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

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

1.)Yes, theres good info to suggest limit breaks in some form are indeed a part of Dynamis control, which prayer is also a part of, hence we see this with Elidibus and in Ktisis.

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We have clear confirmation that the Ancients largely could not manipulate Dynamis in a meaningful, and uncertain lore that hood that LBs can be aether or Dynamis. The conclusion is clear and unambiguous.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

2.)She approached them after the Final Days occurred, when in reality she could have approchaed them beforehand. I've reiterated this point numerous times now and you keep ignoring it or saying "but, well...there were problems with that." No there weren't.

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I’m not the one ignoring the text. It’s stated clearly why that wouldn’t work and the consequences that would stem from it, yet you repeatedly handwave it away and then wonder why she didn’t do that. Thats not a point, that’s ignoring evidence.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

She chose to not even give them a chance then, she kept her secrets to herself and continued to keep them and lie in our own time as well. Shes a manipulator and deceitful person.

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Why are you so set on making her villain when not even the Unsundered dislike her as much as you do?

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

3.) He does it purely against limit breaks, if you want to amount it to something else thats on you.

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Yes, its a shield of aether, it does not involve the manipulation of Dynamis at all.

https://i.imgur.com/zMJJpUC.jpg

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

4.) Thats about what 90% of the arguments advocating for Venat are based around.Dont see you equating it as such when it benefits your argument hm? Regardless i've given absolutes before and people simply dodge around them or avoid those points entirely.

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There are no maybes in the text. I don’t have to jump through hoops to argue my point about what she did or why. The game gives plenty of evidence to that.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

5.) As for your point about the creating beings just to suffer, please, pray tell, explain to me how this is any different from us summoning primals in the Empty just to kill them without their consent.

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Sure, a primal born from aether, not souls, is not a living being. The Ancients feel similarly. And whether such a being can even manipulate Dynamis at all, is also uncertain.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

Whether it can affect soul aether is unknown. Whether it needs to (the WoL themselves being 9/14ths dense at the soul level) is unknown. Whether it could be modified to if necessary is an open option, as is use of it as-is.

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Given Hermes had to make Meteion aetherically weak for her to manipulate Dynamis I believe it would be necessary.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

Bizarre framing. They're just arcane constructs at the end of the day, much like Primals or egis are. And that isn't why. The reason is to help them track and hunt down Meteion and stop her from hiding, to ultimately get to her and put her out of her misery. For that, ability to manipulate dynamis is required. If one had to, one could endow it with the purpose of protecting the universe itself - quite a noble purpose. If it did not work, there is the option of selective sundering of some of their own.

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We have no clue if constructs can manipulate Dynamis, as it is not aether and no confirmed arcane construct as ever manipulated Dynamis, only ensouled beings. And the idea of sending beings whose purpose is out of their control, with wills of their own, into a hellish world simply so you can avoid destruction, seems almost like a Nier plot.

Didn’t work so well there.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

Then revise the concept to circumvent that little problem.

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The one constant we’ve seen is that only those with wills of their own manipulate Dynamis, to do this would strip them of that.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

What was stopping a sundered being from doing the same, knowing of their broken existence, after they were made to suffer in this state thanks to a Supreme Deity? You could ask the same question here.

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There was nothing stopping a sundered being from doing the same. Venats hope however, is that living beings would be able to find meaning in their lives even when faced with suffering, that beauty would exist even would faced with death. If they couldn’t, then no one would be able to stand against Meteion, and that would be that.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

So what? It's linked to both. Primals happen to have an awful lot of it to tap into.

Anyway, I'm not really interested in endless back and forth over this. It is clear that there is enough room in the plot to allow for it.

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There being a potential room for further developments and “this proves that the Ancients could manipulate Dynamis” are not the same arguments.

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Originally Posted by Consurgens

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This makes me regret trashing my notes. I had quite a list by the time we landed on the moon. Unfortunately, reading through it I realized it would only serve to upset the people who asked me to enjoy it.

Thank you for your post. It quite nicely sums up many of the sore points I had with EW's story.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

Mmmmm not really. The most Dynamis manipulation from an Ancient we see is Hermes, whose noted as being the only one to change the Elpis flowers colors.

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You may be confusing this. He was the only one for whom they changed to BLACK (or purple-ish) specifically. That's why Meteion wanted you to change it to black too, so he could see he wasn't alone in his sorrow.

Glass houses, and all that...

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Originally Posted by Lauront

Glass houses, and all that...

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Yeah yeah...

I enjoyed Endwalker a lot but as previously mentioned, whenever Time Travel gets involved it almost never works out story wise.

Also, I hated it in World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria and I hated it here, 'feelings' magic is just a boring idea in my opinion. Dynamis just felt like a giant ass pull at the 11th hour and just makes me question how much Dynamis is responsible for everything our PC has done over the years...forget Willpower and Determination...DYNAMIS!

Just want to comment on Venat a little bit. Kinda have a love/hate kind of deal.

Venat "Mary Sue" Hydaelyn effectively commits genocide by splitting Etheirys into 13 pieces, kills(sunders) every living being on the planet without giving them the option of a choice, condemns everyone to perpetual suffering in order to prevent ever reaching the point of civilization seeking death after attaining perfection so instead they chase something that can never be attained, in a crowning act of narcissism names the Source Hydaelyn after herself, decides that no one can be trusted and withholds information and deceives her friends and foes alike and condemns even more to die such as say Minfilia and several lives on the first and creates the Sin Eaters as a result, has an initial plan of kill Meteion but also has a backup plan to flee the planet although it is eventually revealed that every other planet is a dead world meaning that the finite resources of the Moonship would eventually run out so plan B would ultimately fail and she bound Zodiark to use as an Aether Battery to keep the Aether Shield up but was also siphoning a portion of that Aether to the Mothercrystal making her a monstrous parasite that feeds and hoards the Aether of others. The mothercrystal is insurmountably large and is the result of leeching Aether for 12,000 years.

Other then a few Ascians and the WoL no one and nothing criticizes her actions and is rather seen as a benevolent being that can do no wrong. Likely because every race is a "child" of Hydaelyn and they have a certain attunement towards her leaving them to have favorable opinions of her.

There is a whole lot in her characterization that can paint her as a Mary Sue archetype. And generally with time travel you can't tamper with events but I do feel she unknowingly caused alterations by encouraging you to spill the beans.

Given the nature of events you can easily see Zodiark as being more a hero and Hydaelyn the villain.

Do I think Venat is inherently evil? No but the path of evil is often paved with good intentions. A future was granted but it came at a great cost.

At which point you can objectively see Venat in 2 ways. One as a deceitful creature or as a devout follower who can understand her intentions at the cost of cruel unforgivable choices.

After all Lawful good is not Lawful nice.

But the idea of the Ancients have such powercreep that the Sundering was caused by the entity that effectively created you is interesting in both good and bad ways. Good as a twist but also bad in a "are we the baddies" kind of deal. And I also think it kinda cheapens the overall story quite a bit. It's a whole lot of "To save the world I had to destroy it".

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

But the idea of the Ancients have such powercreep that the Sundering was caused by the entity that effectively created you is interesting in both good and bad ways. Good as a twist but also bad in a "are we the baddies" kind of deal.

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Whether we are the "baddies" is a matter of perspective, and according to the story's pov, we are not.

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And I also think it kinda cheapens the overall story quite a bit. It's a whole lot of "To save the world I had to destroy it".

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I don't see how that cheapens the story. Rather, it puts into perspective that Venat had faith for our future over the past that the unsundered wanted to reclaim. And it's quite clear that Venat sees us as heirs of the unsundered, presumably helped in part through our interaction. So sundering the world is not really destroying it, but merely creates 13 other possibilities in addition to the original.

Now with a few playthroughs under my belt the last bit of msq feels a bit muddy for me. Prior to Elpis the story is about finding hope in moments of hopelessness, which is a nice sentiment and par the course of FFXIV's overarching story. Once we hit Elpis it then shifts to Perfect Is Bad, which even gets a speech from a bunny in the 2nd part of Labrynthos explaining that Perfect Is Bad and we should stay in our lane and just make due with what we have. Then we reach the last zone and attempt to juggle Perfect Is Bad (Ea, Omicron, Peace wars, Ra-la), Stay In Your Lane Or Die (little fish people), finding hope in moments of hopelessness (friends, flowers, etc) and the dragon ghosts...that never chased perfection or things outside their means.

I think the funniest summary of how sideways it gets is when the Ea spend their whole area being our example as to why Perfect Is Bad in that they learned everything there was to learn and it ended poorly and Yshtola just says NO U as her rebuttal. She wants to learn everything she can learn! But now its ok because she is doing it I guess.

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Originally Posted by Sicno

You may be confusing this. He was the only one for whom they changed to BLACK (or purple-ish) specifically. That's why Meteion wanted you to change it to black too, so he could see he wasn't alone in his sorrow.

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I was remarking that he’s the only one who showed any ability to effect change dynamis, limited as that manipulation may be. It’s explicitly stated that the color never changes around everyone else. It’s certainly possible that’s not the default color for Elpis flowers and they were simply all expressing the exact same emotion, but either way it’s more about how limited the ancients were to interacting with it. You can just as easily point to the way Venat, Emet, Hermes, and Hythlodaeus we’re unable to hear Meteions pleas, while the WoL could as another example.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

Hermes: And those entities like the Elpis flower, that have the ability to interact with this energy, converting emotions into tangible phenomena...
Hermes: ...Are entelechies.

If a presumably soulless flower can…

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The Elpis flowers respond to the emotions of others, it doesn’t effect change as it lacks a will to do so. Standing near an Elpis flower won’t make you susceptible to its influence through dynamis, but standing near Meteion? Different story.

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Originally Posted by Rokke

Now with a few playthroughs under my belt the last bit of msq feels a bit muddy for me. Prior to Elpis the story is about finding hope in moments of hopelessness, which is a nice sentiment and par the course of FFXIV's overarching story. Once we hit Elpis it then shifts to Perfect Is Bad, which even gets a speech from a bunny in the 2nd part of Labrynthos explaining that Perfect Is Bad and we should stay in our lane and just make due with what we have. Then we reach the last zone and attempt to juggle Perfect Is Bad (Ea, Omicron, Peace wars, Ra-la), Stay In Your Lane Or Die (little fish people), finding hope in moments of hopelessness (friends, flowers, etc) and the dragon ghosts...that never chased perfection or things outside their means.

I think the funniest summary of how sideways it gets is when the Ea spend their whole area being our example as to why Perfect Is Bad in that they learned everything there was to learn and it ended poorly and Yshtola just says NO U as her rebuttal. She wants to learn everything she can learn! But now its ok because she is doing it I guess.

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Yeah, that part struck me as people telling someone it can't be done despite numerous trial and error and that someone just says it doesn't matter because they're special and unique. Okay, Yshtola, let's just disregard their warnings and still take copious amounts of knowledge while not succumbing despair.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

It’s explicitly stated that the color never changes around everyone else.

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I think I know the part you're referring to. Meteion says:

"Like me, they feel his pain and turn dark...
That's only for Hermes, though. For others, they're always white and bright."

I honestly don't take that too literally because I find it entirely unlikely that the only emotion ever manifested in the history of the ancients is Hermes's sorrow. It could just be poor phrasing or interpretation during localization. The intention here could have been that even when they change color they remain a bright hue, like blue or green, and that they only go dark for Hermes. In an earlier quest he says:

"Though be it here or elsewhere, they are seldom seen in any hue save purest white..."
"(...) While it has no will of its own, it is sensitive to the prevailing emotion in the vicinity, and reacts by altering its color and vibrancy."

He doesn't say "it reacts to sorrow". He speaks about prevailing emotions, which also checks with what we saw earlier through he MSQ, that it changes to other colors because of different emotions, not just sorrow. So it must have reacted to other emotions too for the ancients. I know this contradicts what I said earlier about literal interpretations after localization, but if they would indeed have only ever reacted to him we could expect a more binary representation. Black or white. Joy or sorrow. Not hint at a spectrum of colors nor to emotions in general.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

The Elpis flowers respond to the emotions of others, it doesn’t effect change as it lacks a will to do so. Standing near an Elpis flower won’t make you susceptible to its influence through dynamis, but standing near Meteion? Different story.

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The flowers are just an example. They say dynamis is a form of energy, so it follows that it could be used or manipulated in different ways. The flowers just illustrate that having a will is not a requirement to make use of it and all kinds of creative solutions could have arisen. Also, Meteion was a (quite literally) PET PROJECT of Hermes, and he was so careless at it that he even gave her a task that had a possibility of not being fulfilled, something Emet-Selch pointed out mere moments after hearing about it. Imagine what a full team devoted to design something better with the added motivation of preserving their own existances could have achieved.

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Originally Posted by Consurgens

Other points I could mention (plot conveniences, the whole Venat thing) have been said countless times, so I won't extend this wall of text.

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I'd still be interested in reading your perspective if you feel like sharing. I enjoyed your review.

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Originally Posted by Sicno

I honestly don't take that too literally because I find it entirely unlikely that the only emotion ever manifested in the history of the ancients is Hermes's sorrow.

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I would think anger would make more sense, which the WoL has in spades. It's not a particularly prevalent emotion from what I saw of the Ancients, unlike sadness, and Hermes' dissatisfaction was directed outwards rather than inwards. He may have wondered if he was the oddity, but he was upset at everyone else rather than himself about it. I often think the Meteia were less about finding what gave others purpose than his seeking to affirm his own feelings.

Whew, this thread took a long time to catch up to. Time I threw in my two cents.

I enjoyed EW. I was happy with it overall, and many aspects of it. That said, it has issues. And some of them come from the decision to want to tie off everything by the end of 6.0. They simply had too much on their plate. To be done with Zodiark, Hydaelyn, Ascians, AND the cause of the final days...with only the base xpac to work with?

My issues:
-The final days were a joke, full stop. Thavnair sure felt it. Garlemald a fair bit. The rest of the game forgot it existed. It did not feel like the "All bets are off, balls to the wall the whole world is on fire" bit it could and should have been, and was sure hyped up to be. It was, frankly, pathetic. Dropped the ball and dropped it hard. The role quests just use the blasphemies as an excuse to tell unrelated stories. They're nice bits of writing, but utterly divorced from EW and the final days in all but name.

-Elpis. I know why they did it, and I know what they were trying to do, but I HATE time travel stories and they botched this one. As others have said, they've now got a contradiction on what happens when you mess with the past, and it's entirely "whatever the plot needs at the moment". Don't like it. And that cutscene on your way out? Issues. We see Venat, not Hydaelyn, sunder the world. When? Where? How? We were told in SHB that Hydaelyn was brought to bear after Zodiark ended the final days and restored life to the world, but that is not at ALL what we see. It's just...bad. All around. I wanted to see Zodiark work his magic, and I think a lot of you did too. And I don't think I'm the only one who wanted to see Hydaelyn stand against him and sunder him. Instead we get some nobody ancients throw a little fit, no grand opposition from anyone meaningful. Just...sloppy. I'm sorry, but it is.

-Metion. Saw trouble with her a mile away. FFXIV is really big on the damsels and their cookie cutter archetype pops up constantly so I knew she was going to be massively important. It's also a classic trope of having some big ancient bad that is the collective something something of all negative something pop up late in the story to be the final boss. I'm thinking Necron, I'm thinking Zeromus. They clearly didn't have any idea what caused the final days when they wrote SHB and had to pull something out of their arse at the last minute to tie things off and it was never going to feel good.

-Zenos. Look, I loved him as a villain and nemesis in SB. I know that's not a popular opinion, but I did. I was pumped to face him down at the end. But I was done with him then and there. I was not happy to see that they were forcing him back. The body swap thing was so cool, but ended with a pathetic whimper. Too much lost potential. I wanted to see the scions forced to contend with his power...MY power, with all the reluctance that would come with it. But we got a "just kidding!" instead. Boo.

I'm still saying it's the worst expansion. The more I think on it the further it drifts from the previous holder. I started with it at like a 7/10, but now it's creeping towards 5/10.

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Originally Posted by linayar

So sundering the world is not really destroying it, but merely creates 13 other possibilities in addition to the original.

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Holy crap lmao. "No, I don't kill them, I only blown them into 14 pieces. 7 of them will be destroyed though, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make". Sounds exactly like what genocide apologist would say.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

I was remarking that he’s the only one who showed any ability to effect change dynamis, limited as that manipulation may be.

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You should do the msq again, hermes doesn't have any ability to effect dynamis. Elpis flower merely respond to any external emotion by changing its color.

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Originally Posted by Sicno

I think I know the part you're referring to. Meteion says:

"Like me, they feel his pain and turn dark...
That's only for Hermes, though. For others, they're always white and bright."

I honestly don't take that too literally because I find it entirely unlikely that the only emotion ever manifested in the history of the ancients is Hermes's sorrow. It could just be poor phrasing or interpretation during localization. The intention here could have been that even when they change color they remain a bright hue, like blue or green, and that they only go dark for Hermes. In an earlier quest he says:

"Though be it here or elsewhere, they are seldom seen in any hue save purest white..."
"(...) While it has no will of its own, it is sensitive to the prevailing emotion in the vicinity, and reacts by altering its color and vibrancy."

He doesn't say "it reacts to sorrow". He speaks about prevailing emotions, which also checks with what we saw earlier through he MSQ, that it changes to other colors because of different emotions, not just sorrow. So it must have reacted to other emotions too for the ancients. I know this contradicts what I said earlier about literal interpretations after localization, but if they would indeed have only ever reacted to him we could expect a more binary representation. Black or white. Joy or sorrow. Not hint at a spectrum of colors nor to emotions in general.

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The issue is that we’re given examples of the Elpis flowers reaction to emotions which show it changing colors dramatically and in a very visible way. And given the fact that the flower existed in Elpis for at least several centuries by that point, based on the convo with Timaios, the fact that none have observed a shift leads me to believe that there’s either two options. Either the Ancients just don’t have emotional moods, which would be ridiculous I agree, or those shifts are being prevented from affecting change in the flower. The latter seems like a better fit, though exactly why Hermes gets through that remains unknown to me. Maybe the depth of emotion? Grief is a powerful one, and the Ancients didn’t exactly seem well versed on how it felt.

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Originally Posted by Sicno

The flowers are just an example. They say dynamis is a form of energy, so it follows that it could be used or manipulated in different ways. The flowers just illustrate that having a will is not a requirement to make use of it and all kinds of creative solutions could have arisen. Also, Meteion was a (quite literally) PET PROJECT of Hermes, and he was so careless at it that he even gave her a task that had a possibility of not being fulfilled, something Emet-Selch pointed out mere moments after hearing about it. Imagine what a full team devoted to design something better with the added motivation of preserving their own existances could have achieved.

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Problem is dynamis is partly defined by the difficulty you have in interacting with it. As stated before, while we don’t have objective statements on the matter, dynamis has shown to be manipulated only by those with the will and emotions to do so while also being aetherically weak enough to not crowd it out. While I’m sure an experienced group could make entelechies not as susceptible to environmental emotions as Meteion, they’d still need free will and to have a reason to overcome Meteions song. The Scions fought for the those back home and for their friends, would a creation not given a choice in the matter do so?

I’m not gonna say it’s impossible but I just think unlikely given what we’ve been told.

There is also this thread for any who want to direct questions at the devs. For the purposes of avoiding duplication, I will mention that I have put forward this on Venat, this on time travel, this on lead writer and this on the post-Elpis scene.

Unrelated to the lore: this on graphics/char customisation and this on a dark caster as a future job addition.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

Either the Ancients just don’t have emotional moods, which would be ridiculous I agree, or those shifts are being prevented from affecting change in the flower.

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Their society looks overly formal/strict. They wear masks, identical robes and rarely use personal identity. They know emotions really well but IMHO to break their way of strict life it has to be really strong (Emet recreation, the whole existence of Ascians, praying to Lord Zodiark).

"Remember us. Remember that we once lived…

Also remember to watch out for that crazy guy Fandaniel. His pet bird caused the final days. I was there with my good friend Hythlodaeus and we ran into you because you got sent to the past by our good friend Elidibus. We went there to meet our good friend Hermes and his pet bird. Hermes's bird was capable of destroying entire planets because she had emotion energy, a concept so advanced only Hermes and an elephant knew it existed. Hermes was going to let the bird destroy our planet because he wanted to do an experiment. And then he was going to memory wipe all of us until Venat flew in on her magical dog and escaped with you. She then for some reason decided not to tell anyone about what happened and instead doomed us all to die, including our good friend Azem who fell into a Volcano while trying to find some grap- the source of the noise even though Venat knew all along because she put a magic microchip on Hermes’s bird. She then became Hydaelyn and sundered the world because a bunch of weak humans who die after 80 years were better equipped to deal with the threat than immortal gods who could create whatever they wanted at will. Except the only “human” that could actually stand up to Meteion was 9/14ths of our good friend Azem who also needed Hydaelyns blessing to survive along with his good friend my great-grandson Zenos Viator Galvus who had Hydaelyns blessing too except his was reverse-engineered in a laboratory.
And he was a good friend."

I kinda do wish Nidhana didn't tell us about Dynamis tbh.
I would rather just have had that reveal be in Elpis.

91 pages? Bravo. I didn't think people could drag something out this long but leave it to public forums to manage it. FFXIV Endwalker story was amazing. It brought this man to tears more than once. I look forward to the 10 years in front of us. Thank you Yoshi and team!

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Originally Posted by Reap00

91 pages? Bravo. I didn't think people could drag something out this long but leave it to public forums to manage it. FFXIV Endwalker story was amazing. It brought this man to tears more than once. I look forward to the 10 years in front of us. Thank you Yoshi and team!

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It's a forum. As long as interest in a topic remains people are going to discuss it, no matter how asinine you may think it is.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

91 pages? Bravo. I didn't think people could drag something out this long but leave it to public forums to manage it. FFXIV Endwalker story was amazing. It brought this man to tears more than once. I look forward to the 10 years in front of us. Thank you Yoshi and team!

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It's a good discussion at least. It's not as many people sour at the story as folks think there is but to each thier own.

I am looking forward to what comes next for the WoL without our usual teammates with us and how they will navigate that.

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Originally Posted by DBriggs304

It's a good discussion at least. It's not as many people sour at the story as folks think there is but to each thier own.

I am looking forward to what comes next for the WoL without our usual teammates with us and how they will navigate that.

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Bit unrelated to the overall thread but im curious why people think we wont be traveling with the scions anymore? Since theyve been hinting so much at corvos i would imagine we'd be taking Graha(ugh) with us, but i believe yshtola also says she wants to explore or something like that.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

The issue is that we’re given examples of the Elpis flowers reaction to emotions which show it changing colors dramatically and in a very visible way. And given the fact that the flower existed in Elpis for at least several centuries by that point, based on the convo with Timaios, the fact that none have observed a shift leads me to believe that there’s either two options. Either the Ancients just don’t have emotional moods, which would be ridiculous I agree, or those shifts are being prevented from affecting change in the flower. The latter seems like a better fit, though exactly why Hermes gets through that remains unknown to me. Maybe the depth of emotion? Grief is a powerful one, and the Ancients didn’t exactly seem well versed on how it felt.

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The flower may not change all the time and only be affected by strong enough emotions. But what I'm saying is: the ancients are aware that the flower reacts to emotionS. Plural. In order to observe such a behavior it must have reacted to something else. Not just "default white - black when Hermes is brooding." They speak about changes in hue and vibrancy. They're describing a spectrum. How can they claim that if they only ever saw it change for 1 person and 1 emotional state?

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

Problem is dynamis is partly defined by the difficulty you have in interacting with it. As stated before, while we don’t have objective statements on the matter, dynamis has shown to be manipulated only by those with the will and emotions to do so while also being aetherically weak enough to not crowd it out. While I’m sure an experienced group could make entelechies not as susceptible to environmental emotions as Meteion, they’d still need free will and to have a reason to overcome Meteions song. The Scions fought for the those back home and for their friends, would a creation not given a choice in the matter do so?

I’m not gonna say it’s impossible but I just think unlikely given what we’ve been told.

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And that's why I told you about "creative solutions". They didn't need to go and fight Meteion as we did. Dynamis is an energy. They could have chugged on that same dynamis and make her dry on it so she's less powerful (think of Eureka, for example, and how the original plan was to reverse the flow of aether so the primal was cut short of it until it was completely dry). They could use that energy to create something or power up something.

Or another idea: how about instead of making a shield around the planet they just went and make an aether prison encasing Meteion? Remember, dynamis gets drowned by aether because it's far weaker (Hermes says so himself). Sure, Meteion had a head start towards the end of the universe, but like I said, she's a mere pet project, made by Hermes alone in his spare time. A whole team seriously devoted to the study of dynamis could have come up with more efficient ways to use it and create better, more efficient entities and devices to catch up with her before she became too powerful or have exploited the fact that aether > dynamis anyway.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

I would think anger would make more sense, which the WoL has in spades. It's not a particularly prevalent emotion from what I saw of the Ancients, unlike sadness, and Hermes' dissatisfaction was directed outwards rather than inwards. He may have wondered if he was the oddity, but he was upset at everyone else rather than himself about it. I often think the Meteia were less about finding what gave others purpose than his seeking to affirm his own feelings.

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We tell Meteion that we've seen flowers go dark in our home, and she asks us if we have dark emotions. There are multiple options to reply:

-The pain and sorrow of loss.
-Great fury and frustration.
-Doubt and anxiety.
-I have a few.

With such an array of possibilities it's more evident than the particular emotion isn't important for that part, but just that we have negative emotions too just like him, unlike the other ancients living in their paradise. So even more reason to not take the "they only reacted for Hermes" too literally.

I read the forums at work and post when I get home, so I'm not going to look for things to quote or respond to, just a stream of thoughts.

I appreciate the interview links that were provided of the interviews. I was looking for one that specifically mentioned re-writing parts of Endwalker, but it could be I got second hand information that suffered from interpretation issues. A few things stuck out to me though. I believe the developers take care of the story. I have to separate what I feel are continuity errors and poor writing from a writing style I just don't like. Yoshi P mentioned "Subverting expectations" and keeping everything fresh so no one gets bored. I feel there's subverting expectations and then there's jumping the shark which I feel Endwalker was.

So I'm going to break things down and try to look at the bigger problems I had with endwalker.

The entire last zone with the scions ignored the expansion themes for the sake of the protagonists ans well as "playing it safe". these are writing styles I don't like at all, but the same was seen in Shadowbringers with the same writer. The early death of zodiark would fall under "subverting expectations". I don't have any opinion on it, but a lot of people didn't like it. The final days being isolated is probably a product of a lack of time and mashing two expansions into one. Kind of lame, but it's whatever.

Now the boring stuff out of the way, I want to mention three things I had issues with that I have no answers to. A continuity error with the rabbits saying Zodiark couldn't temper anyone, and the what I felt was bad writing: Hermes's actions versus attitude and Hydaelyn and her entire plan.

I'm going to take as much as possible at face value and that no characters are lying. This is just going to be a bunch of hypothetical nonsense based on that I feel the developers couldn't made such massive mistakes. I'm trying to fill the gaps in with something.

The rabbits stating that Zodiark would only make a small "tug" and he couldn't temper anyone and tempering is an added effect. Hades said he was tempered. These two don't contradict each other, both can easily be true. Lahabrea was the designer of Zodiark and if both statements are true, then it's likely he introduced tempering to Zodiark. Why he would do it and how he got the idea I don't know, but maybe he was just a control freak. From the raids it's apparently he wore a metaphorical mask when dealing with people not his son. I don't believe Erich is "our" Lahabrea at all as people are suspecting, based on their capabilities alone.

Hermes has been argued to death that his actions don't match his words. The way he treated Metion does not match to what he preaches. It almost seems that Hermes himself doesn't even know what he's talking about. He's upset that his mentor would chose to retire, then changes his tune a bit saying "death is only beautiful for man". Metion can't eat, which shows he didn't intend for her to live her only life, only live for her purpose. His ending statement about how man judges all life, so he as the chief of Elpis, will judge man. Not all life was judged though, since it's presumed there was non created life that existed. Man can't be judged as a creation because they aren't a creation...or are they? I haven't done the side quests, but if the ancients could transform then they could easily alter anything they don't like about themselves. Could they have potentially over time, altered themselves and passed that on through generations? I'm wanting to sit down and do all the sidequests, so maybe this is already answered, but I find it strange be are presented more background information about the 5th zones races then we have with the ancients.

The one thing I really wanted to focus on was Hydaelyn's decision to sunder the world. I really payed attention to what she said this time around. Azem traveled the world to gain a better understanding of it and the people. She considered each person to be a miracle, said that anything is possible and there's always hope. I can't believe that this Venat and the person who gave up hope and sundered the world are the same person. It makes no sense and this glaring contradiction could not possibly be overlooked by the writers. My only answer is that there's missing information. There's a lot surrounding the sundering that doesn't make sense because of lack of information. Where did this spell come from initially? It took the entire convocation to put Zodiark to work with half of their people as sacrifice. Hydaelyn not only defeated Zodiark but completely sundered the world. What was sacrificed? Just the 12 people who were with her? Zodiark blanketed the world and Hydaelyn defeated him and made 13 copies of the world while doing it. One of these is a much bigger action than the other so how did she come to the conclusion that his is the only way and how was it possible? How did Lahabrea introduce tempering and where did this information come from? How did Hermes know enough about such an unknown energy source to make not just one being but a ton of them able to manipulate said energy source? Why was he so conflicted on his feelings and not even seems to agree with himself?

People mentioned there being a "third party" at the end of shadowbringers but this was in response to Fandaniel's actions. Another party being involved make a lot of sense for Venat's case, and kind of plays into the other two things I mentioned as well. We still don't know what Azem was doing at the time and he didn't want to have anything to do with the plans for Hydaelyn. There were multiple mentions of other people on the planet and we don't know if they're the same race or not. If they have have the same capabilities as the ancients we know, then it wouldn't be hard to just sneak in and be disguised ans something, like a fellow researcher, a shoebill, anything. A group of people who may have wanted to see them fail and set things up to get rid of them could happen. Yoshi P repeated that Endwalker will be the end of the Hydaelyn and Zodiark story, he said nothing about the ancients or the other people who lived at that time.

This was just a bunch of rambling to make sense of the story. Most of it can be explained as just writing I don't like, but the 180 that Venat did makes no sense at all. There's missing information and I hope we get to see what caused it.

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Originally Posted by sharknado

Their society looks overly formal/strict. They wear masks, identical robes and rarely use personal identity. They know emotions really well but IMHO to break their way of strict life it has to be really strong (Emet recreation, the whole existence of Ascians, praying to Lord Zodiark).

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They didn’t have emotions beyond super basic interests. They were more focused on creations magicks. You’re also talking about a race that would just go and die once they contributed something useful to society. This is where Hermes whole story comes into play because he felt like existence should have more meaning.

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Originally Posted by DevonEllwood

The rabbits stating that Zodiark would only make a small "tug" and he couldn't temper anyone and tempering is an added effect...

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The loporrits saying Zodiark doesn't tempter is an English translation choice. In english the loporrits like to downplay things and then usually quickly follow with an explanation or a witty comment because they're predominantly our comic relief. In literally every other language (esp in JP) it is made clear that anything Zodiark tier will inherently drag people under because that powerlevel is incomprehensibly strong.

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Originally Posted by DevonEllwood

The rabbits stating that Zodiark would only make a small "tug" and he couldn't temper anyone and tempering is an added effect. Hades said he was tempered. These two don't contradict each other, both can easily be true. Lahabrea was the designer of Zodiark and if both statements are true, then it's likely he introduced tempering to Zodiark. Why he would do it and how he got the idea I don't know, but maybe he was just a control freak. From the raids it's apparently he wore a metaphorical mask when dealing with people not his son. I don't believe Erich is "our" Lahabrea at all as people are suspecting, based on their capabilities alone.

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Personally I'd consider that to be plastering on another badly written story aspect just for the sake of Lahabrea bad, which is well past boring at this point. Part of the issue here is all the things tempering can be. If we strip it down to its most basic, i.e. aligning the summoner to the primal's aether, Zodiark appears to have done that as a minimum, but by all appearances not much more beyond that. I suspect the reason they were tempered is because of the sheer amount of power that went into him. At the same time, its consequences appear to be limited to loss of identity and memory if the summoners don't make an effort to preserve these, as Emet did. But at the same time, he is not the type of primal with a will that compels their summoners to do anything, especially since Elidibus is in his driver seat and without him, he's more or less an automaton. For the sort of tempering we see with the beast tribes to manifest, it is not mere alignment to the primal's aether, but down to further elements: 1) flawed rites that instil in the summoners a desire to spread their zeal by tempering others and 2) the nature of the primal (=desire to compel servitude) and an associated desire to temper beyond the original summoners where the tempering is a mere side-effect of the summoning. Ramuh for example lacked aspect 2, but still exhibits 1, so his summoners still have that desire.

The point here is that there's many aspects to tempering, and not all forms of it are made equal, and none of it would specifically require a plot like the above. Zodiark's tempering primarily appears to be invoked to explain why Elidibus and Lahabrea suffered memory/identity decay over time, to explain dialogue from ARR and HW in all probability that needed to be re-purposed. Meanwhile, Emet-Selch is quite able to deviate from the original plan where he deems it necessary, because the plan was never formed out of servitude to Zodiark but in order to restore the broken star.

I don't think the explanation given with the Loporrit dialogue was the best, because it is clear that regular summonings also involve aetheric corruption and it's not just a matter of zeal, so we have to assume there's other aspects here as to why tempering is not an issue for these specific summonings (maybe the primals are not potent enough relative to summoners for it to matter, for whatever reason.) This is supported by what Rokke mentions, as in the Japanese version it is indeed Zodiark's power which the Loporrit mention would make the difference, so it'd suggest even if you use the correct rituals, if the entity is powerful enough it can affect the summoners' aether.

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Hermes has been argued to death that his actions don't match his words. The way he treated Metion does not match to what he preaches. It almost seems that Hermes himself doesn't even know what he's talking about. He's upset that his mentor would chose to retire, then changes his tune a bit saying "death is only beautiful for man". Metion can't eat, which shows he didn't intend for her to live her only life, only live for her purpose. His ending statement about how man judges all life, so he as the chief of Elpis, will judge man. Not all life was judged though, since it's presumed there was non created life that existed. Man can't be judged as a creation because they aren't a creation...or are they? I haven't done the side quests, but if the ancients could transform then they could easily alter anything they don't like about themselves. Could they have potentially over time, altered themselves and passed that on through generations? I'm wanting to sit down and do all the sidequests, so maybe this is already answered, but I find it strange be are presented more background information about the 5th zones races then we have with the ancients.

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Having done them, I can say that there is little suggesting it one way or another regarding their own origins. His "test" is formulated out of little more than spite, IMO, and he is quite happy to damn his supposedly beloved creations with the rest of the universe when it suits him.

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Hydaelyn not only defeated Zodiark but completely sundered the world.

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She implies during her dialogue that he was so much more potent that she had to do the latter in order to do the former. It fits rather poorly with the post-Elpis scene, because there you get the impression her ultimate goal was to sunder the ancients, one and all, either way, but I suppose in her original plan maybe she hoped to get away with not doing it to the star and being strong enough to defeat Zodiark without the need to do so... only he was much more powerful, even without a driver (the "wisdom" of her plan notwithstanding.) That cutscene is pretty awful because it glosses over key aspects of the conflict between her faction and the remaining ancients as originally detailed, and also makes her seem unreasonable in my eyes.

Anyway, all interesting questions, but I doubt we'll get answers to anything like a majority of those.

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Originally Posted by seraf

They didn’t have emotions beyond super basic interests. They were more focused on creations magicks. You’re also talking about a race that would just go and die once they contributed something useful to society. This is where Hermes whole story comes into play because he felt like existence should have more meaning.

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No, they had emotions, and it's explored in quite a bit of depth in the sidequests. It's more that it took stronger emotions on their part to influence the entelechies because of their dense aether. But the idea that they lacked emotions is not supported by the lore, nor is the idea that they had "super basic" interests. As for Hermes, he could not understand the concept of life having meaning in the face of death, which remains a facet of his persona as Amon, a sundered being, which Xande's nihilism upon encountering death reawakens in him. Little did he expect that no other civilisation would provide this answer...

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Originally Posted by Xuto-cxb

We see Venat, not Hydaelyn, sunder the world. When? Where? How?

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I am pretty sure she was already Hydaelyn at that point.
In SHB when we see the records where they talk about creating Hydaelyn and Venat becoming her heart she mentions that she'll be able to take the form she wants.
So she was already Hydaelyn she was just using the form of Venat the same way that she manifests as Venat when we see her at the end of SHB and the start of EW.

Emet said in SHB that Hydaelyn and Zodiark had been fighting for a long time before the sundering happened, so the way I interpreted it at least is that Hydaelyn viewed the sundering as a sort of desperate measure because the Ancients wouldn't stop turning to Zodiark.
In the big cutscene in EW she should already have fought Zodiark before to a stalemate.
The way I interpreted it at least is that the sundering was essentially an act of desperation to end the circle and because the Ancients kept sacrificing themselves and relying on Zodiark and she couldn't deal with Zodiark without desperate measures.
Otherwise I dunno why Emet would've emphasized that they '' fought and fought and fought etc ''.

Hydaelyn may have had the power to sunder the world as a means to deal with Zodiark temporarily/ imprison him but not kill him.
But it doesn't seem like she had the power to subdue him without such desperate means.
And she had the Ancients just constantly empowering him back again it was a futile effort and fight the sundering from her pov seem'd rather necessary.
I mean either that or start slaughtering her own people I guess?

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Originally Posted by AziraSyuren

I love EW's story and it only gets better the more I think about it. It's my favorite expac story by a mile, and none of the other ones come even close. However, this is an awful take. There's literally 92 pages of actual discussion on the story. It's divisive for good reason.

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Imo I like how bold it was, I feel like too few stories takes actual risks.
The fact that people think that the soft GoW reboot was '' risky '' is just hilarious to me especially when comparing it to something like EW and the rather slow but rewarding approach of FFXIV overall.
The game was the definition of safe and based on current trends.

It's refreshing to get a game that doesn't play it safe and can be divisive.
It's just sad to me that it doesn't get rewarded as much for it as the games that play it safe.
It's the same with movies too big budget movies produced in a boardroom by suits and with checklists of everything currently trending makes the big bucks the movies that take risks and do something new and fresh generally don't.
I don't think most people want to be challenged in any way.

I mean people complain about how formulaic and repetitive games are and yet are very quick to demonize anything that takes risks and does something different.
People will complain about movies being so unoriginal and generic too but then not watch movies that do something new and treat every big movie that tries something new like a crime against humanity.

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Originally Posted by Xuto-cxb

-Elpis. I know why they did it, and I know what they were trying to do, but I HATE time travel stories and they botched this one. As others have said, they've now got a contradiction on what happens when you mess with the past, and it's entirely "whatever the plot needs at the moment". Don't like it. And that cutscene on your way out? Issues. We see Venat, not Hydaelyn, sunder the world. When? Where? How? We were told in SHB that Hydaelyn was brought to bear after Zodiark ended the final days and restored life to the world, but that is not at ALL what we see. It's just...bad. All around. I wanted to see Zodiark work his magic, and I think a lot of you did too. And I don't think I'm the only one who wanted to see Hydaelyn stand against him and sunder him. Instead we get some nobody ancients throw a little fit, no grand opposition from anyone meaningful. Just...sloppy. I'm sorry, but it is.

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I think a big problem with that cutscene was that it wasn't at all clear what was metaphor, what was not, and when it took place.

My interpretation of it is as follows:
1. First sacrifice happened.
2. Second was about to happen.
3. Venat confronted the Ancients in the scene, and that's when she decided to oppose any future attempts at summoning Zodiark. I don't believe that was the Sundering scene, I just think it's when she resolved to oppose Zodiark. It's just that the opposition was a little more violent rather than merely diplomatic and political.
4. The second happened. The laws of the world were weaved anew, and new life was breathed into the world.
5. -unknown gap of time-
6. Debate over the third sacrifice happened.
7. -unknown gap of time-
8. Hydaelyn vs Zodiark happened.

I also don't believe the time travel part was necessarily contradictory, I just think it's unclear how the rules work. If they never explain why the Exarch could change the past while our actions could not, though, then yeah. It's a problem. They might've actually done that, but I don't remember if they did. I think it's possible to read in between the lines and figure out a good explanation, but if something is a mechanic inherent to how the world functions, I don't think it's best to go that route.

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

snip

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I just think people are shit at media analysis.

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

Imo I like how bold it was, I feel like too few stories takes actual risks.
The fact that people think that the soft GoW reboot was '' risky '' is just hilarious to me especially when comparing it to something like EW and the rather slow but rewarding approach of FFXIV overall.
The game was the definition of safe and based on current trends.

It's refreshing to get a game that doesn't play it safe and can be divisive.
It's just sad to me that it doesn't get rewarded as much for it as the games that play it safe.
It's the same with movies too big budget movies produced in a boardroom by suits and with checklists of everything currently trending makes the big bucks the movies that take risks and do something new and fresh generally don't.
I don't think most people want to be challenged in any way.

I mean people complain about how formulaic and repetitive games are and yet are very quick to demonize anything that takes risks and does something different.
People will complain about movies being so unoriginal and generic too but then not watch movies that do something new and treat every big movie that tries something new like a crime against humanity.

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tbh one of my problems with the expansions is they didn’t really take many risks at all. They didn’t see a risk by having there be any consequences for the main cast. They didn’t take a risk by making the apocalypse feel like an actual apocalypse and leave some permanent scars in the world. It just felt like it was played very safe. They overdosed the expansion with nostalgia and emotional manipulation and feelz instead of focusing on the actual story elements.

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Originally Posted by sharknado

Their society looks overly formal/strict. They wear masks, identical robes and rarely use personal identity. They know emotions really well but IMHO to break their way of strict life it has to be really strong (Emet recreation, the whole existence of Ascians, praying to Lord Zodiark).

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Yeah that was something I noticed as well. In the short story about Azem and the grapes, it's mentioned Azem has been censured more than once by the Convocation and Emet calls Azem a "divisive figure".

But all we know about Azem's activities is that Azem goes out and helps people and actually experiences the world. Emet never gave the impression that Azem goes out and does bad things. I definitely got the impression that Azem is this controversial not because they were someone who would raise eyebrows on the Source, but because they stuck out like a sore thumb in a much more repressed society.

The seat exists because the Convocation desires it to exist to orient their policies. Much like the seat of Elidibus was there to make sure all their perspectives were taken into consideration in the round, to arrive at a considered decision. The problem with what Azem was doing isn't that they were helping people. It's that they were disregarding their protocols, particularly regarding the use of concepts, and as part of any government, that is likely to get you in trouble. All the same, both Elidibus ropes Emet-Selch into covering for them. If they were really that troubled by the seat and the "quirky" characters it attracted, they'd adjust the requirements for it. Instead, they put up with a second one in a row, for the greater good of the star. Their society is going to seem "repressed" in the eyes of those of us accustomed to highly individualistic societies, but it makes sense to me given their set of characteristics, particularly their rather long lives and ability to shape reality through thought.

Really, the issue with the entelechies and what they picked up on is down to the density of their aether making it necessary that the reactions had to be that much the more extreme to register.

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Originally Posted by AziraSyuren

I think a big problem with that cutscene was that it wasn't at all clear what was metaphor, what was not, and when it took place.

My interpretation of it is as follows:
1. First sacrifice happened.
2. Second was about to happen.
3. Venat confronted the Ancients in the scene, and that's when she decided to oppose any future attempts at summoning Zodiark. I don't believe that was the Sundering scene, I just think it's when she resolved to oppose Zodiark. It's just that the opposition was a little more violent rather than merely diplomatic and political.
4. The second happened. The laws of the world were weaved anew, and new life was breathed into the world.
5. -unknown gap of time-
6. Debate over the third sacrifice happened.
7. -unknown gap of time-
8. Hydaelyn vs Zodiark happened.

I also don't believe the time travel part was necessarily contradictory, I just think it's unclear how the rules work. If they never explain why the Exarch could change the past while our actions could not, though, then yeah. It's a problem. They might've actually done that, but I don't remember if they did. I think it's possible to read in between the lines and figure out a good explanation, but if something is a mechanic inherent to how the world functions, I don't think it's best to go that route.



I just think people are shit at media analysis.

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Considering she is giving a speech about having to sunder everyone to make it impossible to return to paradise, and then says literally "I sunder us"...I don't see how it could be taken to be anything other than what it was. The entire cutscene is a disaster and I suspect localization issues aren't helping. It felt incredibly rushed and in dire need of a few more passes before it was anything near finished. That said, I'm not convinced it was hydaelyn either. It didn't look or sound like the venat-esque version we see in "present day" stuff. Whatever they were going for, they swung and missed by a mile.

I'll admit I was very surprised by the lack in Zodiark but I loved the story over all.

ITT: People who've never played any other Final Fantasy's or JRPG's surprised by the time travel and the final trial boss coming out of nowhere as a being that represents a worldview (nihilism in this case). This is at least 50% of the genre. I mean there's at least a thousand JRPG's where at the end of the story the heroes discover that God exists and is evil, so they end up killing God. And then there's thousands more where the heroes discover everything was being manipulated by some villain who gets introduced in a cutscene right before you kill them at the end of the game.

The Japanese have a different culture than the audience of this board, their stories don't always follow the standard western novel narrative. It's actually why I like many JRPG's because it's something different. Not everything needs to be foreshadowed or perfectly explained but I guess Reddit addicts have come to expect that via Hollywood and the MCU.

Funny it's made it to 93 pages lmao.