Endwalker was a great mess(SPOILERS)

[Raven2014]

Could you give me some citations on this? Because i really dont see this at all.

How can you not see it when it's the exact reason behind Herme's identity crisis, so much he decided to seek comfort in others star? I mean ... his last line was basically something like "if the law says imperfection has no right to exist, then by the virtue that man is imperfect, then he too must be erased". I don't remember the exact line but he said something to that effect. And while I don't have SS to share, I had cited several instances "in the MSQ" for this. Another example is when the researchers insist on "delete" the flying shark concept due to the mutation after 3 generation, despite the solution is fairly trivial if one bother to look. His assistant even wonder why Herme wanted to go through all the trouble when it would be much simpler to just simply delete and restart.


Sure, you can cite some acedonetal evidence to the contrary, but if the apathy toward life is the exception rather than the norm, I doubt Herme would have turned out the way he did. Also, dressing up "death" with pretty words doesn't make it s0. In real life, we do this as a way to cope, while the ancient actually believe it so (which make it worse). Venat and Herme basically hold the view of our normal society, while the ancient society view is more align to what we would consider to be a cult in real life.

As far as the scions go, im fairly certain Estinien wasnt weeping or crying for all of the dragons he was slaughtering, and Graha/Ironworks were willing to sacrifice an entire timeline of people to die to bring back the WoL and avert a calamity.

Then you missed the whole point of the "human potential theme". Go back to the cutsceen where Hydalyn address the Scion, in fact she specifically address this particular point about Estinien. Where his fire for vengeance consumed him, now in its place is a fire for life burn brightly. That's the whole point about the concept of suffer then change for the better.

Very unlike the Ancient, who are even after suffer the tragedy of the final day still decide to reject it while clinging to the old way.

[kpxmanifesto]

The easy solution for this would be for Venat's memories to be erased, too. She still could have opposed Zodiark on principle and been drawn to the WoL as a primal without knowing why.

But for some reason she was written to doom her people because the WoL is just too darn cool.

Yeah, that would've made sense, but I guess the writers also wanted Hydaelyn in the present to recognize the WoL. It was a strange choice IMO.

[Raven2014]

Yeah, that would've made sense, but I guess the writers also wanted Hydaelyn in the present to recognize the WoL. It was a strange choice IMO.

Frankly it's probably they still have future plan for Venat. Until before EW the Ascian were portraited as the master mind behind all that transpired, but it turns out everything that had happened in the past 10000 years were pretty much of Venat's design. I doubt her story only revolving around the Final Day. Maybe the first part of her plan was to ensure the safety of our future, after that another part would kick in to save the past as well.

The new raid story already imply her involvement. Elidibus is acting under the advice of the current Azem, who somehow know about us (meaning Venat must have let her/him in). I remember in ShB it was said Azem disagree with both the Zodiak and Hydaelyn plan, and went to search their own and did manage to find one, but was too late to make a difference.

To the people who say her action doesn't make sense, you kinda forget Venat herself already said as much. She mentioned if Hydaelyn was indeed her, than the former's course of action doesn't seem to align with her own belief. I'm not sure we'll actually have all the answers right away though. If one thing FF14 has shown is its willing to let the story stew for a long time.

[KizuyaKatogami]

snip

The “normal” society is the ancient society in this game. It’s what’s normal. The sundering and the sundered are all abnormal. Irregardless though i was simple refuting your claim that their whole thing about preserving life was a distant second. All of these things prove that wasn’t true at all They did the best they could and even held ceremonies for dead soulless concepts. I don’t know what more you could want from them after that. Hermes was a special case and i think we all know this. He was a ticking time bomb irregardless of what they did. He would have exploded eventually there were no precautions they could’ve taken. It was the equivalent of someone having a major breakdown over someone killing an animal and eating it, aka what most people do everyday. Venat didn’t hold the view of a normal society. If she did she wouldn’t have ripped her own people apart. As far as the scion thing goes, what Hydaelyn said doesn’t change the fact that he was fine and happy slaughtering those dragons and felt 0 remorse. Ironworks didn’t really get the change for the better memo as instead of moving forward they decided to mess with time and potentially sacrifice an entire timeline. So that kind of goes against that entire message doesn’t it? They’re still clinging to “the old way.” In regards to your later Venat point of them having a future plan for her i doubt it. The Endwalker story is over. They stated the Endwalker story would be over and 6.1+ will be a completely new story. The alli raid for all we know could have nothing to do with EW events.

[XmissionsX]

To me it was an ok story but it also was all over the place the bunny sections and the endless saying goodbye moments I truly dreaded. But I do have to add it’s ok for a mmorpg. I can’t believe people stating that it’s the best gaming story they ever played and always wonder if it’s the only game they ever played.

From a gaming story it’s dead last my favorite (I do like to play story heavy games) for a mmorpg it’s the best story I experienced. But as it’s a mmorpg the presentation and static way the story is told is not really engaging it does only trigger a mildly emotional response, mmorpg story wise I enjoyed the nier raids the most but this seems to be a unpopular opinion.

But I mostly found endwalkers pacing all over the place, it was worse as other expansions, and they kept removing the momentum in game by to much unneeded quests and cutscenes especially in the end I would have expected a picking up the pace especially at the end but they got lost in giving every character a moment to say goodbye and shine. Made worse by the fact that they clearly would come back anyway.

In the end I felt clearly disappointed and especially emotionless which is not an good sign of a good story. I almost thought they planned a much darker end in which u permanently lost all your friends and the world would be permanently damaged which would be the start af a new fresh story but decided last minute in the end that with the current pandemic a more positive message was needed.

But personally I would have loved a more darker and especially bolder end.

[HappyHubris]

and Venat actually share a common trait: they both cherish lives.

Venat literally slaughtered her entire world - the ancients, the other peoples, their creations...everything, because she met a cool guy. She traded her world for numerous ones where life had much less worth. On Source, civilizations are massacred in conquest, for profit (beast tribes/dragons), or for pleasure (Zenos and Gar Empire racists).

And that's not even bringing up how she was only interested in a tiny minority of the lives on Source (that little ark would barely fit a large town's worth of people in a handful of trips) and was more than willing to let the other shards die to the end days. Whereas if she worked with the ancients they could have saved incredible amounts of death, giving her an infinite lifetime to spread her views and develop a more empathetic faction.

The writers ignored Venat's characterization and decided that she would choose horrible suffering for all creation over memory wiping her, which was a poor decision.

[Mortime]

Venat literally slaughtered her entire world - the ancients, the other peoples, their creations...everything, because she met a cool guy. She traded her world for numerous ones where life had much less worth. On Source, civilizations are massacred in conquest, for profit (beast tribes/dragons), or for pleasure (Zenos and Gar Empire racists).

And that's not even bringing up how she was only interested in a tiny minority of the lives on Source (that little ark would barely fit a large town's worth of people in a handful of trips) and was more than willing to let the other shards die to the end days. Whereas if she worked with the ancients they could have saved incredible amounts of death, giving her an infinite lifetime to spread her views and develop a more empathetic faction.

The writers ignored Venat's characterization and decided that she would choose horrible suffering for all creation over memory wiping her, which was a poor decision.

And let's not forget that Venat's actions also led to Meteion singing her song of oblivion for 10000 years leading countless worlds to their destruction.

[HappyHubris]

And let's not forget that Venat's actions also led to Meteion singing her song of oblivion for 10000 years leading countless worlds to their destruction.

This is a good point, too.

Personally, my headcanon retcon is that Venat was mind-wiped, because anything else makes her the worst monster in the series.

[SamsaraTrickstar]

Well you can see the problems devs have make the story . They was forced to finish it in a specific way. Thing is 6.0 can easy be all of 6.x and not be rushed. Even when the msq was long it was rushed..we jump over like 4-6 story's.to much things was half assed or dropped. Some characters was not even in the story,why? We got to see some from a different shard but non from SB? Why? Then they failed to creat any form of fear or a problem. At no point we was at danger. The war part was a naive joke. So all In all I give the story 5.10 as it got some good parts.

[Ranhansha]

And let's not forget that Venat's actions also led to Meteion singing her song of oblivion for 10000 years leading countless worlds to their destruction.

How so? That was already in motion? And why are the Ancients all of a sudden this hyper perfect society? They are creepy af. Hermes' story is exactly about that. Their empathy is lacking and they only care about their race and their purpose.
But I guess people who wanted Venat to be evil before EW and did't get that will just try to find a different means to justify it. Arguably, you could find it since Elpis doesn't make sense at all. Venat, a former and respected member of the Convocation in a society where dialogue was highly respected and fostered knows everything about the Apocalypse that is going to destroy the whole world and she does nothing. It's not that she's evil, it's absurd writing. She became dumb all of a sudden.