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

[Teraq]

By contrast, the Garlemald stuff with Jullus, Elidibus's fate and acceptance of it, and those wandering ancients around Zodiark? That stuff was much sadder.

I watched a friend go through the moon part after I did, and it hit especially hard in retrospect. At least they finally got to go back to the Underworld...

As Emet fan, 100% this. I cried during the conclusion of Elpis when I realized we can't save him and Hytlo.

Hey, maybe Dynamis could fix the timeline if we clap our hands and believe hard enough. Meteion is still there after all!

[Misutoraru]

As Emet fan, 100% this. I cried during the conclusion of Elpis when I realized we can't save him and Hytlo. But in Ultima Thule? I feel it was a disrespect actually by making HIM, out of everyone, to validate Venat's decision. Like, really?? Can we please have one scene where the devs aren't bashing our head with "See? See?? Venat is the right one". I just sit there dumbfounded for a while and went "F that". And I get even more salty that we don't even get the option to say farewell and call his real name, meanwhile we have the option to do so for both Hermes and Venat.

Other people have mentioned it before; but yeah, this game attempted to present morally gray story/point of view, yet at the same time isn't brave enough to commit to the idea that the protagonist side isn't that much different from the "bad guy".

The characters “growth” in EW is quite disappointing. This is not the Emet-Selch I live in ShB. The Emet-Selch I know was determined, believe in his own course even have entire weight of the world on his shoulder he still believe in his path.

Elpis Emet-Selch have show such strong character but when we met him again in Ultima Thule, he is not the same. I would say Venat have the same issue, her character change to a very shallow in Ultima Thule.

Hermes is a poor written antagonist like a child throwing a tantrum, the meterion wrap up feel like writer want to throw a Six sense M. Night Shyamalan, but turn out to be a “lady in the water M. Night Shyamalan“

Writer try to build and wrap up all the story/plot base around the whole meterion/dynamis in one single expansion patch and all those “well build” characters got turn into shallow kindergarten writing at the very end of this patch

[Rulakir]

Well, I am a crier and I was a sobbing mess in both Elpis and Ultima Thule because of Emet and Hythlodaeus. Elpis was by far the worst because despite what Elidibus told us, both Venat and Hythlodaeus comment we may be able to change their fate. Coming off of an expansion where an alternate timeline was created to save the WoL, I felt it reasonable to believe Elpis was going to end similarly. Instead, we get this horrible bootstrap paradox time loop that is excused because bUt AlExAnDeR (which I've never done so my only knowledge of time travel was multiverse from the MSQ). The sheer anger I felt when Hermes whipped out Kairos, the most BS plot device ever. I cried when I realized the writers weren't going to let us save them.

Ultima Thule just felt like a big F-you. I still cried, of course, but I was also angry (again) because now Emet's being manipulated to further prop up Venat, a character I thoroughly hated by that point. The look he gives the WoL when he sees you're sad he's going to leave broke my heart not to mention the smile at the end. I'm still irritated that basically everyone but my favorite characters got a happy ending, even moreso when you realize the writers had to use them for emotional exploitation since they won't let anything happen to the protagonists. This was mostly true for ShB as well.

As for Venat being 'morally grey', once again Lurina said it best: "Venat's brief statement - immediately denied by Y'shtola - that she did something unkind does not offset the universal positivity in which she is framed by the characters, quest log dialogue, the aforementioned minion dialogue, and the range of responses given to the player character, all of which are unabashed in positivity towards her at all occasions. Regardless of whether they end up on our side or not, this is not a treatment that any other NPC who is intended to read as morally complicated (eg: Lolorito, Ysayle, Estinien, Regula, Yotsuyu, Emet, Elidibus, Fourchenault) gets."

[Teraq]

Writer try to build and wrap up all the story/plot base around the whole meterion/dynamis in one single expansion patch and all those “well build” characters got turn into shallow kindergarten writing at the very end of this patch

This is the crux of the problem IMO. To be frank, I kind of already had my doubts when they revealed early on in 2021 we would be dealing with Hydaelyn and Zodiark AND The Sound, because I thought it would have been 7.0 material. But I had kind of figured it might be resolved neatly as a consequence of Hydaelyn/Zodiark, maybe, somehow.

Ah, the slow-motion train crash that was the Endwalker reveal/teasers/eventual release for me. I kept huffing the copium throughout too.

The sheer anger I felt when Hermes whipped out Kairos, the most BS plot device ever.

Haha I see I'm not the only one who got mad at the bullshit memory wipe machine. It was like a chain reaction of the plot going off the deep end for me. "Oh no, jfc, of course it's the goddamned machine they mentioned earlier... Oh no, they're not going to break it or stop it? ... Oh no she got on her dog and put a GPS tracker on the bird lmaoo ... Oh no Venat DIDN'T get her memory wiped??? ... OH NO Hythlo just mentioned they're going to remember once they die, after everything they've done they're going to remember this dumb-assery HAHA". I'm just picturing Emet and Hythlo meeting again in the Sea of Stars, looking blankly at each other then going "OH **** DUDE THE BIRD" "wHAT?? –– OH **** HERMES'S ****ING BIRD GIRL (LONG STRING OF EXPLETIVES)"

[Theodric]

As an aside, although it still would have been difficult to resolve all of the specific story beats within the course of a single expansion I do think it would have been possible if so much time had not been spend on 'slice of life' scenes between the Scions or suddenly introducing new, never before seen plot points.

I must admit, I was expecting something a lot cooler than Meteion as the cause of the Final Days. I always figured that a good way to make Hydaelyn and Zodiark look better and potentially come together in the long term would be a third party entity to be responsible for the attempted destruction of Etheirys. Some sort of alien/creepy death deity would be a neat nod to the likes of Jenova and Lavos as well as tie in rather nicely with the sinister appearance of Terminus Beasts and Blasphemies.

Would it original? Not particularly - though I'd argue that a little girl being responsible for so much destruction in the story is even less original given that we literally had that same plot point play out during the Nier raids back in Shadowbringers. There's also a certain popular anime that ended recently and chose to attribute much of its story beats to the actions of a sad little girl.

[Teraq]

Would it original? Not particularly - though I'd argue that a little girl being responsible for so much destruction in the story is even less original given that we literally had that same plot point play out during the Nier raids back in Shadowbringers. There's also a certain popular anime that ended recently and chose to attribute much of its story beats to the actions of a sad little girl.

I confess, as soon as I got to Elpis and saw the sad little empath girl asking to be my friend and feeling sad for her dad Fandaniel (the only depressed person in the world) I knew. Yyyup, something's going to go horribly wrong with her, here's the anime apocalypse.

[EaraGrace]

To be completely honest we've been at it for so long now and with all of these multi-split responses it's been hard for me to recall what we were going for in each point and to follow the conversation. I did my best to recall things without going back 20 pages for an accurate depiction.

That’s fine, but I have every reason to call that as well, since what we are arguing about is kind of important for the discussion we want to have.

Ok. Now what?

I’m reiterating my point. Do you’d disagree with it? If not then there was no reason to begin this back and forth and we just wasted both of our times.

Yes, I don't even know what you're trying to argue with this point anymore. What exactly does his "unique" expertise at that particular time entail if you don't disagree with them being capable of eventually acquiring the same expertise?

…that you can’t get rid of him and slot in another before or during the Final Days?? That’s the whole point for why Venat couldn’t simply tell everyone before hand remember?

What I said is that her referring to "humanity" as a whole, both past and present, to fit the narrative of a particular cutscene isn't some irrefutable proof of her seeing pre-and-post humanity as the same (not consistently, at least). Just because in the end she got her "feel good" moment of this new humanity passing her "test" and being strong enough to have a chance at facing Meteion (but like someone else mentioned, testing your fitness to prevail where "aether will avail you naught" by defeating an aether rich entity, lol) doesn't mean at the time she didn't pass her own judgment on humanity and didn't deem them unfit without her sundering.

But this is a contradiction. Once again, if she believed humanity unfit to live on, why would she believe that the sundered would be different if it did not at all change their fundamental nature. The point of the Sundering was to imprison Zodiark and in turn force humanity to face suffering head on. It was not intended to alter its fundamental nature. In other words, she believed in mankind’s ability to “find a way forward,” and the Sundering was done to force them to do so.

But is it that simple? If you split a person into 14, even if they all possess a fragment of the same "soul", does any of them retain the same consciousness as the original? We could guess the ones in the Source could have, but would we be certain? Or none at all and all fragments have completely new consciousness? Also, think of your own character and remember Ardbert. Can you look at him and say "yes, this is undoubtedly the same person as me/my character"? With how strikingly different everything is between you 2, could you tell which one can be identified as the same Azem as was split? Or neither one?

It’d be the same as someone making 14 exact copies of myself, all based on the person I was at that exact moment. Which means philosophically they’re are a million different answers to your questions. Personally, my thought is they are all me, until the first moment passes and we then have separate experiences, paths, memories, etc.

The same way your local priest won't ask if you're gonna baptize your newborn daughter but when. Or your friend would ask you when you're gonna bring Danny to the baseball field. Again, casual conversation taken way too seriously and extrapolated to absolutes.

Baptism is a great example. If my priest asked that I would of course assume that they expected me to do so and if I lived in a society where the Catholic Church still held great sway, I’d certainly feel obligated. Once again I concede they may not be forced to do so, but heavily encouraged?

I already responded to this before. They didn't need to go fight her the same way we did. They could have just done anything that would have stopped her from affecting them (making an aether prison around her, consuming the dynamis around her to leave her dry, etc.)

Hell, she was even uncapable of altering the ancients themselves, only their creation magics. Worst case scenario just ban creation magics, grab a spade and a pickaxe and live a simple life with physical labor and without having to sunder anyone, problem solved. The most important part was to know that there was an attacker and that dynamis was the medium. A solution was reachable.

None of the solutions mentioned would work given what we know of Dynamis and the nature of Ultima Thule. And simply convincing a handful of Ancients to rough it doesn’t prepare them to face despair incarnate, a being that instilled a fear of death and suffering the Ancients never forget even after millennia of reincarnations.

[BaconBits]

I confess, as soon as I got to Elpis and saw the sad little empath girl asking to be my friend and feeling sad for her dad Fandaniel (the only depressed person in the world) I knew. Yyyup, something's going to go horribly wrong with her, here's the anime apocalypse.

The moment I laid eyes on her my only thought was "I'm gonna have to kill the small child, aren't I."

[ArcaviusGreyashe]

The characters “growth” in EW is quite disappointing. This is not the Emet-Selch I live in ShB. The Emet-Selch I know was determined, believe in his own course even have entire weight of the world on his shoulder he still believe in his path.

Elpis Emet-Selch have show such strong character but when we met him again in Ultima Thule, he is not the same. I would say Venat have the same issue, her character change to a very shallow in Ultima Thule.

Yes, because he's thousands, if not millions of years older, has had access to his whole memory, and knows where he stood, that he did everything he could, and can't fight anymore. Venat also could drop her facade of being Hydaelyn and become a mere human back. That's legit.

Hermes is a poor written antagonist like a child throwing a tantrum, the meterion wrap up feel like writer want to throw a Six sense M. Night Shyamalan, but turn out to be a “lady in the water M. Night Shyamalan“

Hermes is a clinically depressed protagonist, not an antagonist, and that's the reason you can't love him, you just don't understand his concept.

Writer try to build and wrap up all the story/plot base around the whole meterion/dynamis in one single expansion patch and all those “well build” characters got turn into shallow kindergarten writing at the very end of this patch

Yes, if you read through your prism that forgets the characters are human and that your canon is not the canon.

[BaconBits]

Hermes was better as Fandango, fite me bub.