The Ancients still deserved better, after everything

[Rulakir]

By your reasoning, everyone who has ever participated in the creation of a book, movie, TV show, song, or other work of art showcasing violence should be in prison for murder because they give others the idea that violence is a reasonable action.

This isn't random violence. This is someone we know is going to be opposed to Zodiark if he's created and who we know would've been unable to defeat him without the sundering. "Hydaelyn was created with the power to enervate Her foe", which the WoL is responsible for telling her to do. Specificity is important here.

As for the rest, it depends entirely on your interpretation. I've seen more than my fair share of people hand waving Venat's actions as her being bound by maintaining a time loop, in which case that does mean that she has to let events unfold as they do including sitting on her hands when the First nearly falls to the Flood of Light. Yoshi-P's take was that she even worked meticulously in the background to ensure a return to the WoL.

[EaraGrace]

Yoshi-P's take was that she even worked meticulously in the background to ensure a return to the WoL.

I am begging people not to misinterpret what he said. Here’s the summary of that answer from the Live Letter forum post

Q: I don’t really understand why the Warrior of Light messing around in Elpis didn’t create any alternate timelines. Can you explain what happened?

A: First of all, we’ve left that part up to interpretation.

With that said, my personal interpretation is that the past and present were always the part of the same timeline. Although there was still a possibility for the timelines to diverge, the Warrior of Light was unwittingly acting in accordance with Venat’s plans, which unified the past and present. Another interpretation might be that Venat worked really hard behind the scenes to ensure that the timeline wouldn’t go awry.

Seeing how Argos took to us on our first meeting, I’d say that proves that the past and present were already unified.

That is not his theory, that’s an alternative one.

[Jojoya]

This isn't random violence. This is someone we know is going to be opposed to Zodiark if he's created and who we know would've been unable to defeat him without the sundering. "Hydaelyn was created with the power to enervate Her foe", which the WoL is responsible for telling her to do. Specificity is important here..

Except the WoL doesn't have the power or influence to tell any Ancient what they must do. Sharing information about a timeline's history isn't telling someone what to do, especially when it's already acknowledged that multiple timelines exist.

Up until the end of Ktisis, none of them really believed the WoL's story. Hythlodaeus was humoring the WoL (one of Azem's crazy pranks, utilizing a familiar). Venat was treating the WoL like some sort of puzzle to solve. Emet was trying to ignore the WoL and still did not believe the story even as Kairos was finishing its countdown.

Venat was setting out to find her own answers when she parted with the WoL. She tells the WoL that their timelines may not converge depending on what choices she ends up making. That she ended up choosing the path she did was none of the WoL's doing. It was her doing.

Most important, you need to remember that you are not the WoL. The WoL is a fictitious character written for the purpose of telling a story. We may be experiencing the story through the eyes of that character but we are not them. We do not control the choices that the character makes nor are we responsible for them. That's on the storywriter.

Stop trying to make yourselves out as victims of some dastardly scheme to turn you into a bad guy. It's just a story.

[Theodric]

Stop trying to make yourselves out as victims of some dastardly scheme to turn you into a bad guy. It's just a story.

Nobody is suggesting that is anything more than a story, though...?

As it happens, it's a story that people have invested in for up to a decade and the finale left a decent amount of people left wanting.

I think it's telling that World of Warcraft gave Horde players the choice to either side with or oppose a character as controversial as Sylvanas when she decided to engage in an act of genocide. That FFXIV did not show the player the same respect and simply assumed that we'd be perfectly fine going along with Venat's plan to genocide the Ancients is, quite honestly, pretty bizarre.

I just want consistency, personally. Genocide was established as a red line in the sand that absolutely could not be crossed and was to be opposed. Except, of course, that one time it was a 'good' genocide because it directly benefitted the protagonists.

[Rulakir]

Except the WoL doesn't have the power or influence to tell any Ancient what they must do. Sharing information about a timeline's history isn't telling someone what to do, especially when it's already acknowledged that multiple timelines exist.

This doesn't matter in the context of a time loop. It created a paradox wherein the WoL telling Venat about the sundering leads to it happening. Most of us would've loved for Elpis to have ended in a positive outcome AU and probably wouldn't be here complaining had that happened.

Up until the end of Ktisis, none of them really believed the WoL's story. Hythlodaeus was humoring the WoL (one of Azem's crazy pranks, utilizing a familiar). Venat was treating the WoL like some sort of puzzle to solve. Emet was trying to ignore the WoL and still did not believe the story even as Kairos was finishing its countdown.

Well, I can't argue this cause it's your subjective interpretation at best and headcanon at worst.

Venat was setting out to find her own answers when she parted with the WoL. She tells the WoL that their timelines may not converge depending on what choices she ends up making. That she ended up choosing the path she did was none of the WoL's doing. It was her doing.

This argument only works until she commits herself to becoming Hydaelyn and enacting the sundering. Even then it's questionable because her dialog at the end of Ktsis would suggest she has already decided not to do anything differently.

Most important, you need to remember that you are not the WoL. The WoL is a fictitious character written for the purpose of telling a story. We may be experiencing the story through the eyes of that character but we are not them. We do not control the choices that the character makes nor are we responsible for them. That's on the storywriter.

Stop trying to make yourselves out as victims of some dastardly scheme to turn you into a bad guy. It's just a story.

Well, for "just a story" you certainly seem invested in telling people how they should have thought and felt throughout it. Are you one of the writers?