Quote Originally Posted by jameseoakes View Post
I don't think the writers wanted Venat to be a monster but then for almost no actual reason have her compleley exterminate her own people
I figured Venat would be the mirror to Emet. Instead, what we got was a character who in every possible way is an antagonist, but never treated as such by anyone including characters who should have seething hatred and contempt for her. She even lacks the sympathetic motivations of Emet, but the game tries to force you to believe she's sacrificed on behalf of her love of mankind.

She's a much closer parallel to the Christian God, except with zero mercy whatsoever. She makes no exemptions for anyone save those who will work tirelessly against her and her 'sparing' them is an eternal condemnation in itself. This also makes it impossible to relate to her because even in the case of God you're told that as a human you cannot comprehend His plan, but in Venat's case she's just a woman regardless of whether or not she claims the mantle of "Supreme Deity". A woman who comes up with illogical reasons why she cannot confide in others, who dooms her people due to her own fears and lack of faith.

I'm not convinced the Venat we got in EW was Ishikawa's intent, especially not after the NieR crossover cutscenes which depict the sundering as a brutal butchering of souls that led to such an extreme devolution of mankind they could no longer form words or use language. I suspect that Yoshi-P and/or someone else told her after the fact that Hydaelyn must be a "good" character and with the reduced timeline the best she could do was keep events as they were, but give Venat a likeable personality and gaslight the Hell out of the audience to the extent of breaking established character development and turning everyone into a hypocrite (or worse). Even this could've easily been explained away if Hydaelyn tempered, in which context EW makes a lot more sense.