Quote Originally Posted by Theodric View Post
Venat had information relevant to the prevention of the Final Days and opted not to inform anyone of what was coming, then blamed others for daring to mourn the fallen and seek to restore what once was. She's the definition of an abusive mother figure, insisting on forcing hardship on others for no reason than to stroke her own ego.

I think the true message to ever watch out for subversive elements within one's society, which is ultimately what Hermes and Venat both ended up being.

She's also a complete hypocrite - not only was her backup option to flee the Star if things went south again, she actively gave the Warrior of Light the ability to bring back his dead companions...which is exactly what she was criticising her own people for. Though moving goalposts in such a manner is to be expected from such a spiteful, manipulative individual I suppose - especially one that fashioned herself as a goddess and shunned many opportunities to aid her 'children' more directly.
That's a fair assessment, though not one I agree with. Two reasons mostly, and both of them are paths not taken so I suppose we'd never know how they'd turn out. One, the only reason Venat knew about the final days is because the main character set her on that path with time travel shenanigans. If she hadn't been in Ktisis on that day, or had been a touch slower escaping, *nobody* would know what happened. As far as she knows, preserving the current sequence of events is the only way someone knows something at all. Two, the Ancients weren't trying to bring their people back. They were selling their souls to a godlike creature that would require their sacrifice and worship in exchange for resurrecting their fallen; being willing to sign on the dotted line without reading the fine print in exchange for things you've lost has been a cautionary literary trope for thousands of years.

In the face of the trap the Ancients were throwing themselves into, it's easy to see Venat either as a selfish egotist bucking the system or a prescient idealist kicking her world's ass into the state it needs to be in to problem solve. But "abusive"? Yawn. Everything is "abuse" in the 21st century.