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

My only real main complaint about EW’s story was Meteion/Dynamis. I thought it was a poor last minute edition. I really thought the big bad was going to be Zodiark. :( But I’d still say EW wasn’t as bad as other expansions, and certainly better than ShB.

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Originally Posted by Sicno

I wasn't getting at your typo, just pointing out how not even members of the Convocation knew every single person living on the planet nor what they were working on. They weren't some sort of overmind. They didn't know about Kairos either, despite being a dangerous tool by Emet's admission and it being used by more researchers at the facility, not just Hermes. Also keep in mind all the mess happening in Pandaemonium. It seems in reality a lot of things slipped under their radar, so stop trying to claim that because neither Emet nor Hythlodaeus knew anything about dynamis nor entelechies then that means nobody else in the entire star had knowledge about it besides Hermes. It's entirely possible there were other researchers who could have been competent enough or could have made entirely new discoveries to solve the Final Days if they had known dynamis was at the core of it.

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Let’s separate two different claims. One is that dynamis is unknown to everyone but Hermes, and the other is that Hermes is a foremost expert at the time of the Final Days. The latter is true, the former not.

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Originally Posted by Sicno

Younger beings? So I'm a "new" being after the sundering? So that means the former being who was Azem ceased to be and I'm a new being, right? That means... you know... the former being technically died in order to make a new being, and I'm that new younger being, her "child". And the same happens to the rest of humanity. Which means effectively that Genocidaelyn murdered all of humanity to create a new "breed" of it, whom are her "childs", out of whatever reason she deemed necessary but she did. Yes, you can still technically call that humanity, but she doesn't correlate the "new" beings to the old ones. Unless the cutscene requires it.

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You realize this is you personally judging it to be contradictory right? If the game, as you admitted it does, says she sees them a certain way, and you go “no that’d to me seems contradictory,” that doesn’t mean the game didn’t say that. It means you’re rejecting evidence to the contrary of your stated opinion.

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Originally Posted by Sicno

And she didn't believe the "old" ones capable of dealing with things, so she used them as crafting mats for making the "new" ones who would be. Think of it like those moths we killed when we first arrived at Elpis from which they created our robes.

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You do in fact realize that those “old ones” were not physically harmed or altered by the act of enervation yes? They still retained their personalities and attributes.

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

And even then whether intelligence was halved is questionable.

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Originally Posted by Sicno

Not enough faith as to let them try to find a way of dealing with Meteion. Instead she let them flail completely in the dark at what they believed to be a phenomena in the laws of nature rather than a concerted attack that exploited their lack of interest in knowledge of the one rather obscure and particular thing the attacker happened to manipulate.

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The reason why she was not open to all of what transpired at Elpis was stated clearly in the text. If you wish to argue that those reasons aren’t valid, then we can discuss that, but to ignore that and insist that she freely chose to deny them that information is unfounded.

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Originally Posted by Sicno

I'll admit this time I may be grasping too hard at something that may be a pure localization thing (from what others have described of other languages). I'm just mad at how the localization just exacerbates the writing issues and I also keep some grudges for past "incidents", so I'll use every chance to throw shade at them, especially Koji.

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You’re allowed your feelings, I don’t have beef and quite like the localization efforts so I can’t agree but that’s no really important.

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Originally Posted by Sicno

You may be confusing "creations" with "concepts". The creations weren't submitted to the Bureau to see if they would let you use them or not, they were submitted to be turned into concepts that would be more widely used by other members of their society simply by providing them with aether. Making creations from scratch requires focus and intent by the creator. The Bureau basically aproves or rejects creations to be mass-produced in canned versions to be served in vendor machines.

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Yes concepts were stored and regulated so as to allow their use more broadly, this I agree with. My point however is that the Bureaus work went beyond being a repository and seemed to make no distinction in a concept meant for large scale use and one made for personal reasons. Ifrita, Phoenix, Meteion, and innumerable other creations were never intended for wider use, but were submitted all the same. Hythlo when he asks Hermes of Meteion never asks what his intentions are with her, and in fact that doesn’t come up until later when Hermes freely tells us while explaining dynamis.

But perhaps I am overestimating the Bureaus reach, it’s clear they don’t have much of an enforcement arm. Still the fact remains that Hermes background with dynamis is unique and his experiments one of a kind.

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Originally Posted by Sicno

grasping vague interactions as irrefutable proof of this and that and negating other possibilities because they don't match that particular interaction without looking at the bigger picture.

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Then let’s return to the original topic then. The question remains, can Hermes be replaced and is their a good reason to believe that a creation with the ability to control dynamis could defeat Meteion and thus make the Sundering unnecessary? My answer is of course no to both, based on what we know of Hermes and based on what we know of how dynamis works.

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Originally Posted by Sicno

And yeah this argument has been going for a while but I'll try to recap: the original argument was that if the ancients had known about Meteion and that dynamis was the key for the Final Days they could have solved it but Venat held that info from them. Then someone argued that no, that because neither Emet nor Hythlo ever heard about dynamis and because of their stations that outrules other researchers from existing, so that means only Hermes-senpai was sugoi enough to do it and since he later sat in the Convocation that would have prevented Venat from convincing them of anything, he'd work against her.

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So… this description of the argument is inaccurate.

The discussion over dynamis began with this claim.

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Originally Posted by Teraq

But the answer is knowledge and creation magic. Elpis's #1 resident depressed edgelord is stated not to be the only one with expertise in Dynamis.

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My argument from the start was that this is untrue for the reasons we’ve discussed. Not that he was the only one in the world to know of it, not that eventually they could create something with the ability to control dynamis, but that he was not the only one with expertise in it’s use at that time.

You’ve completely misunderstood what you’re arguing for or against.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

They could be well aware but humoring him. Pointing out that his disguise didn't work would be like kicking a puppy so they let him innocently think he's fooling them.

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Yes, fair point. I am simply imagining him as an intern at this stage, but he is the sort to take matters into his own hands where the need arises so that explanation is as good as any. His (eventual?) seat has quite a complex part to play, so it'd make sense for it to have "Words" supporting it like some of the other seats, but it is admittedly just speculation for now. Although, it'd dovetail nicely with his claim to be working for an organisation that works directly with the Convocation.

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Originally Posted by Kozh

Well duh, because she knows that outside of special events where dynamis does whatever the story needs it to, dynamis and aether are basically the same. The winner will be the one who could punch harder.

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Yes - the sole difference seems to be that one (dynamis) is much weaker than the other and is exclusively influenced by emotions.

I liked it.

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Originally Posted by Sicno

WOW, now THAT slipped under my own radar :P Nice catch!

So that means even herself could have somewhat helped if she had really intended to instead of sitting on her high horse, instead of becoming a 2nd judge in the "judgment of humanity".

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??????

Do you have the basic understanding of particle physics and what the Higgs Boson is? Cool, build me a particle accelerator.
Know how rockets work at the most basic level? Awesome, get me into space.
Know how the brain sends signals around the body? Why haven't you cured motor neurone disease yet?

Put simply, having a basic understanding of what something is, especially when it's an esoteric subject, doesn't equip you in any way to work with whatever it is you have an understanding of. I know the basics of aeronautics but I sure as shit couldn't design you a plane that would actually fly, and putting me on a panel to design one is going to hinder it far more than help it because I don't know the parts that truly matter.

What people should get from that Venat quote is "wow she has a pretty wide breadth of general knowledge, as fitting of a former Azem". The only person we meet who has any kind of deep understanding is Hermes, and you are pretty explicitly told this.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

So… this description of the argument is inaccurate.

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To be completely honest we've been at it for so long now and with all of these multi-split responses it's been hard for me to recall what we were going for in each point and to follow the conversation. I did my best to recall things without going back 20 pages for an accurate depiction.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

Let’s separate two different claims. One is that dynamis is unknown to everyone but Hermes, and the other is that Hermes is a foremost expert at the time of the Final Days. The latter is true, the former not.

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Ok. Now what?

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

My argument from the start was that this is untrue for the reasons we’ve discussed. Not that he was the only one in the world to know of it, not that eventually they could create something with the ability to control dynamis, but that he was not the only one with expertise in it’s use at that time.

You’ve completely misunderstood what you’re arguing for or against.

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Yes, I don't even know what you're trying to argue with this point anymore. What exactly does his "unique" expertise at that particular time entail if you don't disagree with them being capable of eventually acquiring the same expertise?

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

You realize this is you personally judging it to be contradictory right? If the game, as you admitted it does, says she sees them a certain way, and you go “no that’d to me seems contradictory,” that doesn’t mean the game didn’t say that. It means you’re rejecting evidence to the contrary of your stated opinion.

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What I said is that her referring to "humanity" as a whole, both past and present, to fit the narrative of a particular cutscene isn't some irrefutable proof of her seeing pre-and-post humanity as the same (not consistently, at least). Just because in the end she got her "feel good" moment of this new humanity passing her "test" and being strong enough to have a chance at facing Meteion (but like someone else mentioned, testing your fitness to prevail where "aether will avail you naught" by defeating an aether rich entity, lol) doesn't mean at the time she didn't pass her own judgment on humanity and didn't deem them unfit without her sundering.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

You do in fact realize that those “old ones” were not physically harmed or altered by the act of enervation yes? They still retained their personalities and attributes. And even then whether intelligence was halved is questionable.

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But is it that simple? If you split a person into 14, even if they all possess a fragment of the same "soul", does any of them retain the same consciousness as the original? We could guess the ones in the Source could have, but would we be certain? Or none at all and all fragments have completely new consciousness? Also, think of your own character and remember Ardbert. Can you look at him and say "yes, this is undoubtedly the same person as me/my character"? With how strikingly different everything is between you 2, could you tell which one can be identified as the same Azem as was split? Or neither one?

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

Hythlo when he asks Hermes of Meteion never asks what his intentions are with her, and in fact that doesn’t come up until later when Hermes freely tells us while explaining dynamis.

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The same way your local priest won't ask if you're gonna baptize your newborn daughter but when. Or your friend would ask you when you're gonna bring Danny to the baseball field. Again, casual conversation taken way too seriously and extrapolated to absolutes.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

Then let’s return to the original topic then. The question remains, can Hermes be replaced and is their a good reason to believe that a creation with the ability to control dynamis could defeat Meteion and thus make the Sundering unnecessary? My answer is of course no to both, based on what we know of Hermes and based on what we know of how dynamis works.

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I already responded to this before. They didn't need to go fight her the same way we did. They could have just done anything that would have stopped her from affecting them (making an aether prison around her, consuming the dynamis around her to leave her dry, etc.) Hell, she was even uncapable of altering the ancients themselves, only their creation magics. Worst case scenario just ban creation magics, grab a spade and a pickaxe and live a simple life with physical labor and without having to sunder anyone, problem solved. The most important part was to know that there was an attacker and that dynamis was the medium. A solution was reachable.

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Originally Posted by IttyBitty

??????

Do you have the basic understanding of particle physics and what the Higgs Boson is? Cool, build me a particle accelerator.
Know how rockets work at the most basic level? Awesome, get me into space.
Know how the brain sends signals around the body? Why haven't you cured motor neurone disease yet?

Put simply, having a basic understanding of what something is, especially when it's an esoteric subject, doesn't equip you in any way to work with whatever it is you have an understanding of. I know the basics of aeronautics but I sure as shit couldn't design you a plane that would actually fly, and putting me on a panel to design one is going to hinder it far more than help it because I don't know the parts that truly matter.

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No, what I mean is that she could have participated in some capacity into working for a solution once dynamis and Meteion were acknowledged as the real problem. Does every single person working on a space mission share the same degree of knowledge into the same fields, including those building the physical parts of a rocket?

Instead she observed her peers look at the wrong places, get to the wrong conclussions and when everything was said and done she pulled her shotgun and said "shame".

All I'm getting from this, beside a headache, is that I need to applaud the gymnastics performed by the writing team to make Venat's master plan sensible and right and totally the only way to resolve this needlessly convoluted plot.

They really should of just stopped with the time travel shenanigans while they were ahead. Or at the very least, expanded on Venat's actions and reasoning instead of hitting us with what appeared to be an abridged retelling of events leading up to the sundering. Any of that would have been better than essentially sweeping the genocide of her own people under the rug while simultaneously treating her as a wholly heroic figure.

The sundering scene should have had more clarity and honestly told forward. Instead we got some artsy collage of disjointed moments of events that still leave a lot vague. Either they did not have enough time for those events or they did not know how to portray it and just were eager to rap up the whole story to move on to the next, so it resulted in what we got (IMO).

I'd like to point out that that scene is not the first time we see a character's memories not be 100% accurate (unlike Echo flashbacks for... some reason). It's admittedly optional content, but as part of the Bozja storyline you

go into Cid's memories which turn out to be a complete mess, you fight Bahamut and Varis and other such nonsense etc.

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Originally Posted by Teraq

The thing about Themis and the timeline that bothers me the most is that tidbit about Azem cryptically telling him about, seemingly, our coming. But this plot point is really vague for now so there isn't much solid ground to go on, here.

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This is why I've been worried about Azem being retconned. Also, as much as I like Elidibus, it's a bit odd to be developing this relationship with him now. I know they have the convenience of his failing memories to fall back on, but in ShB there's little indication Elidibus and Azem (or the WoL) were close outside of that one scene where we inadvertently 'call' him. I have seen a theory that his speech preceding the Seat of Sacrifice was about Azem when he says, "This I swore to...to someone." Seems unlikely though given the context.

I still want to know what he meant by "And a truth...that fills my heart..." when he remembers seeing the WoL in Elpis. Granted, we still have a lot of Pandemonium left to go, but whatever we did there didn't result in averting the Final Days or sparing Elidibus his fate.

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Originally Posted by Sicno

No, what I mean is that she could have participated in some capacity into working for a solution once dynamis and Meteion were acknowledged as the real problem. Does every single person working on a space mission share the same degree of knowledge into the same fields, including those building the physical parts of a rocket?

Instead she observed her peers look at the wrong places, get to the wrong conclussions and when everything was said and done she pulled her shotgun and said "shame".

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This. All the knowledge Elidibus attributes to Fandaniel was told to us by the Watcher. We don't know how much valuable time was lost due to waiting for him to arrive at the conclusions he did when Venat could've told them what they needed to focus on from the beginning. She didn't need to be an expert in dynamis for that.

I feel like the honeymoon phase is starting to end and now that people are stopping and really thinking about Endwalker's plot that it's losing a lot of its luster.

Well I was going to post on Monday, but ended up doing something else. I think the main point was my gripes with how Fandaniel. They could have just kept him as someone who had beef with society in general. I mean we kind of got that? But the sympathetic angle about life and death wrecked it for me. Fandaniel would have been fine as a selfish a-hole. Someone who was tired of doing things for the sake of the star and for paradise, tired of being pushed to do what is considered right for their society. He didn't need a good reason, selfishness is good enough on an individual level. He may have not ended up well liked, but when even the main subreddit is poking holes in your life/death argument, then you pretty much failed on the sympathetic front.

Some images posted showing Venat's dialogue from Shadowbringers again makes it seem like the sundering was not planned. Which relates back to Elpis Venat saying she wouldn't do something like that unless she had a good reason. We aren't shown that reason and instead all we get for dialogue for the reason when won't say anything is that she doesn't want to potentially make an enemy of Hermes. Does she know his memory is not wiped or something? Do those memory become "burned on the soul" after death? Does she know all this already?

It seems like there's a conversation going on about how much Azem knows of us in the past. With the raids in mind, it seems quite a bit, which makes sense for people to assume Azem is the reason the unsundered are unsundered. We have received help from both Hades and Elidibus/Themes (sp?) yet have not gotten help from Lahabrea in our own timeline, which makes me think we are not done with him. We still don't know what Azem was doing before the sundering and them knowing more than what is presented in the story would explain why they left the convocation and rejected Venat's invitation. If this is true, them my question is what in the world happened to the original bodies of the unsundered? If they were "saved" from the sundering, why do they need to take over bodies when they should have originally had their own? Was it just their souls and memories that escaped?

Also I guess I can assume this is Azem's mask?
https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...12/unknown.png

It being a main feature on Hades's design would make sense, but why is it also on the Hades weapons and why was it in the scene on the moon? Unless it's just an all encompassing convocation mask meant to represent everyone, then why have all the other masks that have clearly belonged to individual characters.

I know some people are tired of the ancients and the ascians, but I am not convinced it's all over yet. There are way to many unanswered questions and I don't believe that Lahabrea is actually fully dead. I pretty convinced that Hades and friend are in the Square Enix "use later" pocket and I am indifferent to Schrodinger's Zenos but I'm not convinced the writers won't use him as well.

All we have been told is Endwalker will end the Zodiark and Hydaelyn story, and that has been repeated multiple times in interviews to a point it's suspicious. I believe they're both dead, but I don't believe everything surrounding them is over, including the repercussions of killing Zodiark.

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Originally Posted by Sicno

No, what I mean is that she could have participated in some capacity into working for a solution once dynamis and Meteion were acknowledged as the real problem. Does every single person working on a space mission share the same degree of knowledge into the same fields, including those building the physical parts of a rocket?

Instead she observed her peers look at the wrong places, get to the wrong conclussions and when everything was said and done she pulled her shotgun and said "shame".

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It's secondary to what they used to devise Zodiark anyway - which as per the Watcher, is knowledge of the celestial currents, and the entire effort to create and summon Zodiark is credited to multiple scholars. With Zodiark in place they then had plenty of time to develop further understanding of dynamis, potentially better than Hermes's for that matter.

The cutscenes are even worse IMO because they display attitudes at specific points in time where they were still grieving. It wasn't even lack of knowledge she gave up on them over, but their responses to the situation.

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Originally Posted by DevonEllwood

Also I guess I can assume this is Azem's mask?
https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...12/unknown.png.

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Azem mask is unknown at the moment when Emet-Selch glimpses Azem in us, he sees Azem without the mask, but the face appears blank to the player. Elidibus later also perceives the us as Azem, and in that vision Azem is wearing a black mask

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Originally Posted by Lauront

It's secondary to what they used to devise Zodiark anyway - which as per the Watcher, is knowledge of the celestial currents, and the entire effort to create and summon Zodiark is credited to multiple scholars. With Zodiark in place they then had plenty of time to develop further understanding of dynamis, potentially better than Hermes's for that matter.

The cutscenes are even worse IMO because they display attitudes at specific points in time where they were still grieving. It wasn't even lack of knowledge she gave up on them over, but their responses to the situation.

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I still like to bring up the parallels of how the scions respond to people grieving in Thanivar compared to how Venat respond to the ancients grieving. You simply just don’t go up to people and tell them to get over the situation then offer no means of comfort. If the scions started yelling at people that the suffering of turning into monsters was normal it only would’ve made the situation way worse. Then imagine the scions being like, “wow people aren’t listening to us. Time to alter humanity to what we want it to be instead.”
They wouldn’t because they would spend time actually trying to solve the issue instead of going to the extreme first.
Also one other thought that has been bothering. Venat probably benefitted, if not the most, from the state of ancient society. I doubt she herself fully understood what it means to suffer and that maybe why her own response to people in pain was so weak. She has only heard of suffering horrors from our WoL and decides to use that as her own evidence of what it means to live.

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Originally Posted by Tsiron

I'd like to point out that that scene is not the first time we see a character's memories not be 100% accurate (unlike Echo flashbacks for... some reason). It's admittedly optional content, but as part of the Bozja storyline you

go into Cid's memories which turn out to be a complete mess, you fight Bahamut and Varis and other such nonsense etc.

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The same storyline actually goes into why this is, in a roundabout fashion, by differentiating between "extrinsic" memories and "intrinsic" memories. The former being conscious/subconscious memories and thus being prone to errors, and the latter being an accumulation of the person's senses and thus being perfectly accurate. If we assume that Echo flashbacks tap into intrinsic memories, then it actually makes sense that they'd be more accurate to reality than otherwise.

But yeah, the Venat flashback we experience during our return to the future is so wildly inaccurate to what we learned in Shadowbringers that—whether it's "symbolic" or an abridged but literal version of events—it's questionable if any of it even happened in reality, or if it's just a self-serving memory from a person who can't or won't remember what actually happened. The biggest differences being that the flashback presents Venat as alone in her opposition to Zodiark's followers and Hydaelyn's creation and the Sundering being a spur of the moment decision, whereas Shadowbringers depicted her as having a bare minimum of twelve accomplices and their plan to create Hydaelyn and oppose Zodiark having been decided well in advance of her actual fight with him.

Fun video. Worth a watch. Explains the story so much better IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IhYo5u568o

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Originally Posted by DevonEllwood

Also I guess I can assume this is Azem's mask?
https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...12/unknown.png

It being a main feature on Hades's design would make sense, but why is it also on the Hades weapons and why was it in the scene on the moon? Unless it's just an all encompassing convocation mask meant to represent everyone, then why have all the other masks that have clearly belonged to individual characters.

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I believe Azem's mask was black based on the Convocation scene where Elidibus is admitted to it - there were some versions of it enhancing the colour saturation floating around. If you then invert the colours on the Scion Traveller's mask, what you effectively get is the mask and the sigil. Or so it's thought.

Personally, I would like more of the ancients - what I'd be weary of is continued use of the Ascians as two-bit villains when we know at this point their backgrounds and motivations - Fandaniel excepted - are much deeper than this. If all they intend to do with any remaining ones is use them that way, I'd rather they didn't bother.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Fun video. Worth a watch. Explains the story so much better IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IhYo5u568o

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The Zenos part is exactly how it went in the game.

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Originally Posted by Tsiron

I'd like to point out that that scene is not the first time we see a character's memories not be 100% accurate (unlike Echo flashbacks for... some reason). It's admittedly optional content, but as part of the Bozja storyline you

go into Cid's memories which turn out to be a complete mess, you fight Bahamut and Varis and other such nonsense etc.

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Which just makes sense IMO, unless we are talking about a very recent event, memory will never not be subjective, so I am thinking the Echo isn't really relying on actual brain memory but rather ... memory...aether? if I can remember the notion correctly, to get an objective view of what actually happened.

On that point, did it bother anyone else that Venat as Hydaelyn seemed kinda okay with her memories unlike Elidibus? I mean, okay, so there are quite a few reasons you might come up with to explain why it would only be Elidibus (splitting from Zodiark, Zodiark being sealed, "saving the world" being a more frequent and vague wish than whatever the prayer to Hydaelyn truly is), but prior to EW I had been thinking she would retain little of her human identity, because she didn't seem to have any active means of refreshing her memory like Elidibus did – and also, I didn't think she would particularly care about retaining her human memory in the first place, given how highly she ended up thinking of her brethren lol.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

This is why I've been worried about Azem being retconned. Also, as much as I like Elidibus, it's a bit odd to be developing this relationship with him now. I know they have the convenience of his failing memories to fall back on, but in ShB there's little indication Elidibus and Azem (or the WoL) were close outside of that one scene where we inadvertently 'call' him. I have seen a theory that his speech preceding the Seat of Sacrifice was about Azem when he says, "This I swore to...to someone." Seems unlikely though given the context.

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I mean... right?? Re: my boy was done dirty, character development was absolutely rushed and incomplete in-game (I'm sorry but I think you shouldn't put character development of a main antagonist in a short story most people are not going to read, same goes for Emet and Zenos), and the grand finale to the Hydaelyn and Zodiark saga didn't see fit to include the Heart of Zodiark in the MSQ beside a single scene (which ended up saving the world, not that any character really makes mention of that).

I do absolutely headcanon the oath being said to Azem because I got the feeling from the short story that him and Azem were friends, so when Pandaemonium just flat out confirmed they apparently went on adventures together I was just (content sigh) yass

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Originally Posted by AnaviAnael

I feel like the honeymoon phase is starting to end and now that people are stopping and really thinking about Endwalker's plot that it's losing a lot of its luster.

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I've largely given up on FFXIV social media so I wouldn't know, but I kind of hope you are right. Back in December I really felt like we were a tiny minority. ( :rolleyes: @ the poster who saw fit to remind people of this by posting Metacritic scores and the like. Like... we know, it's why it feels so isolating)

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Originally Posted by DevonEllwood

Well I was going to post on Monday, but ended up doing something else. I think the main point was my gripes with how Fandaniel. They could have just kept him as someone who had beef with society in general. I mean we kind of got that? But the sympathetic angle about life and death wrecked it for me. Fandaniel would have been fine as a selfish a-hole. Someone who was tired of doing things for the sake of the star and for paradise, tired of being pushed to do what is considered right for their society. He didn't need a good reason, selfishness is good enough on an individual level. He may have not ended up well liked, but when even the main subreddit is poking holes in your life/death argument, then you pretty much failed on the sympathetic front.

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Exactly. I muse a lot about Fandaniel because he should be a character I like – I usually like the fun and entertaining villains who just decide to screw with everyone else because they hate them all. I've been trying to put my finger on why his character bothered me so much.

* The "life is death therefore pointless" angle really doesn't work for me, but that's just me. I don't relate to it at all. Whereas Emet and Elidibus's (and Lahabrea's post-mortem, RIP) motivation of "I'd do anything to bring back what was erased from history for a very debatable reason" was much more relatable to me.

* The thing about the "humans are bastards and deserve to be extinct" motivation is that... you kinda need to show us humans really were despicable for it to be truly sympathetic. Rape, war, genocide. Heavy shit. Not a bunch of soft weenwoons who only thought about being the caretakers of the planet and were explicitly shown to mourn creations in Elpis. Except the story still wants you to go along with it and think that "Oh he totally has a point, he's just testing humans like these heartless researchers test animals in Elpis", and pretend this isn't just insane.

* The absolute worst offender is his death scene after the Zodiark trial. It's amazing how it doesn't work in multiple ways:
- The first time you see the scene, it's just... WTF?? Why does Fandaniel, of all people, get the sad piano, slow-mo and monologue? Are you telling me this game wants me to mourn the hateful nihilistic clown who literally made gross flesh towers out of a corpse? It's just really... out of place. You don't have the necessary context for the scene to work.
- When you watch it again in hindsight and you know about Hermes, it becomes kinda worse. First, you totally recognise that sad piano tune is night time Elpis. And then it dawns on you: this game wants you to mourn the unhinged vegan who literally okayed the end of the world and the extinction of every living thing on the planet because they should have reconsidered animal rights in that one facility somewhat. God, so much for being sad for the poor ravenous murder-machine Lykaons.
- This game wants you to mourn Hermes, but actually I am sitting here grieving Zodiark and his contribution to the story of this grand finale as the level 83 trial before we get to the real plot.

* Honestly, I think I don't have this much of a problem with Hermes/Fandaniel himself as a villain, but everything surrounding him and how the plot wants to treat him. The plot offers so little questioning of his reasoning that it feels like it's tacitly justifying him. There is Emet opposing him and telling him his methodology is shit, and that approving the apocalypse on a whim is like kiiiiinnnda cringe, but then Emet gets hit with the meme beam and handed the Idiot Ball. Same goes for Venat just deciding not to tell anyone about him being a complete gremlin. My character just nodded to that? Stop trying to excuse Hermes and just fully commit to him being a bastard, and have characters call him (them both, tbh) out. In the process, flesh out the Ancients more so they aren't just collectively strawmen standing there to validate Hermes's and Venat's respective viewpoints.
(At least Asahi got to drag him down to the worst hell or whatever. I kinda wanted the same scene with Venat and Elidibus.)

Anyway. I just really appreciate the FATE vendor lady in Elpis trading bird meat and eggs for bicolor gemstones, shamelessly sticking it to her deranged vegan boss. What an absolute queen.

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Originally Posted by Teraq

* The thing about the "humans are bastards and deserve to be extinct" motivation is that... you kinda need to show us humans really were despicable for it to be truly sympathetic. Rape, war, genocide. Heavy shit. Not a bunch of soft weenwoons who only thought about being the caretakers of the planet and were explicitly shown to mourn creations in Elpis. Except the story still wants you to go along with it and think that "Oh he totally has a point, he's just testing humans like these heartless researchers test animals in Elpis", and pretend this isn't just insane.

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I'm not even convinced that it is saying he has a point. Venat doesn't really absorb any of that - she's only concerned with meeting his test in terms of survival. The sundered make even more gratuitous use of creations, both living and not - Sharlayan even emulates the practice of creating intelligent familiars, in some cases using animals, and let's not even go into what happens in the Ul'dah colosseum, in various fates, via your reaper avatar (which is fed with souls), etc etc., and yet none of that message is directed at them, either. G'raha does word it to suggest Amon/Hermes had grievances with his broader society, but does he take any of their twaddle on board when he's munching down on a burger? No, not really. Moreover, he attributes it to a propensity in Fandaniel's soul. That propensity being of a hypocritical nihilist with a hatred of the concept of death (consequently, also life) and a sadistic streak. Then you have the fact that through allowing Meteion to fly free, he's effectively damning all those creations, plus countless other stars, to doom. To me, the creations are just arcane entities at the end of the day, some of which may qualify for souls to become animals or plant life, with familiars more rarely qualifying for that... so I don't really consider his POV sane, but I also think it's besides the point and is just a means of him expressing his discomfort with death and finding reasons to dissociate with his broader society and justify that.

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- When you watch it again in hindsight and you know about Hermes, it becomes kinda worse. First, you totally recognise that sad piano tune is night time Elpis. And then it dawns on you: this game wants you to mourn the unhinged vegan who literally okayed the end of the world and the extinction of every living thing on the planet because they should have reconsidered animal rights in that one facility somewhat. God, so much for being sad for the poor ravenous murder-machine Lykaons.

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The lykaones remind me of Zenos and that entire lone soldier test he administers in Garlemald reminds me of the Sundering as a whole. I do think the game was marking him as tragic, but more in the sense that no matter what answer he got, he'd never be happy.

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- This game wants you to mourn Hermes, but actually I am sitting here grieving Zodiark and his contribution to the story of this grand finale as the level 83 trial before we get to the real plot.

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I think he is by far the biggest victim of the storytelling. At least he got the cool moon chanting.

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* Honestly, I think I don't have this much of a problem with Hermes/Fandaniel himself as a villain, but everything surrounding him and how the plot wants to treat him. The plot offers so little questioning of his reasoning that it feels like it's tacitly justifying him. There is Emet opposing him and telling him his methodology is shit, and that approving the apocalypse on a whim is like kiiiiinnnda cringe, but then Emet gets hit with the meme beam and handed the Idiot Ball. Same goes for Venat just deciding not to tell anyone about him being a complete gremlin. My character just nodded to that? Stop trying to excuse Hermes and just fully commit to him being a bastard, and have characters call him (them both, tbh) out. In the process, flesh out the Ancients more so they aren't just collectively strawmen standing there to validate Hermes's and Venat's respective viewpoints.

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If that was the aim of those scenes, they did a pretty poor job of it. :p

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(At least Asahi got to drag him down to the worst hell or whatever. I kinda wanted the same scene with Venat and Elidibus.)

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Yes, so long as he gets to leave once the job is done.

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Originally Posted by Fayt1203

Azem mask is unknown at the moment when Emet-Selch glimpses Azem in us, he sees Azem without the mask, but the face appears blank to the player. Elidibus later also perceives the us as Azem, and in that vision Azem is wearing a black mask

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Then I guess this mask is just a generic red mask? It's weird it's on a lot of the Hades weapons and prominently on his design and I could have swore the scene on the moon focused on it as well. I originally thought it was the "un angry" Hades mask, but in Elpis he uses the one on his chest. My initial confusion was because of the circles on the mask are pretty similar.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

The sundered make even more gratuitous use of creations, both living and not - Sharlayan even emulates the practice of creating intelligent familiars, in some cases using animals

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Speaking of Sharlayan, there's a funny story in Labyrinthos. One of the aether current quests reveals that Trolls—the giant furry monsters seen in their big old wildlife preserve—are actually soul-bearing lifeforms. Nobody in Sharlayan actually knew this until one of them happened to speak in the WoL's presence, whereupon it's revealed that you can understand him via the Echo (because he has a soul). Despite this revelation, he is told upfront that if he can't prove his worth to Sharlayan by solving a Sharlayan-created problem, he'll have to go back to being a specimen. Trolls are also a valid target for daily hunts, and can only be found in Labyrinthos. Make of that what you will.

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Originally Posted by DevonEllwood

I originally thought it was the "un angry" Hades mask, but in Elpis he uses the one on his chest.

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I'm picturing Emet painstakingly swapping masks to suit his moods. He should just walk around with a Mood Ring Flower, seems like less trouble.

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Originally Posted by Teraq

On that point, did it bother anyone else that Venat as Hydaelyn seemed kinda okay with her memories unlike Elidibus? I mean, okay, so there are quite a few reasons you might come up with to explain why it would only be Elidibus (splitting from Zodiark, Zodiark being sealed, "saving the world" being a more frequent and vague wish than whatever the prayer to Hydaelyn truly is), but prior to EW I had been thinking she would retain little of her human identity, because she didn't seem to have any active means of refreshing her memory like Elidibus did – and also, I didn't think she would particularly care about retaining her human memory in the first place, given how highly she ended up thinking of her brethren lol.

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It struck me as really weird, too, especially given that the Watcher on the moon explicitly states that she was sundered along with everything else. She also goes on about what a tough foe Zodiark was and that she barely won -- but he's the one who looks all battle-scarred and with visible chunks taken out of him while she is pretty and flawless and clean. Hmm.

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Originally Posted by Teraq

Fandaniel stuff

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The 'uplifting' story is supposed to make us believe these soft weewoos deserved it for having a nice peaceful prosperous society that, for all we know because we got absolutely 0 history, they had struggled and built up. After all, that shade in Amaurot who lectures us on our outfit indicates that the Ancients were more than capable of feeling envy, hate, etc., and that the feeling of unity was supposed to minimize that and their whole society was built around bringing out the best in people. But yeah, they're apparently beyond hope and might hurt themselves! The sundered killing and raping across the countryside and nearly wiping out unicorns and gorillas, etc., though, they are just children who don't know any better, uwu.

Also, I think they tried too hard with Fandaniel/Amon... felt like an attempt to make Emet 2.0 complete with funny clown dancing because people loved Emet's flamboyant Jojo poses, right? (funnily enough I recall most people hating the guy before ShB... I myself didn't like the Garlemald as an ascian plot reveal either)

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Originally Posted by DevonEllwood

Then I guess this mask is just a generic red mask? It's weird it's on a lot of the Hades weapons and prominently on his design and I could have swore the scene on the moon focused on it as well. I originally thought it was the "un angry" Hades mask, but in Elpis he uses the one on his chest. My initial confusion was because of the circles on the mask are pretty similar.

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Another point on the mask - it's speculated he has two to highlight the aspect of Gemini. He is tasked with overseeing the Underworld, which is where the souls of the dead go, and apparently the full mask can be taken as a funeral mask so you can read it that way, too. As for Azem, the mask would be black.

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Originally Posted by Rosenstrauch

Speaking of Sharlayan, there's a funny story in Labyrinthos. One of the aether current quests reveals that Trolls—the giant furry monsters seen in their big old wildlife preserve—are actually soul-bearing lifeforms. Nobody in Sharlayan actually knew this until one of them happened to speak in the WoL's presence, whereupon it's revealed that you can understand him via the Echo (because he has a soul). Despite this revelation, he is told upfront that if he can't prove his worth to Sharlayan by solving a Sharlayan-created problem, he'll have to go back to being a specimen. Trolls are also a valid target for daily hunts, and can only be found in Labyrinthos. Make of that what you will.

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Ah yes, like the moral dilemma of the sentient mochi from one of the previous New Year fates. :p

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Originally Posted by Skyborne

The 'uplifting' story is supposed to make us believe these soft weewoos deserved it for having a nice peaceful prosperous society that, for all we know because we got absolutely 0 history, they had struggled and built up.

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I remember a mention somewhere of Etheirys being a wild and hostile place before they made it actually liveable.

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Originally Posted by Skyborne

After all, that shade in Amaurot who lectures us on our outfit indicates that the Ancients were more than capable of feeling envy, hate, etc., and that the feeling of unity was supposed to minimize that and their whole society was built around bringing out the best in people. But yeah, they're apparently beyond hope and might hurt themselves!

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Yeah, that and their laws on creation magic, rigorous testing of living concepts, Emet's mention of Kairos being dangerous and that its existence might aggro Pashtarot... all make sense when you consider pretty much any one of them could come up with a creation that might wind up wiping out entire planets throughout the cosmos. The fact they seemed to be living in peace in spite of what they could do to each other is a real testimony to how good (or reasonably acting like it) they were tbh.

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Originally Posted by Skyborne

The sundered killing and raping across the countryside and nearly wiping out unicorns and gorillas, etc., though, they are just children who don't know any better, uwu.

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Wait... the sundered made wars... were susceptible to disease...

Oh dear, it's the Dead Ends strawmen civilisations! Tangible proof that the sundered do not deserve to live, just like Ancients and the Plenty. /s

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Originally Posted by Teraq

Yeah, that and their laws on creation magic, rigorous testing of living concepts, Emet's mention of Kairos being dangerous and that its existence might aggro Pashtarot... all make sense when you consider pretty much any one of them could come up with a creation that might wind up wiping out entire planets throughout the cosmos. The fact they seemed to be living in peace in spite of what they could do to each other is a real testimony to how good (or reasonably acting like it) they were tbh.

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That's why they're so remarkable for such beings, IMO - they went above and beyond what you'd expect to ensure their powers were channelled into positive uses.

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Originally Posted by DevonEllwood

Also I guess I can assume this is Azem's mask?

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I know it won't be, but I still like the idea that it is. However, I have to admit I didn't think about dual masks for Gemini like Lauront mentioned. Emet's so sentimental I can easily see him not only fashioning his mask after Azem's (at least I think Emet joined the Convocation after Azem?), but also featuring Azem's mask prominently on his armor.

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Originally Posted by Teraq

I've largely given up on FFXIV social media so I wouldn't know, but I kind of hope you are right. Back in December I really felt like we were a tiny minority. ( :rolleyes: @ the poster who saw fit to remind people of this by posting Metacritic scores and the like. Like... we know, it's why it feels so isolating)

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It's amusing how much that Metacritic score is posted. Someone said it's based on the reviews of 1200 players? That's nothing. I'm not familiar with the site, so people posting it in the first place didn't mean anything to me.

Reddit still seems to be a lost cause, but I've found it interesting in an expansion ranking thread in the Lore forum no one has listed EW as first and only one person has it as their second favorite.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

I know it won't be, but I still like the idea that it is. However, I have to admit I didn't think about dual masks for Gemini like Lauront mentioned. Emet's so sentimental I can easily see him not only fashioning his mask after Azem's (at least I think Emet joined the Convocation after Azem?), but also featuring Azem's mask prominently on his armor.



It's amusing how much that Metacritic score is posted. Someone said it's based on the reviews of 1200 players? That's nothing. I'm not familiar with the site, so people posting it in the first place didn't mean anything to me.

Reddit still seems to be a lost cause, but I've found it interesting in an expansion ranking thread in the Lore forum no one has listed EW as first and only one person has it as their second favorite.

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There's also the Steam reviews. They're more binary than Metacritic, because it's "positive" or "negative", but even Metacritic seems to get a lot of straight 10s and 0s, so I am not sure there's much of a difference in practice and I'm not sure how many precautions it takes against review bombing etc. On Steam, SHB garnered an 87% positive reviews or so over 2 years. For Endwalker this is 83%. These are still rather small samples, of around 900-1000 in each case. That's not necessarily a bad sample size but you always need to make sure it's representative of the broader population before drawing further inferences from it, which we can't say in this case.

I also think that there's a rather deceptive element at play when it comes to reviewing MMO's in particular because each content patch can drastically change the quality of an overall expansion. For example, I enjoyed the patch content in Stormblood much more than I liked the expansion's base MSQ and then where Shadowbringers is concerned I ended up liking the base expansion much more than the content we received in the subsequent patches.

Endwalker is in a particularly unique position since the development team chose to abruptly end a lot of the core story arcs at the same time in favour of pursuing some...new, completely unknown story threads as of 6.1 and beyond.

So not only do we have a situation where a lot of people are, quite rightly, raising an eyebrow at large aspects of the story receiving a rushed conclusion...there isn't a guarantee that what comes next is going to grip existing players in the same way as the previous expansion stories did.

Haters gonna hate, majority enjoyed it. That's all that matters.

My only complaint is that I wish they'd just shake up how they do endgame but that's never going to happen.

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Originally Posted by Tracewood

Haters gonna hate, majority enjoyed it. That's all that matters.

My only complaint is that I wish they'd just shake up how they do endgame but that's never going to happen.

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I mean, people have given their valid criticisms, some of which are objective truths and problems with the game/ story. But if you need to simplify that way more power to you. However, criticism is important as it’s what the game is based on in the future. Doesn’t matter how small you might think it is, it’s valid. Personally, not even story related, i expected to see some upgrades in the gear department considering this was the expansion that came after the moss successful and profitable expansion in the games history, however we actually got less gear sets lmao.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I also think that there's a rather deceptive element at play when it comes to reviewing MMO's in particular because each content patch can drastically change the quality of an overall expansion. For example, I enjoyed the patch content in Stormblood much more than I liked the expansion's base MSQ and then where Shadowbringers is concerned I ended up liking the base expansion much more than the content we received in the subsequent patches.

Endwalker is in a particularly unique position since the development team chose to abruptly end a lot of the core story arcs at the same time in favour of pursuing some...new, completely unknown story threads as of 6.1 and beyond.

So not only do we have a situation where a lot of people are, quite rightly, raising an eyebrow at large aspects of the story receiving a rushed conclusion...there isn't a guarantee that what comes next is going to grip existing players in the same way as the previous expansion stories did.

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I feel quite similar. While I enjoyed Endwalker's story a lot I fear about the quality of the next round of patches prior to 7.0. Of Shadowbringer's patches, the only ones where the story felt worthwhile for me to get invested in were 5.3 and 5.5, with the others just not hitting the mark for me.

I also have concerns as to the state the world of FFXIV is left in, godless, bereft of its dominant imperial presence, with a lot of characters whose stories should have ended ages ago (the scions) still finding ways to resurface only to exhaust my patience further-while the characters who I resonated most strongly with (Hades/Hythlo/Venat) have quite literally exited stage right.

In terms of future settings I am also concerned because given the story trends in FFXIV the now freed imperial territories might end up making yet another republic as opposed to more fantasy-like monarchies, grand duchies, etc. and the community sentiment that Meracydia must draw from directly from Africa or Austrailia, which is just a baffling concept to me. The New World being a direct copy of the Americas is also something that I would struggle to stomach an entire expansion's worth of.

To that end, I have been working on a 7.0 concept project with my friend group that I'd like to post under General at some point before the upcoming live letter, which would represent a hard tilt back towards core "Final Fantasy," complete with its own title logo, characters, extended plot synopsis, systems, screenshots, and all. I'll share the completed title screen below, albeit in a reduced size compared to the bigger version for the concept's thread.

https://i.imgur.com/xZLNRJp.png

Consider me intrigued!

Overall, I'd say that I enjoyed Heavensward the most. I suppose it helped that although it drew its war to a close and underwent a measure of reform it didn't opt to get rid of the nobility which I appreciated. As someone who is fond of monarchies, intrigue and high society in general I loathe the push by some to have such elements removed altogether from fictional settings.

I always thought it would have been interesting to go and visit a province within the Empire that was actually thriving despite being a part of the Empire. Much like Toussaint from The Witcher 3.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

In terms of future settings I am also concerned because given the story trends in FFXIV the now freed imperial territories might end up making yet another republic as opposed to more fantasy-like monarchies, grand duchies, etc. and the community sentiment that Meracydia must draw from directly from Africa or Austrailia, which is just a baffling concept to me. The New World being a direct copy of the Americas is also something that I would struggle to stomach an entire expansion's worth of.

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I have to confess, those kind of inferences strike me as bizarre. With the New World we do have some knowledge of its culture, albeit limited, but with Meracydia we've next to none beyond some specks here and there detailing dragon involvement. I very much share your view on republics. I don't even want to see Garlemald go in that direction - I'd sooner see something like Archades in XII. Surely Ishgard and Sharlayan suffice.

I was disappointed Ishgard became a republic. I suppose there wasn't any other way to go about it though since the collapse of the church and they didn't have a monarchy.

As for the New World, it might have some possibilities if they did a Wild West theme, perhaps with steampunk. Machinist being the obvious choice for featured class. I know the woke crowd is already up in arms about any depiction of colonialism, but I don't see why it has to mirror American history which, IMO, is not particularly interesting. They already sort of did a Central Americas theme with the Ronkan Empire and, frankly, as a WoW refugee I'm tired of that aesthetic since it is prominent among the troll races. I'd rather they do something completely new. It's a fantasy video game, the options are limitless, content doesn't have to be based on real world history (and I'd prefer it not).

My main concern with Meracydia is it being HW 2.0 except with dragons vs. Allagan descendants. I loved HW, but am not all that interested in a similar story with a different skin.