What lore do you ignore?

[Cleretic]

She says this as she's shuffling off the one person with knowledge of the future and thus the ability to alter events back to their own time. Then she proceeds to not make a single verifiable attempt to change the future and several known acts to ensure things went down the way you told her.

Her words at face value make you think she's preparing to fight Meteion, but when you look at her actions you realize her words were just to placate the WoL and get them out of the way so she could go do her genocide without her pesky little champion warning anyone else. This is the 40th half-truth she's thrown our way. Just like all the other half-truths she's told us on our journey.

We even offer to stay and help. Wonder why she didn't accept...

I pointed out in my prior post that it was a combination of inaction and sabotage, not solely the latter alone. Giving the Ancients space to build up false hope and come to their own solutions is irrelevant when her reaction to the Convocation coming up with creative solutions is to wipe out everyone who survived the Final Days. None of the writing surrounding Venat is particularly consistent, granted, though one thing that is consistent is her decision to refuse to reveal the true cause behind the Final Days or express her concerns in full without deflection and deception.

I'm sorry, but this is the lore subforum. We kinda need to take an evidence-based approach, where things the game produces has to be refuted only by things the game also produces. While Venat-as-Hydaelyn (much like the Ascians) is someone who lies by omission rather often (at least, as far as her relatively meager screentime permitted), you're going to need to prove a bit more substantially that she was doing anything like this, or that the Convocation had any 'creative solutions' that she was thoughtlessly stopping. Otherwise, this is like going into the PvP subforum and telling them that Frontlines is fair and balanced because the Mathromancer job you've imagined is a perfect counter to the DRK/AST/DRG meta.

I'm sure you feel very strongly, but until you can cite something, I'm not very convinced. If we just keep doing uncited stuff we end up way too deep in the weeds of presumed truths. If you're stuck, hit up Gamer Escape, they've basically got the whole game script recorded.

EDIT: Or, you can focus on the subject of the actual thread we're arguing in, and instead you can just say that you're ignoring what the game is saying to create an alternative narrative. Which I can't stop you from doing, but I'd like to know for sure.

[Theodric]

I see certain posters are getting a bit better at masquerading as high school mean girls! Well done on that front I suppose. I'm not sure what the point of pretending that sources aren't being provided is when they clearly are and have been a great many times across numerous threads.

As an aside, I only bothered to weigh in because despite apparently being 'tired' of discussing the Ancients, the moment some random poster comes to the conclusion that Venat's actions were pretty messed up and posts as much there's a clear swarm from some of the usual suspects who attempt to deflect away from that and deflect the narrative and discussion elsewhere.

Though based on past interactions alone, I'm not inclined to take the claims of certain posters being here in good faith when they have a long and storied history of stalking, harassment, impersonation, homophobic commentary, sexist commentary and bizarre and deranged insinuations about 'secret Midlander fascists'. Then there's that time a certain someone came into Lore Lines - a Discord server set up with the intention of mostly discussing the game's antagonists in a place away from the official forum. Yet even there that individual tried to demand that any talk of Venat was rid of any mention of genocide or vilification.

Such actions have made it pretty clear to many of us that those responsible are not acting in good faith.

Since such evidence is spicy, I won't post it here for obvious reasons though I encourage those interested to message me in-game sometime and we can exchange Discord names (on a throwaway account if one prefers) and I can happily provide the rather numerous examples of exactly what certain posters claiming to be here for 'discussion' have been caught saying and doing in their spare time.

All that aside, though, it's rather disingenuous to pretend as if numerous posters have not provided sources that expose Venat as making a token, deceptive effort to save her people. I have done so myself, many times including in the prior post in this very thread. It's a bit too late to try and pretend as if the people criticising Hydaelyn are just stupid and do not get it.

The offer to agree to disagree still stands, of course. I'm not sure why some here are so invested in the idea of everybody insisting that Venat was correct. With the amount of blood staining her hands and the cost of her actions coming at the expense of a whole, it isn't really that unreasonable for someone to consider it to be too lofty a cost. Just as someone can choose to come to the same conclusion regarding the Rejoinings. Not everyone subscribes to protagonist centered morality, I'm afraid - and they certainly don't take their cues on such things from a video game of all things in the first place.

Though I'm increasingly convinced that some here secretly like the Ancients very much or have at least realised that the decision to tie them to pretty much everything has made it near impossible to talk around them when it comes to many aspects of the story.

It's still a while until Dawntrail, too, so I imagine the 'discussions' will continue right up until the expansion's launch and well beyond it.

Perhaps that is an unfortunate consequence of the game itself being little more than a Second Life clone for heavily modded characters awkwardly standing around in drama infested venues doing the bee's knees emote. As unfortunately witnessed in great numbers whenever anyone gets the thought to check Twitter for nice art of the game's characters only to find the FFXIV tag bloated with such things instead.

[Iscah]

Her words at face value make you think she's preparing to fight Meteion, but when you look at her actions you realize her words were just to placate the WoL and get them out of the way so she could go do her genocide without her pesky little champion warning anyone else. This is the 40th half-truth she's thrown our way. Just like all the other half-truths she's told us on our journey.


And let's say it is, no matter what we do or try Venat exterminates her people. Then why aren't we screaming from the rafters mommy goddess is about to kill the lot of them since nothing we do can change the past anyway? It's because we could change the past, but we are actively choosing to keep our mouth shut cause we need Azem dead for parts.

So much of your argument seems to come from throwing away what we know of characters' thoughts and motivations, only looking at their actions and ascribing new motivations invented out of nowhere, and preferring the most cynical and hateful versions of why they might do what they do.

Your argument seems to be "Venat committed genocide against her people so she must be an evil person who was always scheming and looking for a way to carry this out just because she's evil and wants to do it" when the game provides you with a far more nuanced insight into her intentions and what she perceived herself to be doing. You don't have to agree with what she did (and I don't like it either) to see her goal is explicitly the opposite of genocide. By her own view, she is not destroying the entire race and is not trying to do so; rather, she believes that she is ensuring their survival. Whether she is correct in that belief is a separate question. Saying "she's just trying to get us out of the way so she can go do evil things" only makes sense after you have misrepresented her motives.

Additionally, the Sundering was her preparation for humanity to fight Meteion.

And we did try to warn people about the Sundering. It failed and the universe continues on.

Everything else you're claiming about "why we kept our mouth shut" is again inventing fiction that was never implied in any form in the story itself. We certainly are not directly scheming to have Azem dead for parts, besides the natural fact that we already have their soul and this cannot be changed, but this is one tiny dot in the wider picture of the present-day existence that we know and are trying to save.

And given we've already observed G'raha change the future without ending his existence, the fact we're not even trying is unforgivable. G'raha knew there was a chance he'd wipe himself from existence, but he tried anyway, because it was the right thing to do.

It needs to be emphasised that the situation with G'raha is not the same situation we are in, and in both cases it is more than a case of one person offering up their life. (In any case, we need our one life to go defeat Meteion and save the world we do have a chance of saving.)

G'raha was coming from a future that - supposedly - was utterly doomed with no recovery, and so the decision to travel back in time and change events was the only way that humanity as a whole could survive, because they weren't going to at all on the current course. G'raha was willing to give up his life in the effort to bring about that change, but that was because if he didn't do so, the unchanged timeline would lead to the death of everyone anyway.

(As an aside, I think the writers have done a consistently terrible job of driving in just how hopeless the situation needed to be to justify this kind of intervention over simply persevering with trying to improve the post-calamity world - but as the story relies on the claim that things really were dire enough to justify it, the plot makes more sense if you just go with it.)

By contrast, we are coming from a future that is not doomed yet, but it will be if we do not return to it with knowledge of the origin of the Final Days. Because there is still hope, abandoning it cannot be justified, and we need to do everything we can to save it.

When G'raha committed to splitting his timeline, he wasn't just putting his own life on the line, but locking in the destruction of everything that existed in the world he was leaving behind - again, on the understanding that it was already on the verge of destruction with no way to halt it. When we travel to Elpis, we do not have the same mindset, but are seeking to ensure that our world continues. Therefore there is no reason for us to want to risk being locked out of it altogether and sacrificing everything and everyone for the small chance of creating an alternate path for an already doomed civilisation, whose suffering has already been committed to history or we would not exist to go back and witness it.

In short, G'raha's world and timeline had reached a dead end and the only way out was backwards in time. Ours has not.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

*snip*

If someone says they love you as they murder you, they do not love you. If they believe they love you as they torture you, they do not love you. Her actions are so abhorrent that I don't care if she has moonbeams popping out of her chest, which she practically does, her actions are still the second worst genocide I've ever heard of behind the Thanos snap. Thordan believed he was doing what was right. Athena believed she was doing what was right. Why are they villains while Venat is a hero? If Athena or Thordan had declared more love for us, would their actions be good?

And keep in mind, part of my extreme reaction is due to them selling the audience on genocide. I'm passionate about this because I'm trying to convince real people in the real world there is no good reason or "necessary evil" reason to exterminate an entire race. And I can't believe this is where I am, and yet, that is the discourse. It is the "positive spin" they managed to put on this that keeps me up at night. That is why I don't go with the flow and bask in the light of millions dead just so my WoL can exist.

There is no good way to commit genocide. I will not be moved on this point. That is where the disagreement comes in. That you don't get why I won't accept the "good genocide." Did I not see the pretty lady? The soft smile? Hear the music or her sweet words? Nah, I saw all that, even fell for all that...then I thought about it and remembered there is no such thing as a good or tragic, but necessary, genocide.

Given the short story there is no reason to assume the timeline G'raha left is a "dead end." And also, we told the Ea that even if everything is fated to end, that is no reason to give up. So no, G'raha coming back isn't moral because the people of that timeline are "disposable" while the people of our timeline are not. It is that exact thinking that has me here doing everything in my power attempting to convince you that no matter what Endwalker said, there is no such thing as disposable people.

Yet even in 6.5 we're reminded again it's wrong to doom another world to save your own. So dooming the Ancients to save our world is wrong even by the morals of the game's storyline I finished up last week.

Also, for the people pointing out that Venat murdered all those people two years ago and I need to get over it already, as was already pointed out when someone went through my history to discuss me, I only finished Endwalker this July, so my journey from "the useless eaters had to go, couldn't be helped" to "OMG! What did these writers sell me on?" was rather recent.

ETA: How do you not see the conflict between the ideas of "hope everlasting" and "these people have no shot at survival, so it's okay to use them for parts"? Even the dead ends did not end up being dead ends in the end. They are back in the flow to be born as new life and the dynamis versions of them are building a new society. There are no dead ends. There are no people "not worth it." That is why I'm going back and forth because I can tell you're a good person with a good heart and to accept Venat's actions requires the acceptance of some really bad ideas. That the lives of some are just "worth more" than the lives of others for the 30 conflicting reasons they threw at the wall hoping one would stick with each player. Mine was the survival one, "Oh, well if the Ancients aren't built to make it...." Make it to what? The heat death of the universe? All things end, just because something will end doesn't mean we should forsake it. That's a lesson we went to the edge of the universe to each Meteion, yet somehow didn't manage to learn ourselves.

[Theodric]

I pointed out in my prior post that it was a combination of inaction and sabotage, not solely the latter alone. Giving the Ancients space to build up false hope and come to their own solutions is irrelevant when her reaction to the Convocation coming up with creative solutions is to wipe out everyone who survived the Final Days. None of the writing surrounding Venat is particularly consistent, granted, though one thing that is consistent is her decision to refuse to reveal the true cause behind the Final Days or express her concerns in full without deflection and deception.

If a character is well aware that a devastating event is going to wipe out the majority of the planet's population and they have the ability to either prevent it or at least forewarn the population that such is about to happen then they are a hero if they try to mitigate such things. If, instead, they allow for such an event to take place in the name of a Saw-esque style test of suffering then they are a villain.

It's as simple as that, really.

Let's imagine, for a moment, that Merlwyb learned that Leviathan was being summoned in secret and was due to unleash a tidal wave of devastating proportions upon the city of Limsa Lominsa. Merlwyb doesn't tell anyone what she knows and leaves the city abruptly.

The tidal wave strikes and destroys the city. The majority of the inhabitants are either dead or heavily wounded...and those present decide to do what is necessary in order to rebuild and survive.

Oh, but wait! They didn't react to the horrific even in the 'correct' way. So despite being understandably traumatised they also need to die...according to Merlwyb, who then kills the remaining survivors and replaces them with a completely different species bereft of their former culture, memories and remaining loved ones.

Scale that up to a global scale and you have...the Sundering. An act that, if aimed at the game's protagonists would never be deemed 'necessary' and an 'acceptable cost'. So there's really no obligation for anyone else to just shrug and go along with such consequences. It's what happened in the story due to how it was written, but that doesn't make it correct - especially for those of us who do not engage in the story as a self insert eager to have whatever benefits the Scions and a handful of other characters serve as the constant priority in the narrative.

Personally I'm interested in the world-building as a whole in a setting that I invest in as opposed to specific characters. If there's no consistency with the world-building and established morals, then I am going to be inclined to point it out especially in a game that is often obnoxiously preachy about 'dOiNg ThE rIgHt ThInG' elsewhere.

[Anonymoose]

This is why I regret that a good deal of this was glossed over in a condensed, non-literal "walk down memory lane" scene instead of a concrete, explicit example or two to prevent people from disregarding it and running with whatever impressions / theories they most wanted to preserve, anyway. The entire Amaurotine civil war is artificially condensed into a scene of Venat having a verbal conversation with a small crowd, each using their words to symbolize the motivations and actions of their represented factions. If feel like if we had seen something more explicit, a lot of these discussions would not be happening because there would be much more solid evidence to point at than, "Well, how do you extrapolate this scene in a way that makes sense with your claim?" - especially with regard to the accusation that Venat did nothing try to dissuade their civilization from the course it was on.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

This is why I regret that a good deal of this was glossed over in a condensed, non-literal "walk down memory lane" scene instead of a concrete, explicit example or two to prevent people from disregarding it and running with whatever impressions / theories they most wanted to preserve, anyway. The entire Amaurotine civil war is artificially condensed into a scene of Venat having a verbal conversation with a small crowd, each using their words to symbolize the motivations and actions of their represented factions. If feel like if we had seen something more explicit, a lot of these discussions would not be happening because there would be much more solid evidence to point at than, "Well, how do you extrapolate this scene in a way that makes sense with your claim?" - especially with regard to the accusation that Venat did nothing try to dissuade their civilization from the course it was on.

They could do an explicit scene if they wanted her to stay a hero because she ends the argument with the eradication of an entire species. Imagine if they showed us what Emet-Selch saw besides in another game. His people incapable of speech, mutilated to the point they were no longer recognizable as people. You can't show that and have people go "But the leadership was tempered, so really, no choice but to kill every man, woman and child on the planet. What else are you supposed to do when 12 people are tempered?"

And given that Emet-Selch took actions to end his own life which would have gone against Zodiark's will and there isn't a single example of Zodiark attempting to do any harm to anyone and his heart was Elidibus, I'm not moved to believe Zodiark was a threat for which anyone needed to be killed. I believe the point Venat was making was that they'd rely too much on him and that would make them weak, rather than he was trying to gobble up the world or any nonsense like that. That feels like another reading required to sleep at night if you support Venat's actions.

and it needs to be emphasised that whatever reading the fans ascribe to it, it appears to be the intent of the story writers that from Venat's own viewpoint, the ancients and modern humanity are the same continuous people so she believes she is ensuring the survival of her race and not destroying it.

Then Valthry turning people into sineaters was fine because really they are the same people. Athena's experiments, also fine, there is an Ancient somewhere under those snakes and tree limbs. Multiple Ancients describe themselves as a separate species and we're told not to worry about 75% of them entering the lifestream because with their species gone they will come back as our species and therefore won't have creation magic.

Dey dead.

Culture. Biology. History. All gone.

It seems like a self-defeating argument to claim that Venat's mistake was in not getting rid of Emet, Lahabrea, and Elidibus before they had the chance to destroy multiple worlds and end countless lives in the future. In a way, it assumes that the Convocation members had no agency or choice of their own because they were somehow 'destined' to turn to evil no matter what happened.

It wasn't a mistake. It was on purpose. She used them to exterminate her sweet children for which she sacrificed so much. Sure what she sacrificed wasn't hers to give, but hey. And she most certainly didn't spare him because she hoped he wouldn't rejoin the worlds. She spared him because she needed him to rejoin the worlds or she doesn't become a goddess.

[Iscah]

It wasn't a mistake. It was on purpose. She used them to exterminate her sweet children for which she sacrificed so much. Sure what she sacrificed wasn't hers to give, but hey. And she most certainly didn't spare him because she hoped he wouldn't rejoin the worlds. She spared him because she needed him to rejoin the worlds or she doesn't become a goddess.

...okay, nope, we're right into fanfiction at this point. I thought we were discussing the actual game. My mistake.

[Theodric]

...okay, nope, we're right into fanfiction at this point. I thought we were discussing the actual game. My mistake.

It isn't 'fan fiction' to acknowledge the core trajectory and full consequences/implications of her actions. I know many here like to hand wave the fact that Venat was very willing to make use of the 'spare' versions of Etheirys as part of her plan just as much as she was willing to needlessly send Minfilia to an early death and of course destroy her entire species.

You're free to assume the best intentions for Venat as a character though I'm afraid when a story makes something as controversial as deliberate genocide a part of such carefully laid plans then it's going to be difficult for everyone else to just go along with it.

Let's also not forget that her plan with the Lopporits if the Warrior of Light failed to pass her test (full of holes and half-hearted as it was) also involved abandoning large swathes of the inhabitants of Etheirys to be swallowed up by the Final Days.

At every turn Venat's plans involve large sacrifices. Everything was just a piece on the playing board to move about to advance her goals in the end, not unlike the Ascians. Which is very much why she is held to the same standards.

There's nothing controversial about that.

[ZavosEsperian]

This is why I regret that a good deal of this was glossed over in a condensed, non-literal "walk down memory lane" scene instead of a concrete, explicit example or two to prevent people from disregarding it and running with whatever impressions / theories they most wanted to preserve, anyway.

Herein lies the real issue when it comes to how Venat is interpreted, at least in terms of the events between the end of Elpis up to the point she elects to choose the path of sundering Etheirys. There is a distinct lack of “showing” regarding the events between those two points in time which, in turn, requires the person going through the content in question to have to make a logical leap in how those events played out. Logical leaps, by nature, requires a level of thinking by the reader to piece together the missing elements, which in turn is the origin of various headcanons. Words on a page in fiction make use of literal, figurative, and, in cases where deception is involved, misleading language where the reader must determine the meaning of the words both in the moment but also in retrospect.

Further compounding this would be the climax of these events, which is defined by Venat, now Hydaelyn, sundering Etheirys along with all the life on it. From the perspective of the Ancients, such an act would be regarded by us as an act of genocide where, per the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Venat would be guilty as per the definition of genocide and what crimes constitute it. For sake of brevity, I will provide the relevant sections below regarding Venat and, to a lesser extent, her followers:

Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
[sections d and e not relevant]

Article 3 defines the crimes that can be punished under the convention:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
[c is not relevant]
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.

— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Articles 2-3

Genocide is the absolute steepest charge that can be levied against someone via the ICC and is universally condemned. As such, acts in fiction which parallel what is defined as genocide can cause people to view whichever character is committing to act as evil, regardless of the outcome, as the use of genocide as a means to an end is universally condemned.

On the flip side, we are role playing as the Warrior of Light, who requires the sundering to occur in the first place to even exist. All beloved characters who side with the Warrior of Light, barring Venat, also require the sundering to exist.

It should then be with no great shock to us there is such a division in how the sundering, let alone Venat’s character by proxy due to being the one who perpetrated the act, can be interpreted. This fault lies squarely on the writers themselves due to not recognizing what they are potentially portraying, and would constitute them not having a good sense of media literacy for failing to address these concerns in a way where the audience cannot misinterpret the message, for better or for worse.