When are we supposed to stop fighting?

[Gemina]

There's a pretty significant difference between being lead astray and acting while having all the facts. The former would be Eve, while the latter would be Venat. One is far more egregious than the other.

So which one is more egregious than the other? This isn't as obvious as one might think, but it also isn't that important for the parallels between the two entities to be established. The manifestation of suffering paid for with the eradication of paradise.

It's interesting that Eve is brought up, since the Eden story is a kind of theodicy to explain why evil and suffering exists in the world at all; in Eve's case, it's because a woman was led astray and disobeyed god.

But Venat isn't really meant to be responsible for the existence of suffering, suffering is an extant part of life, she does not say people 'should' suffer as some kind of moral imperative or punishment for their sins, she is saying that they already do, and that they should acknowledge it. I wonder if part of this tension comes from a western audience trying reckon with a very Buddhist view of the nature of suffering that Endwalker presents.

Again, the parallels are still there. It wasn't Eve's intention to get her and Adam yeeted out of Eden, and to plunge mankind into pain and suffering. Yet, both Venat and Eve are blamed all the same.

Now things start veering away from each other when you look at the circumstances and intentions leading to the sundering and the forbidden fruit nom-nom. But I was more or less referring to the eventual consequence, and the blame assigned.

[KariTheFox]

Except the ultimate goal of Buddhism is to escape the cycle of suffering and reincarnation through the attainment of Nirvana and the renunciation of all earthly ties. In other words the exact opposite of the idea Venat represents.

I mean, the fact that the ideas of Endwalker exist in opposition the 'goal' Buddhism as you say does not mean the story is not rooted in a Buddhist understanding of suffering. In the same way a western story about rebelling against the church and killing God is still rooted in a culturally Christian understanding of divinity and authority.

Edit: I'd also argue that having you soul forced to relive its most painful memories in meteion's nest until erased from existence in some unspecified point in the future is absolutely not the 'ultimate goal' of Buddhism. Nobody's achieving personal enlightenment or walking the eightfold path in Ultima Thule, they are simply wallowing in their despair.

[Lyth]

Happiness is separate from the cycle of pleasure and pain. The final civilization in the Dead Ends managed to eliminate strife, along with both suffering and joy in the process, but they still didn't find it. The dragons withdrew from the world, and yet they still didn't find it. The Ea are my favorite case. They come to Y'shtola with the entirety of knowledge mapped out in their libraries and ask 'What's the point?' And Y'shtola turns to them and essentially says 'But I really enjoy learning!' I mean, you really can't argue with that. Nerd. But still, point taken.

A checkbox mentality will only take you so far. I think that that self-same joy of learning, of discovery, is what makes the travel/journey analogy resonate so well.

'As you know, I was once a scholar. And among other things, I sought to understand the workings of the world.
What exactly is Aether? How formed the laws of nature? Whence spung mankind?
Riddles and mysteries beyond counting. Over the the years, I have managed to find answers to some few of them...
Yet rather than attain a sense of mastery, the more I understood, the more I came to hold the world and its miracles in awe.'

'I was overcome with an irrepressible urge to know the world more intimately. To hear its voice, feel its breath...
I ventured forth on a journey that very day. So very long ago now.
Freed from presumption and prejudice, I saw the world through a newborn's eyes. Everything fresh and so, so beautiful.'

And it's interesting, the instant you learn the label for something, you learn to dismiss it. "The day you teach the child the name of the bird, the child will never see that bird again." It's tough to preserve your love of discovery and learning when experiences and formal training build up so many biases over the years.

Or put more simply:
'You can live here your entire life and hardly learn a thing.
That's why... it's too soon for this to end.'

[Raikai]

One thing that's bothered me since beating the story is the whole we need to suffer to learn and live angle.

Or how the last dungeon and meteon pushed that things got too good and people just gave up.

Our whole deal is fighting to solve issues and make things better, we've traveled through time, space and reality to make things better, to win, to keep marching toward a world where things are better and we're not needed, one where no one needs to fight.

So doesn't that mean our endgame would lead to annihilation?

Just irks me that's what they came up with, the whole point is to fight, even now in pandemonium we're battling away and everything we do leads to people prospering in some way, just look at the world itself since arr, its much better since we stepped off the cart. Like, at this point if the wol just said eff it, wouldn't that be fine? And honestly preferred.

Fighting will never stop for a meta reason... without strife there wouldn't be a narrative for the RPG. At least not the one XIV is meant to be.

Fighting will only stop when XIV "dies" (for either a new game or just of old age). The moment when they no longer create new content for it, they will steer the plot in a way that either fight is no longer needed or the WoL becomes unable to fight.

[Lyth]

This is also a property of the storytelling medium itself. The way that you learn about characters is by going to the '!' icon and solving their problems. Sure, that means that you play the 'hero' front and centre, but you're also there to witness their lives and their civilization.

Is Azem truly needed in any of this? Perhaps, but as the Eighth Umbral Calamity timeline showed, the main point of these tales is primarily to inspire. Someday, when Azem is long gone, various societies will offer up their own stories about the wandering trickster rabbit figure. How much is truth, and how much fiction? Who knows?

[KariTheFox]

I mean, the answer to when we should stop fighting is "right now, in between patches", there's often references to the WoL resting or taking a break between different patch cycles, you kind of just get to use your imagination when it comes to what your WoL does in their off time.

[Vyrerus]

I mean, the answer to when we should stop fighting is "right now, in between patches", there's often references to the WoL resting or taking a break between different patch cycles, you kind of just get to use your imagination when it comes to what your WoL does in their off time.

The answer for mine is usually... trains until his hands bleed while stuffing copious amounts of the same food into his mouth with no regards for his waistline.

Also twice weekly musical/crystal/fight simulator hallucinations/simulations of combat.

Once those have been accomplished... a spot of mining. Mining has always really jived with me, and it seems right to see my Highlander WoL with a pickaxe in hand.

Also getting drunk with Sidurgu at the Forgotten Knight, much to Rielle's chagrin. Vicious is a bad influence.

[Absimiliard]

How did people manage to subsume yet another thread into the global Venat defense initiative?

Root cause of all the suffering notwithstanding, the reality of the situation is that everyone must fight every second of their lives. Not all fights are physical, you see. Even those whose lives are seemingly normal -- your crafters, peddlers, doctors and the like -- too have their own battles they must face on the daily. As for the WoL? Their fighting, both literal and metaphorical, will never end. They'll very likely fight until something finally has their number, whenever that is.

[EaraGrace]

How did people manage to subsume yet another thread into the global Venat defense initiative?

Root cause of all the suffering notwithstanding, the reality of the situation is that everyone must fight every second of their lives. Not all fights are physical, you see. Even those whose lives are seemingly normal -- your crafters, peddlers, doctors and the like -- too have their own battles they must face on the daily. As for the WoL? Their fighting, both literal and metaphorical, will never end. They'll very likely fight until something finally has their number, whenever that is.

Ah yes, it’s the Venat defenders that turned this thread into what it is and not the ones comparing her to satan.

[Theodric]

Ah yes, it’s the Venat defenders that turned this thread into what it is and not the ones comparing her to satan.

Venat isn't real. She's a fictional character. Someone not liking her or approving of her actions does not equal that person being wrong and they're free to use whatever terms they so please to describe a character who, at the end of the day, deliberately chose to wipe out her own people and lead them astray by holding back key information.

It's been suggested many times that it's a subject to agree to disagree on, at any rate.