And we’re back with a deep dive into Venat. Considered a benevolent soul by the fandom. But how righteous is she really? Let’s find out.
FXIV: Online and other media sources are properties of their related companies. I have no claim to them.
Time Stamps:
0:00 Introduction
2:27 Venat is a Lunatic
4:00 Initial Arguments
6:21 The Time Travel Dilemma
28:25 The Faulty Escape Plan
30:25 Withholding the Truth
31:08 Amarout’s Character
36:15 Venat is the Questionable One
38:13 The Hermes Dilemma
39:54 … And There it is!
44:04 We’re Abandoning People… Not Saving Them
47:29 The Universe is Massacred… Because of Venat
50:32 In Conclusion
Links
An Unpromised Tomorrow
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/special/tales_from_the_shadows/sidestory_08/#sidestory_08
A Friendship of Record:
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/special/tales_from_the_dawn/sidestory_01/#sidestory_01
Square Letter from the Producer
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/456921-Letter-from-the-Producer-LIVE-Part-LXVIII-%2803-03-2022%29
Echoes of Etherys Channe
https://www.youtube.com/@echoesofetheirys
source
Time travel is always a mistake in writing.
thank you for this. i hated venat, everyone sucks her off but shes a damn hypocrite. its only in a side quest post MSQ where speaking with the watcher you the WoL can give your opinion on whether venat or the other amaurotines/asians were correct. i chose neither, they were both dumb. EW shouldve allowed us to choose who to side with or choose a neutral path a la Shin Megami Tensei, it wouldve been a thousand times better. i hated that they railroaded us into siding with venat. also as a FF12 lore maniac i hated her even more knowning she share a name with a character from that game. 10/10 video. thank god shes gone. now we have wuk lamat….🤢🤮
I think Venat's flaws are a symptome of the Ancient's flaws as well, we saw how uncaring for life in a lot of ways the ancients were with their godlike creation ability hence Hermes' depression, hence Venat's plan being flawed but ultimately a better idea, 'bringing the gods low' to be more human and actually empathetic, that's not to say I disagree with most of your point.
Also your final point missed the mark, the Endsinger didn't kill most of those civilizations they themselves did, remember Meteon's fall to becoming the big emo bird was a result of witnessing the collective depressive suicide of thousands of worlds with her sisters, sure she might have brough more to ruin but every single one we saw at Ultima Thule was them killing themselves and we saw their shades from a combinations of Meteon's memories and Dynamis.
I have only finished up to the time travel dilemma but will do a 2nd comment when finished the whole video. I wanted to drop an early comment of appreciation early before finishing the video as thanks for this long video.
I have to be honest I didn't have as many problems with Venat like yourself and others did because at the time I was hyper focused on the terrible writing of Fandaniel/Hermes and meteion (Evil twitter) as well as the disappointment that was Zodiark. For me what ruined Endwalker was the fact they tried to do too much in one patch that if done with care could have taken another 2 patches if they handled Garlean empire with the attention it deserved after a decade of build up. Also I don't think I will hate any character as much as Fandaniel/Hermes and Wuk Lamat anytime soon even with this superb video.
Regarding the time travel I just felt that Venat being as wise and intelligent as she was knew it was futile to spend effort on something that cannot be changed and chose to spend her efforts on mitigating the damage. I like you did find it very concerning she instantly trusted you the MC more than her own people but ultimately I brushed aside most criticisms about her due to having bigger issues with the rest of the story and didn't focus on it as much as I should have done in hindsight. Also to my own discredit forgot the very CRUCIAL detail that it was extremely out of character for Venat to behave the way she did considering what we know about her from other characters and lore surrounding the game which at the time I didn't focus on. I honestly regret not looking at her character with a more critical eye. The more you know about the game and the lore the less her behavior makes any sense at all.
While I was never as enamored by Venat and her plight like the majority of the player base I will admit I didn't think for a long time she was as bad as the haters thought she was. However coming back to Endwalker's story with a more critical eye it made me notice more problems with Venat and her plot so I started seeking out channels like yours that did a deep dive into it. Here you have complied all the issues with her behavior and the excuses for it and dismantled each point effectively by using examples from the lore and Venat's own character description in game.
Thank you so much for this and I look forward to the rest of the video.
40:18 "Ja, we are the baddies and we are paying the price for it!"
I didn't care Venat as much but I could tell that there's something really suspicious about her which it's a no wonder why I have stopped taking Endwalker's story seriously. Alas, it was the starting point where I question my WoL's existence, even before Dawntrail and Wuk Lamat herself. Time travel is always such a shit show and it explains a lot of how I feel with Endwalker as I look back from it's MSQ. Thank you for this video, regardless.
I think I get the time convergence thing. So, when we traveled back in time, technically we created a new timeline, since we already change events by simply being in elpis. Our connection to Venat and her actions/inaction then leads to our future, which is how the convergence is formed.
Apart from that, the stakes between the black rose timeline and the elpis timeline are completely different. In the black rose timeline, there's nothing to lose, since there's only death and destruction to go back from, whereas in the elpis timeline, 14 new civilizations are born in the form of the source and its shards that are worth protecting.
I think given what Venat learns together with us, the way she sees it is that the world unsundered has no future either way. The world unsundered strives to be a perfect paradise, and as we have learned from other civilizations, that approach has not been a successful one even without Meteion's influence. It's fair to criticize her for that, but I can see what thought process she might have undergone while weighing her options. Edit: Thinking about it, I wonder if us saving our future without the time convergence would even have been possible, since we got the blessing because of the time convergence, if I understand correclty? Hm.
Glad people are starting to wise up, and realize Venat was sus af.
She enabled mass genocide, on a galactic and beyond scale, just because she didn't agree with her own people/civilization. And used the Endsinger, as an excuse, to realize her own world, under false pretense, and fake caretaking, as she sacrificed shards to keep the source, willingly. Venat's attempt to handwave, "the Ancients wouldn't listen", even though they have all the echo, which would aid in proving it all. Along with the very day just short discussion early on in Elpis, already made Emet and Hytho bro believe in the plausibility of the claims, and took them very serious. Yet suddenly Venat claims they won't listen, after Emet and Hytho got sapped by the memory wipe, even though the Echo disproves her claim.
Endsinger was the perfect plan and excuse for Venat. To the point it would have been more fitting if she was the main villain all along.
Okay finished the video. I completely agree with time travel its a concept in writing that 99% of time leads to countless plot holes. Only if the entire plot is focused around time travel with thought and care as well as limitations does it ever work.
Venat having no faith in her people is inexcusable and not only that her plan when you break it down as effectively as you did is terrible. What exactly did she achieve in the end? What I would love is a follow up video on how you could fix Venat but I am not sure if there is a suitable answer within the limitations of a single patch.
Personally I think she should have worked with the convacation trying every possible method to try and fight endsinger and to create something similar to try and track down Metieon and her sisters to try and protect the other worlds. Elpis and its society was a great society and didn't deserve to die the way it did without a serious attempt at fighting back.
Ultimately they should not have tried to wrap up this Saga so quickly only to replace it with a shallow new journey with even worse writing. For me it needed at least 2 more patches including Endwalker to wrap it up properly.
Granted the civilizations that we see in Ultima Thule may have already been dead or destroyed by their own hands, there's no telling how many other worlds emo bird pushed to the brink of destruction with her song of despair. The blood of those worlds is on Venat's hands as well. Thank you for this. I get so tired of people sucking off this character. EW sucked just as much as DT tbh, but EW tugged on players emotions which is why I suspect it gets a pass.
Thanks for the shout out! This video is 🔥 and the Amaurot's Character section. 🤌
I do not envy the comments you're going to get on this one.
Before watching this, I have to say I'm amused you did a video on her. I haven't liked Hydalen since her secret was revealed in late ShB. So I'm really eager to enjoy this video!
OK, watched the video. It was so much better than I was hoping! Awesome video!
Im so glad someone out there is acknowledging the fact that Endwalker's story was ALSO a badly written trainwreck and that this problem didn't just suddenly start at Dawntrail.
It's completely normal for time travel to completely wreck an entire storyline. Why solve a problem in real time when you can go back in time and waste time to not solve the problem because doing so would create a paradox? As much as I enjoyed my time in Elpis, looking back on it, Elpis' entire purpose seems to be to humanize the Ascians more. I can understand the desire to wring out as much sympathy from the audience after the resounding success that was Emet-Selch. But if I look at it form the outside, going to Elpis seemed to be entirely a waste of time, since this is something we could've figured out simply by going to the mother crystal, which we were probably going to do anyway. So once again, another problem that the Scions could've solved on a lunch break, but we need more sympathy points, so let's draw it out.
Also, SE has a bad habit of not including content in the media you're enjoying. Mainly in the Final Fantasy franchise but sometimes it infects their other titles as well. XV's story was incredibly disappointing for me because even after having watched Kingsglaive, the story still felt disjointed because of how they chose to present it. I really wish they would understand that if it is not told or shown to you in the content you are reading/playing/watching, that it doesn't exist, and is therefore not a part of the story. Endwalker suffered from quite a few instances of 'let's not elaborate on that'. Particularly with Meteion and her sisters. If we have time for an arbitrary Test Your Might fight with mom, or time to screw around with the Loporits, then we have time to explore other aspects of the world. It's especially aggravating in an mmo when they say there was no time. I heard that argument made several times in defense of DT's pacing, too. People have 1000's of hours in this game. It's not a movie where if you go over 2 hours run time people's brains start melting out of their ears. People play games to experience them. You had all the time in the world. You just either chose to not write it in, or forgot to. Or your were lazy. None of the options presented are good ones.
I was so disappointed with the story of endwalker. At the end of shadowbringers I have thought about what was about to come in the next expansion, and honestly I think that my ideas were way better than what we got. So here’s the story if I was able to fix it : first of all, nothing much would change until the moon, except that Anima would have been the first trial and Garlemald would be 2 areas. On the moon, Fandaniel would not kill Zordiark but free him with the help of zenos. Then they would disappear saying that they are gonna slay our precious Hydealyn and revive the ancient world. I would also cut the loporrits from existence. On the moon, the scions met the watchers and will learn the truth that reside inside the moon. So by going inside the center of the moon, the scions learn the truth about the sundering (not in Elpis, which is cut, because time travel sucks). So basically the truth is that 12 000 years ago, Etheirys was dying. The planet was old, and the life stream of the planet (the ether) was almost all gone, since the ancients were using it so much in so big quantity. The planet, dying scream in pain and let free our minion to kills everybody (the first blasphemy) (like the weapon in ff7) and save itself from the ancients, these parasites. Venat learn the truth AFTER zodiark birth. Zodiark was able to shut the scream from the planet that wanted to kill everybody, by becoming the god of the star, thus overruling the planet order. BUT Zodiark only stopped the minions, and the final days to spawn, not the planet to die. And since nobody knew that the stars was ending very soon, Venat minutes before the end, sundered the star, diluting everything and Everyone, that way each shards would use only a microscopic amount of ether and the star could still exist, even though the ancients has to be gone for that. That would be the truth, that without Venat, everybody would be dead by now. Now after learning the truth, the scions persued Zenos and Zordiark in center of etheirys but are too late. Hydealyn is slayed but not killed, since she succeed to escape the fatal blow. Though, because of Zenos, she gets corrupted and became the second trial. After the battle, Hydealyn is no more, but Venat appears instead. Zodiark starts to block the access to sea of star from the scions and co by creating a nest (the final area). The scions and Venat (after being healed) fled on the surface, while zodiark stays in the middle of the sea of stars and starts to send waves of darkness to the shards, destroying them by distance and thus restoring the old world. This plan (Zodiark being free and attack Hydealyn to get access to the core of the star and destroying the shards, was only possible after shadowbringers, because how weak Hydealyn has become. Prior to that, she could have easily resealed Zodiark, but not anymore. That’s why the ascians prefer to do the rejoining directly in the other shards, away from the powers of Hydealyn, who could have easily strike them. But doing the rejoining by the heart of the planet was always an option, just not possible beforehand.
The scions, Venat and all the dirigeants around the world go back to the nest and through the final dungeon, defeat Zenos (who was the final boss of it) and went to confront the third trial : Zodiark. After his defeat, Venat capture his ether and become once more Hydealyn. As the goddess, she stays back in the sea of stars and restored the shards since now she is powerfull (she has the ether of zodiark in her). She will protect the stars from dying by staying there forever and keep life on etheirys. Everyone is happy, and the world is saved. The end. Of course, it is not perfect and not complete, but this is the big plot points that I would have put in my ideal endwalker.
As soon as we went back in time to elpis and it wasn't like a singular cutscene where we get some information but instead was a whole area where we started being able to walk around and talk to people I knew something was off because us doing random stuff back there should've started messing up stuff for the future but they didn't want us to think about that I guess
HerMees did nothing wrong; then so did the phantom of the opera…..
1 extra point for venat's psychopathy is that, in order to stop zodiark (who's element is 'flow'), is to cut literally everyones soul into multiple pieces, literally multiplying everyone's suffering by 13. But venat's inactivity in regards to preventing is atleast reflected in the 'element' that hydelin supposedly embodied: stagnancy.
I'm still digesting what the video is saying, so bear with me. I enjoyed EW for the most part. (Biggest things that bugged me was the reason given for fighting Venat being 'a surplus specifically to fight', and most of the hermes v2,3.. shit but I digress) I can't really argue ShB time divergence, that one's kinda a big one as it doesn't follow the other ones that are closed loops. As well as the loporits being ineffective. But one thing I did wanna touch on was the WoL 'not doing anything in Elpis after learning of Metion'. If we go with the idea that the WoL stays there and, for sake of argument, manages to help and convince the Ascians to fight off Metion somehow, we would be giving up literally everything we know because why the hell would Ascians agree to a sundering at that point? And even if they for some reason did, our world would still be gone as any 'future' we would 'return' to would be the divergent one meaning we've no fucking clue what we would find, and in our OG timeline we left, we just fucked off and left everyone to die.
Venat, from my understanding, saw the WoL as living proof of our claims for a multitude of factors, and Metion's report of the civilizations leading to dead ends, especially the paradise one I think it was, struck her as relative as the Ascians followed those same patterns as shown in the sundering scene. Which she saw as validation of how the ascians wouldn't change. The 'idea' for the story here is that Venat wasn't/wouldn't be able to change people's minds on why they should do something else. A plot hole of sorts being that the WoL could stay as a means of 'proof' but that would essentially force the player to stay in Elpis until the ascians change their mind. Which meta wise isn't really feasibly logistical to do. Not even accounting for the divergent timeline problems from doing so.
Also, bit of a divergent thought but, the events in Elpis would essentially play out the same way they normally would regardless of our involvement (save for the sundering I believe) because Metion's report is a scheduled thing, Hades and Hythlo were going to Elpis and staying anyway, Hermes's desire to listen to the report would be the same, and Khiron's memory wipe would happen as it does as a result, with the potential change being if Venat stayed/left in the dungeon considering she was trying to save us from it as a major factor for fleeing. Essentially leading to the result (from my personal perspective) that the most significant change from us going to Elpis is causing a time loop by ensuring the sundering by granting its inception in Venat's head as an option as everything else would have happened the same.
I don't think the Ascians were tempered by Zodiark for the simple reason that tempering is their invention. They made primals do that, why would they do it to themselves when they have the echo?
Also it removes agency from them as characters and robs them of a lot of the tragedy of "they want their world back and they're willing to go to any lengths to do it." Which is why they're villains at all. Agency is required for true villainy. As we see with Venat. Other than that, amazing video and a lot of really good points.
The issue with Venat is less a time travel issue and more a characterization issue. Say you come from a future controlled by Nazi Germany, then you go to the past and give Hitler the blueprints for the atomic bomb, you can't be surprised he created the exact timeline you came from. It's not so much Venat didn't try to change the timeline. Us giving her knowledge of the future causes our timeline. We are the direct cause of our own existence. She even lets the Unsundered escape in order for them to rejoin the worlds at the correct time and the correct order in order to create us. Millions, if not billions, of people were burned, drowned and buried in the inferno of our creation. Something to think about next time you're fishing on your WoL. Every rejoining was an intentional sacrifice in order to create you.
The issue here is that people are working under the assumption that with knowledge of something terrible happening that Venat would attempt to prevent the terrible thing, but we went back in time and told her how to become a god and how to shape the star to her preferences and she did exactly that. When we tell Venat, Hyth and Emet-Selch about the future, Emet-Selch is horrified by what we tell him. He doesn't see himself in the person we're describing. Venat on the other hand simply wonders what motivated her to make herself a god and wipe out her species. This isn't something outside of the things she'd do, this isn't news that horrifies her, she's just wonders what motivated her to do it. The answer to that question is Meteion's report. When Meteion said that a race of people offed themselves because they got bored with their perfect lives, that's the moment Venat decided to wipe out her species and replace it with ours. The preparations she's talking about when she's escorting you back aren't her plans to prevent the future, but to ensure it.
Venat is a psychopath. Remember in that scene when they guy is being eaten and she doesn't even bother trying to help him? That's who she is. She loves humanity as some abstract concept, not individual people. She met her goals, she saved skies and laughter. She doesn't really care who or what is looking at the sky or doing the laughing. She's Athena, but instead of turning people into half-trees, she turned them into half-bunnies and half-cats.
My guess on what happened here is they originally intended for her to be a villain, but some exec decided they wanted her to be good, so they put a coat of white paint on the darkest of acts and invented dynamis so there would be a genetic excuse to wipe out the Ancients besides just a cultural one.
👏🏽 👏🏽 👏🏽 👏🏽 👏🏽
Bravo!!
Given how poorly the game is translated many of these could just be translation issues.
I have many issues with your logic, understanding and claims, but presenting that would require at least 2 hours, so I shall digress. Suffice to say that the Venat storyline makes sense to me. You can't expect complete perfection. There are no glaring issues with it. As with nonexistence, people have difficulties in understanding causality. Free will is not binary, the question itself is a mirage. Yeah, time travel is mostly bullshit, but in this game it's so far internally consistent. If you want a weak point in the story, explain how Elidibus saw us at Elpis, and how it fits with the raid storyline.
>Tfw my wol doesn't have a messiah complex so they don't have a problem with the ancients being gone
Feels good to be buds with Zenos.
Yet again thank you for the video. Venat never sat well with me and a poster on the forums once point out if this was any other FF game Venat would have easily been the well intentioned villain which I have to agree with. Even if I am being fair with her utter inaction and looking at how her plan worked out it makes no sense, her absolute faith in the sundered could overcome Endsinger comes down to a handful of people and ultimately the actions of a rogue agent she could have never banked on in Zenos showing up to stop Endsinger's Ultimatum.
While I know you shouldn't need side content to understand a story and I agree with that notion Encyclopedia Eorzea 3 really didn't help her portrayal as a character and helped solidified in my own interpretation of her she had long lost faith in her own people. This is a note about her sword Allegoria from EE3- "A weapon of Venat's own making, the concept for this versatile armament was never registered at the Bureau of the Architect. Allegoria was described not as a single weapon, but several somehow merged into a vessel in which could change form in accordance with the wielder's needs in battle. Why Venat never chose to divulge the secrets on it's creation is unclear but perhaps she feared they might fall into the wrong hands at the wrong time." I wish I was making that up but I wrote it verbatim. She didn't trust her own people with the concept for a sword that could become other weapons. This woman is insane.
I really wish the game would have taken a true neutral to both side of the whole Zodiark and Hydaelyn debate and pointed out both were wrong in the main story. I know the EW Omega quests exist but picking all were wrong is an option there and not mandatory and that content itself is very optional.
My overall view of the game at this point is certainly not positive as DT repeated a lot of the sins EW skated by on and I do hope to enjoy your future content if only for the feeling of some amount of catharsis.
Having to do the Pandaemonium raids after coming to similar conclusions to this video felt like having salt rubbed in the wound.
The entire initial premise being predicated on going to the past again because the problem there might make the Final Days worse if it's not addressed made me seethe when there was the alternative of "try to prevent the Final Days entirely" when we had a certain emissary present whom we befriended then neglected to tell anything to.
Thank you for this video. Endwalker proper and how it handled Venat was what started turning me away from the game, and the post Endwalker patches are what
finally succeeded. I hated the feeling that I was crazy since everyone loved her, and I just could not. I hated that she turned us into hypocrites. All our morals from everything before then in the game forgotten and turned into "well, it is okay if we say so." I hated that she hit the reset button on the world and wiped out all the life she was supposedly fighting for. I hate that she is never called out for this, and treated only as some benevolent force, despite the fact that she, by her actions, has more blood on her hands than anyone else in the story. She is more of a villain than anyone we fought against, and the story just goes on about how much she loves us and did it all for us (and how thankful we are).
I also hated that the story showed us one thing via quests, and then just told us we had to believe something else because it said so. I had such a huge disconnect after playing that expansion. Our morals don't matter, what we see in the story doesn't matter. If we decide we are right, well then fuck everyone else's point of view or right to live. That despite us going on and on in previous expansions that every life matters.
A few points I would like to add, however.
One, the third sacrifice was never really mentioned what it would be. It is usually brought up as a portion of the planet's aether, which literally could have been enough plants and animals over time (remember the Ancients were near immortal). It could also have been sapients, true, but it was never specified that it was. If the former, it really is not a lot different than us slaughtering animals and harvesting plants for food. If the latter, well, fair enough. Though Venat still wiped any of that new life out with the Sundering clear as any sacrifice would have. Life was set back to zero with no real knowledge of what it was before. It had to start again. She basically murdered everyone, and we never get to call her out.
Especially if the former, you can't really blame them for wanting to restore their world and their people. Specially since the souls in Zodiark were still aware. The entire game has been us fighting for our loved ones and our homes, and we are supposed to fault the Ancients for wanting the same?
Second, I would like to talk about the gods. She mentions that Mankind should hold their own destiny and dislikes their reliance on Zodiark, so her solution is to murder everyone, split the world into pieces (a lot of which she knew were doomed to die, btw), and instill gods of her choosing that we need to pray to in order to keep the whole thing apart and stable. Those gods are gone now, but they left the machine that will turn people's prayers in the energy that will keep the Shards stable. Everyone in the questline was upset that the gods were leaving, and I was just sitting there thinking "My gods Venat is a bitch." No one even brings up the how hypocritical it was to denounce one god and then single handedly install your own. No one ever brings up the horror that if people stop praying to them the world basically ends. Heh, that was the storyline that finally did me in.
Sorry about the rant btw. I just… ung. I hated Endwalker and what it did to our characters and the story so, so much. Thank you kindly for the video though. I agreed with all your points, and it was entertaining to watch. I appreciate the time it took to make. 🙂
You don't disappoint with building up hype for future videos. This one was quite eye-opening.
While I could write an entire essay about it, it is 2:45AM and I meant to do this 5 hours ago, so I'll be brief. Basically, my tunnel vision hatred for the dark theme of EW's MSQ "I don't want to live, so everyone has to go gently into that good night with me", which was then laser-focused onto Hermes (can't wait for you to dissect him), made me miss a lot of details about Venat's issues and other issues I am sure I missed as I just couldn't get invested into most of EW, I'll spare you the bullet points. I called bullcrap on Hermes saying letting Meteion escape while erasing our memories is fair, but failed to notice Venat's…plan. Particularly because, according to you, in one timeline, the WoL is dead? I either completely forgot that or missed it somehow. I thought the Crystal Tower and G'raha's plan was to simply bring us to The First to save it from The Light. Different dimensions, not different timelines. As for the Black Rose Game Over, honestly, I don't remember it at all. I don't even remember if I remembered it during EW. It feels vaguely familiar, maybe I misunderstood it as what COULD happen as opposed to what DID happen (I cannot stress how vague the memory is), but prior to EW, I don't remember The Bad Ending for us at all. I played FF14 from the beta to just a little bit after meeting Zero and ending 2 out of the 4 Fiends. Of all the things I remember, G'raha time travelling to prevent Black Rose isn't one of them and I find that concerning. At any rate, if I had remembered that, Venat's decision might have popped out more to me…that and if I was actually enjoying EW enough to absorb the story. That character bio and stuff you showed and read is definitely something I haven't read. Anyroad, I just want to end it by saying I appreciate you calling bullcrap on "leaving the story up to the player's interpretations" instead of any real answers. That always bothers me, but even I understand the difference between a truly ambiguous ending and bad, lazy writing. As I stated and hid poorly during my playthrough, I didn't overly enjoy EW. My least favorite expansion. I enjoyed maybe 30% of the MSQ, and even then, that was largely because of Zenos (looking forward to his video too even though I sense you won't like him as much as I do)…but that also was hit because of freaking Fandaniel. The other parts I enjoyed, sad to say, wasn't related too much to the MSQ. Like Zero or the EW Raids, for example. Maybe my subconscious is why EW just vexed me to no end. It never felt good to me like the other expansions. I thought it was just me that disliked EW and the bad writing didn't start till DT…but now, I see it was way sooner than I thought… And no, this isn't my essay. I can go even further beyond. Lol
But thanks for reading.
Venat was the ten year story arc big bad we needed. Instead we got depressed bird.
Can I murder wuk lamat please?
Yoshi struggled to explain the time travel issue when asked this directly. As you note, he had to comment something to the effect that it would always have played out this way (imagine the implications of this…) but also that it could be interpreted that a divergence did not occur because Venat actively worked to ensure that (so far from being a hapless victim of a time loop, she is actively ensuring one… this is consistent with her sparing Emet to aid her plan, thus ensuring the Rejoinings, the war with the dragons, etc etc., which all taken alone is monstrous.)
I agree with you that the number of possible butterfly effects here is legion, and yet this is not really addressed. It's possible (even if it has bizarre implications) that time is linear but Elpis, as a puzzle piece, can affect that directionality but… he recently confirmed the setting can be read as a multiverse where any number of triggering events can result in an alternate universe (AU), in the context of the sheer amount of possible settings they could explore. So even that doesn't stack up. And this made me even more despondent about the future of this game as multiverses can be very messy, especially in the hands of undisciplined writers like XIV's.
Elidibus's statements on the past are bizarre, even if you took them as meaning "even if you want to interfere, you won't be able to". I don't think he accounted for Emet reinforcing your aether once he saw you're an Azem droplet. But no, he does sound like he's cautioning against the interference… only for Venat to later mention, as you note, that it will affect their and not your timeline.
I think even if you argued that the WoL was tetchy about how an AU might play out during their first foray to Elpis, this argument is completely defeated by the time you're going back there on the reg and going to Panda to help deal with the nascent crisis there. At that point, after Venat confirmed that the supposed conjunction of timelines had completed, I think it was pretty weak of the WoL and crew not to begin examining the situation more seriously and considering how they could've aided the ancients. I don't think the writers really thought about it this way, as is par the course for EW.
I absolutely agree with you that the writers should ensure all material needed to understand the story is in the game – this was the major challenge of debating EW and why we chose, via Echoes of Etheirys, to redress this problem. It was a lot of work because the writers' statements are all over the place.
After Beyond the Rift undermined the core of Venat's "suffering good" reasoning, EE3 was really the final nail in the Venat/EW coffin. It makes me wonder if the writers just don't coordinate or if there's some dissent in the team itself regarding how the story was written. The latter seems plausible given that EW seemed like Yoshi and Ishikawa pushing their pet characters (Venat and Hermes, respectively) at the expense of everything else.
Regarding tempering, I'd say watch the latest video from Echoes of Etheirys on this. The term is diffuse and people tend to conflate post-Sundering tempering (tampered with by the Ascians deliberately to sow chaos) with the energy alignment aspect of it that a large primal summoning like Zodiark's would cause. As we detail in that video, the tempering of the Ascians did not deprive them of their free will, and this is particularly evident with Emet-Selch and Fandaniel (Emet remarks in SHB that they choose the sundered shards as Overlords, even though any would technically do, because faith in Zodiark is engraved on their souls… well, we saw how that turned out.) Emet himself chooses to upset their plans and enact his own 'test', the result of which he honours even if it harms their own plans. I think the reason the Convocation wasn't swayed was more so that Venat's proffered rationale was weak. EE3 confirms this was the supposed 'volatility' of creation magicks, but we know why that was the case. She omitted the reason. So of course the Convocation would not be swayed to give up something so core to their civilisation. All this to me means it was a real risk that they could be swayed, even if they were unlikely to be given the paucity of her faction's rationale. You could read it, I guess, as her being assured in her belief that the Convocation would never buy this, since she's not revealing the truth. It's probably why she refused to speak badly of their motives in that scene. She knew they were doing their best given the knowledge she had allowed them.
Anyway, the way EW presents the third sacrifice is kinda strawman-y, and when you take into account EE3 on the basis of the Schism (="volatility" of creation magicks) and the fact that their brethren's souls were trapped in Zodiark and unable to return to the star, a thing they valued, the third sacrifice makes more sense to me. So I don't think even the third sacrifice objection is fair, especially given that the ancients lacked any context behind Venat's true concerns. Her reasoning has little to do with saving the vague lives in the third sacrifice and is all in service of her belief that suffering is 'necessary' and that this sacrifice would entail a reversion to the status ante quo, and thus 'doom' them.
Regardless, like you say, she could've altered this if she offered the full information, so they knew the stakes and what they were up against, but I think it's important to understand that preventing the sacrifice is done for utilitarian reasons and her beliefs about suffering and less so the actual lives, which are stated by shade hyth in the JP version to have been sown by Zodiark. There's also evidence from the dialogue in her short story and EE3 that her faction were switching the context a bit. When they speak of the "new life" inheriting the star, it seems they had the sundered in mind. Restoring the ancients would mean they keep using their creation magicks, as before. I think what happened is she may have fudged the truth a bit and presented as if the creations being sown by Zodiark could evolve to be sentient that way, when in reality her faction's intent was to sunder their own kind and really meant the sundered… but this is all speculation on my part because the writers refuse to be drawn out on it. Either way, the point here is her focus is the result of the sacrifices completing (reversion to how things were, hence their 'doom' will repeat), whereas she wanted to remake mankind. EoE goes over that in the video on the Schism. The whole affair seems to be her attempt to buy herself time and support to bring Hydaelyn into existence, if I'm to be frank.
To steelman it, even if we ignore everything I said about tempering or the third sacrifice: she ultimately allowed the situation to get to this point, and to escalate from there. Tempering is something Venat knew how to shield against, so if that was to become an obstacle, it would be one she allowed for. Even the third sacrifice was a situation that only arose because of the nature of the solution the ancients were forced to resort to, and in the final analysis, she seems to have ensured events would take that course. And all for what? The vanity of winning some ideological bet against an insane psychopath whose test had to be honoured so she could be proven right, that life will endure regardless of form… provided we let this abstraction fool us into overlooking the mountain of corpses, of the ancients, of the sundered who had to die for her plan to work, and all the worlds Endsinger killed off after she began her "song". Never has the story allowed us to entertain the notion that it's right to wipe out the sundered owing to their many flaws, so why would this suddenly be fine with the ancients? Seems like protagonist centric morality.
Your breakdown of Hades and Lahabrea in Panda is good. One thing that stuck with me is that for all this nonsense about how Venat had to subject her people to immense suffering to prepare them for Endsinger (I won't tread over the absurdity of this), the Ascians as a collective, and particularly the three unsundered, toil for close on 12k years to restore their civilisation. This is a strength of will that is almost inconceivable, and they do so even at immense personal cost (Lahabrea loses his mind, Elidibus sacrifices memories dear to him, and Emet struggles with the blood cost of it all.) So the belief that the inventive and stoic ancients would inherently lack the mental resilience to go through with such a task is just another lie that EW tries to sell, to me. Just tell them the truth, lady! They could then begin working on indirect methods, like the hemitheos project under work in Panda, which allowed merger with creations… imagine if one was an entelechy. Or they could selectively sunder a few of their own. Or devise entelechies or primals attuned to destroying Meteion. Etc etc. Counterfactuals her silence never allowed to be explored.
Her just accepting Hermes's insane 'test' is what really broke any belief I had in her as having reasonable intentions. She's little different to many a villain in 14, but to name a few… Thordan, Ilberd, Zenos, Guildivain (SGE quest villain), Athena (Venat without the pretence) and now … even facets of Zoraal Ja. Just a lot more feel-good fluff wrapped around her. The Hildibrand quests brought up at least one alien world the Endsinger's Final Days had consumed. I'd listen to the lyrics of Dragonsong (sung by Hydaelyn) again after playing through EW… the sheer lack of self awareness is almost admirable.
What I hate most about EW is that FF as a series has a strong 'defy fate' theme, whereas EW at its core is surrender to fate and try pretend this is a good thing or that that somehow is 'defying' fate. To which I say… lmao.
I'm highly confused, maybe someone can summarize Venat's reasons for not telling Emet-Selch what happened?
Maybe because the Sundering was neccessary, so the split souls (less rich in aether) can wield Dynamis to defeat Meteion?
Because there was no other way to prevent the End Days since Meteion escaped?
But as you said, there could have been better alternatives than Zodiarcs aethercage. Like creating another creature to go after Meteion etc, so why didn't Venat say anthing afterwards?
Man, I need to replay the whole MSQ, beceause I wish I payed more attention. Would have saved me from suffering through Dawntrail…
5:10 I have to respectfully disagree. ES and Hyth absolutely made a sacrifice, as there was no way to restore their memories prior to death. Venat would have to convince them to help her, without a shred of proof, to work against Fandaniel. Exceedingly difficult and risky.
6:10 A somewhat harsh assumption. We don’t get to see the rest of her preparations, even though she said she’s going to make them. Perhaps she “Did nothing else”, as you say. Perhaps she did a great deal. We weren’t shown, so we don’t know. At least, not yet.
8:40 – What do you mean "No Damage Done?"? When G'raha was sent back in time to the First, as you said, the 8th calamity timeline still existed. They need to exist to send him back. They knew this and did so anyway, because ti would bring salvation, if not to them, then those of the alternate timeline. If anyone from that timeline lives on, it is from the knowledge and hope that they did what they could, as that is what bostered our ability to overcome despair.
But in the end, it did sentence them to their miserable existence for all eternity. For all we know, Meteion ended the universe soon after the final rejoining there.
That said, here is the difference between what G'raha did and what Venat did. The people in the 8th calamity timeline CHOSE to send him back with the intent of changing history, knowing full well they would not see or prosper from it. That they would need to continue their dreadful existence to ensure it didnt cause a paradox. Alternatively, we are sent back with the help of Elidibus in a similar manner, being told we cannot effect meaningful change. WHY? Because changing things would doom our current timeline to a similar fate. THIS is the conclusion Venat came to. We can't change the past, only work for the future. So she took the knowledge we gave her, as part of the potential paradox, and instead of condemning the current timeline to death or worse, went above and beyond, so far as to ensuring the same misery and plague occurs in order to maintain everything to happen as it did before. THAT is a hell of an undertaking, even for a god.
It is the one and only explanation for her to not do anything else. And it was only after trying to get Fandaniel to work out the issue of DYnamis, or for Azem to support her when informing them, she came to the sad conclusion that there was no alternative. She said as much herself when she ponders why she would do the things she did, become Hydaelyn, and commit ot the path we said she followed. She followed it for a reason, and she came to the conclusion that it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, and a road she was forced to walk to maintin the status quo and ensure the paradox didnt cause their teimeline to end.
24:00 – Just to clarify, because you keep incorrectly saying it, we did not time travel in Shadowbringrs. G'raha travelled back in time from an alternate future to a point in the First's past, after the flood but before the events of its destruction. WE traveled to the First via a teleport spell from the PRESENT, a time where the speed of time between the Source and the First were in synch (possibly due to and needed for the ardor to occur). We were not travelling to the past to change the present, we were told the events of an alternate future, and acted on them despite the consequence of sentencing the other timeline to death or worse. WE DID NOT TIME TRAVEL IN 5.0.
All they had to say is that if we did help them metion would not be solved and she would probably be be far stronger on our return or even going there in the 1st place would kill more than it saved…
Metion is an unsundered being so I get the feeling that she is the same throughout all timelines but that itself is a can of worms so after we defeat metion shouldn't she no longer be a threat to the elpis we went to?
or are the many endsingers out there what if they decide to trave across timeline? what if we met an even stonger endsinger or 5 endsingers??
the Amouratines could not perceive Dynamis so it would be useless for them to try and to attack her.
Time travel is such a bad plot device it makes things so convoluted
I personally feel like the end of days should have went on longer it should have been everywhere and you have the red sky and stronger monsters all over no instances so the monsters could spawn so it does not hurt new players or maybe the level 1 monsters appear as level 90 monsters.
The fact that some people actually think endwalker is the best writing in the game pains me to no end
Zenos helping us defeat venat would have been peak giving his heritage
great video, I enjoyed it a lot because I really disliked endwalker. My friends say I "think too much" for the plot, whatever that means. I think though the most egregious part of endwalker was meteion. A decade long story, that had all sorts of plot hooks and breadcrumbs and hints only for in the 11th hour the villain to come out and it be one that no matter how much you paid attention, you never could have seen coming. Ten years of build up, anticipation, theories, lore posts, etc…for nothing.