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

[Brinne]

This turned into a very strange variety of Cringe Ramble, so I apologize beforehand.

As I've said a few times, I really like Hermes - but that's from the angle of understanding that he wasn't being Fair, or was The Most Human - he was a selfish hypocrite in denial of his own emotional reasons, and no matter what he claims, puts himself and his own pain far and beyond anybody else's. The primary reason he seems to feel so deeply for others is that he's very good at projecting his pain upon them in a form of fundamentally cowardly expression of himself, because he's too insecure and disdainful of others to express them directly and risk them challenging his worldview or self-perspective. From that viewpoint, I think he's a fun character who you can really sink your teeth into, and provides a lot of opportunities to explore interesting topics. As a "oh, well, Hermes's actions were Fair though," however, beyond being deeply skeptical of that premise, I immediately fall asleep.

(That my reading of Hermes in this way might not match up to Author Intention doesn't necessarily bother me, but I completely understand it being a hard line for others. This is not the first time I've more or less gone through the "hey, author, you wrote a super compelling character here and totally didn't realize it, lmao" rodeo.)

Like, "Hermes finds out that he is in fact living in the best place and the best conditions possible and is still miserable" is potentially extremely compelling and a Grade-A opportunity to exert some Compassion (tm). However, the narrative didn't go out of its way to explore that angle, and Hermes's reaction - violence and hatred and destruction - quickly undermines any chances of using that as a platform for Compassion and Actually Understanding How Depression Works.

But you could still see him as a potentially compelling character! Humans are irrational, and oftentimes those irrationalities can be very interesting. I'm not saying this is true of Hermes - I don't believe it of him, actually, once again I think he's a Huge Hypocritical Jerk - but I do think people truly hit real breaking points. Points in which they become incapable of acting rationally or seeing outside of themselves - no, this is not the same as excusing the actions of culpability or somesuch - at which case, generally, there's a more complex and far more interesting conversation to be had than "were they justified?"

My favorite character in all of fiction is a brutal mass-murderer who enacted an elaborate plan to slaughter their entire family. Obviously, there is no justifying this action, and they objectively "had other options". It's ridiculous to even debate within that framework. However, they are so psychologically compelling and their situation is constructed as such that I "buy into" the idea that they hit their breaking point of being genuinely incapable of seeing any other way out. You can trace exactly how their worldview was constructed, and how events impacted them, that it mounted to a desperation that their way (mass murder!) was really the best way for everyone and the kindest action possible for them in the long run.

(Obviously, there's more nuance, and some element of self-serving justification wrapped up in that, but that makes them all the more compelling to me.)

This is a distinction between the likes of Emet-Selch versus Venat I think doesn't really get touched on in the midst of "whose action was justified and whose wasn't" (neither were or both were, genocide is never justified, glad we got that out of the way) that's a huge factor in the differing response to the characters - and an aspect of why, while Venat is popular, Emet-Selch basically set the world on fire in a unique way.

The construction of Emet-Selch feeling he had no other option is more detailed and compelling than the one given for Venat. I can understand him hating what he had to do for the Rejoinings, but if he dared even considering to stop, then he would be betraying everyone he loved and everyone who was relying on him to save them. I get why while, objectively, simply stopping was an option for him, it was not emotionally plausible given his situation. This leads to a compelling character whose scenes you can watch on several levels, because he's at war with himself the entire time and this bears out in his behavior. You can see him, one second, trying to enforce to himself he has to carry on, the next, obviously looking for a way out, and the next, somehow doing both at the same time.

Venat, I think, is magnitudes harder to understand why she might have felt "she had no other options." She provides mostly logistical "explanations" (because we don't want to introduce the idea of Venat's personal responsibility in these decisions) that aren't compelling, and therefore, you're (general you) inclined to scrutinize those on a logistical level, rather than Emet's psychological one - and they don't hold up. The more you scrutinize, the more ridiculous it all seems. You're scared to tell Hermes? Things could turn out worse? How could they possibly be worse than the future I just described to you? You're self-admittedly not even a Dynamis expert? Oh no, if you went to Emet-Selch, there's a chance Hermes could find out, and we can't take that risk (better to go the route we're certain will end in the world being destroyed!)

And because Venat is written to be an admirable figure to the player first and foremost, there's no room to provide context as to why certain options are so terrifying to her as to be emotionally implausible to her as an action. She's terrified of the Plenty. Why? Why did this scare her so much more than the descriptions of the other Dead Ends? What has happened in her life to make her so utterly petrified of a destruction revolving around peaceful stagnation as opposed to causing the violent deaths of everyone around her? Because Venat has to be "right" and a "good person" first and foremost, such possible "human" aspects aren't explored - so we're left to conclude, she's terrified of the Plenty simply because, according to the story, She's Right. And that leads to a whole new special level of "that doesn't hold up under scrutiny."

I find a lot of discourse when trying to talk about stories really exasperating because it often coming down to shouting matches over "is [x] good or is [x] bad" and that is, like, the most boring way to dissect fiction ever. Venat is a bad person and the narrative is exasperating for trying to sell us on the opposite, but equally important: she's also not compelling. All of the emotion surrounding her is an attempt to get you to feel for her, pure uncritical reaction, without thinking about any actual depth or conflict to be had in her character in any meaningful way. That's not what she's there for.

It's one thing to say "well, they did this because they felt they had no other options." But from a writing perspective, that's not enough. The next question that needs to be asked is: "Why?"

[CrownySuccubus]

My favorite character in all of fiction is a brutal mass-murderer who enacted an elaborate plan to slaughter their entire family.

Which character is this, by the by?

Incidentally, my favorite all-time villain (although Emet-Selch vies for the spot) is Kuja from FFIX -- who was a genocidal, racist narcissist who had such little empathy for the deaths of other people that he ordered his minions to painfully murder a child, tried to kill innocent people for no reason other than the fact that he found it funny, and then decided to obliterate all existence everywhere because he thought it was unfair for anything to exist after he died.

But Kuja was such an over-theatrical, card-carrying jerk that I couldn't help but feel entertained. Hell, I even thought his reasons (though still unsound and cruel) were at least valid; Kuja was fated to be born and die as a slave whose life didn't matter, so he jumped to the extreme opposite end and decided that ONLY he himself mattered.

Unlike Hermes, Kuja actually DID figure out why he was "wrong" just before he died, and though that in no way justifies or undoes his horrific actions, it was still interesting development and his selfish actions had the unintentional effect of teaching the rest of his race how to think for themselves.

[Brinne]

Which character is this, by the by?

Ahahaha. I'm risking giving away my identity in Other Online Spaces here, but it's "Yasuda" from Umineko no Naku Koro ni. (If you have any interest in reading that title, do not look up anything about that character or that series. It's structured as a mystery story where you are supposed to work out the culprit and is one of those uniquely frustrating works where "you can't explain anything about why you love it without spoiling everything.")

Kuja was a great character and I would definitely agree the Final Fantasy franchise's most emotionally compelling antagonist before Emet pranced his way onstage.

[AziraSyuren]

Ahahaha. I'm risking giving away my identity in Other Online Spaces here, but it's "Yasuda" from Umineko no Naku Koro ni. (If you have any interest in reading that title, do not look up anything about that character or that series. It's structured as a mystery story where you are supposed to work out the culprit and is one of those uniquely frustrating works where "you can't explain anything about why you love it without spoiling everything.")

Ayyy, you have great taste. Yasuda and Battler are some of my favorite fictional characters ever too.

[Brinne]

Ayyy, you have great taste. Yasuda and Battler are some of my favorite fictional characters ever too.

One of the undisputed highlights of my life was getting to tell Ryukishi07 that Yasuda was my favorite character in the entire world. \o/ Umineko lovers high-five! I have accepted in my heart that Requiem of the Golden Witch was literally peak fiction for me and I will never feel anything approaching the high of reading it ever again.