Endwalker Main Scenario Commentary & Feedback

[Theozilla]

I just finished Endwalker yesterday (also did all the side-quests) & today I unlocked & beat the two optional level 90 expert dungeons. Looks like one of them might be setting up one of the Beast Tribe quests for EW?

Anyways, man what an ending, I actually got a little choked up during the final cutscenes (after the credits). What a momentous experience & feeling indeed.
During the cutscene after the final dungeon but before the final trial, for a brief moment I was a little worried that the build up might feel somewhat repetitive to 5.0 finale, but the direction it did end up going was a revelation & completely flabbergasted me.
While ShB perhaps had slightly better pacing, EW was truly an ending of endings, that it drew on so much of what came before in the entire game’s history was truly astonishing & amazing. At the present at least, EW is about equal to ShB for me.

I do have a couple of spoiler related questions/clarifications I wanted to ask (sorry if any have already been addressed earlier in the thread)

One minor quibble, unless I missed something, Zenos’ reoccurring dream of the Final Days (from 5.2) and Fandaniel’s commentary of “Could Emet-Selch have found a way…?” wasn’t ever addressed/explained, correct? I wonder if it’s something that’s being saved to explore later in the future MSQ or side content (like maybe the Pandemonium raids?), or is it just a dropped plot point? If it’s the latter it’s not a huge biggie, but somewhat surprising that something depicted in a voiced cutscene wasn’t at least somewhat followed up on.


My other question is in regards to the status of the inhabitants of Ultima Thule after finishing 6.0: namely, are the inhabitants of UT now actually alive/living for real now?
Because I understood that the areas aren't the actual remnants of the original planets (i.e. stars) that the Meteia encountered in their journey, but rather are recreations of them. And I believe Y'shtola and/or Urianger compare the inhabitants to the shades of the Ancients in Emet-Selch's recreated Amaurot. So wouldn't that mean that like the Ancient shades, they weren't the actual original souls of the dead planets, right? But after Meteion is beat and she restores "life/hope" to the universe, did that turn the inhabitants of Ultima Thule into for-real alive/original souls denizens?

Because the way the game discusses them and the side-quests treat them (after beating 6.0), it appears like they are living beings with souls now. (and from what I understood Meteion collected the dead souls of the planets she had visited and sequestered them away in the dead sun, so that they wouldn't continue to be reincarnated/reborn into potential future new lives, right?)

Or were the inhabitants of UT always alive, & it was only the specific individuals that the Scions had to emotionally overcome in order to progress through the zone (the ones that turned into black birds) that weren't alive and were only recreated shades?

Oh, I also recommend reading this little essay this person wrote on Endwalker and Buddhism, as I had a lot of very similar thoughts when playing and finishing the MSQ.

https://twitter.com/SayaKiyohara/sta...818637316?s=20