On Themis [6.4 SPOILER]

[Alleluia]

The devouring parent isn't exclusively female, though. Chronos ate his kids, too.

[Brinne]

I completely agree with you though, I think Athena being an unrepentant villain is not only fresh, like who else do we have, Valens van Varro? But it's imo also feminist.

Not all of them may be as major as a central raid villain, or as over-the-top, but there's also the likes of Asahi, Nabriales, Teledji Adeledji, and some would argue Zenos (I'm not sure that I would, though, in his case), that I can think of.

[Eisi]

The devouring parent isn't exclusively female, though. Chronos ate his kids, too.

Yes, but he doesn't fit the archetype. He didn't fatten and smother his children but he was afraid of them taking away his position of power (which he got prophecied would happen). Chronos is distinctly unfeminine in that regard.

Another modern example that's less on the nose and more realistic would be Lysa Arryn from the Song of Ice and Fire series.

Not all of them may be as major as a central raid villain, or as over-the-top, but there's also the likes of Asahi, Nabriales, Teledji Adeledji, and some would argue Zenos (I'm not sure that I would, though, in his case), that I can think of.

True, I love all of those guys.

[TowaIsBestGirl]

In contrast, the Source is so dull to me. It's a Forgotten Realms-ass fantasy kitchen sink with themes and motifs you can find anywhere, spread out without any underlying direction. I like some of the characters, but I don't give a damn about any of these factions and places - even the interesting ones like Gridania have had all their edges filed off since 1.0. When I hear people talk about how they hope the next several expansions get away from all this cross-dimensional stuff to focus on the Source, it makes me feel like I'm going insane. I don't wanna be here! It's so boring! Ahhhhh!!!!!!!!

There are no words to express just how much I feel the weight of these words in my very soul. Sometimes I wonder if I was actually in any of these bog-standard fantasy worlds if I'd be just like the villains the stories wish for you to despise for the simple fact that I see no unique value in them. I don't know, it just feels like when you've seen one fantasy world you've seen them all sometimes. There's only so much blue mountains and yellow skies you can see before it begins to grow monotonous.

Either way, I feel more apathy in response to it than exacerbation.

Yes, but he doesn't fit the archetype. He didn't fatten and smother his children but he was afraid of them taking away his position of power (which he got prophecied would happen). Chronos is distinctly unfeminine in that regard.

Another modern example that's less on the nose and more realistic would be Lysa Arryn from the Song of Ice and Fire series.

Kronos had a very masculine way of devouring his kids. Namely, that he just straight up ate them with all the stereotypical forcefulness and headstrong that is exemplary of what most understand to be masculine. Where Kronos chose the masculine approach of simple violence, generally one would expect mothers to instead undermine their children to render them powerless. Honestly I don't feel the absolute most qualified to speak here, but from my own admittedly meagre understanding of the matter that's typically what people expect the difference to be. Feel free to correct any inaccuracy on my part, however.

[Eisi]

Kronos had a very masculine way of devouring his kids. Namely, that he just straight up ate them with all the stereotypical forcefulness and headstrong that is exemplary of what most understand to be masculine. Where Kronos chose the masculine approach of simple violence, generally one would expect mothers to instead undermine their children to render them powerless. Honestly I don't feel the absolute most qualified to speak here, but from my own admittedly meagre understanding of the matter that's typically what people expect the difference to be. Feel free to correct any inaccuracy on my part, however.

The borders are as fluid as those between masculine and feminine in general I would say.

Kronos ate his children for he couldn't accept them overthrowing him and feared for his position of power. His devouring them is him claiming them as his to be undone as they originated from his seed. Thus Chronos represents a masculine tyrant obsessed with power and control.

The feminine approach would be to coddle the children, to manipulate them and keep them from developing any sort of agency of their own and keep them in total dependency, for the mother fears the independence of her children and thus to lose them and in turn herself, she identifies her children as her only source of meaning and love in life to the point she incorporates them into herself.

That's the way I understand it. Both are operating out of some sort of inferiority complex.

[Eisi]

There are no words to express just how much I feel the weight of these words in my very soul. Sometimes I wonder if I was actually in any of these bog-standard fantasy worlds if I'd be just like the villains the stories wish for you to despise for the simple fact that I see no unique value in them. I don't know, it just feels like when you've seen one fantasy world you've seen them all sometimes. There's only so much blue mountains and yellow skies you can see before it begins to grow monotonous.

Either way, I feel more apathy in response to it than exacerbation.

The problem I see with this is that basically everywhere we go we get rid of all the problems, everything will eventually have all the edges shaved off. When people criticize the scions as sanctimonious goody-two-shoes to the point even an Estinien is now bland and a shell of his former self, I always ask myself why new characters would in any way be beyond that. Same with new worlds or unknown lands, if they did it with Eorzea, it will happen everywhere. Every long standing cast member will become one-note and at most "pretend" to be three-dimensional, like Gaius or Nero who nowadays fit the same mold as the scions, you can be sure they will never be at odds at least. Every Ishgard will have its Dragonsong War ended, every Norvrandt will become a Norvrandt after 5.0.

[Brinne]

Put like that, Athena seems almost like a blend of the two, but I'm definitely not an expert in the mythology being cited or anything!

[Yuella]

Venat needed to be a loving mother goddess, otherwise her character would fall flat. It made her decision to sunder the world even more difficult. If she was just like "You guys are a bunch of whiners! We're not going to beat Meteion with you guys! I'm sundering this world! Get wrecked!" then the story wouldn't work as well. The song Answers would lose its meaning.

[Cleretic]

Venat needed to be a loving mother goddess, otherwise her character would fall flat. It made her decision to sunder the world even more difficult. If she was just like "You guys are a bunch of whiners! We're not going to beat Meteion with you guys! I'm sundering this world! Get wrecked!" then the story wouldn't work as well. The song Answers would lose its meaning.

I feel like there's people who think this is some kind of put-on and she's not really like that. Which I also think is completely false; in Elpis she's still very motherly, it just comes off more like 'the group's resident Mom Friend' in large part because of the context. She's around equals that she knows she doesn't have to protect and who can take care of themselves, so she's a lot more relaxed than she was in... well, every other time we've ever seen her. She's still very supportive and caring, you can see the character we know from other scenes coming through, it's just more in the background.

Meanwhile, Athena's kind of always in Mom Mode, she's just an extremely awful mom.

[Turnintino]

The funny thing about the Mommy Hydaelyn idea is that I didn't feel Venat's characterization in the Elpis storyline really even gave us "mother". More like "playful, quirky aunt". Caring and supportive, absolutely, but I don't know if I'd say she seemed particularly parental, and nor did it seem to me that any of the other characters regarded her as such, though they certainly had incredible respect for her. Like the Azem that succeeded her, at least Emet and Hyth seem to think she's a little too whimsical for "mom friend" status lol.

And in a vacuum, that's completely innocuous; it still makes for a likeable character, if bland (and so is the alternative -- I'm not really arguing otherwise). Also, obviously, like Emet, she's perfectly capable of evolving over the years, and certainly she would've been changed by the transformation into Hydaelyn. And as Cleretic says, we aren't necessarily shown the full range of her character, under the unusual circumstances that we interact with her. But I think this discussion is interesting precisely because, to me, Venat was missing that parental through-line, one of the few things we previously knew about Hydaelyn, and it doesn't sound like that was everyone else's read.

Like ShB-Hythlodaeus versus his EW counterpart, Hydaelyn and Venat could have been completely different characters for all they resembled one another, imo. (The same could be said of Themis/Elidibus, I guess, but that identity crisis is built into his characterization in a way that reads as way more intentional to me.)

On the other hand, maybe that's meant to be the takeaway? That she (and Emet) is and was more than just our limited experience with her. Your mom is more than just your mom, etc.

One thing's for sure, though, and that's that Elpis's eyes were bigger than its stomach. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯