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

[Lauront]

One very interesting point about this Live Letter:

It was just confirmed the last civilization of the "Dead Ends", the "Ra-La" were - basically - the future of the Ancients, nonetheless, regardless of outcome.

Well no, it didn't. It confirmed it could be if they continued on that path. Not "regardless of the outcome" (e.g. they were given the actual reasons behind her concerns.)

That about sums it up for me. This Q&A has swiftly become FFXIV's Burning of Teldrassil—the event that convinces me I don't want to keep paying to play this game. And it's a shame, too. I really did enjoy Endwalker's story.

I agree partly. I don't think this was the best Q&A ever. The main comfort for me is they did the exact opposite of trying to paint Venat as a saint through comparing her to SHB Emet... but some of those answers are head-scratchers, to put it mildly.

It is a shame that Koji appears to have moved on to 16 and that Oda wasn't really present for this, as I wonder whether he'd agree with some of these questions or go "Hmmm... let's come back to that one!"

I was hoping the Q&A would improve my feelings about certain elements of Endwalker's story, but it kind of did the opposite.

It's not enough to make me completely lose faith in the writers like some other people seem to have, though.

I'm on the same boat. Still very much on the fence about it. Need to see 6.1+ plans in more detail and what comes in Panda and elsewhere.

[Yencat]

[Teraq]

To be fair, I'm not sure why people are 100% convinced Zenos is definitely dead, because this is not really what I got from the tone of this... (going off the main subreddit Discord, not sure if/where there's another translation)

Q: Will Zenos come back to life again?
A: So as we saw Zenos’ body right now remains in the dimension that is separate from our universe and all of its laws. I mean, we depicted his ultimate fate at length in the cutscene so I think the answer is to watch that and see how you’d feel. I mean we did show him stop breathing and his heart stopped beating…right?

Not to mention, we left him in a place that doesn't make any kind of damned sense because emotions. I mean. I am not excluding the possibly of him emoting hard enough to conjure up an IV of epinephrin entirely yet.

I hadn't seen the big ol' answer on Venat. It's pretty telling he (explicitly says he) had to fetch Ishikawa for this long answer. The sole positive I'm taking from this is that her character seems indeed to be pretty hotly contested. That's a relief, at least. And he compares her to Emet-Selch, wringing his hands about "I knoowww you guys totally love him, BUT...", and yeah okay but here's the thing: Emet-Selch is quite explicitly an antagonist. As YoshiP even says, the protagonists challenge him over his claims. The lead-up to the fight is epic, well-written so you know exactly what his convictions are after 12,000 years of toiling in relative emotional isolation, and we very much kick his ass in a climactic moment because it was him or us.

And then there's Venat. It's all well and good to explain at length she was conflicted and agonizing and wasn't a saint, but then why is she treated so well in-universe? Her claims and beliefs that led to her genociding her people are never challenged by anyone at any point. For Zodiark's sake, the game gave me her minion and her dog! I'm sorry, Emet, but if I had been you in Ultima Thule, I would have torn her an entirely new orifice rather than go "hah, oh you! I get it. gg tyfp". All the arguments we've offered in these hundred pages –– what if she had actually told them everything instead of being paralysed by her own lack of faith in her people, what if Hermes was treated for his goddamned depression and eventually cooperated, what if there had been other experts in Dynamis in this society of scholars and scientists (haha, jk, it can't be because we need this plot to be as contrived as possible for it to work) – maybe Hermes is just like me and writes papers he never submits to the Amaurotine Journal of Astrophysics out of sheer procrastination because their guidelines are annoying? #relatable – what if they had researched Dynamis familiars with the proper information, what if they actually seized the apparently illegal AMNESIA MACHINE and investigated events, what if they could use the Echo, as one does, to see what actually happened, what if she'd brought out the space-faring bunnies to make spaceships ("but they said it took them super long to craft!" yes, and Zodiark kept up his shield for 12,000 years while missing 3 arms, 2 wings, his entire abdomen and at least 6 crotch tentacles, I'm not too worried there), what if they could have researched "sundering"/depowering themselves selectively, what if she had given them time to heal from the trauma, what if she had told them exactly the outcome she feared re: Ra-La dudes (which she indeed knew a single line from Meteion about, lmao context doesn't matter have this strawman) in a way that wasn't just offering patronising platitudes at the worst time after unprecedented disaster by her own fault so they could reflect upon it as she has had the luxury to do, what if they had changed in spite of her arrested beliefs, what if Azem had been anywhere at all to do something, anything –– literally none of this is even suggested in-game. This is what feels wrong. The only counter-argument we're presented with is her own self-flagellation while the plot very much wants you to infer this was the only solution anyway because DYNAMIS! VERY SUBTLE RA-LA! As Kizuya brought up like a hundred pages earlier, there is no actual balance to be found in this narrative. It's one thing to say your character was meant to be interpreted this way, it's another to write the story in a way that enough people seriously question how we were meant to interpret them.
It doesn't help that we get to fight her but we never get to kick her ****ing ass like we did with Emet. This is quite the difference. I wasn't here to have a friendly little spar with you on your own terms so you could test us, sis (test us how? didn't we just establish that Ancients and Dynamis... oh, whatever). I was here for the catharsis I never got outside of writing long-ass forum posts.

I do get that Emet-Selch is really popular but I sort of agree with Alphinaud when Emet is talking about judging people and think, “What right does he have to do that?”, and that might be applicable to Venat too, like “What right does she have to do that?”

I mean, first of all, "that might be applicable to Venat"? Uh... yes, it unambiguously is (this might be an artefact of translating Japanese politeness?). And secondly, I'd say context matters and is very different in both cases, re: Emet being a 12,000+ year-old tired old queen of eld who's had just about enough with these very biologically-different people he couldn't relate to.

Even Hermes doesn't go down as smoothly as Emet even though he's very much an antagonist no matter how much of a depressed vegan he is, because the overarching narrative (and YoshiP here, tbh) absolutely tells you he's making a fair point about his people even though this man is burned out and absolutely not okay, with Ismene here stating he isn't really a people person (gee, thanks Ismene, I could tell), but no, his view isn't warped by bias or illness, he's so intent on fairness that he doesn't bother giving humanity a chance to fight back as, again, we are to understand he is a very unique boy with knowledge totally no one else had, so what fighting chance did they have, frankly? And Venat, too, is very keen on preserving the objectivity of his insane test and offering an answer she decided her people would never get right in any circumstances. Who CARES about the rules he set? We outright told you this is going to go to shit!! The world is going to end! Stop following the rules of his stupid game! Everyone and everything is going to DIE! She's walking along the streets of Amaurot with this sad look on her face like "oh no so much pain and suffering", like WOW, pity nobody could have ever done anything!

Q: Will we have a chance to learn the identities of the full Convocation of Fourteen members?
A: So yes we have already decided the true names and identities of every Convocation member. Whether we will tell you or not however will depend on how the plot develops
Sorry to tease you however.

I'm not feeling super confident on that sentence, but I can appreciate the apology that follows at least.

tl;dr Ascian stan mad

[Tsiron]

Watching the stream I got the distinct impression Yoshida wanted to be done with this whole storyline, so maybe it's time to just drop it and move on too. Everyone responsible is dead (Venat's so dead there's nothing left to even reincarnate), so let's just wait and see what 6.1 teasers we'll get in 2 weeks...

[Teraq]

Watching the stream I got the distinct impression Yoshida wanted to be done with this whole storyline, so maybe it's time to just drop it and move on too. Everyone responsible is dead (Venat's so dead there's nothing left to even reincarnate), so let's just wait and see what 6.1 teasers we'll get in 2 weeks...

Agreed, this is the feeling I get. I'm a partisan of the "this was supposed to be two expansions" theory (that might be baseless or not, to be fair I haven't really looked into this matter), and 6.0 felt a lot like "all right, let's wrap this up and move on".

[Yencat]

To be fair, I'm not sure why people are 100% convinced Zenos is definitely dead

Not entirely certain he is either tbh, he's only dead until they suddenly decide he's not anymore. But I was mostly going off this:

Zenos has been a threat to players for years. The villain's story was wrapped up in Endwalker, just like the Hydaelyn and Zodiark arc, and both Yoshida and Ishikawa are very happy with the end result. "His story needed no further embellishment, nor any further happiness or misery," says Ishikawa, adding that because Zenos wasn't concerned with how others saw him, she had no hesitation in writing out the closure of his story

https://www.gamesradar.com/final-fan...ory-interview/

[Teraq]

Not entirely certain he is either tbh, he's only dead until they suddenly decide he's not anymore. But I was mostly going off this:



https://www.gamesradar.com/final-fan...ory-interview/

This sounds a lot more definitive, thank you!

[Lauront]

Agreed, this is the feeling I get. I'm a partisan of the "this was supposed to be two expansions" theory (that might be baseless or not, to be fair I haven't really looked into this matter), and 6.0 felt a lot like "all right, let's wrap this up and move on".

He reiterated that they could've done it over 7.0 and even 8.0, a claim Ishikawa has made before, so I think it's a reasonable claim.

On the topic of Zenos, funnily enough I'm unbothered one way or another if he's truly gone. He was perhaps the least of my issues with the story. I did not like him ever since he came back after SB but EW was riddled with so many other issues that he's barely in view, IMO.

I hadn't seen the big ol' answer on Venat. It's pretty telling he (explicitly says he) had to fetch Ishikawa for this long answer. The sole positive I'm taking from this is that her character seems indeed to be pretty hotly contested. That's a relief, at least. And he compares her to Emet-Selch, wringing his hands about "I knoowww you guys totally love him, BUT...", and yeah okay but here's the thing: Emet-Selch is quite explicitly an antagonist. As YoshiP even says, the protagonists challenge him over his claims. The lead-up to the fight is epic, well-written so you know exactly what his convictions are after 12,000 years of toiling in relative emotional isolation, and we very much kick his ass in a climactic moment because it was him or us.

Indeed, although I think viewed another way, it is a fairly major concession that in spite of what the game is trying to portray, she's far from unimpeachable in her conduct.

And then there's Venat. It's all well and good to explain at length she was conflicted and agonizing and wasn't a saint, but then why is she treated so well in-universe? Her claims and beliefs that led to her genociding her people are never challenged by anyone at any point. For Zodiark's sake, the game gave me her minion and her dog! I'm sorry, Emet, but if I had been you in Ultima Thule, I would have torn her an entirely new orifice rather than go "hah, oh you! I get it. gg tyfp". All the arguments we've offered in these hundred pages –– what if she had actually told them everything instead of being paralysed by her own lack of faith in her people, what if Hermes was treated for his goddamned depression and eventually cooperated, what if there had been other experts in Dynamis in this society of scholars and scientists (haha, jk, it can't be because we need this plot to be as contrived as possible for it to work) – maybe Hermes is just like me and writes papers he never submits out of sheer procrastination? #relatable – what if they had researched Dynamis familiars with the proper information, what if they actually seized the apparently illegal AMNESIA MACHINE and investigated events, what if they could use the Echo, as one does, to see what actually happened, what if she'd brought out the space-faring bunnies to make spaceships ("but they said it took them super long to craft!" yes, and Zodiark kept up his shield for 12,000 years while missing 3 arms, 2 wings, his entire abdomen and at least 6 crotch tentacles, I'm not too worried there), what if they could have researched "sundering"/depowering themselves selectively, what if she had given them time to heal from the trauma, what if she had told them exactly the outcome she feared re: Ra-La dudes (which she indeed knew a single line from Meteion about, lmao context doesn't matter have this strawman) in a way that wasn't just offering patronising platitudes at the worst time after unprecedented disaster by her own fault so they could reflect upon it as she has had the luxury to do, what if they had changed in spite of her arrested beliefs, what if Azem had been anywhere at all to do something, anything –– literally none of this is even suggested in-game. This is what feels wrong. The only counter-argument we're presented with is her own self-flagellation while the plot very much wants you to infer this was the only solution anyway because DYNAMIS! VERY SUBTLE RA-LA! As Kizuya brought up like a hundred pages earlier, there is no actual balance to be found in this narrative. It's one thing to say your character was meant to be interpreted this way, it's another to write the story in a way that enough people seriously question how we were meant to interpret them.
It doesn't help that we get to fight her but we never get to kick her ****ing ass like we did with Emet. This is quite the difference. I wasn't here to have a friendly little spar with you on your own terms, sis. I was here for the catharsis I never got outside of writing long-ass forum posts.

And even their comment on the Ra-la situation - it's framed as her believing her people wouldn't change. Yet she never offers them any basis to what she's saying to do so. So that entire thing is unresolved. At least it confirms that the thrust of her concerns is the Plenty and the repeat of their doom, and less so the morality of these vague third stage sacrifices. It's more that she lacked faith that her people would change. She should've reminded herself "nothing is impossible." So his answer does not address what could've happened if they were told the truth in explicit terms.

I mean, first of all, "that might be applicable to Venat"? Uh... yes, it unambiguously is (this might be an artefact of translating Japanese politeness?). And secondly, I'd say context matters and is very different in both cases, re: Emet being a 12,000+ year-old tired old queen of eld who's had just about enough with these very biologically-different people he couldn't relate to.

Even Hermes doesn't go down as smoothly as Emet even though he's very much an antagonist no matter how much of a depressed vegan he is, because the overarching narrative (and YoshiP here, tbh) absolutely tells you he's making a fair point about his people even though this man is burned out and absolutely not okay, with Ismene here stating he isn't really a people person (gee, thanks Ismene, I could tell), but no, his view isn't warped by bias or illness, he's so intent on fairness that he doesn't bother giving humanity a chance to fight back as, again, we are to understand he is a very unique boy with knowledge totally no one else had, so what fighting chance did they have, frankly? And Venat, too, is very keen on preserving the objectivity of his insane test and offering an answer she decided her people would never get right in any circumstances. Who CARES about the rules he set? We outright told you this is going to go to shit!! The world is going to end! Stop following the rules of his stupid game! Everyone and everything is going to DIE! She's walking along the streets of Amaurot with this sad look on her face like "oh no so much pain and suffering", like WOW, pity nobody could have ever done anything!

I have similar sentiments on the above. IMO he at least acknowledges she is controversial in a similar sense that SHB (i.e. 12k years post-Sundering) Emet is - a man changed by the factors you mentioned. And while he attributes this to a characteristic of the ancients, we can point to various other antagonists - sundered, no less - who act in a similar manner, so in my view that isn't a particularly compelling way of looking at it. However, I'm glad that they recognise this about her. I think you'd have to be attempting to gaslight not to do that, so there is that too.

Not entirely certain he is either tbh, he's only dead until they suddenly decide he's not anymore. But I was mostly going off this:



https://www.gamesradar.com/final-fan...ory-interview/

Nice one.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Personally i think “Yoshi being tired of this arc” isn’t a very good excuse for the mess of an expansion this was. At the very least, ending the arc should’ve had way more caution than there was. It’s pretty clear to me as well they let community intervention get in the way of a lot of writing decisions and that doesn’t help either. It’s hard to just drop it and act like nothing happened because everything they’ve shown here with this expansion is going to be what ends up shaping future expansions and how they write those, and from what i’ve seen it’s just going to be full of more asspulls and slice of life anime. Not to mention Hydaelyn’s blessing apparently isn’t even gone, so doesn’t seem like we can just go back to being normal.

[Skyborne]

I'm just glad the sundered ascians (and some black mask underlings) are ambiguously still around and outlived her, and may or may not make an appearance later on. Also, they did nothing wrong, they were merely players in keikaku-mom's great plan. :^)