On Venat's Role in the Story

[Rulakir]

The fact still remains that Azem did know what would happen, and they knew in enough detail to accurately arrange for the "falling star" to live up to their name.

This has haunted me ever since the release of Pandemonium. I don't know who this Ultimate Time Loop would appeal to as Ancient haters consider it a "fate worse than death" and Ancient lovers are already salty about not being able to save them once let alone twice. It seems like a bad ending for everyone.

[PawPaw]

This has haunted me ever since the release of Pandemonium. I don't know who this Ultimate Time Loop would appeal to as Ancient haters consider it a "fate worse than death" and Ancient lovers are already salty about not being able to save them once let alone twice. It seems like a bad ending for everyone.

Again, I don't disagree! They already made us complicit in the first Final Days by having us go back in time to begin with. Making us then go back again in the mother of all time loops to extract ourselves and sit on our hands despite knowing exactly what will happen on both sides of the issue would be insanity. So I'm hoping that there will be an elegant solution, if in fact this is the end result at all.

[RyuDragnier]

Azem knowing we'd be there is something I'm also wondering. Unless we somehow go back into the past again and meet the original Azem and tell them we'll be in Pandaemonium without mentioning anything else (thus creating another stable time loop), I don't see how they could know. Unless our battle precognition ability far in the past was not just for battle, and Azem could see into people's futures (like we did with Mikoto in Bozja). If that's the case, then Azem would know we'd come simply because they had a vision of us appearing and accidentally hitting Themis.

[PawPaw]

Azem knowing we'd be there is something I'm also wondering. Unless we somehow go back into the past again and meet the original Azem and tell them we'll be in Pandaemonium without mentioning anything else (thus creating another stable time loop), I don't see how they could know. Unless our battle precognition ability far in the past was not just for battle, and Azem could see into people's futures (like we did with Mikoto in Bozja). If that's the case, then Azem would know we'd come simply because they had a vision of us appearing and accidentally hitting Themis.

Hot take but I don't think we'll ever meet Azem the way we've met other Ancients. If we did all we'd get is some random, tall, masked and hooded person.

I already gave my opinion of the Future Sight theory. I don't see an ability like that existing in that time as not being another huge loophole for the fate of the Ancients. If someone could see that well and with such detail into the future, then it stands to reason that someone must have seen what was going to happen to Eitherys before it happened. I don't doubt that someone back then must have had the ability, as Mikoto has her power to show for it, but why then wasn't it more useful and how well could the wielder actually see? If it was vague flashes like Mikoto's then that would explain a lot, but it still wouldn't explain why Azem would send Themis to a very precise spot on a map to be crushed by some stranger neither of them has ever seen before; instead of showing up themselves.

And, honestly, I don't think hitting Themis was an accident at all, it sounds exactly like something someone with Azem's personality would find hilarious and arrange as a joke. They describe us as a "falling star" after all, they knew full well what direction we'd be coming at him from.

[Theodric]

This has haunted me ever since the release of Pandemonium. I don't know who this Ultimate Time Loop would appeal to as Ancient haters consider it a "fate worse than death" and Ancient lovers are already salty about not being able to save them once let alone twice. It seems like a bad ending for everyone.

I'd rather not see any more time travel, in all honesty. It rids too many characters of agency and depth. I do hope that some of the problems with Endwalker's narrative and bizarre take on established moral lines in the sand are addressed retroactively though.

[DPZ2]

There was a bit of a discussion for a period of time. I expect it died out because all that could be said had been said. Except ...

The only alternate timeline where the Ancients survived the Final Days forever would be one in which Hermes never sent his "children" out into the Universe. There is such a timeline, but it is not the timeline of our story.

There is another timeline where the Omicron attack the Ancients after learning about them from Hermes "children". It could be an eternity of epic battles. Or a relatively quick defeat of the Omicron. Or a relatively quick defeat of the Ancients. All followed by the Final Days and Zodiark. But that timeline is not our story.

There is a timeline where we visit the past and interact with the Ancients, discover what Hermes has done and the Sundering never occurs. It is a 50-50 chance they survive. "We" do not exist in that Universe after we visit the past. Again, those timelines are not our story.

There is our own timeline, where we visit the past and interact with the Ancients, discover what Hermes has done and the situation plays out because it is our story.

Pick the timeline you'd prefer to live in. Most of them where the Ancients survive forever would make boring gameplay (well the Omicron/Ancient battles might make a nice Video Game ala Space Invaders). And be content that there is a game for you to play, even if you do not like the way you got to this point.

Despite the Utopian appeal of the Ancient culture, they still knew and gave in to fear and despair. The seeds for those feelings undermine the Utopian ideal. All was not pleasant in the Heavens. The Gods were no different in temperament than we mortals. Even Devils reminisce about the Heavens after they have been cast down.

[Talonk]

So, I'll take some time to put my thoughts here on this.

We now know exactly why the pacing suffered in Endwalker and why so much story was jam packed into the expansion. If you don't, then you have been blind to most of the game showcase events through out this year and the previous. A certain title was announced and a producer was named. Naoki Yoshida. With the trailer we were given a letter from the Director of FFXIV who had promised that he was just a producer and focusing his efforts on FFXIV. Sometime later we recieve another Trailer of this FFXVI and I started to pay attention to it. Not Only is it heavily influenced by the FFXIV Universe, but the Team Yoshida uses for FFXIV is also behind the entire game. SE possibly came in and divided his team for the new main title.

That being said I believe even with all the "metaphors" about Venat that was shown in her montage of the Sundering (I was very disappointed with that scene) it feels that alot of the context was cut because of the team being divided. Creative Business Unit III was not afforded the time because Endwalker was a product that needed to rush out fast.

All in all I don't think Venat is a bad character, but her calling me her child, calling the entire population of sundered her children felt like an insult to me. She didn't create us. We are the remnants of her attack. I personally feel that she was trying her best to have us not hate her for her actions the entire time that I was blinded by all the outrageous things that she was now responsible for.

Yet she stands idling for us to come along and purpose her journey when she had not the courage to take on the convacation in the first place. I mean you have Emet-Selch, the most stubborn member of the 14 (that we know of) Siding against Meteion before Hermes even recieves the report to the point that he is willing to chase her down in a party with Venat, Hythlodaeus, and the Azem's Familiar. That honestly doesn't make that much sense to me that a Memory Machine wiping everyone's memories except Venat and ours would not have made her more willing to say hey This guy made a bird creature she has gone mad and has taken off but I have a tracking device on her maybe we should evaluate this some more, but it just doesn't happen. She continues with the Sundering and prays we find her so she can impart this mission on us. There is no development of Dynamis. No explanation of it at all to us. Even when we are tested for our strength against her. Did she not know what dynamis was either the whole time? Was her plan solely on us figuring out what this dynamis was?

Also those who say they didnt have the technology to make it to the edge of the universe. Wasn't she the one talking to the Sharlayan Council with the Aitiascope and directing them on building a space ship? Didn't she turn the prison of Zodiark into a interplanetary vessel?

[Nayukhuut]

but her calling me her child, calling the entire population of sundered her children felt like an insult to me. She didn't create us. We are the remnants of her attack.

This is part of what bothers me so much about Venat. I am not her child. I do not want to BE her child. People now are only products of her creation because she saw fit to decide how an entire world should go. I am a fractured soul because of her, and as far as I am concerned the world is more her victims than her children. I know that's the way the narrative was always going to go, but gosh I wish the game had let me tell her off at the end.

The direction the new Alliance Raid series is going does not thrill me either, though that could be a red herring.

[Iscah]

There is no development of Dynamis. No explanation of it at all to us. Even when we are tested for our strength against her. Did she not know what dynamis was either the whole time? Was her plan solely on us figuring out what this dynamis was?

Also those who say they didnt have the technology to make it to the edge of the universe. Wasn't she the one talking to the Sharlayan Council with the Aitiascope and directing them on building a space ship? Didn't she turn the prison of Zodiark into a interplanetary vessel?

Everything in the game developed the concept of dynamis to us already – it was never her area of expertise in the first place, and then (rightly or wrongly) her decision to avoid the Convocation afterwards means she can't get much more information out of Hermes about it.

What she does know is that sundered beings will be more sensitive to dynamis and will have a degree of control over it that the ancients do not. We've told her that people will work it out; we've demonstrated our ability to trace Meteion when even the two ancients most skilled in aetherial sight couldn't detect her.

Which brings me to the other point: even if the ancients could travel to Meteion's nest, what could they possibly do once they got there? They can trace the single tagged Meteion through Venat's spell, but what of the rest of the flock? They would be undetectable and undefeatable, and drive their would-be attackers to imagine monsters and summon them into reality. The ancients might be doomed the moment they leave Zodiark's protective bubble, the ship filling with unspeakable horrors before they ever reached the nest.

This is part of what bothers me so much about Venat. I am not her child. I do not want to BE her child.

It does fit awkwardly with the rest of the revelation, but given that was the plot direction they decided on, they didn't have much choice but to try to justify the pre-existing "my children" thing. It probably wouldn't have been done in a story written all at once.

[Rosenstrauch]

Which brings me to the other point: even if the ancients could travel to Meteion's nest, what could they possibly do once they got there?

They could rely on familiars of similar composition to Meteion. Familiars that they could in turn shield from the negative effects of dynamis if need be. By working in tandem with them, as we ultimately did with Emet-Selch, Hythlodaeus, and Venat/Hydaelyn as well, they could accomplish the same as us.

And before anyone replies with the obvious rebuttals, the possibility of failure is not an absolute refutation. Any plan can fail, even ones relying on the WoL.