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Originally Posted by
Renathras
Believe it or not, not EVERYONE dies in a war.
Yes, that's why I don't think the writers should kill everyone off. Is this a deliberate strawman?
You write so much and yet most of it is meaningless drivel that doesn't adress anything I said or even outright perverts it.
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Indeed, in some elite companies or groups, sometimes, NO ONE at all dies.
That's true and I don't think the elite in that situation - Zenos and Fandaniel - should have died in that moment. Nor do I think all of the scions should have died.
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People can also reach low points without literally everyone dying (or close to it) dying around them.
Yes, that's right. Why are you writing this? Do you think I don't believe this? Do you need to flanderize my position into "everybody must die" in order to contradict it?
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Hope isn't "when things are dark and everyone has died, I press on", that's stoicism. And that's not even the only form of stoicism.
It's certainly overcoming despair. It's certainly the midst of deepest darkness where you find the will to move on. Call it what you will, that is what Endwalker was going for.
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The story wasn't about the end and loss and despair. It was about how it WASN'T the end, how triumph prevented (most) loss, and about hope. It wasn't about a war-torn world and death, it as about building a future and life. The story was about the opposite of everything you seem to think it was about.
Then why was there so much suffering, so much death, apocalypse and despair?
Yeah you can not write a story about hope in the face of despair if you refuse to show the darkness with the light. What even is this point are you just acting as though you didn't understand what themes the expansion named ENDWALKER was setting out to explore?
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I don't care for deaths. There's enough death in reality, and there are LOTS of substitutes for death that make a compelling story. Indeed, death is arguably the cheapest and most pathetic way to try to score cheap heartstring points with people. It requires little effort other than killing someone, so much so, many things kill off a side character that no one even cares about but make all the characters in the story react as if we should (Avengers did this with Coulson's death, and while his character came into his own in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., when he died, everyone around me was like "Who is this character and why are we supposed to care about him?"). It's just such a cheap and lazy method of writing, I'm constantly shocked by people that think it's somehow the most masterful way to write drama.
Yeah, sometimes character deaths are badly written, shocker! That doesn't mean that you should never resort to death in a story where it's appropriate. You can write anything badly.
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Hell, someone being injured, especially if you don't know but suspect it may be permanent - Iggy being blinded in FFXV, for example - is much more of a gutpunch. Because the character is still there. You still see them, interact with them, etc, in their compromised state, and you know they were harmed (probably) by the bad guy but there's nothing you can do but press on despite that.
A character becoming disabled and learning to live with it or however that story played out is a different story from a character dying and I don't really think is comparable. We're not trying to go for "the biggest gutpunch" here. And even so, I think a character dying is often way more of one.
Also why do you think it's Alphinaud I think should have been there (altered the scene) and died? Because his death would be more condusive to the story they wanted to tell in my opinion. It's not that I would just willy nilly kill anybody. It's very deliberate.
I understand that you don't think character deaths are meaningful at all on principle. I can not share that principle and I don't think you have made a good argument why it should be upheld. Again, just because deaths are sometimes badly written doesn't mean anything but that you should be careful in writing them.
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"no substitute for it"? ANYTHING and EVERYTHING is a substitute for it, and almost always BETTER than it, imo.
No, death means there is no way forward with and for that character. It means they are gone. And the rest of the cast has to deal with that in some fashion, honor their legacy, learn to live with the sorrow and even the mistakes they might have done by them and move on, remember the good times they had together. It's a very different thing from someone surviving and still being there to share their time with.
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Originally Posted by
deston07
We as the player knew it would be a good ending despite how sad the story was going.
Is that not the very definition of Hope?
Of course knowing that everything will turn out alright is not hope.
Believing that if you do everything you can and believing in your fellow people that things will turn out right - not everything mind you, because life comes with unfair hardship - that is hope. You hope on faith. Not on knowledge.
In fact to know that everything will turn out good anyway is a mockery of hope. It's either naive delusion or literal omniscience.
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In a prolonged fight Zenos would probably beat the Scions.
The Scions are not so weak they would cave that quickly.
The End of Shadow Bringers and early parts of End Walker story
prove that they are much stronger than before.
(Maybe you forgot they literally fought full primals in teams of two?
Just before End Walker started)
Zenos is much stronger still, he grew in power as well and this is how In from the Cold was framed as well. He was supposed to be a danger.
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The goal of End Walker was Hope, Not despair.
It was about hope in the face of despair. Why do you think that just because I wanted the WoL to lose a friend, maybe their best friend, that this would go against the goal of hope? Maybe because at the end of the day you agree with the Endsinger? At a certain point it is hopeless and you should give up. Is that it?
No. So don't mischaracterize my position either.