On Venat's Role in the Story

[Brinne]

In the Anamnesis meeting they're rather directly focused on stopping the sacrifices;

Venat’s faction actually doesn’t discuss the sacrifices in the Anamnesis meeting at all. In fact, the only time they’re brought up as a primary motivation for Hydaelyn is from Shade Hythlodaeus’s (aka, Emet-Selch’s) POV, back when Yoshida directly stated after release that “we still didn’t know Hydaelyn’s side of the story.” Cohering the various aspects as they stand now, it seems Shade Hythlo’s explanation was basically Emet’s misunderstanding, more or less.

As Kage said, Venat actually turned out to be basically driven by pure ideology and a belief mankind as it was wasn’t good enough to pass muster for the test of existence for lack of suffering. YMMV on how you feel about that, regardless of what the game signals about it. Obviously, I personally am not a fan.

[Cleretic]

Venat’s faction actually doesn’t discuss the sacrifices in the Anamnesis meeting at all. In fact, the only time they’re brought up as a primary motivation for Hydaelyn is from Shade Hythlodaeus’s (aka, Emet-Selch’s) POV, back when Yoshida directly stated after release that “we still didn’t know Hydaelyn’s side of the story.” Cohering the various aspects as they stand now, it seems Shade Hythlo’s explanation was basically Emet’s misunderstanding, more or less.

As Kage said, Venat actually turned out to be basically driven by pure ideology and a belief mankind as it was wasn’t good enough to pass muster for the test of existence for lack of suffering. YMMV on how you feel about that, regardless of what the game signals about it. Obviously, I personally am not a fan.

They're focused on stopping the unsustainable continued reliance on Zodiark. The sacrifices aren't stated explicitly, but are EXTREMELY strongly implied. I'd like to hear what you think they're objecting to and pleading to the Convocation about if not further sacrifices.

And... yeah. She's driven by ideology. That's not a sin. Thinking about all of Endwalker I think the only person who's not motivated primarily by ideology is, like... Nidhana, and maybe some Omicrons; ideology is a huge driving point of characters in this game. You could debatably make a case that the main complicating incident around Meteion is when she developed an ideology to be driven by, informed solely by negative input. And you can disagree with her ideology, just like how I vehemently disagree with Emet's, Amon's, Quintus', Meteion's (once she got one), and think Hythlodaeus should consider himself lucky he wasn't around for when his would've been tested.

You're allowed to disagree with her ideology. But I would also ask you to acknowledge her ENTIRE ideology, and not cherry-picked parts of it. Venat and her crew believed that mankind should not put themselves ahead of the planet they live on, and that problems should be akcnowledged, dealt with and learned from rather than ignored and acting like they never happened. And of course, they were willing to put everything on the line, including themselves, to stand by what that means--and weren't 'consequences and morality be damned' about it, Venat was rather clearly haunted by what she did, as was the Watcher as far as we can see. But that's true both in the negative (they did do the Sundering, that cannot be denied) and the positive (they did their utmost to both protect and aid the world that resulted, in keeping with their ideals). You can think one of those outweighs the other, but I would hope you consider the entirety of both when deciding where you stand, and know that whatever stance you land on is yours and not some universal truth.

[FireMage]

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.

And you were trolling by necrobumping. Next time either make a new topic, or be quiet

[Lurina]

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.

This is scary.

Like, it's genuinely a little harrowing to me that you - or anyone - can read the Sundering like this and still be like "yeah, cool!" Framed as such, it's such an overtly primitivist, Hard Times Make Strong Men, borderline Social Darwinist premise. The idea that people and cultures are degenerate and ignoble when they're too comfortable, and need to be forged into righteousness through suffering and conflict...

Look, unless someone really wants, I'm not even going to go into all the ways this has been academically debunked - and that in fact cultures that experience less hardship across all levels of society tend to produce more emotionally stable, rational people - and therefore that this is a message that not only has no real-world value, but is actively harmful. But just like, take a second to think about this idea removed from the framing and subject matter of the fiction. Think about the kind of places you would normally see this sort of mindset espoused. And now think about the fact that its implementation in FFXIV literally entails the extermination of a race of people.

I have no idea if the developers knew what they were doing in writing Endwalker. But at the risk of being hyperbolic, the apparent fact that most people will swallow this whole when it's delivered lovingly by a pretty anime lady with nice music playing, and when the unwilling victims fall into old tropes of decadence and stagnation and being Yesterday's Men-- Again, it's scary! There's no other way to say it!

[SannaR]

Dang it look what happened Firemage got in here and made me laugh. He probably won't go away right away either.

[Brinne]

They're focused on stopping the unsustainable continued reliance on Zodiark. The sacrifices aren't stated explicitly, but are EXTREMELY strongly implied.

No, they're the opposite of implied, to the point that it stood out as puzzling to me even at the time. In the Anamnesis meeting, the only concern brought up is "if we stay on our current course, it will still lead to our doom." In other words, the concern is with the fate of mankind. Explicitly non-sacrifice. Which is exactly what they name about what they were arguing about with the Convocation -that continued reliance on Zodiark would still lead to a bad end for the Ancients. This is actually consistent with the information we get with Venat's POV in Endwalker and beyond, where the sacrifices still are only named as an aside. Again, at the point in time when "sacrifices" was suggested as a primary motivation, we were told we were still ignorant of Hydaelyn's side of the story. Ergo, that was not meaningfully it.

And... yeah. She's driven by ideology. That's not a sin.

FFXIV's stance is that it, in fact, is when it's your primary motivation in controlling or eradicating people, when it makes you think you can decide on peoples' lives in the balance, as opposed to actually saving or protecting something materially living. "I have a moral code where People Probably Shouldn't Be Needlessly Murdered" isn't the same as an "I have a belief system regarding guidelines about how People Should Live and Exist"-type ideology. Killing someone because you're protecting yourself or someone else is not the same thing as killing them because they aren't Behaving Right. Again, as Kage has pointed out, that is something that FFXIV has actually condemned up until Endwalker. And I would argue that up until this point that actually, the Scions made the efforts to make themselves anti-motivated by ideology, hence the constant point and struggle in ARR about staying neutral outside of pure harm reduction in regards to the Primals. Hell, the Scions act against their personal ideologies for the sake of saving living and breathing people - such as when Y'shtola thought Merlwyb was in the wrong regarding the Kobold conflict, but still cooperated to kill Titan because it would flat out save lives.

Venat and her crew believed that mankind should not put themselves ahead of the planet they live on, and that problems should be akcnowledged, dealt with and learned from rather than ignored and acting like they never happened. And of course, they were willing to put everything on the line, including themselves, to stand by what that means--and weren't 'consequences and morality be damned' about it, Venat was rather clearly haunted by what she did, as was the Watcher as far as we can see. But that's true both in the negative (they did do the Sundering, that cannot be denied) and the positive (they did their utmost to both protect and aid the world that resulted, in keeping with their ideals). You can think one of those outweighs the other, but I would hope you consider the entirety of both when deciding where you stand, and know that whatever stance you land on is yours and not some universal truth.

"Mankind should not put themselves ahead of the planet they live on" is, I think, you projecting - you've talked about how you're an environmentalist and that informs how you see the importance of the sacrifices in this plotline. However, looking at Venat's actions and what she says about those actions, once again, she speaks to the opposite. Her chief concern even in the moment of Sundering is always mankind. If we acknowledge the Sundering at minimum as an action of violence and wrecking the core integrity of, then actually, Venat was willing to do irreparable harm to "the planet they live on" in order to shape it as an environment to help mankind live up to her vision of its potential. This is consistent with the fact that she was willing to abandon the planet altogether if it meant salvaging some small amount of mankind. If her priorities were what you say they were, rather than your own, she would have been telling Sharlayan to take every measure to defend Etheirys to the last, not abandon it.

(they did their utmost to both protect and aid the world that resulted, in keeping with their ideals).

"They did their utmost to both protect and aid the timeline that resulted, in keeping with their ideals" would probably be more accurate, considering the intentional sparing of the Ascians.

but I would hope you consider the entirety of both when deciding where you stand, and know that whatever stance you land on is yours and not some universal truth.

Of course it's my stance. I explicitly say "YMMV, I personally" in regards to my response to it. Likewise, pointing out what exactly that ideology is as opposed to idealistic projecting and wishful thinking is not pushing my take on it as a universal truth. Of course people exist who believe things similarly to Venat. It simply is what it is, when we actually examine the text for what it is.

This is scary.

Yeah, I wasn't quite sure how to gracefully say "wait, loving mother to, and 'always for the best' for whom? The chosen survivors, I guess, who managed to make it out of the Suffering Grind and 'thrive' - as opposed to those who couldn't 'overcome difficulties' and just died or were broken?" and "my ability to continue engaging with this game is pretty much contingent upon the hope/belief that the writers didn't actually intend to say this in the way they did."

It's rough.

[Talonk]

And you were trolling by necrobumping. Next time either make a new topic, or be quiet

Is that a forum rule I missed? Im not trolling im speaking my mind. There is no rule of speaking on an old topic. The thread hasn't been locked and it was actually at the top for lore related topics. But thank you for caring about my post.

[Talonk]

And you were trolling by necrobumping. Next time either make a new topic, or be quiet

And if trolling sparked new conversation about the topic of venat's actions from what I see looks pretty healthy for discussion in whether or not venats involvement in the story was right or wrong or confusing. Just like I feel like the retconning of the great battle between zodiark and hydaelyn was a mistake and now makes venat as a person look wrong and she even admits it. I brought up the fact that venat calls us her creation when we are the result of her attack and not a creation at all. But im not allowed to post here because of a rule you made up because I dont agree with you or something. Interesting.

[Teraq]

thread closed everybody go home

The sole entertainment value of the "lore forums" these past months has been watching Kage, Brinne and Lurina take turns with dunking on its residents. A fruitless yet noble endeavor, one that always brightens my day...

[FireMage]

Is that a forum rule I missed? Im not trolling im speaking my mind. There is no rule of speaking on an old topic. The thread hasn't been locked and it was actually at the top for lore related topics. But thank you for caring about my post.

You brought nothing new of worth or value, and thus the necrobumping was unwarranted

And if trolling sparked new conversation about the topic of venat's actions from what I see looks pretty healthy for discussion in whether or not venats involvement in the story was right or wrong or confusing. Just like I feel like the retconning of the great battle between zodiark and hydaelyn was a mistake and now makes venat as a person look wrong and she even admits it. I brought up the fact that venat calls us her creation when we are the result of her attack and not a creation at all. But im not allowed to post here because of a rule you made up because I dont agree with you or something. Interesting.

You could also stop with the misinformation about retcons where there are none at anytime. You not understanding the story is a you problem