Quote Originally Posted by Cleretic View Post
Venat had a very good and immediately understandable reason not to tell the Convocation, despite that being what she'd do in any other situation by her own admission: because she knows what their standard procedure is going to be to finding out this unknown, and that it's not going to help. (We also know this, because Emet does exactly their 'standard procedure' with Hermes and Meteion and only makes things worse.)

On the other hand, you might remember that there's a certain pretty big step between 'Zodiark dying' and 'coming back from the moon'! A step that proved that, while there's hardly a 'highest authority' on the Source, there is one that's a few steps ahead of the Scions on this particular subject, for which this whole subject is very much a known situation, and should probably be the first point of contact on getting back down there. Said authority is hardly an inherently trustworthy power, and proved that extremely clearly just a bit earlier in Endwalker, but given the scenario put in front of the Scions, were a clear first point of call.

Far from being parallel situations that should or could be handled in parallel ways, these are actually exact mirrors that require opposite approaches: Venat was faced with a situation that gave her clear evidence on who she couldn't contact, while the Scions were faced with a situation that gave them only one option as to who to contact. I don't find seeing the differences here especially complicated, and I'm sure you don't, either.
You may use the argument of "she cannot trust the Convocation", Cleretic, but it's one of the reason a lot of people find Venat as stupid as Hermes, and disagree with how she's portrayed as a savior instead of as another flawed Ancient who takes drastic measures affecting her whole race at breakfast.

Like, seriously :
  • She was afraid that her people might disappear like the Nibirum, so she chose to... kill them all herself? Make it makes sense ;
  • She feared Hermes might turn against them and he wouldn't help to find the problem when she already knows what the issue is? And why do we even care if Fandaniel is against us? Is it really better to Emet-Selch, Lahabrea and Elidibus against sundered people who have a fragment of their capabilities? Which include literally their most powerful sorcerer, a calculating mastermind gifted in creation magic, and the incarnation of Zodiark that she wanted so bad to sunder?
  • How exactly did she know any of her choice didn't sidetrack her to another timeline? She had absolutely no idea she was on the right path for all these years until we went to say her "Hi, hello, may I trouble you with Aether please" ;
  • She condemned the 3 susmentionned Ancients to walk the path of the genocidial maniacs, and all the other Ancients to either stay in stasis in Zodiark or repeatedly die for 12000 years ;
  • She literally states when we leave Elpis that she has to plan an escape. Not a final solution to Meteion. This solution would have doomed 13/14th of the sundered souls, since it would have saved the Source only. Why not literally have her own people escape instead if she thought it was the way?
  • And if the other, previously unannounced plan, was to reach Meteion and smash her dynamis beak, why did she have to wait 12000 years until she became so entrenched into Ultima Thule to act?
  • On that note, when did she become such an expert on Dynamis, knowing that Ultima Thule is so full of Dynamis that Aether would have no use?
  • Which is actually proved to be wrong: if Thancred's sacrifice was enough to actually make UT liveable for everybody, and Aether useful, a countermeasure might have been found. And beings of pure aether are also thriving there: Zenos as Shinryuu is literally a primal, strong enough to break into her nest from the outside, and make her reconsider her position. We also almost exclusively use aether to defeat her, except that Dynamis LB ;
  • Besides dooming her whole species, she also pretty much doomed all the other planets that might have thrived were it not for the despair infused Dynamis: the Ea, for instance, lived through the Final Days, so were still alive when Meteion started her Song of Oblivion. And somehow we managed to convince some of them to live on, showing that Meteion is most likely the trigger to their mass suicide. Like, congratulations we killed Meteion! Well she had 12000 years to destroy everybody else but ehhhhh at least our own star survived amirite?
  • And like, how could they not unite her people toward the goal of defeating Meteion? They were ready to kill themselves to just erect a new aetherial bubble around the celestial currents. Are we really supposed to believe they couldn't have found


Her whole premise and discourse on why we're better than the Ancient also falls short, when you consider that they were time and time again portrayed as being as flawed as we were:
  • She mentions how Alisaie never loses sight of her dreams: is 12000 years of pain and suffering to bring back their friends not determination enough for her?
  • To Thancred, she praises how he learnt to live with loss. Something that isn't unkown, however rare in their society: Lahabrea and Erichtonios themselves had to deal with grief ;
  • The keeper of secret role Urianger holds has no weight here, when their society is full of secrets: Pandaemonium has hidden knowledge, herself refuses to tell people more about the events, Lahabrea hid the truth from Athena from everybody else ;
  • Same with Y'shtola, somehow pursuing knowledge is such a quality that the Ancients didn't have? A society built on learning, bettering the star and themselves and going back for a nap? New light is shone upon what you know, and you adapt: the Ancients do that, look how quickly Emet accepted the whole Dynamis thing ;
  • From hate to love, for Estinien, is again shown with Erichtonios ;
  • To G'raha she says that he didn't give in to despair and led his civilization to salvation. The gall to say that when your own civilization came together to find a solution through sacrifice, while you had the solution all along lol ;
  • And finally she congratulates us for always rising to the challenge. What did the Unsundered do the last 12000 years, just lay down whenever a champion defied them? They weren't curled up into a ball when Meteion started her Song, either.

Had we not went to the past to know how the Final Days were triggered, we couldn't have defeated it. The Ancients were never given a chance to rise to the occasion.


All these and more are the reasons why a lot of people don't like how she's portrayed in game, and cannot agree with the "she did what she had to do to succeed and that was the only path". No, she single-handedly decided she'd do better than everybody else and played God with so many lives, and it's no different than the Unsundered rejoinings, or Hermes little self-determination test.
They are not "anti-Venat", or consider that "she's the villain". Not more the villain than Emet or Hermes, at the very least.
And they don't agree that it was the only course of action, when the game shows us time and time again that Ancients had potential, that they overcame the same issues as us, and that even societies like the Nibirum could find meaning to life with time and some guidance.


But you know all these arguments perfectly well, Cleretic, since this subject has been debated ad nauseam on that forum. So I'll just finish with a link to this topic:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/452097