On Venat's Role in the Story

[Rulakir]

Here we go. Re: Hermes

The Final Days had been forestalled, that's why the focus shifted to Venat. One of my gripes with EW is things that were a result of the sundering were shifted to the Final Days while Hydaelyn receives credit for Zodiark's actions. The entire narrative from character interactions to denial of history exist to gaslight the player into believing Venat was a good person who saved the world when in reality she's one of the lore's primary antagonists with the sundering arguably causing more death and destruction than the Final Days themselves. She gets the bulk of the criticism and discussion because we are presented with someone whose actions are antithetical to her characterization. Add to this her motivations are fear and ideology combined with being given an opportunity to do things differently and still choosing genocide, it's unconscionable.

1.Branching timeline for the Ancients.
2.Elidibus and Zodiark given the recognition they deserve for saving the planet not once but twice.
3.The sundering itself to be shown in a cutscene.

I'd add to this that the game quit fawning over Hydaelyn. She's no heroine and her codex entry is vomit inducing. The Convocation, Elidibus, Zodiark, those are the world's saviors. Hydaelyn destroyed Etheirys and its people on a gamble driven by irrational fear and permanently peaced out before even learning whether or not her grand plan yielded a favorable result. She is truly the worst person in every conceivable way particularly because she's supposedly well-intentioned and the sundering is portrayed as some kind of necessary evil (despite her literally never trying anything else). It's galling to see it celebrated to the extent of genocide apologism as mentioned earlier. I'm frankly shocked this made it past SE's ethics department.

I also find it ironic the amount of debates we've had here over unmaking creatures without souls when Venat consistently does not care about souls. She didn't actually care about the sacrifices, that was a red herring. She burnt through the souls of those who helped her become Hydaelyn. She sundered the souls of her people, which also made them (knowingly) more susceptible to dynamis to the extent that the Song of Oblivion extinguishes their souls. She was either never able to (irresponsible) or willing to (monstrous) help the shards, all of which appear to be collateral damage to her dynamis science project on the Source.

As a personal note, I was deeply uncomfortable with being forced into a trusting, favorable relationship with the person responsible for killing my original self. Perhaps if they'd made Azem a separate character, but they didn't they made them you to such an extent that players like myself feel they're one in the same. This is a woman who had no qualms with, in fact, decided tearing you (her protege) apart sounded like the best plan course of action (to later manipulate your reincarnation to kill your former BFFs which is sinister AF) but, sure, we love her now because she's on our side (until she isn't). Venat has no love or loyalty to any individual, it's to her vision. She would have 100% thrown the WoL under the bus if it would've furthered her goal, so this idea that she loves her "brave little spark" champion is pure nonsense. I'm sure she "loved" Azem too, as much as someone like her is capable of it.

Then, at the end of all things, one of the characters she wronged the most essentially says, "Oh, Venat, you scamp. You're such a good matchmaker!" What the actual F? Given that Yoshi-P admitted he manipulated Emet's character to give the WoL the infamous list of destinations I wouldn't at all be surprised if he's responsible for that lapse in character consistency too. After all, this is the man who spent a month crying at the Mothercrystal cutscene trying to get Hydaelyn's face just right. At least Elidibus remained bitter because somebody she wronged needed to.

I wish I had more to say about Hermes, but aside from hitting a kill switch out of spite what is there to talk about? Venat is the bigger mess of not only EW but the lore as a whole. The sad part is that she would've made one Hell of a villain had they the stones to commit to it (or at least that she tempered in which context EW makes a lot more sense), but instead we get her acting like a villain but portrayed as a heroine which is jarring. I don't know if it's subverting expectations nonsense or someone on the team just couldn't handle Hydaelyn being a "bad guy".

[Erendis]

Oh, I see the issue. I don't believe the ancients are "humanity" they are essentially - the Deva and Asura, incapable of escpaing suffering because thier lives were too blissful to meaningfully understand it. They would have become like the Plenty - at least that's what Venat believes.

In this view, Venat is essentially creating a mankind that is capable of escaping suffering by sundering the ancient dieties into mortals.

Venat as a god is responsible for the world we live in, she had faith in us, and comparatively little faith in her fellow ancients. I think condemning her for that is as meaningful as condemning Prometheus for betraying Zeus and giving fire to humanity. I guess that's where I'm struggling with this discussion, yes - you can argue that Venat did a wrong to her fellow ancients, she would even agree with you. So what?

Ancients were not gods. Venat was the one who decided to play god, which leads me to think she also had a mental illness (Considering all those people claiming to be gods in institutions...)

[Denishia]

As a personal note, I was deeply uncomfortable with being forced into a trusting, favorable relationship with the person responsible for killing my original self. Perhaps if they'd made Azem a separate character, but they didn't they made them you to such an extent that players like myself feel they're one in the same. This is a woman who had no qualms with, in fact, decided tearing you (her protege) apart sounded like the best plan course of action (to later manipulate your reincarnation to kill your former BFFs which is sinister AF) but, sure, we love her now because she's on our side (until she isn't). Venat has no love or loyalty to any individual, it's to her vision. She would have 100% thrown the WoL under the bus if it would've furthered her goal, so this idea that she loves her "brave little spark" champion is pure nonsense. I'm sure she "loved" Azem too, as much as someone like her is capable of it.

To be the personal note on the opposite perspective again - Endwalker further entrenched a deep separation between the Azem and who I think of as the WoL. In part because I could under no circumstances chose to befriend Hades, even his 'kinder' Elpis self -and I found Hythlodaeus annoying and as blatantly fanservice bait as the worse moments of Haurchefant and G'raha. Every extra lore statement of the three's friendship only hammered home how much the writing failed to engender any resonant feelings. They might be Azem's BFFs but there's no way to write them that would make me feel the same. Azem was no more my WoL than Ardbert was- and I feel more kinship with Ardbert than them. The only part to being the Seat of Azem that I find at all palpable was that the last Azem did not want a job that entailed working as part of the ruling government of a society that thankfully they were travelling away from. The only time I would stomach having our Azem as an actual in-game character is if we get to continue the XIV tradition of punching them in the face. Or that they are willingly Sundering themselves.

I agree with Kari that the Ancients do feel more like the Deva and Asura, and what feels human is the brand of privileged 'immortality' and hiding from consequences that one finds in teenagers, a sort of pathetic pitiable immaturity and incompleteness. And yes, that comes because I as the player character am mortal, so the immortal Ancients -who aren't a very deep or well-crafted and complete example of immortal beings in my opinion- come across as such, and thus Zodiark as a shield to avoid the maturity that I felt little remorse to remove. The Greek Myth that I find most resonant with the Ancients who summoned Zodiark is that of Cronos eating his children - and how that failed in the end.

[SannaR]

I'm not sure where the idea that people hate Venat is even coming from. Plenty of people are on record as stating that they found her to be likable during Elpis, myself included. Yet the ending cutscene for Elpis is very much this game's 'Burning of Teldrassil' moment. A highly controversial and divisive event that divides even many of the fans of a particular character.

Some of us also draw a specific distinction between Venat and Hydaelyn since in many ways they are essentially two different entities even if they're essentially the same character on a technical level.

Maybe it'd be more clear that even when we re-reach the conclusion that most agree that her keeping quiet was one of the worst ideas ever that that would be it. But no we have to make quadruple-ie sure that we've counted all of the ways that it didn't sit well with some. It doesn't come off as there's any distinction between hating her actions and her as a character from some in this thread. It comes off as an oh hey did I not tell you how much I just hate her? Like I super hate her, her dumb face and her choice to keep quiet. Even when we say that we agree that her choice is dumb and that we'd love to have seen more could we please move on. We just get dragged back to the loop. So, sorry if it doesn't come off as a "We like her, but holy smokes her keeping mum about Herme's dumb blind scientific test was the worst." I mean heck I think most even at some point has said they'd of liked more information or to have seen more of what the bloody hell went on post Final Days up to the sundering. It'd be nice if we could move on or not have other discussions turn into round 574 of "But what about Venat staying silent?".

[KageTokage]

I'd have to agree that there's not really much to discuss at this point since people have exhaustively gone into all the myriad reasons why they didn't like how Venat/Hydaelyn was portrayed and how it could've been done better.

Unfortunately, it's going to keep returning to our minds whenever the subject inevitably comes up in the MSQ and other content. I think a "best case" scenario would be that the Sundering starts to cause some very serious problems for the Source and the shards in her absence and it forces the cast to recognize that maybe she did screw up and make a very short-sighted decision that we may end up having to clean up the aftermath of.

[Theodric]

It's also largely a consequence of deciding to tie the Ancients to pretty much everything of note. That in itself makes it hard to discuss anything without re-treading old territory.

[Rulakir]

I think a "best case" scenario would be that the Sundering starts to cause some very serious problems for the Source and the shards in her absence and it forces the cast to recognize that maybe she did screw up and make a very short-sighted decision that we may end up having to clean up the aftermath of.

I'd love to see this. My theory has been just as Zodiark shielded the world so did Hydaelyn keep the sundering in place, so without her the barrier separating the Source from the shards is fading. I could easily see this as being intended too. As far as we know, there's no further need of dynamis and she's forced souls to know suffering and despair now, so goals accomplished.

[Lurina]

I agree with Kari that the Ancients do feel more like the Deva and Asura, and what feels human is the brand of privileged 'immortality' and hiding from consequences that one finds in teenagers, a sort of pathetic pitiable immaturity and incompleteness. And yes, that comes because I as the player character am mortal, so the immortal Ancients -who aren't a very deep or well-crafted and complete example of immortal beings in my opinion- come across as such, and thus Zodiark as a shield to avoid the maturity that I felt little remorse to remove.

Putting aside the rest of the post, if you don't think that the Ancients are particularly deep examples of immortals - at least by the standards of fantasy pop media - then I'd kinda be curious what you do, because most immortals and near-immortals are written terribly. The overwhelming majority I can think of don't even bother exploring what implications an immortal lifespan would actually have for a society or the mentality of individuals, and just present them as generic-wise-Elf-adjacent-race #4732, with the same social structures and conventions as normal humans, just with larger numbers on the timeline.

FFXIV's attempt has flaws, but they made an effort.

[KageTokage]

I'd love to see this. My theory has been just as Zodiark shielded the world so did Hydaelyn keep the sundering in place, so without her the barrier separating the Source from the shards is fading. I could easily see this as being intended too. As far as we know, there's no further need of dynamis and she's forced souls to know suffering and despair now, so goals accomplished.

That ominous prophecy from the Studium quests is honestly making me entertain the notion of Etheriys itself eventually becoming our new "antagonist" in the sense that without Hydaelyn to maintain the stability of the Source and shards the Lifestream is going to try to forcibly rejoin everything and return the world to its original state; hence the bit about the "serpent" needing to be subdued with "seven wedges".

[SannaR]

Now that Zodiark is gone wouldn't the aetherical rivers try and go back to how they were before he made them better? I can't quite remember what the Watcher said about what Zodiark did to them.