Endwalker was a great mess(SPOILERS)

[Floortank]

for one she is pretty much the embodiment of despair, saying "baby had a nightmare" is ignoring that she is literally supernaturally empathetic

You cut the part of my post where I acknowledge what she is. I understand perfectly what she is, and it makes her trivial. Like a child having a tantrum rather than a villain.

however, even if that wasn't case, why do we need "a villain" ? first and foremost we are an adventurer, what we "need" is a problem so we can solve it, that is a role easily fullfilled by what meteion has become, villain or not.

Why do we need a villain? Probably to avoid threads full of people angry that the antagonist sucks. And she sucks precisely because in the final moment before we fight her, as we're loading into the fight and watching the pre-trial cutscene, they have her renege, and beg herself "not to do it", robbing us of a villain and making her very clearly just a victim.

Think of the final battle with Emet-Selch, where, after you do the ATE, and the blessing of Hydaelyn stops him from killing you, he *raves* at you, something like "That light sundered the world and every life upon it!" while bombing you with AOEs until his HP runs out. He never reneges or turns back his position even a little bit, until his HP hits zero. He is a satisfying antagonist because he believes in what he is doing and we believe just as strongly that he must be stopped.

[Floortank]

Except he isn't. They talk about Yevon a lot, and how sin was formed. But the only times Yu Yevon is actually mentioned is a vague reference by Yunalesca to "her father" and at the end of the game, when you meet Mika on the high bridge, where literally out of nowhere you have the dialogue option "to defeat yu yevon!" a character who's name you have literally not heard of up to that point. I played through X recently in the lead up to end walker and I talked to most NPCs I could find and there genuinely weren't many, if any at all, direct references to yu yevon in the game.

Except he isn't...what? I didn't make a claim besides him not being a surprise villain. Which he is not.

Yevon is discussed many times, by name, throughout the story. You get the entire case for what he did from the Fayth in the final four or so hours of the game, directly from them. The details of Zanarkand and the war are built up throughout the entire story from the moment you land on Besaid, little by little until you have a clear picture of exactly what happened. Yu Yevon is named well before you ever fight him, before you even meet Yunalesca, and he is clearly the antagonist once the church and its Yevon doctrine becomes the root of every problem in Spira, which is also clear by the time of the big Blitzball tournament in Luca. Again, trying to be vague because of spoilers, but your being surprised by Yu Yevon as the villain of FFX is like being surprised that Rufus Shinra is the president of Shinra Inc.

Ultimecia, meanwhile, is only relevant to the plot because the game tells you she was after she shows up because she has time powers. That isn't being a mastermind behind everything. That's bad writing. If she hadn't existed at all and the game's main antagonist had been Adel or Edea the entire time not much would have changed.

As for Ultimecia, she possesses characters throughout the entire story and through them is your direct antagonist in multiple different points in the game. Her direct physical appearance in the story is only at the very end, but her actions (and her direct intervention through the possession of others) have shaped the entire story. They are the basis for Balamb Garden, the very first setting of the story.

This is explained to you in the first 15 minutes of the story. She is the reason SeeD exists.

[Akiudo]

Why do we need a villain? Probably to avoid threads full of people angry that the antagonist sucks. And she sucks precisely because in the final moment before we fight her, as we're loading into the fight and watching the pre-trial cutscene, they have her renege, and beg herself "not to do it", robbing us of a villain and making her very clearly just a victim.

and you seriously believe giving us something that was evil "for the evulz" would not have a ton of people complain ? zodiark could never have been the final villain for the simple fact there wouldn't even be a zodiark without something "bigger", that was established years ago and implied even further back. sorry but people will quite literally allways find things to complain about, and a thread that starts with the premise of the story being a mess is by default either dead by page 10 or predepositioned to tend towards people agreeing that the conclusion was unsatisfactory turning it into at least somewhat of an echo chamber.

[Slatersev]

Yu Yevon and Ultimecia aren't surprise bosses. Yu Yevon in particular is thoroughly discussed throughout the whole story, with more layers of lies peeled off as you get closer to the truth, and the ending of the game. While Ultimecia doesn't show up until the very end, she is pointed out as the villain very early in the game and her actions are repeatedly central to the plot's focus.

The problem with Meteion isn't that she's a surprise boss. She's not. They set her up very convincingly to be our foe in Elpis. The problem is that instead of contacting some sort of diametrically opposed sentience hostile to life itself, ala Zeromus, and becoming infected by it, she simply becomes a template of all the despair and disharmony in the universe, and decides to commit universal suicide to shut it all off. This leaves us essentially without a villain, because she is a victim.

They even pull the rug out from under our feet in the final battle. "Blue" / "good" Meteion vanishes from the story at the end of Elpis, vanishes utterly, but then suddenly appears again in the final battle, fluttering about the Endsinger's head and begging her not to do what she's been doing. Again, they rip out the idea that we're even looking at a villain, and rather something like a cosmic accident or a powerful misunderstanding. It becomes annoying rather than exciting at that point, just being a janitor or a cosmic babysitter.

If they were gonna go the victim rout, they should have had her get possessed and infected by something like Zeromus. Some actual wicked alien force antithetical to life, moving through the dynamis to poison her and manifest through her. But instead they made it just "baby had a nightmare" and that makes our role the person giving her a bottle.

If she got infected by an outside force against her will then she would still be a victim. Having it be Zeromus doesn't fundamentally change anything, its stays the exact same plot with an on the nose IV reference at the last second. And if they made fighting Zeromus the final boss after her then thats an out of nowhere final villain with a IV stapled on.

That's not even getting into the fact that Zeromus is the incarnation of one specific guys hate. So instead of the final boss being a being overwhelmed by the despair and deaths of countless worlds she should have gotten infected by one dude's spirit? Why? That doesn't change anything, its the same premise of something out in the Stars driving her off the deep end but your idea just says one specific FFIV reference did it instead of a culmination.

And it leaves her as even more a victim because the Endsinger ended up choosing to give in, if she gets infected by a sapient malevolent spirit then she never had any agency at all.

Like its the same plot we got but "OMG Zeromos ref wow".

[SaberMaxwell]

This read on us being a babysitter and not being excited is weird to me. At least for me, in the moment the battle was some of the hypest stuff ever, but to each their own.

[Raven2014]

I wonder if all the complains about We need a definite villain are people growing up only read Marvel comics or something. As a Asian, reading story with a central theme instead of a definite villain is not exactly news or uncommon ...

[Theodric]

The second phase of the final battle consisting solely of the boss flailing about did little to excite me. I'd sooner see the Scions do that for a change, especially since the same tactic was already pulled elsewhere with Thordan.

Each to their own, though I don't need mine or my character's ego stroked through such tactics.

[AnotherPerson]

The problem with the Ea's "death of the universe" conundrum, is that it's trying to base itself on our world's science and laws while in a setting that works under completely different rules, without the writers properly considering how those rules change the outcome.

The space is expanding and one day the stars will be too far from the planets to give them any life-supporting heat? So? Who gives a crap? Literally just in this expansion we have seen two artificial suns made by two different groups of people, through different means. Just make some of those with magic, heck, summon a giant sun-primal that follows the planet even when the space expands. You're worried about atmosphere or gravity? Have you seen Ultima Thule? Or even just the moon? Is weather an issue for you? Don't worry, Sharlayans can just make that too.

Real-life issues don't really apply when you have this kind of magic and technology and it's silly to pretend it does, just to make it more "realistic" and "hit close to home" to provoke a more emotional response form people. In the end it breaks the suspension of disbelief, makes the characters look like idiots (although Enwalker has really felt like characters taking stupid pills for the entire storyline) and ultimately falls flat.

Speaking of stupid pills - I wonder how the heck was leaving Eatheris supposed to save people from The Final Days. If anything it would just make them even more exposed to Meteia and their dynamis-based powers, given how most of the universe isn't actually as dense in aether as The Star. Good plan.

I think that's the point the whole story in Ea is trying to make. We're able to use Aether and we can find ways to combat this that makes sense in our own understanding. We can't understand specifically why it wouldn't work, as told by Ea with our current knowledge. Besides, they don't need weather since they function without corporeal bodies. That implies the problem extends beyond the problem of what aether can naturally change.

Also you have to remember, Hyadelyn doesn't know the full extent of the ability of Meteion after she left Etheriys. She only knows Meteion was going to doom Etheriys, so she tries to setup life elsewhere as a contingency plan. We only know Metetion traveled to a lot of stars, not the full extent of the world. She doesn't know that this was the last Bastion of the world - as told by Midgardsomr after he arrived and the world has already been sundered.

Ah yes, destroying the world of your people because you’re bereft of hope for them is paving the way. Such a hero such a hero. Guess the moral of this story is dont have hope in your family and friends, instead place all of your hope in people(someone) youve just met. Oh and also its okay to sacrifice yourself since apparently you'll just be brought back 10 minutes later with the power of friendship! Deep story.

Venat specifically said she knew she was a monster. She also stated she would've never sundered her people unless she saw no other way to proceed - which means she hasn't found a solution even after we left in the circumstances following our departure. For Venat, it's a worse death to rely on Zodiark and attempt to Forestall the Final Days and then wait for the eventual end than it is to find a way forward and continue living. After all, Zodiark only accounts for half the population of the Ancients in Etheriys (not the entire universe), and Dynamis is in a much greater amount than what Zodiark can ever achieve with Aether.

Hyadelyn was no saint, and we can see that when she subjected people to suffer. However, following the sundering, if it wasn't for her, we would've been dead regardless by the Ascian's rejoinings. Take it what you will. A hero isn't a hero to everyone, but only to the ones they are saving - and that was heavily explained through the viewpoints of Emet, Elidibius, and the WoL / Scions in ShB. Venat may not have saved the ancients, but she did her duty as an Ancient to continue & improve life on the Star, which was the ancient's first and foremost goal, even though the means were an extreme way to get the result.

At the same time, you were already entrusted the legacy to safeguard the future of the Star by Emet (which people somehow forget). The ones already aware of the future have already accepted their end at the finale of Ktisis Hyperboreia and left it up to you to solve the problem of the Final Days. In that regard, the ones who are about to forget everything fully accept the outcome and pass on the responsibility to you to figure out.

[KizuyaKatogami]

snip

She saw no other way to proceed but didn’t approach either of her friends about the issue, instead she chose to keep secrets and tell lies. She could’ve prevented all of it in the first place but we’ll never know because she didn’t have hope for her people, the one thing she basically says in the most important. That’s why it’s all hypocritical to me. She preaches about hope yet she had none for her own people, instead entrusted someone whom she’d only just met with the fate of the entire story on a 12,000 year old gamble. Sorry but i just don’t find that very heroic in which the game does paint her as. Just look at the minstrel’s ballad for her or the minion. There’s a very stark contrast compared to how Venat/Hydaelyn is treated vs Zodiark or Elidibus in 5.3.

[AnotherPerson]

She saw no other way to proceed but didn’t approach either of her friends about the issue, instead she chose to keep secrets and tell lies. She could’ve prevented all of it in the first place but we’ll never know because she didn’t have hope for her people, the one thing she basically says in the most important. That’s why it’s all hypocritical to me. She preaches about hope yet she had none for her own people, instead entrusted someone whom she’d only just met with the fate of the entire story on a 12,000 year old gamble. Sorry but i just don’t find that very heroic in which the game does paint her as. Just look at the minstrel’s ballad for her or the minion. There’s a very stark contrast compared to how Venat/Hydaelyn is treated vs Zodiark or Elidibus in 5.3.

How do we know she didn't approach either of her friends about the issue? We just know Hythlodaeus and Emet wasn't aware itself as the Convocation still had more things to deal with outside of just the Final Days, and she didn't want to affect history and prevent other issues from being solved (which was why Hermes still kept his role as Fandaniel, and why Amon said his personality as Fandaniel seemed different from the nihilistic him at the time when Emet helped Amon gain his memories during his seat of the Convocation).

We knew she had a group of people who believed her from ShB but they were in the minority, so it stands to reason she told people she trusted, and also people who can hold onto the secrecy of it all. It's not true that she held no hope for her people, but rather she saw no there was no hope for their kind after witnessing how the events on the Final Days unfolded after trying and failing to get people to listen to reason. If she held no hope at all, she wouldn't have attempted to convince people in the first place, nor would she have worked on getting followers in ShB storyline. Her followers in ShB were the same ones who actually listened to her about the issue of the Final Days most likely and the only ones who were able to move on. However, if the majority of the ancients weren't able to, then most likely, their civilization would still head to ruin regardless, which was what the Ancients wanted to prevent entirely.

There's also a lot of things that could have swayed her decision though too:
- Emet is part of the Convocation - and one of the most powerful Ancients with boundless reserves of Aether, and yet Emet lost to us.
- You also have to remember that Emet entrusted the fate of Etheriys to us too - which now gave us the approval of both the past and present him. One the strongest of their kind entrusted the work of taking care of their world to us, "malformed and lowly" creatures.
- She has confirmed we came from the future based on both not meeting us and having a traveler's ward that she wove on us, so she can confirm parts of our story to be true. With our interaction with her, she most likely realized we were her successor, just sundered in a distant future.
- She herself tested us firsthand in combat during our time in Elpis and fought with us, so she knew exactly how capable we were at the time.
- At the same time, she knew Ancients cannot interact with Dynamis as easily as people who were sundered. If Meteion entered a plane where only Dynamis resides, the ancients would be hard pressed to fight them since their control over Aether would be disrupted, even in an Aetheric-dense location as per the Final Days have shown. However, we would not have that issue since we utilize both Aether and Dynamis. The odds start falling into our favor to why she can believe us, and how she could trust us.

While she had no guarantees the plan can succeed, there was a lot more guarantee than what she have been able to gauge on the Ancients in their reaction to the Final Days. Again, she may not seem heroic since she basically killed and subjected to most people to die, but she put her life on the line to pave a road where life can continue to thrive on Etheirys. Emet also agreed in the end that the Ancients wouldn't have been able to make it this far in the final cutscene when you summon them back, which supports that Venat made the right decision in the end.