/r/ffxivdiscussion: Has FFXIV had any major retcons or plot holes in the story?

[Enkidoh]

No one is saying the story is perfect or flawless (I agree it is flawed, but then, so is all literature or fiction frankly.). What people are objecting to is a certain element of the playerbase has adopted a completely irrational hatred of Venat and her story, based simply out of.. well... disappointment. Disappointment that their Ascian/Garlean waifus and husbandos didn't get to save the world with their character, or that the Empire didn't get a FFXII treatment and instead ended up like the Empire in FFII or VI, killed by it's own hand.

So these constant attacks on Venat and the Sundering, using loaded language such as "she was responsible for genocide!" even when effectively countered, and the constant thread derailing such as this very thread, only proves that some people simply cannot let things go... just like the Ancients/Ascians themselves, ironically.

To quote Aeris in FFVII Remake: gotta move forward, not back.

I hate the spiteful othering that's needed to justify the complete extermination of the ancients as a race. Venats nothing but a monster who took the cowards easy route

And this is exactly what I am talking about.

[jameseoakes]

The ancients were planning to commit genocide by sacrificing the new lives. If a bad guy holds a gun to a hostage's head, what should a police officer do? The police would shoot the bad guy to save the hostage. In this case, the ancients were the bad guy, the new lives were the hostage, Venat was the police officer.

I hate the spiteful othering that's needed to justify the complete extermination of the ancients as a race. Venats nothing but a monster who took the cowards easy route

[jameseoakes]

No one is saying the story is perfect or flawless (I agree it is flawed, but then, so is all literature or fiction frankly.). What people are objecting to is a certain element of the playerbase has adopted a completely irrational hatred of Venat and her story, based simply out of.. well... disappointment. Disappointment that their Ascian/Garlean waifus and husbandos didn't get to save the world with their character, or that the Empire didn't get a FFXII treatment and instead ended up like the Empire in FFII or VI, killed by it's own hand.

So these constant attacks on Venat and the Sundering, using loaded language such as "she was responsible for genocide!" even when effectively countered, and the constant thread derailing such as this very thread, only proves that some people simply cannot let things go... just like the Ancients/Ascians themselves, ironically.

I think a game the praises as a hero a monster that outright commits enginc genocide is worthy hatred as is the character that did it.

[Carin-Eri]

No one is saying the story is perfect or flawless (I agree it is flawed, but then, so is all literature or fiction frankly.). What people are objecting to is a certain element of the playerbase has adopted a completely irrational hatred of Venat and her story, based simply out of.. well... disappointment. Disappointment that their Ascian/Garlean waifus and husbandos didn't get to save the world with their character, or that the Empire didn't get a FFXII treatment and instead ended up like the Empire in FFII or VI, killed by it's own hand.

So these constant attacks on Venat and the Sundering, using loaded language such as "she was responsible for genocide!" even when effectively countered, and the constant thread derailing such as this very thread, only proves that some people simply cannot let things go... just like the Ancients/Ascians themselves, ironically.

To quote Aeris in FFVII Remake: gotta move forward, not back.



And this is exactly what I am talking about.

Agreed

Sadly, with the (probably) hundreds of threads created to specifically discuss 'but Venat is eeevil' and threads that weren't created to discuss that but were derailed, I suspect there'll be no end to it until Dawntrail does something that sufficiently offends them.

[Merrigan]

I think a game the praises as a hero a monster that outright commits enginc genocide is worthy hatred as is the character that did it.

Hm... Yeah, no. The writing wasn't perfect, but the willingness to present a very gray character was commendable. Because Venat is morally gray: some people tend to forget that if she ended up acting in this way, it was also to prevent the Zordiak worshippers from sacrificing their population again and again to a primordial who, despite his protective role, remained submissive to his nature. So who needed to "devour" his followers, here in a rather literal way.

That's why she took this decision: humanity was self-destructing, and instead of letting the process run its course, she seized the last remaining chance: to kill those responsible before they destroyed absolutely everything.

I definitly appreciated the fact that we didn't have a Disney Venat, even if the story is flawed in many ways.

[Jeeqbit]

It's that I'm not supposed to view erasing everyone's memory, breaking all familial connections, tearing apart their souls, and introducing them to a dramatically short lifetime of suffering as an atrocity. I do though.

The alternative is they all sacrifice themselves to Zodiark hoping he will make the world perfect again. This doesn't seem a good alternative. For as much as we can argue "they were only going to sacrifice a certain %", they were tempered and not completely themselves. They were devoted to empowering Zodiark, not necessarily following the original plan.

Emet-Selch told us that an initial sacrifice was made to summon Zodiark and stop the Final Days, but then another one was made to allow vegetation to grow and that they would all be restored afterwards.

There is not necessarily any proof that the ones in the cutscene with Venat were part of that. They did not even seem to succeed in sacrificing themselves to Zodiark because of her actions. They were just trying to sacrifice themselves to Zodiark because they didn't know how to cope with hardship and were not really themselves either because of being tempered.

Emet-Selch is committing suicide in Shadowbringers. The Elpis version of himself recognizes his actions as a suicide attempt.

Not quite. I think he was genuinely fighting to restore the version of the world he loved and would accept the outcome of the fight whatever it was.

It seemed like he thought he could get the Warrior of Light to carry all the Light to the source to speed up the Rejoining, but then determined they couldn't handle all the Light so he would do it the slow way, with the Warrior of Light as a Light Warden. He thought he would easily win the fight but did not expect Ardbert to join the Warrior of Light and have to face a warrior holding all that Light, nor did he expect the other heroes from across the rift.

But I think just as he said when he entered the Amaurot dungeon, that if we wanted to prove ourselves worthy to inherit the star then we must prove it and that was what the fight was about.

If by tempering he is a mindless slave, then nothing he did was his fault because he's a mindless slave.

There was obviously a lot of truth and freedom that he had because even the scions admitted what he was doing was "only logical" from a purely Ascian point of view, but he obviously wasn't entirely himself. His non-Elpis self is clearly not the same as the Elpis version. Wanting to restore his people was no doubt genuine, but perhaps a good example is Louisoix being tempered by Bahamut. He seemed to have a lot of freedom to be himself but certain actions were bias toward Bahamut and its restoration.

Who knowingly let him become a mindless slave? Venat. Who failed to warn him he'd become a mindless slave? Venat.

Maybe she didn't know that would happen. She was going off of a story that we told. And what if she couldn't convince Emet of this? She also expressed worry (in a cutscene) that if she did explain it to the Convocation, that she might not be believed. Emet wasn't believing our story for the time that he did know it, so how would Venat convince him of this crazy story she heard from a "time traveler"?

Who had a traveler's ward that could have protected him from becoming a mindless slave? Venat.

Well, true, but it seems like such a small detail. I actually don't think small details like that would be passed down via a story, so it always throws me off that the MSQ will show me explain an Echo vision, then the scions will know little details that happened in the background that nobody would realistically include in a summary.

[ZavosEsperian]

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There is a lot of stuff for me to go over between all the posts I have mentioned above, most of the issues overlap with each other and as such I believe can be addressed in one post.

The main issue at hand concerns whether a genocide occurred due to Venat’s actions and whether she herself is guilty as the perpetrator. Genocide as a crime is defined inside of what is known as the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide or more simply the Genocide Convention. The parts of the convention we are most concerned with would be those pertaining to Articles 2 and 3, which both define the crime of genocide as well as define those who are able to be charged. We shall start with Article 2. I will bold all sections of article 2 pertaining to Venat’s actions and the argument will be contained below the definition, but hidden to prevent the post from being too long:

Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

-Genocide Convention, Article 2

Article 2 sections c and d should be relatively straightforward to understand. By sundering the Ancients, and with it the world, the physical destruction of the group is assured, and this was done in a calculated fashion, as it has been previously indicated in Q&A sessions Venat purposely allowed for Emet-Selch, Lahabrea, and Elidibus the ability to avoid the sundering attack. Section d is also relatively straightforward as well since the measure she took, which was sundering the world, would ensure no more births could occur from the population and, in the case of Emet, his children also would be sundered despite the obvious ancient lineage.

Article 2 section b is a bit more complicated but is shown inside of the Nier ReIncarnation crossover event where previous life was unable to understand language and had to relearn how to speak. In addition, upon sundering the world, Venat introduced to the new life suffering which the Ancients had not suffered prior, which would include decreased resistances to the elements as well as other agents related to illness and pestilence, both can only occur if there is a change in the constitution to the Ancients that made them weaker as a species significantly and the reduction of their lifespans from countless millennia to, at best, 500 years in the case of Viera, but somewhere near normal human lifespans for all other races. These would constitute significant harm both mentally and physically, and I only need one of these to have the basis for the argument.

Finally, there is the intent issue. Genocidal intent can be determined either directly, which would be someone admitting to it or evidence to directly prove the elements described, or through circumstantial evidence, which has been used to determine intent involving genocide IRL multiple times. Venat outright says she is going to sunder the ancients and has the forethought to also be careful to not sunder very specific ancients as to avoid causing issues related to a perceived timeline that she was told, as such I would not need to go much further beyond that. Were circumstantial evidence be needed, she unleashed untold amounts of suffering onto the lifeforms created after the sundering occurred, and would these individuals be treated as shards of the original ancients, would also constitute the ancients as well. This callousness would be great enough to also fulfill that requirement were it needed.

If it isn’t obvious from the above, KILLING OR MURDER IS NOT A REQUREMENT FOR GENOCIDE TO BE CHARGED AGAINST SOMEONE. This is intentional as it is possible to destroy a group without killing a single person from said group, and the UN recognized this back when the convention was first drafted up.

Article 3 describes who can be charged with genocide via the definition provided via Article 2:

The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.

-Genocide Convention, Article 3

I do not think it necessary to go over this section in as much detail, but technically we are an accessory to the act due to telling Venat about it, which would be an act of conspiracy. Venat is guilty of committing the acts that define Genocide, so I do not believe it to be necessary to go into a full dissertation on that.

Whether you want to determine Venat as evil or not is on the person consuming the media, I won’t enforce a view here as I am trying to remain as objective as possible while presenting this argument. I will say excusing genocide using an excuse of saying it prevented another one would not be sufficient of a defense in court. You would likely cause the party you are accusing to come under scrutiny, but you yourself won’t be absolved of the crime just for saying that.

I should note the acts the Ascians committed also would constitute genocide, this has nothing about absolving their actions as they fully own what they are doing and thus would also be guilty by definition and would have the intent to be considered guilty without the need of circumstantial evidence. The point of this is to show Venat herself is guilty of the same thing levied at the ancients, particularly the Ascians, yet treatment of Venat tends to be more positive over the Ancients due to who we role play as in the story directly benefiting from Venat’s actions more so than the action of the Ascians, who won’t hesitate to kill you for getting in the way and disrupting their plans.

If we are to take the definitions above, it would be clear Venat would be guilty of the act of genocide. Whether you determine her as evil, good, or some shade of grey in between, is up to you the reader. I would argue determining Venat as wholly good would be foolish unless you believe there are real life examples where you are able to justify genociding an entire or part of a group of people for your own benefit. All other interpretations I believe could be reasonably justified.

[Jeeqbit]

If we are to take the definitions above, it would be clear Venat would be guilty of the act of genocide. Whether you determine her as evil, good, or some shade of grey in between, is up to you the reader. I would argue determining Venat as wholly good would be foolish unless you believe there are real life examples where you are able to justify genociding an entire or part of a group of people for your own benefit. All other interpretations I believe could be reasonably justified.

Arguably, the scions are guilty as well. Before they were able to reverse tempering, they had a dark practice that involved killing those that were tempered because they could not be saved.

We can even argue the Warrior of Light does not care about the fact they would kill animals with a painful weapon for sidequests or underdo a court case every time they "kill" an enemy that held a weapon against them.

But none of these things are the point of the story, and trying to focus so much on this idea that we or Venat did things wrong seems like a way for people to intentionally try and ruin the story for themselves, because many of the people making this argument seem really unhappy with the story.

[Ryvick]

The main issue at hand concerns whether a genocide occurred due to Venat’s actions and whether she herself is guilty as the perpetrator.

Only problem again is that no Genocide was committed.

B,C,and D which you highlighted did not occur. B There was no harm (bodily or mentally) to those who were Sundered. 14 new individuals were created. C did not happen as that was the End-singer that ended the lives of the Ancients. Zodiark returned the lives and then they were subsequently Sundered creating 14 new unique lives, nothing was destroyed. D is a bit derivative as births still occur.

You could have had some sort of tangential argument with E but changing the Ancients into 14 unique beings isn't really forced transfer of children from one group to another as one group simply changed into the other via the Sundering.

[ZavosEsperian]

Arguably, the scions are guilty as well. Before they were able to reverse tempering, they had a dark practice that involved killing those that were tempered because they could not be saved.

We can even argue the Warrior of Light does not care about the fact they would kill animals with a painful weapon for sidequests or underdo a court case every time they "kill" an enemy that held a weapon against them.

Broadening the scope of my argument to fit characters where the argument is considerably more debatable or using vastly incorrect logic in regards to the Genocide Convention makes your argument seem extremely foolish, ill thought out, and makes any argument you try to throw later down the line more likely to be brushed off because of the poor form here.

The WoL could be considered guilty, but not for the reason you gave. The WoL is an accessory to the Sundering Venat committed and thus did engage in conspiracy, particularly upon not telling anyone after the memory wipe scene what happened as an attempt to stop the sundering.

But none of these things are the point of the story, and trying to focus so much on this idea that we or Venat did things wrong seems like a way for people to intentionally try and ruin the story for themselves, because many of the people making this argument seem really unhappy with the story.

The point of the story is an extremely ill thought out one since it did not consider alternate views to the story where it could be easily misinterpreted, which is a failure of media literacy between author and audience in part of the authors/writers. Displeasure in regards to the story is mostly related to the above situation which is not helped by the fact open interpretation of specific events is encouraged by the writing team, which causes headcanon to be accidentally added to events that transpired.