FFXIV Lore/Analysis - Venat, the Flawed Hero 

In Ultima Thule, when we summon Emet and Hythlo, I read Emet's "commendation" very differently. A lot of people, including you, assume he is talking about Venat, but this comes after a brief pause, almost as if he is shifting his focus. He also looks directly at US, the WoL, and caps it all off by saying "as a show of respect to the last of us". Now, you can absolutely read Venat/Hydaelyn as the "last of us" in some respects, but in many ways it is US, the embodiment of the sundered soul of Azem who is indeed the last ancient, and I totally read this as Emet talking directly to us. At this point, every other ancient, Venat included, is gone. She has entrusted us with the duty to finish the task after setting us on the path, and she admits that we have surpassed her. She is essentially putting her faith in us that we will find a way where she cannot necessarily see the path, much like Emet uses his final appearance to do an about face from his ShB rhetoric ("I find you lacking." "You cannot be entrusted with the fate of this star.") to literally pass us the reins ("You must be commended... my methods would not have brought mankind this far." "If you would do something for me... save our star."). So yeah. You might read this bit as directed at Venat, but I'm pretty sure he's talking to us. Both Venat and Emet are passing the torch to their old friend, Azem, who literally embodies a kind of Third Way that neither of them could see.

On the subject of symbolism, one of my favorite things about Venat and Hydaelyn is how they seem to parallel the Gnostic creation myth of Sophia and the Demiurge. We know the writers are definitely aware of Gnostic mythology because there was a literal primal based off of the same myth back in Heavensward, but there are even more references and allusions surrounding Hydaelyn specifically, like the approach to her in the Anti-Tower being called the Pleroma, or her most devoted servants all being dubbed Archons. In fact, some of the earliest "Is Hydaelyn a baddie?" theories that I remember seeing all the way back in 1.0 were based off of these references. In Gnostic mythology, an Archon is a kind of spiritual demon who encourages humans to indulge in their worldly desires in order to prevent them from realizing the truth: that the world we live in is an imperfect emanation (sometimes described as a reflection) of a once perfect and harmonious existence. Our flawed world was created by the Demiurge, a dumb, ignorant, or outright malicious false god who is the source of all human suffering, and that the only way to escape this prison is to open your third eye wide enough to abandon your physical form, prevent your own reincarnation back into this fallen world, and rejoin perfection in the Pleroma. FFXIV kind of took this and ran with it, but with a twist. The Ascians were basically your classic Gnostics from the word go, lamenting the fact they were forced to live in an inferior world full of maladies they never had to deal with before, forever cursing the supposedly evil god who condemned them to this hell for no reason besides her own vanity. In nearly all media with a Demiurge-inspired character, that character is objectively evil as hell. They exist for almost no reason other than to inflict suffering or maintain a flawed order, often just to force humanity to worship them. How could that ever be justified? Sometimes for variety JRPGs will mash up the Gnostic Demiurge with Jung's Demiurge, and you'll get Xenogears or multiple SMT/Persona games, where instead of a literal Demiurge born from the unity of the Pleroma you'll get a metaphorical Demiurge that arises from the collective unconscious of humanity. But FFXIV is the first story I've seen that straight up takes the Gnostic creation myth and reinterprets Sophia's sin (giving birth to the Demiurge without the support of the other Aeons and thus creating the imperfect material world) as a straight up good thing, a revolutionary act of love. It emphatically says that the flawed world the Demiurge created is actually great, and that the people who live there are better off for having learned to derive meaning from their suffering instead of rejecting it outright and only accepting perfection. Gnostic mythology is surprisingly popular in Asian media, possibly because it allows you to use Christian religious imagery while still justifying your big bad being capital g God, but there are actually a lot interesting similarities between Gnosticism and other eastern religions that make it fertile grounds for comparison, except those eastern religions tend to be a lot less pessimistic about the potential of life than the Gnostics typically were. I think that's why they chose to bring Thavnair into this expansion, their very Hindu and Buddhist-influenced perspective was seemingly handpicked to point out the similarities and differences, and then they threw in a little existentialism with Zenos at the end. I still can't get over how well-crafted Endwalker's themes were, I had a lot of faith and even I wasn't expecting them to pay off over a decade of foreshadowing as well as they did.

Venat knew what the consequences would be of sundering the world before she did it, she met the WoL prior to then and was told how much suffering would be caused by her actions. But remember the conversation on the bridge about how even after the untold suffering there is thousands of years later there is still joy, happiness and adventure. She had already seen that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I think meeting the WoL is one thing that helped to steel her resolve to sunder the world.

30:00 - There's a difference here. Venat knew of the future, was forewarned of it and may have even tried to take another path that does not result in the Sundering (something she said to WoL just before leaving Elpis). But all other options might have been exhausted by then and she came to realize the Sundered world was the only way to overcome the Final Days without the constant need of human sacrifices.

I think a lot of people forget that we don't see every last little thing Venat got up to. There's a lot of bad faith criticism about her, claiming she didn't do enough. We know she planned well enough to create an entire fucking celestial body to serve as a spaceship to escape the final days. Might she not have a metric ton of contingencies? We don't know. We just don't. I think some people had such keen pity for Emet and Elidibus and the others that they are willing to assume the worst of her. Her actions and manner in Endwalker lead me to believe that, while she understood We were the one she was waiting for, she definitely did try to mitigate and push back against her identity.

I chose that Venat, Emmet, and Hermes all were justified in their own way. Each saw a problem in their world and sought to correct it in the ways they thought best. Granted the actions that they took to correct the problems they saw I cannot condone. Not a single one of them. But like you touched upon in the video, the ancients are fundamentally different from us in a variety of ways. Their life spans, their dreams, their entire culture is alien to us in subtle ways that only really lightly get touched upon in hermes's story unfolding in elpis. And it all resolves around the value of life, and death in their eyes. I would argue that, for the Ancients compared to modern humanity life and death have inversed weight. For sundered being death is constant, frequent, and a companion ever eager to embrace us. It is impactful, but also dulls us to it emotional impact after awhile. It's why mankind post sundering is more easily able to go to war and kill their fellows, something that is in comparisons unthinkable in the ancient society by my understanding. On the inverse, for Ancients Life is abundant and long lasting. And while they do respect the accomplishments of one's life it's more of just a means to a end, that 'beautiful death' they talk about and wax romantics about. Since death happens so infrequently and only when one choses to it's seen as a celebratory thing. Like... ah, I just thought of this, but it's celebrated in almost the same way that modern mankind would celebrate a birth of a child. To that end, for someone like Emmt who quite literally had the hopes and prays and history of his entire people weighing on his back. I can say he was justified in his actions he took. He refused to just blindly cave to them and seemingly tested the new form of mankind to see if they were worthy (Jury's out on if it was a rigged test or not, Tempering via Zodiark or no). But yeah, I don't know if I could say I would have done differently in Emmt's shoes. Or he done differently in mine. He was also raised up to be, effectively the top brass of the ancients. If there ever was someone to make choices on behalf of the ancients even in their sundered forms it'd be Emmt. For Hermes, Elpis Hermes was less a man and more a young confused adolescent. Hermes was, quite frankly a man raised into a position he had no business being in from a emotional/responsibility viewpoint. Both as the overseer to Elpis and on the convocation as Fandaniel. The reason he was raised to these positions was his knowledge and understanding though, which is valued highly in ancient society . The ends(His understanding of aeather vs dynamis ) I mean, and not the means in which they get there (Hermes reasons for learning about dynamis, ie his depression, is less important). And this creates the main 'contradiction' in his eyes. If he is so smart, so revered, why do people not listen to his words when he talks of aberrations and how what they do to their creations is wrong? About how this peer pressure to return to the star is wrong? And it causes doubt in his mind, in his self, and his well 'purpose' which we learn is the singular most important thing in this society. One's purpose, finding it, and achieving it, before returning to the star. So, when confronted with a, quite frankly tidal wave of heavy things to learn. That he supposedly causes the fall of the ancients far and wide, that the people beyond the stars he sought for help and guidance (Like, one would a mentor figure since he had none because he had risen to a position where no one could be above him too quickly) were all dealing with or rather failing to deal with similar issues like him, and that his peer's reaction were to from his PoV try and sweep all this under the rug and go back to normal to not address the issues staring, nay yelling at him in the face? Quite frankly I'm not surprised the man broke at that point, and defaulted to his training and upbringing to a horrifying level. Treating his fellow man as nothing more then a creation to be 'tested'. In his mind it was the only way to connect everything well. If his objections to the way the creations were tested, and discarded were wrong. Then surly that meant it was fine to subject mankind to a similar treatment since it would be 'for the betterment of the star' no? A twisted view, but I can understand how Hermes got there, though of course I cannot condone the action. And then there's Venat. Truthfully there's a lot of unknown blank space in which she likely acted, tried to find another way. We have no idea of how long a time was between us leaving Elpis and the end of the ancients. Though I imagine it would be a frightfully long time from our scale of it. I don't see Venat's choice to work without the convocation as a arbitrary choice to set things up in the closed time loop, but rather the correct pragmatic choice. She knows that, should she leave Hermes and the convocation alone they will one, inform the populace of the final days which would help them understand the gravity of it en mass without panicking (which would accelerate their fall to dynamis) rather then her being a single important person saying so. And Hermes himself as Fandniel would do much to stall the deadline of having to solve the issue, as well as be a backup plan should she not figure out a way to stop Mettion. As you said in your video, that cutscene, she very likely struggled with a complex range of emotions when she sundered the world. Some we more then likely could not even begin to comprehend. But she doesn't let her feelings justify or absolve her of the consequences of her actions. She knows she did something horrible, and even if it was for the betterment of all. It was still a horrible thing to do, for the past and future of mankind. And yet, I find her justified in her actions, here she was a outsider, and outlier to ancient society. She shirks tradition and marches to the beat of her own drum and is recognized and celebrated for it both as the accomplishments she made as Azem, and her willingness to help with problems small and big afterwards. So, in an almost similar way to other two, Venat was in a uniquely powerful position as far as ancients go. Where her words carried a lot of weight, and her decisions were almost universally thought of as good for the star. So if anything I think it speaks to her character that she knew what she was doing when she sundered the star and still chose to do it. Obviously we cannot relate with that choice. But I for one can at least respect it. To intentionally scar the world, humanity, and put them though unfair adversity in the hopes it would toughen them up is a hard choice to make. Doubly so for someone like Venat who clearly loves freely and deeply. I imagine it would have pained her greatly to a extent we can't really ever know. So in essence, I think that makes her the perfect character to have done the sundering, she's someone who knows the full detail of what it would entail, what it would do, and what it would cost. Someone who'd bear the full weight of the choice, and yet bear it for the hope that the children she sundered would grow stronger for it. Much like how some mothers in nature will throw their children out of the proverbial nest in hopes that they will grow up better for it.

The fight between Hydaelyn and Zodiark, could have been done by the player, not as a raid, but as a solo instance where you play Hydaelyn, changing weapons and in the end finish with the strongest limit break 3 ever: The Sundering!

Hey there, nice to finally see the Hydaelyn video uploaded! I haven’t yet watched all of it, but kudos for the effort that you put into such a long and detailed analysis. I appreciate addressing the issues with the dialogue options and how the protagonist is not allowed a choice in the matter. One specific thing I wanted to address, however, is the claim that Venat’s, Hermes’s, and Emet’s(And Lahabrea’s and Elidibus’s) decisions show that ancients are built different and that it was a common thing for them to make such sweeping choices over everyone else. Starting with the Unsundered trio, when they made the decision to go through with rejoining, all of them were traumatized beyond any reasonable measure. They saw everyone they ever knew die in various ways(getting torn by the beasts, being sacrificed for Zodiark, being sundered and becoming mindless creatures as NIER reincarnation showed), and by the point they made this decision they were desperate and had no other way to save those still trapped in Zodiark. This shows them as very human, and I think most people in their situation(if they had as much power as the Unsundered do) would at least attempt the plan. They aren’t a fitting metric for judging ancients as a whole. In their normal state, they all were different people, for example, Elidibus/Themis’s duty is to be impartial as an emissary and give equal opportunity for each point of view in the convocation, which categorically goes against them being a race to make such choices for others. As for Venat and Hermes, they are the outliers, much the same way people like Thordan or Zenos are, and it would be unfair to use them to judge this race as a whole. The initial sacrifices to Zodiark showed that the actual mentality of the ancients was the one that allowed choice but encouraged commitment and self-sacrifice for the star, as all of them were voluntary and it was far from one or a few people making this choice for everyone. Similarly, there are other examples of ancient’s culture like the emphasis of evaluating and respecting all points of view regardless of how different they might be. Even in Elpis, the side quests show that there are a lot of ancients who are caring and considerate towards their creation, doing their best for them to succeed. One of those quests even has an observer(Charmion) hear a perspective from the WOL who she considers a simple familiar and note its value and how it broadened her horizon. This is a far cry from people who are stuck in their beliefs and never concede, no matter how terrible the outcome. As for the Omega quest: I chose Emet because I think he was the most justified compared to the other two, even though he has obviously done some horrible stuff too.

Omg idk how I missed this upload! Been missing your character analysis so much. Very excited to watch this!

after replaying on a new character I was quiet shocked how early the writers dropped the "you are tempered by Hydaelyn" red hering. So early indeed that it propably went over most peoples heads because the game haven't yet given the required informations to figure it out: After the Garuda trial she tries to temper you only for it to be unsuccessful. Her words after that were: "Ahh, she allready claimed you!" implying another primal was allready in charge of the WoL... most likely Hydaelyn.

Hearing you say "apathy leads to death" and being instantly smacked with Kreia flashbacks

Hey man, this is a seriously great video. I really appreciate your style n tone.

hell yeah, i knew the venat analysis would eventually come!

Another addition. Making this in parts to not create a wall of text. To your part 1a. I would say the first time you are to think about Hydaelyns intentions is in the dungeon scene of the Anti-Tower. The reason I say this is because at the end, before she fades away, she tells you to "Seek the Truth of the World yourself." Meaning to go and learn yourself of what the secrets to the story arc, are. There are a lot of little things people miss that ffxiv plants for the players. ^-^

Brilliant video - cheers

What I love is that Hydaelyn ultimately is a primal so she does ultimately temper people but not in the same way as the rest of the primals. Her tempering forces people to "Hear, Feel, Think" and thus gain free will through her tempering/blessing.

i love all your analysis vids man, now i finished EW, i can explore the lore more! Ty.

I'll say.. when she dropped her song scroll on my first time doing her extreme... i have never seen two words carry more lore impact

these videos are like my therapy after the sadness of endwalker :))) thank you for making this amazing video

Glad to see another video. Today is going to be a good day

Venat and Hades, ally and anthagonist, hero and villain both, depending on who's tale you tell

with regards to the idea about a counter modifying the context of the Hydaelyn fight, they've already kind of done similar things such as the scene where the armies are gathering at Ala Mhigo and who speaks changes based on your current job and how far you've progressed in the class quests--it would definitely be possible to apply something like that to Hydaelyn.

I like your version for the cutscene and wish that would have been how the game made it, with the possible exception of showing the fight between Zodiark and Hydaelyn. Considering the kind of powers going on there, there's a good chance they might not have been able to do it justice in the game engine, so leaving it to people's imaginations might be the better choice. Or they could cheat by making it a montage of still images, with just the opening attacks and final blow being fully animated, or do the in-between in a similar way to Hraesvelgar's clash with Niddhog in Heaven's Ward, were at one point we can only see lights flashing around, while the Earth trembles from their clashes. I am absolutely with you on the point of not showing Venat's faction. Even if they wanted to prioritize Venat's emotions, it was an odd choice to me, since having to sacrifice her faction to prevent the other faction from making more sacrifices in the future is part of her complex emotional state, so just glossing over those other people just feels wrong, even from a purely Venat-centric perspective. Just having them standing in the background and not doing anything at all could have been great. Imagine Venat at her most devastated moment, looking back over her shoulder, to have her faction standing there, nodding to her, both bolstering her resolve and breaking her heart further at the same time with what has to be done. The Mother Crystal trial was really difficult. For some reason my monitor was constantly on the frizz, going out out of focus and wavering, like I was seeing it through a layer of water. :P

Great video, great analysis. Btw. do you know why Hades and Lahabrea were able to avoid the sundering?

hell yeah brother. thank you for all you do for the ffxiv literacy group

what reshade/gshade is that? it looks really beautiful

I think Venat/Hydaelyn essentially came to the same conclusion I did about the worshippers of Zodiark who became the later Ascians, that they had been conditioned (or tempered) by Zodiark to always want to sacrifice a portion of their people to their manufactured primal deity. First it was a sacrifice to restore Etheirys to its state from before the Final Days, undoing the destruction of the summoned blasphemies and the damage to their cities and settlements. Then, it was yet another planned sacrifice to restore the previous people who had been sacrified to summon Zodiark to begin with. Had Venat not intervened, I have no doubts sacrifices would've continued on, for less and less rational cause until almost none of the Ancients remained alive to be sacrificed. Emet-Selch himself confesses he and the other Ascians had been tempered, although he tries gamely to fob off the effect of this as minimal for an unsundered such as himself. I think in his heart of hearts Emet-Selch and Elidibus both knew this, too; which is why they subconsciously engineered their own deaths in the course of Shadowbringers, bringing a final conclusion to the Ascian plot to restore Etheirys-that-was.

Mate.. you need a lot more of Abo's.. great vid!

I think one of the most unique and interesting things about Venat is that by sundering the Ancients she brought mortality to the realm meaning she IS Death. And with how much black stained her for her decision essentially forcing her to become the black hooded Death we know she actively chooses to instead become a Goddess dressed in white and present herself as a mother excited to see her children come home to hear of their tales as she puts them to sleep. And you can see it in the lyrics for Flow, a song written vaguely of who it's true recipient is as it's meant for all who must eventually return to the Aetherial Sea

how did they escape the sundering, for those who didn't watch the Q&A?

Thank you for this broad analysis. Maybe Venat not returning to the Aetherial sea should be seen as good. She may have gained the spiritual understanding necessary and is now liberated from continuous death and rebirth.

52:34 I love your retelling of the sundering in that level 87 cutscene. You should make a video just with that idea and forward it to the devs to see if they can make those changes xD

I can simplify it for you even more. It's a choice between choosing life, choosing the future (delayed gratification) and throwing a toddler tantrum because you don't like the present. The reason I can forgive Venat is that she made a very hard choice and chose a future with life in in and Emet-Selch was more than willing to slaughter millions of others so he could live in the past, never having to accept how he got to stay there. Venat knew what she was doing. Emet-Selch went mad trying to deny what he'd done.

i dont know if you ever thought of it or are interested but wouldnt it be interesting to make a indepth video of the wol and there role in the game and there relationships with the scions and people around them

I know I'm doubling comments, but God after listening to your description of the battle between Zodiark and Hydaelyn, a familiar desire hits me. I wish ferverantly that maybe some time in the distant future, like when ff14 has truly ended, that they would do a rpg remake of the games. Fix the original game and make a single player rpg out of it, and do each of the expansions as their own thing. With high quality graphics, more voiced cutscenes, and maybe a bit firmer of a WoL, whether it be derplander or one warrior for each race that you can choose at the very beginning. Just so that we can see high fedelity Hydaelyn vs Zodiark, and a few more unique renderings. Also, while I understand your desire to see the encounter, think about something. Yoshi P and his team struggled to get the game out in time. I think that, if you gave them longer, they may have. But I just think Endwalker was supremely ambitious already.

good video. Hit the two buttons.

Was the story good? Yes. was it worth it? Fuck yeah!

At 41:15 you bring up one guy having the power to nuke the entire world. This actually happened to the extent one man was forced to make a choice that would have caused nuclear war between the USSR and the USA. His name was Stanislav Petrov.

I wondered if, in a way, Venat actually created the WoL. She remembered us from the past when she first saw us in the future and gave us the echo to help us along. Moving us along on the path to the point where we would eventually meet up with her in past and set the whole thing in motion. Were we guided every step of the way to the conclusion? Was it ever our choice? 🤔 She wouldn't have know all the details of our journey, but she sensed herself in us when we visited the past and Hydalyn version remembered that and made it so. And because we are Azem, our spirit was pulled toward it?

This is a good video! I agree entirely with the Sundering Scene being a massive waste of potential and your version covers a lot of what I wish we'd gotten. Which actually might have helped me personally like Venat more if we saw her interact with her followers and how hard she'd tried to get the Convocation and other survivors to listen to her and look for other solutions. I don't think Venat's a fundamentally bad person or character, but my problem with her was the narrative seemed uninterested in letting her morality and "correctness" be complicated. I felt like what the character of Venat was saying (that she wasn't a hero and the Sundering a cruel action to her people and us) and what the narrative was saying (the Scions and framing implying we're meant to feel warmth and gratitude towards her) were two different things, and that would have been fine for me if those complex emotions were acknowledged anywhere in the MSQ during her arc and not in a side quest after the whole expansion ended.

i love venat with my whole heart. she is amazing and made a huge sacrifice for the future of life

1:08:23 Hmmm.... Agree to disagree. *pats Raha* 😆😸Seriously though, thanks for the time and effort you spent on this! Your rendition of the Final Days scenes and the Hydaelyn/Zodiark fight is perfect. We were *so* robbed. The Omega/Shinryu fight and Nidhogg/Hraesvelgr fights were so epic and enjoyable to watch. It was disappointing we didn't get even a glimpse of THE single most important fight in all of time. Beyond that, I was very confused when I went through the MSQ and got to that scene like... Emet-Selch *literally* just told me how this went down... this is. This is an entirely new story? Have I stepped into some alternate reality? It was very moving but it really did take me a long, long time to understand it.

Given the revelations about memories in pandamonium and the twelve's connection to hydaelyn as well as the golden hydaelyn like figure see in the anni art im not convinced hydaelyn/venat is perma dead

Venat is a mistranslation if Venasu. Which could translate to Venath or Venus. Venus eventually gets you to Lucifer bringer of light who also launched a rebellion

I think dynamis was added VERY early into the Endwalker story as a necessity because the story needed a force that the All Powerful Ancients couldn't act easily against. How do you write godlike beings into a situation where their very existence is threatened? You invent a force they are helpless against. It's Kryptonite with more steps.

Can't deny that the cinematic aspect of the sundering was underwhelming, even the fight against Zodiark's husk if I've to be honest. You keep seing them in frescoes and tales over the MSQ like they were the pinacle of creation and their clash was of cataclysmic proportions, yet... nothing to show for it. Especially today when we can see the titanic breach between Tural and Xak'Tural, supposedly being the result of the sundering, you can only wonder how that final blow went. I have some hope that they will be able to show it via an Ultimate raid that fuses Hydaelyn and Zodiark encounters, a bit like DSR.

Thank you for talking about her, the mother to our Journey. I can't say I understood her well before this video, but there's things I did understand. There's something about killing a character like her off, but at the same time giving us a back door to adventure with her in the "past", I guess for us to truly leave her and her blessings behind... would we still be the Warrior of Light and Dark? Thanks again for the vid.

I tried clearing Eidelyn with Trust but the scions were totally incapable of dealing with the moving waves of light and got wiped. They would wait for the very last moment to start dodging, but at that point the path through them would be too tight and they ate it all. I played a tank but couldn't finish alone, so I did it with other players. I'ts cool that they *tried* , but if you can't even beat the boss because the AI sabotages you that defeats the purpose... I don't *trust* them anymore.

Another on the topic of tropes, this case with Time Travel and Villain. I never saw tropes as good or bad, just a tool for telling a story. Any trope, if used in the most general term, can devalue a story. i.e. The Lord of the Rings movie is just a story about a mismatch set of adventures. Said this way, you'd assume that the LotR trilogy was badly written, when it is not so. So time travel in ffxiv was used as more than just simply a plot device. There are lots of things we learned because of it. Ancients were "perfect" in their eyes alone, ignoring what they do to others for the sake of the star. Venat/Hydaelyn was an adventurer and a mother like figure, so well suited to the role she would play in the future. Hermes exposed how very little anyone cared for the creations they made. Emet Selch personality was not a quirk of his long 10K years of duty. He was always cheeky from which he used to cope with his loneliness. If given the chance and circumstances were different, would we of been close friends with these ancient friends? Answer is yes, something I'm sure people thought about during all of Shadowbringers. Time Travel was a tool used to explore the ancients, not simply a tool to move the plot forward with no substance. If you want to say all Time Travel does is move the plot forward with no substance, then you have to make an argument on why The Terminator and Back to the Future are bad movies because they include time travel as well Now speaking of The Terminator, he is a good example of why Emet Selch is the villain of Shadowbringers. An antagonist is simply a broad term used for an opposing force to the protagonist. If we go deeper to try to figure out what part the antagonist fits in the story, we can decide if he is a villain. Now villain doesn't mean mustache twirling 2D bad guy. All it means is that they are normally a person opposing the hero, but do deeds we would consider evil. In emet selch case, he did do a lot of evil acts. Not only destroying worlds but using an unborn child as a tool to push the calamity. These are villainous acts, we can still sympathize with Emet on why he did these things but that doesn't mean his acts were not evil. We can sympathize with villains, it's not a binary choice to automatically hate a villain no matter what. So what does this have to do with The Terminator? The Terminator is the villain of the first movie, no doubt about it. But, he is a tool following a program. He does very evil actions and there are no limits he would not push. But there is no joy in what he does, no pleasure, no hatred, no sadness, his actions are never based on emotions. He is a tool to kill Sarah Connors and either shut-down after or return or any other option after he kills her. He is villainous and does evil things, but we cannot easily classify him as mustache twirling villain because there are no emotions on what he does. He is almost just a force of nature. A villainous force of nature. All this to say that "villain" encompasses many things and not just 2D personality bad guy. Antagonist encompasses things that oppose the antagonists. The movie Twister antagonist is the tornado, but the tornado isn't a villain, not a person, but simply a force of nature for the protagonists to over-come.

Venat probally kept her memories due to the adpect of light imparting stadis and stability

41:10 There is one person to nuke the entire World. Arguably even more than 2..

Here's something to think about for time travel and the way the story is written in ffxiv. Time Travel is usually themed about a person's actions being predetermined. No matter what you do, you'll always do it. Then, there is the concept of the universe suffering an eternal freeze where nothing you do matters in the end. Both of these tropes play with the idea of you losing yourself or self-worth, autonomy. At the same time, ffxiv enforces the idea that regardless of what circumstances you are in, to appreciate what you have. Sometimes, it's the small things that matter. Then you have Hydaelyn talking to the WoL directly since 2 expansions to tell him he is free to decide what he wants to decide. On one end, it is "no" choices because of predetermination. The other end, your choices don't matter in the great cosmos. In the middle of these themes is the WoL making their own choices, regardless of what anyone else has to say, to try to make a better future. To be hope and potential for others. It is a story that even if your life is predetermined or your choices don't matter in the end. To be happy and enjoy your own small things in life.

Ancients: "we want to be happy!" Venat: "fuck all yall"

The only thing that I have to say: turn off your color mods, everything is either too bright or too dark XD As for the rest of the video, of course: I suppose that developers (and writers?) had to rush some stuff. Your idea sounds good, but the video would have been even longer. Honestly For how it looks like, I have the feeling that we were going to see the end of times with Venat, that would have given time to let us see all the events that happened in the past but in the end they went with the cs explaining "relevant" events. 1:02:36 I will say that the fight was never promised or at least I don't recall the game promising such a thing. It would have been cool to see: The great sacrifice to hold the end days. Watch how messed up the world looked like. The creation on Hydaelyn. The fight between Zordiak and Hydaelyn.

I think there are some misconceptions about Venat's heroism. She herself said that there was no mercy or justice in what she did. She was accepting the role of the villain in order for life to persist. She had to shatter heaven to save all the souls within. And she didn't take away from those who sacrificed to summon Hydaelyn as she herself burned through her own soul to see that their sacrifices weren't in vain. It seemed to me that she suffered a lot of guilt over what she believed she had to do. Especially considering she is praised and worshiped as a goddess after all the suffering she caused. But felt it was important to persist because we told her about how there was still joy and beauty in the world in our time despite the sundering. She also didn't put all her eggs in one basket. Hence the whole moon ship thing. In our final conversations with Hydaelyn she mentioned her many failures, so it's wasn't simply we told her about the future therefore she just followed our blueprints. She evidently tried many different things which didn't work out. Also, I'm pretty sure in our conversations we didn't explain all the astral/umbral eras and each calamity in detail. It seemed more an outline of our personal experiences, the Ascians, and the coming Final Days. Before leaving Elpis she talks about the situation and different ways to find a solution that, ultimately, resulted in the sundering. There is a question as to whether us revealing that aspect of our history influenced her drawing that conclusion though. Like, "this is a last resort" kind of thing, but by putting it on the table to begin with, did she believe she had already exhausted all other options and reached the last resort before finding a better solution? Just as Emet-Selch didn't consider it killing people through rejoinings, Venat wasn't really killing her people, just spreading them out. The ancients entire civilization and culture is built around the enteral flow of aether. Sundering wasn't really killing anyone as demonstrated by Hermes/Amon/Fandaniel. There are still aspects of the ancient's soul that permeates each rebirth. And even the vision of the meteor shower from the first final days being imprinted on people's souls. So in a way they still live on as they would if they willingly returned to the aetheral sea. It's also heavily implied that the Ancient's civilization would have died out eventually. Not only for the fact that every other civilization Meteion encountered died but there are several instances of dialogue pointing towards stagnation already setting in for the ancients. Of course there is Hermes asking what will happen when the world is perfect and everyone's work is done. But also Hythlodaeus talking about how everyone was basically "jumping the shark" on their shark creations. It was getting boring. And I believe even some side quests make some remarks towards the stagnation of ideas(don't ask me which, I just remember building upon that theory while doing all the Elpis side quests). In conclusion: I think she acted under the idea of "love me, hate me, it doesn't matter, I will make sure you live so you can to feel whatever you feel about what I've done." To paraphrase Fourchenault.

I remember read in an interview that after the core team set the main plot for EW, Ishikawa rewrite it. I assume she comes up with Dynamis at this point And I think it worked fine. But maybe because I am a scientific nerd. The parallel is Dark Matter/Energy, IRL we dont know much about that. Some theories point in very different directions, like Heat Death or Big Crunch for example

This was a great video, thank you for giving a nuanced take on the character in a sea of very polarizing opinions. To give my own two cents, I've always held fast to the notion that in essence, Venat and Emet-selch are two sides of the same coin. They both believed that the ways of life they adhered to were the proper and correct ways to live, and in the end were unwilling to compromise alternatives to a very clear fault. Where I tend to take Emet's side in the debate of justifications is that, not counting Hermes, Venat is the initial aggressor here. Being the only one to retain memory, she was the one who would decide how the Final Days would be dealt with, and she chose to actually adhere to Hermes's antics. Emet-selch resorted to the things he did after everything he knew and loved was obliterated before his eyes, and he still (genuinely, according to the devs) allowed himself to believe in the Sundered's potential, time after time, but was let down by the aggression and frailty he perceived in them. He decided what he did was best after seeing humanity at it's very worst, through millennia of isolation, loneliness and trauma. So while of course the Rejoinings are visceral, terrible acts, its far more understandable that Emet would get to the point he did. Venat, conversely, came to her conclusion after the Ancients, stumbling in the dark as to the true nature of what was even happening, didn't respond favorably to her words after the apocalypse she KNEW was coming arrived (of course, that's setting aside the numerous Ancients who did join her, but I suppose those were the 'good' ones, eh?). Her reasons come off as far more one-note and flimsy than her opposition, and it seems that every new piece of information we learn about this time only casts further doubt upon her choices during the Final Days. For example, there was that bit in one of the Live Letters after Endwalker, that the reason the Unsundered escaped the Sundering was because Venat specifically chose to spare them from it, knowing what they would do. So either she is a slave to causality in the boring way of lacking agency that you described here, is someone too afraid to make any changes to the script she was given, or she is directly complicit in every single Rejoining, because having the Warrior of Light be 8 times rejoined suited her needs. That one bit of information essentially made the Ascians her controlled opposition and, at least for me, made the writing surrounding her character too tainted to appreciate the narrative's tendency to see her as unequivocally good. It really is a shame, because I wanted to like Venat, and her presence in the story, but it seems to me the devs were, ironically, unwilling to compromise with her character, and wanted to blanket specifically her actions as positively as they could. I would have found a more grey portrayal of her character far more fulfilling and much less dissonant. The kind of treatment she got makes sense with your theory as to dynamis's unpopular conception.

I suspect you may be waiting for more details of Azem's actions before making a video about him/her. I am looking forward to that.

having a fight playout in a supposedly sad and heavy cutscene would have thrown me off and will sort of ruin my immersion to the scene.

AFTER UNSUBBING OR GRINDING BOZJA FOR A MONTH U RITE

Depression Beam: I'm confused by this honestly. Game made it very clear that Zodiark created a shell to protect Etherys. Dynamis also very very, very weak to Aether. To the point that the ancients saw Dynamis the same way our own scientists see "Chi/Ki". As far as I know, sundered doesn't mean dead or not possible. Just means a weaker version of a whole. The shell on Etherys just needs to be strong enough to stop Dynamis. Aether doesn't need to over-exert itself to push against Dynamis, it's the other way around. Aether just needs to be strong enough, that's all.

I just can't bring myself to be satisfied with Venat's soul being lost. Out of the three who judged mankind, Venat, Hades, and Hermes, she was the one who suffered the most - 12,000+ years of solitude, feeling the misery and pain of all those who lived and died. Her choice was made with love for mankind, but judging her kind unfit to endure both the song of oblivion and the same doom that claimed other worlds. Hades made his choice out of love for his own kind, but judging sundered mankind unfit, while also being ignorant of the true threat. Hermes made his choice suspecting his own kind to be unfit and through despair and resignation for the fate of all life. All of them had their own justification, yet Venat is the one who suffered the most and had nothing but oblivion at the end. Both Hades and Hermes's souls endure. We even get to wish Hermes/amon a better next life - but the one who protected us and gave us the means to save ourselves and all of creation is utterly gone... I just can't see it as anything but a heartbreaking injustice.

1:36:40 FIIIIIINALY SOMEBODY ELSE MADE THE CONNECTION TO LOOK, LEARN, AND REMEMBER!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAA I LOVE YOU!

if you think about it. in a sense the ancients ARE gods.

The sundering scene with only Venat point of view is a disservice to others members of "her" club. I would like to have seen more of waht Azem was up to, but i understand why the Devs avoided this. Anyway, loved the expansion.

I think azem is the closest to justified

Mate im impressed. You are criminel low in subs compared to the content

I submit that I am not sold on her decision-making. Very bold to do what she did, single-handedly, and then even call us “her children”. I am with Emet here. And I imagine this is what the WOL would’ve done in the end too - after all our efforts are there to preserve what we can in our world and reflections. I completely understand that people will have other opinions and respect that.

If I was to add in my own 2 cents in your part 1d section. Because of the way the story of the Arc was written, Venat did everything in her power to stop the release of Zodiark for millennium but failed every time. The giant crystal from Master Matoya is a crystal that belonged to a WoL in the past. This means she put a lot of her energy to past heroes, but they failed to stop calamities from happening. So the energy drain on her wasn't just because of the Calamities but the power she put into past heroes who failed again and again to stop calamities. Next is the Dragonsong music when fighting Nithogg. The song was originally assumed that Hydaelyn did not know why people would cause suffering to themselves when peace was at hand. Now with how the story played out, Venat is lamenting another failure to bring peace to the world when she would of course assumed she was getting closer to stopping the Final Days.

Idealistically I think I would be hard pressed to not take venats side. In the events of elpis, Here you have a person from the future, dropping the tea that the world is sundered and life goes on. They are the most idealistic person, well traveled and loves life just like you. The fact that ancients by and large focus on the betterment of the star, and the nourishment/life it brings forth. I think the idea of sacrificing everything to save the people selfishly, is not a thing they would normally choose. They’re a race of people that didn’t know desperation/suffering to that extent and they were not thinking straight. At least for the second summoning of zodiark; it’s probably the reason why or the symptom of the convocations establishment. And finally there is hope, since a very attractive WoL came from the future , so she’d know her decision would not end life or the longevity of the star.

I think you misunderstand that the meaning of villain and antagonist while often are synonymous, they are technically not the same. You can be a villainous person and not be antagonist to a protagonist and in fact be an ally. To me emet selch falls more into antihero than being a villain. Hes an antagonist yes but not a villain.

Now on part 2B: This is an interesting one since I see a lot of people miss the small things in the sundering scene for the sake of wanting a spectacle instead. When the WoL tells Venat and the rest his story so far, Venat does not understand why she would make the decision to sunder the world. It's such an action she sees as out of character. Then later when the WoL and Venat are alone waiting for the ancient who saw the Meteion. Venat talks about everything she experience and how much love she has for the world and how going on adventures had opened her eyes to the potential that mankind had. She loved the skies, the land, the sea and the people in them. Now the scene that plays and Venat watches as the Ancients are attempting to sacrifice lives that were not theirs to bring back the dead, Venat comes to a realization. She loves Etherys. She loves the skies, she loves the seas, she loves the land and she loves the people in it. To protect these things that are vulnerable to the Ancients, she will have to keep the ancients from desiring the paradise they lost. The only way to do that is to sunder their existence to keep them trying to enact another sacrifice. For should they remember, as emet selch told the scions about sacrificing more lives. The 3 Ascians are living proof that the Ancients desire for their paradise comes at the cost of everyone else. So even though Venat does make the decision she does, it is a harsh decision that is not out of character.

I'm not sure I buy their excuse of it being uniquely tough to program trusts for a trial compared to a dungeon. After all, a dungeon has 3 bosses with their own sets of mechanics, which combined should amount to more mechanics than 1 trial boss. I may just not understand the problem because of my complete lack of knowledge about how programming works. I fully admit I don't know the first thing, but logically you'd think if you program a whole set of trusts which I think is typically 6 characters, adding 1 more to the mix, and programming reactions for each of them to fewer total mechanics than they'd encounter in an entire dungeon, it'd be somewhat comparatively easy? Trial bosses don't have THAT many more abilities than a typical dungeon boss. Maybe 2 dungeon bosses combined equals 1 trial? Dunno. As said, complete lack of knowledge. Just don't understand how that could possibly be harder

They could have gone even more in depth, created a full on Flames of Truth scene for the battle of primals, but they did not. And i think it was the correct choice. such would have at that point distracted too much from what we're about to head into.

the shinryu vs omega fight was spectacular on a visual perspective, but i didnt thoroughly enjoyed it tbh hahaah. i was just like "oh neat they fighting".

Once Zodiark is summoned, the sundering is a must. They can't keep sacrificing new lives to Zodiark. The question is, could she have done more BEFORE they summoned Zodiark. Could she have told someone, Elidibus maybe, that there's a depressed bird somewhere causing creation magic to go wrong. Maybe they could've found a better solution than Zodiark.

Dynamis, is an interresting item. It's named and explained really late, and yet... It was introduced as early as 1.0 Strong faith and aether brought forth the primals. Strong faith brought forth Louisoux's partial summoning of the 12. It turned the holy see into a king of myth. It brought treasures and puppets to life. Wrought fear into reality in ancient times, and called heroes through the rift to save a dying world. Time travel though... The game seems really clear, all time travel happens in a stable, closed loop, but... We currently still have one case where this seems false. G'raha. His present state is an unresolved paradox, that the game even comments on. This world's history has become intwined with another reality, making it muddled and unclear. This isn't neccesarily a plothole yet, and may become a plotpoint in future.

Really great video. Also when you talked about how Emet was stuck in the past and Venat chose the future there was something that I find ironic. Emet, by choosing to stay in the past was static and stagnating which is one of the aspects of the light ( while using magic thats closer to darkness ), while Venat chose to change the world and move forward which is more fitting for darkness ( while using magic thats closer to the light ). Both choose to act in a way that is more tied to the element they are opposed to, which is quite interesting and probably also a hint towards the greyness of their characters. And with the time travel. Well I can understand people being annoyed at using time travel as a story device. Its quite hard to do it without messing it up. Also it was not the first time FFXIV did time travel stuff. In the Alexander Raid we had stable time loops stacked onto other stable time loops. In Shadowbringers G'Raha Tias actions did such a big change that he created a new timeline. ( His original timeline still exists ), by nearly getting us killed in the fight against Elidibus and thus delaying the use of Black Rose enough for Zenos to kill Varys ( and from how the whole scene went, I'm pretty sure that, without interference we would have slapped Elidibus so hard he would wish to be sundered. ). And Now on Endwalker, we go back to what seems to be another closed time loop. But I think that our appearence didn't really matter at all when it comes to the final days and the sundering. Meteion still would have gone crazy and Hermes would still have done the same things he did to ensure Meteion could get away. Because if it would be a closed time loop, than what about the one timeline where Black Rose killed nearly everyone? Still sundered but without us to go back to the past. Timetravel is really werid.

Funny thing is the people who are arguing against what she did would conversely be against us never having existed. And every world with effectively endless lifespans did ultimately end themselves even without the song of oblivion, when would that have happened to Etheirys had she left it alone?

In 3b when you started to play the scene, I immediately started tearing up. Damn Flow always hits hard.

I ultimately condone and hate Venat/Hydaelyn for her actions. Only because the story had to conclude in this expansion was why she ultimately was "right". That said well done on explaining your perspective I absolutely disagree with it but you make a better case than any "Mommy" Venat Simps.

I never saw the sundering as genocide, and still don't

1:06:15 I feel it is also that this would be incredibly long cutscene full of redundant information in the world that we have 2 expansions squished into one and I could've possibly overpowered the rest of the expansion. And even though seing Heidi and Zodiark clash would be amazing the cutscene being so short and hitting out of nowhere may have ultimately worked better as the gut punch that writing team has intended, as it's focus is to convey the rapidly increasing despair rather than exposition, the feeling is dropped on us suddenly, just how it was dropped on the Ancients themselves.

Venat 100% saved her race from death. Half of the ancients' ranks died leading up to zodiark, and a sizable chunk of what was left was going to be sacrificed yet again to fix the planet. id say it was safe to assume had she not intervened the entirety of their race wouldve been killed and not a single ancient wouldve been left alive on Etheirys. She took her race off the edge of the roof and spent the rest of her life hardening up their hearts so that they could accept their current circumstances, and it worked. and is continuing to work. because while the people that currently live are weaker in body, theyre clearly stronger in spirit and ended up overcoming the ancients in the end. Survival of the Fittest in motion. Elpis showed us first hand that there were clearly massive flaws in how the ancients ran their society and their preconceived notions on what their purpose for life is. Theyd create creatures with thoughts and feelings and memories in one moment only to kill those lives theyd create later if they deemed them unworthy because they had flaws. without considering the logical extreme of that thinking. That the responsibility for those flaws lie at the hands of their creators and therefore the creators are flawed. They had power, and they chose to use that power in inherently flawed ways which lead to their own demise, but by Venat and the Future she clung too so desperately they were spared totally annihilation and in their new lives given hope for a better future.

Theres literally not a single voiced line of dialogue in that Hydaelyn fight that doesn't send shivers for me.

My character called her Hydaelyn not out of respect, but for a personal reason. Hydaelyn was the Mothercrystal, the mother of our world who cared for us. My character's backstory is that he was an orphan. For him, Hydaelyn was the closest thing he had to a mother. Thanking her by the name Hydaelyn was him thanking her for showing him the love of a parent he would have never had otherwise.

Tbh, Zodiak or Hydaelyn. Idrc. In the end of the Day, there 2 evil beings having a Hissy fit, in concept doing the same thing, and we (WOL) get wrapped up into it, with no real ways out, and ~Flips a coin Oh Look, your on Her side, sorry no refunds.

I don't like Hydaelyn now that we know what she did. She gave up and knowingly forced her entire civilization into ten thousand years of suffering, and she specifically wanted them to suffer. That's evil and she's a terrible person for it, but try to bring that up anywhere and you'll get hounded. Venat had a very long yet undefined amount of time to convince her people to change their ways, and she'd have sway as a former Azem too. It doesn't help that the writing fell on its face during the final Hermes scene where the trio free themselves from the chains, they all very well know what's going to happen if they stay in the "building" and yet Emet and Hythlodaeous just stand and talk for a long, long time even after Emet open the door out. They just stand there and let it happen to them...sure the writers wrote themselves into a corner but they should've planned for it in the first place, not made the main gang into a buncha idiots. Even regarding the whole sundering to use dynamis...that's not true, nothing stopped the ancients from creating an army of Meteion-like drones to combat her.

I really like Endwalkers writing and will show you what I mean when someone dismisses writing in this game by just calling anything a trope. This has to do with Miteion. Just need to remember Elpis and the finale of ffxiv when talking to Miteion the final time. The games writing makes it very clear that when we meet Meteion at the end of the game, after the boss fight, that our own memories of ffxiv story so far is what helps Meteion get over the emotional baggage she had to carry for 10k years. Meaning that the small moments of joy the WoL had in Etherys was a great motivator for her. What we also learn, through body language alone, is that Meteion never stopped looking for the light in the dark. When the WoL greets Meteion at the ending, when she was still dark, the WoL opens his soul to her to read. What is the first thing she looks for inside the WoL? Not the deaths or hatred or betrayal the WoL got. She specifically looks for anything or anyone who the WoL cherished in his/her life. Then she just takes in all that little bit of hope the WoL has and she just starts crying. The song Flow during this moment eludes that she waited a long, long time to find just a little bit of hope in the Universe and found it in the WoL. Here is how this ties in to time travel and the players choice in this without knowing it. When the WoL goes to Elpis and gets introduced to Meteion, we are told quickly what her abilities are, ie read people through emotions. Now because of how the trope of Time Travel works, the player is quickly and easily lead to not divulge anything to do with the future. Also Meteion, in her kindness, lets the player know that she will not read the players mind as to respect their privacy. Now the reaction I saw frequently at about a 99.9% from players was to not corrupt Meteion with our dark thoughts or future. Now the thing we all forgot is that we don't just have dark thoughts, we also carried the potential of hope for a better future from what we experience in all of FFxiv. If the player/wol wasn't so focused on the big picture and Meteion wasn't so nice and respectful. Meteion would of gained the information she needed to continue the search for a World that wasn't in apocalypse and living well as Etherys did. She would of easily gotten 10k years worth of effort, the same way Venat used the WoL experience to continue moving forward. Meaning the WoL could have completely changed the future if our own fear of the trope of Time Travel didn't get in the way of helping a little girl in a single chance moment in the past. This isn't to say the WoL is to blame, I am just pointing out that there were chances to change things but we missed it. All of this from just a few scenes from Meteion and the song "Flow". It's why it's important to not just look at what tropes are in the story but how the characters intermingle with each other to tell the story. This is to also say it follows into a theme that Endwalker was pushing, that sometimes it's the small things that matter. That small moment could of changed everything.

Yes, she was. 👌👍

So on the topic of Venats what base did Venat come to her decision. It's something that, looking back, didn't need as deep a thought as I originally thought it needed. Most information is common knowledge to the player on Venats decision. What I mean is that Venat was Azem. So what does Azem mean then? the Traveler "Azem" is a title rather than a given name, a position otherwise known as the Traveler, and tasked with exploring the larger world of Etheirys and becoming intimate with its myriad peoples and cultures. To be an Azem, you would have to be open minded and social enough to be willing enough to "do as the romans do" with whatever culture they interacted with. Considering her age and the fact that Venat was always surprised by every culture she interacted with tells us that she knows more about people then anyone else alive at that time. She is potentially the oldest Ancient alive who never stopped mingling with people. Never stopped just walking around the Star. Her lack of keeping rations with her means she got her food from other locations, from other people, from other cultures. Then there is a discussion about how an Ancient is qualified to become a Convocation Member. This we know from Elpis is that a Member is chosen as acceptable from an impartial seated member of the Convocation. The seated member would of had to follow her around and judge her actions to fall in line with what the title is expected of her. There is no info available to us, at this time, that Venat did not qualify to be an Azem. Venat would of had to, with a seated member next to her, been social with a new culture, solved their problem satisfactory, then also gained their trust to call her back again if needed. Meaning a seated Azem could not keep their seat unless for all the time they had that seat, they were a very social person willing to accept every culture they ran into. All of this to just say, Venat is still an Azem at heart who spent over 500 years learning about people, their culture, their food, their festivities, their taboos, their traditions. She, being someone who has their boots on the ground, required to do so, would know more about how people function then any seated member of the Convocation of 14. Even the newest Azem who has yet to reach her age in experience cannot compare. It's like comparing a retired War Veteran with someone who just survived their first gun fight on the battlefield. To dismiss Venats knowledge of people would require evidence of people of Etherys being unsatisfied or insulted by Venats presence. Considering her age and no complaints levied to her, we have no proof that she isn't qualified to be Azem. Can't make the claim that she has no base for her claim, for it would require to completely ignore the years she spent as Azem. To completely ignore what it means to be an Azem. Then the information about her robe. "This is answered by Emet if you talk to him instead of the quest turn in person at one point. He said the white robe means they are an impartial and trustable advisor." So when the Q&A spoke of how Venat made her decision as an ancient. People made the quick assumption that it meant she thought highly of herself. Problem with that deduction, is that it goes against what an Azem is in the first place. I can easily interpret that answer as in Venat made that decision as impartial as she could because she was a white robed Ancient. She was a white robed Azem. By her duty, her decision has to be impartial. Someone may not like her decision, but you can't say it wasn't an impartial one. Her base for her decision is based on knowledge of the people of Etherys that we cannot even imagine to know. If you want a real world comparison, it's like doubting the knowledge of someone who traveled to every country and city on Earth, then saying they have no base on how people react to situations. It's usually people like that that we gather information from about how to interact with the locals. Edit: I know some may just call this headcannon. But it's no more headcannon then meeting a retired surgeon, a retired plumber or a retired psychiatrist. They don't need to tell you every detail of every action they took for us to know they are experienced in the field. We assume this by their title and age. To counter this title, is when we start showing receipts of their deception on knowledge.

Not justified in the least. She made no effort to save her own people, instead passing judgment on them long before Zodiark was even a thing.

Serious note: yes she was. Tragically so though. Unserious note: justified or not she’s hot so I support her

I do not think she did the right thing. Her and her followers decided to go against humainity's will because they didn't like it. It was a very small few against the rest of the star's population. The start was on the verge of gaining it's souls back sacrificed to bring about Zodiark by giving the extra aether of the star to Zodiark. That was the last step and all that needed be. She caused a lot of suffering for what seemed like spite. She is no better than Hermes in this light. They both wanted to end the course humanity was on. As far as the crystal... it's original barer was Emet-selch. Azem never had the crystal. Emet-Selch made it in secred as the convocation made them before the summoning of Zodiark after Azem had left the convocation. So it would be Emet-Selch's words she is remembering... not Azem's. As for my sources of information, those would be the game itself and the encyclopedias released by square.

This is nothing but an Ascian lie.

The way I look at the whole thing is this-no matter how anyone tries to frame it, wholesale genocide is not an answer. Ergo, Venat is unquestionably in the wrong. The argument can be made that the Ascians and the methods they employed were no better, and looking at it relatively, that's true. But you have to see this from the full scope. The Amaurotines that sacrificed themselves to Zodiark, did so willingly under the premise of revival. All to save countless others and the star. Was this a permanent solution to an underlying problem? No. But, Venat ultimately deprived the Amaurotines of any chance to really research and harness the use of dynamis. To say she was correct in her choice, you would have to say the Ascians (post Sundering) were also justified. Fact is, she should've never gotten the chance to do something so infantile as to throw a childish tantrum that cost the lives of billions across time. To me she's worse than Hermes.

Why didn't Venat sunder specific people?: Why didn't she just lets say, target the Convocation only? So unless the story mentions it somewhere I may have missed. All of Etherys/ancients had the same mindset as the Convocation of 14. Just that they let the convocation deal with grander issues while everyone else lived their daily life. There is nothing that I have scene that implied otherwise. Only after the lives were sacrificed that the world was split in 2. Ancients happy to sacrifice and those that were not. The ones that were happy to sacrifice, would not stop trying to sacrifice. Now, the only way to just target 1/2 of the world is just Anime levels of bad writing. Venat was just barely created as Hydaelyn. To have such a mastery of her potential at that time is Goku levels of Venat needing to be a Saiyan level of competency with power. Also with Emet Selch saying that, "They fought and they fought and they fought" tells me that she had to put her all into her attacks to defeat someone twice her strength. Some people forget that Zodiark/Elidibus was easily twice as strong as Hydaelyn. With Venats years of battle/adventure experience being the only way she would of beaten him. So if you are half the mass/muscle of your opponent, you will have to put your all into the fight to win, no holding back at all.

Why venat simply didn't recommend creating dynamis familiars: So at this point of time, there are already hundreds if not thousands of Metieons far more experienced in using Dynamis then anything the ancients could create and know how to corrupt dynamis sensitive or aether weak familiars. That is what the creatures were on Ethery's, very weak aether creatures who were twisted by Dynamis. If anything, such a plan would of just empowered the Meteion even more. If real world is an example of anything, when scientists try to solve "pests" with a stronger "pest", the stronger pest tends to make the situation worse then it originally was. i.e. Cane Toads in Australia. All you need is just 1 of the Etherys Dynamis creatures to fall to corruption and everyone else falls like a domino effect.

No, she was not justified. How do we know this. Easy the WoL, who seemingly both her and Emit were seeking to try and find a solution, when confronoted with what she did could either answer ‘the f you do!’ Or ‘the f you do?’. Story seems rather clear on the fact that if the WoL had been there a different, better solution would have been found.

All of this is... a very non-buddhist way of looking at the Buddhist themes FFXIV's world is built on. The core idea of Buddhism is that nothing will ever stay the same and all things are dynamic. That just as seasons come and go, so do life and people both. That death and suffering is inevitable. Based on this, any attempts by those who try and control or even prevent these two are in the wrong, and by extension, who cause even MORE are in the wrong. We see this even in Dawntrail. To conclude that death in itself is the ultimate evil is not really what the writers are going for. I don't agree that Venat is fully right or wrong but I do think she's way more in the right compared to everyone else by giving the survivors -- the continuation of the ancients especially in Buddhism death and rebirth context -- a *dignity* to choose their own life and fate. I guess this entire video's reading is. Okay, but fundamentally doesn't account for the writers' culture background at all. Meh.