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

[Atelier-Bagur]

Emet-Selch fought and killed for his own people.

The WoL fights and kills for his/her own people.

Venat wiped out HER OWN people cause she did not think them worthy of existence.

Venat fought because the path the Ancients were going for was ultimately going to lead them to self-destruction

[Atelier-Bagur]

To be honest, I think Venat was just stuck with a damn if you, damn if you dont situation because if she decided to do nothing even if she didnt agree with the Convocation's plan then she would still be seen or criticized for it.

[KageTokage]

Venat fought because the path the Ancients were going for was ultimately going to lead them to self-destruction

That's the reasoning the story tries to use but it didn't feel like a strong argument to me when it's such a far-off consideration that it would've made infinitely more sense to take action after it had become readily apparent it was going to become a fruitless, self-destructive cycle.

From a strictly practical standpoint, if you're trying to rebuild civilization restoring the 75% of humanity that was lost in summoning Zodiark would've been the right play and also helped ease the grieving hearts of numerous Ancients. It was made apparent that the actual sacrifices were never the issue to Venat's faction and rather they opposed the ideology behind it, viewing it as "weak" and anathema to progress. The notion of using Zodiark to restore everything that was lost was genuinely absurd, and they latched onto that new argument as opposed to the Convocation's initially stated intent of simply restoring those who could yet be saved then leaving it at that.

It's that weird shift where we're suddenly supposed to take the words of some random delusional Ancients as indicative of their entire society, Convocation included that felt really awkward to me.

The whole dynamis factor also just throws a wrench in everything because it insinuates that even if the Ancients had the "right" reaction to the Final Days, they would've still needed to be sundered regardless due to their inherent inability to manipulate the element. It would've been much better IMO if they had simply never made it a consideration in her decision whatsoever and that mankind was genuinely just an unfortunate, unintended casualty of the Sundering and their ability to fight back against Meteion effectively was just a happy coincidence.

[FirstGearFirstGear]

Emet-Selch fought and killed for his own people.

He wiped out seven entire planets and leveled every civilization the Source produced because he refused to acknowledge any form of life that wasn't an Ancient as a living being. He would have slaughtered six more planets and continued throwing souls beyond counting into Zodiark until he had returned to his desired paradise, which would have ultimately condemned the entire cosmos to being destroyed by Meteion.

The degree to which people in this thread whitewash the crimes of the Ascians is genuinely kind of disturbing.

[AwesomeJr44]

Worst case scenario for Emet, they're both evil.

(The monkey comparison is from comparing a monkey to a human. The monkey can be considered near human, but it is not human and is only an animal. Note that this is an observation from an outside, objective, and neutral perspective, I do not fault the sundered for fighting against the Ascians just like I wouldn't fault a monkey for trying to fight against a human that is trying to kill it.)

[aveyond-dreams]

Worst case scenario for Emet, they're both evil.

(The monkey comparison is from comparing a monkey to a human. The monkey can be considered near human, but it is not human and is only an animal. Note that this is an observation from an outside, objective, and neutral perspective, I do not fault the sundered for fighting against the Ascians just like I wouldn't fault a monkey for trying to fight against a human that is trying to kill it.)

The monkey at least has opposable thumbs. After the Sundering all that was left was flans who couldn't even form coherent speech. Forgive me if I'm not as sympathetic to them as I was to the Ancients.

[AwesomeJr44]

You are literally buying into the Ascians' nonsense belief that the only life that matters is the Ancients.

From an outside perspective that doesn't allow itself to be biased by either side, Ancient life is more valuable by it's very nature of being complete and unsundered. I can't speak for you, but if I was given the choice to either save the human race or save all of the monkeys on the planet, I'd choose to save the humans. It's a regrettable decision, but the correct one.

Try showing a picture of the Eorzean city-states or the Crystal Tower or Kugane to somebody with no knowledge of Shadowbringers or Endwalker.

Why would it have to be someone who hasn't seen SHB or EW? Surely your argument doesn't rely on your audience's ignorance, does it? Your response to my observation that uses all information available is to say "well what about asking someone who doesn't have all of the available information? I bet they'd agree with me!". Even if they did agree with you, that opinion would be uninformed.

Even if you take the worst possible interpretation of Venat that the text supports, Emet is several orders of magnitude worse.

In the case of a contradiction (such as the one in this game's story), I shall believe what is shown, rather than what is told. If the writers of the story don't like that, they should have written a better story with less contradictions.

[Celine_Aurora]

From an outside perspective that doesn't allow itself to be biased by either side, Ancient life is more valuable by it's very nature of being complete and unsundered. I can't speak for you, but if I was given the choice to either save the human race or save all of the monkeys on the planet, I'd choose to save the humans. It's a regrettable decision, but the correct one.

From an outside perspective that does not allow itself to be biased, the difference between an Ancient and an Elezen is that one has less aether at their disposal but that doesn't make them less valuable as a person.

Also from an outside perspective that does not allow itrself to be biased, in the grand scheme of things, there's not a lot of difference between killing all the humans or all the monkeys in the world.

In the case of a contradiction (such as the one in this game's story), I shall believe what is shown, rather than what is told. If the writers of the story don't like that, they should have written a better story with less contradictions.

Yes, it's really hard to be sympathetic to one or the other, because ultimately this story is a contrivance to give us cool boss fights, and not exactly a literary masterpiece.

[AwesomeJr44]

Venat also took her own people and reduced them to their current state of vulnerability and mortality against their own will, she then referred to those broken, incomplete remnants of her former peers as her children. Regardless of motive, I find that quite disturbing.

It's very disturbing. If Venat is supposed to be a motherly figure, her behavior is more abusive than it is caring.

[KageTokage]

I'm just ultimately very...confused at how they chose to handle Venat because there are numerous small details they could've changed to absolve her of guilt in multiple respects without needing any drastic rewrites of the story, but instead they opted to paint her as some kind of master planner where almost everything is deliberately orchestrated by her despite most of said events being actively harmful to others.

For someone who Yoshi wanted to convey was a "good person" I will forever question why they left so many openings for her to be interpreted otherwise, as she's so intricately linked with the fundamental lore of the setting that you can't simply forget about her and the ideals she upheld as we push forward into the unknown.