Who knew the 6.15 Omega Quests… (Spoilers)

[Renathras]

You created a parallel between the Ancients and the Nazis as part of your argument, inherently tying them with anybody who happens to like or agree with the Ancients.

FALSE!!!

How DARE you even suggest that.

No part of saying "thing you like is bad" is saying "you are bad for liking it". That may be a moral judgement on YOUR part, but it was not one that I made. Believe me, I'm not the passive aggressive type. If I intended to call any of you Nazis, I'd do so outright. So you need have no confusion on THAT point.

Now, with THAT nonsense out of the way (it really IS weird so many of you want to die on that hill, though...touched a nerve, perhaps...):

You're right that a lot of these arguments began in ShB, in that period more centered on Emet-Selch.

...

But with Venat, all of those arguments flew out the window. Now, even though she genocided her own people, introduced millennia on untold suffering, and allowed for the destruction of multiple planets, all just to deal with a single threat, she is "at her core a good person, making the best of a bad situation", who did the only thing she could have to reach an end that was desirable.

This is nonsense, because most people saying that of Venat also say that of Emet. My position on Emet is not dissimilar. Based on what he knew, he made what he thought were the right calls in a terrible situation. Do you believe Emet would feel that sacrificing Hythlodeus was a good move? Sacrificing one of his best friends (Hyth) while his other best friend (Azem) very clearly disagreed with the entire plan to the point he/she refused to even take part in it or even TAKE A SIDE in the Convocation vs Venat debate? People making the pro-Venat argument - at least me personally - also feel that Emet was not a bad person, and was a good person faced with horrible options.

I'll note here that the narrative ALSO basically says this in several ways. Hydaelyn retrieving Emet's soul. Emet's annoyance in UT at having been a pawn/puppet, and grudgingly liking you (the WoL) while playing at not doing so. The entire Elpis arc showing that Emet wasn't a bad person inherently. The scene of the Sundering where Venat walks by Emet and Hythlodeus parting where it's clear Emet wasn't pleased with things going down that way, even though Hyth was putting on a brave face for him. Even in ShB, it lets you talk to Emet and see things through his eyes, and he even bucked the Convocation to make Azem's stone and leave it for you, AND it was Emet that brought you back from the abyss that Elidibus sent you to, even after his death - and before we got to the point in the 6.0 story to realize that 5.3 Emet...might have had his memories back....... [Huh...this was the first time I've actually put that together...]

Where most people draw the line of distinction is that Emet could actually talk with us, see that we were intelligent and sentient beings striving for a better future, and decided that wasn't good enough anyway, vs Venat talking to the Ancients, trying to convince them to turn from their path of destruction, and them insisting to make a WORSE future instead. And even still, most people on the Venat side would place her and Emet in rough parity as good, well meaning people faced with impossibly difficult choices that had no right answers.

The truth is that Venat is exactly the same as Emet-Selch.

Congratulations! We, more or less, agree.

I think the real reason why there's so much vitriol on this topic is that Endwalker took a conflict that had already polarized people, and flipped the script and swapped the actor's roles into positions they'd previously been acting in opposition to. This creates so much cognitive dissonance and retroactive hypocrisy that any conversation is doomed to fail from the getgo. That's without even getting into the lore minutia or specific plot details.

I'm not sure this is really accurate. The scene where Venat sunders the world showed she clearly didn't want to do it and was trying to find another way. We don't really see that with Emet in ShB at any point OUTRIGHT. The closest is one may interpret that he MIGHT have entertained another option if the WoL could have overcome the Warden's Light, but that's not really all that clear in the narrative, nor is it clear what alternative path he might have pursued - for all we know, he might have decided it justified Rejoinings as a 7 times Rejoined soul would have re-attained such power.

It is also a bit odd to me that people were so polarized on this to begin with (whether Emet was good or evil - the narrative seemed pretty clear to me that he was a good person at heart, especially by the conclusion of 5.3, who was entertaining horrible ends because, in his mind, they (a) were the only means available to him and (b) that he didn't exactly feel they were so horrible - "I do not believe you are alive, ergo, it is not murder if I kill you.")

But then, I've always been the type to judge people by their viewpoint, "what they know", which is something I get from a really old reference I was taught as a kid. I try to avoid the historian's fallacy of judging people from different eras by our modern standards, and in fictional stories, I try to do the same - based on THEIR viewpoint, both what they knew personally/were aware of and what their overall worldview was (e.g. gods will think differently of death than mortals will), was what they were doing right or wrong to them? Now, I don't hold to a relativistic moral system where there IS no right or wrong, but if I'm to judge someone, I'll judge them based on what they knew and thought, not what I or someone else might have known or thought in their place.

...but I may be somewhat unusual in this respect.

Other people do exist on this forum, I'm not sure why alts is the most likely scenario here.

Did I say they did not?

Alts as the most likely scenario is because his posts gained the likes instantly. Most posts here take scores of minutes or hours to get likes, because, let's be honest, not many people frequent these forums. No one is sitting hitting refresh just to LIKE a post by someone else. I can barely be bothered to hit refresh to see if my post has been responded to by someone to have a discussion with. In fact, I generally just come back later. A post getting 2 likes within 5-6 minutes being posted in the middle of the night with no one else actually making posts IS a bit suspect. It happening several times in a row during the middle of most people's night with, again, not one of those likers posting, is quite a bit more suspect. Especially since his post after I noted that...got no likes in that same timeframe. (It did get some a day later, which is especially odd since it was a post of him admitting he was wrong.) And no one to date has even made the claim of being the 2 likers - despite how it would have been impossible to disprove them, no one even bothered to make the claim.

But as I said, it's not productive, so it's whatever.

As for your posts, a lot of it is based off of your own further speculation and musings rather than what we are shown in game, which is admittedly easily done.

Tell me what I "speculated and mused rather than was shown in the game"? You say "a lot of it", so you should be able to provide several examples of me "speculating and musing" on things that weren't shown in the game.

The Nazi argument however is frankly offensive and in very poor taste, I don't think something as sensitive as an oppressive dictatorship and the real world genocide of actual people should be being used to justify your argument about dubious, poorly written plot devices in a video game.

Hello! Welcome to the 2000s! People have been using that "frankly offensive and in very poor taste" comparison for everything from pandemic lockdowns to holding a military parade on a national holiday by a political leader they disliked. Moreover, in this case, it's highly applicable. I'm a fan of history, meaning I tend to draw on history when considering fictional topics to think "How would we view this if it was in our actual history?" I also presented the same argument without using the Nazi term - but THAT didn't get any attention nor rebuttal, other than one person saying that the Ancients being cultural/racial supremacists was an inapt comparison (they used considerably less respectful wording), and then didn't answer when I justified the position. In fact, several people who quoted PART of that left off that part instead of trying to offer a rebuttal, because all the canon we have shows them as being that, so there really isn't a counter-argument.

That said, the main issue I took with your posts was such; the ancients we are actually presented with are compassionate enough to carry out funeral rites for the creations that must be unmade, ... It is not that the ancients are indiscriminately killing anything they want without reason or with some sort of malice, nor is it 'racial superiority' as these are quite literally different species and most of which are arcane entities as far as we know. Beyond a passing mention that the star grants souls to certain creations and that the Lykaon was bid return, we have no reason to believe that a majority of these creations have souls.

So several things to unpack here.

We see the Ancients BEFORE the Final Days. Not during them. We also see them, as the Ascians, AFTER the Final Days, when they are not so kind. Can you show me any bit of canon lore, from 1.0 to 6.1, of an Ascian performing funeral rites for any of the Sundered? Or even doing more than a generalized pity (when we only really got from Emet) at their overall situation? I can't think of any other than Emet's general pity, which was still insufficient to stay his hand. Where is the compassion? You can argue they MIGHT have felt mass death Rejoinings were some kind of mercy, but they persisted in carrying them out even once the victims made clear they were not in favor of that "mercy". And I know you don't like the comparison, so I'll be more generalized; all real world dictatorships have had people in them that "were just following orders" that didn't REALLY want to do the things they were asked to do. That doesn't exactly make them less bad (or the comparison you dislike being less applicable). If anything, it makes the Ancients kind of seem more like irl past totalitarian regimes, not less.

Good people exist in bad societies. That doesn't mean the societies and their overall trajectory weren't bad. As I've said, I feel Emet was a good person forced to make bad decisions.

Though for reference, I never said their killing was indiscriminate.

I have said that it WAS killing. And it was killing classes of, in some cases, sentient beings, against their will. I'm not sure what to call that other than genocide. And they were killing them explicitly because they considered them lesser beings (racist, or if you prefer, specist, supremacy); sure, it was to further some end, but that's hardly been a distinction in real world history, so I'm not sure why it should be here. Some people of a race thinking they were superior to others and harming them in some way for what they felt was a positive overall end for society/the world is hardly justification, to us now, of such actions. Why should it be with the Ancients?

If we are in the realm of speculation; you previously linked the Tales from the Shadows featuring the Phoenix, during that story Emet-Selch is shocked to see the creation has a soul. My interpretation of that particular aspect was that it must be somewhat rare for a creation to gain a soul for Emet to be as taken aback as he is, though admittedly those circumstances were not the norm.

For my part, I wasn't in the "realm of speculation". Though I'll note that the way Hylthodeus describes it, it wasn't exactly uncommon. The issue in this case was that an angsty soul was stuck in an undying body, and that was what was more shocking. Though I will grant you THAT is up to interpretation, what is NOT is that many lesser beings do have souls, and many of their constructs did, as Hermes specifically talks to Emet about that in Elpis as part of the reason he feels uneasy with their cultural status quo on deleting created beings, which Emet simply rebuffs.

Some of their creations went on to be the Beast Tribes, which we can reasonably say have souls, so it can't be considered that uncommon.

And when it comes to the Ascian treatment of Sundered, the Sundered beings very clearly have souls.

So at no time did that seem to be an issue with them, or, at least, we've never been told so canonically.

Honestly I believe a lot of EW's issues are down to inconsistent writing and a disparity between what we are meant to think about the ancient society and what we are actually presented with in the game. You can assert that Venat took the correct actions without trying to justify or twist the fact that she committed genocide, I'm not sure why this is so difficult.

That's...what I did, though?

I presented several points that, collectively, had me reach my overall conclusion. Only one of them was "if you felt your society was about to follow in the footsteps of [REDACTED BAD SOCIETY], would destroying your society be worth it to you to prevent that?", and that's not really "justifying" genocide either, since my overall presentation was, as I've continued to say, that Venat seemed a good person who had no good options and did the one she thought was least bad.

I'm not sure how this is so difficult.

Ah, no, that doesn't exist here.

Fair enough. This is still the internet, I suppose...

Also, I wouldn't say you entered in good faith.

Well, then you'd be wrong.

Much of your original statement was your own personal interpretation and conjecture.

A lot of you are making this charge, yet not one of you has actually justified it with outright examples. What - and be specific now - did I offer that was "personal interpretation and conjecture" that I didn't outright say so in some way (e.g. "I think..." or "The way I see it...")?

Then you insinuated if I didn't agree with your assessment that I must've skipped cutscenes.

NO!

At least get your order of events right!

YOU said to me, and I quote:

This is so wildly different than frankly any interpretation I've seen I'm kind of fascinated how you arrived at it. (Not to mention full on veering into headcanon, but that's par for the course around here.)

Our first interaction - that is, you and I - was saying you were "fascinated" at how I arrived at a "wildly different than frankly any interpretation I've seen" position, implying my position was absurd and not based on any facts or conon.
...which you then cemented by saying "Not to mention full on veering into headcanon", even though I did no such thing.

You didn't even mention what in my post you thought was headcanon so I could respond.

You used "headcanon" as a blanket insult so you could dismiss my entire argument (which, so we're clear, was not "headcanon" to begin with) so you could keep believing what you want to beilive.

Now, don't mistake me, I don't mind you believing whatever you want to believe. But you effectively belittled and maligned me to do so. That I do take issue with. As I said before, you COULD have just said, "Huh, well, I see your perspective, but this is mine <explains perspective>", instead of your dismissive "<dismissive laugh> Oh you and your silly headcanon!"

Don't play the victim now.

YOU attacked me and my post first. And as I've said since, the reason I even made the "skipped cutscenes" comment was because some of the things I said - ALL of which you called headcanon since you didn't single out anything specific as such - was in the actual canon cutscenes. So the logical conclusion is that you must not have watched them.

But note YOU derided ME first. Not the other way around.

There's nowhere for a discussion to go at that point, which is why I had nothing else to say.

That much may be fair and correct, but likely not for the reason you think it is...

Likewise, this is almost identical language to other posters. Are you an alt?

lol, show me ONE other person in this forum that posts like I do. I'm long-winded, PAINFULLY detailed, and don't mind pushing character counts in posts. I'm trying to use the hb tag now that I've been introduced to it to make my posts easier to read, I'll capitalize some words for emphasis though I'm trying to use b and i tags more for that, and I go into extensive, Urianger-length discussions about specific components of arguments just to make sure I'm sufficiently beating the horse to death to avoid people misintepreting or caricaturing what I'm saying (not that it matters, as people do it anyway)

I'm probably a PITA for anyone who doesn't think like I do to read my posts, but one thing is certain for better or for worse:

There's no one here that posts like I do.

That's a pretty laughable attempt at a "I'll use your insult against you". Of all the things you could accuse me of that I've accused others of, you picked the one that has so little merit anyone reading that would laugh at the absurdity of it. XD And I don't mean this to belittle you, it's just that's the ONE thing you can accuse me of that there's no way you can actually justify or present evidence to support.

And I say this in the most self-depreciating way possible - though I've decided that no Human is ENTIRELY unique from the rest of us, my debate style and presentation in text form is pretty damn unique, lol

(Incidentally, your previous post about lies getting likes, yes, absolutely, and it's been that way for as long as I've been here.)

Fair enough.

Doesn't make it a good thing.

Not entirely sure what this is supposed to mean?

It means some people want nuance and shades of gray, and when they don't get it (instead getting "true good" characters), they get upset that said characters DON'T have a dark streak or skeleton in their closet or so on. Indeed, ironically, if your argument is true (10/10 would sunder again), the Venat was the figure you wanted - a person that admitted she did wrong but would do it again anyway because she thought it was the right choice. But the thing is...if she thought it was the RIGHT choice...

Zodiark doesn't have a side? His purpose is in my sig: Salvation. I perhaps picked an inconvenient time to start repping Elidibus with all this conspiracy talk of alts, but I am weary of the narrative which couldn't have happened if he hadn't sacrificed himself to save the world, a protection that the sundered continued to enjoy for 12k years while Hydaelyn is attributed with forestalling the Final Days. I've since been told it's but one of many translation errors in EW. Particularly frustrating because much of what this forum takes as canon is actually worded so differently in FR, DE, and JP that my foreign friends have started mocking the EN translation for being so ridiculously bad. I'm beginning to understand why when I talk to some people about EW it's like we played different games.

You're also conflating what characters knew based on what they were aware of. For example, the Y'Shtola quote is not from a person sitting outside of the narrative looking in. Remember the scene where the WoL returns to the present and we see Venat do the sundering, there was (imo, a brilliant) scene with her walking her path flashing to the WoL confronting Hades (seriously, even if you HATE the narrative, that framing and presentation on those interchanging shots was fantastic)? We, the player, sees what she said and what she did (though it was likely stylized since it appears she talks to a crowd of a dozen or so people and that was LIKELY supposed to represent a much larger group overall), and then we see her walking the ages (though we don't really see what she DID other than that she was injured over the course of them and eventually even dropped her sword)

Y'Shtola didn't see that.

So why would she talk in a way as if she had?

As far as she and most of the races alive today that see Hydaelyn as a goddess and based on what she read (that we, the player, did NOT) of Venat and the End Days in the archives of Anydas (where she hung out from, what, 5.1 to 5.3 or so?), she may have a different position than we do based on having different facts and knowledge than we, the player, have had access to.

This would be akin to grumbling that a stone age man didn't have an adequate appreciation of Evolution.

I enjoyed reading your posts and I agree that your big post itself was not provoking in such a way to "deserve" all these attacks. Sadly this is just how the lore forum is now. :/

Well as a female gamer who likes Venat as a character, I am seemingly now a simp too. Maybe one day I will learn to like the right characters and not such bland ones! (And yes this is ironic)

Hey, more power to you.

Honestly, I have no issue with people liking what they like. As I said to that other person, I don't mind them believing whatever they want to believe. What I take issue with is them lying about me, lying about what I've said, making out like I'm a horrible person who is arguing in bad faith and calling people Nazis, and feeling they need to belittle my posts, insult me - or anyone else who doesn't agree with them - as "simps" or the like, and so on, just so they can keep believing what they want.

If a person wishes to believe something that is untrue, that's fine by me. But they should at least say "Okay, it's clearly debatable that I may be wrong, but this is the choice I wish to make anyway". THAT I can at least respect. I once had a person tell me, in discussing a topic, that as far as they could tell, my arguments were sound, my facts were indisputable, and they could find no fault with my position...but they really wanted to believe in the opposed position, and so would continue to do so. My response was, what I hope was, mature and straightforward. "Fair enough. I can respect that." They acknowledged the reality, and made a conscious choice of will. That I can respect, even if I feel it's wrong.

What I can't respect is when people lie about others and lie to themselves so they can keep believing something instead of coming to that rational realization.

I'm not even contesting people wanting to believe Venat is a villain - as I said in my first post, I simply don't understand it, based on what we actually have as canon that says otherwise.

Not sure what is going on behind closed doors, but I am hesitant to put it down to mere incompetence. Maybe they think EN players can't handle nuance?

It wouldn't be the first time parts of the company didn't think part of its Western fanbase couldn't handle some things. It's how we ended up with Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.

That is true (FF6->3's original English translation/version - heck, FF4->2's where they thought the game was "too hard" for Westerners, which also happened with the original Mario Bros 2, later ported to the West as "The Lost Levels")...but if that was the case, why would it just be the English version and not the French and German as well? You can't even make a US vs UK/Europe argument here, since they could have a separate English version for Europeans if they thought it was uniquely Americans. I'm not sure this position can be argued so well since they didn't do it with all non-JP languages.

Well considering they don’t think the EN players can handle any character deaths….you aren’t too far off.

Wait...are there character deaths in the non-English version of FFXIV where that same character DOESN'T die in the English version of FFXIV...? o.O

It's not like we're actually playing a different game, they're not killing off characters left and right in the JP version.

Okay, good. I was kinda confused there for a second. XD

Not funny! Didn't laugh!

Wasn't a joke, so...good?

I think part of your problem is you assume a LOT of things about other people/what they're saying, then get mad about the things you ASSUMED about them/what they were saying, weather they're actually true or not.

Maybe... People like his posts... cause they like his posts... and they happen to be here...

Maybe, but I didn't mention any issues with people liking his posts. I mentioned issue with his posts all getting exactly two likes just as they're posted no matter what, and immediately after mentioning this, his next post did not get said likes.

But let's go with the less likely option as it lets you accuse the opposition of being bots thus invalidating their argument.

What part of "You have alts to make it look like your position has more support" is saying "You're an AI scrip someone is running making artificially generated replies"? o.O

Indeed, I didn't say nor did I imply it invalidated his argument. If I was implying anything, it was that his arguments have less support than their like counter suggests. And I wasn't even implying that, I was simply musing at the time that his replies to me all seemed to instantly get two - only and exactly two - likes immediately on being posted, even though we're in a somewhat inactive forum and no one else was posting in the thread at the time, and it was an off-time of night for people to be posting in the first place, meaning an off-time for people to be browsing just to like posts immediately as they were posted, several in a row.

You implied the Ancients were becoming nazis...

Would become, but yes.

You were called out for calling the Ancients nazis...

No, I was not.

I was "called out" for calling forum posters Nazis, something I never did. I was "called out" for something I was innocent of. The person trying the "call out" was wrong.

You asked for proof...

I did. Which is a good policy when someone makes up slander about you.

You were given proof...

No, I wasn't. I was given a half-quote single sentence out of context that I had ALREADY quoted myself (edited previous post for length to add) and explained, and then I explained it again, to which the person "calling me out" apologized and admitted they were wrong.

But yeah, people are making stuff up about you?

The dude LITERALLY admitted he was wrong about it and apologized!

Ok then I was mistaken. Sure. Sorry.

Granted, he followed that up with insisting I was picking fights, implicitly admitting that he didn't like me, and then pulling a Golum "Nobody likes you!" (THIS, btw, IS a joke - he wasn't saying no one, he was just saying he didn't like me and likely others don't as well, something I fully accept is probably true, though we likely disagree on the reasons.)

B R U H

B R U H

The dude literally said he was wrong and apologized.

Comes in, proceeds to call characters nazis,

A society, but sure. But I wasn't calling any person here commenting one.

gets upset when called out for doing so,

Except I wasn't "called out" for calling the Ancients Nazis (initially). I was "called out", falsely, as calling forum posters Nazis, a position that the person who "called me out" realized was wrong on further discussion and apologized for.

calls people alts

I didn't call anyone an alt. Why do you like making up lies and saying them as if they're facts?

I mused that someone might be using alt accounts to like their own posts. I didn't suggest the person HIMSELF was an alt.

to shut down discussion.

Oh, look, you accusing me of yet ANOTHER thing that I DIDN'T do!

You're really good at making things up, aren't you?

At BEST, I was questioning the likes on his post, but I even said it wasn't relevant and didn't matter to the discussion. That's like the exact opposite of using it "to shut down discussion". If anything, I was trying to get him (if he was doing this) to stop liking his own post to get a vainer of "consensus" fallacy and, instead, engage me on the facts and merits of the discussion.

Indeed, I was doing it to push the discussion BACK TO discussion instead of meandering through unfounded insults, not to shut discussion down. I was literally doing the exact OPPOSITE of the thing you're accusing me of doing.

Ah yes, I love a good faith discussion.

I do, but based on your post and how many outright lies you just made up in one post to derail the thread and attack me with, I highly "Press [X] to Doubt" that you do...

It's not, but it let's him shut down any discussion from anyone who disagrees with him. After all, they're just alts/bots, they don't have real opinions.

SEE: The entire last half of the post above this where I point out this is yet another abject lie on your part. You are REALLY GOOD at making up lies. If only you were as good and as interested in good faith discussions...

You don't come into lore forums calling characters nazis,

Again, I didn't, but whatever.

and then call anyone who asks why an alt

I didn't do that, EITHER, as noted above.

if you want a good faith discussion.

Except I didn't do the first of those things, did a more generalized version in passing, didn't do the second of those things, and only even mentioned that a person might be using alt accounts to like their posts to make them seem more supported, also in passing, after that person made several posts in a row that immediately got the exact same number of likes, was insulting me with a made up lie at the time, and even I said it wasn't relevant to the overall discussion.

UNLIKE you, I DO want a good faith discussion.

He came in here, and provoked bad faith discussion

Except he didn't...

and got surprised when he got it.

Because he didn't provoke it.

Don't pretend like he didn't just because you agree with his points.

No one needs to "pretend like" I didn't...because I actually DIDN'T. No "pretending" required.

Why does this matter? This does not impact anything whatsoever unless you're trying to play the sexist card. I'm gonna assume you're not as that's more charitable.

She's probably not. She's simply saying she's a female, here was a female character that was genuinely a good person, but she and everyone who agrees with her is called a simp for liking her (and if she's a straight cis female gamer, that would mean that it's kind of impossible for her to be a simp for a female character to begin with...)

You have to admit that it'd be easier to not call Venat enjoyers simps if

...if...you were engaged actual in good faith discussion?

It's funny you say that if a poster says someone's a Nazi (even imaginary societies), then they aren't interested in good faith discussion...but then act like calling people simps is perfectly acceptable in said, presumably good faith, discussion when your side does it. Do you even read your own posts? o.O

Venat didn't commit textbook genocide

Except she didn't. We don't really have a textbook genocide definition that applies to gods. When Zues overthrew the Titans and locked them away, was that "textbook genocide"? When Yahweh cast out Lucifer and 1/3rd of the Angelic Host from Heaven into Hell, was that "textbook genocide"? It's funny that calling fictional characters Nazis is apparently beyond the pale, but accusing fictional characters of genocide is completely acceptable. Very interesting, that double standard...0

for REALLY shady reasoning, and was never called out on it sufficiently by the game.

Maybe because that's now how the writers wrote the story? I doubt Ishkawa or Yoshi P would say "Oh yeah, Venat committed genocide. We think she's Lawful Good, though."

That makes her very unlikable.

I mean, if you make up things to not like about characters, it kinda indicates they aren't likeable - by you - because you entirely don't want to like them...

Clearly, people who do not agree with your interpretation like her just fine.

(Meanwhile Shb makes it VERY clear that Emet is not a objectively good perfect hero)

Because he wasn't meant to be? Hell, Emet even says it HIMSELF!

"This world is not yours to end...
"This is our future. Our story."

...

"Very well. The we shall proceed to your final judgement. The victor shall write the tale, and the vanquished become its villain."

SEE: https://youtu.be/3MFYXNc76nc?t=1137 <- Timestamp of him saying the line.

Emet, himself, saw himself as the hero and the WoL his villain; the WoL saw it the other way, and was the victor who would write the tail and whose interpretation would be the "reality" of recorded history. And, they even let you make your own judgement in the Omega quests - the topic of this very thread.

Moreover, ShB went to great pains to show you that Emet was not an objective perfect VILLAIN, by letting you see how he saw things, from his perspective, and giving you room to believe that he wasn't, in fact, a horrible heartless monster.

ShB was never presenting the argument that Emet WAS A HERO. It was presenting an argument that he was NOT a VILLAIN.

There's no 'right' character to like, but when your favorite character is unliked by a good portion of the community

EVERY character is unliked by "a good portion of the community". There are a lot of people that hate Alphinaud. Hell, there are some people that hate Hauchefant. There are some people that hate Edmont. There are people that hate G'Raha. There are a few people that even dislike the WoL. I'm not sure there's a single character in the story overall that you can say "a good portion of the community" don't dislike.

for very understandable reasons,

See above.

Also: Understandable...to you.

(I can kind of understand them, but they don't make sense given the narrative. That is, I can see how people might dislike Venat for those reasons, but the narrative doesn't say those reasons are accurate.)

people hating on them is going to be something you have to get used to. People don't like that Venat killed her own species off (with few exceptions) with horrible reasoning for doing so, and that the characters in the game act like she did nothing wrong. Especially after the Omega mini questline in 6.15 where the sundered's chance at resisting Meteion's dynamis was concluded to be near random. Like whoever you like, but Venat just wasn't a well-written character and if you're gonna like her, you're gonna have to accept that many other won't.

Venat was written fine. You don't like what she was written as. Those are two different things.

You can not like Venat if you want, no one's telling you otherwise. People are saying that the narrative doesn't entirely support your positions and questioning your assertions of how well written characters/stories are. No one's saying you can't keep holding your opinions.

Seriously, I know you don't like me, but at least read this:

You can like or dislike whoever you want - no one's telling you you can't.

People are disagreeing with your interpretation of events, but no one is telling you that you can't hold your opinions.