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

[Turtledeluxe]

We tell her everything, but we can't tell her the exact details of how everything came to pass

And the entire premise of the this conversation that has spanned needless pages now is that she knowingly committed genocide down the very details. So what you're establishing is that she didn't, which is what I've been saying. She expended her energy on an attack to bring down Zodiark because there was no other choice but to divide his power and conquer. Even if she had clues about the future, her and her followers failed to solve the problem in time as the walkng sequence (which is clearly an abstraction representative of days, weeks, months of interactions between Venat and others) shows us. She didn't really know exactly what the sundering would result in as far as what exact state it would leave humanity in it because how would the WoL tell her all of that? Finally and most importantly, the game doesn't frame her as perfect nor does it frame her solution as unquestionable. You're supposed to question it because who was really right in the conflict-- the group who wanted a tempered future that rendered the earth a false paradise or the group whose solution was to splinter their power in a reckless attack that went far beyond merely weakening humanity? And that's assuming you subscribe to the "we revised history to be one timeline" take, which I don't. But even if you do, the story makes sense and Venat isn't some genocidal maniac. Emet is, Yotsuyu is, Durante is, Zenos is. Venat is not. It's worth noting as well that the game confirms Hydaelyn was summoned exactly the same as Zodiark-- which means she had a heart and other people on her side (most likely a significant number of people).

So he's saying even if you want to help, you can't, because if you throw everything off balance by trying to change things, you risk jeopardising the current world we're going back in the past to save in the first place.

In the very next quote you are saying Graha wanted to undo their future. I'm not how you can reconcile your own interpretation of this statement with what you said there. So, is some magic rule governing our time travel that Graha is not subject to? You're just misintrepreting what's being said. Time travel, in FFXIV, doesn't change reality. The variables can change, but it cannot be meaningful change,the result will be the same. Whether Graha travels back to the First or not, it would've theoretically been Flooded and eventually saved. Whether we travel to Elpis or not, the Final Days are bound to be instigated where they will affect our current reality. That's what he is saying. He's not just saying "you can't help".

N

ope, everything had to proceed as it did in our world's past, otherwise we wouldn't exist to be able to battle Meteion. Everything had to happen the way it originally did, including the Sundering, the shards and the Ascians going about their shenanigans with Calamities, for the outcome that she believed the most in to be able to happen.

Exactly, I'm glad we agree.

That pretty much sums up my thoughts overall on why the rhetoric about genocide is so bizarre and why the story, even if you believe in a single timeline, actually does make sense. It is believable? Maybe not. That's not what people have been arguing. What actually doesn't make sense, is how the time loop affects the rest of the game prior to EW with respect to Hydaelyn.

[Nayukhuut]

That pretty much sums up my thoughts overall on why the rhetoric about genocide is so bizarre and why the story, even if you believe in a single timeline, actually does make sense. It is believable? Maybe not. That's not what people have been arguing. What actually doesn't make sense, is how the time loop affects the rest of the game prior to EW with respect to Hydaelyn.

How is people wanting to call her out bizarre? It doesn't matter if her actions brought the world we live in. It doesn't even matter if we LIKE the world we live in. What matters is that her actions ended up killing entire worlds full of people that did not want to die. We can appreciate what we have now, but still say that Venat was wrong to toy with the lives of so many. An awful act is still an awful act, even if a supposed hero does it.

[Turtledeluxe]

How is people wanting to call her out bizarre? It doesn't matter if her actions brought the world we live in. It doesn't even matter if we LIKE the world we live in. What matters is that her actions ended up killing entire worlds full of people that did not want to die. We can appreciate what we have now, but still say that Venat was wrong to toy with the lives of so many. An awful act is still an awful act, even if a supposed hero does it.

It wasn't world's full of people and many of them did want to die, by literally serving a summon who recurring called for sacrifices and tempered the rest. I wouldn't call being permanently tempered living. It's bizarre because you're either being obtuse or just don't realize that Zodiark was only a good solution for people who were content permanently serving and sacrificing for him in order to act as a shield against the Final Days.

And I keep having to remind everyone-- Hydaelyn was a group effort. So it's not the awful act of Venat, it's the awful act of a collective. And it isnt awful because as I keep saying, the force required to injure Zodiark had the byproduct of sundering. Its not "Venat plotted to send humans back to the dark ages". If anything your hyper focus on Venat seems very odd. I don't notice anyone calling out or making threads about the myriad other genocidal people in the story who are also framed as heros at particular points or even have redemption arcs. I think the real issue you have is deeper than that.

Venat doesn't even really get a redemption arc. It's a confession and then we kill her.

[Theodric]

She didn't really know exactly what the sundering would result in as far as what exact state it would leave humanity in it because how would the WoL tell her all of that?

What do you mean? She could see the WoL right in front of her. She had their direct testimony, gleaned both from the Ascians and their very existence as a person. She knew it would yield a species that would be aetherically less dense, and what shape it'd take more or less. Plus we know from both her own mouth when questioned by Y'shtola and from the dev Q&A that she deliberately sundered them to bring about this result, i.e. she believed they'd wield dynamis more easily this way and feared that her own people would become like the Nibirun because she believed they couldn't change.

(most likely a significant number of people).

Nope:

Venat
You know as well as I that but few support our cause. Far fewer than they who place their faith in Zodiark.

See: https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/B...rface#Dialogue

Other sources add to this, like the dev Q&A on why her summoning consumed her followers souls (well, aside from the little wrinkle that is the "fragments" of their souls in Myths...)

Finally and most importantly, the game doesn't frame her as perfect nor does it frame her solution as unquestionable.

It kind of does in the MSQ. It's not until the Omega quest that her decision is meaningfully questioned in any capacity. The MSQ presentation does not bother to question her logic at any point, and the codex doubles down on it as tragic but necessary and paints her actions as nothing other than benevolent.

the group who wanted a tempered future

Citation needed. Only the Convocation was tempered - a problem she knew how to shield from and could've prevented, if it mattered, by giving them the knowledge to avert the need to summon Zodiark. Both the dev Q&A and her own words in 5.2, and her short story in Tales from the Dawn, point to what she believed was her people's ability to adapt to the despair they had experienced as the cause, not tempering. You keep bringing tempering up but really, you're really just making it up at this point.

But even if you do, the story makes sense and Venat isn't some genocidal maniac.

Putting aside the word "maniac", her actions are nonetheless genocidal and the intent is there for this. Her actions come at the expense of the ancients' existence and furthermore rely on the Rejoinings taking place at least up to the 8UC for the sake of maintaining timeline consistency. You're trying to argue from the fact that she wasn't 100% confident if her methods would work to her aims being fuzzy, but that's really not how it's framed. Her aims are clear and pretty unambiguous, and frankly admitted to when questioned by Y'shtola, and also by Yoshi P in the Q&A.

In the very next quote you are saying Graha wanted to undo their future. I'm not how you can reconcile your own interpretation of this statement with what you said there. So, is some magic rule governing our time travel that Graha is not subject to? You're just misintrepreting what's being said.

Who can say? The writers have never really divulged the basis for how time travel works in the setting. We can only infer from the few instances we see and there's still question marks around that, to which the only answer so far is what Yoshi gave.

Time travel, in FFXIV, doesn't change reality. The variables can change, but it cannot be meaningful change,the result will be the same. Whether Graha travels back to the First or not, it would've theoretically been Flooded and eventually saved. Whether we travel to Elpis or not, the Final Days are bound to be instigated where they will affect our current reality. That's what he is saying. He's not just saying "you can't help".

Meanwhile the 8UC timeline existing as an independent forked timeline in its own right. Go read it here. https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../#sidestory_08

That pretty much sums up my thoughts overall on why the rhetoric about genocide is so bizarre and why the story, even if you believe in a single timeline, actually does make sense. It is believable? Maybe not. That's not what people have been arguing. What actually doesn't make sense, is how the time loop affects the rest of the game prior to EW with respect to Hydaelyn.

Yes, welcome to the club! We have been critical about how EW employed time travel in this thread since day one. Go look at the tags in the thread even. It does not, however, mean that what the writers wrote is not what they intend to be canon, regardless of how little sense it makes. And that is, that she is intending for the timeline from which you appeared in Elpis to remain consistent with the recollection you gave her, leading her to declare in EW that a conjunction of timelines has now been seeded. This is further supported by the devs' own words on how this can be interpreted, and her deliberate decision to try spare Emet-Selch.

At this point, I have to question, as have others, whether for someone who so vehemently argues their corner whether you've actually gone through the story, because there's a lot of misunderstandings that crop up in your posts. For instance, you keep hinging your words on what Elidibus said, but as the dev Q&A and her own words in EW make clear, it is Venat who is acting towards maintaining the timeline, which implies as a corollary that if she did not, it could deviate. Again, so far you've been reluctant to provide any sources for anything you say, and you come to very strange misinterpretations of the sources being provided.

Does it all make sense? Nope, but whether it does or not they're setting this out as how things went down, and on that basis, Venat is assigned a lot of agency and somehow, in spite of all the gaps in her knowledge, is aiming towards a timeline convergence. You don't have to like it or consider it logical - I certainly don't - but that is the level of agency she is being assigned. And on that basis, she is open to criticism. It doesn't really matter if in some other timeline, some hypothetical Venat made a greater effort to salvage her people, as all we have are her words that she'd make such efforts, and no tangible proof, so we are ultimately judging her based on what we do at least know. And that Venat is one who decided not to give her people the full picture and to proceed with the Sundering as an "answer" to Endsinger. It's possible to both criticise the weirdness of how they resorted to time travel, and to criticise the parties involved on the basis of what they chose to make canon as, whatever its faults, it's what we're stuck with.

It wasn't world's full of people and many of them did want to die, by literally serving a summon who recurring called for sacrifices and tempered the rest. I wouldn't call being permanently tempered living. It's bizarre because you're either being obtuse or just don't realize that Zodiark was only a good solution for people who were content permanently serving and sacrificing for him in order to act as a shield against the Final Days.

I don't really think you're in a position to be insulting others here over being obtuse. But Zodiark did not temper anyone but the Convocation, and even that was presented as a side effect without much follow up at the time. He was resorted to as a summoning because they had run out of other available sources of aether because of the Final Days eating away at their star. This is why people say it was within her hands whether or not they resorted to summoning him, because if they had been warned earlier of the nature of the problem, a different solution could have been devised. But you're still framing this in a misleading way that's not even consistent with the story's own way of presenting it.

And I keep having to remind everyone-- Hyaelyn was a group effort. So it's not the awful act of Venat, it's the awful act of a collective. And it isnt awful because as I keep saying, the force required to injure Zodiark had the byproduct of sundering. Its not "Venat plotted to send humans back to the dark ages". If anything your hyper focus on Venat seems very odd.

She had more knowledge than her combined group. This is also covered in her short story:

Unable to find the words, the archivist retreated into ritual. He held out a crystal—as he had countless times before—upon which was stored the last chapter of cosmological wisdom Venat had sought. Though she had spoken of its importance, he suspected she withheld the entire truth. Of her glimpse into the future, she had offered precious little.

That aside, I don't think any here would disagree that her entire group should share some of the blame, but we have to consider how much they knew compared to her.

I don't notice anyone calling out or making threads about the myriad other genocidal people in the story who are also framed as heros at particular points or even have redemption arcs. I think the real issue you have is deeper than that.

Must've been absent for most of ARR, HW, SB and SHB, then. But then again, the story does not shy away from criticising those characters, even where it presents their motives as sympathetic, so this is a rather moot point.

Venat doesn't even really get a redemption arc. It's a confession and then we kill her.

From the story's position (or even the way you tried to frame it), what is there to redeem? Even in the Omega story, the Watcher is hoping for validation of her and her group's ideological view through the Sundered. In the end, she herself insists on the fight, knowing the cost, because she sees it as a test she wants to administer.

[Nayukhuut]

It wasn't world's full of people and many of them did want to die, by literally serving a summon who recurring called for sacrifices and tempered the rest. I wouldn't call being permanently tempered living. It's bizarre because you're either being obtuse or just don't realize that Zodiark was only a good solution for people who were content permanently serving and sacrificing for him in order to act as a shield against the Final Days.

And I keep having to remind everyone-- Hyaelyn was a group effort. So it's not the awful act of Venat, it's the awful act of a collective. And it isnt awful because as I keep saying, the force required to injure Zodiark had the byproduct of sundering. Its not "Venat plotted to send humans back to the dark ages". If anything your hyper focus on Venat seems very odd. I don't notice anyone calling out or making threads about the myriad other genocidal people in the story who are also framed as heros at particular points or even have redemption arcs. I think the real issue you have is deeper than that.

Venat doesn't even really get a redemption arc. It's a confession and then we kill her.

We don't call out the other mass murderers because the story is happy to call them out for us. All we are asking is that it actually do the same to Venat. Her scene before we kill her wasn't that. It was basically her saying "I have done something awful" and us comforting her for it. I don't want to comfort her, I want to agree with her that she did something awful.

As for many of them not wanting or wanting to die, while it's kinda awful that you do not considered Tempered people living as we have shown that Tempering is reversible, what about the innocent people on the Shards who had to die before wee got to the point where her plan might work? She knew about them. They certainly did not want to die.

And yes, I am aware of her followers and I do not care for them other. A small group who all decided that they knew better for the world and then planned to force their will on it. Now the Twelve are forever soured in my mind too since they are all just based on Venat followers, and creations of Venat herself. The reason I do not mention them, though, is that Venat never entirely told them what was up. They followed her like good little sheep and she led them to their doom.

That said, I am not sure arguing with you has much of a point since you basically keep trying to argue that even the most vile things are okay and should never be questioned so long as they lead to an outcome we like. Which is a valid viewpoint, I suppose. It is just not one I can agree with. I figure that we can acknowledge the world we live in now, while still calling out Venat for being a crap person.

[Xirean]

Expecting that we are not done with that alternate timeline, either. I wouldn't be shocked even in the slightest that if in a few expansions from now we basically pull another Shadowbringers, but this time end up in that alternate timeline. They would get to parade around Emet, Elidibus, and Venat version 2. :P

It's gonna be FF14's Warlords of Draenor/Legion moment.

Don't give me hope that this happens. The moment it does then there no longer exist any reason to prevent the summoning/sundering by going back to Elpis. If they ever actually make multi timelines truly Canon then we better go back and fix that event.

[Turtledeluxe]

She had their direct testimony.

As someone else already pointed out, WoL doesn't know every mechanism at play but an overall idea. They can't instruct Venat how to sunder people right for example.

Regarding the follower count, I never said it was more, I said it was a significant number. That's a fair assumption because summons need a certain level of aether. And besides more people =/= morally correct.

[QUOTE=Theodric;6365959]It kind of does in the MSQ./QUOTE]
No it doesn't. The last two expansions were all about questioning her. You're asking me to live in a time period longer than 5 years ago and well, no. It's a 10 year long dev cycle, expecting perfect consistency is unrealistic.

Citation needed.

Zodiark requires sacrifices and he tempers people who follow him. Given any amount of time at all, any rate of progress, he would consume the world or, at minimum, temper everyone.

Yoshi P in the Q&A.

Just because a character says something to acknowledge an event occurred doesn't mean they're aggressively proud of it. I called it a confession. Implying it was some well laid out plan "Hmm humans will devolve to this point, with this many resources, let me decorate the reflections" is different from "I had no other choice and I did the most powerful attack I could that unfortunately sundered the world".

For instance

Where are the quotes regarding Venat is preserving the timeline and our visit was capable of affecting reality to the degree of avoiding the Final Days?

because if they had been warned

This is total conjecture, so it's not worth arguing. Speaking of being obtuse and hinging arguments, your literal entire post history ITT depends on this conjecture.

She had more knowledge

Yet, still a group.

Must've been absent

I can see threads via search history. You're going to ignore the redemption of Zenos, Emet, even Durante? Their crimes or intended crimes are hand waived away and they get treated like normal people in game, not to mention have fandoms. There's never been an 800 page thread about *ehem* those types of antagonists.

The Omega story asks you who is more justified. How exactly is that condoning her? And it is a test, in a way, because she was making it so that people couldn't rely on Zodiark. What's your point? I've called the sundering reckless and explained that while Venat wasn't entirely malicious, she also wasn't entirely innocent either. How many more times will I need to say it I wonder? The Ancients in general had slightly different set of ethics from our time and being arrogant is fairly common in their behavioral patterns-- Venat is not immune to that. Once again that's the whole point of the conflict itself and even the root cause of the Final Days.

[Turtledeluxe]

We don't call out the other mass murderers because the story is happy to call them out for us. All we are asking is that it actually do the same to Venat. Her scene before we kill her wasn't that. It was basically her saying "I have done something awful" and us comforting her for it. I don't want to comfort her, I want to agree with her that she did something awful.

The game does call her out but in less impactful ways (such as by asking if she's justified directly and killing her), most likely because of the nostalgia associated with her from before they decided to turn her into an arrogant Ancient. I think the MMORPG element played a role in this decision to be totally honest. I think it's a little disingenuous though to suggest the game never tries to bait you into thinking Hydaelyn is either evil or making a mistake though-- it does it more and more as the game ages.

As for many of them not wanting or wanting to die, while it's kinda awful that you do not considered Tempered people living as we have shown that Tempering is reversible, what about the innocent people on the Shards who had to die before we got to the point where her plan might work? She knew about them. They certainly did not want to die.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. The entire tragedy of Zodiark is the massive sacrifice that had to be made. That means voluntary death. As far as people who supported his continued existence, that's pretty similar to desiring death because they had no idea tempering was reversible. And if Emet's dialogue is anything to go by, they were pretty intoxicated by him. It's not like his effects would extend to the Convocation and that's it. He would inevitably continue tempering. As far as Venat's sundering, you guys really need to get over it. The entire point of the conflict is that it's tragic and no one was right.

Your outrage entirely hinges on the game condoning her or your not having a dialogue box saying "I hate you". Is it really that serious???? The game doesn't totally condone her and they forgot your text box.

The story isn't about me and my moral pandering or ego stroking. I'd also note not only are you kind of morally judgy but not everyone interpreted the story they way you did. Most people interpreted Venat's walk through the Final Days as the original act as it happened (without the Elpis visit) so it's not viewed as "mass murder". And you may think "wow that's crazy"but did you even watch the scene...? Venat is clearly relaying what happens as though she is taken aback but willing to continue on..and to elaborate what I mean by surprised is that she knew she was sundering but I don't think she anticipated the state it put humanity in and/or prepared for the weight of the consequences.

And tbh I'm not entirely sure if the walk abstraction is a reference to the original timeline or the modified Elpis timeline, because we don't know if the MSQ is operating on a single timeline (with a time loop) or if the Elpis visit is a seperate, deviant timeline we just leave.

[Theodric]

As someone else already pointed out, WoL doesn't know every mechanism at play but an overall idea. They can't instruct Venat how to sunder people right for example.

Sure, and that in turn is part of the problem of the whole idea of maintaining timeline consistency over that time span and so many worlds, with such limited knowledge, and so she is figuring some aspects out - like I said, there is fuzziness to her methods. But we are discussing her aims here, which are known, not the "how". She cannot be certain of anything but she is still taking extreme actions with an end goal in mind.

Regarding the follower count, I never said it was more, I said it was a significant number. That's a fair assumption because summons need a certain level of aether.

Sure, but as we've seen these summonings can be performed with quite a low threshold of aether, as per Tsukuyomi and Shiva. Anyway, it need not even be an assumption, because we know from their own words that it was a low count, precisely twelve plus herself.

And besides more people =/= morally correct.

I'll be sure to inform whoever is arguing that as much.

No it doesn't. The last two expansions were all about questioning her. You're asking me to live in a time period longer than 5 years ago and well, no. It's a 10 year long dev cycle, expecting perfect consistency is unrealistic.

They were not. SHB only cast some doubt on her motives on the basis that she had lied about what she is. But it wasn't until the end of the 5.x series that the Scions began asking questions, and even then it was more in the direction of what her precise will was. We did not know her actual motivations until EW, so trying to pretend SHB dealt with this when it's not revealed until EW is comically silly.

Zodiark requires sacrifices and he tempers people who follow him.

He requires sacrifice for specific acts. He tempered his summoners through his sheer power in the act of summoning him. But nowhere is it stated he tempers people who follow him beyond that. If you insist on claiming it, provide the textual evidence. The cutscene with Venat won't do because it doesn't come up there at all.

Given any amount of time at all, any rate of progress, he would consume the world or, at minimum, temper everyone.

Again, citation for where this is ever mentioned. Not even her followers articulate such a concern.

Just because a character says something to acknowledge an event occurred doesn't mean they're aggressively proud of it. I called it a confession. Implying it was some well laid out plan "Hmm humans will devolve to this point, with this many resources, let me decorate the reflections" is different from "I had no other choice and I did the most powerful attack I could that unfortunately sundered the world".

But who here is arguing that she saw herself in a villainous light? She no doubt believes she has good reason for it. But it can be questioned whether her course of action, given its extreme costs, was the right one.

Where are the quotes regarding Venat is preserving the timeline and our visit was capable of affecting reality to the degree of avoiding the Final Days?

Read the bolded:

Q: I don’t really understand why the Warrior of Light messing around in Elpis didn’t create any alternate timelines. What happened?
A: Well, I think the most important thing is that you can come up with your own theories for this one. In my personal interpretation however is that the timelines were always the same. Another interpretation you can have is that maybe Venat worked really hard behind the scenes to ensure the timeline didn’t go awry. Therefore the Warrior of Light was always acting in accordance with this plan of Venat so the timeline that we are aware of didn’t change when we went back to the affected. I personally think that when we went to Mare Lamentorum and we first met Argos and Argos really took to us when we were able to ride it, that's basically the proof that at that point, the timeline is going accordingly. We are adding all these stuff to New Game+ in 6.1 so if you’re interested in this I suggest you replay it and think about these questions when you’re playing it.

Then couple this with the fact that she's attempting to spare Emet from her actions.

As to whether it could avert the Final Days or not, I don't believe I ever said it necessarily would - it's an unknown because the scenario never played out. What I am getting at is that if the Convocation and ancients were provided with the necessary knowledge, they would be able to come to a better solution than Zodiark. As was stated, he's still capable of shielding the star for a very long time given that he was created on the basis of incomplete knowledge, but we know G'raha's actions already resulted in a timeline split from the 8UC's future, so let's not pretend it's impossible for an AU to form here.

This is total conjecture, so it's not worth arguing. Speaking of being obtuse and hinging arguments, your literal entire post history ITT depends on this conjecture.

I think it is perfectly worth speculating on, because the entire story set up asks us to think of her motives in terms of knowledge the ancients were not provided, and on the basis of "what ifs" regarding what would happen if they didn't change when they were not really given any good reason to change. To affect meaningful change to the timeline would require that knowledge to be provided. This seems more like it's inconvenient for you to speculate upon it, therefore you don't' think it's worth arguing. Then don't. No skin off my nose. But I am not dropping the point.

I can see threads via search history. You're going to ignore the redemption of Zenos, Emet, even Durante? Their crimes or intended crimes are hand waived away and they get treated like normal people in game, not to mention have fandoms. There's never been an 800 page thread about ehem those types of antagonists.

Yes, they have fandoms. Villains/antagonists being popular in a FF series is not surprising. However, the story is critical of all of their actions, and specifically Zenos and Emet are both called out in lengthy exchanges by the Scions. Durante is subjected to much the same via Zero. So saying that their crimes are "handwaved" away is a bizarre mischaracterisation of what's happening here. Equally the story is not asking me to accept their actions as tragic necessities. It does try argue they should've taken a less bloody course of action. On top of all this, the WoL isn't working in concert with their agendas, but against them. They receive help from them after they've already defeated them in their capacity as antagonists or villains. They not painted as aligned to their goals.

The Omega story asks you who is more justified. How exactly is that condoning her?

A pity that it isn't reflected or followed up anywhere else, like in the MSQ itself, and is confined to that singular sidequest series, isn't it? And that the codex proceeds without acknowledging any such nuances.

And it is a test, in a way, because she was making it so that people couldn't rely on Zodiark. What's your point? I've called the sundering reckless and explained that while Venat wasn't entirely malicious, she also wasn't entirely innocent either. How many more times will I need to say it I wonder? The Ancients in general had slightly different set of ethics from our time and being arrogant is fairly common in their behavioral patterns-- Venat is not immune to that. Once again that's the whole point of the conflict itself and even the root cause of the Final Days.

Being arrogant is fairly common in many a character's behavioural patterns, but with the ancients specifically, we know their society arrives at large decisions through debate and consensus, and expect transparency from their officials, so this "she's an ancient" excuse the writers like to invoke isn't going to cut it, I'm afraid. Nor does it exempt her from any criticism, any more than it would the likes of Emet-Selch, Hermes or Athena. Indeed, the story does not shy away at all from a critical stance towards Athena.

[Nayukhuut]

The game does call her out but in less impactful ways (such as by asking if she's justified directly and killing her), most likely because of the nostalgia associated with her from before they decided to turn her into an arrogant Ancient. I think the MMORPG element played a role in this decision to be totally honest. I think it's a little disingenuous though to suggest the game never tries to bait you into thinking Hydaelyn is either evil or making a mistake though-- it does it more and more as the game ages.


I'm not sure what you're talking about. The entire tragedy of Zodiark is the massive sacrifice that had to be made. That means voluntary death. As far as people who supported his continued existence, that's pretty similar to desiring death because they had no idea tempering was reversible. And if Emet's dialogue is anything to go by, they were pretty intoxicated by him. It's not like his effects would extend to the Convocation and that's it. He would inevitably continue tempering. As far as Venat's sundering, you guys really need to get over it. The entire point of the conflict is that it's tragic and no one was right.

Your outrage entirely hinges on the game condoning her or your not having a dialogue box saying "I hate you". Is it really that serious???? The game doesn't totally condone her and they forgot your text box.

The story isn't about me and my moral pandering or ego stroking. I'd also note not only are you kind of morally judgy but not everyone interpreted the story they way you did. Most people interpreted Venat's walk through the Final Days as the original act as it happened (without the Elpis visit) so it's not viewed as "mass murder". And you may think "wow that's crazy"but did you even watch the scene...? Venat is clearly relaying what happens as though she is taken aback but willing to continue on..and to elaborate what I mean by surprised is that she knew she was sundering but I don't think she anticipated the state it put humanity in and/or prepared for the weight of the consequences.

And tbh I'm not entirely sure if the walk abstraction is a reference to the original timeline or the modified Elpis timeline, because we don't know if the MSQ is operating on a single timeline (with a time loop) or if the Elpis visit is a seperate, deviant timeline we just leave.

The Endwalker story has made me feel like a hypocrite and had dragged me kicking and screaming out of a tale I quite enjoyed before. Asking for a dialogue box to express dissatisfaction with Venat's actions is not too much to ask. Especially since previous expansions have been fine with giving us more diverse answers in how we respond to our companions, even if the story inevitably still leads to the same dialogue.

Beyond that, the way the story had been written has basically given a moral dissonance between how we act, and what we endorse. It just seems weird that we can handwave all those lives "because they were necessary and beyond saving" one minute, and then turn around and save the 13th because everyone deserves a chance the next.

It is clear you and I will never reach consensus though, so prolly best to agree to disagree.