What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[Supersnow845]

^yes but zodiarks barricade is failing and it didn’t protect the ancients properly, so if she didn’t sunder the ancients then the final days would have consumed them and then the rest of intelligent life would have failed when zodiark’s barrier failed

Venat sundering bought the source 10,000 years for humans to recover enough to stop Meteion before zodiarks barrier failed

This is not to say that venat was responsible for the barrier of zodiark but the ancients were still at a dead end, they couldn’t stop anything and their only plan was to keep sacrificing more to bring back people they had already sacrificed

Venat was the only way forward even if that way was through an ocean of blood

[Theodric]

^yes but zodiarks barricade is failing and it didn’t protect the ancients properly, so if she didn’t sunder the ancients then the final days would have consumed them and then the rest of intelligent life would have failed when zodiark’s barrier failed

Venat sundering bought the source 10,000 years for humans to recover enough to stop Meteion before zodiarks barrier failed

This is not to say that venat was responsible for the barrier of zodiark but the ancients were still at a dead end, they couldn’t stop anything and their only plan was to keep sacrificing more to bring back people they had already sacrificed

Venat was the only way forward even if that way was through an ocean of blood

On the contrary, Zodiark did stop the crisis and shielded the Sundered from Meteion's assault for 12k years, the Ancients didn't know what the root cause was because Venat didn't tell them.

It's also a common misconception that Zodiark was going to involve endless sacrifices. This was never actually stated, as per Hythlodaeus outlining what the actual plan was set to entail back in Shadowbringers during the Amaurot segment of the MSQ's. The story also never said his barrier was failing. It just asserts she feared they'd become caught in a cycle of sacrifice, a point not evident from other sources which indicated a terminal point to the sacrifices. She also believed they wouldn't be able to directly wield Dynamis, ignoring the possibility of workarounds. What ended the barrier was Fandaniel fighting you using Zodiark to end him. She never told the ancients about the root cause of the issue so they can't really be blamed for not knowing about Meteion or devising a solution to her. Furthermore, Venat was a respected member of their society and so if she spoke up to share her actual concerns instead of acting as an active saboteur then it is more likely than not that her people would have listened. We know Emet-Selch cast doubt on the circumstances surrounding the Warrior of Light visiting Elpis but based on the slim chance that the Warrior of Light was telling the truth, he cited his love of Etheirys and his people as reason enough to pursue it further 'just in case'.

A number of individuals who came together through this thread created a video series involving a deeper and critical look at Venat's actions, complete with sources. It's broken into different sections for easier consumption though the most relevant to this particular subject would be:

Third Sacrifice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySzci_6Hmqs

Excuses:

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

For those interested in the full package, it can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsk412wCrJY

[fulminating]

^yes but zodiarks barricade is failing and it didn’t protect the ancients properly, so if she didn’t sunder the ancients then the final days would have consumed them and then the rest of intelligent life would have failed when zodiark’s barrier failed

Venat sundering bought the source 10,000 years for humans to recover enough to stop Meteion before zodiarks barrier failed

This is not to say that venat was responsible for the barrier of zodiark but the ancients were still at a dead end, they couldn’t stop anything and their only plan was to keep sacrificing more to bring back people they had already sacrificed

Venat was the only way forward even if that way was through an ocean of blood

What I’m saying is she had more than enough information to negate the need to summon zodiark and all entailed issues. I genuinely cannot tell if she’s meant to be a parody of competent people wanting more difficulty in the game and unable to fathom that not everyone finds it as easy as them or if despite intuiting time travel from a glance, managed to miss the obvious implications of crystal Graham’s survival.