On Themis [6.4 SPOILER]

[Cleretic]

Like ShB-Hythlodaeus versus his EW counterpart, Hydaelyn and Venat could have been completely different characters for all they resembled one another, imo. (The same could be said of Themis/Elidibus, I guess, but that identity crisis is built into his characterization in a way that reads as way more intentional to me.)

On the other hand, maybe that's meant to be the takeaway? That she (and Emet) is and was more than just our limited experience with her. Your mom is more than just your mom, etc.

I mean, on top of that valid point of different contexts and experiences, there's twelve thousand years and some pretty significant events between Venat in Elpis and Hydaelyn in the present day. You can expect some major differences there, even if it's still clearly the same person beneath it. I think Venat's really helped along by the different 'steps' we get along the way, too; it might be a bit hard to buy Venat as Hydaelyn, but you can buy the Venat from Elpis as the Venat in the Anamnesis Anyder recording, and that Venat as the Venat from the post-Elpis flashback scene, and the Venat from 'the walk' in that scene as Hydaelyn. Meanwhile with Emet we've basically only seen him at the beginning and end of that journey, and it's... a bit of an ask to see them as the exact same person without some level of player-editorializing and guesswork, we saw very little of what was presumably a long, heavy journey.

There's nothing wrong with that difference, it's just that there is, indeed, a difference there.

[Lyth]

Elpis serves as a bridge to the personalities and character dynamics created in the Tales from the Shadows stories, the latter which the average player isn't going to have read. The problem is that while Azem is the centerpiece of those stories, you can't really write them in directly without partially intruding on that sense of freedom that the player has to define their own character. Even if you recognize the fact that we are different people with the same soul, there's still might be a sense of feeling forced to live up to that trickster rabbit persona, if you don't normally go with dialogue option 2.

Venat is an intermediatory for this. As the former Azem, she can play the part described in the stories without Azem directly being involved. So you can still have Emet facepalming at her antics with Hyth cheering them on, and have a window into what it would be like with the Tales from the Shadows Azem in the scenes (hence 'the two Azems'). At the same time, she's also Hydaelyn, and is a Convocation veteran who deftly outplayed her juniors in a 4D chess match over the fate of Etheirys across twelve thousand years. She's as much a figure of matriarchal strength as Dench's 'M'. And much like with Emet, and Lahabrea, you're left to reconcile these two seemingly contradictory parts of their natures, simultaneously cordial and unyielding.

Pandemonium serves a similar role with Elidibus, in that it takes the hollow shell that we'd known until 5.3 and actually gives him a personality that we had only previously seen in Tales from the Shadows. The difficulty with Eldibus is the crux of that was defined in terms of his relationship to Azem, as a mentor figure that he looks up to and admires. The comparisons drawn between the Exarch and Eldibus during their showdown in 5.3 were quite intentional, as G'raha is very nearly Themis' parallel in our own interactions.

I don't think that the P11 moment was intended as a Zenos moment, as the OP suggests. Elidibus simply wants to measure for himself how he stood up to someone who's spirit he's admired for all his life. I feel like there's more to this interaction that could be fleshed out, but the limitation is going to be in the fact that you can't directly bring Azem into a scene. But perhaps we'll get more short stories around this down the line.

[Brinne]

Venat needed to be a loving mother goddess, otherwise her character would fall flat. It made her decision to sunder the world even more difficult. If she was just like "You guys are a bunch of whiners! We're not going to beat Meteion with you guys! I'm sundering this world! Get wrecked!" then the story wouldn't work as well. The song Answers would lose its meaning.

To say "screw it" and finally just go ahead and dive into this potentially contentious comparison, I think the question is, is there any actual meaningful difference between Athena's ideals and goals and what Venat did wind up doing, beyond purely character-internal matters of "well, Venat felt bad about it"? Is there any real difference between them in terms of the proposed and actualized impact on the people who were living and breathing around them at the time they enacted their plans?

And secondarily from that, yes, Venat probably believed she was acting "for the greater good" with a further degree of sincerity than Athena, for whom her justification of "greater good" was more blatantly an afterthought compared to her personal ambition. And we got treated to a show of how Venat felt very, very sad about what she did to those around her, that I would - and have - argued was largely meant to cynically soothe the player so that we wouldn't feel badly of our mother goddess benefactor, in spite of what she did, and serve Endwalker's wider goal of reassuring the player "everyone is united in supporting you! No one is a bad person! Yay!" But either way, how much does that matter compared to the concrete reality of their actions, especially from the perspective of their victims? (Maybe we should ask Gaius?)

The answer of how much it matters is probably going to vary from person to person, of course. But I think Erich's rejoinder to his mother, the core reason why what she's doing is objectionable, still does apply just as much to both (and, yes, to Emet-Selch's arguments as well.) Erich's argument isn't about the question of Athena's sincerity, telling her her rationale is just BSing and she only cares about herself, if she was really doing it for the greater good it'd be okay - he actually takes her argument at face value, and it comes down to the impact and cost to those living around her, which is immutable.

[SpectrePhantasia]

To add on to this comparison, FFXIV's writing has had an extremely firm stance on the dilemma of 'sacrificing lives for the greater good' for just about its entire existence. Gaius, who saw the lives claimed in his conquest as a necessary demand for a world united under a single standard, was an antagonist to stand against. Emet-selch wanted to obliterate the lives on the shards and many on the source to revive the Ancient society, and how did the scions, and therefore the plot react? Yshtola went "You have murdered millions, and this we cannot condone." Alphinaud went "But what value is there in surviving when all our history, all our struggles will be erased? I cannot conscience such an act."

What Erich says to Athena is precisely the same standpoint that the game has always shared in regards to a character on the precipice of making decisions like this. The ends do not justify the means. That's the hill they stand on. This holds true universally, save for one, one exception. As far as the Ancients are concerned, Athena is just the more transparent, but I respect where they went with her character on the basis of what's been discussed above.

[Denishia]

I think that is also comes down to what you interpret the "new life" that the Third Sacrifice was aiming to trade to Zodiark in order to swap out the souls from sacrifices one and two. For me it was obvious in the implications that the new life wasn't just constructs and plant/animal life (which even then, okay you've just environmentally devastated the planet back towards the state you had just made the original Zodiark sacrifices for) but that these new lives were beings that had inherited the souls from the Lifestream had had originally belonged to people who had died in the initial Final Days, including all the citizens of the other cities that weren't Amaurot, or souls of people who died long before it and thus didn't have the memories of the Final Days that could have triggered the Echo via the Star Showers. The Convocation and their followers, through tempering and the extremely potent survivor's guilt towards the sacrificed like Hythlodeaus are deciding to kill reborn-Azem. Those same souls on the chopping block once the Rejoinings are complete.

[Brinne]

sacrifices

Not to fully retread old arguments, but keeping this focused on "Venat's individual motivations and actions" themselves as a potential foil or parallel to Athena - as opposed to a wider argument on the Convocation - Endwalker pretty firmly established that at least for Venat herself, (you could make an argument for her faction, who were largely kept in the dark about what she knew and what she intended), the sacrifices were the least of her concerns, and she was primarily motivated by the question of the Endsinger and her fears that the Ancients would eventually submit to total societal stagnation and nihilism, ala the Nibirun. This is reflected both in her not understanding why she would ever do what she did when you first give her the Endsinger-less and Meteion's report-less understanding of the future scenario, and the fact that whatever the "new life" was, Hydaelyn also chopped it up and effectively killed it all in the Sundering along with the Ancients.

For Venat herself, just like Athena (at least, the argument Athena put forth), the primary concern was indeed for her concept of "the greater good," and all forms of life around her were an acceptable sacrifice towards a future that would shape it.

[Denishia]

Not to fully retread old arguments, but keeping this focused on "Venat's individual motivations and actions" themselves as a potential foil or parallel to Athena - as opposed to a wider argument on the Convocation - Endwalker pretty firmly established that at least for Venat herself, (you could make an argument for her faction, who were largely kept in the dark about what she knew and what she intended), the sacrifices were the least of her concerns, and she was primarily motivated by the question of the Endsinger and her fears that the Ancients would eventually submit to total societal stagnation and nihilism, ala the Nibirun. This is reflected both in her not understanding why she would ever do what she did when you first give her the Endsinger-less and Meteion's report-less understanding of the future scenario, and the fact that whatever the "new life" was, Hydaelyn also chopped it up and effectively killed it all in the Sundering along with the Ancients.

For Venat herself, just like Athena (at least, the argument Athena put forth), the primary concern was indeed for her concept of "the greater good," and all forms of life around her were an acceptable sacrifice towards a future that would shape it.

"To try and reclaim those lives we lost by sacrificing yet more isn't wisdom. It is weakness."

To put in a parallel - the Convocation is acting like Hephatios in P8 - wanting to sacrifice Erichtonios to bring back Athena. Venat and her followers were trying to save Erichtonios but Venat realizes that she can't, her attempts at least in the timeline that we are on have no outcome where she succeeded in convincing Hephatios not to kill Athena in the first place and now her attempts at reasoning with Hephatios won't stop him from killing Erichtonios. He's solely focused on restoring Athena, who in this case was far more a victim of Ultima's auracite. Now the writers would have allowed the WoL in a similar situation to just kill Hephatios and save Erichtonios. Venat's followers think she might be able to. Thanks to time-travel shenanigans, Venat knows she won't be able to save Erichtonios, but her blow that stops Hephatios from killing him is also going to transform Erichtonios into Claudien. And Claudien, unlike Hephatios, is willing to go hunt down Ultima the High Seraph and unlike Hephatios or herself, actually has the best chance of defeating Ultima (and free Athena to be reborn too). I totally get the anger that Venat was still killing Erichtonios to get Claudien- but Hephaitios was also trying to kill Erichtonios, and as the story is written I disagree that Hephatios was ever going to kill Ultima.

[TowaIsBestGirl]

I feel like there's people who think this is some kind of put-on and she's not really like that. Which I also think is completely false; in Elpis she's still very motherly, it just comes off more like 'the group's resident Mom Friend' in large part because of the context. She's around equals that she knows she doesn't have to protect and who can take care of themselves, so she's a lot more relaxed than she was in... well, every other time we've ever seen her. She's still very supportive and caring, you can see the character we know from other scenes coming through, it's just more in the background.

Meanwhile, Athena's kind of always in Mom Mode, she's just an extremely awful mom.

Soooo... Venat's closer to the Wine Aunt than the Mother? Eh, I guess it fits.

I think that is also comes down to what you interpret the "new life" that the Third Sacrifice was aiming to trade to Zodiark in order to swap out the souls from sacrifices one and two. For me it was obvious in the implications that the new life wasn't just constructs and plant/animal life (which even then, okay you've just environmentally devastated the planet back towards the state you had just made the original Zodiark sacrifices for) but that these new lives were beings that had inherited the souls from the Lifestream had had originally belonged to people who had died in the initial Final Days, including all the citizens of the other cities that weren't Amaurot, or souls of people who died long before it and thus didn't have the memories of the Final Days that could have triggered the Echo via the Star Showers. The Convocation and their followers, through tempering and the extremely potent survivor's guilt towards the sacrificed like Hythlodeaus are deciding to kill reborn-Azem. Those same souls on the chopping block once the Rejoinings are complete.

As much as I too think the third sacrifice was actual people, I'm not too sure just how much the distinction matters to the comparison being made. The fundamental morals the game has set and stood by since its inception are still being woven around a single individual in ways other weren't permitted to be. But it is what it is, and that is the story being told us. I'm too tired to fight this fight rn, tbqh.

[Kozh]

To put in a parallel - the Convocation is acting like Hephatios in P8 - wanting to sacrifice Erichtonios to bring back Athena. Venat and her followers were trying to save Erichtonios but Venat realizes that she can't, her attempts at least in the timeline that we are on have no outcome where she succeeded in convincing Hephatios not to kill Athena in the first place and now her attempts at reasoning with Hephatios won't stop him from killing Erichtonios. He's solely focused on restoring Athena, who in this case was far more a victim of Ultima's auracite. Now the writers would have allowed the WoL in a similar situation to just kill Hephatios and save Erichtonios. Venat's followers think she might be able to. Thanks to time-travel shenanigans, Venat knows she won't be able to save Erichtonios, but her blow that stops Hephatios from killing him is also going to transform Erichtonios into Claudien. And Claudien, unlike Hephatios, is willing to go hunt down Ultima the High Seraph and unlike Hephatios or herself, actually has the best chance of defeating Ultima (and free Athena to be reborn too). I totally get the anger that Venat was still killing Erichtonios to get Claudien- but Hephaitios was also trying to kill Erichtonios, and as the story is written I disagree that Hephatios was ever going to kill Ultima.

No offense, but this isn't really a good parallel imo (and very confusing). Venat's reasoning to sunder is no longer about saving "erichtonios". Because in EW there's new factors that influence her decision; meteion, dynamis and the Nibirun Dead End.

Also

her attempts at least in the timeline that we are on have no outcome where she succeeded in convincing Hephatios not to kill Athena in the first place

are you implying that venat tried to prevent first and second sacrifice as well?

[Denishia]

I think that Venat's statement that end "so I take nothing for granted as I walk my path" and the uncertainty that we were in a closed loop timeline or not until the Mothercrystal scene meant that Venat was trying to find solutions to the Final Days that wouldn't involve Zodiark or the Sundering, and by the nature of returning to our timeline we don't see if there are timelines where Venat was less cautious about not taking any steps that would butterfly away Zodiark's creation nor do we get to see the timeline where her pleading to the Zodiark worshiping survivors of the Final Days that focusing on trying to recreate their post-trauma memory of their past by offering up their present and future while not addressing what led to what had destroyed it and how to defeat its source which was still out there worked without having to Sunder. The game posits that the Endsinger wouldn't be defeated by the Ancients as they were without changing - until she pulls out the sword Venat is trying to debate that change of attitude without the change of the physical world. We also don't get to see the timeline where we arrive long before Hermes sent the Meteia into space and convince him via a life-changing road trip that there are answers to the doubts that plague him and other ways to find purpose and meaning in life than the only one he's been told - or no clear answers at all and that's okay.