We Haven't Been Heroes In A Long Time

[Voidmage]

Idk why you bring that up since I never implied or said we should fight for the other side, My point here is that Both Venat and the Ascians had a plan to stop the end day, the first part of that plan involve doing a genocide, they both hope that after doing that, their plan will work sucessfuly, despite having no proof it will work in the end. We rightfully declare that the Ascians are evil and that killing every souls in all the shards is morally wrong, even if they do it to bring back people who themselves got killed in a genocide. Then we got Venat who killed all the ancients and she get portrayed as a Hero. Do you see the issue here? There a double standard and that my issues. I don't want to side with Ascians, I just don't want the lore to portrait Venat as a good person.

Never implied that you implied that. I was saying the WoL fight's for their own side. I think I was just not clear enough here.
I only used your comment as a jumping point.

I just look at it from an ingame perspective.

Like I said. Venat's actions resulted in the world of FF14 and that's the world the WoL and the Scions fight for nothing more, nothing less.
Venat doesn't get portrait as a bad person because for all intent's and purposes for the ingame characters she isn't.
I don't say she is innocent or that her actions were not extreme but that in universe they don't effect the people.

They did all of this in the hope to bring their people, who have been killed by Venat, back, peoples that were innocent. It not like they where evil for the sake of it. Just like how Venat killed all the Ancients with the goal of creating new life. She didn't kill them just for the sake of doing so.

Again, the issue here is that when we rightfully claim that the Ascians have gone to far in their quest to bring people back, we cheer on Venat and put her on a Pedestal for doing the same thing. Emmet being racist or Lahabrea being commicaly evil don't make Venat a good person

They did it in the hope of bringing the old society back. They wanted to take the souls and exchange them for the ones inside Zodiark forever They killed millions and would have condemned million others to eternal hell.

I understand how people are miffed about all that but the thing is that the ingame characters have every reason to hate the Ascians and like Venat.
Is it correct? I don't know but I can understand why they do that.
Yes there can and probably should be ingame stuff discussing that like ingame lore books or something but for the characters of FF14 the Ascians are the source of all evil and much death while Venat is the one who helps them and so on.
The Ancients were the victims not the Ascians. They will forever go into the FF14 ingame history as evil incarnate.

Just my viewpoint in all this and I don't want to start a big disussion on this because there are entire Threads about that already.

[HelSpites]

My dude, Zeno's "Would you have been happier if I'd had a good reason" speech was laser targeted at people like you, and somehow you're still out here writing big essays that amount to little more than "I fell for Emet's charisma and now I'm sad he's gone. He's committed planetary genocide several times over and intended to continue doing so but my baby boy was a pretty man who was funny and looked sad some times so he did nothing wrong". You've missed the point so hard that I'm wondering if you ever actually played the game or if all your knowledge of the story comes from sad emet selch AMVs and fan cams.

[Magikazam]

My dude, Zeno's "Would you have been happier if I'd had a good reason" speech was laser targeted at people like you, and somehow you're still out here writing big essays that amount to little more than "I fell for Emet's charisma and now I'm sad he's gone. He's committed planetary genocide several times over and intended to continue doing so but my baby boy was a pretty man who was funny and looked sad some times so he did nothing wrong". You've missed the point so hard that I'm wondering if you ever actually played the game or if all your knowledge of the story comes from sad emet selch AMVs and fan cams.

idk my whole point was just that I find it stupid that Venat is praised for her action when she also did a genocide. Like, the story showing Venat as an heroic figure for me is as bad as if they would have done it with Emet.

[Boblawblah]

It's time. I was hoping this wouldn't be needed for DT, but here we are.

[WeakestZenosEnjoyer]

Us and Venat should have just allowed the total obliteration of all life in the cosmos so true. We're a hero because we kill villains and they're villains because they literally want to bring about the apocalypse, it's not grey at all, its rather black and white.

[MikkoAkure]

idk my whole point was just that I find it stupid that Venat is praised for her action when she also did a genocide. Like, the story showing Venat as an heroic figure for me is as bad as if they would have done it with Emet.

Someone who made a tough decision to save the universe for the greater good vs someone who ended up completely obliterating 7 worlds likely killing billions of people and had plans to do it 6 more times all so that he can be with his god and continue to stick his head in the sand.

Context is important.

[Chasingstars]

Zenos: Would you be "happier" had I a "good reason"? If my motives met with your approval, would you no longer resent the outcome? If so, perhaps a beast's skin would suit you better. Duty...honor...morality...all constructs of convenience, when put to proof. Surely the war has taught you how power becomes the tool of the self-righteous? How the people's "justice" was just a means to their ends. Yet you would ask me why. Ask any creature of this star and those above for answers, and they will all tell you what suits their fancy. And they would be right to do so. What meaning there is to be found in the petty vicissitudes of your existence must be gleaned by you and you alone. If you seek it in battle—in the fruitless pursuit of my demise—then come. Assume your rightful place as a notch on my blade.

[Turtledeluxe]

Um yeah. It's an MMO. Not sure if you noticed. Maybe what you're looking for a single player game, or for the writers to repeat HW 100x.

Zenos: Would you be "happier" had I a "good reason"? If my motives met with your approval, would you no longer resent the outcome? If so, perhaps a beast's skin would suit you better. Duty...honor...morality...all constructs of convenience, when put to proof. Surely the war has taught you how power becomes the tool of the self-righteous? How the people's "justice" was just a means to their ends. Yet you would ask me why. Ask any creature of this star and those above for answers, and they will all tell you what suits their fancy. And they would be right to do so. What meaning there is to be found in the petty vicissitudes of your existence must be gleaned by you and you alone. If you seek it in battle—in the fruitless pursuit of my demise—then come. Assume your rightful place as a notch on my blade.

Casually quoting our king

[Folsom]

This particular narrative is easily disproven by actually reading the quest text.

We know that Living Memory relies on the Meso Terminal to function. Meso Terminal is Sphene. We need to shut off Sphene to prevent her from committing genocide. This has the side effect of also shutting off all of Living Memory. We don't 'kill' the Endless for funsies, we do it because the alternative is the death of all non-Alexandrian life.

There is no nation when it comes to current Alexandria. No rulers, no government, nothing. It's a rogue AI, hellbent on carrying out an objective. If Skynet said it was killing humanity to make room for a parking lot for a robot retiring home, would you sympathize? Was General Zod in the right attempting to destroy Earth to create another Krypton?

All of this. I get so tired of people's inserting whatever their imaginations can slap into a story, ignoring what is actually written in favor of some faux-philosophical hand wringing.

In one of the other threads on this, I had noted that every Endless you talk to is either happy or ambivalent about their existence ending--which is the writer's way of saying the Endless are fine with it (it's a common trope in writing to show a few examples of something being true to generalize--that way you don't have to waste time talking to literally everyone, which is impossible, or having to read a fourth-wall-breaking cheesy blurb where the author literally has to say it to your face). Yet still, someone came along to say, "Well, we didn't talk to EVERY Endless! How do we know they all were fine with it?"

I get it. It's fun to theorize about things and people get all excited when they can Subvert the Narrative (ZOMG! We're soooo evil. The good guys are actually bad! bong rip), but holy crap do people go off the rails to do it. Not every story has to have moral grayness forced into it; that's just as boring as a completely Disneyfied happy ending story. "But this is actually what happened" needs to be toned down and lean more toward, "Wouldn't it be cool if/imagine if..."

[Vyrerus]

It's time. I was hoping this wouldn't be needed for DT, but here we are.

Who are you kidding, you would have found an excuse to use it anyway :P

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As far as the rest of the responses in the thread:

- Yes, I played the story, and I've paid it more attention than any of you.
- No, I don't read reddit unless it's linked to me.
- The Zenos quote was actually supposed to make Venat stans stop and think, but they didn't realize y'all don't.
- There was nothing "rogue" about Sphene. She was doing exactly what she was built to do.

This particular narrative is easily disproven by actually reading the quest text.

Then why didn't you? The government for Alexandria is its computer system granted authority to Sphene and Zoraal Ja. The people in Solution 9 recognize this, and they mourn both leaders to varying degrees (moreso just Sphene).

Gulool Ja is now king.

And wrong x2, we shut off the Endless because Cahciua tells us that hers and theirs are unnatural lives, and that each region we shut down will lengthen the time needed by Sphene to do the math required to make Living Memory complete the second go at Interdimensional Fusion. Her intent is as much killing as is necessary to get the aether they need to keep living, because she still considers The Endless to be alive.

And most of the Endless are chill about it because it's literally a paradise for them. They are set to their maximally happiest states of living. It's hard to be bummed or show resistance to anyone when you're happy, isn't it? It's hard to resist battle hardened warriors with all their faculties if you can't even channel aether as a design aspect of your new existence.

*ahem* Also your takedown post was riddled with errors. Hydaelyn didn't lose her powers when she Sundered the world. That's verifiably false. She lost no power at all, and in fact, could have drawn on the aether she was hoarding any time in the aetherial sea, if that was her intent. And she did hold just enough to always have that "true test" battle to the death with WoL and Co.