This frequency of English localization issues is unacceptable

[Lauront]

*snip*

You're correct that my views are not going to change, especially when you are trying to premise this on something that is not there, i.e. an inherent concern for these sacrifices, as opposed to a concern about the goal that they'd achieve, i.e. restoring their civilisation back to what it was and that, in turn, leading it to the fate of the Plenty. This is putting aside what would happen if her people had even agreed to her requests (reminder based on SHB lore: they were divided over these)? They still could not directly manipulate dynamis, so what was her plan if they agreed? Was she not going to sunder them? Or was she just going to ask them to queue up in an orderly fashion for it?

I am not denying that she cares about an abstraction of "mankind", what I am explicitly not going along with here is that she performed the sundering purely because of a moral disagreement over these sacrifices because of an intrinsic desire to protect them, when absolutely nothing from her faction's own mouths, or the writers', supports this. Once more - the one reference she does make directly to it in the strawman ancient scene is to the outcome of these sacrifices if they went along with them. I am sure she loved the idea of a mankind, one steeled (in her mind) by the acceptance of the "necessity" of suffering. But it makes little difference to how I view what she did to her people.

[ArslanMalqir]

snip

I mean, no, obviously she wasn't going to Sunder them if they decided not to go through with the sacrifices and moved after the tragedy. From what we are told by Hythlodaeus, the explicit motivation of the faction she publicly and loudly headed was to stop the sacrifices and allow the new life on the star to take charge of the star. It doesn't matter whether you read the localization or the directly translated Japanese—the motivation of Venat's faction is explicitly, textually, the fact that they were unwilling to allow the new life that they felt should inherit the star be sacrificed for the sake of restoring the lives of the Ancients that had sacrificed themselves.

If the Ancients had decided to listen to her, not gone ahead with their sacrifices, and gave the world to the new life they'd created, then the Sundering would not have happened. Venat would have had proof that her people could change and could endure sorrow and grow stronger from it, and she would have had no reason at all to doubt that they would be capable of further change to defeat Meteion. In the level 87 cutscene the literal last thing you see Venat doing before the Sundering is her pleading with her people to accept the sorrow and to change rather than cling to a false paradise. That cutscene was obviously metaphorical, but in that specific case the idea it's trying to get across is that Venat did, in fact, wait 'til the literal last moment after trying to convince the Ancients to move on since at least the second sacrifice to Zodiark before she made the choice to Sunder them.

The idea that Venat doesn't care about mankind except in the abstract is ridiculous. She cared about her people and tried to save them from the doom that was coming, while aware that telling the truth was a risk that could potentially doom things even worse than they'd gone in the WoL's timeline. She cared about her people and the new life on the planet, and tried to argue that they should step back and hand the world to this new life rather than sacrifice it, so that the remnants of the Ancients could grow from their sorrow and the new life they'd created had a chance to be alive and to safeguard the star. She cared about the Sundered lives and tried to help them whenever she could, giving of herself time and time again to restore the Source after Calamities and expending so much strength she was barely able to talk to anyone anymore by the time Endwalker came around, and she cared about the lives of the entire universe and set up events so that her champion would be able to defeat Meteion and save all life in the universe from being erased.

Venat is not some monster who cares about people solely in the abstract. Regardless of what your opinion on her actions is, saying that she doesn't care about people beyond the idea of "a mankind" is wrong.

[Rulakir]

I mean, no, obviously she wasn't going to Sunder them if they decided not to go through with the sacrifices and moved after the tragedy.

The two reasons given for the sundering were she didn't believe the Ancients capable of changing their ways (an issue of hers which predates Zodiark) or of being able to interact with dynamis. Those reasons are mutually exclusive, so there was no situation we're presented with in which she wasn't going to sunder all of mankind. It's why the narrative surrounding her is problematic because her "trying" to get the Ancients to change doesn't mean anything if she still didn't think they could defeat Meteion.

The idea that Venat doesn't care about mankind except in the abstract is ridiculous.

(Quoting Brinne because she said it better than I could.)

Venat, fundamentally, is an ideologue. Her sense of love and wonder is sincere and true, but she is a big-picture person in the extreme, who thinks in the abstract. When she says she loves, it’s not of any specific person or thing. It’s love of “humanity’s potential.” It’s love of “a flawed world,” of “mankind’s ability to find a way forward,” - a particular way of seeing the world that she believes only she, at this point, has, that she waxes poetic about in her big speech leading up to her question of her journey. Our Azem is quoted as describing her as "both close and incredibly distant," "akin to a force of nature," and that seems very apt. She also admits that she, like Hermes, is dissatisfied with the world order as it exists now – she wants others to see the world as she does. To welcome struggle and strife and flaws and therefore, in her eyes, truly treasure the “miracle of creation.”

Largely because of her interactions with us, the portrait she receives of someone from “a flawed world full of suffering,” Venat further romanticizes the idea of beauty and strength in the face of struggle and suffering. She sees that version of the world as more exciting, more appealing than the one she lives in now, which she sees as misguided and indolent – she already had, hence her being extremely receptive to hearing Meteion’s two-sentence description of the Plenty, and deciding the Ancients were on the same path based on that.

[Lhanu]

The two reasons given for the sundering were she didn't believe the Ancients capable of changing their ways (an issue of hers which predates Zodiark) or of being able to interact with dynamis. Those reasons are mutually exclusive, so there was no situation we're presented with in which she wasn't going to sunder all of mankind. It's why the narrative surrounding her is problematic because her "trying" to get the Ancients to change doesn't mean anything if she still didn't think they could defeat Meteion.



(Quoting Brinne because she said it better than I could.)

Venat, fundamentally, is an ideologue. Her sense of love and wonder is sincere and true, but she is a big-picture person in the extreme, who thinks in the abstract. When she says she loves, it’s not of any specific person or thing. It’s love of “humanity’s potential.” It’s love of “a flawed world,” of “mankind’s ability to find a way forward,” - a particular way of seeing the world that she believes only she, at this point, has, that she waxes poetic about in her big speech leading up to her question of her journey. Our Azem is quoted as describing her as "both close and incredibly distant," "akin to a force of nature," and that seems very apt. She also admits that she, like Hermes, is dissatisfied with the world order as it exists now – she wants others to see the world as she does. To welcome struggle and strife and flaws and therefore, in her eyes, truly treasure the “miracle of creation.”

Largely because of her interactions with us, the portrait she receives of someone from “a flawed world full of suffering,” Venat further romanticizes the idea of beauty and strength in the face of struggle and suffering. She sees that version of the world as more exciting, more appealing than the one she lives in now, which she sees as misguided and indolent – she already had, hence her being extremely receptive to hearing Meteion’s two-sentence description of the Plenty, and deciding the Ancients were on the same path based on that.

Fam I once again must inform you that you are making things up regarding Venat and 'the Ancients were on the same path as the Plenty' is in fact canon, not something 'she decided'.