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

[AnaviAnael]

It's refreshing to see other people have the same or similar take on Dynamis that I do. As soon as Nidhana mentioned Akasa and what it was, I started to get concerned. I said to myself, "I really hope they're not introducing a major element to the story this late in the game that will end up feeling like something they pulled out of their rear ends." And I was right. We have this brand new lore element that is driven by emotion, so one can conclude the power of friendship will save the day. Dynamis, in my opinion, made things far less threatening and more predictable. At no point in the story did I feel as though things could go south. In Shadowbringers when the WoL started to turn into a sin eater and the light was consuming the First, there was a sense of dread and it left me wondering how the WoL was going to get out of the situation. There was none of that in Endwalker once Dynamis was introduced.

Also, you mean to tell me that none of the Scions knew about Akasa? The Scions who studied in Sharlayan; The receptacle of the world's knowledge. Neither Urianger, Y'shtola, G'raha, or Krile ever discovered texts on this and knowledge of Dynamis was ONLY in Thavnair? I know people will disagree, but that's too farfetched for me to believe.

[Kozh]

Snip

Yup, pretty much what I feel too. Like, even if I'm in camp Venat or agreeing with the story themes, I'm 100% sure I will still be disappointed with dynamis and how bs it is. Aether is already used so much to justify the protagonist power up etc. Do we really need another element that even more unclear in nature? And a nitpick, but the space having more energy that rely on emotions is just... strange. I mean, it's the writer's right to make it that, but.. *shrug*.

And yes akasa only known in Thavnair is weird, considering that sharlayan and thavnair have a strong relationship being another neutral nation. Not too mention that they don't exactly hide their alchemical knowledge either.

[Sicno]

Ok. Do you agree then that Hermes was the sole expert then? We can move on after that but that is the question we were discussing.

...No. We can't say for certain because we barely know anyone outside of Elpis. You're trying to extrapolate WAY too much about the ancients from our brief visit to their crash dummy testing facility.

Ok, that doesn't change the fact that all research facilities must submit concepts to the Bureau, and the Bureau wasn't aware of Dynamis creations from anywhere else. Thats the reason I brought that up in the first place after all, to highlight that Elpis specifically is special in regards to Entelechies.

Edit: as a research facility they should, but since dynamis had no practical applications in their society it's very likely those who did anything with it kept it as personal projects (like Hermes did) and not as "a product of the facility", so they wouldn't be submitted to the Bureau and they wouldn't get tested in Elpis either.

Ok.

Lets try this again from the beginning.

After Venat sundered Etheirys, do you think she distinguished between the sundered and the unsundered as different peoples entirely, or do you think she views them as part of the same group? This is the distinction we are discussing, yes? After all its this and only this one, that has a bearing on whether she gave up on humanity when she sundered it.

Lets hear it!

For starters there's a difference in treatment towards our character. Remember when I mentioned how she keeps calling us "my child", "my champion", "beloved children", etc.? And how she wouldn't address her peers back in ancient days the same way? She doesn't regard us as a fragment of the Azem who succeeded her in the Convocation. She addresses us in a very "maternal" way, like she thinks of us as her creation, rather than the Azem we once were. In fact when she grants her power to the crystal of Azem she speaks of "the crystal's original bearer". Maybe she speaks about the very first Azem, before herself and not about our former self, but keep in mind she never addresses us as the being we once were nor the seat we held, only about "the crystal we possess".

Then as someone else pointed out, she refers to herself as "the last of my kind". So she recognizes "her kind" is different than ours. Call that "kind" whatever you want. Humankind, unsundered, whatever. Point is she makes a distinction that of what they once were she's the only one left. So we're not the same.

That said I don't completely blame you for being confused. She speaks about "mankind" in various instances but then she also makes a differential treatment in others, so it can be confusing to tell if she views the former and sundered humanity as the same thing. She seems to contradict herself a lot through the story, does she not? Not only on this regard. I'd say they just mold her views, her goals and her phrases (and not just hers, really) to "whatever sounds better for the particular scene". She even contradicts herself back to back on the same cutscene. She first says "yeah Y'shtola, it's as you say, I sundered creation so you'd be better equipped to confront dynamis" and then IMMEDIATLY follows with "when confronting Zodiark he was too powerful so my only choice was to sunder creation to diminish his power." So, which is it?

Honestly I can't take anything she says seriously.

[KariTheFox]

She even contradicts herself back to back on the same cutscene. She first says "yeah Y'shtola, it's as you say, I sundered creation so you'd be better equipped to confront dynamis" and then IMMEDIATLY follows with "when confronting Zodiark he was too powerful so my only choice was to sunder creation to diminish his power." So, which is it?

Why can't it be both? Characters can have more than one motivation and reason for their actions. Neither of those reasons for the sundering contradict each other.

[Sicno]

Why can't it be both? Characters can have more than one motivation and reason for their actions. Neither of those reasons for the sundering contradict each other.

Indeed, but it kinda kills it when you say "yes, it's as you say" and then follow with a completely different reasoning for your actions.

Actually no. She says "my only recourse was to rend him asunder to diminish his power". She says she had no choice. So in this particular case you can't have your hand forced and also try to play smart like "yes, I had this clever idea about how to handle dynamis so that's why I did it".

[SpectrePhantasia]

I don't think Eara was being particularly toxic at the time. I guess 'echo chamber' is a bit of a brash way of putting it, but it was at a point in the thread where most everyone around had the same opinion on the plot, so I don't think it was necessarily inaccurate, and I don't even agree with her.

As for the Dynamis introduction, I too was really not okay with how convenient and out-of-nowhere it felt for appearing at the end of a saga like this. 'Esoteric' or not, the idea that there is an essence that comprises MOST of the universe and exists alongside aether, (which was previously known to account for everything) yet is entirely unknown to all but a 'select few scholars' is unbelievable to me. An entire society of curious academics who essentially exist solely to further their knowledge and nurture the star, and no one seems to care about a UNIVERSE-spanning energy?

[Lauront]

The way the Ea shade puts it, reading between the lines, it's barely utilised even across the known universe, which itself is peopled by other similarly curious races:

Dew-deekh: Extreme differences can inhibit meaningful interaction, you see, and none more so than those which affect communication. Most entities, for example, cannot even comprehend our words.
Dew-deekh: You are rare indeed in your ability to do so. You avail yourselves of dynamis, yes? It is an impressive application...even if it is ultimately pointless like all the rest.

I think that's reinforced further by Endsinger's shock at the LBs drawing on dynamis. Plot-wise? Yes, it was mainly used in service of explaining why the Final Days were elusive and to provide a rationale for the Sundering. Otherwise, the main possible application for it is space travel in regions where aether is scarcer; it's essentially an alternative fuel source (albeit far weaker than aether.)

[KizuyaKatogami]

I don't think Eara was being particularly toxic at the time. I guess 'echo chamber' is a bit of a brash way of putting it, but it was at a point in the thread where most everyone around had the same opinion on the plot, so I don't think it was necessarily inaccurate, and I don't even agree with her.

As for the Dynamis introduction, I too was really not okay with how convenient and out-of-nowhere it felt for appearing at the end of a saga like this. 'Esoteric' or not, the idea that there is an essence that comprises MOST of the universe and exists alongside aether, (which was previously known to account for everything) yet is entirely unknown to all but a 'select few scholars' is unbelievable to me. An entire society of curious academics who essentially exist solely to further their knowledge and nurture the star, and no one seems to care about a UNIVERSE-spanning energy?

It’s moreso the way it’s used, it was pretty denoting of peoples opinions, especially when it’s one that she herself hasn’t reacted positively to, she even herself acknowledged she was being snarky. Disregarding that though yes, i personally think objectively Dynamis is a very poor writing decision. To implement something that powerful and important this late in the game just to basically excuse power of friendship plot armor and asspulls is extremely lazy to me. It’s like they couldn’t actually find a way the sundered were better than the ancients so they had to invent this whole new dynamic that somehow is so foreign in the entire universe and on our own planet. I really wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt for it, especially given how much they delayed this expansion but they really failed to sell me on much of anything. Waiting for the end of this 10 year arc and it just felt like they focused 99% of everything on emotional manipulation, feels, crying etc and just stopped caring about an actual coherent plot line. Which to be fair, i don’t entirely blame them for. The community has shown time and time again they care less for a coherent story and moreso about the fluff and slice of life anime the game has slowly become.

[Rulakir]

For starters there's a difference in treatment towards our character. Remember when I mentioned how she keeps calling us "my child", "my champion", "beloved children", etc.? And how she wouldn't address her peers back in ancient days the same way? She doesn't regard us as a fragment of the Azem who succeeded her in the Convocation. She addresses us in a very "maternal" way, like she thinks of us as her creation, rather than the Azem we once were. In fact when she grants her power to the crystal of Azem she speaks of "the crystal's original bearer". Maybe she speaks about the very first Azem, before herself and not about our former self, but keep in mind she never addresses us as the being we once were nor the seat we held, only about "the crystal we possess".

It's also interesting because in Ultima Thule Y'shtola comments about how Emet eventually came around to seeing the sundered as children, which seems to be just a step up from a familiar or an 'incomplete' being. It was progress for Emet, significantly less so for Hydaelyn who consistently views us that way.

The Azem crystal part is either an inconsistency or poorly written dialog. Emet created the crystal and is the only one who had it before the WoL.

She even contradicts herself back to back on the same cutscene. She first says "yeah Y'shtola, it's as you say, I sundered creation so you'd be better equipped to confront dynamis" and then IMMEDIATLY follows with "when confronting Zodiark he was too powerful so my only choice was to sunder creation to diminish his power." So, which is it?

It often seems like they threw every reason and the kitchen sink into why Venat sundered the world without notice or care of the elements that were contradictory. People are quick to point out that she made an effort to reason with her people in the post-Elpis cutscene, but if she was always going to sunder the world to make the Ancients able to interact with dynamis that means her outreach efforts were insincere. Otherwise, we have to accept that she believed the Ancients could have overcome Meteion without being sundered and thus it was not necessary.

As for Hermes, there's nothing to support him having brought dynamis to the table of the Convocation, so even if he were the only expert (which is also not supported) it wouldn't matter if that expertise wasn't a factor in the Final Days. The Watcher makes no mention of dynamis (and he should know), but he does the celestial currents. Elidibus later credits Fandaniel only with discovering the stagnation in said currents, noting that what we know at that point (before traveling to Elpis) is consistent with what the Convocation knew. He's not even remotely implied to be the architect of Zodiark so I don't know where people are getting that from, it's much more likely that was Lahabrea being the most specialized in complex creation magicks. What we do learn of Zodiark's construction is he was purposely aspected towards dark to encourage activity in those stagnant areas, nothing about dynamis.

[KariTheFox]

Indeed, but it kinda kills it when you say "yes, it's as you say" and then follow with a completely different reasoning for your actions.

Actually no. She says "my only recourse was to rend him asunder to diminish his power". She says she had no choice. So in this particular case you can't have your hand forced and also try to play smart like "yes, I had this clever idea about how to handle dynamis so that's why I did it".

I feel like you're getting too caught up in the particulars of her phrasing. "Yes, creating life that can interact with dynamis was one motivation - also, the battle with zodiark necessitated the sundering to diminish his power so he could be bound"

Is this particular to the english translation? iirc the Japanese dialogue her answer to Y'sthola was more along the lines of ,"Well, yes, but..." and Y'shtola's dialogue came off more like she was theorizing rather than asking a direct question.