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

[MikkoAkure]

Hardly anyone here has been asking for Hydaelyn to be a straight up villain.

Where were you when that guy made a whole re-write where she's a crazed murderer? Or just a couple of posts above this one:

An Ancient woman being portrayed as an outright villain and flaunting it like the narc she is? How refreshingly honest! If only all narcissistic Ancient women could be like this.......

I can't say I've seen much in the way of 'simping' for the Ancients.

The posts above mine say otherwise.

[Lustre]

Where were you when that guy made a whole re-write where she's a crazed murderer? Or just a couple of posts above this one:





The posts above mine say otherwise.

1 comment = representation of entire thread

go home guys, she's solved it, game's over

[MikkoAkure]

1 comment = representation of entire thread

go home guys, she's solved it, game's over

The posts I quoted were just from today.

You haven't been here for long if you think that people haven't been simping for Ancients or wanting Venat to be a villain. The OP for the EW rewrite even said they wrote her as one in the post above this.

[SentioftheHoukai]

Where were you when that guy made a whole re-write where she's a crazed murderer? Or just a couple of posts above this one:





The posts above mine say otherwise.

Oh, come off it. I refuse to believe you are so naive and blind to think that if someone made a thread about a proposed re-write/AU where Emet-Selch, Zodiark, Lahabrea, Elidibus, etc. were the heroes of the story (Let's call it a Fathercrystal AU) that the whole lot of you on the Lore subsection wouldn't come running down from the hills in droves as you always seem to just to dunk on it.

Fun fact: Venat did kill a considerable amount of people for flimsy reasons, and some of us do indeed consider her a crazed murderess for that. And that's okay, and a valid opinion to have.

Just because it's not your opinion doesn't diminish it's value, nor does Aveyond's thread lack meaning or worth just because you people happen to not like what it does to your precious Mother's public image. At the end of that day, all you had to do if it offended your very soul so egregiously is avoid the thread entirely. You really do not possess the moral high ground here.

The posts I quoted were just from today.

You haven't been here for long if you think that people haven't been simping for Ancients or wanting Venat to be a villain. The OP for the EW rewrite even said they wrote her as one in the post above this.

So what? When confronted by the reality that the Venat simps have been here for just as long if not longer, and the Ever Faithful Hounds of Hydaelyn bit and chewed the heels of any who'd dare tarnish her image even way back then what does this point even prove? We've always been outnumbered by the toxically positive GCBTW, and this phenomenon has only been exacerbated to the extreme post-Endwalker. There was also plenty of critique of Emet-Selch and the Ascians Three back then as well, I daresay they got as much hate as they did love. People understood and sympathized with a man's longing for his people's return, but for some reason that was twisted into desiring genocidal aims as it always seems to.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here or if you have the meanings of words mixed up.

The definition of an antagonist is the foe of the protagonist. It has nothing to do with morality. Hydaelyn is not opposed to the WoL or the other way around. You can have an evil protagonist but a heroic antagonist. There's plenty of video game examples out there like that.

The Ancients are not the protagonist of the game. She was certainly a foe to them, but we are not them, and our lives as well as all of those in the remaining unjoined worlds depended on defeating the Ascians. Worlds that, as corny as is is to say, were treated with unconditional love by Hydaelyn. Her motivations as written in the EW MSQ may be stupid as hell and the writers introduced a bunch of nonsense where there didn't need to be any, seemingly just to make everything fit the song Answers, but it doesn't make her an antagonist since she has never done anything but help our character defeat our foes and the game never treats her as one.

So much love, in fact that she was perfectly willing to let them all DIE if we failed her "test". Oh yes, SO MUCH LOVE! I can feel it, it's palpable in the charged air!

Before you start, by the way need I remind you that she admits to having given no thought in the slightest as to potential methods to salvage the remaining Shards in the event we were forced to resort to the Murder-Moon 9000 plan. She just concludes, "Welp, Meteion's coming! Meteion's coming! I'm so sorry my Brave Little Spark but the Shards and Ryne especially too are doomed to Oblivion and there's simply no conceivable way to save them SO I DIDN'T EVEN TRY."

[Striker44]

So much love, in fact that she was perfectly willing to let them all DIE if we failed her "test". Oh yes, SO MUCH LOVE! I can feel it, it's palpable in the charged air!

The absurd attempt at being condescending in the rest of your post killing your credibility aside, the part I'm quoting here makes even less sense. The entire point of the "test" is that we wanted to use the ship meant to ferry people and supplies to the Moon to go after Meteion instead. Meaning if we went after Meteion and failed, then everyone would die because the option of using the Moon to escape would be gone. Hydaelyn gave us the test because if we failed it, she wasn't going to let us use the ship to reach Meteion, meaning it would be used to evacuate as many people from the planet to the Moon as possible. The "test" was so people wouldn't die in the event we weren't prepared to fight Meteion.

[SentioftheHoukai]

The absurd attempt at being condescending in the rest of your post killing your credibility aside, the part I'm quoting here makes even less sense. The entire point of the "test" is that we wanted to use the ship meant to ferry people and supplies to the Moon to go after Meteion instead. Meaning if we went after Meteion and failed, then everyone would die because the option of using the Moon to escape would be gone. Hydaelyn gave us the test because if we failed it, she wasn't going to let us use the ship to reach Meteion, meaning it would be used to evacuate as many people from the planet to the Moon as possible. The "test" was so people wouldn't die in the event we weren't prepared to fight Meteion.

No, I don't think so. Doesn't matter how I say it, being condescending is what I'm left with because to use an Eara excuse I'm frankly fed up with the lunacy on this forum and am likely gonna be snippy from now on. Ignore my points if you wish, they honestly weren't for you anyway. Frankly, if one has to resort to dismissing what I have to say outright because I didn't say it courteously enough for your fragile maiden heart then you do so because you have no true worthwhile counterpoint.

Also, you've got the purpose of the "test" quite literally backwards as if we failed we would be shoved onto the Murder-Moon 9000 and delivered gift-wrapped directly into Meteion's waiting ebon wings. The Meteia are quite literally looking down upon the Star like kids with their faces pressed against the glass of a gumball machine at that point in the narrative, and if we ferried ourselves off the Star and out of Zodiark's protective aether barrier we'd be quite literally walking directly onto lava so to speak. I legitimately don't understand how people miss this, the Moon plan is quite literally doomed to fail because the moment anybody leaves the Star they get hit by the full force of Meteion's Black Dynamis and turn into a Blasphemy and die. Full stop, no exceptions. You really think the handful of Eorzeans permitted onto the Moon (remember the vast majority of the Source's inhabitants plus all the denizens of every Shard were gonna get abandoned) are at all likely to be non-susceptible to the Despair she brings, especially since in 6.1 we discovered it was completely random?!

Nah, I don't think so.

[MikkoAkure]

snip.

I think the funniest thing about being quoted out of context is that I was responding to Theodoric who was trying to say that people aren't really simping Ancients or suggesting that Hydaelyn is a villain but I guess you helped prove him and the other person who replied to me wrong.

I was just pointing out that people have indeed done both, not sure where what you said is coming from in relation to my posts.

[Theodric]

I think the funniest thing about being quoted out of context is that I was responding to Theodoric who was trying to say that people aren't really simping Ancients or suggesting that Hydaelyn is a villain but I guess you helped prove him and the other person who replied to me wrong.

I was just pointing out that people have indeed done both, not sure where what you said is coming from in relation to my posts.

Huh? That wasn't what I stated at all. Here's the post in question:

Hardly anyone here has been asking for Hydaelyn to be a straight up villain. It was suggested that in the context of her story it would make sense for her to be well meaning antagonist who happened to benefit the Sundered but still needed to be stopped and called out for the horrific atrocities she committed on the Unsundered. No amount of handwaving makes genocide suddenly acceptable - let alone to those who happen to be the victims of it.

My own stance is that it makes perfect sense for the Sundered not to want to roll over and die for the sake of the Unsundered but the reverse is true as well. The game can disagree with that all it wants, can gaslight into pretending Venat is some quirky 'herois' and straight up retcon lore in a vain effort to make her look better...but I strongly disagree that it was 'always obvious' that she was going to be a perfect loving goddess. She was literally a talking crystal who never spoke in clear terms and shifted the blame from herself to those she deliberately tormented.

At this point the best way to salvage Venat would be to create some sort of alternate universe and quietly shuffle the Ancients over there so they can have their happy ending. If, at any point, the writers try to double down on the 'Ancients deserved to be genocided' rhetoric then I'm sure you can imagine the frustration and backlash that will arise.

Generally speaking if we wouldn't consider something acceptable for the protagonists to be subjected to then there's no reason anybody else in the setting needs to be fine with it happening to them.

'Hardly anyone' doesn't exclude that some people are doing something but we're specifically talking about the posters who are actively engaged in story discussion both in this sub-forum and the lore discussion. Of which very few are actively 'simping' for either Zodiark or the Ancients to anywhere near the same degree that certain posters do for Hydaelyn's sake. I was mostly posting at the time to counter the efforts to paint anyone with issues to Endwalker's story as being part of the same hive mind, though.

Either way, I'm here to discuss the lore and the characters/factions that interest me. I'm not here to police what other people post. If only that courtesy extended in both directions then maybe there would be less heated debates overall and more balanced fanservice across the board.