The Venat Cutscene

[Lunaxia]

While I agree it was haphazard, it is the devs' job to have their characters be written and perceived in alignment with their intentions. That in itself is not a failure. The problem is that they don't seem to have had a clear, consistent vision of what that alignment was, or how her portrayal in one part of the story would relate to other parts.

That's what I was alluding to by "course correcting the plot", i.e. amending what we've seen so far to make their current chosen path more palatable or credible, even if it conflicts with previous information or impressions.

Perhaps that wasn't as clear in my post as it seemed in my head - or not as obvious for those who don't frequent certain threads in this section of the forum, hah.

[Necrotica]

In regards to Venat getting covered in black stuff looking back I could also see that as VENAT being worn down.
Hydaelyn when we meet her in the aetherial sea is not a beat down Venat covered in black stuff. Hydaelyn is a majestic goddess. So maybe like how Elidibus was separate from Zodiark, Venat was separate from Hydaelyn and we were watching what made her her get degraded over time.

[Kazemon15]

It's called symbolism. Look it up. That's what the entire cutscene is. Not "poor storytelling" or whatever. We were told several times how the scene plays out correctly by other characters. It's a cinematic symbolic scene made to up the entertainment of it. That's all it is. It's basically a mix of the symbolic version of being cast out of the Garden of Eden and the walk of atonement from which Jesus took unto himself to absorb all the sins of humanity (sins = black stuff on Venat).

[Necrotica]

It's called symbolism. Look it up. That's what the entire cutscene is. Not "poor storytelling" or whatever. We were told several times how the scene plays out correctly by other characters. It's a cinematic symbolic scene made to up the entertainment of it. That's all it is. It's basically a mix of the symbolic version of being cast out of the Garden of Eden and the walk of atonement from which Jesus took unto himself to absorb all the sins of humanity (sins = black stuff on Venat).

Then why the heck is symbolic music video about Venat floating in the void between past and present as a glass shard for the Warrior of Light to bump into?

[Cleretic]

Then why the heck is symbolic music video about Venat floating in the void between past and present as a glass shard for the Warrior of Light to bump into?

Because if they DIDN'T show you how we were seeing it then you'd be complaining that they didn't.

In a story like this they can't just show a scene like that completely without explanation or justification--especially not now, after we've had either nearly or over a decade of the same ongoing story (depending on if you count 1.0) with generally the same rules about where the 'camera' is. Because this game doesn't otherwise do non-literal, metaphorical depictions of past events, if they want to do that to really bring the point of the relevant character home, they kinda have to invent a whole new way to do it. And Venat's story did benefit greatly from them doing that, as it serves as a dramatic depiction of her own struggle and stakes. It's essentially her counterpoint to Emet-Selch's big dramatic thesis statement, the Amaurot dungeon; the main difference is that Venat wouldn't have done that herself, so something else steps in to do it for her.

This isn't the only time they've ever done something like this, either, although the previous times have actually been in very different contexts: this is essentially an alternate route to the same end destination as the Eden Shiva and (especially) Tsukuyomi phase transitions, both of which were extremely non-literal dramatic retellings of the character conflicts of the characters in question. Neither of them were explained explicitly either, so do I need to stop and explain to you that no, Gosetsu never did fend off Zenos to protect Yotsuyu? Or do you accept that sometimes we do see things running in a less literal and more dramatically-licensed form, and just decided that this time you'd kick up a stink about it?

[kaynide]

…

To be fair, most of the things our characters experience outside of the extreme/minstrel’s ballad stuff are probably actual-happenings. …and maybe some events are non-canon…

But it is possible that our characters did see Gosetsu defend against Zenos in the fight as a lot of the fight involved manifestation of her own self loathing. This probably just was her repressed thoughts of redemption pushing through, even if that notion is quickly cast aside for more self loathing. But then again like you said, it isn’t explicit and the things we see could be “because gameplay reasons” and not literal.

I like to think it is what we saw; with the concept of Dynamis now in play, this makes sense, as essentially primals are raw emotion(s) made manifest via aether.

All that said, the cutscene in question is definitely an odd one in that it was part of the main story exposition itself and not something within a fight that can be written off as “because gameplay reasons”

[Cleretic]

To be fair, most of the things our characters experience outside of the extreme/minstrel’s ballad stuff are probably actual-happenings. …and maybe some events are non-canon…

But it is possible that our characters did see Gosetsu defend against Zenos in the fight as a lot of the fight involved manifestation of her own self loathing. This probably just was her repressed thoughts of redemption pushing through, even if that notion is quickly cast aside for more self loathing. But then again like you said, it isn’t explicit and the things we see could be “because gameplay reasons” and not literal.

I like to think it is what we saw; with the concept of Dynamis now in play, this makes sense, as essentially primals are raw emotion(s) made manifest via aether.

All that said, the cutscene in question is definitely an odd one in that it was part of the main story exposition itself and not something within a fight that can be written off as “because gameplay reasons”

That's what I mean, all logic says we did see that happen in Tsukuyomi's fight, there's never really been a part of a fight that just straight-up couldn't have happened that aren't in fights that, themselves, couldn't have happened in the first place. But that didn't literally happen, that was a story justification to depict events in a way that's more dramatic logic-controlled.

Off the top of my head, the times we've had 'dramatic, non-literal depiction of past events' scenes, accompanied with its in-story justification and if anyone in-story meant for it to happen...

Tsukuyomi: Primal energies basically making Yotsuyu's internal conflict manifest. Probably against her will, but it's kinda hard to tell, Yotsuyu's kinda just Like That sometimes.
Amaurot (mostly the dungeon, but the entire Amaurot stretch to a lesser extent): Essentially Emet-Selch, the world's most theatrical man, setting up a big stage play describing his backstory and motivations. ABSOLUTELY intentional on his part.
Cid's Bozja Memory: Straight-up just exploring Cid's memories. And not reliable memories, either.
Eden Shiva: Pretty much exactly like Tsukuyomi, it's Ryne losing control of the primal energies and letting her internal conflict leak in. This one's definitely unintentional.
Elidibus' Flashback: An Echo flashback, but clearly tattered, fragmented and weird as a result of Elidibus' own memory and self-identity issues. Like all Echo flashbacks, not intended on anyone's part.
Queen Gunnhildr's Memory: Using the Echo to interact with a memory crystal, which Misija then messes with.
The Shadowhunter and Eden's Promise phase transition: Both times, it's Mitron using the power of Eden to pull up previous experiences; the Shadowhunter essentially just to fight us, Eden's Promise specifically to destroy those memories. Intentional but not for expository purposes.
Venat's post-Elpis scene: Bumping into those fragments of time on the way through the timestream that we previously saw on the way to the First in Shadowbringers. Basically, we did the thing Urianger pretended he did. Not intentional on anyone's part.
The Dead Ends: Truncated retellings by Meteion. Intentional, but it's also hard to tell how accurate her story was; the Omicron tribe questline suggest it was.
Most Extremes, Savages and Ultimates: With the exception of early Extremes which actually did happen, all of these are essentially dramatic retellings; mostly from the Wandering Minstrel, but the Savage raids since Stormblood have all been from alternate sources. Absolutely intentional by all parties, but also absolutely inaccurate, mostly deliberately.

Going by the rules of the Echo we've generally got (basically, it needing an item, person or place to go off), the only examples of these that actually wouldn't have been possible just through a straight, nothing-weird Echo flashback are Venat's, the Dead Ends, and the high-end content. Setting aside the last one since that's pretty clearly a very different thing, I think it's very noticeable that they actually start relatively late in the game's run. If I had to guess, by around Shadowbringers--keeping in mind Tsukuyomi's fight would've also been designed during ShB's early-mid development--they'd realized that the Echo was fairly limiting and they wanted to take angles that depict those events in a less literal way, allowing for more dramatic license, less reliable narrators (never intentionally, but we did NOT get all the facts from Emet and Elidibus), and perhaps most crucially, depictions of the past we can actually do content in.

Maybe it was an Ishikawa initiative; I can't help but notice that it starts with characters we know she took the lead in writing.

[Lyth]

Worth remembering that the cutscene juxtaposes Venat's march forward against the Warrior of Light's face-off against Emet in Amaurot at the end of Shadowbringers, even switching to the same walk animation for it. 'You must fight your battle in your time, and I in mine.'

Given that Venat didn't personally witness our own struggle, you might say that this isn't just a simple transcription of Venat's experiences, but rather the Warrior of Light witnessing the land's memories of Venat and understanding them in the context of their own life journey.

[Necrotica]

If we think of the cutscene not as a portrayal of past events but more an aether fueled manifestation of Venat's inner turmoil similar to Tsukuyomi it does make way more sense.

It can take pieces of things that did happen and real characters, but then show them in scenarios that did not happen.

And this could be huge. Maybe Venat FEELS like she passed judgement on her people, but that actual interaction did not take place. She fought Zodiark knowing it would result in the Sundering because of the foreknowledge the WoL gave her. She might as well have condemned her people and that is probably a heck of an unresolved issue that would manifest in an aether fueled dramatic retelling.

[Alleo]

I doubt SE would show us those scenes and also be like: Yeah Venat just made it up.
We do know that her group has tried to talk to the others. They have tried to reason with them but got ignored.

I think the only part that is made up is the background. Which could come down to them not wanting to build different sets for that one long cutscene.