On Venat's Role in the Story

[Lurina]

They’re not talking about the final boss being between Hydaelyn and Zodiark. They’re talking about player expectations and making something completely unexpected with one taking over the body of the other to fight us for some reason, and they chose not to do that and to do everything straightforward.

Nothing about “villain” or potential motivations was revealed. Players were expecting to fight both of them and they talked about how to deliver that. At least that’s how I took that part of the interview.

But they did say that neither was going to be the final boss.

Sorry for the delay in responding to this, Mikko - I kinda got distracted by going insane talking to Firemage and then got caught up with work.

I have a digital copy of the issue in question that I bought back when I was still thinking way too much about Endwalker. Here's the exact quote I was thinking of that led me to believe the ultimate antagonist was undecided at time, with a translation into English. I can give you a bigger dump of the raw text if you'd like to look at it more yourself. Note that this part of the conversation is while they're talking about being on the writers retreat.

ィアークという名前が出てきた以上､ 誰もが「戦ろうな」とイメージする部分があったと思います。 それをストレートに表現していくのか､ もしくはどちらかが片方を乗っ取って合体したようなも現れるという予想外の展開をやるのかと、いろいろと意見が出ました。 最終的にはストレートな方向にして、ラスボスは別にいるという形にしました

I think that everyone assumed that both Zodiark and Hydaelyn would be fought. There were various opinions as to whether to express this in a straightforward manner or to take an unexpected turn by having one of them take over the other and become some merged entity. In the end, we decided to go in the expected direction and then have a separate final boss.

So in context, it seems like they were saying that it wasn't yet set in stone to have a separate final boss, and "final boss" (ラスボス) in terms of RPG stories in Japan has a connotation of 'ultimate enemy' that it doesn't quite in English (incidentally, this is why you see a lot of terrible isekais with "last/final boss" in the title), though I guess it's impossible to say for certain whether they would be actual villains. Later on, Yoshi-P says something along the lines of "everyone at the retreat agreed that these two aren't final boss material!" Regardless, this is just my interpretation.

Anyway, I think I was thinking of this one when I talked about the concept of Dynamis not having been conceptualized until 6.0, where that's stated explicitly. There's another one where they talk about how they hadn't decided definitively if Venat was Hydaelyn or if it would be a bait-and-switch when they were first introduced that I'm trying to track down now too. Of course none of this is really says anything about how they planned the Sundering scenario specifically, just that there were lot of similar decisions they hadn't made yet - that could just as well have been the one thing they went in sure of from the start.

[RyuDragnier]

Yep, that's how I'd explain it, too.

But let's not pretend they ever said it, in-game or out.

It's mostly a pet peeve of mine for somebody to say it retcons the echo. Fordola avoids Tempering with a copy of the echo, Arenvald used the echo itself, Ysayle used the echo, etc. All of them use the echo to protect from Tempering, so clearly it is not a retcon. Which leaves the Blessing as a secondary source of protection.

[Zero-ELEC]

It's mostly a pet peeve of mine for somebody to say it retcons the echo. Fordola avoids Tempering with a copy of the echo, Arenvald used the echo itself, Ysayle used the echo, etc. All of them use the echo to protect from Tempering, so clearly it is not a retcon. Which leaves the Blessing as a secondary source of protection.

Right, but that's an inference. Endwalker's text is explicit that the blessing of light is what protects from tempering, with no mention of the echo, which is weird because the rest of the game explicitly says it's the echo that protects from tempering, while the blessing of light was a vague power-up that allowed stuff like shielding from ultima or stopped the ascians from attacking the Scion headquarters. The only implication that the blessing of light let you survive something akin to tempering was its role as part of why the Warrior of Light survived absorbing the light of the lightwardens without turning into a sineater themself.

The echo is not ever brought up in Endwalker in regards to tempering. So, while it doesn't "retcon" the echo, it sure sounds like they changed their mind as to what part of the main character's powers the protection was coming from.

[Necrotica]

It seems like instead of looking forward to new stuff, we are now stuck wondering how they will fix everything they broke.

[RyuDragnier]

The echo is not ever brought up in Endwalker in regards to tempering. So, while it doesn't "retcon" the echo, it sure sounds like they changed their mind as to what part of the main character's powers the protection was coming from.

It felt more like they were explaining what the Blessing of Light actually does, since nobody really knew what it did prior to then.

[Cleretic]

See, the fact that you're continuing to argue forums rules and attacking other posters instead of actually responding to replies to your own points also shows me that you don't really have an interest in learning from others or in actually making a point. You've proven it right here and now, by skipping over when I actually did reply to you, refuting a claim you made (with corroborating evidence) to instead pick a fight with a post I made afterwards that wasn't directed at you whatsoever.

You're not here to talk about genuine topics, you're here to complain and start fights while trying to claim you have a veneer of legitimacy.

[FireMage]

Someone pick up that phone, cuz I called it

[SannaR]

See, the fact that you're continuing to argue forums rules and attacking other posters instead of actually responding to replies to your own points also shows me that you don't really have an interest in learning from others or in actually making a point. You've proven it right here and now, by skipping over when I actually did reply to you, refuting a claim you made (with corroborating evidence) to instead pick a fight with a post I made afterwards that wasn't directed at you whatsoever.

You're not here to talk about genuine topics, you're here to complain and start fights while trying to claim you have a veneer of legitimacy.

They also did a similar thing in a thread in the general section. People called them out on it there as well.

[Talonk]

They also did a similar thing in a thread in the general section. People called them out on it there as well.

I didn't do a similar thing on that other one. I got disagreed with over there and we talked it out. Its actually good discussion over there on that one and I've been more positive on it than this one.

[SannaR]

I didn't do a similar thing on that other one. I got disagreed with over there and we talked it out. Its actually good discussion over there on that one and I've been more positive on it than this one.

You still did a hard pivot. Not that it matters as that thread thankfully is dying down.