What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[linayar]

To be completely honest though, that does raise a good point. Why is Zodiark, a figure and being born of salvation, take onn a demonic form, whereas the being who was created to keep said other being in check is the angelic and benevolent looking one.

Without any official reason, my guess is that Zodiark was summoned while under the influence of Meteion, thus their fear twisted its form.

Or because the Ancients have different aesthetics and don't really view Zodiark's appearance as a negative, as seen by some of their creations.

I think the main problem though is that yes, we had an expansion show us that angelic figures dont mean benevolent or good yet we still only ever use light in the story, and the main angelic figure is still overall treated as benevolent and good with the demonic figure barely getting any credit for anything after its death.

At the end of the day, Zodiark was never in any position to care whether it gets credit, while we credited Hydaelyn due to our connection with her/Venat.

Either way, I'm not sure that's something to be viewed as a problem, especially with respect to their appearances.

Where it grated on my nerves was constantly Hydaelyn using the terms light and dark as interchangeable with good and evil (or associated concepts, like hope and despair), when they spent an entire expansion unravelling this association. It just sits weirdly. The fixation with light at this point is just dull to me.

There is a difference between the physical and the philosophical concepts of light and dark.

I feel that's why people are confused because Shadowbringers only dealt with the former, not the latter. Light entities may be bad, and so are void entities, but shining your light over the darkness is still a good thing.

You are right, I shouldn't have said "new" future... in fact, according to this story- this entire arc had already happened before players even started playing...because back in the past we said it would.

That still removes all agency from the characters and essentially means that we have been in a predetermined play that started I don't know over a thousand years ago. I don't love that. I especially don't love that it is being passed off as some kind of "You helped set this is motion". No we didn't. If we did, then all the rest of the circumstances they ignored would have been factored into the story, but they weren't. That's why I think we should have been passive learners in the past... we just left behind way too much evidence/opportunity for things to have gone differently to be shoehorned into the story the writers wrote. It was their story, not ours.

It's fine to say we are stuck on this course of history- I think it's a cheap trick to try to lay that at the feet of players and say "You were responsible for how we got here... because we said so". No, we weren't. You wrote a history and then stuck us into it, ignored the actual impact we had and said "Ta-da! Now you are responsible".

It doesn't matter whether you do something because someone says that you will or because you want to. It can even be both and you'll still have your agency as you're still the one who does the action.

Except Hydaelyn is still the antagonist to the Ancients, even moreso now given what we learned in EW. I didn't clarify this enough in my initial response as to why I felt like the narrative was gaslighting me. Her actions align more with the villains, in fact she shares numerous similarities to Hermes, but the storyline treats her as the opposite. Even saying she's the heroine of the WoL's tale is being generous since our reality is a direct result of the decisions she made, choices which led to the deaths of billions and wasn't guaranteed to save anyone.

The decisions she made was a result of Hermes's action and with the knowledge that we gave her.

We don't see her as a villain because we benefit from her actions. If she had allowed the Convocation to proceed, we would not have existed.

Our reality is indeed due to her, and since we're the hero of the story, the fact that we exist because of her and she is not going against us means that she would be treated as an ally even if we have to fight her in the end.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Without any official reason, my guess is that Zodiark was summoned while under the influence of Meteion, thus their fear twisted its form.

Or because the Ancients have different aesthetics and don't really view Zodiark's appearance as a negative, as seen by some of their creations.

At the end of the day, Zodiark was never in any position to care whether it gets credit, while we credited Hydaelyn due to our connection with her/Venat.

Either way, I'm not sure that's something to be viewed as a problem, especially with respect to their appearances.

It's not about being in a position to care. Its about the writing. Both him and Elidibus were essentially shafted, hardly even a word of thanks given to both of them despite them being the only reason we even lived and won against Meteion. Meanwhile Venat is treated as benevolent and as a hero despite the atrocities she committed. Shes even given a minion in her honor lol. Where our Emet minion? Or elidibus minion. We're supposed to be remembering them and everything yet we dont even get that. Theres a very clear bias present which contradicts their claims of both sides are neither good nor bad.

[Platinumstorm]

• The mighty Zodiark, which has been build up as this mighty(evil) entity over several expansions, turns out to be nothing but filler trash for the first Endwalker trial
• The true cause of the Final Days is a pet-project from an ancient which goes mad after observing countless dead world and possibly causing the death of several world by projecting negative emotions unto them, and is thus dead-set on bringing despair to every world, upon which said ancient goes mad and is now letting her run her course to test humanity if they can withstand/fight despair
• Venat, who hasn't had her memory wiped + still remembers you from being in Elpis, quite apparently doesn't lift a finger to learn about Dynamis herself or to mobilize the other ancients to end Meteion then and there, and instead chooses to turn herself into Hydaelyn, sunder the world and the inhabitants, thereby forcing them to live with and face despair and gambling that their resilience against despair might be enough to face Meteion one day

Really?
This is the best SQ could do in terms of story after ShB?

One thing about Venat. Sundering the world is understanding Dynamis. Without being sundered, the Warrior of Light has no chance against Meteion, because the aetheric concentration would be too dense. The WoL does use Dynamis to perform limit breaks and essentially win fights. That is beaten into the storyline of Elpis about weak aetheric concentrations in the Warrior of Light, pretending to be a familiar, etc. He beats Zenos to death not with Aetheric power, but with Dynamis.

Zodiark, however, and for reasons that I don't recall, or perhaps never understood, keeps The Final Days in check. It might be tied to what I wrote above. Because Zenos is on the moon, maybe it alters the aetheric concentrations on Hydaelyn to be "balanced", and a higher concentration of light allowed Meteion to resume the Final Days; similar to what happened when the first was overwhelmed in light.

[linayar]

It's not about being in a position to care. Its about the writing. Both him and Elidibus were essentially shafted, hardly even a word of thanks given to both of them despite them being the only reason we even lived and won against Meteion. Meanwhile Venat is treated as benevolent and as a hero despite the atrocities she committed. Shes even given a minion in her honor lol. Where our Emet minion? Or elidibus minion. We're supposed to be remembering them and everything yet we dont even get that. Theres a very clear bias present which contradicts their claims of both sides are neither good nor bad.

Considering we're the only one interacting directly with them, I can see why they might not be on anyone else's mind in terms of a "word of thanks" and, Elidibus aside, we simply do not interact with Zodiark at the level that we would have a word of thanks for him.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Considering we're the only one interacting directly with them, I can see why they might not be on anyone else's mind in terms of a "word of thanks" and, Elidibus aside, we simply do not interact with Zodiark at the level that we would have a word of thanks for him.

It’s as simple as having a minion made in memory of him.For either of them really. We don’t even have a dialogue option to thank Elidibus for what he did or to even bring it up to Emet despite Emet basically having a hand in his demise.

Without any official reason, my guess is that Zodiark was summoned while under the influence of Meteion, thus their fear twisted its form.

There were statues of Zodiark before the final days even hit, in Akadaemia.

[Jandor]

I mean, again, his mindset is clearly different than what it is in Elpis, so much so hes shocked at what he becomes. The fact is with everything we're told and shown, had Venat actually told her people what happened, they could've found a way forward, they just werent given the chance. Considering we have relied upon said unsundered ancients time and time again, we clearly cant do it ourselves. We need their help. If we couldnt do it without their help then whose to say they couldnt do it themselves? Dont take this personally but i think the writer's wrote themselves into a corner with this and it shows. While trying to write the story in a way that indirectly tried to say the sundering isnt all that bad and the sundered are capable of things the ancients arent, they contradicted themselves based on how theyve wrote things in the past. The sundered have hardly ever done thing via their own merit. Theyve done so with indirect help of the ancients or higher up entities. Hydaelyn,allag, etc etc. It just shows we'd be nowhere were it not for them.

Cute, but irrelevant. The story is what the story is, you don't have to like it, but wishing it was different doesn't actually make it so.

The Ancients couldn't win, you're outright told that. I would have personally preferred that it be reinforced with a little more explicit showing along the way, but they decided to go with mainly just telling us, and I struggle to think of a way they could have more explicitly told us without just breaking the 4th wall and literally telling us.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Cute, but irrelevant. The story is what the story is, you don't have to like it, but wishing it was different doesn't actually make it so.

The Ancients couldn't win, you're outright told that. I would have personally preferred that it be reinforced with a little more explicit showing along the way, but they decided to go with mainly just telling us, and I struggle to think of a way they could have more explicitly told us without just breaking the 4th wall and literally telling us.

Its not exactly irrelevant. We're not outright told that. We're told they didnt win, where the circumstances were they didnt know what they were facing. We're shown they could in some ways manipulate dynamis.They had an entire facility that could literally help them hone said power. There's nothing pointing to the fact they couldnt have adapted and come together to combat Meteion. Considering they were able to create a being who could shield them from Meteion for thousands of years, one doesnt have to go through hoops to acknowledge they'd be able to find a way had they known the truth. You're banking your entire argument on one line of dialogue. Whereas we have numerous other lines of dialogue showing that they wouldve had a chance had Venat not banked everything on one person and instead trusted her own people. When the writing contradicts its own points then no its not irrelevant and i will call it out as such.Its just one of the many flaws of Endwalker and it seems more people are starting to acknowledge said flaws which is good. Wouldnt want more shoddy writing like this in the future anyhow. Better to call these problems out sooner rather than later. Not everyone is going to be captivated by fluff moment #269. Some people want to see actual in depth writing.

[Mezzoforte]

One thing about Venat. Sundering the world is understanding Dynamis. Without being sundered, the Warrior of Light has no chance against Meteion, because the aetheric concentration would be too dense. The WoL does use Dynamis to perform limit breaks and essentially win fights. That is beaten into the storyline of Elpis about weak aetheric concentrations in the Warrior of Light, pretending to be a familiar, etc. He beats Zenos to death not with Aetheric power, but with Dynamis.

Zodiark, however, and for reasons that I don't recall, or perhaps never understood, keeps The Final Days in check. It might be tied to what I wrote above. Because Zenos is on the moon, maybe it alters the aetheric concentrations on Hydaelyn to be "balanced", and a higher concentration of light allowed Meteion to resume the Final Days; similar to what happened when the first was overwhelmed in light.

Meteoin was stagnating and decaying small areas of celestial aetherflow. Whenever it would decay and weaken she would flood dynamis in and start wrecking havoc. The ancients noticed this but not exactly why. They thought the stagnation and decay of the celestial aether was the final days itself. Thus summoned zodiark and being of darkness which represents the astral aspect. Change and growth. Zodiark forces the celestial aether to be unable to decay and stagnate so meteion could no longer affect the planet. Once we killed zodiark his protection vanished immediately letting meteion get back to rotting the celestial aether. Thats why hydaelyn put zodiark into stasis and didnt destroy him. She knew his death would doom the planet too.

[Jandor]

Its not exactly irrelevant. We're not outright told that. We're told they didnt win, where the circumstances were they didnt know what they were facing. We're shown they could in some ways manipulate dynamis.They had an entire facility that could literally help them hone said power. There's nothing pointing to the fact they couldnt have adapted and come together to combat Meteion.

Emet remembers:


Emet has been watching:


Emet wouldn't have done better:


You're not supposed to think Venat is evil or stupid, it's been one of your complaints if I recall correctly, and I doubt you're supposed to get the impression that Emet is lying to us here, or maybe missing some solution that he's just not thought of. When both those characters tell you their people couldn't have done better, and they know them far better than we do, then it's a safe bet that they really couldn't have done better.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Emet remembers:


Emet has been watching:


Emet wouldn't have done better:


You're not supposed to think Venat is evil or stupid, it's been one of your complaints if I recall correctly, and I doubt you're supposed to get the impression that Emet is lying to us here, or maybe missing some solution that he's just not thought of. When both those characters tell you their people couldn't have done better, and they know them far better than we do, then it's a safe bet that they really couldn't have done better.

Except besides those lines of dialogue, everything else points otherwise. Why wouldn’t they be able to hone their dynamis skills? We know they were able to manipulate it as they use limit breaks in the dungeon. Hermes was able to create a familiar who could interact with it. They had an entire facility again, they could use to hone their skills. They’re commenting on it as how they see it now. Considering they never even got the chance to try, they don’t know for certain. Keep in mind this is the Emet that toiled centuries to being about a rejoining. The rejoining methods would not have brought them that far that is correct. Venat telling them originally what was going on might have. What we know points to them having at least had the right tools, it was a matter of using them. Venat is the one who gambled everything on a single person and had forsaken her own people so i’m not really going to even address her thoughts as she’s the one who kept secrets from them in the first place.