[6.0 - 6.4 Spoilers] An interesting video detailing Venat's polarizing reception

[Theodric]

If you actually check the channel, Cleretic, you can find that the full video is broken down into bite sized chapters for easier digesting. I'd personally suggest the 'Dehumanisation of the Ancients' segment as perhaps the most important section to view.

There's a separate video relating to Zenos and another revolving around Hermes - both viewed through a critical but constructive lens.

It's also very strange to consider Lauront as not speaking in 'good faith'. He's consistently sourced his talking points when discussing the lore and neither is he the only individual involved with the project.

I'll admit to being very amused that the counter to the video is in the form of the very common talking points and misconceptions that the video itself refutes, though.

[Cleretic]

Damn, this is pretty tragic if you ask me! I have listened to about 18 minutes of the video and it's very chill, the speaker has the exact cadence and intonation of cuck philosophy - very easy on the ears -

Uhhhhh... did you make a typo? Because if you didn't, I'm not sure what you're trying to say, and am not sure I want to.

[Eisi]

Uhhhhh... did you make a typo? Because if you didn't, I'm not sure what you're trying to say, and am not sure I want to.

Oh no! Cuck Philosophy is a channel on Youtube talking about philosophy. Although these days it's called CCK Philosophy.

[Rosenstrauch]

Having a bit of a laugh over how quickly this thread turned to crap. But then, given the subject matter, I'm not terribly surprised.

Sorry, not only is 'nearly two hours' far too much time to ask for me to devote to a timestamp-less video

It's got timestamps, Clere. It's also a compilation of 14 videos, all of which are bite-sized in comparison. It would definitely take you less time than stalking this thread—which seems to have clocked in at five hours now. Though to be fair, you might actually be at work right now and just checking your phone. Wouldn't explain the whole paragraphs you're throwing up over here, but hey, maybe you're just really good at navigating a crappy touchscreen keyboard or something.

EDIT: I hate it when I'm the last person to say something in a thread. Always makes me feel like someone's gonna throw up a dissertation on how I'm wrong and also morally bankrupt, fat, and poor. Only one of those three ever happened on this board, mind you, but still. So someone else reply already.

[Fenral]

EDIT: I hate it when I'm the last person to say something in a thread. Always makes me feel like someone's gonna throw up a dissertation on how I'm wrong and also morally bankrupt, fat, and poor. Only one of those three ever happened on this board, mind you, but still. So someone else reply already.

It can be me instead! Seems like everyone predisposed to "agreeing to disagree" at me is already back in Lore (now in convenient "blank white box" form!), as of this thread, so I can't exactly make things any worse for myself.

I clicked one timestamp, landed on "Venat is just one person no more predisposed to making the right choices than anyone else." No frigging s*kupo*t.

Do I really need to watch more? Like, the "Venat is prefect good" side is a little cringe, sure, but this video seems to be little more than offering a shoulder to cry on for people who just want to feel validated. I'm not actually sure which "side" came first, but I'm pretty sure it was the latter, regardless. There's more than just two sides, though.


Venat is not perfect, or even good. She's the Ubermensch, bringing about the Eternal Recursion. That's an inherently controversial act. She's not just killing the Ancients there, she's taking a portion of responsibility for all the calamities, for Minfilia, for Haurchefant, for everyone dead in the present. That's so metal!

The Venat debate was never supposed to be about morality. It was always about nihilism. The dead timeline in Shadowbringers essentially self-terminated, believing their own situation to be beyond hope. We're presented with the same possibility by going back to the beginning, and Venat's own answer is to consider and then reject it. She takes some notes and then flings us back to the future by our bootstraps to save a universe beyond saving. She gives us permission not to like anything she did, or anything that resulted, but we do have to accept it. Again, metal.


Clere will inevitably lecture me about subjectivity and not citing sources and not fully remembering details unrelated my overall impression. I still think I got the gist, though.

[Cleretic]

Oh no! Cuck Philosophy is a channel on Youtube talking about philosophy. Although these days it's called CCK Philosophy.

Right. I... hope you understand why I'm gonna just take your word for that and not put that in my search history or a private Firefox window!

It's got timestamps, Clere. It's also a compilation of 14 videos, all of which are bite-sized in comparison. It would definitely take you less time than stalking this thread—which seems to have clocked in at five hours now. Though to be fair, you might actually be at work right now and just checking your phone. Wouldn't explain the whole paragraphs you're throwing up over here, but hey, maybe you're just really good at navigating a crappy touchscreen keyboard or something.

If what I've been doing is truly important, it's been a combination of FFXIV fishing, editing a podcast, making dinner, watching more interesting Youtube videos to me (there's a new Dorktown episode today, nothing's gonna win that fight today), and checking both this and a couple other forums/social media feeds. Some of those overlapping, but of course not all of them. I admit I have poor habits, and being in here is exhibiting at least one of them, but I assure you I haven't been sitting idle just staring at this thread for five hours.

I also did a spot of looking around the internet to find where people outside of that small part of these forums actually do genuinely dislike Venat enough for her to be considered 'polarizing' or 'controversial'. I haven't found hide nor hair of them, but I have found out that 'venat' is Albanian for 'veins' and that people apparently think Worthy of His Back is difficult.

Clere will inevitably lecture me about subjectivity and not citing sources and not fully remembering details unrelated my overall impression. I still think I got the gist, though.

Nah, you're good! You're not exactly claiming objectivity or making assertions that need proper proof, nobody should need sources for that. For what it's worth: I agree in concept, although I've never seen the 8UC timeline brought in as part of this, and I'm not 100% on if I'm in agreement on that part.

[Theodric]

I also did a spot of looking around the internet to find where people outside of that small part of these forums actually do genuinely dislike Venat enough for her to be considered 'polarizing' or 'controversial'. I haven't found hide nor hair of them, but I have found out that 'venat' is Albanian for 'veins' and that people apparently think Worthy of His Back is difficult.

It's really rather strange to me that you're seriously attempting to pretend as if Venat's actions were not at all controversial. There's been numerous debates over the years relating to the subject and many posters have come forward expressing their concerns regarding the character independently of one another, largely coming together under one 'banner' precisely because of the absolutely unhinged behaviour and accusations launched at anyone critical of Venat.

I do think you should actually watch the video before commenting, though. If not now then at some point in the future when your schedule allows for it. Perhaps it might dispel some of the - frankly bizarre - framing you have of certain posters and their motives here.

[Fenral]

Nah, you're good! You're not exactly claiming objectivity or making assertions that need proper proof, nobody should need sources for that. For what it's worth: I agree in concept, although I've never seen the 8UC timeline brought in as part of this, and I'm not 100% on if I'm in agreement on that part.

I think this forum's debates on the ethics of altruistic suicide were before your time, but they're definitely coloring my impression. It seems like people get their wires crossed about thematic consistency and ideological consistency WRT Venat, under the fallacious belief that a creative work needs to represent a specific, singular ideology, but I think it's ideologically inconsistent while being thematically very consistent. In the larger narrative, the 8UC timeline is a counterpoint. We as players reading the lore dumps every Rising know that that timeline ultimately continued to exist despite believing it wouldn't, but nobody active in the story does.

Flipping the issue around, had Venat been able to intervene in a way that saves the Ancients, leaving us Exarch-stranded and our timeline in an unknowable and likely doomed state, she would have been making the decision that our lives didn't matter beyond serving as one big extra failure on the path to the success of Amaurot society. It's the meaty philosophical concept that Chrono Cross entirely failed to capitalize on: what does it mean to live in a "bad end" timeline? Still probably controversial, ultimately. Not sure there was ever a "moral" way out for Venat, but I think the intent is that she accepts that.

[Rosenstrauch]

Alright, I was gonna dip out after my first post here. My time away from this shithole over the past... year? Few months? Can't remember when I last posted here. Point being, I'm a happier person now, and I'd like to keep it that way.

But I do want to address this one thing.

leaving us Exarch-stranded

The idea that the WoL would be permanently locked out of their own timeline if they meaningfully altered the past is completely unsubstantiated. Fact is, the Exarch only ever hypothesized the reason why he continued to exist. He never questioned whether or not he could return to his future. Nor did he ever indicate a desire to do so, to say nothing about actually making the attempt.

I know that's hard to accept, but any ideas folks have one way or another about the possibility of going to the Eighth Era is pure headcanon as of 5.0 to now. And the only reason I think it won't stay that way is because "The WoL travels into the Bad Future for plot reasons" is bound to happen sooner or later.

[Fenral]

Alright, I was gonna dip out after my first post here. My time away from this shithole over the past... year? Few months? Can't remember when I last posted here. Point being, I'm a happier person now, and I'd like to keep it that way.

I mean, same here, honestly. I'll even spare you further disagreement (though I do disagree). Go now, with my blessing.