Meteion vs WoW's The Jailer (Spoilers)

[Dagget]

Normally, it is poor writing to add in a plot element that was not in any way known earlier in a long story mystery, but in Endwalker we have Meteion introduced for the 1st time as the core trouble behind the End of Days. Over in WoWland we have The Jailer introduced for the 1st time as the puppeteer behind most everything that happened before.

So far, consensus seems to be no real complaints about Meteion being brought into the narrative while there seems to be a lot of griping about The Jailer being brought in as a plot device in WoW.

Thoughts?

[MirronTulaxia]

Meteion makes a lot of thematic sense, and while the Final Days are newish, we really never knew anything about the Ascians until last expansion anyways so it’s not contradicting anything. Meteion and the mechanics of what was going on were explained fairly well too.

No idea what’s going on in WoW but I feel they did a good job with Meteion, in a way that makes narrative and thematic sense.

[Lihtleita]

the final days had already been established, we just didn't know what caused them.
meteions an answer to a question we're familiar with, afaik the jailor is an answer to a question noone was even aware existed.

[MikkoAkure]

I don't think FFXIV players are as lore intensive as WoW players as a whole. The game is also designed differently. WoW is an MMO dropped into an already existing world that has other games and even books written within its world published for it. FFXIV is whatever Banri Oda and Koji Fox want it to be for the next expansion. Oda even dropped tons of dinosaurs into HW just because he really likes dinosaurs. I don't think you can get away with that in WoW.

And to piggyback onto what Mirron said, we only found out that the Final Days were a thing 2 years ago in the previous expansion. And back then, the fact that Zodiark and Hydaelyn were primals also came out of nowhere. People brought the possibility up on the forums, but there wasn't anything concrete until foxy grandpa started giving us exposition dumps. And then in HW before that, the fact that the world is split into shards and when there's a calamity, a shard is returned to the Source came out of left field. There didn't seem to be anything at all alluding to that and it also changed our view on the void, which was something else entirely. And then before that in 1.0, we had no idea that the 2nd moon in the sky which until then was just a neat little fantasy thing, was an ancient superweapon. And when we found out it was an ancient superweapon, we had no idea that it had an ancient dragon primal inside it.

I can't speak for WoW because I know nothing of it, but most of the revelations in FFXIV bring more to the story. At the start of the game, the Ascians were just a bunch of mustache-twirling villains who went around menacing adventurers for literally no reason other than to be evil (which is weird to replay after recent events). They longed to revive their long-dead god who our crystal mom killed and that was the story we had. Now it's a lot richer and the Ascians' actions have been given new light, but a part of me still misses the simple old days before calamities were even a thing and we only had 1 linear uncomplicated world history and the Allagan Empire was just a bunch of snail-eating, road-building onion knights.

[Garnix]

As soon as Fandaniel revealed his plan in 5.4, people started guessing that he was responsible for the Final Days.
While Meteion was a new character, she was really just a toy created and protected by Hermes.
Hermes was the real villain this expansion, not Meteion. We even had to beat him thrice (as Zodiark, as Hermes, and as Amon)...
If she wasn't Hermes' puppet and just came out of nowhere it would have been a different story IMO.

[MirronTulaxia]

Agreed. It's why I didn't like the idea of it being some sort of truly alien thing. By tying it back to the Ancients as a whole, it ties in better.

[Alenore]

In part because WoW players will complain about anything Blizzard will release. We "knew" Sylvanas had a boss/powerup/big plan for a while now, since around Legion when she made a deal with Helya. Of course we didn't have his name, but people saying "wow intorducing a villain now?!" are just shortsighted : our characters obviously are not omniscients.

Also in part because the Jailer is the basic mustache twirling villain: he was meant to have *reasons* to want to do what he wants. Turns out they explained that he was doing that, because he wanted to take *his revenge* because he was jailed... For doing what he's trying to do now. What's the reason then? Unmaking everything for shit and giggles? Getting Azeroth because that's apparently the best loot the multiverse wants? That's literally what the Burning Crusade wanted, but it's undeads instead of demons.
Let's not add the whole"morally gray" of Sylvanas when it turns out everything she did bad was because the Jailer had a part of her Soul and could control her, undermining every bit of character progression she had since post-LK.

While in EW, most of the lore that has been added was without retcons and with plausability. The blessing of light / echo is probably the only grip I have.

As soon as Fandaniel revealed his plan in 5.4, people started guessing that he was responsible for the Final Days.
While Meteion was a new character, she was really just a toy created and protected by Hermes.
Hermes was the real villain this expansion, not Meteion. We even had to beat him thrice (as Zodiark, as Hermes, and as Amon)...
If she wasn't Hermes' puppet and just came out of nowhere it would have been a different story IMO.

I don't exactly agree. First, because Amon goes to great lengths to tell us he refuses to be Hermes. Just saying "they share a soul so they're the same person" is just wrong, it'd be like throwing Gaia under the bus because she used to be an ascian.
Then, because Hermes just had a wish to know more about other life and find the meaning of life, but turns out it was depressing, and he was already ill fitting in the society. So he decided to give the Ancients a taste of their own medicine (deciding what lives/dies) through Meteion, and let them prove they were good for the natural order, if the natural order was to die.

[Darkpaw]

I think this is a lot simpler to explain than people are making it. While I agree mostly with what was said about how well Meteion was wrote in and how she was an answer to the question we had long had.

This is Final Fantasy one of the oldest tropes in the franchise is “Hey hey look over here look at this bad guy right here!” And then it gets revealed in the 11th hour that no the real threat is this other person over here.

Adel and Ultimecia (FF8)
Kuja and Garlond (FF9)
Kuja and Necron (FF9)
Empire and Ardyn (FFXV)
Sin and Yu Yevon (FF10)

This list goes on and on, so for those who are FF franchise fans, this was not a “out of left field move” for the franchise sure it was a little surprising but it was really well done

[MirronTulaxia]

So... Adel was revealed after we learn of Ultimecia. And Adel was never set up as a major threat. Edea was (who you may be confusing her with), but even then we learn about Ultimecia pretty early on, and the real threat is just... you know, Sorceress. For Necron he isn't the real threat of IX, no two ways about it. And Yu Yevon is just the central part of Sin, so they aren't exactly different things to be threatened by.

As for Meteion I wouldn't really call her a threat that beats the real threat, mostly because for ages we had zero knowledge on Zodiark. Garlemald was never the main bad guy, so they don't really have room to be upstaged. But the Ascians have had a huge mystery for... pretty much their entire existence in the game. It wasn't until we hit Shadowbringers we get an idea of why they want Zodiark, and in that same moment we find out "but wait, there's more" pretty much. So I do think there is a subtle but distinct difference between this game and other "Giant Space Flea From Out Of Nowhere" types.

[Raikai]

Might want to change the title of the topic though! It might be kinda spoilerish if you relate The Jailer as a last boss and Meteion's name!

On topic... It's more than just the character Meteion herself. The threat is not her (as a character) but an existential situation that goes beyond anybody's control (unless its proven wrong by future narratives). Meteion is just a mean for this power to manifest, as well as contextualizing that Fandaniel is indeed "shallow" like that but for a very deep reason. That's why it works without extensive build up across expansions.