically weaker beings to do that, ie the sundered.

That is the argument I'm making. I'm also saying they were doomed, for the simple fact that it is the history of the world. That's how it was written. I don't really get why people feel like they need to change things for the "good feelings" they can get for having a timeline that would never really be a part of XIV to begin with, just to say they saved the Ancients.

Venat's actions is as simple as: she knew the future and knew what was going to happen.
Clearly the Ancients weren't capable of dealing with Meteion. Because they had already failed to solve it.

Those questioning it, honestly just puts me in mind of those people who watch movies or tv shows and somewhere near the start go "OMG why didn't they just do this? It's so obvious and simple." And get really vocal about how if the main character just did -this- then everything would be solved.

Yes, that's probably true. And also not very entertaining either.

Edit: To all those talking about a world of "constant suffering and misery", have you never had a single joyful moment in your lives? Like...seriously how are none of you getting this?

Sure there are bad moments in life. Just like there are good moments. Such as when you are having fun with your friends, moments with your loved ones, etc.

Those of you that keep throwing up this argument, you really don't understand. A life of joy and happiness and nothing else, isn't a life at all.

You can't appreciate the happy or joyful moments in your life, if that is ALL you have in your life. You become bored of it.

[TaleraRistain]

It's fine if people want to have different opinions but it's not debating in good faith to throw "headcanon" at an idea that's based on what was said by the people who wrote the story.

https://novacrystallis.com/2022/02/f...dmap-detailed/

- Was Venat sundering the star truly the only way to save it? Yoshida consulted with Ishikawa, and says as Y’shtola theorized that the Ancients were so dense in aether that they could not control dynamis.
- Other Ancients concluded that Zodiark was the solution to Meteion’s song of oblivion, but Venat concluded that they could not change as a people and would be their own undoing.
- In The Dead Ends, the Da’la boss may have been a similar fate awaiting the Ancients in a different future. For that reason, she chose to sunder the star and dilute aether so that mankind could control dynamis and silence the song of oblivion.
- Venat herself concludes that this is not a moral or just decision and deeply agonizes over it. People have a lot of feelings about this.
- It was that decision, to sunder humanity so that they could control dynamis and kill the Endsinger that said that “Venat is really an Ancient, huh.” A parallel to Emet’s decision and judgment of humanity at the end of Shadowbringers.
- Hermes erases his own memory to, on his terms, judge humanity’s worth. That’s what ties Venat, Emet-Selch, and Hermes together.
- Emet-Selch is popular, but Yoshida agrees with Alphinaud telling him “what right does he have to do that?” If you go back and look at these parallels you might find them interesting.

[Xirean]

@Valfreyja
I think there is something that you are overlooking. The single most destructive event in this stories history was ensured to happen by Venat AND the character we play as. Can you agree that such a thing is maybe not ok?

[Theodric]

The people who write the story by their own admission rushed to wrap things up earlier than planned, cut out an entire expansion and ignored the established narrative from one expansion to the next. Furthermore, just because the development team say something it doesn't mean everybody has to agree with their take.

Yoshi-P could write a story about how Y'shtola woke up one day and decided to become a serial killer that specialises in burning down orphanages but come up with a contrived excuse to say that she's actually a good person because those kids might have grown up to be a threat.

Which isn't much different from the laughable and pitiful excuses used to try and shield Venat from criticism. Genocide isn't suddenly acceptable or a necessity just because some pretty woman is the one partaking of it. Furthermore, video game developers are very far down the list of people who I'm interested in hearing lectures on morality from in the first place. Endwalker isn't exactly Matsuno tier in terms of quality and consistency. It has many holes - and much like with the holes in the Sage icon, there's now a panicked effort to try and cover those holes up.