Endwalker Main Scenario Commentary & Feedback

[Loggos]

Like "I get it SE" everything will end bad, our world too, even if you have a happy world where nobody dies, they yearn for death...I am not sure what was so bad about it? I mean they can live a long life that may at some point lose its meaning and then get the choice to die. Thats not that bad imo. Even the Ancients in a way lived like that. If they felt they have done enough for the planet they choose to die. Bascially they were "immortal" but still had their meanings in life. And some like Venat even continued to live even when their duty was done.

I absolutely agree with this.

It's a bit strange that they tried to empahise the point that immortality is so bad (as we see with the Ea and the nameless golden dungeon people) that it leads to despair for all immortal civilisations when at the same time they had created a society that had a really good solution for a similar situation and they were all quite happy.
I'm not really sure whether the Ascians were a conscious contrast to all these negative examples (although I want to believe they were) but because they repeatedly said that our planet is pretty much the only one that hasn't fully despaired yet it makes it sound as if this immortality-->suffering pipeline occured relatively reliably. And that felt a bit too simple to me.

The Ascians did have one key factor that helped them which is that they as immortal beings watched over the planet. I mean, this is the narrative of most gods: They watch over mortal life (or sow chaos in it). I can imagine that if you are immortal but engage heavily with mortal life then you might find ever renewing "meanings of life" because the world you are watching over is always changing. Even if you are "static" the world around you is dynamic which should influence your own life, as well. So the immortal-mortal pairing might be one solution to combat immortality fatigue.
Surely our planet wouldn't be the only one where both mortals and immortals exists?

But I think even in a fully immortal society without any changes caused by mortals long-lasting happiness could be possible.
Maybe it's because we can't really fathom it as "short-lived mortals" but perhaps immortal beings would be able to find new sources of meaning that we are not even aware of or able to comprehend.

And exactly as you said: If you have lived a happy life as an immortal and want to "go" that is completely different from a mortal person aging and ceasing or somebody dying of other causes. Being immortal inherently reframes death. We are judging this as aging, dying humans so it's terrifying for us. For an immortal being it might even be a joyful affair, just like it was for the Ascians.

All of this is also why I disliked the idea that a planet ending in a catastrophy is somehow indicative of life not being worth it as a whole. As if all the life that led up to that point could not have been filled with happiness. Especially if people are mortal. If the Earth ended today this would be bad for everyone alive but the lives of the people who came before us would not be affected by this at all. They could have lived the happiest lives imaginable and this happiness would not suddenly cease to be relevant.