(EW Spoilers) Tales from the Dawn #5 - Days Gone By, Days Yet to Come

[Cleretic]

I think its time to stop going back and forth with these folk. He's not going to address any of this and will merely deflect and then make another wild accusation. Like always, like clockwork. We'll be back in in a week as the lore book drops and like pretty much most lore that has expanded upon particular topic, continue to prove them wrong.

Honestly, you're right, I've just always been susceptible to taking the bait and fighting things not worth fighting.

It's not even interesting to point out redheadturk's got an obvious double standard: that's like scientifically proving that grass is green. Hell, not even that; at least the reason grass is green is interesting and has value in other areas. Turk just has a double standard because they're starting from 'Venat Bad' and working backwards; any explanation isn't genuine reasoning, it's post-hoc justification.

I'm looking forward to EE3 (and didn't order through Amazon, so I'm not hitting any problems with them), but not really because of the eight-to-twelve pages on the Ancients we're gonna get. Although I do find it funny that it might well become invalid within less than a month, if female hrothgar get revealed in 6.55 or Fanfest like we suspect.

[jameseoakes]

I think you're projecting stuff that isn't there. I would not characterize Venat's words as "vile hate spiteladen" at all.

The scene in question:



I mean, that literally lays in plain Endwalker's message: "Suffering exists, and we cannot pretend otherwise. [...] If we would live, we must accept it as our constant companion. Let us not seek to forget [...] tragedy. Let us carry it in our hearts, that we may grow stronger and know true happiness." True happiness here being in contrast to the fake happiness that would come from ignoring trauma and pretending bad things didn't happen or can be just waved away. It's not that "constant suffering" forges "better people", rather, pretending that suffering doesn't exist is unhealthy. And the scene goes on to show how Venat's judgement made shit bad for a long-ass time. It literally stains her in black to show she is not blameless for it.

Venat's speech is impassioned, then sad, then resolute. Never hateful or spiteful.

Again, the message and themes of Endwalker are not particularly complex, but they're pretty well defined.



Yeah, that's what I meant by "in a way that causes trauma for generations" and "in a terrible terrible no good way". Ancients are unique in their capacity for inhumanity by the sheer scale of their powers.

I think ranting at people who are standing in the burning ruins ruins of there city and struggling to cope with the loss of there loved ones and then to purge them for not reacting in the way she demands so she can replace them with races she can force to respond in the correct way to be anything other than spite. Also her speach as she kills everyone is worth of a villain and drips with hate and malice, Venat was a monster. Your right the ancients are capable of inhumanly evil acts though the ones we see doing that are Veant and Hermes both extremely evil monsters who the story is very soft on, though given the acts of people like Zenos the people Venat replaces the ancients with are as bad if not worse.

[jameseoakes]

Perhaps at one point, aye, but clearly she gave up any such traits in the Final Days. Her actions were quite horrific in the end.

I do wonder what was suppose to have driven Venat so insane to develop the the horrifically twisted ideology she has, as I assume she was a good person but something seems to have hollowed her out and left her a monster.

[SannaR]

I think ranting at people who are standing in the burning ruins ruins of there city and struggling to cope with the loss of there loved ones and then to purge them for not reacting in the way she demands so she can replace them with races she can force to respond in the correct way to be anything other than spite. Also her speach as she kills everyone is worth of a villain and drips with hate and malice, Venat was a monster. Your right the ancients are capable of inhumanly evil acts though the ones we see doing that are Veant and Hermes both extremely evil monsters who the story is very soft on, though given the acts of people like Zenos the people Venat replaces the ancients with are as bad if not worse.

I doubt she actually went and did that. Her whole now man will have to walk isn't meant to be taken as how things must have literally played out.

[SannaR]

It feels odd that Cleretic's Azem is that one point in the early Dark Knight questline where the WoL goes out to retrieve that one man's stuff only to come back covered in blood along with the supplies we retrieved. While not caring at all that we gave them back covered in blood and viscera. Though it is also kind of point on and makes sense from Cleretic's perspective. To me Azem might on occasion have that situation happen and have that mindset. But that again is more of a rare thing. That something more to Clive going to Drake's Fang to do X and normally only doing X. With Y sometimes also happening, but they don't set out to do Y or cause Y to happen. That for me at least they're a Paragon Shepard who at times chooses an occasional Renegade interrupt because sometimes punching a certain reporter is needed. Or how Alisaie is where she is going to solve something her way but also try and keep in mind how the WoL or the other Scions would go about it influencing the choice she makes.

In that Azem has three Angel/Deamon on their shoulder at all times. One being Venat and the how would she go about solving the given situation. A second one being Hythlodaeus and if he would find it funny or interesting to hound Emet-Selch about (the answer is almost always yes). The third being is how badly do they think the tongue lashing they'll get from Emet-Selch when they get back to Amaurot for how they sloved said problem will be. Then confirming with the group of people they've picked up along their travels if they're still undecided on how to approach things. It would be interesting to see if any of their solutions accidentally caused another problem.

Edit: more thoughts.

Another way to look at it would be early Hercules before he meets Phil or him during the animated series where he is still that very clumsy awkward teenager who tries to help in a situation and probably would have had it end up not causing more destruction if he had more practice in controlling his strength. I don't see Azem as a chaotic neutral person that is on the edge of being more of a chaotic evil. As I don't feel they would have stayed as an Azem as long as they did if they solved every problem with the same mindset of let's use the tactical nuke to solve the problem as their first choice and not caring if they also might have caused collateral damage.

[Zero-ELEC]

*snipped for space*

The scene is clearly allegorical. The Final Days were "over" by the time Venat becomes Hydaelyn, and it is made explicit she fought against Zodiark before the sundering. This is especially clear since we see Hythlodaeus go on to be sacrificed and people being eaten by terminus beasts while at the same time Zodiark exists to be worshiped, which makes it clear it's not an actual point in time. Venat is also not "ranting" at people standing in a burning city, either; it's a dialogue and it's presented in a very clear way. There's no shouting, no wild talking, no tirade from her. Nothing that would qualify as a rant.

And, once again, I must ask you to read the dialogue (or failing that watch the cutscene here). There's no hate or malice in any of the words she says, nor in any of the acting by any of the voice actors. Nothing like that "drips" from any of the dialogue. I would certainly not characterize her speech as one of a villain either. I could see it from an antagonist in another context, mind, but not a villain. Maybe an anti-villain in the right story (i.e. not this one). She's certainly not a villain in a literary sense here. Maybe not in any sense? Layman's terms has villain as opposite of a hero (conflating with antagonist), while villain as a stock character (the blackhat) is nothing close to Venat.

You may consider her a monster because of her actions and that's perfectly valid, but you don't have to make stuff up about her motivations or stuff for your feelings to be true. Your feelings about Venat's actions are perfectly valid. However, Venat, textually did all she did without malice, hate, or spite.

Related, note that I keep insisting that ancients are unique in their capacity for inhumanity by sheer scale of their powers because not because they were "worse" people like you imply I'm saying there (individual ancients are clearly as much people as any other, no worse, no better), but because they were more capable of bringing their "bad" to bear, again, by their sheer power. We see this in Pandæmonium, we see this with the modern unsundered Ascians. They literally are so powerful that a depressed bird breeder made a being that brought about the end of countless civilisations throughout the universe. That a misanthropic theatre devotee manage to set up multiple empires designed to cause untold chaos and orchestrated to literally end 7 worlds full of millions of people. That a scientist with delusions of godhood almost literally became one by sacrificing their child. Modern humanity, at its worse, caused terrible things to happen with the help of the remnants of the ancients, whether their knowledge, direct intervention, or literal remnants of the empires they orchestrated the downfall of. A singular human, even a powerful one like Zenos, can only do so much.

[redheadturk]

But 'post Final Days' leads to the second and third Zodiark sacrifices, and so the active party is, broadly, the entire population of the planet who's suddenly dealing with the first thing really causing them to grapple with grief and trauma being unfathomably huge.

You need to be clear which one of those two you're essentially giving a pass to in this conversation, and not critiquing on the same level.

Because here's the other thing: you clearly think the 'extreme trauma' is an explanation. That we have to point at whichever one of these groups you mean and go 'they had to live through X and are dealing with that, and we need to keep that in mind'. Which is fair...

Except that you hold out the exceptions to be Hermes and Venat, who we therefore have to treat differently. But I would argue they also faced extreme trauma; they were different trauma, instead facing both of them with existentially horrifying information and betrayal that left them, in separate ways, feeling that they had to act. ...and then if your inciting truamatic event is the Final Days, for Venat, also living through that. (Hermes did too, but in a way that leaves both sources independent instead of compounded.) From the post-Elpis scene, this was clearly something she grappled with, and she clearly leaned on parts of her experience and expertise as Azem that you yourself outlined that she must have (specifically, the traveling and the counseling). She is not apart from this trauma that you correctly attribute to everyone around her... and yet, you treat her differently. As somehow separate, and deserving of separate scrutiny.

Intentionally or not, you're holding a double standard. And I think it's important that you either explain why she's different, or accept that she's not.

Except the trauma wasn't necessary if she had, I dunno, told at least Emet and Hythlodaeus the truth of what they were dealing with.. For her, she knew. The element of surprise was not there for her, which makes her worthy of separate scrutiny. The others not only had the trauma of the Final Days itself, but of the unknown betrayal by lies from Venat, and later the trauma of being genocided by her. Did the Convocation become genocidal themselves in response? Yes, and I never claimed differently. 12 thousand years of grief can do awful things to a person.

[Lyth]

Alexander conducted an independent review of all timelines and calculated all their outcomes. If Alexander's mathematical analysis supported a decision to reveal the future, then either a giant robot or a small black cat would have appeared out of nowhere and and gained the confidence of the future mass-murdering leader of the Ascians. This didn't happen, which indicates that the proposed timeline branch is also a bad end.

Could you imagine if the writers compiled a complete series of 'what-if' bad ends inspired by some of the 'clever' timeline branches submitted on this forum? It would be like Radiant Historia, FFXIV edition. Bonus points if the 'branch histories' all start out very positive and cheerful before an unexpected twist makes a sudden turn towards the brutally dark.

I imagine that a most would involve Hermes regaining his memories and ending all civilization in creative ways, although there's plenty of room for other characters to snap too. There'd also need to be a 'neutral' branch where Azem and friends all ride off into the sunset together and live out their lives out in a small villa managed by Loporrits in an alternate timeline Tural, before being subjected to a Meteion jumpscare.

[jameseoakes]

You may consider her a monster because of her actions and that's perfectly valid, but you don't have to make stuff up about her motivations or stuff for your feelings to be true. Your feelings about Venat's actions are perfectly valid. However, Venat, textually did all she did without malice, hate, or spite.

Sorry betraying and wiping out your own race requires malice hate or spite. In almost any other game Venat would be a monster for choice to murder her world, honestly I find her writing evil.

[jameseoakes]

Sorry betraying and wiping out your own race requires malice hate or spite. In almost any other game Venat would be a monster for choice to murder her world, honestly I find her writing evil.

Also I think it was one of the worst bits of writing to do one of the most import event in the world in some bizarre is it real sympathy fest for the main monster of the game. The writers either needed to show it in a clear scene or skip over it. Honestly Endewalkers writing is vile, normalising extremely abusive and controlling love and outright genocidal eugenics