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

[Nilroreo]

But how are we threatening those civilizations? By what actions are we putting them at risk?

I'm not arguing there are currently any civilizations at risk. I'm arguing that anytime a civilization is destroyed due to someone on our side, the game will ALWAYS attempt justify it.

The developers themselves have confirmed Hydaelyn deliberately left a crack in space for Emet and pals to squeeze through to avoid the sundering. This action makes 0 sense if she genuinely believed mankind would be able to overcome any form of adversity on their own, which means she instead did this in order to recreate the exact conditions that resulted specifically in our version of history. What this ultimately means is she NEEDED the Ascians to exist, and she NEEDED 7 shards to be rejoined. Hydaelyn, a character who the devs have gone on record stressing is not supposed to be evil, knowingly orchestrated events that resulted in 7 planets worth of lives being destroyed.

Not once have I ever heard the devs or anyone in game bring attention to this fact, therefore I assume the writers themselves don't see anything wrong with this, thus I'm inclined to believe they can and will do this again in future expansions.

[Rulakir]

Hydaelyn, a character who the devs have gone on record stressing is not supposed to be evil, knowingly orchestrated events that resulted in 7 planets worth of lives being destroyed.

This is what's so baffling to me. Venat on paper reads as an antagonist, quite possibly the biggest one in the game as the effects of the sundering overshadow those of the Final Days quite substantially with far lasting consequences. The only thing that makes her 'not a bad guy' is the gross amount of gaslighting the game does. It doesn't matter if her intentions were good and not out of malice, there have been plenty of well-intentioned antagonists who are still antagonists. However, write the WoL and Scions as loving her? Write Emet, a fan favorite and quite possibly the person she screwed over the most, to commend her at the end? Suddenly all is forgiven, apparently. Ignoring the fact that Venat wouldn't have hesitated to sunder the WoL if she had the power and thought it would achieve her goal. She had a very abstract 'love of life' and no loyalty to anyone or anything but her ideals. I guarantee the Scions wouldn't have been okay with it, which makes their acceptance of her actions even more galling due to how grossly self-serving and hypocritical it is.

[Krithas]

This is what's so baffling to me. Venat on paper reads as an antagonist, quite possibly the biggest one in the game as the effects of the sundering overshadow those of the Final Days quite substantially with far lasting consequences. The only thing that makes her 'not a bad guy' is the gross amount of gaslighting the game does. It doesn't matter if her intentions were good and not out of malice, there have been plenty of well-intentioned antagonists who are still antagonists. However, write the WoL and Scions as loving her? Write Emet, a fan favorite and quite possibly the person she screwed over the most, to commend her at the end? Suddenly all is forgiven, apparently. Ignoring the fact that Venat wouldn't have hesitated to sunder the WoL if she had the power and thought it would achieve her goal. She had a very abstract 'love of life' and no loyalty to anyone or anything but her ideals. I guarantee the Scions wouldn't have been okay with it, which makes their acceptance of her actions even more galling due to how grossly self-serving and hypocritical it is.

Yeah, that part got me as well. Not only did the have the MC, Scions, narrative, and every other character in existence kiss her ass without question, they brought back Emet as fan service (He's a favorite character, but it felt like poor taste, especially when they did it again in 6.1) and had him partially suck her off as well. Combine that with having him bring back every single scion after their "noble sacrifice", and that stupid song that started playing on your way to the nest, trying to tug at your emotions and make you feel even sadder for the "deaths" when they were blatantly going to revive all of them again just pissed me right off. If I didn't enjoy the game so much before Endwalker, I'd have canceled my sub right then instead of waiting 'till 6.1. At least he somewhat told her to fuck off by outright rejecting her gift of revival, that was something that made me feel a bit better. That and being able to say fuck you to Graha by saying you like traveling alone was satisfying lol.

[Nilroreo]

This is what's so baffling to me. Venat on paper reads as an antagonist, quite possibly the biggest one in the game as the effects of the sundering overshadow those of the Final Days quite substantially with far lasting consequences. The only thing that makes her 'not a bad guy' is the gross amount of gaslighting the game does. It doesn't matter if her intentions were good and not out of malice, there have been plenty of well-intentioned antagonists who are still antagonists. However, write the WoL and Scions as loving her? Write Emet, a fan favorite and quite possibly the person she screwed over the most, to commend her at the end? Suddenly all is forgiven, apparently. Ignoring the fact that Venat wouldn't have hesitated to sunder the WoL if she had the power and thought it would achieve her goal. She had a very abstract 'love of life' and no loyalty to anyone or anything but her ideals. I guarantee the Scions wouldn't have been okay with it, which makes their acceptance of her actions even more galling due to how grossly self-serving and hypocritical it is.

It's kinda funny thinking back to HW, there's a scene where Ardbert attempts to assault Hydaelyn for waiting until just then to finally help the First with the flood. I wonder how he'd feel learning that she's responsible for the chain of events leading to the flood happening in the first place. Only after most of the damage has already been done does she finally choose to play her part, eroding what's left of Minfilia's flesh and soul to stop it temporarily.

[Rulakir]

It's kinda funny thinking back to HW, there's a scene where Ardbert attempts to assault Hydaelyn for waiting until just then to finally help the First with the flood. I wonder how he'd feel learning that she's responsible for the chain of events leading to the flood happening in the first place. Only after most of the damage has already been done does she finally choose to play her part, eroding what's left of Minfilia's flesh and soul to stop it temporarily.

It gives a whole new context to his line "we did everything right". Yes, yes you did. Too bad like many others you were collateral damage in Venat's grand plan to get back to the WoL. The callous disregard she has for the shards and individuals is staggering.

By the way, my alt's on Zalera, when do you usually play?

[Nilroreo]

It gives a whole new context to his line "we did everything right". Yes, yes you did. Too bad like many others you were collateral damage in Venat's grand plan to get back to the WoL. The callous disregard she has for the shards and individuals is staggering.

By the way, my alt's on Zalera, when do you usually play?

No set schedule, but usually in the afternoon around 6 ish. Usually just hop on for a few hours to work on relic weapons nowadays and maybe eureka.

[ZeraSkiratea]

It's kinda funny thinking back to HW, there's a scene where Ardbert attempts to assault Hydaelyn for waiting until just then to finally help the First with the flood. I wonder how he'd feel learning that she's responsible for the chain of events leading to the flood happening in the first place. Only after most of the damage has already been done does she finally choose to play her part, eroding what's left of Minfilia's flesh and soul to stop it temporarily.

wasnt there a scene where hydaelyn(or another character who we can assume speaks for her, not quite sure remembering) said that she "tried to stop the rejoinings, and failed 7 times" (paraphrased) or something along those lines?


Unless you want to dismiss this as "her gaslighting us" or something along those lines... that dosnt seem like the rejoinigns where part of her plan, but that they happend despite her efforts, whatever becuase she simply failed, or because they had to happend as they where part of predetermined fate do to us traveling in time be irelevant for a second.


Same with stuff like the Flood in the first
its clearly stated that after 7 rejoinings her power was greatily diminished, so strongly she needed a "vessel" to interact with people.


She disregards the Shards in that sense that the source is the lynchpin, if the source falls the Shards are gone as well, and in a matter of live and death of the entire World and potentialy UNIVERSE, the live of individuals matter little in the grand scheme.


do i AGREE with her completly disregarding the shards with no means of escape? no(altough we dont know if the shards even have a "outerspace" like the source has or not given only the star was sunderd (or else we opend a gigantic can of worms and we stil dont know what purpose the Moons of the shards serve)) no i dont really agree with her, they had to be potentialy better ways to handel it.
Do i see this as her being "an antagonist on paper"? no not at all,not doing the best possible solution does not make you a villain, especialy as we still dont know how the sundering affected live imidiatly.


at best you can call Venat an "anti-hero" not an antagonist(well to the Ancients/ascians she was an antagonist but that... really means nothing or else almost any hero in any story is the antagonist if we view it from the oppositions view)


And to all the people who still say "why didnt we change anything in the past REEEEE timeline splits exists" first of all was it actually 100% confirmed that the timeline split? and it wasnt a open timeloop.
We know(or at least heavily implied) that Elpis is a closed time loop, we traveld in time because we where in elpis during that time period (as elidibus confussion about how he "remembers" us there implies altough a second potential idea exists for this at the end)

1/2

[ZeraSkiratea]

2/2
There are also significant differences between how elidibus sends us in time, and how Graha Tia traveld trough time
Mainly we are missing the Crystal tower and a "real body". In elpis from what i recall we are completly comprised of aether and not our actual body.

We ALSO have one extra stipulation that graha tia never had "we must return to our time" Elidibus specifically says(along those lines) "even if you can, by some chance, interact with the past, you will be unable to create impactfull change, because the world you must return to is a result of those final days"
Graha Tia never planned to return to his timeline.

Now we dont know if graha could POTENTIALY "hop" across timelines into his "original timeline" or not, but anyway, if we changed the past we would have 2 situations

A) we cant jump timelines, congratulations, you now fucked your original world and everyone on it, spitting in the face of the entire theme of the game in one fell swoop.
B) you manage to jump timelines, congratulations you manage to "change nothing" because in your world the Ancients still died, and you have no proof of whatever the new timeline you created actually remained after you left it or not



NOW there is another reading for the whole "elidibus remembers us" situation.

A gigantic open loop
the "original" version fo the final days played similiarily to what we know, just we never went to elpis, and Venat found out about it, and decided sundering was the only option at some point on her own.
everything in the game happens.
We decide to travel back in time, at THIS point the "timeline" shifts to one where we did travel back in time, which is why elidibus remembers us despite it being impossible, by deciding we want to travel in time, we created the timeline in which we traveld in time.
The events of elpis as WE know it play out, and the events of the game play out, identical in outcome, but potentialy different in intention or planning.
This would potentialy make Venat booth "planning and scheming" for the rejoinings so we exist in the post time travel version, while also "just being unable to stop them" in the pre time travel version.
ultimatly, venat, in booth versions, came to the same conclussion, just for potentialy different reassons.
Post time travel versions saw us and decided to bet on us for whatever reassons
pre time travel versions saw the final days and decided on her own for whatever reassons that sundering was the only option

[Nilroreo]

wasnt there a scene where hydaelyn(or another character who we can assume speaks for her, not quite sure remembering) said that she "tried to stop the rejoinings, and failed 7 times" (paraphrased) or something along those lines?

Yeah, she did, but like I mentioned before, that can't be the case anymore as the Ascians exist as a consequence of her actions. If all she wanted to do was make mankind capable of harnessing dynamis, she simply would have sundered the entire world and left it at that. In that scenario, the rejoining's would truly be unexpected and legitimately be considered failures on her part... except that's not quite what happened.

In reality, she deliberately allowed Emet Selch to survive the sundering, the developers have confirmed this themselves not too long ago. We've already explained to her back in Elps what Emet would go on to do in excruciating detail, she already knew he would attempt to undo what she's done, which means there's no logical reason she would preserve his existence in the scenario that she genuinely wanted to protect the shards. She calls them failures, but she spared Emet, understanding full well what he would go on to do. Her dialogue and her actions are at odds with one another.

at best you can call Venat an "anti-hero" not an antagonist(well to the Ancients/ascians she was an antagonist but that... really means nothing or else almost any hero in any story is the antagonist if we view it from the oppositions view)

I don't believe Venat is an antagonist either, as that would imply she was working against us. What I DO believe however is that she's a mass murderer and a compulsive liar/manipulator, and the worst part, I can't even tell if the devs wrote her this way by complete accident or on purpose.

And to all the people who still say "why didnt we change anything in the past REEEEE timeline splits exists" first of all was it actually 100% confirmed that the timeline split? and it wasnt a open timeloop.

At a live letter, Yoshi-P proposed 2 scenarios. The first(which was his own interpretation) was that time is a closed loop. the second is that Venat deliberately ensured events would play out the same way. He didn't give a definitive answer, instead telling us to come to our own conclusions so its safe to say they didn't put much thought into this. Personally, I don't care much that we couldn't change the past. I just hate how fickle the rules of time travel are in this. If you can't do time travel right, don't bother.

[Lauront]

This is what's so baffling to me. Venat on paper reads as an antagonist, quite possibly the biggest one in the game as the effects of the sundering overshadow those of the Final Days quite substantially with far lasting consequences. The only thing that makes her 'not a bad guy' is the gross amount of gaslighting the game does. It doesn't matter if her intentions were good and not out of malice, there have been plenty of well-intentioned antagonists who are still antagonists. However, write the WoL and Scions as loving her? Write Emet, a fan favorite and quite possibly the person she screwed over the most, to commend her at the end? Suddenly all is forgiven, apparently. Ignoring the fact that Venat wouldn't have hesitated to sunder the WoL if she had the power and thought it would achieve her goal. She had a very abstract 'love of life' and no loyalty to anyone or anything but her ideals. I guarantee the Scions wouldn't have been okay with it, which makes their acceptance of her actions even more galling due to how grossly self-serving and hypocritical it is.

I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and say her hands were tied, even if the whole situation sucked and I thought the writing to justify it all was hamfisted and piss-poor... until that Q&A. Now I really cannot see how they can insist she's not a villain (a term Yoshi kept using for SHB Emet-Selch, to which he tries to compare her) or antagonist whilst also giving the answers they did in that Q&A. Just does not compute.

It's just the endgame of protagonist-centered morality. The protagonists and our PC are the Certifiably Good People™️

One wonders how thin the line between "Certifiably Good" and "Certifiable" is in this case - a purely rhetorical question, naturally.