Are <5.0 main villain> fanboys also supportive of <6.1-6.5 main villain>? *SPOILERS*

[ZavosEsperian]

Yeah; you don't have a very long post history, so I basically just hit 'View Forum Posts' and scrolled down very slightly. You posted about Meteion mid-ish last year, so I have very little information, but what I do have says 'you finished Endwalker back then at the latest, and had a different broad response. I didn't actually consider that a negative per se--I considered it a green flag of sorts actually, since you clearly don't have an established history and aren't some kind of burner account--it was just a bit curious.

Something you're probably not aware of is that this subforum has a particular problem with 'drive-by trolling' (I think a lot of subforums have it, but it's very noticeable here probably because the subject matter is much looser); someone who turns up exactly once, posts a weirdly argumentative hot take, and then completely vanishes. Sometimes they're there for one day, sometimes it's just a single post. It sucks, because I always like new people joining the conversation with new ideas, despite what some people might think... and then we instead just get an angry, probably deliberately incomplete argument from someone who never comes back. But a slight bit of extra reading can help identify the sort of person we're looking at pretty early, and help inform what conversation there is to have: if they're not coming back, you're not about to get any answers to your questions, but there might still be a conversation worth having about, say, 'all the ways the Empire didn't fix the primal problem and in fact made it worse'.

Maybe because we have had Titanman necro things as is their want and try and troll this subform? Or that other guy who openly called people in here slurs and whatnot begging us to report them so that they would get banned. That and some of those who post here don't frequent the other parts. And it's not like other people in other sections of this forum don't go and look at others post history. Then there are those who when subbed have in the past will talk about a thread's topic only to go "but did you know Venat's a b*tch and a genocidal maniac?" in the middle or the end of their statement knowing full well that it's bait in hopes they'll get round 456 about the sundering.

You both realize neither of the excuses you make justify your behavior on the forums. It is up to you whether you wish to interact with someone, be it a curious new individual to the forums or a troll. Searching through post histories and talking about what you found openly, especially discussing it with the person you were looking into, is most likely going to draw the ire of whoever you have just looked into instead of having a conversation in good faith.

That being said, a poor sense of media literacy would suggest being unable to discern the intentions of the person who authored the post in question. It shouldn't be too difficult to identify a troll from a well to do poster on the forums. It all seems like there is a significant amount of gatekeeping going on here in terms of forums discussion if you instantly go on the offensive against someone who may actually have genuine questions.

In terms of different opinions related to the interpretation of the story, there will be individuals who will have different opinions and people do have the right to back up their claims and reach agreements on disagreeing with their various interpretation of events. Not discussing these various events in full stymies discussion and makes the forums boring. I have witnessed this sort of behavior where both sides of each argument becomes too combative and resorts to ad hominem attacks as well as behavior that would be decried as abhorrent by many people's standards. Don't claim to be a victim when you yourself were taking part in the selfsame behavior.

In short, be willing to hear people out. You may end up learning something new or see a new perspective you never thought of before.

[MikkoAkure]

That being said, a poor sense of media literacy would suggest being unable to discern the intentions of the person who authored the post in question. It shouldn't be too difficult to identify a troll from a well to do poster on the forums. It all seems like there is a significant amount of gatekeeping going on here in terms of forums discussion if you instantly go on the offensive against someone who may actually have genuine questions.

Going into a forum and replying to multiple threads multiple times each back-to-back with posts saying things like wanting to ignore that "millions died so I could play cactpot" and comparing the systematic killing of millions of people across multiple worlds to "stealing from someone and giving it to their kid" is going to make people suspicious and doubt their commitment to have an actual, real discussion. Especially with the history of similar trollish behavior on these forums.

[Cleretic]

You both realize neither of the excuses you make justify your behavior on the forums.

What behavior? You're really gonna need to be much more specific.

The worst I can recall personally doing, and will readily admit was a fault of mine, was throwing out claims and verdicts about in-story characters and groups that I'll readily agree weren't helpful to discussion; 'genocide' was neither especially helpful, nor especially welcome, as a term when discussing the Ancients or Ascians. I regret using it, and I've done my best over time to have a better standard for it all and to steer any discussions into a different space than that. If that's what you're thinking of, then I apologize, and I've always felt that the best I can do about it is to just do better in the future.

But I get the feeling that's not what you're thinking of. So if I've forgotten something, please, let me know.

[RavLandslide]

...he also actually wants to improve, so, he's got that over a hypothetical Emet redemption. Emet didn't want to redeem himself, because redemption implies ever thinking you did wrong, and he did not.

Yeah, his flashback cutscenes also make him look like a genuine and caring guy who just wants the best for everyone. Don't really understand why so many people seem to hate him...

[Lady_Silvermoon]

Going into a forum and replying to multiple threads multiple times each back-to-back with posts saying things like wanting to ignore that "millions died so I could play cactpot" and comparing the systematic killing of millions of people across multiple worlds to "stealing from someone and giving it to their kid" is going to make people suspicious and doubt their commitment to have an actual, real discussion. Especially with the history of similar trollish behavior on these forums.

I had to actually look up trolling to see how this whole discussion of if I'm a troll is even a thing. And I get it now. You think I'm saying what I'm saying in hopes of upsetting you. I'm not. I mean everything I'm saying and the snarkiness is just part of my personality and the way I speak. Until I came to find a discussion about me and not the story, it hadn't even occurred to me that what I said would be capable of upsetting you. I'm a big Emet-Selch fan, but there is no condemnation of his behavior that would upset me because it's true. If you point out he experimented on his own descendant, yep. He burned babies in their cribs, yep. He made every world he visited a worse place on purpose, yep.

So why would pointing out Venat killed millions if not billions of people be upsetting? She did. There is even a cool cinematic of it with a power ballad playing in the background. And while Shadowbringers did introduce the complicated and messy situation of if someone taking something from you and it's held by that group for generations, is it still acceptable to use violence to take it back. But comparing what Venat did to that scenario was never meant to be inflammatory, it is actually a massive downplay of what she did. She didn't just take their land. No, she took their world, their lives, their history, their bodies, their language, their sanity, even their very souls. Real people can't take from one another the amount Venat took from the Ancients due to a lack of magic power.

Endwalker haunts me more than any piece of fiction I've ever experienced. Because I liked it. I was fully on the Venat train. The Ancients had to die. Tragic, sure. But they weren't strong like the modern races. They couldn't endure suffering like the modern races. They couldn't wield dynamis like the modern races. They were genetically and culturally inferior. Useless eaters.

The horror of realizing all it takes is a pretty lady, some inspirational words and an awesome song to turn me into a full on Garlean, yeah...haunted. That's how I'd describe it.

[SannaR]

You both realize neither of the excuses you make justify your behavior on the forums. It is up to you whether you wish to interact with someone, be it a curious new individual to the forums or a troll. Searching through post histories and talking about what you found openly, especially discussing it with the person you were looking into, is most likely going to draw the ire of whoever you have just looked into instead of having a conversation in good faith.

That being said, a poor sense of media literacy would suggest being unable to discern the intentions of the person who authored the post in question. It shouldn't be too difficult to identify a troll from a well to do poster on the forums. It all seems like there is a significant amount of gatekeeping going on here in terms of forums discussion if you instantly go on the offensive against someone who may actually have genuine questions.

In terms of different opinions related to the interpretation of the story, there will be individuals who will have different opinions and people do have the right to back up their claims and reach agreements on disagreeing with their various interpretation of events. Not discussing these various events in full stymies discussion and makes the forums boring. I have witnessed this sort of behavior where both sides of each argument becomes too combative and resorts to ad hominem attacks as well as behavior that would be decried as abhorrent by many people's standards. Don't claim to be a victim when you yourself were taking part in the selfsame behavior.

In short, be willing to hear people out. You may end up learning something new or see a new perspective you never thought of before.

We are open to discussion and to listen to others opinions on the story. But when you have as I said a known troll to these forums come in here and try and do what they do in general when they're bored as heck on their newest alt why shouldn't we want to shut that down? Or when we have people who again come here and clearly don't want to discuss anything and just call people slurs and harass anyone? Or try to turn any other topic into yet another slug fest over the sundering only to deny that slipped in what at this point might as well be "We were on a break" or "They should lock her up/but what about her emails" of trying to start a damn fight. And as I said some here do not frequent other parts of these forums. So when a troll from (almost always) the general section comes and drops in and starts trying to use headcannon as fact or as how a few have taken Lady_Silvermoon's posts to read like as a new troll people would rather warn others to not engage due to being exhausted. There have been many a time that we tried to have debates with other trolls for pages on end only for someone to enter a thread and point and laugh at us for entertaining said troll.

[ZavosEsperian]

Endwalker haunts me more than any piece of fiction I've ever experienced. Because I liked it. I was fully on the Venat train. The Ancients had to die. Tragic, sure. But they weren't strong like the modern races. They couldn't endure suffering like the modern races. They couldn't wield dynamis like the modern races. They were genetically and culturally inferior. Useless eaters.

The horror of realizing all it takes is a pretty lady, some inspirational words and an awesome song to turn me into a full on Garlean, yeah...haunted. That's how I'd describe it.

This isn't an unreasonable feeling, there are many who gladly sang the tune the story provided only to realize the gravity of the actions committed later down the line. The MSQ does a good job with this in terms of how it is choreographed; paring music with powerful moments performed by an attractive character to boot to capture the mind of the person going through the game. If anything, it is a proper example at just how powerful propaganda can be as a tool against the human mind.

With that being said, I don't fault people for enjoying the story. To me, there is no point in judging someone's take of a fictional story and as such I do not mind allowing people exploring what the authors/writers were trying to convey through the story. I also don't mind letting people be critical of how a story is portrayed, particularly if there is a discrepancy between what the author was trying to convey versus what is interpreted, as that can potentially indicate miscommunication between the author and the reader.

So why would pointing out Venat killed millions if not billions of people be upsetting?

Unfortunately, people do not like it when you go after Venat for the actions she took. For whatever reason, it appears the ability for people to accept your opinion in regards to Venat is tantamount to heresy in many corners of the forums, let alone other areas where the story is discussed. I, admittedly, do understand your point of view in regards to this, as Venat's actions are undeniable in terms of what the sundering did. Mentioning this fact, however, tends to draw the ire of many individuals either because they are unable to see how you arrived at your perspective or because they themselves feel attacked when you are critical of a character who is largely liked.

[Cleretic]

So why would pointing out Venat killed millions if not billions of people be upsetting? She did. There is even a cool cinematic of it with a power ballad playing in the background. And while Shadowbringers did introduce the complicated and messy situation of if someone taking something from you and it's held by that group for generations, is it still acceptable to use violence to take it back. But comparing what Venat did to that scenario was never meant to be inflammatory, it is actually a massive downplay of what she did. She didn't just take their land. No, she took their world, their lives, their history, their bodies, their language, their sanity, even their very souls. Real people can't take from one another the amount Venat took from the Ancients due to a lack of magic power.

So, imagine how this sort of talk feels to people who took the viewpoint of 'both sides faced difficult choices and there is no clear moral right answer, but I personally feel that I would side with Venat'. This isn't incorrect by what the game puts forward, and in fact is a broadly very popular take outside of these forums; it's hard to say if it's a majority, but it's certainly very popular and there's very little in the way of vicious argument about it, and Venat's routinely in the upper echelons of character popularity polls during Endwalker. You might realize, that sort of crowd isn't especially happy to hear these things, especially given we've been hearing them fairly constantly for the past two years.

Now, imagine how it feels to not just have that sort of view of 'in this difficult hypothetical, I would side with Venat', but also have the feeling of 'I would prefer to move on and talk about any other part of the game'. There's a lot of other parts of the game, after all! Venat is actually only a small part, and speaking personally, isn't even a part I especially enjoy; I find all of Elpis fairly dull. I'd prefer if we were instead talking about Thavnair, or the Thirteenth, or primals, or that new expansion we're getting more info about this weekend. And yet, it keeps getting relitigated, by people who at best aren't very nice about it, and at worst are actively looking to start a fight or derail ongoing conversation.

Now, with all that in mind, look at your post history the past day or so.

I think you'll understand why we aren't especially warm to the subject.

[MikkoAkure]

I also don't mind letting people be critical of how a story is portrayed, particularly if there is a discrepancy between what the author was trying to convey versus what is interpreted, as that can potentially indicate miscommunication between the author and the reader.

Ultimately this is my view of Venat since regardless of how awkwardly it was written, the intention was for us to side with her. Plus, Venat and all the Ancients were written years after the start of the game and the game was not built with them in mind. Our world is and always has been the more important one.

But I don’t mind criticisms from that point of view since as I said, they shoehorned all this in rather awkwardly onto a story that wasn’t built with this in mind and seemingly changed Venat to a greyer morality since they saw how successful it was with Emet-Selch, though that’s just my conjecture.

Unfortunately, people do not like it when you go after Venat for the actions she took. For whatever reason, it appears the ability for people to accept your opinion in regards to Venat is tantamount to heresy in many corners of the forums, let alone other areas where the story is discussed.

This is where I disagree. “Going after” a character in what looks like an emotion-driven rant does not make it look like you’re trying to have a conversation. It looks like you’re looking for a fight or you’re trying to vent.

From my point of view Venat wasn’t a malicious witch spitefully plotting the destruction of her own people and that angle didn’t seem to be the intention from the writing. There were no disagreements at all for the initial summoning of Zodiark or His second sacrificial act.

But you also have to remember that at this point, we’re already in a post-apocalyptic situation. The Final Days were over but 3/4 of the surviving population had been sacrificed to Zodiark and we don’t know how many people died before Zodiark was summoned and the sacrifices began so any count of the people sundered is baseless conjecture at that point. Enough of that population was left to create a schism amongst the survivors and summon a primal strong enough to fight with Zodiark and whose power of stasis could overcome Zodiark’s power of change.

You could very well argue that they didn’t know Venat intended the Sundering (which I think should’ve stayed as a side-effect of the battle), but Venat’s faction still didn’t believe that the planet should be culled to bring back the sacrifices. I don’t believe the sacrifices intended to come back either and I don’t believe it was a known possibility at the beginning. Otherwise it wouldn’t have been as big of a deal if they’re just temporarily reduced to aether until Zodiark is done and then they’d come back. Otherwise there wouldn’t have been as big a deal between Hytholodaeus and Emet-Selch when the former volunteered.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

*snip*

Why wouldn't you simply skip my posts rather than question my character and my motives? Yeah, if I agreed with murdering millions of people, I wouldn't want to be reminded that murdering millions of people so you can take everything they have is bad actually. But that feeling is actually the dissonance between you trying to claim that this case is the exception and the reminder that no, it isn't. It's the exact same as every time some group is wiped out "for the best." What she did is no different than what Thordan or Athena would do. But instead of addressing how it is somehow different, it becomes about me and my desire to "upset you" because there are no real points as to why her genocide is the good one.

I get it. I feel awful about the pile of bones they decided to sit our characters on top of which is actually why I talk about it so often. It really does haunt me. I can't phantom why they made such a decision as to have the Sundering be something done on purpose with full knowledge of the result. And every time I peel back the layers I am even more shaken by the implications.

So what do you want me to do? Go away so you aren't reminded how horrific her actions were? Lie in my answer to every post so that the reality that hit me after the credits rolled doesn't upset anyone else? Sounds like you want to keep living in the Garden and ignore the darkness in the world. And we all know how mommy goddess deals with those types...

*snip*

I like her too. That's what makes that story so scary. But as Matsya would say, "Do not avert your eyes. See the world for what it is."

If they have evidence she didn't murder millions if not billions of people in a eugenics program, I'd like to see it. If I was convinced she didn't do what it seems to me she very obviously did, I'd actually feel better. But if they'd like me not to point out she murdered millions of people in a eugenics program because it makes them feel bad, well...I'm new here and I don't know exactly how these forums work given I was doing each reply as a separate post the other day, but I assume there is a block function. Averting your eyes is actually an option regardless of the morals of the game saying you shouldn't. The morals of the game also said we shouldn't sacrifice a world to save our own, soo clearly there are exceptions to the rule (especially when it comes to Venat).