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

[SannaR]

Man you all must have been unsubbed when I made my Zodiark Codex entry thread. Seriously though when are you going to move on from this? Yes, I know me and many others don't have to enter these threads but do so anyway. But the fact this topic only gets a breath of fresh air when you all have decided to resub or gain forum access vis the free login campaign just makes it look bad. As it would be like if this was a Star Wars forum and people were discussing things that happened in Andor or getting excited about the new Bobafett season only for a person or a group of people to every few months make threads about they hate the inclusion of Vader saying Nooooo during RTJ. Or some sports fanatic ranting again about how their favorite team or athlete got robbed that one time even if it's been years since said game or event took place.

I mean the only time it feels like a certain 800+ page thread gets back onto the main page is when one of you sub. Or someone who feels the same way just finished EW. Though the just finished types tend to make a new thread more often than bumping. Heck I'm sure that thread is one of the few the residential troll doesn't bump.

We're literally about a year out from Dawntrailer's release and yet you're still claiming that you all have been harshly silenced this whole time? When we all know that's not been the case? How can you be silenced if one of you bring up this topic every other month or so or back when this was fresher once every month.

[Absimiliard]

Meanwhile as this thread continues to prove the video's point.

[SannaR]

If the mind erasure doesn't take place, The trio don't forget our story and the fact we already determined Dynamis is the key to the whole issue here. Meiteon doesn't get to escape and they properly study her. Considering Venat could guess we come from the future simply by the fact we had her spell on her despite never meeting her, I think it fair to assume the Ancient, with all key to the problem in hand in this situation, would figure it out. It just create a situation where the Ancient has the same tool and information the Scion had. The only thing the mind erasure clock does is help the whole scenario deal with the usual time travel issue. It just turns it so the WoL going back to the past only affects the present by creating a time loop.

I'll try to make this my last post to this thread. Meteion's escape already is a thing though even without the mind wipe. Hermes told her to flee and had kicked in a faster speed. Unless you mean that the only reason Venat didn't follow her into actual space is due to the ticking clock of Kiros. Which we don't have enough evidence for. We don't know if Argos has a higher speed than what was already shown. That and Endsinger was already a thing as all the other off planet Meteia had already gone bad and were out there. We were just trying to stop the on planet one from trying to join the others.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Man you all must have been unsubbed when I made my Zodiark Codex entry thread. Seriously though when are you going to move on from this? Yes, I know me and many others don't have to enter these threads but do so anyway. But the fact this topic only gets a breath of fresh air when you all have decided to resub or gain forum access vis the free login campaign just makes it look bad. As it would be like if this was a Star Wars forum and people were discussing things that happened in Andor or getting excited about the new Bobafett season only for a person or a group of people to every few months make threads about they hate the inclusion of Vader saying Nooooo during RTJ. Or some sports fanatic ranting again about how their favorite team or athlete got robbed that one time even if it's been years since said game or event took place.

I mean the only time it feels like a certain 800+ page thread gets back onto the main page is when one of you sub. Or someone who feels the same way just finished EW. Though the just finished types tend to make a new thread more often than bumping. Heck I'm sure that thread is one of the few the residential troll doesn't bump.

We're literally about a year out from Dawntrailer's release and yet you're still claiming that you all have been harshly silenced this whole time? When we all know that's not been the case? How can you be silenced if one of you bring up this topic every other month or so or back when this was fresher once every month.

Are you being serious right now? You enter a thread about a video. People talk about what’s in the video. Yes you have it right, you don’t need to enter. But i know all of you can’t stop yourselves because you’re literally addicted to trying to disprove “wrongthink.” It’s genuinely incredibly sad. Yes, people feel silenced, and you can go through countless comments on the videos to see countless people thanking the creator for making the videos and creating an outlet where people can freely express their thoughts where they won’t be blasted on on sites like SA,4chan, and elsewhere. Something many people in this very thread have done and they very well know who they are.

As for people still discussing this....this was a 10 year arc for a story that praises itself and preaches so much about how deep and amazing the story is. Do you really think people who invested 10 years into this story would just go "oh okay" and go? This is the lore forum after all. To even come in here and complain about people discussing lore is beyond ridiculous and this is again what i mean with you Sanna. Actual bad faith posts complaining about people talking about lore in...the lore forum in threads you dont have to enter.

What you're basically saying is this topic only gets a breath of fresh air when you run everyone else out with your invalid complaints and then the lore forum dies when the only thing to talk about is a horrible void arc with nothing of substance happening.

[Xeronia]

Man you all must have been unsubbed when I made my Zodiark Codex entry thread. Seriously though when are you going to move on from this? Yes, I know me and many others don't have to enter these threads but do so anyway. But the fact this topic only gets a breath of fresh air when you all have decided to resub or gain forum access vis the free login campaign just makes it look bad. As it would be like if this was a Star Wars forum and people were discussing things that happened in Andor or getting excited about the new Bobafett season only for a person or a group of people to every few months make threads about they hate the inclusion of Vader saying Nooooo during RTJ. Or some sports fanatic ranting again about how their favorite team or athlete got robbed that one time even if it's been years since said game or event took place.

I mean the only time it feels like a certain 800+ page thread gets back onto the main page is when one of you sub. Or someone who feels the same way just finished EW. Though the just finished types tend to make a new thread more often than bumping. Heck I'm sure that thread is one of the few the residential troll doesn't bump.

We're literally about a year out from Dawntrailer's release and yet you're still claiming that you all have been harshly silenced this whole time? When we all know that's not been the case? How can you be silenced if one of you bring up this topic every other month or so or back when this was fresher once every month.

With all fairness the Ancients plot was still ongoing in 6.4 via Pandemonium. Kinda hard to forget them when the most recent patch reminds you yet again "Oh yeah I am leaving all of you to die". Again I hope they never touch this part of the plot again so it can just fade away with time and be as forgotten as Ala Mhigo.

[thegreatonemal]

With all fairness the Ancients plot was still ongoing in 6.4 via Pandemonium. Kinda hard to forget them when the most recent patch reminds you yet again "Oh yeah I am leaving all of you to die". Again I hope they never touch this part of the plot again so it can just fade away with time and be as forgotten as Ala Mhigo.

The plot in 6.4 had very little if anything to do with the sundering. It did have to do with an Ancients who thought her own kind were not perfect stewards o the star and sought to become a god so she could remake them. Elidibus was also there to get his sinking into the water closure. A welcome addition, who doesn't wanna hear another rendition of neath dark waters. It's a good song!

[Xeronia]

The plot in 6.4 had very little if anything to do with the sundering. It did have to do with an Ancients who thought her own kind were not perfect stewards o the star and sought to become a god so she could remake them. Elidibus was also there to get his sinking into the water closure. A welcome addition, who doesn't wanna hear another rendition of neath dark waters. It's a good song!

Doesn't Erich's message directly reference the Final Days have started when he is recording it, not really a shock the Final Days would correlate with Zodiark, Hydaelyn, and the Sundering in my mind at least? I don't personally see that as a huge jump in logic but hey different ways our minds work I guess?

[thegreatonemal]

Doesn't Erich's message directly reference the Final Days have started when he is recording it, not really a shock the Final Days would correlate with Zodiark, Hydaelyn, and the Sundering in my mind at least? I don't personally see that as a huge jump in logic but hey different ways our minds work I guess?

It's not particularly something I'd bring up with that story. It's only real relation to it is that it explains where he was when that went happened We now know he wasn't one of the sacrifices. I always thought he was and that's why Lahabrea went so hard and wore himself out, he's trying to get his son back. Like i said It has little to do with it.

[Alenore]

Yeah, he made a feast of undercooked meat, in hopes that it'd look like a victory if I choked on it. This is U.S. school debate circuit tactics: rapid-fire through a flurry of arguments with little care to their veracity or a unified argument, secure in the knowledge that since it takes more time to rebut a point than it takes to make it, eventually a point will go through uncountered.

Unfortunately, there's a problem there: I'm Australian. We don't play that game.

Ah yes, my U.S. school tactic that i learnt growing up in France, as a Frenchmen who never visited the U.S.
Two can (not) play this game. The fact you resort to ad hominem attacks as your first argument proves how shaky your tirade is.

Alenore is not making an argument for most of that post, against me or anybody, as it's just a flurry of disconnected rebuttals against an imagined opposition. There is no cohesive, singular argument here. Some of these points even contradict each other in such a way that it becomes clear that he can't possibly hold them all to be close and true, as their only unifying thread is 'if you hold this view in opposition to this thing Venat did/said, then it makes Venat look wrong'. I truly believe Alenore doesn't actually hold any of those bulleted list points to be important, they're just here in hopes that I waste my time on them. And while I frequently waste my time, I'm not interested in doing it this way.

The flurry of disconnected rebutals is exactly what it was meant to be: there's so many unrelated things that show how Venat story doesn't hold, that it's not surprising people wouldn't understand or agree with her, and can't understand why she's shown as a parangon of virtue and peace despite being on the same level of greyness as the other Ancients.
It wasn't mean to be a treaty about how Venat was PURE EVIL or whatever you think I intended.

Also yes, I, the oh-so-frequent poster who absolutely hates you, spent time posting all this just in hope to waste your time. Do you actually think you're that important?

However, while she is not morally right, she is tactically correct. The steps she took led to victory over what she set as her opponent. Again, this doesn't vindicate her morals, but the largest and simplest fact of the entire conflict is that she won, in both the short and long term. Could others have succeeded in the same thing? Emet-Selch doesn't think so, and I have no reason to doubt him on this. Trying to tear down her tactical achievements in efforts to declare her morally wrong just seems beside the point to me, but so many times people seem to angle towards that, taking the easy option of picking apart a fictional story's logic rather than the more difficult subject of an imperfect moral conundrum.

For her to be more "tactically correct" than the others, it would require them to even have a chance, but she made sure they wouldn't. History is written by the victors, and that's exactly what I'm criticizing.

I'm not denying that she won, I'm saying this was a pyrrhic victory at best, having doomed pretty much all the other stars and her own civilization in the process.
If that was a choice given to the player character, the Scions would be "no, we shouldn't sacrifice others so that we can live".
It's pretty much the rebutal to why the Ancients shouldn't have gone with a third sacrifice, one people use to explain why Venat thought the Sundering necesary. It's also part of the arguments we make against Emet when he says the star is theirs and we don't count.
But somehow, since it's Venat, all's well that ends well.





And now, as to the "imagined opposition", multiple posts in this topic alone show that you don't understand the main complaint, and how you paint her in a good light and deny sher should be painted as a villain, despite you considering Emet-Selch to be one.

I would argue that the reason Venat comes off as 'the one villain' of this particular micro-story to some (which I think is a gross oversimplification of said micro-story, I'd say there's no villains in it) isn't because she's the only one with a gun, it's because she's the only one that landed her shot. Everyone else is only guilty of attempted murder, she managed to knock the 'attempted' off the crime list.

But something that must also be remembered is that her plan was the only one that would've left survivors. The End of Days would've wiped out the whole planet if not stopped (as evidenced by, weirdly, Hildibrand), and Zodiark sacrifices would've rendered the planet bone dry (as evidenced from the Nibirun). But the Sundering, (as evidenced by everything before Elpis and most of what's after it) didn't just leave a planet full of people, it left fourteen planets full of people, albeit mostly different people. That hardly makes her objectively morally right, but from an omniscient readers' perspective surely we can see that her decision the kindest and most ultimately fruitful out of all options.

While you are certainly allowed to disagree with her, Venat is not a villain. And to call her one requires brutally simplifying that part of the story in the single-minded pursuit to declare there to be one in the first place.

You make arguments saying her plan is the only one that would've left survivors: source? Do you have access to how events would have turned in other timelines, where differents choices were made? One quick remark from Emet that goes against everything he ever said before doesn't count, when you discredited most of what he said before.
- The End of Days were done for the Ancients, the world wouldn't have ended more than it did during the last 12000 years.
- The Nibiruns lived in a perfect garden, far from bone dry. They summoned Ra-La to kill themselves, not as a mean to an end, and succumbed to apathy. A fate possible for the ancients, but one that may be thousands of year away for all we know, and clearly didn't save us from other form of destruction.

What do you think would happen is somebody proposed to sunder the source further? Do you think the Scions would argue "But it would make 14 more planets! Can't you see this would be a good thing?!"

There's a lot of things being said here, but fortunately, it's all directly in the text, not the subtext.
1. That immediately, she wants to 'fortify defenses and plan their escape'. This is very clearly a plan of action at an early stage; she doesn't know how to do this, only that it has to happen.
2. That she can't just tell everyone, because that's only going to cause mass panic. (She's right.) As a result, she has to pick carefully for secrecy and emotional integrity if nothing else.
3. While the Convocation would normally be her go-to, she immediately rules out talking to or working with them at this point, because their standard procedure both would and already has caused problems; we'd just see a repeat of the exact same responses that led to Ktisis in the first place. This clearly changed by the time of Anamnesis, but is true at the time she said it.
4. Hermes also can't be alienated or excluded, because he's integral to protecting the planet in the first place. Venat actually didn't have material evidence of this, she doesn't know how he'll be important, just that he will be.
5. She's doing her level best, and clearly not putting reliance on the time loop situation; in fact, she's clearly willing to strand us if that's what it takes, and just hopes that it doesn't.

Therefore: yes, we can safely and confidently assume that Venat tried to help her people, and just couldn't be open about it. All evidence about this leads towards 'she tried her best, and her best wasn't enough'.


I'm going to request that if you reject any of this, you do so with actual in-game evidence, rather than just broad dismissal and denial. I'm trying to put forward my viewpoint, readings and evidence in full view and in good faith, and I hope you are, too.

You're literally doing the same thing people don't like in game: taking at face value everything she says, and say "Amen, she's right" despite her claims making no sense.
1. That's great and exactly what we would want her to do! Unfortunately she didn't fortify anything, in fact she split them in 14. Neither did she plan an escape, except for some lucky souls that would have left on the moon, killing over 13/14 of the sharded souls she created.
Source: her plan to escape with the Moon would have left the shards behind.

2. Of course she can't tell everybody, nothing to say on that.

3. And why she rules them out is illogical. At this point, Hermes isn't even Fandaniel yet. She can use the Echo to show them what happened. Emet and Hythlodaeus who already tried to stop Meteion wouldn't just say "tough luck we're just going to die".
You're also saying "their standard procedure would and already has caused problems", but nowhere in your quote does she implies that. It's however similar to something she says in one of Anyder's cutscene, when Zodiark has already been summoned. So yes, the Convocation followed their standard procedure because someone withheld informations.
Source:
- It happens rightafter Emet speaks with him, and we see Fandaniel taking hisseat while moving back to the present.
- Anamnesis cutscene

4. He's integral to a flawed plan that cost 75% of their population, to find a solution that she already knows (the celestial currents, and the subsequent aether shield from Zodiark), since the Watcher told us about it, and we apparently reported everything that happened during our meeting in Elpis with the trio. It simply doesn't make sense to fear to alienate somebody who may have some inputs when you already know all he had to offer.
Source: Endwalker main scenario. The watcher telling us post Zodiark about the celestial currents.

5. If she doesn't care about the timeloop, why repeat everything and not use the knowledge from the future to actually try to change the situation?

You also left out two interesting parts to the cutscenes you quoted.
The first is the one in Anyder, which starts with :

By the summoning of Zodiark have we been granted a reprieve. Yet immutable as the laws He has woven may seem, they will not serve to forestall our doom.

The part "our fate will be the same" you understand as them telling the Convocation about Meteion and all, is actually put in context here by saying "Zodiark will fail". Yes, in 12000 years, killed by the champion Venat literally coached so they realize her plan.

The second is her answer to the "Maybe I should stay and help" dialogue choice right before the part you quoted in Elpis:

I appreciate your sentiment, I truly do, but 'tis a very long game that we must now play.
And while you have maintained a stable presence here thus far, there are dangers in lingering overlong.
No, you must return to your own battlefield. Make use of the knowledge you have attained, that your days here and our friends' sacrifice be not in vain.

"That WE must now play". It shows she intends to follow the same path. It is confirmed by the cutscene when you see her in the Atiascope, where she says: "I see... Thou didst journey unto Elpis. And now, the river of time converge".

You're allowed to not be okay with what Venat did, just as I'm not okay with what Emet did, and we don't have invalid opinions in thinking such. But this doesn't make these characters a failure, and it's wrong to approach them as if they did; it makes them successful. Nor does it make them unpopular; the thing I saw in that Twitter and Reddit dive, far more than actual dislike, were people talking about that part of Venat as a big reason why they like her.

You're again mistakenly saying people consider her to be a failure, and again fail to understand the points people are making: it's not that she's good or evil, nor if her story arc is interesting or not, because as you said, she's widely liked as a character.

Again, and I don't know how to say it differently this time so that you understand, is that what people don't like is how she's treated (a hero who did the right thing) compared to Emet-Selch (a villain who did bad things, redeemed in the end), when you yourself say they're both equally morally gray and none are justified.

[Vyrerus]

so it can just fade away with time and be as forgotten as Ala Mhigo.

ALA MHIGO WILL RISE AGAIN!