On Venat's Role in the Story

[Lurina]

In most cases of speculation, we are wondering what the authors' intent is for future story beats. In this case, we know their intent is to bring the story full circle and have the ancients' collective actions lead to the Sundering, because narratively they were locked into this years ago, and the only thing to debate is the details of how it happened.

Also, the Lore forum is a repository of current lore, not just speculation.

It's just really tiring to see people still trying to make these hard storytelling-mechanics justifications for why it was a matter of inevitable necessity for the an entire culture/race of people to be indiscriminately wiped out.

Like, yeah, the Sundering had to happen from a perspective of story structure. But the writers chose to not only make it intentional, but to then go on to make all these awkward excuses for why it was this unavoidable action we should be sympathetic to. And now every time someone talks about how that made them uncomfortable (setting aside all the weirdos who come at this from a perspective of projecting on the Ancients, or with hangups about the tone of the story or female characters like Venat or whatever) and points out ways it seems like it wasn't unavoidable, a load of people chime in to speculate beyond what the writers even put in a story to try and plug every last hole.

It makes me uneasy, and reminds me - even if I wouldn't equivocate it - how easily people's moral compasses can be manipulated to forgo basic tenants in reality when the framing is right. How people are willing to set aside absolute rules like "genocide is wrong, no matter what" when you paint the affected group with a broad brush as selfish, or cruel, or doomed anyway.

And so much of this fandom does that without a second thought. Again, this isn't to act like this damns the entire story; I can see at this point how the writers arrived where they did without really meaning to. And we don't have to talk about it ad infinitum. But at the same time, it would be great if people could just acknowledge "yeah that was a bit weird" without trying with all their power to hold up the framing the game presents uncritically.

[Iscah]

[...] But at the same time, it would be great if people could just acknowledge "yeah that was a bit weird" without trying with all their power to hold up the framing the game presents uncritically.

You're putting a lot of words in my mouth and motives into my actions.

I've said plenty of times that the whole Sundering is weird and badly written, but at the same time it is the story we are stuck with, and do we really need to have the "I am uncomfortable about this" conversation every time we discuss the details of what happened?

Also, "Venat should have warned them" is a different discussion to "if Venat had warned them, they could have successfully stopped Meteion because they have the technology for it", which is the one I was addressing.

[Lurina]

You're putting a lot of words in my mouth and motives into my actions.

I've said plenty of times that the whole Sundering is weird and badly written, but at the same time it is the story we are stuck with, and do we really need to have the "I am uncomfortable about this" conversation every time we discuss the details of what happened?

Also, "Venat should have warned them" is a different discussion to "if Venat had warned them, they could have successfully stopped Meteion because they have the technology for it", which is the one I was addressing.

Sorry, I didn't mean to come across as overly critical of you specifically. Cleretic's post was mainly the one that irked me a bit.

Regardless, I just feel like these conversations about the technical details of the Sundering are kind of a farce. You said yourself a minute ago that the writers were obviously approaching the scenario backwards; the informed inability of the Ancients in being able to stop Meteion isn't ultimately down to anything we can quantify absolutely within the setting, especially since late-EW largely runs on handwavium anyway. The writers simply wanted it to be that way. They wanted annihilating the Ancients to be presented as the best and most sympathetic option, and worked from there.

And we agree that's a little bit weird. So in my opinion, the only real discussion to be had about the topic - if one is even worth having at this point - is a meta one. If someone comes in saying "but the Ancients could have just built a really big aether cannon and shot meteion!" then responding to that with criticism about the viability of the Really Big Aether Cannon is pointless, because the scenario isn't grounded on any kind of hard in-setting logic. Whether it's you saying the Ancients wouldn't have been able to navigate Ultima Thule, or me arguing they could have just made creations with less aether, or any of the hundreds of other permutations of this discussion; dynamis creations, sending Zodiark to Ultima Thule, Hermes and whether it's realistic he was the only expert on this topic on the planet, the possibility of sundering specific individuals and sending them, all the myriad arguments about the social conditions of the Ancients and what they could or could not have done... It's pointless. No one can be wrong or right because it's all just vaguely-defined fluff.

So maybe, beyond admitting to that person that it is a little weird, it would be better to have no discussion at all. You basically said as much in our last exchange, IIRC. Sometimes all you can do with janky lore is accept that it's janky and leave it alone to the best of your ability, because trying to seriously debate the in-universe implications just means everyone rolls around in the mud.

[Brinne]

Just like Venat herself, the writers were so intent on killing all the Ancients that they were willing to sacrifice everything else in the world building to do it, too!

Look, if we agree the Sundering was a janky, badly written case of the writers working backwards and they did a poor job actually justifying why it needed it happen from a grounded, in lore standpoint, then what is there to discuss if we’re not engaging on a writing/audience/meta level, ie, “how did the writers end up at a point where their precious cart was worth desperately justifying the eradication of this entire population”, what they tried (and failed) to do to make it work, and why it did or did not land for different portions of the audience?

If it falls back onto “don’t talk about it” in general, if you’re tired of hearing about it, that’s perfectly ok, but it’s also literally the topic of this particular thread. People are free to ignore it and not respond when people speak up to voice that the bizarre priority given to this cart to the point of accepting the most mangled, grotesque of horses makes them uneasy as an audience member.

[RyuDragnier]

If it falls back onto “don’t talk about it” in general, if you’re tired of hearing about it, that’s perfectly ok, but it’s also literally the topic of this particular thread. People are free to ignore it and not respond when people speak up to voice that the bizarre priority given to this cart to the point of accepting the most mangled, grotesque of horses makes them uneasy as an audience member.

Well this thread was not posted in for over half a year until SOMEONE (Talonk) brought it back up again. I'd prefer if it returns to that abyss to prevent the usual ouroboros effect (meaning same circular arguments) that we had going for months.

[Talonk]

I finally broke my silence on why I think the team struggled with endwalker because ff16 divided the team. Then I finally got to talk about why I did not like venat because the people in this community tell me im not allowed to have my own opinions unless they are positive but I finally manned up and talked about it so let's no argue anymore then. The story is not great it was subpar. Thanks to ff16. There you go sir. SOMEONE had to say it.

[Cassar]

I always found this topic to be interesting because I always thought the writing for Venat was great, and it wasn't until I joined this forum that I saw so many people seeing it differently (which is fine).
I also see that this seems to be a sensitive topic in the community so I'm going to be as clear as possible when I say that this simply is, and has always been, my interpretation from the story. I had never even considered anything else until seeing different opinions.

I never thought of Venat's decision to sunder mankind as a way to defeat Meteion, that was never her main focus. I think that regardless of Meteion, Venat has always held strong to the ideal that mankind has the potential to move forward and overcome difficulties, and for that she needed to create a world where there was pain, suffering and death. Because only in doing so could humanity truly thrive - by overcoming difficulties. Meteion can be seen as the spark she needed, or perhaps a more "moral reason" that she took advantage of.
But, and this is my main point here, she would've sundered mankind regardless when she saw that most people were still hanging on to "bringing back paradise" rather than "using this as a lesson and move forward with it." She knew that the former would only bring further sacrifice and humanity would never be able to learn and grow.

As to her role in the story, I always saw her as a character who's not afraid to take action if she truly believes it's for the best and her love for mankind is her main motivator. She truly is like a mother, who's harsh when needs be, but it's always for the best - and that's why she proceeds to do what she did.

[Rosenstrauch]

Sometimes all you can do with janky lore is accept that it's janky and leave it alone to the best of your ability, because trying to seriously debate the in-universe implications just means everyone rolls around in the mud.

Speaking as a pig enthusiast, I do enjoy a good tumble in the mud as long as everyone walks away with a clear understanding that this is just a work of fiction. Any frustration ought to be laughed off, and hard feelings should be the last thing anyone takes away from it. I do get the feeling of being alone in enjoying such arguments, though.

I hate invoking the phrase, since even I'll admit that there is value in understanding the writers' intent, but I'm a pretty firm believer in "Death of the Author". Rare is the moment when the writer's intent lines up perfectly with the fiction they've created, and so I feel their interpretation is no more or less valid than that of those who appreciate their works. Though I think I can agree on one thing: That if folks aren't keen on speculation and discussion without examining the author's biases, when they see someone who is doing just that, not engaging would be the better choice.

Oh well. If I've gotten anything positive from this, it's that I'm inspired to get back to editing Amidst the Ashes of Paradise. I'd originally wanted to add an extra scene that I cut for time, but it fell to the wayside between round two of an ear infection and my resubbing to this game for 6.3—which I've completed, at least as far as the MSQ is concerned. But I digress. I've got two new scenes in mind now, and a hefty rewrite of a third. One of the perks of fanfiction, I suppose. Even when the story is declared finished, the story can still be changed. Expanded. Continued.

… It's also a perk of MMORPGs, now that I think of it.

[Cleretic]

I never thought of Venat's decision to sunder mankind as a way to defeat Meteion, that was never her main focus. I think that regardless of Meteion, Venat has always held strong to the ideal that mankind has the potential to move forward and overcome difficulties, and for that she needed to create a world where there was pain, suffering and death. Because only in doing so could humanity truly thrive - by overcoming difficulties. Meteion can be seen as the spark she needed, or perhaps a more "moral reason" that she took advantage of.
But, and this is my main point here, she would've sundered mankind regardless when she saw that most people were still hanging on to "bringing back paradise" rather than "using this as a lesson and move forward with it." She knew that the former would only bring further sacrifice and humanity would never be able to learn and grow.

Venat's reason for going for the Sundering is multifaceted, and I think it's both very important to recognize that and very personal which part you considered most important. Like, I think that the reasons the writers and evelopers, when they did a lore Q&A, focused on 'she had to stop Meteion' part in their answers was because they're the writers and developers, the most important thing to them is the structural narrative element, the thing that keeps the plot moving. That doesn't mean the other reasons don't exist, and in fact that reason was quite downplayed in the actual script. In the Anamnesis meeting they're rather directly focused on stopping the sacrifices; in the post-Elpis flashback we see Venat dovetail from that into talking about how humanity can't just hide from its problems and has to overcome things through hardships. And another piece of evidence is the Twelve's epigraph; while admittedly a step removed from Venat/Hydaelyn, it shows that her and her crew genuinely wanted to see mankind and their world succeed and wanted to help them along in their own subtle ways; only the Unnamed Thirteenth had a focus that didn't mention mankind at all.


I'm not especially interested in arguing with Rosenstrauch, because we're coming from greatly different approaches to the game's story that care about different things. They write fanfiction; they're focused on the what ifs, the might have beens and things that could have been happening off in the background, because that's where they weave their own stories and find their own fulfillment. But personally, I'm interested in the lore as it relates to the story we've got and the world we're given; I'm interested in the concrete facts, the direct evidence and how it relates to the rest of the story as it is, because that's where I find my fulfillment.

Neither of those is necessarily wrong, but they do lead to a fundamental difference in how we approach what the game tells us. I hear 'we can't tell Hermes or he'll start working against us' and go 'yeah that makes sense, we saw him say and do literally that before he got memory wiped'. Rosenstrauch hears it and goes 'but what if instead that didn't happen, what would happen then?'

[KageTokage]

I always found this topic to be interesting because I always thought the writing for Venat was great, and it wasn't until I joined this forum that I saw so many people seeing it differently (which is fine).
I also see that this seems to be a sensitive topic in the community so I'm going to be as clear as possible when I say that this simply is, and has always been, my interpretation from the story. I had never even considered anything else until seeing different opinions.

I never thought of Venat's decision to sunder mankind as a way to defeat Meteion, that was never her main focus. I think that regardless of Meteion, Venat has always held strong to the ideal that mankind has the potential to move forward and overcome difficulties, and for that she needed to create a world where there was pain, suffering and death. Because only in doing so could humanity truly thrive - by overcoming difficulties. Meteion can be seen as the spark she needed, or perhaps a more "moral reason" that she took advantage of.
But, and this is my main point here, she would've sundered mankind regardless when she saw that most people were still hanging on to "bringing back paradise" rather than "using this as a lesson and move forward with it." She knew that the former would only bring further sacrifice and humanity would never be able to learn and grow.

As to her role in the story, I always saw her as a character who's not afraid to take action if she truly believes it's for the best and her love for mankind is her main motivator. She truly is like a mother, who's harsh when needs be, but it's always for the best - and that's why she proceeds to do what she did.

There are certainly shades of her feeling like mankind was somehow lacking judging from her remark about feeling like she couldn't return to the star until she felt they didn't "need" her anymore.

Though this gives the unfortunate implications of her feeling like the Final Days were a necessary hurdle for them to overcome after we told her it was a near extinction level event.

Her whole character is driven by ideology, consequences or morality be damned, which quite frankly is something I cannot resonate with after such viewpoints were strictly opposed throughout XIV's story.