Endwalker's message (spoilers!)

[Kozh]

Venat's actions were the only ones who would break the cycle of the Final Days. Had the Ancients been successful in recreating their paradise, they would cause the Final Days again.

Final days only happen because Hermes being stupid and dynamis being an unknown force. Supposedly Venat told everyone what really happened, I believe the Ancients will be able to prevent another "Hermes" to be born.

The reason why this would happen, is because they did not understood plight, suffering, and despair. Emet-Selch's responses to Hermes proves that they wouldn't learn. In short, the Ancients seemingly perfections would obstruct them from learning about life's imperfections. Venat knew that this would happen, as she was already more enlightened than most of the other Ancients.

They don't know suffering and despair?? Even the Pandaemonium raid show how even during their peaceful times, the Ancients aren't some sort of peaceful hive mind that's unable to perceive sadness. They still have conflicts with each other, they still feel sadness when someone they love is gone. The only difference is that those feelings are rarer compared to sundered life. But it's unfair to impose our standard on them.

Venat is "more enlighten" just because she heard about some adventures from one guy from the future, then decided the fate of the star by herself, a message that previously is deemed a bad thing by the game.

Mankind of the future was the only one who would be able to deal with it, BECAUSE they suffer. They would be best equipped with dealing with it, because they found joy and meaning in the small happy moments.

Only half true. The point isn't just "feel suffering", but because she thinks having more control of dynamis will help them fight meteion since she's made of dynamis. Hence, the sundering.

Oh, and if Venat would tell the Convocation, she would become a pariah immediately. Place yourself in one of the members of the Convocation's seat, and think about how you would respond.

Except Venat is the previous Azem, one of the convocation which was highly regarded. See how she's still respected by the other Ancients on elpis? And this is a story in magical setting when fate and prophecy are the norm. Regarding the memory loss thing, many people already pointed out that: 1) she can do the "show the past" using environmental aether like when she help us; 2) I refuse to believe that the Ancients, master of magic, can't research a spell to reverse kairos effect.

Even if option 1 and 2 aren't successful, once the final days start it will only prove her right and they will listen to her. Remember that the final days reach Amaurot last and they actually still had time to debate and research about it.

[RoroCookies]

If the Ascians looked like Vauthry people wouldn't be nearly as sympathetic to them either, they struck fanboy/fangirl gold with with pretty much all the Ancients.

This. I still see people throw Zodiark under the bus even though he is literally the reason why the star exists today. Without Zodiark’s aether shield and restoring life there wouldn’t be anything left of the star. Yet Venat gets all the credit for some reason.

[KizuyaKatogami]

This. I still see people throw Zodiark under the bus even though he is literally the reason why the star exists today. Without Zodiark’s aether shield and restoring life there wouldn’t be anything left of the star. Yet Venat gets all the credit for some reason.

They honestly did Zodiark really dirty this expansion in numerous ways. It’s pretty hard to take the devs seriously when they say they’re both equal but paint one in a benevolent light and then have the other be used in a negative manner and hardly spoken of his good deeds afterwards. Maybe instead of playing dress-up with rabbits we could’ve had more insight on that but alas it wasn’t meant to be.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Considering how much art and fanfic Emet gets for being a hot sad dude, this is debatable at best, hypocritical at worst. Its so easy to reduce characters popularity to something basic

There is absolute no way to prove people who like Venat do so for her looks more then her character then there is to prove the same for the Emet.

Perhaps not but i think there’s signs even in the game itself that point to this. Look at Omega for example, who chose to use his “hot” female form when talking to us. I think it’s also the pretty clear cut reason as to why they decided to make Meteion a “cute” little bird girl, so it would be easier for people to sympathize with her. It’s a typical trope anyhow, with the beautiful nice seeming lady or child who ends up being evil etc, and i believe that’s used far more than there is an attractive or cute guy turning out to be evil(but obviously there’s examples of that as well).But i think theres a noticeable bias where yknow, we go and hug Meteion or dont harbor any hard feelings for Venat, yet in for example (pandaemonium spoilers)

We're constantly seen giving a dirty look and having negative dialogue whenever Lahabrea is mentioned. There seems to be some bias in that regard.

[Slatersev]

Perhaps not but i think there’s signs even in the game itself that point to this. Look at Omega for example, who chose to use his “hot” female form when talking to us. I think it’s also the pretty clear cut reason as to why they decided to make Meteion a “cute” little bird girl, so it would be easier for people to sympathize with her. It’s a typical trope anyhow, with the beautiful nice seeming lady or child who ends up being evil etc, and i believe that’s used far more than there is an attractive or cute guy turning out to be evil(but obviously there’s examples of that as well).But i think theres a noticeable bias where yknow, we go and hug Meteion or dont harbor any hard feelings for Venat, yet in for example (pandaemonium spoilers)

We're constantly seen giving a dirty look and having negative dialogue whenever Lahabrea is mentioned. There seems to be some bias in that regard.

This argument would hold more weight if we didnt spend a significant chunk of 5.3 and EW being very sympathetic to Elidibus AND Emet.

Were literally given the option to

apologize to Eli before he sends us to the past. We redouble the how to Emet to not waste his legacy/his peoples legacy. We are offered a chance to promise Amon will help him find an answer to his question in the next life. Laha is the singular expectation and that includes Mitron and Loghrif from Eden. Its also not a guarantee at all that it stays that way.

Really in general EW treats ALL the Ancient aligned characters with tons of sympathy, it gives us chances to bond/mourn/forgive ALL of them if we so choose. The idea that they played favorites based on gender or alignment just rings false when so much times is spent with each of them.

Which goes back to the main point. Not that people have to like Venat, but implying people that do are more influenced by her looks and people who love the Unsundered only do so on the strength of there backstory just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Firstly cause there is no actual way to prove that, but secondly because ALL the Ancients are going to appeal to large swaths of people based off looks AND writing. None of them pass for anything less then beautiful or cute. There backstory's all come from the same root.

If you have preference for one over the other that's fine, but its down to preference, not some objective but totally unprovable fact that people who like the pretty sad girl do so mostly because she is pretty while people who like the pretty depressed man do so mostly off the strength of his writing.

Reality is its a mix of both and there is no real way to quantify it at all.

You can also really like both (Which is where I stand)

[Rulakir]

I have never been a fan of Hydaelyn starting from ARR, so I certainly didn't go into EW expecting to like her, but even I liked Venat in Elpis. It's the decisions she made afterwards that are the problem. I understand people don't want to dislike her, especially as the game strong-armed the WoL into being BFFs with her. It's funny, I figured they wouldn't make her evil because players might be upset they were championing an antagonist, but I didn't expect that they would be so heavy handed in that you must like her and think what she did was for the best. Honestly, between her and Hermes I felt like the narrative was gaslighting me.

We're constantly seen giving a dirty look and having negative dialogue whenever <redacted> is mentioned. There seems to be some bias in that regard.

This has become one of my pet peeves in the game. My character emoting/expressing in ways that don't match how I feel as a player. It's never been as insufferable as it has been in EW though. It felt like being able to name and customize my WoL was just a technicality, ultimately I'm RPing someone else's character who feels very differently about certain things than I do. Maybe it's always been this way and it's taken me until EW to realize it, but it sucks. I may as well just fantasia into Ardbert. :P

[RoroCookies]

I'd re-read her post. She's not making that point. Quite the opposite. Though I agree.

Oops that’s a my bad then lol.

[Caurcas]

I side with Venat purely from a philosophical stand point, and is why I am opposed to the Emet side of the ancients. To put it briefly, that is that life is defined by one's interaction with conflict and adversity. To conquer and overcome is the point. The struggle against doom placed upon you. The ancients seemed to have a poor grasp of this and rushed into the Zodiark plan and there by falling into the trap that Meteion placed for them. Whereas the sundered had to deal with the doom placed upon them and advance through it. To overcome it. They were also better adjusted to dealing with suffering. All in all the named ancients all fall under the classical tragic hero definition. They all have their strengths, and their critical weaknesses that lead to their fall.

Sidenote, why couldn't crush Meteion's skull betwixt out iron fingers and cast her head down the stairs? She is the legit worst part of the narrative.

[Kozh]

I side with Venat purely from a philosophical stand point, and is why I am opposed to the Emet side of the ancients. To put it briefly, that is that life is defined by one's interaction with conflict and adversity. To conquer and overcome is the point. The struggle against doom placed upon you. The ancients seemed to have a poor grasp of this and rushed into the Zodiark plan and there by falling into the trap that Meteion placed for them. Whereas the sundered had to deal with the doom placed upon them and advance through it. To overcome it. They were also better adjusted to dealing with suffering. All in all the named ancients all fall under the classical tragic hero definition. They all have their strengths, and their critical weaknesses that lead to their fall.

Sidenote, why couldn't crush Meteion's skull betwixt out iron fingers and cast her head down the stairs? She is the legit worst part of the narrative.

But they literally summon Zodiark as last effort though. It's not "rush into Zodiark plan". The first Final Days reaches Amaurot last, and at that time they did research on how to combat it, with fandaniel manage to discover that it attacked the place with lowest aether density.

And i have to disagree with the "better adjusted". What we experienced during the second Final Days is only the tip of the iceberg, and look how much the casualties it already brought. If it manage to reach sharlayan, pretty sure people will go into panic mode not unlike the Ancients.

[Rulakir]

The Ancients had no idea what was happening, they wanted to put a stop to involuntarily creating abominations that were devouring people alive in the streets. I'm going to go out on a limb and say most people would jump at the first solution to that problem. :P

Also, the suffering part didn't even matter in the end. The Final Days still returned to Etheirys, and after 12k years the sundered were still unequipped to handle it. Had Meteion not been defeated, they would have had to flee into space indefinitely.