Quote Originally Posted by Lady_Silvermoon View Post
No one is expecting me to accept Emet-Selch is burning babies in their cribs due to his deep love for humanity. He makes it clear he doesn't view them as human and he's trying to smash everything back together again. His actions fit his views and stated values.
As I believe you are an Emet-Selch fan. I will share with you a question and its answer during one of the Q&A Sessions. These questions were asked to Yoshi-P during Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LXVIII, which took place on (03/03/2022). Links will be provided should you wish to confirm what I have said:

Q: I’d be interested to know how the unsundered Ascians (Lahabrea, Elidibus, and Emet-Selch) avoided being kicked into fourteen pieces by Hydaelyn.

A: As Emet-Selch implied towards the end of the 6.0 main scenario (“So, here I am Venat. I suppose you needed me to tie it all together…”), Venat had purposefully allowed him to survive. The attack intentionally left something like an opening which Emet-Selch could just barely wriggle through. With that said, with the limit of Hydaelyn’s full power behind the attack, fine-tuning wasn’t possible and whether or not he would actually survive was somewhat of a gamble. In the end, Emet-Selch, with the help of Lahabrea (who happened to be nearby) and Elidibus (who had fallen from Zodiark’s core), was able to evade the attack by temporarily escaping to a rift between dimensions. -Yoshi-P

Link to video with timestamp at（02:51:46）

Link to Forum Post

Link to full transcription

-Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LXVIII (03/03/2022)
In the case of Emet-Selch, Lahabrea, and Elidibus, they were intentionally spared by Venat/Hydaelyn based on the answer Yoshi-P gave regarding this question. What you make of this is up to you.

And her values and motives go so much against just regular human decency that people are trying to find ways to believe she didn't want the rejoinings to happen given they'd cause untold suffering and death, but that ignores her motives for the sundering. The suffering is the point. The trial to which she subjected humanity is generations of torture so that we would grow strong and overcome despair. People assume she attempts to alleviate suffering because that's what a good person would do, but no, the suffering is the point. She's hurting us on purpose because she believe trauma makes us strong.
Once again, I am going to provide you with a question with its answer from the same Q&A session. Please note this one is explicitly Yoshi-P's interpretation of events, as Yoshi-P himself is not opposed to people interpreting events they way they want to and neither is the lore team themselves:

Q: I don’t really understand why the Warrior of Light messing around in Elpis didn’t create any alternate timelines. Can you explain what happened?

A: First of all, we’ve left that part up to interpretation.

With that said, my personal interpretation is that the past and present were always the part of the same timeline. Although there was still a possibility for the timelines to diverge, the Warrior of Light was unwittingly acting in accordance with Venat’s plans, which unified the past and present. Another interpretation might be that Venat worked really hard behind the scenes to ensure that the timeline wouldn’t go awry.

Seeing how Argos took to us on our first meeting, I’d say that proves that the past and present were already unified. -Yoshi-P

Link to video with timestamp at（03:18:39)

Link to Forum Post

-Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LXVIII (03/03/2022)
You are free to read any and all of those questions and answers and I would encourage you do so. I won't stand in the way of how you interpret the Q&A session. If you were to go off of some of the approaches Yoshi-P suggests in them, it is possible to say that Venat did indeed have some level of control of all of the events that occurred between the sundering up to the point we end up defeating her as Hydaelyn.