*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[Slatersev]

The Warrior of Light is explicitly shown to be an exceptionally well-learned and traveled individual, and an excellent storyteller to boot. While it is impossible for the WoL to have known everything, there is a significant amount of information they come across over the course of the game's story. The WoL does understand the mechanics and requirements behind Calamities and Rejoinings by the time you go to Elpis. While you are correct in assuming they wouldn't know every Calamity down to the detail, they would have a very good general idea of when the (by their perception) most recent ones took place as well as which element each required the scales tip toward.

Factor in everything else the WoL knew by that point, and Venat is suddenly rather well forewarned as to things to come. If nothing else, it's plenty enough information for her to recognize signs of Ascian BS and thus be able to take action preemptively when they're setting the stage for a Calamity.

What I wonder isn't even about Calamities and the like. What I'm curious about is if the WoL bothered to tell her about all the non-Ascian-related suffering, sorrow, and death people from their time endure on the regular. Her seeming hard lean into "suffering is good" leads me to rather strongly suspect this was indeed amongst the information passed along, though I don't think Venat knew just how bad it was going to be until she saw it with her own eyes. Even the best of storytellers cannot convey such misery with words, after all. Only by seeing, if not experiencing, can one truly grasp the scope of sorrows inflicted by mortality and its frailties.

Being well learned doesn't really matter when the extent you can learn in total is still limited. The first three calamities for example have basically no information on them in world except what elements they were. Same with the fifth.

The extent the WOL could tell Venat is only based on what he has learned. And for all the things we have learned about the world massive chunks of history are basically "A Calamity happened based on an specific element and we can't even pin down which century it specifically happened in"

Like the most info we could give her for large swaths of history is the why Ascians are doing it and what elements they would use in order. Which isn't much more then a starting point, especially when the specific methods the Ascians used for most of them are both totally unknown to anyone and vary by calamity when we do.

[KariTheFox]

Yeah, my read of Venat was more that she was hedging her bets with regards to the timeline. She was never sure if she was in the same timeline as the WoL who came back to Elpis, until a bunch of conditions were met like seven calamities happening, Emet-Selch and Elibidus being dead, Fandaniel insitigating the "Final Days", etc. It's only after that point that she indicates we go back to Elpis to complete the loop. Up until that point she's not trying to perserve a timeline, just reacting to events that happen with the knowledge that maybe it will lead to the WoL from the future that she met.

And given that Venat knows that Fandaniel has access to memory wiping technology, is very dangerous, and is willing to play the long game, I think she'd be very hesititant to let anyone who might communicate with Fandaniel in on anything. For all she knew, the future where is communicated is the one that led to the Final Days, and Fandaniel just used Kairos to make everyone forget about it.

[OhNooo]

just hedging bets with people's lives no biggie amirite hahahaha

[KariTheFox]

just hedging bets with people's lives no biggie amirite hahahaha

When you're in a posistion where you have knowledge of the future, you always have to consider the possibility that sharing that knowledge or trying to stop that future is going to cause the future you are trying to prevent. This is time travel 101. Better to try to use your best judgement in the moment and react accordingly to how events unfold.

Only when you are absolutely certain that you're in a confirmed loop do you try to close it - and for Venat that point was the start of Endwalker.

But yes, she was hedging her bets with potential futures with far reaching implications. She's an ancient, doing that is in fact "no biggie" for them.

[OhNooo]

She's an ancient, doing that is in fact "no biggie" for them.

Yeah it do be like that. Guess it's a good thing they're all dead and gone. Can't have just one or two people deciding the fates of whole planets all willy nilly like that. So glad Hydie is dead like DEAD dead. Oh wait but she left us her little gift so even in death she's still affecting someone's life. Dammit....

[thegreatonemal]

Yeah it do be like that. Guess it's a good thing they're all dead and gone. Can't have just one or two people deciding the fates of whole planets all willy nilly like that. So glad Hydie is dead like DEAD dead. Oh wait but she left us her little gift so even in death she's still affecting someone's life. Dammit....

You do realize that if she didn't do what she did the universe would be dead right? Before you go "she didn't talk to anybody!" She did there, was a whole big debate about what to do. Most wanted to hide behind their shiny new god. "What about before that!" she told you why, the guy responsible is to join the team and play a vital role in making that shiny new god that stops our world from dying. Tipping him off might mean he does something crazy and he's the world's foremost expert on the subject so it's best to not do anything that might put him in a sabotage the plan mood. There's also the bit where they can't actually get to where Metion ran to, it took 6000 years for the bunnies to make the moon capable of traveling the distance. Somehow I don't think the time between the events at elips and the final days was all that long, I'd give it a week tops.

[OhNooo]

You do realize that

Now that you've explained it to me, I've completely changed my mind and I understand now. Thank you mommy Hydaelyn.

[Tehmon]

You do realize that if she didn't do what she did the universe would be dead right? Before you go "she didn't talk to anybody!" She did there, was a whole big debate about what to do. Most wanted to hide behind their shiny new god. "What about before that!" she told you why, the guy responsible is to join the team and play a vital role in making that shiny new god that stops our world from dying. Tipping him off might mean he does something crazy and he's the world's foremost expert on the subject so it's best to not do anything that might put him in a sabotage the plan mood. There's also the bit where they can't actually get to where Metion ran to, it took 6000 years for the bunnies to make the moon capable of traveling the distance. Somehow I don't think the time between the events at elips and the final days was all that long, I'd give it a week tops.

She might've tried to lead ancients down the path of accepting misery and by doing so shifting the ancient society to a place where they could combat despair itself, but she never informed the ancients the real cause of the Final Days. She placed her bet on the sundered being able to combat despair and save the universe, as ancients turned their back on the idea of accepting anything but paradise, to the point they were willing to sacrifice potential innocent lives. Without the knowledge of the source of Final Days, things might've gone different, or they might've not, or everything could've ended up worse for everyone, both the ancients and the sundered.

We do not know what would've happened had Venat told everything she knew, so we cannot for sure say what the fate of the universe would've been had Venat come clean. What we DO know is by not informing the ancients, the universe has averted a grim end, but at a cost of a great civilization.

[thegreatonemal]

She might've tried to lead ancients down the path of accepting misery and by doing so shifting the ancient society to a place where they could combat despair itself, but she never informed the ancients the real cause of the Final Days. She placed her bet on the sundered being able to combat despair and save the universe, as ancients turned their back on the idea of accepting anything but paradise, to the point they were willing to sacrifice potential innocent lives. Without the knowledge of the source of Final Days, things might've gone different, or they might've not, or everything could've ended up worse for everyone, both the ancients and the sundered.

We do not know what would've happened had Venat told everything she knew, so we cannot for sure say what the fate of the universe would've been had Venat come clean. What we DO know is by not informing the ancients, the universe has averted a grim end, but at a cost of a great civilization.

The whole debate about what to do in the aftermath was that. They didn't wanna listen. What does telling them Metion is out there do? They can't actually get to her and they can't fight her. If anything telling them drives them deeper into their despair and might cause them to do something dumb. That's speculation of course but a people who were so hell bent on going back to the good ole days doesn't just change their minds, otherwise they would have. I wouldn't call a civilization that only cares about it's people great.

[KizuyaKatogami]

You do realize that if she didn't do what she did the universe would be dead right? Before you go "she didn't talk to anybody!" She did there, was a whole big debate about what to do. Most wanted to hide behind their shiny new god. "What about before that!" she told you why, the guy responsible is to join the team and play a vital role in making that shiny new god that stops our world from dying. Tipping him off might mean he does something crazy and he's the world's foremost expert on the subject so it's best to not do anything that might put him in a sabotage the plan mood. There's also the bit where they can't actually get to where Metion ran to, it took 6000 years for the bunnies to make the moon capable of traveling the distance. Somehow I don't think the time between the events at elips and the final days was all that long, I'd give it a week tops.

I’m sorry where’s this big debate? The only thing we’re shown is her addressing the ancients during the final days… When she had the knowledge to bring it up beforehand and potentially avert the entire calamity altogether. She again, didn’t seem to even tell her closest followers everything, as the watcher has no clue about meteion, and her followers didn’t know their souls would be consumed etc.