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

[not_ya_wify]

It's honestly unfathomable that Venat gets to be depicted as some sort of messianic archetype despite not only being responsible for sundering all of Eitherys into 14 separate shards populated by people with no memories of their previous lives and drastically weaker than before, but also the sheer amount of devastation Emet-Selch, Lahabrea, Elidibus, and the rest of the shattered Convocation would leave in their wake in their desparate bid to reawaken Zodiark and restore their world. To say she has blood on her hands would be the greatest of understatements.

It would have been so much better if instead of doubling down on the whole "Crystal Mommy can do no wrong and loves us because we're her children " schtick, the narrative painted her exactly as she is. A flawed Ancient who jumped the gun on Sundering all of Eitherys based on Meteion's report, and the overwhelming guilt that would come of such an action, even if it was to save a world that isn't her own.

Let's not forget that by failing to involve the convocation and only working on her half-baked solution to saving Eteirys, she also doomed every other life in the universe to cease existence to Meteion's song.

[anhaato]

This conversation is hilarious.

Everyone's acting like they know, with exact detail, every bit of what happened between the end of our arc in Elpis and the Sundering. We don't. We don't know what Venat tried. WE just know that she was unable to convince people not to rely on Zodiark as if it was a panacea. That's all we know. We don't know how much info she tried to give them, or how little. We don't know what she told them and what she didn't. We don't know what she tried or what they did. We have none of that information.

But you're acting like she just... did nothing until it was time to go kill everyone. Without any actual indication that that was the case. And then you're taking your OWN BASELESS TIMELINE OF EVENTS and using that to make a judgement call about how you feel about the rest of the story.

For all you know, maybe she TRIED to tell people exactly what happened, and everyone was just like 'oh great, the former member of the convocation's off her rocker. Let's put her on a farm somewhere so she can have peace' - that's probably not likely. But her sitting around and not doing ANYTHING is also equally unlikely. So the reality is probably somewhere in between 'her being laughed at like a crazy person' and 'her sitting around doing nothing the whole time'

We really don't know.

But I know this isn't going to change any of your minds about your 'she did nothing and then committed genocide' fanfics of the situation, so I'll bow out here. Have a nice day.

And the fact that you had to formulate your entire argument upon you coming up with your own hypotheticals to fill in the massive blanks left by the writing doesn't tell you anything about the quality of the story? The fact that your have to lead with "for all we know" in order to justify her actions isn't a huge red flag?

[not_ya_wify]

This conversation is hilarious.

Everyone's acting like they know, with exact detail, every bit of what happened between the end of our arc in Elpis and the Sundering. We don't. We don't know what Venat tried. WE just know that she was unable to convince people not to rely on Zodiark as if it was a panacea. That's all we know. We don't know how much info she tried to give them, or how little. We don't know what she told them and what she didn't. We don't know what she tried or what they did. We have none of that information.

But you're acting like she just... did nothing until it was time to go kill everyone. Without any actual indication that that was the case. And then you're taking your OWN BASELESS TIMELINE OF EVENTS and using that to make a judgement call about how you feel about the rest of the story.

For all you know, maybe she TRIED to tell people exactly what happened, and everyone was just like 'oh great, the former member of the convocation's off her rocker. Let's put her on a farm somewhere so she can have peace' - that's probably not likely. But her sitting around and not doing ANYTHING is also equally unlikely. So the reality is probably somewhere in between 'her being laughed at like a crazy person' and 'her sitting around doing nothing the whole time'

We really don't know.

But I know this isn't going to change any of your minds about your 'she did nothing and then committed genocide' fanfics of the situation, so I'll bow out here. Have a nice day.

Except she literally tells the WoL at the end of the Elpis story that she won't be telling the convocation what happened because a) it would just cause panic (ah! Yes my favorite bad writing trope) and b) we need Themis' help to understand Dynamis and prevent the final days and if I told the convocation, they'd just put him in prison.

Except dumb dumb Venat, you know that Themis' won't do shit to prevent the final days because I told you half an hour ago that the final days are happening and you will be the one genocide all the ancients.

[Skyborne]

This is funny! You're just making up fanfiction, so here's my fanfiction instead! No, stop dabbing on me, stop! I'll just go to another thread to complain about you and how you need to shut up!

It's okay to admit that ShB/EW had really infuriatingly muddy and vague writing regarding all this. Since the writing team seems to want us to fill in the blanks ourselves, I will now proceed to imagine her sitting on a tropical island sipping drinks with little umbrellas in them served by happy bunnies while, err, "shoring up defenses".

Fair's fair, considering I have sat through 3 1/2 years of "the ancients were bad and had it coming because.... oop! [goalpost shift and repeat]"

[Lauront]

Except she literally tells the WoL at the end of the Elpis story that she won't be telling the convocation what happened because a) it would just cause panic (ah! Yes my favorite bad writing trope) and b) we need Themis' help to understand Dynamis and prevent the final days and if I told the convocation, they'd just put him in prison.

Except dumb dumb Venat, you know that Themis' won't do shit to prevent the final days because I told you half an hour ago that the final days are happening and you will be the one genocide all the ancients.

Think you mean Fandaniel/Hermes. Themis is a good boy.

[PawPaw]

That's all we know. We don't know how much info she tried to give them, or how little. We don't know what she told them and what she didn't. We don't know what she tried or what they did. We have none of that information.

But you're acting like she just... did nothing until it was time to go kill everyone. Without any actual indication that that was the case. And then you're taking your OWN BASELESS TIMELINE OF EVENTS and using that to make a judgement call about how you feel about the rest of the story.

For all you know, maybe she TRIED to tell people exactly what happened, and everyone was just like 'oh great, the former member of the convocation's off her rocker. Let's put her on a farm somewhere so she can have peace' - that's probably not likely. But her sitting around and not doing ANYTHING is also equally unlikely. So the reality is probably somewhere in between 'her being laughed at like a crazy person' and 'her sitting around doing nothing the whole time'

We really don't know.

The problem with this line of thought is that we really do know. We know at least for certain what she did not do, and that is to inform anyone that mattered about what was going to happen to the star and who/what would cause it. How do we know this? Because we are told by two different Convocation members at different times and by the Watcher on the moon also that no one knew the cause of the Final Days. Even up till our present day, the origin was a complete mystery. This means that Venat told none of the Convocation (the only people who would have actually been able to do anything of consequence) and kept life-saving, hell, WORLD-saving information to herself.

And no one was going to treat her like she was mad. We learned a couple of scenes prior to the Hermes confrontation that the Ancients routinely use the Echo to relive moments of the past. Claiming that she couldn't get anyone at all to believe her is a moot point. She just had to show them.

[not_ya_wify]

and by his very nature G'raha is the biggest thematic walking contradiction in the entire universe

Also, can we talk about how inconsistent time travel works?

When G'raha travels in time he creates a separate timeline and is able to change the past.

However, when the WoL travels back in time (using the same method documented by G'raha in the Crystal Tower), we get a continuous timeline in which the actions we take were predestined and it is impossible to change the outcome.

This was probably the biggest let down for me and Elpis was an emotional rollercoaster that kept playing with my wish to save the ancients then brutally tearing it away again. After Shadowbringers, I wanted nothing more than to save the ancients but I knew that wouldn't be possible because rejoining the star would mean our starter cities (and every other locale) would stop existing which cannot happen in an MMO. Then when I heard the WoL is traveling back in time, I thought "OMG! Are we getting a separate timeline where we get to save EVERYONE?" And I thought that was an ingenious solution to the problem. But then Elidibus said "you cannot change the past" and utter disappointment hit me. Well why the fuck not? It's not like the echo where I'm just visiting memories. I'm actually going there, so why shouldn't I be able to save them? Then I get there as a ghost and I think "oh that's why.... I see what Elidibus meant." But then Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus come by and they can see me and give me a body and I think "OMG SAVING THE ANCIENTS IS BACK ON THE TABLE!" But for some reason there are no dialogue options to spill the tea and that's infuriating because the very first thing I would do is hug Emet-Selch and ugly cry and tell him about all that happened. So, I think "oh great, now the writing is forcing me to not do anything even though I totally could." Then Venat comes and forces us to spill the tea and I think "oh thank God! I AM changing everything after all." Then Hermes goes fucking ballistic and wipes people's memories (how convenient that's how I'm unable to change anything which Elidibus who had no idea of anything beforehand told me I couldn't do). But Venat somehow saves our memory and I think "Great! All I have to do is convince Emet-Selch of what just happened there." But Venat goes "nah, people will just panic if you tell them and Emet-Selch would totally put behind Hermes behind bars which in my personal super unbiased opinion is like not a good idea." WoL: "let me stay and help you."
Venat: "nah, I got this. Trust me bro."

I'm not usually one to get angry over video games but I was on Discord with an FC member and I screamed at her "YOU STUPID FUCKING BITCH I HATE YOU YOU RUINED EVERYTHING YOU INCOMPETENT BITCH." After that my FC member yelled at me for ruining the story for him and we later talked about it and apologized but it's been awkward ever since.

[not_ya_wify]

Also can I just say it feels so good to finally talk to people who hated EW too. Whenever anything negative is mentioned about EW on social media you get hounded and everyone calls you crazy.

I've been starting to think that something is wrong with me when the story is so glaringly bad in my eyes but nobody else sees it that way.

[Theodric]

I think on some level even those who supposedly love Endwalker know that it was a mess on many fronts. If they were truly so confident in the quality of the writing then they wouldn't need to police opinions and reactions.

[Skyborne]

Also can I just say it feels so good to finally talk to people who hated EW too. Whenever anything negative is mentioned about EW on social media you get hounded and everyone calls you crazy.

I've been starting to think that something is wrong with me when the story is so glaringly bad in my eyes but nobody else sees it that way.

I've noticed, especially starting in ShB and the constant flood of frenetic journalist/fan praise, that FFXIV and its fans have hung their coat on the rack of "visual novel with an optional multiplayer lobby attached". If the story itself is lackluster in the eyes of some, then what does the game offer?

Therein lies the desperation to hound/harass/gaslight...