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

[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.

[Sicno]

It’s explicitly stated that the color never changes around everyone else.

I think I know the part you're referring to. Meteion says:

"Like me, they feel his pain and turn dark...
That's only for Hermes, though. For others, they're always white and bright."

I honestly don't take that too literally because I find it entirely unlikely that the only emotion ever manifested in the history of the ancients is Hermes's sorrow. It could just be poor phrasing or interpretation during localization. The intention here could have been that even when they change color they remain a bright hue, like blue or green, and that they only go dark for Hermes. In an earlier quest he says:

"Though be it here or elsewhere, they are seldom seen in any hue save purest white..."
"(...) While it has no will of its own, it is sensitive to the prevailing emotion in the vicinity, and reacts by altering its color and vibrancy."

He doesn't say "it reacts to sorrow". He speaks about prevailing emotions, which also checks with what we saw earlier through he MSQ, that it changes to other colors because of different emotions, not just sorrow. So it must have reacted to other emotions too for the ancients. I know this contradicts what I said earlier about literal interpretations after localization, but if they would indeed have only ever reacted to him we could expect a more binary representation. Black or white. Joy or sorrow. Not hint at a spectrum of colors nor to emotions in general.

The Elpis flowers respond to the emotions of others, it doesn’t effect change as it lacks a will to do so. Standing near an Elpis flower won’t make you susceptible to its influence through dynamis, but standing near Meteion? Different story.

The flowers are just an example. They say dynamis is a form of energy, so it follows that it could be used or manipulated in different ways. The flowers just illustrate that having a will is not a requirement to make use of it and all kinds of creative solutions could have arisen. Also, Meteion was a (quite literally) PET PROJECT of Hermes, and he was so careless at it that he even gave her a task that had a possibility of not being fulfilled, something Emet-Selch pointed out mere moments after hearing about it. Imagine what a full team devoted to design something better with the added motivation of preserving their own existances could have achieved.

[Rulakir]

Other points I could mention (plot conveniences, the whole Venat thing) have been said countless times, so I won't extend this wall of text.

I'd still be interested in reading your perspective if you feel like sharing. I enjoyed your review.

I honestly don't take that too literally because I find it entirely unlikely that the only emotion ever manifested in the history of the ancients is Hermes's sorrow.

I would think anger would make more sense, which the WoL has in spades. It's not a particularly prevalent emotion from what I saw of the Ancients, unlike sadness, and Hermes' dissatisfaction was directed outwards rather than inwards. He may have wondered if he was the oddity, but he was upset at everyone else rather than himself about it. I often think the Meteia were less about finding what gave others purpose than his seeking to affirm his own feelings.

[Xuto-cxb]

Whew, this thread took a long time to catch up to. Time I threw in my two cents.

I enjoyed EW. I was happy with it overall, and many aspects of it. That said, it has issues. And some of them come from the decision to want to tie off everything by the end of 6.0. They simply had too much on their plate. To be done with Zodiark, Hydaelyn, Ascians, AND the cause of the final days...with only the base xpac to work with?

My issues:
-The final days were a joke, full stop. Thavnair sure felt it. Garlemald a fair bit. The rest of the game forgot it existed. It did not feel like the "All bets are off, balls to the wall the whole world is on fire" bit it could and should have been, and was sure hyped up to be. It was, frankly, pathetic. Dropped the ball and dropped it hard. The role quests just use the blasphemies as an excuse to tell unrelated stories. They're nice bits of writing, but utterly divorced from EW and the final days in all but name.

-Elpis. I know why they did it, and I know what they were trying to do, but I HATE time travel stories and they botched this one. As others have said, they've now got a contradiction on what happens when you mess with the past, and it's entirely "whatever the plot needs at the moment". Don't like it. And that cutscene on your way out? Issues. We see Venat, not Hydaelyn, sunder the world. When? Where? How? We were told in SHB that Hydaelyn was brought to bear after Zodiark ended the final days and restored life to the world, but that is not at ALL what we see. It's just...bad. All around. I wanted to see Zodiark work his magic, and I think a lot of you did too. And I don't think I'm the only one who wanted to see Hydaelyn stand against him and sunder him. Instead we get some nobody ancients throw a little fit, no grand opposition from anyone meaningful. Just...sloppy. I'm sorry, but it is.

-Metion. Saw trouble with her a mile away. FFXIV is really big on the damsels and their cookie cutter archetype pops up constantly so I knew she was going to be massively important. It's also a classic trope of having some big ancient bad that is the collective something something of all negative something pop up late in the story to be the final boss. I'm thinking Necron, I'm thinking Zeromus. They clearly didn't have any idea what caused the final days when they wrote SHB and had to pull something out of their arse at the last minute to tie things off and it was never going to feel good.

-Zenos. Look, I loved him as a villain and nemesis in SB. I know that's not a popular opinion, but I did. I was pumped to face him down at the end. But I was done with him then and there. I was not happy to see that they were forcing him back. The body swap thing was so cool, but ended with a pathetic whimper. Too much lost potential. I wanted to see the scions forced to contend with his power...MY power, with all the reluctance that would come with it. But we got a "just kidding!" instead. Boo.

[Ardeth]

I'm still saying it's the worst expansion. The more I think on it the further it drifts from the previous holder. I started with it at like a 7/10, but now it's creeping towards 5/10.

[Kozh]

So sundering the world is not really destroying it, but merely creates 13 other possibilities in addition to the original.

Holy crap lmao. "No, I don't kill them, I only blown them into 14 pieces. 7 of them will be destroyed though, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make". Sounds exactly like what genocide apologist would say.

I was remarking that he’s the only one who showed any ability to effect change dynamis, limited as that manipulation may be.

You should do the msq again, hermes doesn't have any ability to effect dynamis. Elpis flower merely respond to any external emotion by changing its color.

[EaraGrace]

I think I know the part you're referring to. Meteion says:

"Like me, they feel his pain and turn dark...
That's only for Hermes, though. For others, they're always white and bright."

I honestly don't take that too literally because I find it entirely unlikely that the only emotion ever manifested in the history of the ancients is Hermes's sorrow. It could just be poor phrasing or interpretation during localization. The intention here could have been that even when they change color they remain a bright hue, like blue or green, and that they only go dark for Hermes. In an earlier quest he says:

"Though be it here or elsewhere, they are seldom seen in any hue save purest white..."
"(...) While it has no will of its own, it is sensitive to the prevailing emotion in the vicinity, and reacts by altering its color and vibrancy."

He doesn't say "it reacts to sorrow". He speaks about prevailing emotions, which also checks with what we saw earlier through he MSQ, that it changes to other colors because of different emotions, not just sorrow. So it must have reacted to other emotions too for the ancients. I know this contradicts what I said earlier about literal interpretations after localization, but if they would indeed have only ever reacted to him we could expect a more binary representation. Black or white. Joy or sorrow. Not hint at a spectrum of colors nor to emotions in general.

The issue is that we’re given examples of the Elpis flowers reaction to emotions which show it changing colors dramatically and in a very visible way. And given the fact that the flower existed in Elpis for at least several centuries by that point, based on the convo with Timaios, the fact that none have observed a shift leads me to believe that there’s either two options. Either the Ancients just don’t have emotional moods, which would be ridiculous I agree, or those shifts are being prevented from affecting change in the flower. The latter seems like a better fit, though exactly why Hermes gets through that remains unknown to me. Maybe the depth of emotion? Grief is a powerful one, and the Ancients didn’t exactly seem well versed on how it felt.

The flowers are just an example. They say dynamis is a form of energy, so it follows that it could be used or manipulated in different ways. The flowers just illustrate that having a will is not a requirement to make use of it and all kinds of creative solutions could have arisen. Also, Meteion was a (quite literally) PET PROJECT of Hermes, and he was so careless at it that he even gave her a task that had a possibility of not being fulfilled, something Emet-Selch pointed out mere moments after hearing about it. Imagine what a full team devoted to design something better with the added motivation of preserving their own existances could have achieved.

Problem is dynamis is partly defined by the difficulty you have in interacting with it. As stated before, while we don’t have objective statements on the matter, dynamis has shown to be manipulated only by those with the will and emotions to do so while also being aetherically weak enough to not crowd it out. While I’m sure an experienced group could make entelechies not as susceptible to environmental emotions as Meteion, they’d still need free will and to have a reason to overcome Meteions song. The Scions fought for the those back home and for their friends, would a creation not given a choice in the matter do so?

I’m not gonna say it’s impossible but I just think unlikely given what we’ve been told.

[Lauront]

There is also this thread for any who want to direct questions at the devs. For the purposes of avoiding duplication, I will mention that I have put forward this on Venat, this on time travel, this on lead writer and this on the post-Elpis scene.

Unrelated to the lore: this on graphics/char customisation and this on a dark caster as a future job addition.

[sharknado]

Either the Ancients just don’t have emotional moods, which would be ridiculous I agree, or those shifts are being prevented from affecting change in the flower.

Their society looks overly formal/strict. They wear masks, identical robes and rarely use personal identity. They know emotions really well but IMHO to break their way of strict life it has to be really strong (Emet recreation, the whole existence of Ascians, praying to Lord Zodiark).

[FatalFatalis]

"Remember us. Remember that we once lived…

Also remember to watch out for that crazy guy Fandaniel. His pet bird caused the final days. I was there with my good friend Hythlodaeus and we ran into you because you got sent to the past by our good friend Elidibus. We went there to meet our good friend Hermes and his pet bird. Hermes's bird was capable of destroying entire planets because she had emotion energy, a concept so advanced only Hermes and an elephant knew it existed. Hermes was going to let the bird destroy our planet because he wanted to do an experiment. And then he was going to memory wipe all of us until Venat flew in on her magical dog and escaped with you. She then for some reason decided not to tell anyone about what happened and instead doomed us all to die, including our good friend Azem who fell into a Volcano while trying to find some grap- the source of the noise even though Venat knew all along because she put a magic microchip on Hermes’s bird. She then became Hydaelyn and sundered the world because a bunch of weak humans who die after 80 years were better equipped to deal with the threat than immortal gods who could create whatever they wanted at will. Except the only “human” that could actually stand up to Meteion was 9/14ths of our good friend Azem who also needed Hydaelyns blessing to survive along with his good friend my great-grandson Zenos Viator Galvus who had Hydaelyns blessing too except his was reverse-engineered in a laboratory.
And he was a good friend."