Are <5.0 main villain> fanboys also supportive of <6.1-6.5 main villain>? *SPOILERS*

[ZavosEsperian]

I just wish the story would actually call her out on it.

I do not disagree with this. I do not have any issues with Venat in the position she is if there was a counterbalance outside of the Ascians, mainly because the Ascians are a biased party to this topic. To me, I believe a counterbalance, potentially from a scion member, would be something I would find acceptable. There are many issues in terms of how Venat is portrayed and admittedly this is but one example. Other examples come from a lack of clarity of events pertaining to the period between our departure from Elpis up to the sundering along with the intentional open-ended interpretation of time travel the writers placed into the story, as they have by omission stated this was done intentionally via Live Letter.

[Nayukhuut]

I never considered the evacuation plan as anything she was serious about given she knows the actual source of the problem and that there is nowhere for people to escape to given the entire universe is being destroyed. Like maybe she did it because she wanted to give people hope, or maybe she did it cause we told her she did and she wanted to maintain the timeline, but given no one even bothered to tell the Loporrits what size we were, I can't take the evacuation plan seriously. She just needed an excuse so we'd fight her in her assisted suicide, so she didn't have to look the people in the eye whose families she murdered and civilization she destroyed after they gave their lives to protect those things. Imagine being one of those people who sacrificed yourself to protect the star only to find out moments later Venat murdered your family and used their parts to make her familiars. I'm just saying, we know for a fact combat is possible in the aetherial sea. I get why she destroyed her soul instead of facing those people.

Fair enough. You make good points. It did feel a bit contrived, and the moon bunnies really are quite awful.

As for your point about the Aetherial Sea. Yup. If I was imprisoned for millennia after trying to save my home and saw Venat there after finding out what she had done, I would definitely want to have words.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

Fair enough. You make good points. It did feel a bit contrived, and the moon bunnies really are quite awful.

As for your point about the Aetherial Sea. Yup. If I was imprisoned for millennia after trying to save my home and saw Venat there after finding out what she had done, I would definitely want to have words.

Now I'm just picturing a bunch of people in robes and masks having the Office Space printer scene reaction and I can't stop laughing.

https://youtu.be/N9wsjroVlu8?si=hn4lvRdUxvL8CXB4

[Nayukhuut]

Now I'm just picturing a bunch of people in robes and masks having the Office Space printer scene reaction and I can't stop laughing.

https://youtu.be/N9wsjroVlu8?si=hn4lvRdUxvL8CXB4

Haha, oh my goodness. If only. Heh, the Ancients as a species seemed to be pretty non violent, but if I suppose if an exception were to be made it would be for the one that literally destroyed your civilisation.

Edit: Though on my end, a proper debate to make her see just how much harm she ended up doing would be wonderful too.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

Haha, oh my goodness. If only. Heh, the Ancients as a species seemed to be pretty non violent, but if I suppose if an exception were to be made it would be for the one that literally destroyed your civilisation.

Edit: Though on my end, a proper debate to make her see just how much harm she ended up doing would be wonderful too.

They seem just as capable of violence as we are. They just didn't have need of it most of the time given the ability to meet all their material needs with magic. But let somebody wipe out my entire species right after I sacrificed myself to save it. I don't care if I spent 8000 years as a librarian, I'm lifting that robe and getting a couple good kicks in.

I'd pull an Asahi and drag her straight to the bottom. "Come on, Venat. Let's go see how strong famine and typhoid make you."

[jameseoakes]

Your argument seems to be predicated on the notion that the Sundering 'created a world of suffering and misery'--thereby implying that the world before it wasn't. But even if you take the view that the Ancient world was without suffering (a view that doesn't hold thanks to short stories and Pandaemonium), she wasn't the one that broke that. Meteion did. By the time of the Sundering, three quarters of the population was either sacrificed or dead from the Final Days, the surviving population was divided, some amount of it was tempered, and who knows what other problems had sprung forth in the aftermath; paradise had already burned. And if you do think that the Ancient world had problems, then Venat's crime was... not immediately solving them?

Venat says she 'created a world of suffering' as a condemnation of herself, but it doesn't really hold. Her reasoning is actually something akin to me thinking I'd be a terrible mother because I'd be bringing a child into a world that I don't think will treat it well; I'd feel guilt for the pain that results, but that doesn't make me guilty.

My point point with the world of suffering was that Venat actively creates a scarcity world to actively force strife and suffering on the population. That's the the whole ponit of the sundering to make a species that has to endure short hard lives where misfortunate means death (remember the children in Ishgard freezing to death)

Also with respect to Venats actions I just don't know what you are trying to get at, I mean jumping to genocide as your solution to any problem is monstrous in the extreme, I don't get how you can hate characters like Emet the way you do and then be fine saying things like genocide are solutions to problems. This is my problem with Venat, it's not so much what she does, it's how the game bends over backward to say outright one of the most heinous things possible is acceptable if you other the victims enough

[MikkoAkure]

My point point with the world of suffering was that Venat actively creates a scarcity world to actively force strife and suffering on the population. That's the the whole ponit of the sundering to make a species that has to endure short hard lives where misfortunate means death (remember the children in Ishgard freezing to death)

According to the game and written directly into the new lore book, the purpose of the Sundering isn't suffering for its own sake, it's to remove creation magicks and to turn everyone into entelechies who can face against Endsinger who was going to kill the entire universe.

It would be one thing if Venat sundered the Ancient world at the height of its power, but at the time the whole thing went down the world had already ended. Most of the Ancients were already dead or turned to Zodiark soup and until Zodiark's second act, the planet was a barren lifeless husk. Zodiark couldn't bring back all the people who died during the Final Days either. Ancient society and culture would've had to have been rebuilt by the survivors anyway and a "numerous" movement of Ancients rejected the Convocation and Zodiark and decided that they couldn't move on like this. Venat didn't make this decision by herself.

[jameseoakes]

According to the game and written directly into the new lore book, the purpose of the Sundering isn't suffering for its own sake, it's to remove creation magicks and to turn everyone into entelechies who can face against Endsinger who was going to kill the entire universe.

It would be one thing if Venat sundered the Ancient world at the height of its power, but at the time the whole thing went down the world had already ended. Most of the Ancients were already dead or turned to Zodiark soup and until Zodiark's second act, the planet was a barren lifeless husk. Zodiark couldn't bring back all the people who died during the Final Days either. Ancient society and culture would've had to have been rebuilt by the survivors anyway and a "numerous" movement of Ancients rejected the Convocation and Zodiark and decided that they couldn't move on like this. Venat didn't make this decision by herself.

Sorry exterminating an entire race to replace them with something else is never justified, Eugenics is one of the greatest evil humanity has come with and this games story goes full apologist for it. Also I don't expect the anicents to go back to how they were before the trauma of the scale of the end of days makes that unlikely but Venat robbing them of that chance was an act of evil

[MikkoAkure]

Sorry exterminating an entire race to replace them with something else is never justified, Eugenics is one of the greatest evil humanity has come with and this games story goes full apologist for it. Also I don't expect the anicents to go back to how they were before the trauma of the scale of the end of days makes that unlikely but Venat robbing them of that chance was an act of evil

Again, this was a decision agreed upon by a large enough group of Ancients that everything stopped and Elidibus had to come out of Zodiark to try to negotiate. It wasn't just Venat unilaterally changing everyone by force. The anti-Zodiark crowd were aware of and supported sundering as the only way to prevent a second coming of the Final Days and the game hasn't presented to us an alternative to stopping Endsinger since only those who can interact with dynamis can.

It was either the end of the Ancients or the end of everyone else in the universe including the Ancients. They might have come up with something else later on but we don't know that and they didn't know that. They went with the only plan that they knew had at least a small chance because you don't gamble all life on something like that.

The Ancients weren't killed and replaced either, we are them. They are our direct ancestors, not some separate people.

[jameseoakes]

Again, this was a decision agreed upon by a large enough group of Ancients that everything stopped and Elidibus had to come out of Zodiark to try to negotiate. It wasn't just Venat unilaterally changing everyone by force. The anti-Zodiark crowd were aware of and supported sundering as the only way to prevent a second coming of the Final Days and the game hasn't presented to us an alternative to stopping Endsinger since only those who can interact with dynamis can.

It was either the end of the Ancients or the end of everyone else in the universe including the Ancients. They might have come up with something else later on but we don't know that and they didn't know that. They went with the only plan that they knew had at least a small chance because you don't gamble all life on something like that.

The Ancients weren't killed and replaced either, we are them. They are our direct ancestors, not some separate people.

Sorry but forcibly remaking into a different for of life is eugenics and genocide. The fact that Venat then creates gods (and makes her self the world supreme deity) to force the peoples she makes to act how she decided they should be actively destroying the culture and people who lived before (creation magic be an intrinsic part of who they are). Honestly the whole murdering whole races and cultures to be replaces with people some fanatics decided are the only solution to a problem (as it really doesn't seem the Venat told them anything about the true end of days) is a vile plot point to pivot a games story on, it's a evil plot.