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

[Graeham]

I believe that people hate Venat out of spite against players who just mindlessly enjoy the story. Because to them, the writers aren't the main issue, it's other players, who enjoy the story and therefore in their mind implicitly encourage garbage. Your mommy burns in hell for her sins. I forgot that I actually wanted to argue about the writing.

This is good point. Chara who do not hate the Venar can support guild point by hate the Venar. It is the revenge against all the forum paladin who is dare enjoy the story. Now forum paladin can not enjoy forum and guild will win.

[Solarra]

Changing the subject slightly -
The short story about Venat and the Watcher was interesting and again, I think it failed to convey what the writers intended.

The fact that Venat reveals her face to the Watcher for no good reason was probably meant to show her as a free spirit who defied stuffy old convention. However, in the Ancients' society the wearing of masks was explicitly (iirc) adopted in an attempt to prevent prejudice or people using their looks to advantage.

So, here we have a very pretty young woman approaching a lonely scholar who she has no interest in personally and revealing her face to him. The fact that she only seemed to visit the Watcher on occasions when she needed something, made her come across as either scheming or completely insensitive to his feelings, neither of which is a good look. The watcher is clearly smitten by Venat both for her intellect and her looks, but I felt that if he'd had any close friends (which doesn't seem to be the case), they'd have been trying to alert him to the fact that he was being used.

For the record, I don't 'hate' Venat, but I do feel she's probably one of the worst-written heroes I've come across in FF. There is nothing particularly heroic about her actions in causing the sundering and I feel her treatment of the Watcher is pretty callous. That could have made her into an interesting character, except that similar to Hermes, the game constantly ignores her flaws and pushes us into expressing unquestioning approval of her motives and actions.

[KageTokage]

That could have made her into an interesting character, except that similar to Hermes, the game constantly ignores her flaws and pushes us into expressing unquestioning approval of her motives and actions.

I still find it particularly grating how we're harboring doubt and distrust of her all the way up until we get the talk from the Watcher post-Zodiark, then it just kinda vanishes even when he basically states "Why yes, she was lying, but she had good reasons."...which literally no one actually questions and just accepts; even Thancred who could've reasonably have had some beefs for reasons pertaining to both Minfilia and Ryne.

The prior story has also gotten us accustomed to thinking that the life of a friend is something too valuable to be sacrificed for any reason...yet she's willing to convince the Watcher and her followers to give their lives up for a cause that they didn't even fully understand, whilst "our" Azem couldn't stomach sacrificing lives even for a cause that was as the story described quite literally the only option they had left to them.

[Eisi]

Even if we assume her intentions and convictions were altruistic, the action taken as a result of those convictions should not, under any circumstances, be portrayed as heroic. Whether the character suffered as a result of those actions is also largely irrelevant, given the sheer scope of the crime committed. In this instance, even had the writers successfully conveyed what they intended, I don't think I would be onboard. There is never a justifiable reason for robbing people of their future.

Choosing not to share the information she had on Discount Lunatic Pandora is already a fairly egregious action unto itself. Adding the sundering to that, well.. You can probably see why I'm not the biggest fan of how things are handled. I don't really have a problem with the Venat character itself, only the way the narrative continuously tries to frame the numerous awful things she did as being "for the good of all." The Scions and their allies could at least have had a WTF moment when faced with the truth, but we didn't even get that. The scant few people in the know just let it slide.

A question seeing how you focus on the portrayal of Venat:

Would you have preferred a story where the narrative wouldn't have been significantly altered but where Venat was unmistakably portrayed as a villain over one where the narrative would have been altered, written smarter and had her actually be a hero or tragic hero with understandable motivation? Let's say one where a time loop wouldn't have occured.

If you could take either or, why focus on Venat, not the narrative inadvertently making her a villain?

[aveyond-dreams]

I wonder how people would feel about Venat if she were physically ugly.

I mean there were people who said that she must be good because she has a soothing voice so with an outlook that superficial maybe then they'd actually be able to connect the dots and see her as the villain she objectively is.

[Absimiliard]

A question seeing how you focus on the portrayal of Venat:

Would you have preferred a story where the narrative wouldn't have been significantly altered but where Venat was unmistakably portrayed as a villain over one where the narrative would have been altered, written smarter and had her actually be a hero or tragic hero with understandable motivation? Let's say one where a time loop wouldn't have occured.

If you could take either or, why focus on Venat, not the narrative inadvertently making her a villain?

In the case of a coherent narrative, I'd be fine with either/or.

As I said before, I don't have a problem with Venat as a character. For me, it's not really a moral issue or what have you. Omnicide in a video game is a pretty common trope, after all. I have a problem with the seeming inability of the writing team to reconcile A with B. Venat simply happens to be sitting right smack in the middle of a large part of what went wrong with Endwalker, making it far easier to communicate the issues I see by focusing on the one character they used as the linchpin for the entire train wreck.

The writing team has effectively tried to tell the player-base they should feel X about a character, when the reality is they mostly provided reasons to feel Y. Or, put another way, they portrayed the character's motivations and actions in a way that she comes off as an outright villain to many of us, but at the same time they had the rest of the cast behave as if she is the second coming of Christ. This is a level of narrative dissonance that I very much believe should be called out. The already dissonant storytelling only worsened once we began learning about the day to day lives of the ancients, the truth about the limitations of Zodiark's power and the intended third sacrifice, etc. The narrative destroyed the writing team's own argument about the validity of Venat's decisions fairly quickly.

[Eisi]

I mean there were people who said that she must be good because she has a soothing voice so with an outlook that superficial maybe then they'd actually be able to connect the dots and see her as the villain she objectively is.

I mean it's pretty clear that the writers intended for her to be a tragic hero based on the way she was portrayed. They just botched the narrative and inadvertently made her villainous by implication. It's the nonsense plot that ruins her, not the way she was portrayed.

Having Venat be an explicit villain wouldn't have fixed Endwalker.

By the way Aveyond, the story in FFXIV has always been bad, including Heavensward. Haurchefant's death was complete bullcrap not just logistically but in terms of how it tries to pull at our heartstrings for a character nobody gave much of a damn about just because they weren't willing to sacrifice someone of actual import. The resurrection of Nanamo and every single scion after the bloody banquet deflated all sense of danger there could possibly exist going further. The Warriors of Darkness are portrayed as sadistic jerks until they become tragically misunderstood. Every single long-standing character's death in this game has been a prolonged, explicit noble slomo sacrifice, Moenbryda (not that long-standing but whatever), Papalymo, Haurchefant, Ysayle, Minfilia, nobody you know for more than a few hours just gets bloody taken out.

You hate Endwalker not just because it's trash on its own (which it is). You hate it because it's a grand finale that didn't retroactively make the bs that came before worth it. It's final season of Game of Thrones syndrome where people pretend that the show hadn't already been absolute bullcrap in season 5.

The last time FFXIV's story was good was in the end of eorzea cutscene.

Italics part is a little bit of a joke.

[EgilTheStressedMage]

In the case of a coherent narrative, I'd be fine with either/or.

As I said before, I don't have a problem with Venat as a character. For me, it's not really a moral issue or what have you. Omnicide in a video game is a pretty common trope, after all. I have a problem with the seeming inability of the writing team to reconcile A with B. Venat simply happens to be sitting right smack in the middle of a large part of what went wrong with Endwalker, making it far easier to communicate the issues I see by focusing on the one character they used as the linchpin for the entire train wreck.

The writing team has effectively tried to tell the player-base they should feel X about a character, when the reality is they mostly provided reasons to feel Y. Or, put another way, they portrayed the character's motivations and actions in a way that she comes off as an outright villain to many of us, but at the same time they had the rest of the cast behave as if she is the second coming of Christ. This is a level of narrative dissonance that I very much believe should be called out.

They’re either trying to please everyone or are telling players from before ShB their money is no good anymore and they should shut up and leave because they’re no longer necessary. Basically how I think Paper Mario Sticker Star ended up the way it did.

[sagacious]

Nothing wrong with the story I love it.

[Eisi]

They’re either trying to please everyone or are telling players from before ShB their money is no good anymore and they should shut up and leave because they’re no longer necessary. Basically how I think Paper Mario Sticker Star ended up the way it did.

They had major issues writing the story of Endwalker.

When Yoshi P. mentioned how he didn't think that people would think about the story that deeply with regards to time travel, I was heartbroken. We do. And the writers should too, I think they do, they must know, maybe it was badly managed.