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

[Turtledeluxe]

but you only apply it to Venat? If all is fate and nothing can change it than we the player are also having no choice.

So no, her culpability doesn't matter. No one's does except Hermes and WoL.

and on genocide being a motivating factor:

I find it odd people do that in relation to Venat, again it seems so specific, no one will call me out for saying it's case by case with the Ascians and Ancients I am sure.

Please stop making assumptions and pulling quotes from posts at different points in time without regard. I understand it's a forum and it tracks posts but views can evolve as I find my own information, plus I'm responding to 6, 7 people at a time. I'm not trying to make you feel badly but this particular trait is very predictable, as you can see I was ready for the accusation. Notice how I'm asking you to not do things like this, I'm not asking you to just stop posting altogether.

In your idea Venat did the sundering in the original timeline i suppose.

Yes, finally someone who understands. I was originally saying there was an original history where uninformed Venat acted and were just Azem (hence "we could not exist in Elpis IN THAT og time because we are the sundered Azem"). This still raises the moral question at the end of the day but ultimately for me, the Ancient conflict is an alternative between two crap situations. And the Zodiark one, per the logic in the game, would have theoretically led to extinction. EW is pushing this idea to leaning into one extreme (literally due to the darkness being unbalanced and threatening the star) and philosophically (that life shouldn't include suffering or adversity) results in this situation where either humanity comes to a permanent end by star collapse or a quiet one where life loses all meaning. It seems extreme but as I have said before they're making a social commentary here-- that cultures who minmaxed themselves into a state of perfection ultimately fell to rumination, that adversity is part of what gives life its flavor and meaning.

So you need 2 headcanons to make this work.

I mean you're commenting on views I had before I knew it was confirmed we were dealing with a single timeline but go off.

Yes the writers are portraying mass murderers as innocent. That's the problem.

I disagree because Ancients are basically gods (imo), Primals certainly are (even capitalized He and She in the story for Zodiark/Hydaelyn). It's a mythological story, not one about governments and ethnicity. It's not about turning Ancient's into a preferred thing for fun but enacting the only possible method for them to interact with Dyanmis. Headcanon is believing there was some other way.

if the paying MC dies we have to act!

Umm yes.

Don't know what you are responding to here. Seems to be your strawman.

Mhmm

If we’re presented with a Venat in an AU who made the effort, successful or not, I will commend that Venat for it.

Do better.

Yes those characters claim there was no other choice. The garleans also said that about murder and the ascians.

Whataboutism

Can't critic because author's intend?

Strawman try reading the sentence again.

[Xirean]

Not false. You fiercely argued for single timeline theory and you don't like that now it is confirmed, I'm pointing out problems it creates with regards to the whining in the thread about justifying Venat. It doesn't make it impossible, but they opted for time theory here that makes it complicated to address and can barely offer solid reasoning for why our single timeline didn't diverge.

Do you not understand the difference between understanding how the story actually works and suggesting ideas for how it should work? We are on a time loop, which you consistently seemed to not understand. Proof was provided to show you how it actually does work so that you could understand the frustration of those in this thread and why many of us desire it to work differently than has been shown in the story.

[Turtledeluxe]

Do you not understand the difference between understanding how the story actually works and suggesting ideas for how it should work?

Yes. Do you care to elaborate? What are you looking for me to say here? To agree that your only issue with my post was that I claimed "we could not exist in Elpis because we are sundered"? I've explained multiple times that what I meant was, there is some original timeline where we did not visit Elpis where we could not have been there because we were the unsundered Azem at that time. It was just a theory.

I can't really decide your position. So people should not have theories or they should? It seems you the other needlessly hostile people ITT can't decide when headcanon is a joke or when it isn't. I guess headcanon is only ok when its applied in a way you deem acceptable and serves your version of the story. Pretending there's an authoritative version of this story, a rigid undeniable interpretation, is top tier nonsense. Stop pedaling it. As far as theories that contradict something established-- well that's part of learning.

Reply bc post limit (omg)

I'm not fighting, I am explaining why, for me, Yoshi P has given enough information for me to confirm that their full intention was to have an Elpis visit that stupidly retcons everything so the WoL played a role in shaping the present and that makes trying to "fix EW" complicated. The WoL cannot really deviate (the MSQ does not have branching paths or scenarios on that scale, this is the MMO constriction) and Venat can't really deviate because the dev team didn't account for the possibility at all and it opens up a whole can of worms. I don't think there's any saving it based on what we know in a way that would be satisfying for the average player. Furthermore people all want to fix it for their own reasons and it's a hassle keeping track. As you or someone else noted, this is something we now very much agree upon but perhaps for different reasons. Some people think I'm absolving Venat when it's not that at all, it's a dumb take that could perhaps make me seem more argumentative than I am. Someone else will be hostile, saying I want the story to be dumb because players are dumb or something and that's not what I'm saying at all. It's just an eternal circle of me reacting to people assuming my motivations and then getting shit on for it when I feel like I have shown an interest in getting an idea of what their intention with Elpis was. I never actually thought a ton about it and originally had a better opinion of it before seeing that statement.

Although it's worth noting I already explained my views on the Ascian conflict in the above post and it's just not that deep for me. The anti Venat camp also imo operates on tons of assumptions and conjecture that (regarding timetables, what she did or didn't do, what options she or others had), to your point, are stated as fact which makes me push back against it even harder. It seems fruitless-- what options did Emet have? What options did Hermes have? We could do this all day with anyone and it honestly seems like a hangup on Venat, hence why I joked about sexism. You can say "well the Ancients summoned Zodiark because Venat didn't tell them" -- I'm not sure what didn't tell them or did tell them, I have no idea if they would have listened, etc. Also it's interesting to me people are so resistant to the idea time is deterministic in this case because the summoning of Zodiark in itself has *nothing* to do with Venat, so you have to explain how it ended up happening again. Was it the only solution that group could come up with or something? Or is just that it was fated to happen? Again what were their options....? The story is pretty dumb so I prefer to think the unified past and present operate in a deterministic sort of way where perhaps they could've acted differently, but the result would have been the same.

Also Elidibus: "Yet even should you be able to interact with others, you will be unable to affect meaningful change. For the reality you wish to save, the reality to which you must return, exists as a result of the Final Days." i.e. the past and present are unified, To me this indicates writer intent to make it all predetermined, but that's just my opinion.

[Xirean]

Yes. Do you care to elaborate? What are you looking for me to say here? To agree that your only issue with my post was that I claimed "we could not exist in Elpis because we are sundered"? I've explained multiple times that what I meant was, there is some original timeline where we did not visit Elpis where we could not have been there because we were the unsundered Azem at that time. It was just a theory.

I'm well aware that theory. Honestly I don't really care about it. The whole point of the discussion for the past several pages was explaining how the time loop system canonicaly works, which you have finally admitted to so thanks for that. What I don't get is why you are still fighting as though there is something to fight about. You yourself said if the timeloop is how it works then you could write a book on how much that sucks. What do you think people have been doing in this thread for the last year? It's essentially a collection of people saying "Hey this kinda sucks. Could the devs make it maybe not suck?"

[Turtledeluxe]

This was part of an edit I made 1 page ago bc I hit a post limit but I am making it a post:

The whole point of the discussion for the past several pages was explaining how the time loop system canonicaly works"

The past several pages have been about genocide and random things. You'll have to get over that I initially was not aware of what Yoshi P said regarding the loop and that it changed my views. Maybe someone posted it, I don't recall seeing it.

I'm not fighting, I am explaining why, for me, Yoshi P has given enough information for me to confirm that their full intention was to have an Elpis visit that stupidly retcons everything so the WoL played a role in shaping the present and that makes trying to "fix EW" complicated. The WoL cannot really deviate (the MSQ does not have branching paths or scenarios on that scale, this is the MMO constriction) and Venat can't really deviate because the dev team didn't account for the possibility at all and it opens up a whole can of worms. I don't think there's any saving it based on what we know in a way that would be satisfying for the average player. Furthermore people all want to fix it for their own reasons and it's a hassle keeping track. As you or someone else noted, this is something we now very much agree upon but perhaps for different reasons. Some people think I'm absolving Venat when it's not that at all, it's a dumb take that could perhaps make me seem more argumentative than I am. Someone else will be hostile, saying I want the story to be dumb because players are dumb or something and that's not what I'm saying at all.

I already explained my views on the Ascian conflict in the above post and it's just not that deep for me. The anti Venat camp also operates on tons of assumptions. It seems fruitless-- what options did Emet have? What options did Hermes have? We could do this all day with anyone and it honestly seems like a hangup on Venat, hence why I joked about sexism. You can say "well the Ancients summoned Zodiark because Venat didn't tell them" - I'm not sure what she said or if they would even believe her. Also it's interesting to me people are so resistant to the idea time is deterministic in this case because as far as the summoning of Zodiark you have to explain how it ended up happening again. Was it the only solution that group could come up with or something? Or is just that it was fated to happen? The time travel is pretty dumb so I prefer to think the timeline operates in a deterministic way where perhaps they could've acted differently, but the result would have been the same. Your explanation for every single thing occurring the same way is "Venat said nothing" (which I haven't seen a source for) and that is way dumber than me saying everything was fated to happen imo.

Also Elidibus: "Yet even should you be able to interact with others, you will be unable to affect meaningful change. For the reality you wish to save, the reality to which you must return, exists as a result of the Final Days."

[Theodric]

I don't think anyone in this thread who is critical of the writing surrounding Venat is suggesting that the story is particularly deep, at any rate. It's simply being suggested that if a writer intentionally or unintentionally makes a character directly complicit in acts of genocide, racial replacement and eugenics then there should be more room for the player to criticise such actions - especially when the game spent a decade's worth of writing establishing such actions as being considered to be morally reprehensible within the setting.

Though this particular discussion doesn't appear to be about the actual story so much as the usual unsettling attempts to police the reactions to Venat as if any given character is owed someone's love, support and approval.

Then again, this is the same community that has very vocal elements who spent years stalking, impersonating and threatening various players with physical harm and sexual assault if they so much as cast a shred of doubt upon their precious 'cRyStAl MoMmY'.

So you'll forgive the regulars in this thread, I imagine, for entertaining the idea that someone solely concerned with painting Venat in a specific light is very likely not acting in good faith - particularly when they throw around insinuations of sexism and reduce criticism of the story as coming from 'haters'.

You're welcome to approve of Venat's actions. Nobody is suggesting otherwise. They're just not hugely interested in the performative song and dance pretending as if her actions do not equal the complete elimination of her own species. Feel free to substitute 'genocide' with whatever term you see fit but the meat of the matter is that she intentionally sabotaged, betrayed and destroyed her own people and that isn't an act many of us see as worthy of praise.

Not in the least because a lot of us are discussing the story from the perspective of an outside observer, as opposed to someone solely concerned with how various actions benefit the game's protagonists and the player character.

Feedback is being left in the vague hope that the story can learn from its mistakes moving forward and perhaps throw more of a bone to anyone who wasn't thrilled with the direction Endwalker took - and it's not like the criticism throughout this thread is even exclusively aimed at Venat either. Many of us have brought up other aspects of the story that we felt could have been handled better.

[Eisi]

I don't think anyone in this thread who is critical of the writing surrounding Venat is suggesting that the story is particularly deep, at any rate. It's simply being suggested that if a writer intentionally or unintentionally makes a character directly complicit in acts of genocide, racial replacement and eugenics then there should be more room for the player to criticise such actions - especially when the game spent a decade's worth of writing establishing such actions as being considered to be morally reprehensible within the setting.

That's contradictory. The writers didn't know that they inadvertently wrote a genocidal character so they couldn't have built in options to criticize that.

The story isn't deep precisely because the writers don't care about it as much. You care more about the story than they do.

[Theodric]

That's contradictory. The writers didn't know that they inadvertently wrote a genocidal character so they couldn't have built in options to criticize that.

I think they've had more than enough time to realise that is what they wrote, though. They've had plenty of critical feedback since EW released, including Yoshi feeling the need to comment on whether she's the "bad guy" or not, acknowledging her actions are controversial, and that's in addition to them taking some remedial steps via the Omega quest. All the same the rest of the MSQ proceeds as if none of that ever happened and as if her actions are uncontroversial, and the same goes for the codex.

The story isn't deep precisely because the writers don't care about it as much. You care more about the story than they do.

That may well be so, in spite of the fact that it and its most ardent defenders like to pretend it is. It certainly seems like they've given up on trying to make it make sense.

[Eisi]

I think they've had more than enough time to realise that is what they wrote, though. They've had plenty of critical feedback since EW released, including Yoshi feeling the need to comment on whether she's the "bad guy" or not, acknowledging her actions are controversial, and that's in addition to them taking some remedial steps via the Omega quest. All the same the rest of the MSQ proceeds as if none of that ever happened and as if her actions are uncontroversial, and the same goes for the codex.

I assume you wish a retroactive acknowledgement, not an actual change within the 6.0 storyline?

In that case I will wholeheartedly disagree with you. There is no way to make the story right retroactively, what's done is done and the goal of having Venat be a tragic hero screams out of the 6.0 MSQ with such fervor that anything to contradict it would merely seem like a weak and self-conscious meta acknowledgement of bad writing that would have me cringe. They should have written her as a tragic hero in the first place. They should have cared about their story. Having her be a genocidal villain was never the intention and to change everything to either lessen the impact of their writing's implications or embrace that unintended consequence that so clearly goes against everything they set out to do would be horribly awkward.

I think holding onto the idea that the story can be saved or needs to be repaired is a horrible notion. We should move on, accept that the story and lore is horribly flawed beyond repair and not seek to retroactively fix what was clearly never the concern of the writing team to begin with. Omega is as good as we will get and it couldn't resolve any of it either, but at least it accepts the main stories' biases and doesn't try to completely course correct into the opposite of what 6.0 tried to be.

[Nayukhuut]

I wouldn't mind ignoring her from now until the end of time and just writing off Endwalker as bad writing, but the story keeps doubling down on her and dredging her up. We find out the Twelve are false gods put there by Venat and that we have to pray to them else the planet destabalises and untold calamities likely happen as the actions of keeping a planet unnaturally apart come to a head, or we end up using something like the locator crystal MacGuffin to heal Zero.

The whole Twelve revelation being one of the worst. Why is no one in the story horrified that should we ever decide to become an atheistic society and stop believing in gods that Venat installed herself, the world as we know it could crumble?