What lore do you ignore?

[Lady_Silvermoon]

Actually, the point of Endwalker was neither "trauma makes you stronger" nor "together we can overcome what individually we cannot." The point of it is exalting the power of the individual, a call to live on your own terms and nobody else's. The collectivist ideals are a consequence of the Eastern lens, I think.

Whether or you like her or hate her, it's impossible to deny that by following her own ideals Venat influenced the course of history more than anyone else in Etheirys' recorded history. Nearly the entire rest of Amaurotine civilization was content to follow the ideals set forth by their society, and when that failed created and looked to Zodiark for guidance instead of deciding for themselves what was worth living for. Standing in stark contrast to Venat's conclusion that life has no objective purpose, it's something you have to decide on your own to find true happiness and fulfillment in life; letting others decide these things for you makes you unable to cope when they inevitably fail, as happened to Amaurot.

... Endwalker is a lot of Nietzsche. Like, a lot a lot. Like, wow.

It's funny that people like this because it has a positive spin, but I don't disagree with your read. And who is the Ubermensch in the FF14 universe? Zenos. I've stated multiple times that Zenos is the embodiment of Venat's philosophy. But people don't like that.

My issue with Venat wasn't that she lived by her own ideals. But that she forced everyone else to live by her ideals by devolving them and shaping their beliefs for the next twelve thousand years. You and I don't seem to disagree on what happened, we just seem to disagree on if that's cool or monstrous.

So you and I actually agree on what happened, and it feels good to at least get that far. I've spent so much time arguing over if I really saw what I saw, it's nice to have someone admit, nah, I saw that too.

ETA: Wait, it just hit me. When she sundered the star, she also believed she was acting in service of what was best for the star. She just didn't bother to work with her people and instead chose to work on them...She's still following the purpose the rest of her species believes to be their reason for existing, to serve the star. The only people truly acting against that believed purpose are the ones who want to replace the souls in Zodiark with some of the star's living energy. For Venat's actions to be truly Nietzschean, she'd have to be as self-serving as people assume I think she is by the way I talk about her.