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

[NanaWiloh]

That brings up a point I'm curious about: Meteion mentions that she has an egg that she's storing souls in so they won't be reborn. Does getting rid of the Endsinger allow the Blasphemies to actually go to the afterlife? The egg thing did crack before the final dungeon.

One would think so..

[Kozh]

For the inevitable next calamity, challenge, problem, issue, etc? You’ve created a god that wants to solve all your problems, how strong is your will to resist the temptation.

What calamity? Once zodiark is summoned and shield ethyris, they're fine. Even after sundered for 12k years the barrier still hold fine. And they manage to be solve their own challenges and problems just fine before zodiark, so why would they need him for something trivial? The Ancients were sad by the fact that the sacrificed souls could not return to the star, so much so that they intended to sacrifice new lifes in order to free them. It's not a simple "oh no, my concepts isn't working as intended, better summon lord zodiark to fix it lol".

Perhaps I’m mistaken, but doesn’t the we refer to himself and the Loporrits? The Loporrits are first mentioned in the crystal preceding the one where that is said, and they’re talking about Elidibus being on the moon in the present. Using we to refer to Venats faction would be odd given they are… not a we anymore truly.

Then I suppose we disagree.

That's a possibility, true. Just fyi, what I meant by first explanation is the writer intentionally make things vague to keep us in the dark.

Snip

But all of those accusation you made about how "the Ancients will keep using zodiark" is just pure headcanon and hypothesis. You said it's weird to assume elidibus act by only single line.... But at least I have one 'proof' about it, unlike your point. That's what people have been telling you this whole time. You don't have proof that they will keep sacrificing life for any conflicts, problems, or issues that may arise after the Final Days. The Ancients aren't some hivemind incapable of thinking outside of box. They have debate halls to argue. They intentionally have Azem seat whose main job is to help the rest of the ethyris outside of Amaurot. It's just the final days blindsided them so much they were in a shock and made poor decision (third sacrifice).

*because someone doesn't even bother to tell them.

Edit: also want to add that the magic thing is just weird argument. The world of darkness happened because igeyorhm is too gung ho in her attempt to make it dark aspected. Just having "dark" spells won't do anything to the world. Besides, that would require them to constantly overuse it and we know the Ancients very rarely goes into combat. Creation magic is different from the usual magic attacks.

[Kozh]

Considering the writing of the expac, I'm sure they would have been all fine with this and would have lined up to kneel and kiss her foot and praise her for teaching them, the dumb nostalgic old grumps, all about hope (tm), love, life, and laughter. And, of course, to Move Foward, Move On, Forge Ahead (tm) together to the Better Brighter Future (tm) while saluting the flag of the United States of Alphinaud.

Lmao, I love this so much XD

Serious talk though, it's kinda sad that for me, who (way) more often than not prefer hopeful positive message/ending in a story or game, Endwalker actually achieved the opposite. It's like, yeah I get the message and I don't think it's that bad either, but sometimes there can be too much positive message(tm) you can get before it turned to cringe. They have been beating us in the head with these themes ever since SB, only to amp it up in EW. It's tiring. Not just the main protagonists (the scions) who are frothing at the mouth about it, but apparently now so do the rest of the npc. The fact that they have to made Sharlayan Forum to be so incompetent they couldnt find the ore themselves just to show how the scions "bring together the world" is.....cringy.

[KageTokage]

That brings up a point I'm curious about: Meteion mentions that she has an egg that she's storing souls in so they won't be reborn. Does getting rid of the Endsinger allow the Blasphemies to actually go to the afterlife? The egg thing did crack before the final dungeon.

I think she was referring strictly to the souls from the dead stars she visited, not the people of the Source.

The whole thing with the blasphemies was that it was believed there wasn't anything left of their souls to return to the Lifestream...but then again, Ardbert seemed plenty intact despite his lingering soul being thin enough that the only one who was able to tell he was there aside from us was Hythlodaeus who had exceptionally keen soul sight, so it's hard to say.

I do feel like there's a little side plot regarding that "egg" that's going be covered either through dailies or custom deliveries that's going to play out over the course of the expansion given what happens in the wake of the Smileton dungeon quest, though.

[EaraGrace]

I've no doubt people disagree about what's subjective. The past two years have taught me that individuals have fundamentally different beliefs on what is right with some feeling fully justified in forcing others to adhere to their version of it. It doesn't, however, give them an excuse to act against others. Near as I can tell, the Amaurotines had a democracy that was overthrown by Venat.

If morality is subjective, then wouldn’t it be impossible to say that someone is wrong for acting against others? After all, if I’m simply following my subjective moral principles, then am I not acting in the right as much as anyone else? What right would you have to judge anyone, if it’s all subjective?

I agree that sometimes good characters do bad things, but I don't think I've seen a good character as untrusting as Venat is.

I'll use an example from Endwalker. Imagine if, after we killed Zodiark, we told absolutely no one that the Final Days would restart due to him no longer shielding the planet. In fact, we don't tell anyone he's dead. Even further, if we, in fact, swore the Watcher to secrecy about this, because we were "afraid the citystates would panic" or "Urianger isn't as trustworthy as I'd like, so it's better to keep him in the dark."

Then we watch, silently, as the Final Days begin again. We watch as people die, forever parted from the aetherial sea and the cycle of rebirth. We watch as the Scions desperately try to figure out what could have possibly started the Final Days up again, wasting time and covering ground we already have intimate knowledge of.

But, since we're not Venat, we did what we did instead.

Wouldn’t that depend entirely on the why though? This comparison only works if you believe that telling anyone would compromise the response to the Final Days, as was the case during the first one.

Not to mention, most people didn’t know about Meteion or despair or dynamis. Going through the role action quests you see the citizenry by and large ignorant to things. I just did the Ishgard one, and the citizens believed the blasphemy to just be another transformed heretic.

What calamity? Once zodiark is summoned and shield ethyris, they're fine. Even after sundered for 12k years the barrier still hold fine. And they manage to be solve their own challenges and problems just fine before zodiark, so why would they need him for something trivial? The Ancients were sad by the fact that the sacrificed souls could not return to the star, so much so that they intended to sacrifice new lifes in order to free them. It's not a simple "oh no, my concepts isn't working as intended, better summon lord zodiark to fix it lol".

Pandaemonium? The Omicron? Ultima? Some other alien race? Whatever the hell we’re gonna be working against for the next 10 years?

And just because they’ve managed so far says nothing about what the future holds. The Ea did just fine for longer, until they didn’t. The Omicron did just fine, until they didn’t. The dragons did perfectly fine, until they didn’t.

It’s inevitable they’ll face another challenge.

That's a possibility, true. Just fyi, what I meant by first explanation is the writer intentionally make things vague to keep us in the dark.

Ah my apologies then I misunderstood what you meant.

[Rulakir]

If morality is subjective, then wouldn’t it be impossible to say that someone is wrong for acting against others? After all, if I’m simply following my subjective moral principles, then am I not acting in the right as much as anyone else? What right would you have to judge anyone, if it’s all subjective?

Whether or not morality is subjective is a philosophical debate that's more than I care to get into over a fictional story in a video game. :P However, as an analogy, consider the position of someone who is pro-life who believes that abortion is the murder of millions of innocent lives every year. Discourse and democracy have failed to achieve the desired result of having it outlawed, so they feel it's their moral imperative to take matters into their own hands. They handicap every doctor who performs them so no more lives will be lost. Were they right to do this? Odds are even those who agree that abortion is murder would not condone handicapping doctors. The person would probably only be celebrated by a minority who would be considered extremists.

Loathe as I am to use that as an example, it was the first one that came to mind.

[EaraGrace]

Whether or not morality is subjective is a philosophical debate that's more than I care to get into over a fictional story in a video game. :P However, as an analogy, consider the position of someone who is pro-life who believes that abortion is the murder of millions of innocent lives every year. Discourse and democracy have failed to achieve the desired result of having it outlawed, so they feel it's their moral imperative to take matters into their own hands. They handicap every doctor who performs them so no more lives will be lost. Were they right to do this? Odds are even those who agree that abortion is murder would not condone handicapping doctors. The person would probably only be celebrated by a minority who would be considered extremists.

Loathe as I am to use that as an example, it was the first one that came to mind.

And then you have examples like civil rights leaders, individuals who acted in the face of public opinion, dramatically and violently so oftentimes, to fight for what was right. It comes down to what is right and wrong. A person acting against the majority is just when the cause is just, wrong when the cause is wrong.

And I’ll just note, moral subjectivity would mean you would not have grounds to argue that those individuals are wrong, regardless of whether their cause is just. After all, their subjective morals may make it an imperative for them to act.

[Sicno]

Listening to the responses in the Q&A at the live letter... so far it's obvious there's things they never bothered to plan/write and there's also more nonsense.

They clearly haven't written yet what Azem was doing during the Final Days.

Memories from the final days passed from Emet to Zenos as you would pass DNA? (Yay more calvinball, memories edition!)

Venat consciously deciding to not sunder Emet, Lahabrea and Elidibus? But the rejoinings... the calamities... and the mass murder of the people on the Source and the shards... Did she really LET them do all that?

[DrForester]

The simple answer for Venat not sundering those three is because we told her they weren't sundered, and she knew that's how it needed to play out.

As for Azem, we're Azem. And as a result, I don't think we'll ever see them, and as a result, only get small glimpses of what they did. That's a story we can think of for ourselves.

[Sicno]

The simple answer for Venat not sundering those three is because we told her they weren't sundered, and she knew that's how it needed to play out.

As for Azem, we're Azem. And as a result, I don't think we'll ever see them, and as a result, only get small glimpses of what they did. That's a story we can think of for ourselves.

Things didn't "need" to play out that way any more than G'raha's future needed to play out in order for him to time travel (by which I mean it totally didn't). So not only did Venat held info that would have helped avert the mass murder of her own kind, she also allowed more mass murder by the hands of those she left unsundered (and this is not even delving into the rabbit hole that is determining if the act of sundering could be considered "murder" or not).

As for Azem, it wasn't a matter of us seeing them and more "what the hell were we doing while the world was going to hell?" To which they were very dodgy and "kind of have an idea" but they really don't.