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

[Rokke]

Now with a few playthroughs under my belt the last bit of msq feels a bit muddy for me. Prior to Elpis the story is about finding hope in moments of hopelessness, which is a nice sentiment and par the course of FFXIV's overarching story. Once we hit Elpis it then shifts to Perfect Is Bad, which even gets a speech from a bunny in the 2nd part of Labrynthos explaining that Perfect Is Bad and we should stay in our lane and just make due with what we have. Then we reach the last zone and attempt to juggle Perfect Is Bad (Ea, Omicron, Peace wars, Ra-la), Stay In Your Lane Or Die (little fish people), finding hope in moments of hopelessness (friends, flowers, etc) and the dragon ghosts...that never chased perfection or things outside their means.

I think the funniest summary of how sideways it gets is when the Ea spend their whole area being our example as to why Perfect Is Bad in that they learned everything there was to learn and it ended poorly and Yshtola just says NO U as her rebuttal. She wants to learn everything she can learn! But now its ok because she is doing it I guess.

[NotACapitalist]

Now with a few playthroughs under my belt the last bit of msq feels a bit muddy for me. Prior to Elpis the story is about finding hope in moments of hopelessness, which is a nice sentiment and par the course of FFXIV's overarching story. Once we hit Elpis it then shifts to Perfect Is Bad, which even gets a speech from a bunny in the 2nd part of Labrynthos explaining that Perfect Is Bad and we should stay in our lane and just make due with what we have. Then we reach the last zone and attempt to juggle Perfect Is Bad (Ea, Omicron, Peace wars, Ra-la), Stay In Your Lane Or Die (little fish people), finding hope in moments of hopelessness (friends, flowers, etc) and the dragon ghosts...that never chased perfection or things outside their means.

I think the funniest summary of how sideways it gets is when the Ea spend their whole area being our example as to why Perfect Is Bad in that they learned everything there was to learn and it ended poorly and Yshtola just says NO U as her rebuttal. She wants to learn everything she can learn! But now its ok because she is doing it I guess.

Yeah, that part struck me as people telling someone it can't be done despite numerous trial and error and that someone just says it doesn't matter because they're special and unique. Okay, Yshtola, let's just disregard their warnings and still take copious amounts of knowledge while not succumbing despair.

[dapperfaffer]

I think the funniest summary of how sideways it gets is when the Ea spend their whole area being our example as to why Perfect Is Bad in that they learned everything there was to learn and it ended poorly and Yshtola just says NO U as her rebuttal. She wants to learn everything she can learn! But now its ok because she is doing it I guess.

The Ea lost hope (or faith or whatever you would call it) in their science when they came to the conclusion that no matter what they learned they couldn't escape the inevitability of death and the entropy of the universe. So when Yshtola does her confrontation she is reaffirming that their is a point to learning and therefore living in that even when what you are learning isn't something you want or something that has a positive benefit in the way that the Ea used their science to dictate their culture and society, there is still a point to doing so.
In the same way that the sadragons lost hope in being able to live peaceably with other species, as they always seemed to face conflict wherever they went. And the Omegabites acted from a loss of hope by not being able to find a worthy opponent to help them continually advance their species augmentation as they were ultimately destoryed/lost in the Sigmascape series. With a history of continually seeking out conflict to preserve their existence.

All 3 reflect the same ideas that are presented in Elpis with learning about how things are created and what their purpose is. The flying green thing because it has an affinity for the wrong element and couldn't fly( a reflection of the EA), as an example, was deemed to be unworthy of existing by Emancipation Selch so he suggested that it should be destroyed(reflection of Omegabites). But Hermes was the one who wanted to try and teach it to fly, and ultimately was successful and proved that even things that differ from what was planned or what should have been still has value and can contribute to the whole (reflection of the sadragons).

And then you have how all of those tie into the representation of varying races like the Garlemaldians (Omegas), Elephant people in Thavnadarian(Ea), and Old Sharlyan(Dragons). And then you have the last section in Ultima Thul that would represent everyone else that the WoL is "fighting" for to save from the Final Days, which is where you are met by the ghost of days gone past.

I don't think its about Perfect is bad but more so perfection is no longer attainable since a certain someone decided unilaterally they knew best.