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

[Vahlnir]

Those who gave themselves' to Zodiark did so out of a sense of self sacrifice to save their own people. Venat sacrificed her own people to save her sense of moral superiority. She is the most monstrous being in the entirety of Final Fantasy lore.

At face value, I think her actions are to be interpreted as a means to preserve the future the WoL came from because she knows we can probably win. When you pull back the curtain, however, that begins to fall apart fast. Why did she not tell her fellow Ancients what happened in Elpis? Surely her word could be trusted, and none of them were fools. I also find it hard to believe that they couldn't have figured out the cause and tried to stop it since we were in Elpis for about 5 minutes and we magically found the solution, especially with everything they had at their disposal. So yeah, she is meant to be viewed as a hero. Honestly though, what she did was either ignorant or villainous, if not a little bit of both. There are other ways in which the future could have been secured, even in an MMO setting where things are meant to remain fairly static.

[MikkoAkure]

At face value, I think her actions are to be interpreted as a means to preserve the future the WoL came from because she knows we can probably win. When you pull back the curtain, however, that begins to fall apart fast. Why did she not tell her fellow Ancients what happened in Elpis? Surely her word could be trusted, and none of them were fools. I also find it hard to believe that they couldn't have figured out the cause and tried to stop it since we were in Elpis for about 5 minutes and we magically found the solution, especially with everything they had at their disposal. So yeah, she is meant to be viewed as a hero. Honestly though, what she did was either ignorant or villainous, if not a little bit of both. There are other ways in which the future could have been secured, even in an MMO setting where things are meant to remain fairly static.

I think part of the problem is the fact that like you mentioned, the current game world and timeline had to be preserved. But most players (and people in-universe) would prioritize our own world than that of the Ancients, and then there's the whole thing of 1.0, ARR, and HW treating the Ascians and then eventually Zodiark as irredeemably evil.

Endwalker had to wrap up all of the messy storytelling left behind but preserve the status quo. Then when they saw how successful and popular Shadowbringers and Emet-Selch were, they tried to introduce some grey morality into Venat when it wasn't really necessary at all to the story and complicated things more. Ultimately Venat isn't meant to be written as a villain though, and the story never treats her that way so to me it feels like that angle is more of an alternate interpretation than what the writers were intending.

I think we're still missing a lot of context around the Sundering and the environment that led to Venat's group agreeing with her and splitting off from the main collective of Ancients. What we do know though, is that Ancient society was effectively dead and gone and not coming back the same way it was before. The vast majority of Ancients were killed in the Final Days or sacrificed to stop it and their leaders were tempered by a god of their own creation while Azem had just dropped off the face of Eitherys and seemingly didn't want anything to do with any of it. If the world's new life were harvested to bring back the sacrificed, Zodiark would remain in order to keep the Final Days at bay and then all of society would center around it while they just stalled for time until Meteion broke through. We also don't know of the opinion those sacrificed had on their sacrifice being undone at the cost of new life. And there's also the fact that everyone who was killed by the Final Days isn't coming back at all and in Amaurot, we saw more dead than alive.

Not sure how time works in FFXIV since it keeps changing every story, but even with all of this knowledge of the future, the Sundering has to happen anyway in order for us to go back and alter events and tell Venat of the future so her path was set for her regardless.

[Magikazam]

Not sure how time works in FFXIV since it keeps changing every story, but even with all of this knowledge of the future, the Sundering has to happen anyway in order for us to go back and alter events and tell Venat of the future so her path was set for her regardless.

The issue here is that it creates a time paradox that just raises more questions. We get told we can't change the past, yet we clearly do it by telling stuff to Venat. We either accept it an issue or buy in a time paradox that infinitely repeats itself.

[CheshCa7]

By definition, an opinion cannot be "blatantly false".

Though I am a touch curious regardless because the last person to call out others for being "factually incorrect" refused to elaborate.

Opinions presented as fact can most certainly be false.
Well, the most repeated one was "ancients just wanted to sacrifice plants and stuff, what was the problem" when there are several clues in the lore that was not the case and it was conscious life, that could have "inherited the star". And although people have presented this in the thread that opinion is still repeated in this thread as truth.

[CheshCa7]

Might be bias on my part but I've seen a more abuse against people saying they have issues with the story/writing, often making some quite nasty accusations

Even in these last few pages you can see the "joke" that a user's opinion can be discarded based on that user's in-game race. But it was a "funny meme", right? But when people called out aveyond for his opinions (some which were really out there, to say the least) you all saw the most heinous abuse. So yeah, might be bias on your part.

[Lelila38]

The issue here is that it creates a time paradox that just raises more questions. We get told we can't change the past, yet we clearly do it by telling stuff to Venat. We either accept it an issue or buy in a time paradox that infinitely repeats itself.

Another issue I have with that is that the past has allegedly been changed already by G'Raha when he used the Crystal Tower and became the Exarch. As we know from the short stories, his original timeline persisted and wasn't altered by his actions.
So why does the same not apply to Elpis?

[CheshCa7]

At face value, I think her actions are to be interpreted as a means to preserve the future the WoL came from because she knows we can probably win. When you pull back the curtain, however, that begins to fall apart fast. Why did she not tell her fellow Ancients what happened in Elpis? Surely her word could be trusted, and none of them were fools. I also find it hard to believe that they couldn't have figured out the cause and tried to stop it since we were in Elpis for about 5 minutes and we magically found the solution, especially with everything they had at their disposal. So yeah, she is meant to be viewed as a hero. Honestly though, what she did was either ignorant or villainous, if not a little bit of both. There are other ways in which the future could have been secured, even in an MMO setting where things are meant to remain fairly static.

Well, you say "surely her word..." when you have no evidence for that. Where does the "surely" cone from?. All we know is that Venta, the former Azem, the member of the convocation that walked the whole star and is much more in touch with what is happening then everyone else, decided that the ancients could not overcome Meteion. Maybe she was wrong but we have no evidence for that except for wishful thinking. After all, Emet's first reaction to finding out the truth was to reject it.

[Magikazam]

Well, you say "surely her word..." when you have no evidence for that. Where does the "surely" cone from?. All we know is that Venta, the former Azem, the member of the convocation that walked the whole star and is much more in touch with what is happening then everyone else, decided that the ancients could not overcome Meteion. Maybe she was wrong but we have no evidence for that except for wishful thinking. After all, Emet's first reaction to finding out the truth was to reject it.

And she did all that with no proof it was a good solution or no way to confirm the ancients could not overcome Meteion by themselves. It the same issues you could have with Emeth in ShB where he got no proof sacrificing everyone to Zodiark will bring back his people.

Venat just decided upon herself her plan was the right thing to do without even TRYING to convince the convocation.

[Solarra]

Lets not forget that the ancients themselves had the brilliant idea of sacrificing their own kind to forestall the Final Days. Both sides made haphazard choices. It wasnt necessarily being evil, just people having to make tough choices for saving their own kind.(pointless insult deleted - it doesn't help your argument)

If the 'brilliant' idea of sacrificing yourself to save the planet was a wrong choice for the Ancients, then surely that has to invalidate the scions' 'sacrifices' in Ultima Thule. They didn't know they weren't going to die.
Of course the Ascians were planning to bring everyone back and would have done so except Venat threw a massive spanner in the works by sundering the star and wiping almost all of her people and condemning Emet Selch to milennia of torment in the process.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Emet Selch did nothing wrong, he did plenty of things that were evil and yet I understand and sympathise with his motivation; that's why I find him such an enaging character.
My main issue is that Venat is equally, if not more, culpable and yet the story wants the player to accept her as being good and insists we view her actions as justified and morally acceptable.

And if we are talking about haphazard choices how would leaving our star and going to another solve anything? Would they even get to a different star? Wouldn't the people on the ship succumb to despair and turn once it left the protective shield of aether on Etherys? Both Venat's plan and her back-up plan seem flaky, to say the least.

ShB did such a brilliant job of tying things up and incorporating earlier parts of the story, it was my absolute favourite expansion. EW just felt like the storywriters got bored/stopped caring/got told to finish it up asap and don't worry about the quality (take your pick).
The fact that the producer was surprised people even cared about the lore indicates a real disconnect between what he sees as important in FFXIV and what the players value.

[Atelier-Bagur]

If the 'brilliant' idea of sacrificing yourself to save the planet was a wrong choice for the Ancients, then surely that has to invalidate the scions' 'sacrifices' in Ultima Thule. They didn't know they weren't going to die.
Of course the Ascians were planning to bring everyone back and would have done so except Venat threw a massive spanner in the works by sundering the star and wiping almost all of her people and condemning Emet Selch to milennia of torment in the process.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Emet Selch did nothing wrong, he did plenty of things that were evil and yet I understand and sympathise with his motivation; that's why I find him such an enaging character.
My main issue is that Venat is equally, if not more, culpable and yet the story wants the player to accept her as being good and insists we view her actions as justified and morally acceptable.

And if we are talking about haphazard choices how would leaving our star and going to another solve anything? Would they even get to a different star? Wouldn't the people on the ship succumb to despair and turn once it left the protective shield of aether on Etherys? Both Venat's plan and her back-up plan seem flaky, to say the least.

ShB did such a brilliant job of tying things up and incorporating earlier parts of the story, it was my absolute favourite expansion. EW just felt like the storywriters got bored/stopped caring/got told to finish it up asap and don't worry about the quality (take your pick).
The fact that the producer was surprised people even cared about the lore indicates a real disconnect between what he sees as important in FFXIV and what the players value.

You forget that the whole moon plan was just another backup for if mankind didnt realize or fulfill their hopes of preserving their home. It was clear that Hydaelyn with her giving the blessing to countless warriors of light through the ages was what she actually wanted for man to give themselves the power and hope needed to face any adversity.

Again both sides with Venat and the Convocation made desperation choices in the matter. Theres no right or wrong answer as anyone can say either one or neither.