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

[Brinne]

She was so quick to say how we could openly tell her about the future the consequences be damned. But then would not extend that same mindset to others. Her arrogance is astounding.

In some ways, I think it's hard to be meaningfully angry at Venat as an actual character. The writing behind her is such a mess. As a person in front of us, it has her say the inspirational things about how "nothing is impossible," "the future you described need not necessarily be what comes to pass" and expressing how she'll of course do her best to fix things - because that's what a good, heroic person would obviously say and do. But then the plotting behind Hydaelyn has her doing things like purposefully sparing the Ascians that makes absolutely no sense without assuming she's committed to fatalistically following the timeline. Subsequently, Venat herself is basically a weird, empty mishmash of string-pulling "oh god please like her, look, we're connecting her to you/Azem in every single way we can think of, look, she's just like you, she was walking alongside you the whole time, please please please like her" and "oh god we need to cram all these plot pieces we didn't think ahead on together and make them fit uhhhh Hydaelyn foresaw everything! Letting the Rejoinings happen was all a part of her great keikaku! She meant for us to suffer... which means suffering is good, somehow! Phew, nailed it."

She's whatever she needs to be at the moment, wildly oscillating between Whatever Makes You Like Her and Making The Plot Work Somehow. For all I harp about it, I don't think the "suffering good" aspect of Endwalker was at the forefront in terms of intention. I think it came as a consequence of the number one priority of making Hydaelyn "not a bad guy", whatever it took, whatever her established actions were be damned - if she did it, it must have been Good, Somehow, no matter what. Weird and unfortunate writer tunnel vision.

[jameseoakes]

In some ways, I think it's hard to be meaningfully angry at Venat as an actual character. The writing behind her is such a mess. As a person in front of us, it has her say the inspirational things about how "nothing is impossible," "the future you described need not necessarily be what comes to pass" and expressing how she'll of course do her best to fix things - because that's what a good, heroic person would obviously say and do. But then the plotting behind Hydaelyn has her doing things like purposefully sparing the Ascians that makes absolutely no sense without assuming she's committed to fatalistically following the timeline. Subsequently, Venat herself is basically a weird, empty mishmash of string-pulling "oh god please like her, look, we're connecting her to you/Azem in every single way we can think of, look, she's just like you, she was walking alongside you the whole time, please please please like her" and "oh god we need to cram all these plot pieces we didn't think ahead on together and make them fit uhhhh Hydaelyn foresaw everything! Letting the Rejoinings happen was all a part of her great keikaku! She meant for us to suffer... which means suffering is good, somehow! Phew, nailed it."

She's whatever she needs to be at the moment, wildly oscillating between Whatever Makes You Like Her and Making The Plot Work Somehow. For all I harp about it, I don't think the "suffering good" aspect of Endwalker was at the forefront in terms of intention. I think it came as a consequence of the number one priority of making Hydaelyn "not a bad guy", whatever it took, whatever her established actions were be damned - if she did it, it must have been Good, Somehow, no matter what. Weird and unfortunate writer tunnel vision.

Honestly I think you are right with a lot of that. I think one of the things with Venat as a character is how much of her themes suit a righteous villain so well, if she'd have been an amazing villain aiming to enforce her will on the world honestly I think it could have made for an amazing story

[Yencat]

I think it came as a consequence of the number one priority of making Hydaelyn "not a bad guy", whatever it took, whatever her established actions were be damned - if she did it, it must have been Good, Somehow, no matter what.

Honestly to me it felt like they tried to not make anyone a bad guy, and Hydaelyn (unintentionally?) came out looking worse because of it.

The whole thing about how some of the remaining Ancients were planning to sacrifice the new life on the star to Zodiark in exchange for the return of their own while another faction was strongly opposed to that idea made sense, and it wasn't hard to imagine why that would cause a rift between people that eventually escalated into the sundering. While it was never outright stated I think many people imagined the 'new life on the star' being proto-versions of the playable races which made it feel 'personal' because if they had gone through with it we wouldn't exist, so she and her faction were on 'our' side. And while involuntarily sacrificing innocent lives would definitely be a cruel thing for them to do, you could also sort of still see it from the other side as well; sacrifice (to them) "lesser" lifeforms for the return of their own.

Once they seemingly dropped that whole thread of the involuntary sacrifices, and afterwards stated none of the playable races even existed at that point, it made the whole thing pretty nonsensical and her motivations to resort to the sundering a lot muddier.