I think the thing that genuinely makes me laugh about people who hate Venat and her actions is that her actions are directly the Warrior of Light’s fault.

There is no way around that. Elpis was probably my least favorite section in the entire game, because of the blatant fanservice -- but worst of all is that despite me not really caring about the WoL’s canon, the WoL pulls the stupidest move they possibly can in the game.

Elidibus explicitly tells the WoL “Hey, you are not there to change history, you aren’t there to fuck up the timeline, I am sending you there to learn.” and IMMEDIATELY the WoL infodumps on everyone “yeah, you die, and you die, and you turn evil, and you became a god.” :)

Like, what the fuck was that.

If anything I was actually upset about this because it TAKES AWAY from Venat’s actions.

If Venat didn’t have those memories of the WoL in tact, would she have had the courage or the initiative to perform the sundering? Would she have ever actually sundered a single thing, if the game didn’t give her exclusive fucking knowledge that literally everything would be okay, and that the WoL was living proof that her actions would end up causing a rebirth of life? So much of her agency of her actions, and the mental process she had to endure, was sucked clean out of her hands, because the WoL basically infodumped information on her that made sure she would be right no matter what, and everyone around her who forgot basically just had to be bitter at her because they didn’t remember that everything would be okay.

It still boggles my mind that they took so much of Venat’s choice in the matter away from her, because it makes her seem so much weaker to just have her know everything will be fine. 

What if she hesitated? What if she had to do this all on her own? What if there was any actual fucking repercussions she had to fight through? What about her own mental thought process? The mental strain of having to do all that alone was harsh on her, sure, but so much of her actual decision making in those moments, are just gone, any illusion of choice has turned into a self fulfilling prophecy where Elidibus always sends the WoL back to Venat so that we can do this song and dance again, and her actions are never in her hands.

That part was like the part in ShB when everyone just dogpiles on Alphinaud for “starting the Crystal Braves” but I implore you, go back to post ARR patches when that happened. Who actually recruited the Crystal Braves? The fucking Warrior of Light. The Warrior of Light is the one who recruits Ilberd!

This game is so ashamed of ever admitting that the self insert protagonist might have done something wrong, and I’m so tired of it. If the game wants to write the WoL being a dipshit, go for it, but let me have some fucking agency in it, let the game have some agency in it, let there be consequences to the horrid things the WoL does sometimes. Stop throwing the characters who have essentially done nothing wrong, because the WoL told them to that everything would be fine, straight under the bus to make sure the WoL is a pure and perfect individual.

Fuck.