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

[thegreatonemal]

? I’m not even going based off of the herois name. It literally says “you all know who this HERO is.”

And then also includes a quote from -Ancient HERO.

Also….i have mentioned the hero description. Numerous times. In many posts. Not starved to correct you seeing as i’ve been correcting you all day i’m quite sated actually.Keep flailing and trying to back up on how wrong you are. It’s certainly entertaining.

All of that isn't the minion description. That's just what the item says before you use it. Also you expect me to follow you around wherever you post, how am I supposed to know you've said it many times? That's your lane chief. This is the first time you've said it in our conversation. And the third time you've lied. Not gonna keep a running tally of you lying but it does amuse me

[KizuyaKatogami]

All of that isn't the minion description. That's just what the item says before you use it. Also you expect me to follow you around wherever you post, how am I supposed to know you've said it many times? That's your lane chief. This is the first time you've said it in our conversation. And the third time you've lied. Not gonna keep a running tally of you lying but it does amuse me

You apparently went out of your way to see when i last posted. Regardless you asked why i didnt say it in all these years, i corrected you, like always. Point is you've now been shown that the word hero is used both in the minion description and before you use it. Case and point, you're wrong, yet again. Shocker.

[thegreatonemal]

You apparently went out of your way to see when i last posted. Regardless you asked why i didnt say it in all these years, i corrected you, like always. Point is you've now been shown that the word hero is used both in the minion description and before you use it. Case and point, you're wrong, yet again. Shocker.

Takes only a few clicks to see when you posted last chief. Seeing as you tend to pop up whenever this topic comes up, almost on cue I just didn't believe you when you said you'd been gone for years. I was proven right. One of many during this chat. I really should have kept my original comment about you not trying to use the fact that the title of the minion is greek for hero. But i thought too much of you it seems. Figured there was no way you'd reach for that straw, even you have a line I had hoped.

You've been wrong this entire time and are grasping hard for this. Sorry we aren't doing half tallies.

[Cilia]

Call her out? Not necessarily, but I do think it's exactly the sort of thing they would at least have had some kind of reaction to after things calmed down, given their natures as written. That said, what bugged me wasn't even their seemingly being fine with it. It was the lack of revisiting it after the fact, as the Scions are often wont to do. I found it curious such a startling revelation didn't invite discussion amongst themselves once the dust settled and the world was no longer in danger of destruction.

What good would ruminating on the subject have done? All the Scions would have concluded is what the story already tells us - that she was a fundamentally good person who made an impossibly difficult choice, ended her (virtually already dead) civilization and people, and suffered in solitude for millennia while waiting in the hope that one day humanity would learn to overcome despair rather than try to run away from it.

You may not agree with that assessment, and that's your prerogative, but that's very much the picture painted of the character by the story. There's never going to be a scene where the Scions stand around thinking back on Hydaelyn and conclude that she was evil from the perspective of the Ascians - Emet-Selch made that pretty clear back in Shadowbringers, so what would the point be?

In complete fairness, even if it didn't say ["hero"] literally word for word, the description on the thing does paint a pretty heroic picture. The codex entry does as well.

Let me put things in perspective just a little:

Emet-Selch (Hades), who is known to be personally responsible for totally annihilating two reflections, the civilizations they spawned, and all of the citizens of those civilizations, as well as being at least complicit in half a dozen more cases (well, four and change), in addition to the death and destruction he brought to the peoples and civilizations of the Source, is still hailed as "a hero to his people."

I'm not contesting that assertion. However, if someone who did all of that can still be labeled as a hero (from a given perspective), then surely someone who sacrificed literally everything (her people and civilization included, and with them her innocence) for the faint hope of saving the universe from one of her civilization's wayward creations can as well?

If so, why is labeling her little minion a hero so offensive?

If not, uhh... I hate to be crass, but you may want to check your bias.

[Theodric]

Sil'dih is long gone and exists solely as a ruin yet that doesn't prevent the story dusting it off to touch upon what happened there in a way that makes it clear that what happened wasn't pleasant or justified. At the end of the day, a lot of us are here to discuss the story as a whole and like to maintain a measure of consistency. The Scions claim to cling to a specific set of morals that they like to preach about at every turn. It's rather strange, then, when they treat Venat as the exception. It's not mutually exclusive for the game's protagonists to indirectly benefit from Venat's actions but also find them utterly reprehensible. The video goes into this at length, though - so I'll once again direct those truly interested to go and watch it.

Particularly these sections:

'Excuses': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrDHyu5wJ6M

'Thematic Inconsistency': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMMrXrHgqk8

'Dehumanisation': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vMB7kccHSc

To be blunt, certain posters replying to this thread spent years railing against even the most minor of Garlean or Ascian missteps and took the stance that no matter how sympathetic the reasoning, there was never a justification for acts of genocide. How interesting that upon the reveal that Venat deliberately inflicted genocide upon her own people suddenly such things were framed as 'not a big deal' or a 'grim and unfortunate necessity'.

As someone invested in the setting as a whole rather than the gaggle of scholarly dorks that follow the player character around like lost little puppies, I very much prefer consistency in world-building and established themes. It would seem others take the same stance, thus why the thread's title is aptly proven - Venat is a divisive figure.

[Absimiliard]

What good would ruminating on the subject have done? All the Scions would have concluded is what the story already tells us - that she was a fundamentally good person who made an impossibly difficult choice, ended her (virtually already dead) civilization and people, and suffered in solitude for millennia while waiting in the hope that one day humanity would learn to overcome despair rather than try to run away from it.

What I would like is consistency from the story and characters. The Scions have had some very strong opinions on things in the past, and they've proven rather prone to taking a moment to consider things whenever there's been some significant event or revelation. Now they're just suddenly not going to bother? I don't care what they think about Venat, really. It's the lack of consistency in them just shrugging off everything that happened to them and everything they learned about their world I am most put off by. These people found out everything they believed was a lie, and they're just gonna walk it off? While I do genuinely believe they should at least question the moral implications of Venat's actions, that's very much secondary to "wtf, ya'll just gonna overlook the fact most of what you thought you knew was completely off-base?"

You may not agree with that assessment, and that's your prerogative, but that's very much the picture painted of the character by the story. There's never going to be a scene where the Scions stand around thinking back on Hydaelyn and conclude that she was evil from the perspective of the Ascians - Emet-Selch made that pretty clear back in Shadowbringers, so what would the point be?

You're responding to points that were never made, my dude. At what point did I even mention the Ascians outside of a prior post saying I see Venat as being no better than them? I'm not sure what your objective was here, but you seem to be missing all sorts of context for those posts you decided to reply to. I encourage you to go back and read the discussion they were apart of, because I didn't at any point mention anything about the Ascian perspective of Venat. Frankly, I don't care about it. It's got zero bearing on my own conclusions.

Emet-Selch (Hades), who is known to be personally responsible for totally annihilating two reflections, the civilizations they spawned, and all of the citizens of those civilizations, as well as being at least complicit in half a dozen more cases (well, four and change), in addition to the death and destruction he brought to the peoples and civilizations of the Source, is still hailed as "a hero to his people."

I'm not contesting that assertion. However, if someone who did all of that can still be labeled as a hero (from a given perspective), then surely someone who sacrificed literally everything (her people and civilization included, and with them her innocence) for the faint hope of saving the universe from one of her civilization's wayward creations can as well?

If so, why is labeling her little minion a hero so offensive?

If not, uhh... I hate to be crass, but you may want to check your bias.

Again, I... do not care, dude. I made a statement of fact regarding a minion painting a fairly heroic picture, the context being that it supports the premise of the game more or less treating Venat as a heroic figure. It has nothing to do with any other minions or whether or not Hades might be considered heroic from a certain point of view.

Seriously, read the rest of the conversation you got the quotes from. You completely missed the bus on this one, dude.

[thegreatonemal]

What I would like is consistency from the story and characters. The Scions have had some very strong opinions on things in the past, and they've proven rather prone to taking a moment to consider things whenever there's been some significant event or revelation. Now they're just suddenly not going to bother? I don't care what they think about Venat, really. It's the lack of consistency in them just shrugging off everything that happened to them and everything they learned about their world I am most put off by. These people found out everything they believed was a lie, and they're just gonna walk it off? While I do genuinely believe they should at least question the moral implications of Venat's actions, that's very much secondary to "wtf, ya'll just gonna overlook the fact most of what you thought you knew was completely off-base?"



You're responding to points that were never made, my dude. At what point did I even mention the Ascians outside of a prior post saying I see Venat as being no better than them? I'm not sure what your objective was here, but you seem to be missing all sorts of context for those posts you decided to reply to. I encourage you to go back and read the discussion they were apart of, because I didn't at any point mention anything about the Ascian perspective of Venat. Frankly, I don't care about it. It's got zero bearing on my own conclusions.



Again, I... do not care, dude. I made a statement of fact regarding a minion painting a fairly heroic picture, the context being that it supports the premise of the game more or less treating Venat as a heroic figure. It has nothing to do with any other minions or whether or not Hades might be considered heroic from a certain point of view.

Seriously, read the rest of the conversation you got the quotes from. You completely missed the bus on this one, dude.

I figured it was strange you didn't answer my initial questions to you. Why are you assuming it's referring to her as a hero post sundering and not what she has already done for her people prior to all the final days stuff. It's rather a moot point seeing as the woman herself doesn't see herself that way nor do any of the character. You seem to act like the scions were ever called her a hero. If you can find that then by all means post it but barely a sentence from a minion, the game endorsing her as a hero. The three of you are really reaching.

[RaenMan]

I have no idea what exactly this Minion talk has to do with anything at all, what Venat being called a hero by a toy is meant to prove. It seems like deliberate changing of the subject away from the original argument, which was the claim that Venat didn't make any attempt to avoid the help her people, which Cleretic showed ingame dialogue which proved otherwise:

snip

Then you guys responded with "um no watch the video please", whilst refusing to even so much as timestamp the exact part where the rebuttal supposedly happens. You were asked, repeatedly, for an ingame source, not a video you made (in clear bad-faith at that) and have refused repeatedly, demanding that everyone watch a 2 hour video or else their own claims (backed by ingame sources directly) are not valid.

The following 24 pages have been a series of deflections and changing of the subject, and thus far no ingame source disproving Cleretic's original post has been provided. A lot of insults and deflections, but no actual official sources. As Stonemal has brought up, you once were provided a source which compiled various dialogue and lore directly from the game, but because it was Tumblr, you mocked and refused to treat it as a valid source (IIRC it was actually a very well reputed lore-dude who had spent years compiling lore straight from the game, someone who had been doing so longer than most of you have even been playing. Correct me if I am incorrect Mal). Yet you expect people to take your own bias-laden video as a valid source? Curious.

snip

"Victim blaming" requires there to be an actual victim to blame, which has yet to be proven. Someone could levy the same accusation against yourself, and by your logic here, if you were to accuse them of being liar, you would be victim blaming. Let's not go there, please. If you don't actually have proof you can show, nobody is obligated to believe you, and your accusation can be dismissed as unsubstantiated.

If anyone has done anything illegal or threatened any illegal action against yourself, than I would suggest that you take it to the proper authorities, rather than trying to use it as sympathy-bait on a video game forum. Surely, if you are telling the truth, than I would assume you have already done so, correct?

I will say, that lying about being the victim of such horrible things would be very low, very, VERY low and I hope you would not do such a thing just to garner sympathy for your own argument, over a video game no less.

That's a lot of words

Much like the OP's video. Though, mine are considerably less at the very least.
Anyway, nowhere in my post did I mention or suggest I used 4chan as a source for anything, I mentioned 4chan as a place that I have posted on, nothing else, so I don't know what you're even referring to here. If you actually read my post you would know this.
Though you're ignoring the part where I edited to directly address the subject of the video itself. I maintain what I said already: if you have a rebuttal to the points already made (backed up by ingame sources), than you can respond with a direct source from the game, the writers, or any other official source. You do not a 2 hour video, where you won't even timestamp a direct part that supposedly "disproves" the counterarguments (backed up, again, by ingame sources) made here. Nobody you are arguing with needs to make a 2 hour video to make their point, they simply cite ingame sources in a short and concise forum post. Why can't you do the same?
And if your own supposed ingame sources are in the video itself, then you should absolutely no issue posting them here directly, and they can be addressed then. This would be much more efficient and conductive to discussion (this is a forum afterall, not a self-advertisement platform for our own content) than a 2 hour long video.

EDIT:

Beside the fact that 4chan and Reddit are more hostile than this forum, I have a hard time believing that you lurked so much that you couldn't get past level 25 on the only class you played.

4chan is anonymouse, so nobody has to deal with being stalked or doxxed over there. It also, bizarelly, has better moderation, believe it or not.

I also don't like the fact your whole post strawman me into ''Venat bad''. That is a gross oversimplification of the issues some people have with the story (even too I agree some people just hate Venat for whatever reason)

IMO the issue is that Venat actions are portrayed as a Heroic act of self-sacrifice when her methods are basically the same as Emet, Thordan, or Ilberd, who are rightfully depicted as evil lunatics.
Venat is a character I like and my only issue with her is how the writer portrayed her narrative.

At no point is it portrayed in a positive light, it is literally the exact opposite, Hydaelyn is the only one (besides the ascians) to make any moral judgement upon it and she says it was immoral and caused untold pain and suffering. It is very clearly painted as a necessary evil and nothing more. There is no "YASS, SLAY QUEEN, SUNDER THEM ANCIENT CHUDS".

As for the Scions, again, why would they have any issue with the person who's very actions are the sole reason they exist? You guys seem to be under the impression that the Scions are the Justice League and are these unwavering paragons of virtue. I have no idea where you got this idea. There are barely even characters if we're being completely honest. They have absolutey no logical reason to be madge at Hydaelyn for creating them, it's utterly nonsensical to suggest they would chatise her, especially as what's done is done and it's not as if they're going to undo it, which they wouldn't want to as they wouldn't exist. As well as, you know, they had far better things to worry about (stoppin the Final Days). They went to Hydaelyn for a specific reason, got what they needed out of her (after killing her) and left.

And we're not even going to get into how you guys deliberately missue the term "genocide" to apply to the Sundering, as you selectively quote parts of a dictionary page to prove your point (specifically ignoring the part that says "specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group." a very specific intention that she did not have and nothing in the game suggests this exact intent but you always ignore this particular part. She would have to have literally, explicitly have had the goal of wiping out her entire race. Considering her goal was to make her people strong enough through suffering to stand against the personification of despair, and she just made them mortal (which considering they already offed themselves whenever their wageslavery was done rather than ever actually live out their immortality, they may as well have already been mortal. If you're gonna unalive yourself anyway in the short-term being immortal is essentially worthless), and weaker and smaller and turned them into different races, she neither had the specific intention to wipe out her people nor did she fucntionally wipe them out. She just changed them on a fundamental level and stripped them of their mortality.

Unless your issue is that Ancients lost their racial purity, which after all this time I have grown to suspect is the actual problem you guys' have. Because otherwise, the Ancients were never wiped out in the same way the Karellians, Nibiruns, Grebuloffs, etc. were, Races who are all literally gone with no living descendants in any form. The Ancients continued to exist post-Sundering, but evolved into different races and their lifespans shortened. That's it. It requires the most galaxy-tier mental gymnastics to call that genocide.


"but muh identity death, but muh cultural erasure"

Not the same thing, there are other terms that are more appropriate you can use other than Genocide, not to mention how utterly far removed the Sundering is from anything remotely within reality. Be honest now, you use the term "genocide" becaues it makes your argument sound more emotionally compelling and extreme, not because it's an appropriate label. It's manipulative usage of language to make your argument more sympathetic sounding, and make Venat sound worse. Combine that with the suggestion that anyone who thinks the Sundering was justified is a "genocide apologist" then you can use it to shame and attack anyone who doesn't agree with you. Convenient, no? "If you disagree with our argument, than you are a horrible human being!" Try to shame the other person into agreeing with you when you don't have any actual logically-sound arguments.

But I dont even care about whether or not the Sundering was genocide as it's entirely irrelevant to whether or not it was necessary in the context of the narrative, which it was. And from the Scions' perspective it not only did not negatively effect them but they all directly benefited from it and so it'd be illogical to get mad at Hyadaelyn over it, along with the fact that they had far better things to worry about then finger-wagging over something that happened eons ago and did not effect them, and that's something that cannot be undone. If that's your entire issue with the narrative than it's a very weak and trivial one.

I could go on and on but I think I'll just end the post here. A SINGLE PERSON DID THIS. stop using ''You guys'' like we're a collective hivemind that helped him.

A guy you still associate with openly outside of here, I know for a fact, and given the likes his posts were getting, it's safe to assume you all collectively approved of his actions. So.....yeah.

I will end by saying to everyone who keeps bringing up the argument of ''We're tired of talking of this, nothing new about the subject'', Just don't post in there then, Your half the reason this thread is being kept alive. If you would truly be tired of this, you wouldn't come and argue/complain every day. Just let it go and the thread will die.

It's more like why do you still care, is the question. And yes, historically as mentioned already threads here would get derailed over this subject even if they had nothing to do with the Sundering. Not so much nowadays, though, that's partially because some of the individuals who would derail to start fights about this subject, like Kizuya just was, have been banned. And there hasn't been much lore even vaguely related to the Ancients that has come out, besides Panda, which led to a lot of arguments. As someone who used to particupate in WoW lore discussion, this subject really reminds me of the "Does Lordaeron belong to the Alliance or the Forsaken" arguments and how....heated those would get. At least those had a logical reason to be dragged out as long as they did, though, and the discussion revolved around player factions/races. The ancients are not only el finito, but they aren't and never were even playable. It is, literally, beating a dead horse.

[jameseoakes]

She just changed them on a fundamental level and stripped them of their mortality.

Unless your issue is that Ancients lost their racial purity, which after all this time I have grown to suspect is the actual problem you guys' have. Because otherwise, the Ancients were never wiped out in the same way the Karellians, Nibiruns, Grebuloffs, etc. were, Races who are all literally gone with no living descendants in any form. The Ancients continued to exist post-Sundering, but evolved into different races and their lifespans shortened. That's it. It requires the most galaxy-tier mental gymnastics to call that genocide.

I mean killing and replacing a whole race with your idea of a better one sure sounds a lot like genocide, it reeks of eugenics which is one of humanities greatest sins and a monstrous act.

[thegreatonemal]

I mean killing and replacing a whole race with your idea of a better one sure sounds a lot like genocide, it reeks of eugenics which is one of humanities greatest sins and a monstrous act.

It doesn't also the two sides had a fight. One side wanting to commit of genocide sacrificing the new souls to their shiny dark god and the other side rose up to defend those souls. She sundered mankind for two reasons, one to stop their god and defend those new souls the other to bring mankind to a form that could actually hope to fight Meteion, giving their aether dense bodies are useless against a foe like her. Unless you're gonna try and make an argument that you can't kill to save lives. Hell kill isn't even the right word, Emet decides her power in detail. He doesn't use the word kill.