Endwalker is the most controversial expansion

[KageTokage]

I think I’ve made my feelings on the “she made sure things happened as we described” reading clear elsewhere so I’m gonna let that bear lie. What I will ask however is why is the ambiguity really a problem? It isn’t necessary to understand to make sense of the plot, as having several wildly different interpretations that all can work shows that it’s not a requirement for the story. It’s not a failure of the writing when it’s meant to be up for interpretation then, which given Yoshi Ps comments it seems it was meant to be. So what’s the issue?

I'm mostly confused as to why they would want to even leave that question open for a character whom the narrative frames as unanimously good and a hero and Yoshi himself wanted the audience to view as such. It created a dissonance for some that left them feeling detached from the story.

Had they simply had her memories get wiped at the end of Elpis and thus left all of her choices untainted by knowledge of the future, it would've eliminated basically all of the reasons people took issue with how the story portrayed her. I remember you saying you'd feel like that would "cheapen" the decisions she'd made, but I feel like it would've made things much more gratifying if she had actually had to grapple with the weight of whether or not she made the right choice, as opposed to the angle of "It hurts to do this, but it's going to pay off eventually".

[Tanis_Ebonhart]

Stormblood was.

[anhaato]

Stormblood was.

[DPZ2]

Had they simply had her memories get wiped at the end of Elpis and thus left all of her choices untainted by knowledge of the future, it would've eliminated basically all of the reasons people took issue with how the story portrayed her. I remember you saying you'd feel like that would "cheapen" the decisions she'd made, but I feel like it would've made things much more gratifying if she had actually had to grapple with the weight of whether or not she made the right choice, as opposed to the angle of "It hurts to do this, but it's going to pay off eventually".

Had her memories been wiped things may have turned out the same, for sure.

What would have changed, however, would have been the lack of the Sharlayan "mission" that resulted in the creation of that spaceship, since Venat would not have recognized the need to go to the ends of the Universe (or at least evacuate the populace of the world to another planet) in order to address the real problem.

Heck, there could even be a Universe where every soul is quietly screaming for eternity because they were all drawn to the edge of the Universe and stuffed into that great big ball of Depression. Two, in fact. One where the Ancients eventually died in despair on an unsundered world where Venat lost her memory, and one where we died in despair because Hydaelyn was still called, but Venat knew nothing about the real cause of the Final Days.

[VentVanitas]

You know what they say, you never truly appreciate something until it's already gone.

[Xirean]

Had her memories been wiped things may have turned out the same, for sure.

What would have changed, however, would have been the lack of the Sharlayan "mission" that resulted in the creation of that spaceship, since Venat would not have recognized the need to go to the ends of the Universe (or at least evacuate the populace of the world to another planet) in order to address the real problem.

Heck, there could even be a Universe where every soul is quietly screaming for eternity because they were all drawn to the edge of the Universe and stuffed into that great big ball of Depression. Two, in fact. One where the Ancients eventually died in despair on an unsundered world where Venat lost her memory, and one where we died in despair because Hydaelyn was still called, but Venat knew nothing about the real cause of the Final Days.

I disagree. If she didn't know that Meteion was the cause then the plan to use the moon ship would have made more sense in context. As is, there is no reason to assume it would actually keep people safe and she should know that. But if she didn't then the assumption "just get off this planet" could be considered reasonable. It would even make our discovery of Meteion and the plan to get her better because we would be revealing that just fleeing wouldn't work.

[EgilTheStressedMage]

You know what they say, you never truly appreciate something until it's already gone.

I always thought SB was good.

[Iscah]

Had her memories been wiped things may have turned out the same, for sure.

What would have changed, however, would have been the lack of the Sharlayan "mission" that resulted in the creation of that spaceship, since Venat would not have recognized the need to go to the ends of the Universe (or at least evacuate the populace of the world to another planet) in order to address the real problem.

I think it could have worked well if she had been memory wiped, created Hydaelyn for her own not-influenced-by-future-spoilers reasons, and then regained those memories upon entering the aetherial sea. She could have been trying her best to break the time loop once she's aware of it, just knowing that if she fails to do so, we're still waiting here as a backup plan – a final stop if she can't break the cycle sooner.

[Silvarer]

Especially since Elidibus can summon other WoLs, so all he had to do is tether our other reflections to us so the echo can remember that time. Appearance could be poked fun at by Hyth that Azem was fiddling with glamour magicks again, it almost writes itself.

That makes no sense though. Elidibus was only able to summon people because he was using the Crystal Tower's power to do so. This is specifically said during Shadowbringers. And in Endwalker he says that since he's beginning to fade he no longer has complete access to the Tower and opening the portal is pretty much the last thing he's able to do. He's never had the ability to tether people together in whatever way you're thinking of and the Echo doesn't even work that way anyway.

[Iscah]

Especially since Elidibus can summon other WoLs, so all he had to do is tether our other reflections to us so the echo can remember that time. Appearance could be poked fun at by Hyth that Azem was fiddling with glamour magicks again, it almost writes itself.

I missed this earlier but then it got quoted above so I'm double-picking on you.

Elidibus says something to the effect that he isn't even fully summoning the souls of the heroes he draws to us – just, somehow, their desire to defeat evil and not the rest of them. (Best to not think too hard on the consequences of that for the rest of their soul, but hopefully Elidibus's death means that the splattered remnants of their aether gets restored to them, like the Exarch hoped his death would restore the Scions.)

There's no suggestion that he can "tether" souls to us at all, or a guarantee that he can find all the Azem pieces he would need to do so. And if he did, for all that we've seen the Echo can and cannot do, you'd still get their individual memories rather than their past life.