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

[PawPaw]

The writers want to tell us that the ancients were doomed to fail and end up like the residents of The Plenty.

I argue that now the world is on a course to end up like the first two areas of The Dead Ends.

I'd agree with that. No matter how jaunty they want to make that 6.1 artwork, you know our character is just heading towards their next war scenario. It's a video game so I understand that battles will be a part of it, with the occasional cheeseburger dinner break, I guess. But if the writer's intention was to draw some sort of meaningful parallel saying "look at these Ancients and their peaceful world where they seek to better their star, what a pile of shit! Who'd want that?! Just wait, maybe millions of years into the future they are gonna be SO BORED!!1" next to the never-ending struggle of our world as it is now...I'd still take the former and my chances, thanks.

[jameseoakes]

I'd agree with that. No matter how jaunty they want to make that 6.1 artwork, you know our character is just heading towards their next war scenario. It's a video game so I understand that battles will be a part of it, with the occasional cheeseburger dinner break, I guess. But if the writer's intention was to draw some sort of meaningful parallel saying "look at these Ancients and their peaceful world where they seek to better their star, what a pile of shit! Who'd want that?! Just wait, maybe millions of years into the future they are gonna be SO BORED!!1" next to the never-ending struggle of our world as it is now...I'd still take the former and my chances, thanks.

The game did a very awkward take with the a world of suffering is better than a world without as people might get bored with out suffering

[KageTokage]

I was really expecting that there was something fundamentally wrong with the Convocation's plan to revive the lost Ancients that at minimum would've been a senseless sacrifice of life and at worse risked undoing everything Zodiark had done to preserve the world.

Something that would've made the Sundering felt more convincingly like something that had to happen and not just coming across as being mostly motivated by the shallow logic of "Because the future said so".

Venat would've been a much more compelling character if she had been shooting blind with her decision; not knowing in advance that things would end up mostly okay (In the sense that the world still alive and poised to eliminate the Final Days at its source). Heck, she didn't even necessarily need to know about the whole dynamis interaction and it could've been something she only gleaned from the second coming of the Final Days, with her originally resigned to thinking that fleeing Etheriys was the only option available. That would've removed the need for her to know about the future at all and the ark on the moon could've just been a contingency in the event Zodiark's wards ever failed.

[Lauront]

There's many ways they could've broached it that would've left her as more sympathetic. My favoured approach was for the instigator of the Final Days to stoke the conflict between the factions to rid of Zodiark as the obstacle to their plans by fomenting a course of action by the Convocation that would concern those paranoid of Zodiark's power, only for the enervation aspect to work unpredictably and result in the Sundering.

The game did a very awkward take with the a world of suffering is better than a world without as people might get bored with out suffering

TBH I don't think they even made that point. It's more a message that you need a mixture of both, because the first two worlds, while they annihilated a specific issue, nonetheless were pretty dystopian in other respects, and seem characterised by immense suffering. Meanwhile, by all accounts the dragons had a more or less blissful star but it was subjected to senseless destruction outside of their own control and on a scale they could not come back from without fleeing it. Senseless destruction that no hopium could undo. I think the game is very poorly and awkwardly trying to make the point of being able to maintain hope even in the face of extreme despair (as the answer to Hermes's own nihilistic mentality), but where it fails IMO is trying to brush aside any and all collective attempts at formulating a purpose, in showing e.g. Y'shtola just brushing aside a problem the Ea faced - not that she'd ever run up against it in a meaningful way. The ancients themselves broadly fell under the umbrella of societies with a collective purpose, but nonetheless retained their own individual goals. On the other end of the spectrum you had Zenos; his goal is self-authored, but for all the strength he has, it ends up meaning very little in the end as he is a husk of an individual, so it's clear that individualistic formulation of a purpose can also be taken too far and become empty.

Nonetheless, none of that would suffice on its own to condemn the ancients, because they resolved to save their star and sacrificed to do so by bringing into being Zodiark, to both shield and restore the star. All the nonsense about time travel and the Plenty is required, in my view, because the ancients had yet to succumb to the fate of the Plenty, and given their inherent love for their star, would likely adjust as necessary if they knew of this issue and the threat it posed to them as a civilisation. Thus the time travel gives Venat a potential roadmap with which she can damn her people for not responding to her liking in terms of avoiding the fate of the world described in a few lines from Meteion's report, and not be painted outright as a villain. Although I think the recent Q&A puts that in a rather more questionable position.

[KageTokage]

Considering how readily the Convocation seemed to shut out anyone who was not in full support of their plans (It's mentioned that "traitors" like Azem were stricken from their records/history), I could've seen them reasonably disregarding anything such dissidents would've had to say, even if it entailed something like a critical flaw with their plan that risked the star's safety and their Zodiark tempering could've been used as a further reason for any cries of protest to have been falling on deaf ears.

[Skyborne]

Considering how readily the Convocation seemed to shut out anyone who was not in full support of their plans (It's mentioned that "traitors" like Azem were stricken from their records/history), I could've seen them reasonably disregarding anything such dissidents would've had to say, even if it entailed something like a critical flaw with their plan that risked the star's safety and their Zodiark tempering could've been used as a further reason for any cries of protest to have been falling on deaf ears.

I remember a lot of speculation during ShB about the tempering, and that it possibly effected the WoL... which a lot of people really, really did not like. Personally would have found it interesting if both sides tragically had their free will restricted... certainly would explain my own WoL nodding and smiling with blank stares and hardly being given a variety of dialogue choices. If I had to be a bit cynical, that reaction might be why tempering in general got downplayed in the patches and also gained a 'cure', and why the Blessing of Light became a traveller's ward.

[Lauront]

Considering how readily the Convocation seemed to shut out anyone who was not in full support of their plans (It's mentioned that "traitors" like Azem were stricken from their records/history), I could've seen them reasonably disregarding anything such dissidents would've had to say, even if it entailed something like a critical flaw with their plan that risked the star's safety and their Zodiark tempering could've been used as a further reason for any cries of protest to have been falling on deaf ears.

It depends on what point you were taking as given. You could perhaps have written such a story prior to 5.3, but I think post-5.3 it's harder to sustain it. Azem ultimately abandoned them in their hour of need, in a manner which was unprecedented, so I can understand their reaction to that being such as it was. My guess at the time as to why that was, was that they wanted to find a way to directly address the cause (perhaps futile), to avoid all the sacrifice, which I think originally the Convocation itself would've wanted to avoid. Just abandoning them for what might appear to be a capricious, uncertain plan, for example, would certainly warrant a harsh response.

The tempering could've been a possible route (not one I'd prefer but putting that aside), if they'd not then gone and had the Convocation itself be divided, as per Elidibus's dialogue in SOS in the FR version (at the least - might be in some others too.) Ultimately, with all the effort SHB put into underscoring that light isn't the same as good or darkness the same as evil, I'd have considered it somewhat poor form on their part to then go make Zodiark a big bad in a different way, unless it was something specific to primals which they were willing to extend to both. Hence my preference to shift the blame to an ancient (and possibly, otherworldly) cause of the Final Days, which I was hoping the Telophoroi was hinting at... but apparently not.

[KageTokage]

It's mostly the whole revival scheme that always struck me as a bit outlandish given how adamant the story/lore has been about resurrection being impossible.

Even Elidibus was unable to be returned to the Convocation in the truest sense, with them instead receiving a primal approximation. If Zodiark couldn't fully restore a single Ancient, it would stand to reason that the others brought back would similarly not really be themselves and having a whole slew of primal-like entities could've been...less then desirable, assuming the actual act of restoration didn't pose problems in its own right given that it entailed Zodiark giving up the myriad Ancient souls comprising his being to replace them with other lives.

[Lauront]

On that point I agree, the revival scheme in and of itself could've been positioned that way. Elidibus himself being the heart makes him an outlier, but it had crossed my mind that it could provide excellent fodder for an instigator along the lines I mentioned to convince the Convocation to undertake a scheme which such an instigator could reasonably expect to lead to conflict with a faction already spooked by Zodiark. Even if the plan could work due to Zodiark's broad range of powers (plus having the lord of the Underworld amongst them), the fact that it would cause conflict might've sufficed.

With the lore they actually went with in mind, I think that part of their plan should at the very least have been delayed or altered (i.e. once Meteion is gone, put Zodiark to rest and release the souls in him), but I say that as the player with more knowledge than they were given, so for that to happen they'd need to be provided with compelling evidence to delay it... but alas. :`)

[Rulakir]

I hope it's not too late to leave my two cents here.

Not at all, in fact, I've seen more people recently say since they've had time to digest the story they see the flaws in it and we may see more of that once NG+ is added.

Second only in body count to Hermes. She allows my friends to die, allows one to suffer for millennia and bloody his hands, she kills my original self. She’s unforgivable and I’m glad she can never return. She doesn’t deserve to.

I honestly don't understand why more people don't have a problem with this, but I also view the sundering as a violent act and for my Azem it would have been non-consensual. Her being permanently gone is a small karmic justice. I'm still in disbelief that they turned an antagonist to the Ancients into a heroine. I wonder if Ishikawa will ever do any interviews addressing this.

certainly would explain my own WoL nodding and smiling with blank stares and hardly being given a variety of dialogue choices.

I figured we wouldn't be tempered because people would feel like their WoL was robbed of free will (despite that having always been the case), but EW reverted back to ARR levels of a lobotomized WoL. It reminded me of Minfilia. I hated her character, but all the NPCs loved her and my WoL could only ever express love for her. Same thing with Venat.

It's mostly the whole revival scheme that always struck me as a bit outlandish given how adamant the story/lore has been about resurrection being impossible.

I had the same reservations, but after they made it clear the souls were trapped within Zodiark I felt the plan had more validity. Given a core part of their culture was that they return to the star, those who selflessly sacrificed themselves were being denied that and they needed to be released.