What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[NanaWiloh]

Venant turns man mortal over a belief and recieves hate.

Man upstairs turns man mortal over a apple recieves love.

Man kind making no damn sense

Priceless

Note: Just some sarcasm dont take it seriously..

[redheadturk]

Venant turns man mortal over a belief and recieves hate.

Man upstairs turns man mortal over a apple recieves love.

Man kind making no damn sense

Priceless

Note: Just some sarcasm dont take it seriously..

Not to get religious, but. . .to be honest I think both are full of crap, so there is that lol.

[MagiusNecros]

Venant turns man mortal over a belief and recieves hate.

Man upstairs turns man mortal over a apple recieves love.

Man kind making no damn sense

Priceless

Note: Just some sarcasm dont take it seriously..

Following the actual Eorzean perspective. Hydaelyn did screw everyone over for better or worse by committing atrocities and keeping her followers in the dark for thousands of years and the populace still has their adoration for her. So it very much still is a "the gods are awful but we still love them". Similar to the if you do this bad thing then this supernatural entity is going to send you to hell to either raging fire at best and freezing cold at worst forever. Because he loves you.

The inhabitants of the world with the exception of maybe beast tribes are tempered in all but name to her and rightfully so because through her sundering everyone is a creation of Hydaelyn.

Is Venat evil? No. But did they act of desperation and commit terrible acts? Yes.

There might have been a more positive outcome had Venat shared what happened and didn't lie/obfuscate to everyone for 12,000 years while leeching off Zodiark as her own personal Aether Battery for 12,000 years.

And she could have given everyone adores her as this epitome of good.

It's only the WoL that finally realizes through dialogue choices if you so choose that Venat is not telling the truth or being honest to the point they cannot trust them anymore.

After all Venat played God and didn't give anyone a choice. In her mind Sundering was based around forcing others to accept her ideology and to save a subset of denizens(by splitting their souls) to avoid total extinction.

As a result Emet and the Convocation couldn't devise a plan to counteract Hermes machinations.

The fact that the Ancients could end the World and split it up as they did to begin with is ridiculous powercreep out of nowhere and is just bad writing IMO.

Venat showed her crowning Frieza achievement of being able to destroy an entire world but utterly failed to catch a bird on her flying doggo.

Through Venat's neglect to make the truth laid bare to protect their planet many of the Ancients were driven to madness and then had 2 very different ideals going against each other being Venat and Emet + Convo.

To the point that the methods of both Venat and Emet were morally wrong to Azem the Traveler who opposed both of them or refused to take a side.

By and large it makes for an interesting turn of events.

[Theodric]

A character can easily shift from 'protagonist' to 'antagonist' at a moment's notice. I think Vyreus is correct.

I also think individual players are free to draw their own conclusions about whether or not a particular character is a 'protagonist', 'antagonist' or even both. The writers can certainly try and guide people to draw certain conclusions though asking people to pretend as if genocide is a heroic act is a stretch for many and not really something the writers have any right to demand.

I believe the writers have also admitted to not having a grand plan in mind when it came to many aspects of the story. I'm a bit confused as why this is pointed out when it comes to the Garleans and Ascians but somehow Hydaelyn is pushed as 'never' being written to be an antagonist. We don't know that and many players spoke up over the years to claim that they found her to be suspicious, creepy and needlessly vague.

[MikkoAkure]

A character can easily shift from 'protagonist' to 'antagonist' at a moment's notice. I think Vyreus is correct.

We fight her for 15 minutes and she's up front about the test. We don't go there seeking a fight and in the immediate aftermath she gives us everything we need. It's a bit silly to suggest that she goes from "supporting character" to "antagonist" to "supporting character" in the span of a lunch break just because you want to call her "antagonist".

I also think individual players are free to draw their own conclusions about whether or not a particular character is a 'protagonist', 'antagonist' or even both. The writers can certainly try and guide people to draw certain conclusions though asking people to pretend as if genocide is a heroic act is a stretch for many and not really something the writers have any right to demand.

I believe the writers have also admitted to not having a grand plan in mind when it came to many aspects of the story. I'm a bit confused as why this is pointed out when it comes to the Garleans and Ascians but somehow Hydaelyn is pushed as 'never' being written to be an antagonist. We don't know that and many players spoke up over the years to claim that they found her to be suspicious, creepy and needlessly vague.

Morality has nothing to do with "antagonist" and "protagonist". As I said before, you can have villainous protagonists and heroic antagonists. In a story where we have only 1 point of view character everything happens to, the morality of the characters can be left up for interpretation, but not the role they fulfill in the story. The WoL is the protagonist of FFXIV, and the enemies we face in each expansion are the antagonists. Hydaelyn is never once set up as the main enemy we have to beat in order to resolve the story. We have a quick trial to test our power to save the world and then it's done.

Even without a grand plan, it's hard to walk back a faction wanting to kill everyone and tries to kill you over and over before they make an attempt at communication or explaining themselves versus the being that protects you from them.

[Katish]

I don't think Venat an antagonist, because:

- 1: We do not know how the WoL thinks of her.
- 2: The way we gather who antagonists are in this story is that, an antagonist usually involves other people's mindset in play or some other independent element.
- 3: She is not opposed to the WoL, just how the world is in general.

Being an antagonist goes both ways between protagonist and antagonist...if you don't know the mindset of one, look to the other...if the other does not oppose then that person is not the antagonist. Anything else would be speculation. And someone who brought up her "will", her will does not contribute to what she actually thinks either. For all we know, she could have wanted to be bested to see the fate of humanity overcome whatever was thrown at them (which would make more sense given how she reacted after) and that is conflicting with the obligation to being herself, or saving everyone she created. A continuous fight from the ages, so to speak.

Tl;dr? Someone can be antagonistic but not be an antagonist.

[KariTheFox]

Where did it say Hydaelyn had any intent to kill the scions? She said she was going to use all of her strength to overcome them and give them instructions to flee the planet if they were unable to defeat her. Her quote if you hit enrage is "Flee, you have been found wanting." and then the fight ends.

It'd be kinda hard to force the scions to flee if they were all dead.

[Yencat]

Where did it say Hydaelyn had any intent to kill the scions? She said she was going to use all of her strength to overcome them and give them instructions to flee the planet if they were unable to defeat her. Her quote if you hit enrage is "Flee, you have been found wanting." and then the fight ends.

It'd be kinda hard to force the scions to flee if they were all dead.

She was obviously going to chuck our corpses on the moon and eject it into space!

But you're right, she says so before you fight her as well.

"Should you lack the strength to best a supreme deity, I cannot allow you to make the journey. You must leave this star and never look back."

[DevonEllwood]

I love the stories of two ambitious women we got for this expansion. One was completely engrossed into understanding life down to it's building blocks and wanted to share that passion and ambition with a man who was completely enthralled with her. Nothing would get in her way as she lies through omission and uses mankind to further her agenda. The other one was Athena.

The second raid and the short story coming out in the same patch is complete irony. I could not help but think we got the same story of an individual twice. All we needed was there to be a man blindly obsessed with Venat aaaand there it is in the short story. I like that she stated that she wouldn't reveal everything so as to not give them preconceived ideas of the future or something. Because anyone with a brain would have backed down from her plan if they knew she was going to destroy their entire civilization and not just take on Zodiark.

Also if I'm going to be picky, there are rules in writing, just like there's rules in art. There's dos and don'ts into making something good. A seminar I went to a long time ago, pointed out that people can only process so many new pieces of information. Going over two and your pushing it. Thavnair gives us, alchemists can make realistic bodies, the ruler of the area is actually a dragon, the dragon is the boy, his eye is in the boy, he's been ripping his skin off to make charms, ALL in one cutcsene. This is a don't. This happens again with the second part of the raid, except slightly more spaced out. Like they're rushing to get all this information out because I'm pretty sure it was supposed to last all 3 raids, but I guess things changed? I don't know. I hope we get more of Athena, because all we need is another very shaky reason for her to be doing what she was doing, make it seem like there's no other choice, have her love humanity or something and bam, good person.

Also I love that Blade has joined the group now. We already have a (teenager?) who is actually a 10,000 year old dragon, we are just one obnoxiously loud, powerful idiot short of a full anime team.

You really think the handful of Eorzeans permitted onto the Moon (remember the vast majority of the Source's inhabitants plus all the denizens of every Shard were gonna get abandoned) are at all likely to be non-susceptible to the Despair she brings, especially since in 6.1 we discovered it was completely random?!

Nah, I don't think so.

We already know the sharlayans said their people were first to get on the moon, and then they would go down the list. I highly doubt they would have let garleans on the moon at all. I doubt there was room for the dragons and all the beast tribes. The idea was completely stupid.

[Rulakir]

Did we talk about the fact the Tales from the Dawn short story confirmed Venat didn't tell her followers the whole truth? I got so wrapped up in the lore forum about it I don't remember if it was brought up here. (I'm also too lazy to check and, besides, being proven right after all these months is worth repeating.

A Hermes short story is inevitable and could be anything. Other than that, I assume there will be a Vrtra/Thavnair one and maybe one for Garlemald.