Quote Originally Posted by Teraq View Post
snip.
I do think that the argument is rather off-the-rails. Venat's actions are NOT justifiable in relation to pre-Final Days Ancients. Plain and simple. Thing is... We only get briefest (and debatably very subjective) look at the Ancients during Final Days and exclusively second hand accounts for after the Final Days were averted. And while morality of her actions is very hard to reconcile, I think it is look at what Ancients as a society ended up becoming after summoning of Zodiark, which is the point at which Venat's opposition actually started gaining support and led to eventual summoning of Hydaelyn (which I believe is rather important, as neither her nor Emet ever imply she or her followers actually opposed the Convocation prior to Zodiark's summoning). So, question is, were there any changes to the way ancients and their world view as a society works? I say, yes. Very much so. Prior to Final Days, as we see first hand, Ancients do not believe that singular lives, be it their own, of their friends or their creations, matter not and only thing that matters is betterment of the star. That view is why both Hermes and Venat are treated as outsiders in such society, though in vastly different ways, as they actually do put value in individual lives, even if at that point Venat is not actively trying to change the society, but rather just adhere her own views personally in spite of others' disapproval, unlike Hermes who kept trying to change minds of others. But then come and go the Final Days, ancients lose most of their world and 3/4th of their civilization. And that society... Completely abandons principles of betterment of the star and instead of trying to get back to their work, now that they had more work than ever restoring the star after the Final Days, they start getting ready for a new plan - cultivate life on the star as sacrifice to get their lost comrades, who gave their lives for the star. And in other camp we have Venat and her desire to move on, to not worship Zodiark as saviour to give sacrifices in return for those who are lost, but simply overcome and move on. I can't argue if juxtaposition is intentional, but this 'morality swap' between Convocation and Venat pre- and post- Final Days seems very interesting. Again, I can't really judge how good Venat's plan was or how justified it was for her to choose to sunder Ancients to stop them from Zodiark sacrifice restoration paln. But, the important part is, what they were preparing to do was very much on scale of evil that Ascians ended up doing down the line. And the moral compass we're expected to follow, I think, is neither Venat nor Convocation, but... our own old self - Azem. Azem who opposed the plan to summon Zodiark AND refused to participate in plan to summon Hydaelyn.