What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

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Originally Posted by MoofiaBossVal

It's the one year anniversary of the thread. 754 pages and over 7,500 posts! Hopefully the feedback here have been relayed to the devs, though with the people currently in charge of English community management, the lack of any interaction with SE employees on the English forums, and how "surprised" Yoshi-P was at certain questions that seems doubtful. Seeing people unsubbing from the game over the past couple dozen pages... no doubt this game will follow in the same footsteps as WoW and many other subscription MMOs where people become disinterested in the game and leave and their voices go unheard, with the devs only seeing the opinions of the diehard fanboys who stay. You have to be a subscriber to post on these forums after all. Not sure how long I'll stay. The state of the video game industry is abysmal (actually entertainment in general, be it comics or movies or anime). I can count the number of games that came out within the last five years that I was excited for on one hand. And I've just about played almost all of the old games that appealed to me. I own a few games I haven't gotten around to yet but I'm not feeling particularly motivated to play them. Moving closer and closer to the bottom of the barrel here. Only still subbed because FFXIV is one of the very few modern games that vaguely appeals to me. I might just quit gaming altogether and find another hobby.

I really hope things improve with the next expansion, but I'm not holding my breath. That my be my exit point. IDK.

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Whilst I see your point, I will say this much. Speaking from experience, at least they're listening at all. Quite a few games in the industry who only understand, or care about, communication made via Credit Card.

Glad to see this thread is still around. A pity we still need it, I would have hoped FFXIV would have found its footing by now but that's not the case at all. Patch 6.3 was another major letdown in a long string of them that started the day Endwalker dropped. After the past 10 years were unceremoniously thrown away in Endwalker, the only chance this game has of telling a decent story in 7.0 is if whoever's in charge throws away all that happened this expansion in similar fashion.

We deserve so much better than this.

aNcIeNtS aRe a dEaD hOrSe!!!!! sToP TaLkInG aBoUt aNcIeNtS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lmao man go tell the writers that, why don't you? Because I think you've got a hat to eat...

First things first: that was incredibly boring and predictable a reveal. So much for Endwalker subverting all those expectations!

But hey, how about those brother and sister, hmm? I'll try to stay polite.

While Maira's and Nymeia's Japanese lines aren't exactly the same (unlike EN, of course, but are we surprised anymore?) (btw going back to doing the Elpis quests, it is notable that EN translated the second Behemoth name option as "Queen Behemoth" while it is King Behemoth in JP, as well as in FR. How unnecessary.), it still makes for one too many coincidences: the brother's time magic, the Nymeia lily mention, the trash mobs.

This feels spiteful, honestly. Given that it's the side quest we all like to mention the most when we point out that Ancients actually cared about their creations enough to give them death rites and that Hermes was an ignorant, asocial idiot who never talked to anyone, because LOOK, THESE OBSERVERS HERE ACTUALLY HONOR THE BEASTS KILLED BY THE MURDERWOLVES!!!!!! –––

They made them into Venat followers. I'm speechless. Lmao.

While there are many other perfectly decent Ancients we see in Elpis and Amaurot, it's telling that they took the most significant quest, the one that's often brought up positively for Ancients respecting life and creations, and went and told us "See? The GOOD Ancients were on Venat's side!". Only the BAD Ancients were nostalgic fools who clearly spent their days creating and killing for fun – and most of them were!

See? They deserved it! Praise Mother!

On another note, I do appreciate the tacit admission that she screwed up so bad she had to fix her screw up somewhat. Yeah, I guess the unintelligible moaning blobs that used to be human didn't have a good chance at survival for those first few years, huh… But I thought henceforth man shall walk? Curious. :rolleyes:

I do love how Venat is still perfectly interpretable as a narcissist with a god complex – I'm getting real Munchausen by proxy vibes from her reducing her entire species to malformed creatures comparable to children and then nurturing them back a little bit, but still broken… ew.

Yet another step back from Shadowbringers's thoughtful nuance for more black and white shallowness.

Honestly considering unsubbing, which is an actual first for me. It isn't helped by content being lesser and lesser, since there is no Bozja equivalent this expansion. I think I've got some Dragon Isles to explore…

I'll come back to see Pandaemonium to its end, of course. And I have less and less hope for it, frankly. I'm looking forward to my favorite character turning around and telling me Venat made the only correct choice, and he will ensure her plan goes without a hitch –– and this is the reason why he made the best candidate for Heart of Zodiark, haha! I hate myself for coming up with this, thanks!

(Edit) As for the Thirteenth, it sounds like a red herring, though I'll definitely be amused if

the final fight ends up being the Watcher, and he still doesn't get a proper name.

Here Lies Giga Simpeus Of Anamnesis Anyder – He Never Scored

As for MSQ,

LOL made you look, who even cares?

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Originally Posted by Teraq

aNcIeNtS aRe a dEaD hOrSe!!!!! sToP TaLkInG aBoUt aNcIeNtS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yet another step back from Shadowbringers's thoughtful nuance for more black and white shallowness.
]

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Ok how is Shadowbringer's story more nuanced for it being grey? All you do in that expansion is going around killing light wardens because they're killing their world. Oh yeah Vauthry and the people of Eulmore reeeallly had me think long and hard at the ramifications of our actions as the Warrior of Darkness. That expansion was a joke on its premise of being a villain. HECK the Japanese title was literally called "The Jet-Black Villains" yes indeed, we were totally being evil bastards in the First.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Ok how is Shadowbringer's story more nuanced for it being grey? All you do in that expansion is going around killing light wardens because they're killing their world. Oh yeah Vauthry and the people of Eulmore reeeallly had me think long and hard at the ramifications of our actions as the Warrior of Darkness. That expansion was a joke on its premise of being a villain. HECK the Japanese title was literally called "The Jet-Black Villains" yes indeed, we were totally being evil bastards in the First.

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I'm not sure how someone can miss the point this much without being a troll (is it? help me out here, please), but at least this one is intelligible.

I seriously do not understand how we went from Shadowbringers to bending the story over backwards around a single Mary Sue character in Endwalker. Venat didn’t just sunder the world she sundered the past 10 years worth of story besides.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Ok how is Shadowbringer's story more nuanced for it being grey? All you do in that expansion is going around killing light wardens because they're killing their world. Oh yeah Vauthry and the people of Eulmore reeeallly had me think long and hard at the ramifications of our actions as the Warrior of Darkness. That expansion was a joke on its premise of being a villain. HECK the Japanese title was literally called "The Jet-Black Villains" yes indeed, we were totally being evil bastards in the First.

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When people talk about Shadowbringers being grey, it's in reference to the conflict between the Ascians and the Sundered (which is the actual core of the story), not the Light zombies backdrop.

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Originally Posted by Kazhar

When people talk about Shadowbringers being grey, it's in reference to the conflict between the Ascians and the Sundered (which is the actual core of the story), not the Light zombies backdrop.

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Though the Light not being good and Darkness not being bad was, as simplistic as it is, more nuanced than Endwalker walking back on this in its rhetoric. (i.e. all the lines about finding the light of hope and fighting back against the darkness of despair…)

It's like Shadowbringers did a 180° from the previously established story, and then Endwalker did a 180° from Shadowbringers. Which means being back exactly where we started. Brilliant!

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Originally Posted by Kazhar

When people talk about Shadowbringers being grey, it's in reference to the conflict between the Ascians and the Sundered (which is the actual core of the story), not the Light zombies backdrop.

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which comes literally at the last bit of main Shb. Isnt that kind of telling that 90% of the majority of Shb was just pointless filler? Yeah it was a neat premise and we learned a lot more about Ardbert but when people talk about Shadowbringer's having a more nuanced story its really just that last bit with the Ascians and the Unsundered. Everything else prior to it was just your typical isekai, monster of the week flavor of jrpg journey, which I dont mind honestly, I enjoy these tropes but its stuff like this that you already seen with back in ARR.

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Originally Posted by Teraq

I'm not sure how someone can miss the point this much without being a troll (is it? help me out here, please), but at least this one is intelligible.

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Its probably time for you people to wake up and smell the mun tuy beans because Shadowbringer's plot wasnt that great to begin with.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Isnt that kind of telling that 90% of the majority of Shb was just pointless filler?

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Welcome to Final Fantasy XIV.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Its probably time for you people to wake up and smell the mun tuy beans because Shadowbringer's plot wasnt that great to begin with.

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To be perfectly honest I enjoyed the setting being new and the "You have X beasts to slay, one per zone", it felt very video gamey, like Zelda.

But it's mostly Emet existing and traveling along with the cast that made 5.0 the greatest, by default. He isn't even my favorite character, but this is non-arguable.

Unfortunately for you, most (if not all?) polls on Best Expansion since 5.0 came out would disagree with you. And you know what we say 'round these parts: the MAJORITY agrees! You're just a TINY MINORITY! (Repeat ad nauseam)

But yes. When we talk about Shadowbringers, we mean the Ancients.

I mean……… When we talk at all, we mean the Ancients. Haven't you read the thread.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Its probably time for you people to wake up and smell the mun tuy beans because Shadowbringer's plot wasnt that great to begin with.

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Shadowbringers entire plot was literally "Okay we kinda want our villains to stop being saturday morning cartoon cackling maniacs, especially now that we have a character thats actually more fun in that role than they ever were". It wasn't anything emotionally groundbreaking or innovative. It was still, imo, best story of all expansions, including Endwalker, but people way overpraised it when it was just "decent general writing". Tumblr sexyman Emet Selch and a tease that "what if light evil" that simply was something to ponder rather than a real plot thread was more than enough for people to fall in love with expansion story and expect some deep dark grey morality all over the place going forward, when even that at admission of writers was 'darker than they normally want to go'.

Shadowbringers wasn't something 'special' or 'groundbreaking'. It was a big step up by ff14's storywriting standards and it was a pretty good story, and Endwalker was a good followup, but people expected everything to get WORSE and more dark and more serious and more deep when we all but knew that absolutely wouldn't happen because it was directly acknowledged even before Endwalker that Shadowbringers is probably farthest things will go in that direction. Also yes, 90% of expansion was filler, as really the only things that mattered in grander scheme of arc of The First is how we stop Emet/Elidibus, and everything else was just anticipation buildup to that.

Ok here's the thing that I think people just have some weird sense of nostalgia goggles? (dont know the proper term for somebody who's awed at a concept) with Shadowbringer's premise. They literally just switched the good and evil elements with Light being bad and Dark being good and somehow people ate that up as this was a brand new idea that's totally nuanced in its morality. Or heck at least the language people giving off praising ShB feels like they think its story is like that when its just more of the same of what we had before. Its an interesting premise nevertheless and I wont deny Shb of that but at the same time, am I the only one who truly see's Shadowbringers for being more of the same of what we had before and not being that special compared to the other expansions's themes and stories? Again I think people fell in love with the last bit with the Amaurot reveal and finally seeing a glimpse of what the Ascians desperately tried to fight us over and it was indeed very neat and empathic. But that still didnt excuse them for trying to genocide the current population, playing with everyone's lives and orchestrating calamities and destruction just to bring back what they had before. It doesnt justify it at all and at the end of the day I took their plight as just understanding more of why they do what they do, but you pretty much also get the same idea with other villains previously. Gauis wanted to save Eorzea from themselves, Nidhogg wanted revenge for what the Ishgardians did to him and his kin, Zenos wanted to have a fulfilling existence etc. These are all basic tropes in your average jrpg story, Emet-Selch is no different. Therefore Shadowbringers isnt this masterpiece people make it out to be. Its just a good expansion story, just like all the others have been imo.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Its probably time for you people to wake up and smell the mun tuy beans because Shadowbringer's plot wasnt that great to begin with.

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Despite being generic, I thought the "Light zombies Isekai" part of Shadowbringers was still quite good. It's not like the premise of ANY FFXIV expansion really is unique to the JRPG genre. Like always, execution is everything.
But in any case, I have no idea where you're getting at since when most people talk about their attachement to Shadowbringers, it's mostly linked to the late game revelations, and everything leading up to 5.3. It's not a coincidence both climaxes (and even the Eden raids) are about the Ascians. They're the actual emotional core of that expansion.

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Originally Posted by Heroman3003

when even that at admission of writers was 'darker than they normally want to go'.

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Shadowbringers was a fluke, and it's a shame it was.

This all reminds me of the post-ARR story. Coming from A Song Of Ice And Fire fandom, everything about the Ul'dah story was my jam, only for it to resolve into … kinda nothing in HW. Also appreciated post-Stormblood with the Garlean politics tease, only for, uh, Zenos to happen in 5.0. Though at least I enjoyed what remained of it in 6.0… still my favorite zone story of the expansion. Just as depressing as I like it!

Should have seen my disappointment in EW coming, really.

Here's what I initially expected when people told me I was gonna cry in ShB and the story was going to turn what you knew before over its head.

I thought the story was gonna be about us having to literally fight the balance of light overtaking the world...OUR WORLD not the First with us being villains despite us not wanting to do it. The whole deal with Black Rose and the Empire and the talk of calamities during the post Sb story made me believe that us saving the world multiple times was going to usher a calamity of light due to the abundance of good in the world. Basically what Ardbert and his group did when they defeated Mitron and Lohgrif but it was the Scions and in our world. I believed the theme was gonna be about having to literally becomes antagonists to the people we cared about, the nations we helped save just to bring the world back in balance. That honestly would've been very daring and gut wrenching if that was the case for the build up to what was to come.

Obviously that didnt happen as the whole build up with Garlemald and Black Rose was axed and concluded off screen (with Estenien and Gaius and eventually Zenos) but instead we got an abrupt stop with all that payoff with an isekai story in the First. You have no idea how much of a let-down that was to me when I finally realized thats what Shadowbringers was about. Oh well, I still liked the story we got regardless but man it couldve been so much better.

Personally, I also expected, when its trailer was first revealed, that it would be about the light invading our world. I never cared about the whole "omg warrior of DARKNESS!!!!!" spiel because I fully expected the player character to remain the good guy anyway.

Then when I first learned the last zone was called "The Tempest" and one of the max level dungeons "The Twinning" my first thought was that 5.0 would conclude with an at least partial rejoining, and that the zone and dungeon names were referring to a massive interdimensional storm as one dimension started collapsing onto the other. (No, I am not well versed in crystallography.)

I suppose Shadowbringers is a good example of sUbVeRTiNg mY eXpEcTaTiOnS and me actually loving what I got. I honestly enjoyed most of 5.0 (pre-Mt Gulg and the trolley part stick out, but I appreciated the conclusion to Magnus's family story).

F for my boy Rubicante who got preached at about how the people of the source who are nowhere near as messed over by life as voidsent are just so much better than voidsent by a voidsent who lucked out and got healed by the Mary Sue crystal. I’m sure those deep and profound arguments would mean a lot for someone who is broken and doomed to live in a purgatory of constant rebirth in a twisted, monstrous state and not at all ring hollow.

Also, this thread deserves a name change. Using the word “quite” in regards to Endwalker’s lackluster story is being far too nice

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Originally Posted by Thenightvortex

F for my boy Rubicante who got preached at about how the people of the source who are nowhere near as messed over by life as voidsent are just so much better than voidsent by a voidsent who lucked out and got healed by the Mary Sue crystal. I’m sure those deep and profound arguments would mean a lot for someone who is broken and doomed to live in a purgatory of constant rebirth in a twisted, monstrous state and not at all ring hollow.

Also, this thread deserves a name change. Using the word “quite” in regards to Endwalker’s lackluster story is being far too nice

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Didn't want to post in this thread again but holy fucking CHRIST this post just unlocked something in my brain.
What are you fucken getting at, FF14 writers? That's twice now "modern humanity" has been used to preach and proselytize about how "modern humanity" is better than X group, when X group was shat on by circumstances outside of their control due to the machinations and manipulations of larger entities beyond their at-that-point-in-time comprehension. What are you getting at? What's the point of this posturing nonsense?

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Originally Posted by Simple_Barghest

Didn't want to post in this thread again but holy fucking CHRIST this post just unlocked something in my brain.
What are you fucken getting at, FF14 writers? That's twice now "modern humanity" has been used to preach and proselytize about how "modern humanity" is better than X group, when X group was shat on by circumstances outside of their control due to the machinations and manipulations of larger entities beyond their at-that-point-in-time comprehension. What are you getting at? What's the point of this posturing nonsense?

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I think you missed the point behind what was being said to Rubicante. It wasnt about "our life is better than your life so they should have to conform with what we do". It was just to show that there is some hope for their future with what they had to deal with. Rubicante's (as well as most of the voidsent in the 13th) wish was to find some lasting peace to their existence, as all they knew was to go by their instincts.

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Originally Posted by Simple_Barghest

Didn't want to post in this thread again but holy fucking CHRIST this post just unlocked something in my brain.
What are you fucken getting at, FF14 writers? That's twice now "modern humanity" has been used to preach and proselytize about how "modern humanity" is better than X group, when X group was shat on by circumstances outside of their control due to the machinations and manipulations of larger entities beyond their at-that-point-in-time comprehension. What are you getting at? What's the point of this posturing nonsense?

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In our "let's play the patch together!" party, a friend of mine joked, "the true thesis of Endwalker is just 'RIP to them but I'm different'", we all collectively realized that that wasn't really remotely a joke, and just kind of laughed awkwardly and sadly together after that.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

I think you missed the point behind what was being said to Rubicante. It wasnt about "our life is better than your life so they should have to conform with what we do". It was just to show that there is some hope for their future with what they had to deal with. Rubicante's (as well as most of the voidsent in the 13th) wish was to find some lasting peace to their existence, as all they knew was to go by their instincts.

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It's nothing about conforming, it's purely posturing about how In-Group is better than Out-Group, explicitly using an Out-Group that endured hardships In-Group never had to endure or even consider the existence of.
I'll concede to you Rubicante's wish, as that's effectively the one and only detail we have for the entirety of Golbez' plan being a suicide gambit. But Zero was blatantly used as a mouthpiece for one of the writers, and I'm still trying to figure out what the posturing is for.

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Originally Posted by Brinne

In our "let's play the patch together!" party, a friend of mine joked, "the true thesis of Endwalker is just 'RIP to them but I'm different'", we all collectively realized that that wasn't really remotely a joke, and just kind of laughed awkwardly and sadly together after that.

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"I'm Azem, I'm going to be better than you."
Insert-villain(s)-of-the-week-here: "welp, guess i'll die"

#JusticeForRubicante

Putting aside what I thought of the newest patch (spoilers: I have no thoughts because I was occupied trying desperately to not fall asleep through the whole thing) I did want to re-touch on what Mikko/Lunaxia were talking about re: not adjusting properly to how Shadowbringers sort of changed the calculus. I think how "they didn't anticipate Shadowbringers's impact" happened (which is obvious just from them admitting that the entire team was completely blindsided by Emet-Selch's popularity with the exception of possibly Ishikawa) and how what it was doing probably kinda, slipped under their radar until it was "too late" aside - I don't really have the proper brainpower right now to address it coherently - I think it can be sort of broken down into this?

The overarching "intent," probably from ARR, is now obviously that "Hydaelyn=Good." Therefore obviously, "HydaelynGood=Hydaelyn'sActions=Good." This is consistent with the tone and exposition of basically everything up until Shadowbringers, including her story from HW, which probably at the time it was written was intended to be accurate. But then Shadowbringers upended everything, instilling huge sympathy in the audience for what were now her "victims" (which didn't even exist at the initial conception of "Hydaelyn=Good") and putting forth that she had destroyed and then erased all evidence of a good, peaceful world, and the survivors of her actions were now demanding emotionally understandable justice for what she had done (even if via an approach that was unacceptable to the currently living.)

This could have been brushed aside if not for the fact that this change in calculus was also the most critically acclaimed, wildly praised story element the game has had thus far. So they had to tackle it one way or another, and there were a few approaches that were possible to do so. Hydaelyn=Good, was the intent. But now Hydaelyn's Actions = Bad. What is one to do?

Well, one viable approach would be to now compromise on Hydaelyn=Good. She's now firmly, at minimum, Grey - probably Dark Grey, given how the story has consistently handled actions and individuals like her up until this point. I think this would have been acceptable, though YMMV - the risk is that they hadn't written anything up until Shadowbringers with this intent, so it might have clashed with the buildup of the vibes. But for whatever reason, it's clear that the writers were ultimately not willing to compromise on this, one way or another, not even to the extent of the widely-speculated "Hydaelyn is just a robot on autopilot" after the Shadowbringers patches, which could have partially accounted for the weird lies.

In that case, there are a few ways to tackle the other aspect of the problem - Hydaelyn's Actions. Well, again, there are a few potential strategies here - maybe Hydaelyn's Actions are not Hydaelyn's Intended Actions, as has been floated often. Maybe the Sundering was just a tragic accident when all she intended to do was protect innocent lives from being sacrificed - in which case, it mostly does boil down to a simple tragedy, although you'd still have to address in some way the fact that her actions did still have victims, and that she obviously made the choice to lie about and cover up the unintended consequences of her actions, which would still be a little tricky, but I think possible. They did not choose to go this route.

Another possible route would be to completely erase them as "Hydaelyn's Actions". Something along the lines of, surprise! The Sundering wasn't Hydaelyn's fault, and the Ascians had misunderstood and misattributed the situation altogether. The risk here is making things feel contrived, cheap, and ruining the pathos behind the Ascians newly borne of Shadowbringers. And, of course, you still need to figure out a reason that she lied to us back in ARR and HW. So this approach would have been a bit risky, but not, I think, impossible to make work. But they chose not to go down this route either.

Instead, they tackled the problem in fiercely, fervently arguing that Hydaelyn=Good, therefore Hydaelyn's Actions = Good. Period. No matter what those actions were, even if they were ones the narrative had wholeheartedly condemned up until this point. And thus, mind made up, the writing then worked backwards to find some way, any way, to rationalize that Hydaelyn's Actions = Good, did not do it coherently or well - if anything, just feeling sort of desperate in its vagueness and "and because biological dynamis unfitness (hoo boy) and because terrible dead-end culture (which we will also fail to do the work of backing up sufficiently, and risks compromising Shadowbringers's impact and message besides) and because the timeline and maintaining the time loop (which we will not explicitly delve into or detail, and say outright we're 'leaving it up to interpretation' actually) and--" and thus, we are where we are now.

So it's possible there are differing preferences on the route they should have taken - Mikko seems to think it would have been a mistake to betray the pre-Shadowbringers buildup of Hydaelyn's status as Good, which is probably valid, though I don't think I fully agree. I probably would have preferred just going in on Hydaelyn=Dark Grey, among the options I can think of. But either way, the decision to commit to changing what should be the obvious model, given what they are, of Hydaelyn's Actions = Bad into No, Hydaelyn's Actions = Good, Dammit! was... not the greatest decision they could have made. They probably didn't think of, or realize fully, that going that route essentially does boil down to fishing for justifications for the actions committed by a long history of prior antagonists and villains, and putting forth that those actions are justifable Under The Right Conditions Or By The Right People, Actually. (Genocide isn't necessarily evil if it works! Genocide isn't necessarily evil if it benefits us! Genocide isn't necessarily evil if the person committing it really believes it's for the greater good! Yeah, I don't think they meant for that to be where we've ended up, but... here we are, unfortunately.)

(I also, personally, don't think that the discomfort is helped any by the deeply insecure-feeling insistence that these actions not only aren't necessarily evil, sometimes they are in fact committed out of love. Love that we must appreciate and continue to bask in and feel good about on multiple fronts in continuing side quests. Hoo boy 2.0. Or hoo boy 6.x, maybe, I should say.)

I'm not sure this was understandable or made any sense, so apologies if not. I'm suffering a bit of medication loopiness at the moment. But it's part of what I was kind of considering after the shortly-before-the-patch discussion.

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Originally Posted by Brinne

I'm not sure this was understandable or made any sense, so apologies if not. I'm suffering a bit of medication loopiness at the moment. But it's part of what I was kind of considering after the shortly-before-the-patch discussion.

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I think that pretty much sums up how I feel about this business.

That said, I'm feeling very...dubious about how both Pandaemonium and Myths are going to conclude because while both would be a good time to delve into the "gray" side of things, it feels more likely they're going to double down on the "Venat/Hydaelyn was unquestionably right" angle despite the Omega questline openly casting doubt on that.

Though particularly in the case of the latter,

where people have noticed some "too similar to be a coincidence" parallels between the Twelve and some of the Ancients from Elpis, which seems liable to push towards making some/all of the affable ones Venat sympathizers...

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Originally Posted by Brinne

the survivors of her actions were now demanding emotionally understandable justice for what she had done (even if via an approach that was unacceptable to the currently living.)

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This is a hell of a euphemism for "Proceeded to annihilate entire worlds and slaughter living beings beyond counting with the ultimate intent of permanently enslaving mankind to a blood god."

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I think that pretty much sums up how I feel about this business.

That said, I'm feeling very...dubious about how both Pandaemonium and Myths are going to conclude because while both would be a good time to delve into the "gray" side of things, it feels more likely they're going to double down on the "Venat/Hydaelyn was unquestionably right" angle despite the Omega questline openly casting doubt on that.

Though particularly in the case of the latter,

where people have noticed some "too similar to be a coincidence" parallels between the Twelve and some of the Ancients from Elpis, which seems liable to push towards making some/all of the affable ones Venat sympathizers...

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Yeah, obviously it's impossible to say for certain where things are leading, so it's possible there'll be some kind of twist or unforeseen aspect, but the vibes aren't Great all-around this patch. (The vibes beyond Curing Insomnnia, at least.) But I get the feeling the Myths was always intended to be uncritical and celebratory re: acting as an "epilogue" to Endwalker, given the context it was announced and first described.

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Originally Posted by FirstGearFirstGear

This is a hell of a euphemism for "Proceeded to annihilate entire worlds and slaughter living beings beyond counting with the ultimate intent of permanently enslaving mankind to a blood god."

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Oof. And I was really trying as hard as possible to discuss in good faith and with nuance, but, well. At my own potential risk: yes, but enough about Hydaelyn!

Finally, someone let me out of my cage.

I resubbed about three days ago for 6.3, more in the hopes that experiencing the MSQ content I ducked out on before 6.1 even launched would inspire me to keep writing. My idea was a minor/major rewrite fic of the events—mostly in that a certain leader of the Scions is alive again and the real protagonist, while my WoL (Galbana Lily) is more or less her girlfriend/bodyguard. I managed to get past Alzadaal's Legacy before I had to admit to myself that I just didn't give a crap about what was happening, most of the characters involved, or what was to come.

So... here I am.

On the plus side, I finished Amidst the Ashes of Paradise before the turn of the year. I'm not entirely satisfied with how it played out in the end, and in my rush to get it done I ended up avoiding some things I really wanted or could have been good—Lily reuniting with some/all of the Elpis cast, getting to meet Maia (the porxie turned Meteion-descended familiar), and so on. I'm also fairly confident that the way I ended it, with Lily actually going through with her plan to resurrect Minfilia and ending up bringing Venat's soul back into existence while finally letting go of her frustrations and grudge against her... it's probably not the most popular ending, but whatever.

Also, it feels pretty frustrating to have relented and tried to give one of Venat's conspirators a name and identity—making an OC I sincerely like out of them—only to have it all but explicitly confirmed that the developers already did that, and were just withholding it. Sooner or later they were bound to fill in those blanks, but still.

EDIT: So, because I love to stroke my own ego, I'm just gonna ramble about the fic and my intentions with it. When I set out to write Ashes, it was to vent my frustrations with Endwalker's story and address what I felt were its shortcomings. YMMV on how well I came across or accomplished that, but here we go:


Time Travel

Endwalker took an already muddy set of implicit time travel rules and half-wittedly tried to bend them to make the plot work (see: Elidibus's warning, Venat's weird fixation on merging her timeline with yours, and Claudien's "It's just like Chrono Trigger!" musings).

What I did to fix it: Lily sought out the Tycoon right from the beginning of the fic, and after establishing that it still existed and was amicable, I used it to establish how time travel was going to work in the fic: You can't change your own past, you can only feed into it (time loop) or create a new future (timeline splitting). I also used this moment to strongly suggest that, should Lily embark on such a journey, the way back would be nigh impossible (but not insurmountable).

What I wish I did: I was going to write another scene near the end of the fic, where Lily confronts the Tycoon over redirecting her destination to the post-Final Days Etheirys instead of the Elpis/Pandaemonium era. The Tycoon would explain that even if Lily succeeded in helping the Ancients prevent the Final Days altogether, Venat would be left unsatisfied with the result, as she truly believed mankind needed to experience the Final Days to prove their worth. It would remind Lily that all it took to condemn the entire universe was one innocent question from a naive Ancient and his creation (Hermes and the Meteia). I ended up not doing this, in large part because the scene it was in was taking altogether too long to finish. I also felt it was unbelievable that Venat would intentionally inflict something like the Final Days on her people. But then again, y'know... the Sundering.

Ryne and Gaia

Ryne, after being built up through all of Shadowbringers as someone who would be significant to the ongoing plot, was shoved aside after 5.3 and only made a cameo appearance in Endwalker.

What I did to fix it: Ryne and Gaia were initially introduced into the fic just to give Lily someone to bounce off of during the opening chapters. But I made the decision to bring them along into the past. This turned out to be a good idea all around: They injected much needed levity at times, I was able to develop their relationship, flesh out their characters quite a bit more, etc. I was particularly happy with the decision to have them step up to become the story's protagonists, with Ryne even being offered the seat of Azem for her efforts. Ryne's completely selfless desire to save the Ancients contrasted nicely with Lily's selfish need to assuage her own guilt, and helped both characters shine, I feel.

What I wish I did: I wanted to show their nameday celebration, to contrast the happiness she and her friends were experiencing with Atlas's scene, which took place at about the same time. But I decided not to cover it, and instead cover the ending. As an aside, it's awfully fucked up for two teenage girls to celebrate turning 17, and immediately that night have to drop everything they're doing to save the world. Poor Ryne didn't even get to say goodbye to Atlas, and Atlas never got to thank any of them for pulling her out of her suicidal rut and giving her three more weeks to live.

The Venat cutscene

I genuinely hated the entirety of the infamous "Henceforth, he must walk" cutscene for reducing the entire history of the Final Days and the Sundering to a symbolic walk. It sidestepped all the nuance the scenario was initially presented with in Shadowbringers, substituting it with an obnoxious argument with a collective of strawmen set up for Venat to tear apart—figuratively and very literally. I also found it in poor taste to compare Venat watching generations of other people's suffering as a result of her actions with the WoL's heroic struggle against Emet-Selch.

What I did to fix it: I made that confrontation actually happen, and gave a semi-concrete timeframe for which it happened: Before the second sacrifice can take place, Venat has been doing this, confronting strangers about the choice to sacrifice themselves to Zodiark, for months. I also give three far better reasons for them to refuse and refute her, though I don't have these people say them outright. First, they are literally living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where death by starvation is not only likely, but inevitable. Between death by starvation and death by becoming salvation itself, what choice do they really have? Second, there are more survivors than just these people. They have friends, families, and children to consider. They are willing to sacrifice everything of themselves to provide a better future for kith and kin. This completely flips the script on Endwalker's "The Ancients were just clinging to the past!" rhetoric—the Ancients Venat was opposed to were every bit as focused on the future as Venat. But I think the third, given near the end of the fic, is the most damning for Venat. After making the sacrifice, they had time to reflect on their decisions and the truth behind Venat's actions. And despite all that, they're willing to forgive Venat for lashing out at them and believe she is still able to guide their children in their stead.

What I wish I did: Nothing more, really. I felt I adequately refuted one of the most obnoxious elements of Endwalker's story there.

Tempering Expectations

In an easily missed line of dialogue in Shadowbringers, Emet-Selch confirms that Zodiark tempered the Convocation upon being summoned, and goes on to say that their purpose from then on was to bring about "His darkness". This revelation ought to have painted the ensuing story in a very different light, highlighting the tragedy of the Ascians being dutybound to act the way they do... and it never came up again. Not even after we finally developed a cure for tempering. Oh, aside from a one-off mention from, iirc, Livingway, who completely downplays the effects by calling it "a little tug", but only in the English localization.

What I did to fix it: The Convocation of Fourteen are tempered. Fixing that tempering was one of Lily's goals in the event that she couldn't stop the Final Days, and ultimately every single member has their tempering removed. How this is portrayed is more or less how it was portrayed in canon—each member has their own personality and point of view, but all are irrevocably (at the time) pointed towards means and ends that would suit Zodiark. Whether it's humanity exiling themselves to space while leaving Zodiark to care for Etheirys, or choosing to stay and work out how to bring their sacrificed friends and family back, Zodiark's needs invariably come before their own.

In the process of removing their tempering, Atlas also proves that it's possible to restore the memories Hermes erased from his and Emet-Selch's minds.

What I wish I did: Honestly, I don't know. The scenes with the whole Convocation were hard enough to write as it is. So many characters in one scene is just... difficult to handle.

Hermes, Destroyer of Worlds

Hermes never faces or takes responsibility for his actions in Endwalker. He lives and dies a hero, in complete ignorance to his role in causing the calamity in the first place.

What I did to fix it: Hermes is portrayed post-Final Days as deeply troubled by the event, to the point of believing humanity should exile themselves from Etheirys as penance. Once he's confronted with what he'd done, it causes him so much grief that he winds up wishing to be killed to atone. And this is where I worked my magicks—I had Emet-Selch and Atlas befriend him. With Emet-Selch it's a bit one-sided. Before his memories are restored he's the man's most fervent defender. And even after his memories are restored, he still takes every opportunity he can to help Hermes, despite having every reason to lash out at him instead. Hermes of course is incapable of seeing this, believing that he's being patronized with empty words as usual. He's much more receptive to Atlas and her attempts to get him to open up, and eventually agrees to have his memory restored.

And when he does? He realizes he had the answer to his question from the very beginning, and was too blinded by his own ambitions to realize it. The Meteia were what brought him happiness, and even though remembering what he did causes him no end of pain, he becomes determined to save them from the hell he'd inflicted onto them.

What I wish I did: Had Lily meet Hermes before her departure for her own timeline. She would see how much he'd changed for the better, and wonder what had caused it. This would be an appropriate time to recap Hermes' development, while also introducing her to Maia.

Venat, the Magic Conch

Venat's big plan for dealing with the Final Days in canon is notoriously lacking. All we have to work with is that she refused to tell anyone, even her twelve devoted followers, what was truly going on. She also insisted that the Final Days had to be allowed to happen, despite moments earlier trying to stop Meteion from fleeing and even trying to kill her.

What I did to fix it: Venat was an active participant in trying to alleviate the Final Days'. She fought blasphemies, including Therion. She used Anamnesis Anyder to shelter everyone she could. She even had a starship constructed so that, should she believe the people of Etheirys were strong enough to confront Meteion, they would already have the means to reach her.

I also added caveats to her attempts to help her people. Anamnesis Anyder wasn't a perfect shelter, and beyond that was ill-equipped to handle the people's biological needs. With the world in a state where nothing new could be grown, many of the survivors were forced to leave, until all that remained were Venat, her followers, and Erichthonios, who she'd contracted to create the seal that would keep Zodiark at bay. And her starship, which was just barely completed by the time it took off, was never actually *meant* to find Ultima Thule. Because of her insistence on keeping her foreknowledge a secret, it was ultimately designed under the assumption that it would take several Ancient generations to find the source of the Final Days. This is something Venat is called out for by her own followers—if she had just told them the truth from the start, they could have focused all their effort onto a smaller, faster starship, and stopped the Final Days before it ever began.

the tl;dr of it: Venat in canon is a clusterfuck of poor writing choices marring an otherwise good character. Venat in my fic is torn between saving her own people and keeping the path to Lily's future available to her. In the end it's made clear that both paths would have led to salvation, but the one Venat traveled in canon was genuinely the worse of the two, not the better.

What I wish I did: Not much, really.

Azem, the Tuxedo Mask

In canon, we have no idea why Azem opposed the summoning of Zodiark. We have no idea why they refused Venat's invitation to join them. We have no idea what they were doing at all. I wholeheartedly expect this to be retconned into "Azem secretly allied with Venat from the beginning", which I wholeheartedly disagree with.

What I did to fix it: I made Azem an actual character in her own right. Atlas, a giant of a woman from the volcanic isle mentioned in one of Emet-Selch's The Rising stories. She's built like an ox, strong of heart and sound of mind, overwhelmingly empathetic, and generally an all around lovable woman. Her objection was for the obvious and understandable reason of not wanting half their people and Elidibus to be consumed to create Zodiark. She instead believed she should be the lone sacrifice. The thing is, the Final Days did such a massive number on her cognition that this would've been disastrous. She ended up storming out in a huff after crushing her mask, rebuking Elidibus despite his efforts to convince her to return, and took refuge with Pleione in Elpis, where she became the island's sole guardian.

But isolation, especially after what she'd been through, is a slow killer. By the time she enters the story, she's one day and one Zodiark-induced miracle away from committing suicide. In Lily's timeline, she died fully believing that the people she was protecting would reclaim their world and seek out a brighter future. Instead Hydaelyn destroyed their hopes and dreams when she sundered Etheirys, and Atlas ended up in a state where, if she ever awoke again (say, by Emet-Selch jogging her memory with a certain soul crystal), she would become a worse threat to the universe than even the Meteia.

But this fate was averted for the Atlas of this new timeline. Because of the interference by Lily, Ryne, and Gaia, she was able to put her life back together, enjoy life again, and through sacrificing her soul became the wings that would carry the Ancients to victory—the Ragnarok or more specifically, its AI, Maduin.

What I wish I did: Spent more time with the Maduin AI. There was a scene where the AI shows Maia some recording Atlas made before passing away, in an attempt to lift her spirits. It would've been nice to write Lily hearing those messages as well.

The Echo/The Blessing of Light

So the powers the Echo and the Blessing of Light convey to people in the setting are pretty damn inconsistent, and Endwalker made that even worse by downplaying its significance (oh, it's just a simple shield) while also stripping the Echo of the only utility it consistently provided (shielding you from primal influence). It was also revealed in 5.2 that the Echo is far more widespread than anyone truly knows, but certain characters who ought to have it simply don't (or the story is very vague about it).

What I did to fix it: Atlas reveals to Ryne that everyone, including her, has the capacity to develop the Echo. She teaches Ryne how to use it to review her own memories in real time, and Ryne compares it to her ability to lucid dream (something I've toyed with in previous fics). Likewise, despite all but stripping herself of the Blessing of Light, Lily is able to resist Hydaelyn's attempts to temper her through the Echo and sheer willpower alone. She was even fairly close to snapping Hydaelyn's neck before sheer exposure to the primal's influence forcibly converted her into a sin eater.

… Oh, and also. Sin Eaters can be cured provided creation magicks are involved. That was a thing I introduced.

What I wish I did: I was originally going to have Lily be tempered, and Maia be tempted to reawaken her as Atlas while rebalancing her aether. She ultimately wouldn't, but even so, I decided against this idea on the grounds that it was too fucked up, even for me. I also wanted to come up with a much more interesting design for Sin Eater!Lily than a featureless marble statue. The idea behind that was that the whole "Hero of a Thousand Faces"/"WoL is a blank slate" thing, but still. I liked what I came up with, at least.

Ancients can't use Dynamis, except when they can

The story treats the Ancients' inability to wield dynamis themselves as an insurmountable hurdle that justifies their extinction at Venat's hands. But this ignores that the Ancients have made living things that can interact with dynamis in their stead. Even 6.3 seems to be strongly implying that the Twelve (being Hydaelyn's creations) are just as able to interact with Dynamis as the sundered, despite technically being unsundered beings by comparison (they can use creation magicks without relying on outside sources of power).

What I did to fix it: Had the Convocation discuss possible solutions to dealing with the Meteia, and ultimately come to the conclusion that working in tandem with their own creations is their best choice. This leads to Atlas and Hermes remodeling Atlas's porxie, Maia, into a familiar based on Meteion's design. This would eventually lead to more familiars being created or altered along the same line, such as Loghrif's Griever, and they would join those sent to Ultima Thule.

What I wish I did: Actually depicted the Ancients' journey to Ultimate Thule. I've had a few ideas floating around in my head on how that would play out, but the end result was always going to be the same: Maia would reveal that the Meteia have completely failed to do what they claim they're doing. There is no happiness to be found amidst the dead worlds whose souls she plundered, and all she's really accomplished is keeping them trapped in the agony of their final moments. The Ancients would ultimately succeed in unraveling the girls' control over the souls, and with the last of Venat's divine power as Hydaelyn, would also permanently break the Meteia's hive mind, forcing them to live and grow as individuals. This is in sharp contrast to Lily, who simply killed all but the one she successfully won over. Ultimately I decided not to do this, as I didn't think I could do the idea justice and it would otherwise be a retread of Endwalker's story, but with the Ancients instead of the Scions.

The Sundering

It should come as no surprise that I find the Sundering to be morally reprehensible. It only narrowly skates by in the fandom because the writing is insufferably vague about what happened, while also relying on Emet-Selch giving a brief demonstration that ended up proving inaccurate later down the line, thanks to Yoshi-P's dogged insistence that the modern day races be direct descendants of the Ancients and not the new life Zodiark created via the second sacrifice.

What I did to fix that: I depicted what Sundering does to a person three times.

The first is in a flashback to the Eden!Shiva fight, wherein Lily is sundered into eight pieces by Shiva. The result is eight "perfect" copies of Lily, being in line with Emet-Selch's description. They're one eighth as strong, one eighth as smart, one eighth as agile. And because of that, it's something of a miracle they were able to stop Shiva from causing a second Flood of Light.

The second is in the Ryne+Gaia as Primals vs Hydaelyn fight. Hydaelyn decides to finish the fight by distracting them with a Flood of Light, then unleashing the Sundering upon them, the Moon, and all of Etheirys. Gaia uses up all of the divine power she has left to freeze time on the Moon, gets Ryne to safety, and then forcibly directs the Sundering onto herself, stopping it at the cost of her own life. The result is the already 1/14 Gaia being sundered so much that there's seemingly nothing left of her. The only person present who can even perceive her, Hythlodaeus, compares her presence to that of the scorched residue left behind when Therion incinerated his fellow Ancients with its voice when the Final Days came to Amaurot. tl;dr: Gaia got sundered to the point where she was barely a stain on the moon (she got better).

The third is, funnily enough, Hydaelyn herself! After stealing some of her power earlier in the fight, Ryne uses Elidibus and Hythlodaeus to distract Hydaelyn, then unleashes that power on her, sundering her into fourteen pieces just like she was going to do to Etheirys. The result is in line from the pictures seen in the Nier crossover. Every single description I made of the state Hydaelyn was in after Ryne sundered her screams that this is a fucking horrible fate and that inflicting it onto someone is worse than killing them outright.

What I wish I did: Nothing more. This was executed perfectly, I think.

Pray Return to Life, Minfilia

When I first began writing Ashes, I wholeheartedly intended to bring Minfilia back to life at the end of the fic. As a fan of her character, her repeated deaths over the course of Heavensward and Shadowbringers were downright frustrating to experience, and it honestly felt like I was being punished for liking her just because the fandom at large did not.

What I did to fix it: Lily's desire to resurrect her was in the story from the very beginning, and moments to suggest this was going to be the case were laced in all throughout the story. I also tied Lily's mother, Seventh Heaven, into this finale—this was also intended from the start, though not quite in the way I went about it. Notably, the demonic form Seven takes before Lily rekindles her memories is based on Japanese Hannya masks, which I felt was appropriate given the parts of her story I'd worked into this fic and the previous ones, Dreams of the Road Untraveled and Candle in the Dark.

What I wish I did: Originally I was going to have Lily leave for Dalmasca after Minfilia's revival, only to be confronted by her in Rabanastre. I ended up not doing this because that's a major dick move. I also wanted to do more with Lily's fight with her mother—Seventh Heaven was going to follow up her overpowered magicks with Ultima Masher/Shear, the ultimate technique Viera can learn in FFTA+FFTA2. But I decided that was out of character for her—she's trying to dissuade intruders, not kill them, and by the time she could've done it, Lily had already gotten through to her.

Undoing Venat's erasure

Yeah. If this was supposed to be karmic punishment for her actions, it certainly didn't feel like it. And I'm going to be blunt: After railing against her own people for wanting to sacrifice themselves or the new life to Zodiark, it struck me as bizarre that Venat turned around and did the exact same thing for us. By sacrificing her own soul, she gave us the power to restore what we lost—nine dead friends, or eight dead friends and Emet-Selch if you're not fond of him. This proved to be instrumental to our success in Ultima Thule, and is such a thorough refutation of her own beliefs that it's astonishing nobody seems to have picked up on it.

What I did to fix it: Nothing, lol. But I was in full "Fuck Canon, I do what I want" mode by then, so I decided to have Minfilia orchestrate Venat's soul revival, using her body as bait and Seventh Heaven to screen out everyone except the one person who could pull her back together. Funnily enough, this wasn't even the plan when I wrote in that Venat had sent a mysterious crystal across the timelines! That crystal was initially intended to be the means by which Minfilia would resurrect, as a gift to her. But I figured Venat forgiving her alternate self for what she'd done, and Lily forgiving her for the betrayal and heartache Venat had caused her, was more poignant.

What I wish I did: I would've liked to have present day Venat speak with Lily, Minfilia, and Seven. But I decided that having her silently show her affection before leaving, and Seven departing to keep her company, was better. Oh well.

You aren't really discussing with nuance when you brush aside omnicide as "demanding understandable justice". You are also ignoring a lot of the nuance that the writers gave Venat's actions. She does not immediately declare "Eff it" and sunder the world, she attempted to convince the Ancients to reject Zodiark and rebuild their civilization. Her long walk is not a peaceful and triumphant parade, it's a miserable slog where she is surrounded by the suffering she caused and tortured for her actions. "Answers" is not a anthem of victory, it's a dirge grappling with the cruelty that we are born destined to suffer and die. CBU3 absolutely did not declare that Hydaelyn = Totally Good and ignore any other perspective.

At the same time, it is impossible to ignore that the Sundering, however horrifying it was in the short term, did lead to good. It created vibrant worlds filled with life. And while that life struggled and suffered, it still endured and thrived. 99.99% of the characters the WoL meets wouldn't exist if Hydaelyn hadnt done what she did. She does not absolve herself of responsibility for the life, she fights for it, even at ruinous personal cost.

Venat's decision is sunder the world was a brutal one, and the writers don't shy away from that. But to declare it was universally evil isn't nuance. It's declaring that the only life that matters in the setting are Ancients enslaved to Zodiark.

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Originally Posted by FirstGearFirstGear

You aren't really discussing with nuance when you brush aside omnicide as "demanding understandable justice".

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To be clear, I think the Rejoinings are as unacceptable and worthy as condemnation as the Sundering. I also think that the surviving victims of Hydaelyn's omnicide have the right to be outraged and demand justice against her for it. I also think the specific form that demand for justice took was an ugly, horrifying one that people also had every right to oppose, due to it involving mass amounts of people uninvolved with and not knowing the truth. If I worded that in a way that wasn't strong enough for you, okay, but that's where I stand. If you disagree with the idea that the surviving Ancients had a right to hold grievance to what was done to them, period, that what originally happened to the Ancients was an incredible injustice - then we're at a fundamental impasse.

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You are also ignoring a lot of the nuance that the writers gave Venat's actions. She does not immediately declare "Eff it" and sunder the world, she attempted to convince the Ancients to reject Zodiark and rebuild their civilization.

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This is a hell of a euphemism for "refused to, in full knowledge, tell them the truth about why anything happened, recited 'suffering good, so you should leave your loved ones to be tormented in purgatory forever and reject the one solution that saved the world', then murdered every single human being in retaliation because the majority didn't agree with her ideology while also willingly murdering every other life on the planet in the crossfire, still never telling a single person the truth or what the consequences would be."

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Her long walk is not a peaceful and triumphant parade, it's a miserable slog where she is surrounded by the suffering she caused and tortured for her actions.

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...in a way meant to inspire sympathy and awe for her "strength" and "iron will" as she Keeps Walking while uttering inspirational lines and instructions to the living that we are obviously meant to listen to, follow, and think of as noble, heroic, and cutting to great human truths. (This is obvious given the reception that the WoL gives her, and then the Scions give to her, after she repeats her "life is suffering and suffering will make you strong" creed, but even putting that aside--do you really think that sequence was designed to allow room for anyone to leave reacting, in line with the narrative, with "wow, Venat did a fucked up thing I can't say is good or bad!" No. That sequence is designed for the playerbase to go "she's so cool and strong and just like me!" The height of the manipulation was directly paralleling her tortured walk with our tortured walk. If she's meant to be seen as 'rightfully tortured' for the horrors she caused, what are we to make of the alignment with the WoL's 'tortured walk' when hit with the light? Because it's not about righteous, deserved torture. It's meant to be a portrayal of 'heroic strength.' Her endurance of other peoples' suffering was written to show off her own fortitude to continue even though the suffering of others was so clearly terrible for her to endure.)

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"Answers" is not a anthem of victory, it's a dirge grappling with the cruelty that we are born destined to suffer and die.

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Answers was retconned to be a creed to live by. We are meant to be inspired by its command to "live, die, and know" as a heartening, grim, but noble answer to the question of "why do we suffer?" Answers is not a song of mourning, the end. Answers is supposed to be right.

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CBU3 absolutely did not declare that Hydaelyn = Totally Good and ignore any other perspective.

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This is true! ...in the Omega quests, and pretty much nowhere else. Where else, after her motivations are revealed, is a Hydaelyn =/= Good perspective put forth?

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At the same time, it is impossible to ignore that the Sundering, however horrifying it was in the short term, did lead to good. It created vibrant worlds filled with life. And while that life struggled and suffered, it still endured and thrived. 99.99% of the characters the WoL meets wouldn't exist if Hydaelyn hadnt done what she did.

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I mean, I'm sure what you're saying is what the game meant for us to take from it. However, that just means that we return to, once again: genocide isn't necessarily evil if it works! Genocide isn't necessarily evil if it benefits us! Genocide isn't necessarily evil if the person committing it really believes it's for the greater good! Now add: genocide can create good results overall if you think of the act as only being horrifying in the short term!

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She does not absolve herself of responsibility for the life, she fights for it, even at ruinous personal cost.

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This is one of those things that sounds good as an outline, or as the general intent of the writing of the character, but then falls apart almost immediately when you actually look closely at the text of her actions. She takes responsibility for the life and fights for it - except for those seven worlds she wrote off when she decided to deliberately spare the Ascians as part of her plan to adhere to the timeline. She takes responsibility for the life and fights for it - as long as it's on the Source, and Sharlayan-approved. Everyone else is expendable and left to die. We're not even going to try to have an exit plan to save the people of the Shards.

But Yoshida can say in an interview that, gosh, she really agonized over all of this, and that just clears up everything. I'm not referring specifically to what you're saying here, to be clear - I'm saying it in a general way as reflecting on the shakiness and laziness or thoughtlessness of how this story and their intent was delivered in a way that did worse than undermine what they were trying to get across.

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Venat's decision is sunder the world was a brutal one, and the writers don't shy away from that.

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Abstracting it as much as possible and having no major NPC besides the toy robot beetle in a sidequest question it or call it out is pretty much textbook "shying away from it."

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But to declare it was universally evil isn't nuance. It's declaring that the only life that matters in the setting are Ancients enslaved to Zodiark.

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Hm. Nah.

The Ancients are allowed to hold a grievance against Venat. They are not allowed to wipe out all of creation because they are desperately grasping for a past that can never be reclaimed. Frankly, describing that as "seeking justice" makes your entire stance suspect.

There are plenty of plausible reasons that Venat didn't explicitly lay out Zodiark, Meteion, and so forth. The most brute force is that she knew it wouldn't matter, we're in a closed time loop and a future that produces a WoL that will travel back to Elpis is going to happen. That is also not a terribly satisfying answer, but it's notable that if you go with it, Venat still tries to convince the Ancients to reject Zodiark. She knows it's hopeless, but she still tries because she loves her people and their world.

There are other reasonable excuses. Emet-Selch's defining character trait is that he's stubborn and reluctant to accept new ideas, especially one as wild as a sad space bird is the real threat we have to deal with. Telling the Convocation will mean telling Hermes which risks him deliberately sabotaging the effort to stop Meteion. And Venat has literally no proof of her claims which again are pretty wild. But more to the point, Meteion isn't why Venat sundered the world. She sundered it because the Ancients chose slavery over freedom.

Let's go back to the whole genocide thing. Because you're right, genocide is bad. And the writers of Final Fantasy XIV would agree with you! Ishgard trying to wipe out the dragons and vice versa is bad! The Garleans trying to wipe out everything that isn't Garlean is bad! The sin-eaters trying to wipe out Norvrandt is bad! Emet-Selch trying to wipe out, uh, everything is bad! And the Ancients deliberately genociding themselves so they could cling to their tainted utopia is bad. If you want to argue that Venat was preventing the Ancients from freeing their kin from Zodiark, you have to acknowledge that they were happy to keep throwing souls into him as long as they could get their paradise back. That is what Venat sundered them from. She didn't object to the summoning of Zodiark because, yeah, there was no other way to stop the Final Days. She objected to the Ancients enslaving themselves to him. It was absolutely a genocide of the Ancients and the writers assumed that people would realize, based on FF14's previous anti-genocide stance, that it was a horrible, monstrous choice. But that with the context of her beliefs and the events around her, there were no good choices.

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Originally Posted by FirstGearFirstGear

The Ancients are allowed to hold a grievance against Venat. They are not allowed to wipe out all of creation because they are desperately grasping for a past that can never be reclaimed. Frankly, describing that as "seeking justice" makes your entire stance suspect.

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This wrong TopGear.

Guild member only believing the high ethic and moral. We can not supporting the genocide. Genocide is not kill the people is kill the culture. Venar is genocide because No Shadow God culture kill with sunder. King Solus it can not party all the night long. Culture gone is now sad. Writer who say Venar is herois is evil because the Venar is evil. Genocide it is evil and high ethic guild can not support. King Solus and No Shadow God rejoin is different because is revenger. King Solus kill all people in the world 2 and the world 3 and the world 4 and the world 5 and the world 6 and the world 13 it not genocide. Mustard gas war of Garlemalding it not genocide. It is like kill the farm animal because No Shadow God is God and human is not God. Guild is not the animal right activate lmao. Is eater of cheesie burger. Can not compare the pesticide to the genocide. Is in name of race darwin to making the mustard race. Guild member like the Briny explain it to you on blogosphere. Is high ethic that make guild fight the story writer. And because No Shadow God story making beautiful romance between King Solus and the Elibuss and the Hotlodeus and the Alan. We read the fic it so good. But mainly high ethic. Do not support the evil genocide. Do not support the evil loprabbit. Do not support the time travel only support if it bring back No Shadow God in the patch 70.

Understand. OK.

After having a year to think about it, I feel like the major problem with the story in Endwalker is that they crammed way too much into a short amount of time. But the underlying reasons for that didn't begin with Endwalker - and I'm about to say something that's probably going to be really controversial in these parts, considering the whole 'Shadowbringers good, Endwalker bad' angle that some posters are arguing in this thread.

For all the praise Shadowbringers gets, people don't seem to recognize that the storytelling in Endwalker is 100% a direct consequence of the drastic shift in storytelling that began with Shadowbringers.

Namely, the COMPLETE shift from the main antagonists being the Garlean Empire (with some Ascian stuff sprinkled throughout) which was built up for all of level 1-70, to the whole Ancient stuff for levels 70-80, which ultimately ended with Garlemald being destroyed off-screen with zero input from the main cast, with the entire plot being completely hijacked by the Ancients (and Zenos being dragged along for the ride).

And the devs were probably pressured into thinking that leaning really hard into Ancient stuff and wrapping up the End Days plot as soon as possible (at the expense of literally EVERYTHING ELSE world-building wise) was the right choice to make. Because remember guys, there were A LOT of people with really bad and short-sighted 'oh the Emet-Selch stuff was so good and Stormblood was an awful expansion, do we really have to go back to boring Empire stuff?' takes when Shadowbringers was first released. And there were signs (and I don't recall if this was outright stated by the writers themselves, I distinctly remember something to this effect being mentioned at one point) that the writers actually weren't really sure how they wanted to wrap up the story in Endwalker until halfway through Shadowbringers too.

This accelerated storytelling has been a major misstep and I'm not sure why this was ever necessary. For the record, I still think the overall story ended on a good note, but way too much happened that weren't properly explored, and all of the missed opportunities as a result of that truly rubs me the wrong way. We can't properly go back and explore the Three Great Continents in detail now, because we leapfrogged across vast distances so quickly and glossed over so many topics that there's now an intense pressure for the story to take us across the oceans and the other shards instead. It's like the writers completely wrote themselves into a corner regarding the original Three Great Continents.

(continued in next post due to character limit)

1) I get the impression that the writers quickly realized that killing off Emperor Varis at the end of Shadowbringers was a massive mistake. It seems like they were considering finding ways to walk that back until they realized that there was no clean way for them to do so, because the community at that point would have reacted badly to yet another character being seemingly brought back from the dead (though there have been plenty of characters that have actually stayed dead). So they settled on making sure that he was unquestionably dead with the whole Anima reveal, and because he was gone for real, they had to basically off-screen Nerva too, since there was no easy way to make HIM a major player in the plot with Varis gone.

Consider that we got the Memoria Misera fight, where the Wandering Minstrel outright tells you that the memory may not be accurate to Emperor Varis' real combat prowess (which was an obvious sign that the writers at that point hadn't yet decided if they were going to actually keep him dead).

2) We should have actually gone to Garlemald before shit hit the fan, or arrived right as it started to, instead of it (and 70 levels worth of buildup) just being destroyed off-screen.

3) On that note, Endwalker should have been split into two expansions. Or the initial story should have been entirely focused on Thavanir/a Garlemald that wasn't already off-screen'd, while the post-story should have then gone into the Moon/End Days stuff. Cramming Ala Mhigo and Doma into the same expansion was the #1 criticism of Stormblood, so I'm not sure why the writers thought that doing an extreme version of this in Endwalker by cramming four major regions into one expansion (Garlemald, Thavanir, Sharlaya, and the Moon/Ultima Thule) into the initial story was a good idea.

I'm not even going to bother with the whole 'was Venat right?' minefield, because I think a lot of those arguments are just a consequence of the accelerated storytelling not having the time to really explore a lot of the themes and topics presented in this expansion. Also, I think the current 13th shard plot is rather good, all complaints about the pacing of the rest of Endwalker aside. That said, maybe it should have been an optional trial series instead of being part of the main story. While the topics it presents are rather important, nothing would have stopped the devs from making that content mandatory for main quest progression later, like the Crystal Tower series.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

3) On that note, Endwalker should have been split into two expansions. Or the initial story should have been entirely focused on Thavanir/a Garlemald that wasn't already off-screen'd, while the post-story should have then gone into the Moon/End Days stuff. Cramming Ala Mhigo and Doma into the same expansion was the #1 criticism of Stormblood, so I'm not sure why the writers thought that doing an extreme version of this in Endwalker by cramming four major regions into one expansion (Garlemald, Thavanir, Sharlaya, and the Moon/Ultima Thule) into the initial story was a good idea.

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That's the thing.

Endwalker was originally intended to be two expansions as per some past interviews, with Garlemald slated as being the endpoint for the first of them, meaning the tower business was supposed to be a much more lasting threat then it was.

That would've presumably left the Final Days with an expansion to itself and a lot more time for the subplots surrounding it to develop.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

That's the thing.

Endwalker was originally intended to be two expansions as per some past interviews, with Garlemald slated as being the endpoint for the first of them, meaning the tower business was supposed to be a much more lasting threat then it was.

That would've presumably left the Final Days with an expansion to itself and a lot more time for the subplots surrounding it to develop.

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Good lord, this explains a lot. You can basically tell this was a consequence of the writers writing themselves into a corner with Varis dying and Zenos basically hijacking the plot from the Garlean side of the story.

The Ancients should still be extinct.
Although a total of four people found Meteion, two of whom desperately tried to save Venat and Wol (the only reasonable explanation seems to be that they wanted Venat and Wol to retain their memories and tell people the urgent information). At the time they smiled and appeared to trust Venat and Wol, but Venat and Wol chose to withhold the information.
When the Ancients faced the disaster with no knowledge, they did their best to save their planet, and they also brought it back to life, Venat made a grand entrance, saying that there were too many sacrifices too cruel. She said she wanted to check Zodiak, many believed her, and when she had the power of these supporters, she destroyed everything.
The people she opposed, the people who supported her, the people she claimed to protect, all shattered.
But the Ancients should still be extinct.
Because they could not give color to the flowers.
Although they could create Meteion. they must not have been able to create weapons against Meteion.
Don't think this is unreasonable.
Because Venat has destroyed them all, so of course they can't create weapons.
Although it seems that if these flowers, grow in the pandaemonium, they can turn the pandaemonium into a disco.
But the ancients should be extinct, Venat is the hero.
Although it seems that she just wants, just wants, to use this opportunity to become the only supreme goddess.
She is even, the will of the planet, although it is not clear that she and the planet, have any good relationship.
Don't question it or you should stop playing the game. This is a game you have loved for so many years that you can recite almost every story setting.
Incidentally, The Twelve are the only true gods in the world.
People in other areas believe in false gods.
You are from, the most superior people.
You can make flowers change color, and your gods love your world, and you alone. You believe in the true God, the true Jesus. No wonder the pagans who believe in false gods, who use all their efforts to survive, have to become inferior monsters. People who try hard are no better than those who only sleep and say to themselves "never mind" before a disaster.
The logic here is simple: pagans deserve to die.
I am not a subtle Japanese, and I don't understand the rules of speech in the English-speaking world's online society.
I can only honestly say that this is the most chauvinistic game I have ever played.
The irony is that if I hadn't loved the game, if I hadn't read the story carefully, if I hadn't still held out hope, like a WOWER, I wouldn't have found this.

I am WOL and I am a hero who has saved countless lives.
If I hadn't told Venat that in the future she would become the Supreme Goddess, the world, the vast majority of people wouldn't need to be saved by me.
I save people because people will, involuntarily, step into death.
I let there be suffering in the world first, and then I save human beings from the sufferings.
I am WOL, I am hydealyn's chosen hero.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

That's the thing.

Endwalker was originally intended to be two expansions as per some past interviews, with Garlemald slated as being the endpoint for the first of them, meaning the tower business was supposed to be a much more lasting threat then it was.

That would've presumably left the Final Days with an expansion to itself and a lot more time for the subplots surrounding it to develop.

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This seems to be an often misquoted or misunderstood fact that it was "originally intended to be 2 before being cut to 1 later" when in the original interview Yoshi-P said "1-2". What everyone takes as "oh, there were going to be two expansions and the first was just going to be Garlemald" was the interviewer asking what it would have been like if there were 2 instead after Yoshi-P's 1-2 remark.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Famitsu via Reddit translation

Yoshida goes on to explain that around the time of Stormblood, the team didn’t really think about how the story would continue long term. When making Shadowbringers, it was said that about 80% of the plot points have been revealed, and he thought after ShB it may be possible to keep things going from 1-2 more expansions. Looking at the fan response immediately after ShB, he felt that there should be one more expansion.

Interviewer: If the story had been 2 expansions and continued up to 7.0, what was the planned structure?

Ishikawa: We expected that there’d be 1 expansion about Garlemald. The idea was that Anima would be the boss, then the next expansion you’d fight against Hydaelyn, Zodiark and so on.

Oda: So the flow of the story itself didn’t change too much.

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They had to come up with the story in the Autumn of 2019 right after Shadowbringers released so that the cinematics team could begin work on the trailer, so all of this was thought up before the towers came into the game. Nothing was supposed to be one way or the other, just one or two and they settled on one instead of two and the story stayed the same but zoomed through at a breakneck pace.


This brings me back to my point before of Shadowbringers kind of ruining the direction of the plot despite being critically well received. Stormblood keeps pushing the story into a showdown with Garlemald but then 4.4 and 4.5 start taking the Scions away to the First and the entire plot gets derailed by a side-adventure to rescue them from a whole other dimension and prevent another Calamity while "Meanwhile, in Garlemald" the war kind of just stops and stays in a status quo while waiting for the WoL to get back and NPCs end up doing things and going on adventures we should have done.

Either Yoshi-P, Oda, or Ishikawa said something in an interview ahead of Shadowbringers' release along the lines that the players may end up feeling they "revealed too much information" and they're right. The first 90% of 5.0 doesn't exactly move the game's plot forward as a whole, but Tempest and 5.1-5.3 let the whole cat out of the bag and revealed most of the backstory of the game. This and the overwhelmingly positive response to ShB seemingly forced their hand to wrap it all up sooner rather than later.

Two expansions after Shadowbringers would have let things sink in a little longer, but considering Oda said that the story would've been the same, the people in this thread would have had the exact same criticisms of Garlemald being destroyed off-screen and the issues with Venat.

I don't think that the EW MSQ was lackluster, it's slower than Shadowbringers and maybe more set in a way since we're on the Source again but it's stated to end the entire Hydaelyn & Zodiark Arc and that was certainly achieved. The Part that I in retrospect may like the least might be the Elpis Part, only for it's retcon nature, but that Part is still well executed.. though I may played the EW MSQ too soon with Alts since I realized feeling burned out really soon.. like a lil bit after the first Alts Playthrough and very noticible after the 2nd Alt. With that said I think you only can experience Endwalker really only once and It's true that Shadowbringers nailed the feeling & pacing way better, though my personal favorite moment in the MSQ is 4.3 so technicly I could say it's all the way down from there but I do not do that because let's face the truth: In Shadowbringers, Soken became a God and when Endwalker goes Hard in the End there is no holding back. Though it's true that I have no expectation for the Story: My Expectations for Shadowbringers were that I drive with my Regalia through Norvrandt and my Expectations for Endwalker were that I drive with my Regalia on the Moon and I didn't got disappounted. My only contempt is their Combat Job Diesgn Direction but Let's what 7.0 Dawnsinger brings to the table.