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

[Theodric]

I don't think anyone in this thread who is critical of the writing surrounding Venat is suggesting that the story is particularly deep, at any rate. It's simply being suggested that if a writer intentionally or unintentionally makes a character directly complicit in acts of genocide, racial replacement and eugenics then there should be more room for the player to criticise such actions - especially when the game spent a decade's worth of writing establishing such actions as being considered to be morally reprehensible within the setting.

Though this particular discussion doesn't appear to be about the actual story so much as the usual unsettling attempts to police the reactions to Venat as if any given character is owed someone's love, support and approval.

Then again, this is the same community that has very vocal elements who spent years stalking, impersonating and threatening various players with physical harm and sexual assault if they so much as cast a shred of doubt upon their precious 'cRyStAl MoMmY'.

So you'll forgive the regulars in this thread, I imagine, for entertaining the idea that someone solely concerned with painting Venat in a specific light is very likely not acting in good faith - particularly when they throw around insinuations of sexism and reduce criticism of the story as coming from 'haters'.

You're welcome to approve of Venat's actions. Nobody is suggesting otherwise. They're just not hugely interested in the performative song and dance pretending as if her actions do not equal the complete elimination of her own species. Feel free to substitute 'genocide' with whatever term you see fit but the meat of the matter is that she intentionally sabotaged, betrayed and destroyed her own people and that isn't an act many of us see as worthy of praise.

Not in the least because a lot of us are discussing the story from the perspective of an outside observer, as opposed to someone solely concerned with how various actions benefit the game's protagonists and the player character.

Feedback is being left in the vague hope that the story can learn from its mistakes moving forward and perhaps throw more of a bone to anyone who wasn't thrilled with the direction Endwalker took - and it's not like the criticism throughout this thread is even exclusively aimed at Venat either. Many of us have brought up other aspects of the story that we felt could have been handled better.

[Eisi]

I don't think anyone in this thread who is critical of the writing surrounding Venat is suggesting that the story is particularly deep, at any rate. It's simply being suggested that if a writer intentionally or unintentionally makes a character directly complicit in acts of genocide, racial replacement and eugenics then there should be more room for the player to criticise such actions - especially when the game spent a decade's worth of writing establishing such actions as being considered to be morally reprehensible within the setting.

That's contradictory. The writers didn't know that they inadvertently wrote a genocidal character so they couldn't have built in options to criticize that.

The story isn't deep precisely because the writers don't care about it as much. You care more about the story than they do.

[Theodric]

That's contradictory. The writers didn't know that they inadvertently wrote a genocidal character so they couldn't have built in options to criticize that.

I think they've had more than enough time to realise that is what they wrote, though. They've had plenty of critical feedback since EW released, including Yoshi feeling the need to comment on whether she's the "bad guy" or not, acknowledging her actions are controversial, and that's in addition to them taking some remedial steps via the Omega quest. All the same the rest of the MSQ proceeds as if none of that ever happened and as if her actions are uncontroversial, and the same goes for the codex.

The story isn't deep precisely because the writers don't care about it as much. You care more about the story than they do.

That may well be so, in spite of the fact that it and its most ardent defenders like to pretend it is. It certainly seems like they've given up on trying to make it make sense.

[Eisi]

I think they've had more than enough time to realise that is what they wrote, though. They've had plenty of critical feedback since EW released, including Yoshi feeling the need to comment on whether she's the "bad guy" or not, acknowledging her actions are controversial, and that's in addition to them taking some remedial steps via the Omega quest. All the same the rest of the MSQ proceeds as if none of that ever happened and as if her actions are uncontroversial, and the same goes for the codex.

I assume you wish a retroactive acknowledgement, not an actual change within the 6.0 storyline?

In that case I will wholeheartedly disagree with you. There is no way to make the story right retroactively, what's done is done and the goal of having Venat be a tragic hero screams out of the 6.0 MSQ with such fervor that anything to contradict it would merely seem like a weak and self-conscious meta acknowledgement of bad writing that would have me cringe. They should have written her as a tragic hero in the first place. They should have cared about their story. Having her be a genocidal villain was never the intention and to change everything to either lessen the impact of their writing's implications or embrace that unintended consequence that so clearly goes against everything they set out to do would be horribly awkward.

I think holding onto the idea that the story can be saved or needs to be repaired is a horrible notion. We should move on, accept that the story and lore is horribly flawed beyond repair and not seek to retroactively fix what was clearly never the concern of the writing team to begin with. Omega is as good as we will get and it couldn't resolve any of it either, but at least it accepts the main stories' biases and doesn't try to completely course correct into the opposite of what 6.0 tried to be.

[Nayukhuut]

I wouldn't mind ignoring her from now until the end of time and just writing off Endwalker as bad writing, but the story keeps doubling down on her and dredging her up. We find out the Twelve are false gods put there by Venat and that we have to pray to them else the planet destabalises and untold calamities likely happen as the actions of keeping a planet unnaturally apart come to a head, or we end up using something like the locator crystal MacGuffin to heal Zero.

The whole Twelve revelation being one of the worst. Why is no one in the story horrified that should we ever decide to become an atheistic society and stop believing in gods that Venat installed herself, the world as we know it could crumble?

[Theodric]

I don't expect them to do much about it at this point, so I'm just waiting to see if they can muster anything of interest going forward or whether the story will just continue the current string of silliness. I'd like to believe they may take on board some lessons from all this but I'm tempering expectations that they may just not care anymore.

I do not hold the view that the game offering different perspectives on Venat moving forward would serve to break anything. Certainly, the game hasn't shied away from bringing up and acknowledging the lingering consequences of characters that have already exited the storyline. It has happened already with Nidhogg, Ilberd, Yotsuyu and Ysayle. Even characters who are still around such as Hien and Merlwyb gain such treatment. At the very least they could stand to compromise by ensuring that the codex entries are more balanced and in alignment with each other across the various localisations.

Perhaps the game will continue down its current trajectory, or perhaps it'll change course. Only time will tell - and either way for as long as I continue playing I will continue to leave feedback relating to what I would like to see more or less of and encourage others to do the same.

I'm simply here to discuss stuff either way, whether they're listening or not.

[Nayukhuut]

I do not hold the view that the game offering different perspectives on Venat moving forward would serve to break anything. Certainly, the game hasn't shied away from bringing up and acknowledging the lingering consequences of characters that have already exited the storyline. It has happened already with Nidhogg, Ilberd, Yotsuyu and Ysayle. Even characters who are still around such as Hien and Merlwyb gain such treatment. At the very least they could stand to compromise by ensuring that the codex entries are more balanced and in alignment with each other across the various localisations.

I agree with this. The game acknowledging going forward that Venat wasn't perfect would break nothing. No one is perfect, and it is rather unrealistic that no one who learned the truth of Venat looked at her actions and didn't take pause.

I also agree that at the very least the different localisations should be as close to each other as possible.

[Turtledeluxe]

This was part of an edit I made 1 page ago bc I hit a post limit but I am making it a post:

The whole point of the discussion for the past several pages was explaining how the time loop system canonicaly works"

The past several pages have been about genocide and random things. You'll have to get over that I initially was not aware of what Yoshi P said regarding the loop and that it changed my views. Maybe someone posted it, I don't recall seeing it.

I'm not fighting, I am explaining why, for me, Yoshi P has given enough information for me to confirm that their full intention was to have an Elpis visit that stupidly retcons everything so the WoL played a role in shaping the present and that makes trying to "fix EW" complicated. The WoL cannot really deviate (the MSQ does not have branching paths or scenarios on that scale, this is the MMO constriction) and Venat can't really deviate because the dev team didn't account for the possibility at all and it opens up a whole can of worms. I don't think there's any saving it based on what we know in a way that would be satisfying for the average player. Furthermore people all want to fix it for their own reasons and it's a hassle keeping track. As you or someone else noted, this is something we now very much agree upon but perhaps for different reasons. Some people think I'm absolving Venat when it's not that at all, it's a dumb take that could perhaps make me seem more argumentative than I am. Someone else will be hostile, saying I want the story to be dumb because players are dumb or something and that's not what I'm saying at all.

I already explained my views on the Ascian conflict in the above post and it's just not that deep for me. The anti Venat camp also operates on tons of assumptions. It seems fruitless-- what options did Emet have? What options did Hermes have? We could do this all day with anyone and it honestly seems like a hangup on Venat, hence why I joked about sexism. You can say "well the Ancients summoned Zodiark because Venat didn't tell them" - I'm not sure what she said or if they would even believe her. Also it's interesting to me people are so resistant to the idea time is deterministic in this case because as far as the summoning of Zodiark you have to explain how it ended up happening again. Was it the only solution that group could come up with or something? Or is just that it was fated to happen? The time travel is pretty dumb so I prefer to think the timeline operates in a deterministic way where perhaps they could've acted differently, but the result would have been the same. Your explanation for every single thing occurring the same way is "Venat said nothing" (which I haven't seen a source for) and that is way dumber than me saying everything was fated to happen imo.

Also Elidibus: "Yet even should you be able to interact with others, you will be unable to affect meaningful change. For the reality you wish to save, the reality to which you must return, exists as a result of the Final Days."

[TheMightyMollusk]

The whole Twelve revelation being one of the worst. Why is no one in the story horrified that should we ever decide to become an atheistic society and stop believing in gods that Venat installed herself, the world as we know it could crumble?

Do you really think the entire world becoming atheistic is remotely likely in a world where gods can be conjured just by having enough spare energy and a strong enough desire? Yes, primals are false gods, but good luck getting everyone to acknowledge that when we can't even get everyone in our own world to acknowledge that the Earth isn't flat.

[Nayukhuut]

Do you really think the entire world becoming atheistic is remotely likely in a world where gods can be conjured just by having enough spare energy and a strong enough desire? Yes, primals are false gods, but good luck getting everyone to acknowledge that when we can't even get everyone in our own world to acknowledge that the Earth isn't flat.

Okay, then what if it were replaced by another religion, or if prayer dropped off as civilisation becomes more advanced? What is the level we need to keep praying to the machine they left before it stops working? It is still a scary thought. My thought when I did the questline wasn't "aww, I'm sad the Twelve are going", it was "oh crap, this is an awful situation and horrible things are gonna happen if this fails." Which was then followed by the annoyance that I am now complicit in pushing a false religion just so the world we live in doesn't break.

Also kinda casts shade on Venat's whole "mankind should stand on their own two feet rather than relying on gods" ideals. She broke the world into an unnatural state, and then put herself and her creations as gods to keep everything in check. Gods we have now have to pray to lest we inflict even more horror on innocent people.