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

[Lauront]

For that to work the suppression would have to suppress soul density as well, an effect we don’t have proof is possible.

Don't see 1) how we know that or 2) why it matters, since we don't know exactly which facet of the ancients makes it harder to manipulate dynamis, considering they had much aetherically denser bodies too.

All we know of Ktisis's field is this:

Hythlodaeus: And what does this “state of alert” entail exactly?
Ktisis Scholar: A field of dampening magick is draped over the entire facility, usually in response to escaped entities and the like.
Ktisis Scholar: Ktisis scholars and observers are unaffected, but everything─and everyone─else is weakened to a fraction of their usual capabilities.
Hythlodaeus: Then consider us forewarned. We do, however, have urgent business with Chief Hermes, and must enter the premises regardless.
Hythlodaeus: ...That said, if Hermes is willing to enact such measures, I wonder what other obstacles he has seen fit to drop in our path.
Hythlodaeus: With that enfeebling spell in place, we're not like to be at our fighting best.

Whether it can affect soul aether is unknown. Whether it needs to (the WoL themselves being 9/14ths dense at the soul level) is unknown. Whether it could be modified to if necessary is an open option, as is use of it as-is.

So the Ancients would create a race of beings whose purpose is to suffer so they don’t have to,

Bizarre framing. They're just arcane constructs at the end of the day, much like Primals or egis are. And that isn't why. The reason is to help them track and hunt down Meteion and stop her from hiding, to ultimately get to her and put her out of her misery. For that, ability to manipulate dynamis is required. If one had to, one could endow it with the purpose of protecting the universe itself - quite a noble purpose. If it did not work, there is the option of selective sundering of some of their own.

beings that had no choice in the matter

Beats sundering your entire race with no choice in the matter, along with the star and every other life on it, potentially weakening the very barrier shielding it by thinning out Zodiark's potency, when only a handful of sundered was what it took to bring down her and all her moping "despair", along with several stars' worth of it, after it was left rather late...

and ultimately no reason to love the Ancients or their people.

Then revise the concept to circumvent that little problem.

When faced with the graveyard of hope that is Ultima Thule, why wouldn’t they join with Meteion or give up entirely? What would they have to live for?

Because they're impervious due to how their concept was designed or for any other number of reasons. Having a world they can roam about, for example, as opposed to the supposed "heat death" of the universe. Being heralded as heroic amongst the ancients. etc

What was stopping a sundered being from doing the same, knowing of their broken existence, after they were made to suffer in this state thanks to a Supreme Deity? You could ask the same question here. Thus, test and prepare.

Prayer and aether are linked as well. On a planet like Etheirys even more so.

So what? It's linked to both. Primals happen to have an awful lot of it to tap into.

Anyway, I'm not really interested in endless back and forth over this. It is clear that there is enough room in the plot to allow for it.

These are my personal grievances with the story. Emphasis on "personal" since I understand why some people would enjoy it and I recognize the appeal, but it just didn't resonate well with me:


Sudden plot elements: Hermes, Meteion and Dynamis were just too abruptly introduced in the story. Yes, we've heard of the seat of Fandaniel and we knew of "the sound" but the thread of correlation was too thin between what the player knew and what was introduced. I think it's important for stories to have a build-up and continuity of some degree, that makes you speculate about the elements and where they might go from there, but if you drop new, all-encompasing elements all of a sudden, it's hard to keep me invested because at any moment you could just drop another one and leave me in the dark again. I ended up caring very little about Hermes and Meteion which took away from the whole experience since they're central aspects of it.

No, I wasn't expecting Zodiark to be the "big bad", but I think there were other possible venues of storytelling they could've chosen using pre-existing elements instead of adding entirely new ones right at the relative end of the story, in true Final Fantasy fashion. I wouldn't have enjoyed FFVI as much as I did if Kefka was only introduced at the Floating Continent when he's about to tap into the Warring Triad's power. Even the infamous Yu Yevon from FFX had some modicum of foreshadow and previous exposition.

You could retroactively apply Dynamis to previously established lore (such as the Omega raid or Limit Break), since it's such an abstract and vague concept, but that's not good world building in my opinion. Who knows now what's Dynamis and what isn't? Will they even bother to articulate it with future stories and, if they do, will they at least give it a more concrete explanation and modus operandi, or will it be relegated to a very anime-esque plot device for when the WoL is in trouble?



Time travel: Time travel often does more harm than good in the story. I'm not saying you can't have an interesting story with time travel, but it does require a neatly packed frame since the chances of contradiction and plot holes are enormous.

EW not only did time travel, but they decided to do the closed loop variant which is, in my opinion, the most flawed one. The whole "who comes first..." scenario just feels like a cheap excuse to not give proper causality to the events presented: it expects you to just accept that it is what it is and to move on. No sense of wonder as you unfold the reasons, no theorizing about the contrivances involved, no speculating about its widespread unknown impacts and variables, nothing.



Theme: Nihilism is, quite frankly and very personally speaking, a very boring theme. For every german philosopher and indian monk claiming that there is no meaning to human existence, you have millions of people giving meaning to their own lives, be it through faith, love, ego, personal goals, legacy, values or even just hedonism.

I think it works well when it's tied to the development of a character with relatable traits, surrounded by goals, flaws and situations that make said character adopt a very personal, subjective type of nihilism, shaped by their own trials of life. Caius in FFXIII-2 comes to mind.

Suffice to say, Meteion is quite the opposite... although it makes sense considering what she is. Her take on nihilism was extremely shallow and juvenile and it kind of dragged the whole writing with it. At some point when it was just the WoL, the twins and Meteion in Ultima Thule, the dialogue was almost reduced to "My hope is stronger than your despair!" and "No! My despair is greater!". This is the type of writing I expect from something like Danganronpa - and I quite enjoy Danganronpa, but for the comedy, not because I take the writing seriously.

I never understood why some writers present hope and despair as if they were some kind of hidden yet concrete power that you declare to others. Emotions are more complex than that, specially when interacting with the emotions of other people. I think both themes are better presented when they're subtle and preferably not even mentioned: they're emotions and they work better setting an atmosphere. You could feel the despair and the misery of those garleans in the subway refuge, or in Quintius' melancholy: the story and its chracters don't need to spell it for me.



Fantasy vs Reality: Sometimes it feels like the writing is not sure if it's based on reality, based on fantasy or the latter constructed upon the former.

I think it was mentioned in this thread before, but the Ea is arguably the biggest example: in this universe where the equivalent of matter is well known and even interactable, where people have created underground suns, sent ships to the edge of the cosmos - which is 60% something made of "emotion power" - and all sorts of rules of physics are nonchalantly broken by fantasy elements, why is the game telling me that suddenly thermodynamics and the entropy of the universe is a big deal?

I could stretch the point to the Ancients. Of course they have a different view of death than I do: they're virtually immortal beings with demiurge-like powers, living in an enlightened society articulated by social dialectics and communitary values and - more importantly - with a clear understanding of the cycle of life and death. Me, the poster, have some decades of life ahead of me, have no idea what happens after I die and am surrounded by a world filled with animosity, strife etc. The game expecting me to so readily apply my own sense of life morality to a world so detached of my own feels forced. Perspective is everything.

In fact, some of the reasonings for the despair of certain worlds (like the Ra-La one) seemed to completely disregard how complex people tend to be, specially when on the verge of destruction and how we always aim to adapt and preserve life. But then again, those worlds may have been under the Endsinger's influence to begin with so no point in commenting further.

Agree with every single point you're making and particularly about sudden plot elements, time travel and the point regarding the ancients' stance on death and strawman worlds like the Plenty. I genuinely don't see how this "move on from death" POV is even meant to segue with theirs when the world's metaphysics is so different and the ancients, unlike the sundered, experience death in such a different manner.