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

[KageTokage]

You did get some options to question Hydaelyn but in the end of the day I don't think this exp was the time to start getting too complicated with characters like Venat.

The problem is that things did get complicated by tossing Venat/Hydaelyn into a causal loop that retroactively makes her directly or indirectly responsible for far more then just the Sundering.

The initially suggested reasons for the Sundering (Zodiark being a flawed solution to the Final Days and some Ancients wanting to preserve the lives that were be sacrificed to him) could've simply been fleshed out, but instead they opted to take a totally different angle and made it seem more like she was more opposed to the actual act of reviving the lost Ancients then the consequences and costs of it.

It essentially shifted her motives to being driven more by ideals then morals and while you can argue that she was a prisoner to fate who had no choice but to let bad things play out as we said they would, it still left me feeling uneasy in ways that the alternative wouldn't have.

[KizuyaKatogami]

I'm largely paraphrasing a friend here when we discussed this together, but Zenos, even after all is said and done, even after he he personally was able to evolve the expression and direction of his love in a way that frankly, considering Zenos, could be considered a miracle - and through that, finally achieving what he had been dreaming of since he came back to life in Stormblood - still being left at the edge of the universe, uncertain, questioning if it was all worth it - asking you if you felt it was all worth it - also felt like a poignant and vulnerable expression of the other half of Endwalker's themes: the blunt lack of certainty and lack of objective answers to meaning in the universe. There's no certainty or locked-down answer even after defeating the embodiment of despair with your giant theme music-bearing dragon friend. And how you felt about that is something largely left in your own hands, private and personal.

(And yet at the very, very end, the existence of that love was still re-asserted through the implication he may have been the one responsible to teleporting you back to the ship, too.)

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Zenos was hands down the best part of Endwalker and the most successful execution of its themes in all regards. Anyone who hated him after this expansion is wrong, objectively wrong!

I’ll be the objectively wrong one here (for once) and say i didn’t enjoy Zenos all that much but i’ll admit it’s mainly due to my bias of them having him kill off Varis whom i found so much more interesting and also outliving Elidibus lol.

[Rulakir]

My only feelings about Zenos in SB were he was annoying. EW managed to make him interesting. Even though I hate Fandaniel, I was fairly amused throughout the dinner and body swapping scenes. I thought, finally, this is the sort of villainy that entertains me! I'm still disappointed it didn't amount to anything. Then, at the end, I thought there was so much missed potential for him.

Hermes though, screw that guy. I felt similar gaslighting with him as I did with Venat, just not as extreme. All of the NPCs who knew him before his Amon reincarnation sing his praises. Even after you tell Elidibus everything he refers to Hermes as having a "noble soul". He's also featured in the end credits walk and post credit artwork (positively) as if he deserved either. I felt Hermes was always fundamentally bad (somewhat confirmed by his reincarnation ending up even more twisted), it was likely just suppressed by Ancient society whereas it was celebrated among the Allagans.

Others' interpretations haven't helped either. I've suffered with depression, isolation, crippling empathy, etc. and I've never wished death upon the world. I didn't find Hermes relatable or even understandable outside of having psychosis. I also didn't particularly care for Meteion. I frankly thought she should've been finished off at the end of the trial. When she said she was going to sing a final song I was like, "No, Hell no, you have done enough!" She is way too dangerous for us to have let fly free.

I sincerely hope we don't see this type of characterization going forward. I get the feeling that because people were sympathetic toward Emet and Elidibus the writer(s) thought they could introduce two more Ancients guilty of atrocious crimes and people would love them too, which certainly wasn't the case for me. I came away from it feeling like, as Lurina said, the writers and I aren't ethically on the same page. The difference is the Ascians were trying to restore their world after what was a crime against mankind. Hermes and Venat, in contrast, wanted to destroy mankind. The two aren't comparable in my mind.

[Caurcas]

To struggle and to strive isn't just unga bunga fighting. It's to have a goal to work towards, and as the story showed (however flawed) that's part of the issue with ancient society. They would deprive themselves of a goal in order to justify self termination. Sidenote, the ancients were a mistake and ShB should've went with the blackrose plot. It would've worked out better. Venat could've sundered them ten times over and I still wouldn't feel a thing. Same for sad man and his crummy bird loli.

[Lauront]

They had goals to work towards. Next?

[Caurcas]

They had goals to work towards. Next?

Don't be mad Venat was better at termination than 99% of ancients. Just sent them on faster.

[Skyborne]

The ancients were kind of a mistake to me as they just superseded everything else in being interesting. Before that, I was all about the Allagans and the Garleans. Azys Lla and its rave music was the coolest thing to me. Things like the Flagship, the Gration, and the Agrias all mogged the Eorzeans and Cid's dinky little toy ship. The spectacle of the huge Art Deco-style skyscrapers and towers unlike anything else in the game. These humble robed and masked people, many of whom could transform into big beefy Greek mythological figures. Give me more along the lines of Hades, Hermes, Ericthonios, etc.

Think I just have a thing for powerful advanced empires/civilizations with a perchant for mad science.

Do agree Meteion was kind of dumb, I kept laughing with my friends about how the main 'villain' was just... Twitter.

[Caurcas]

The Ancients are just boring utopianist and EW some how made even more boring. Meteion is a seriously lame antagonist to get owned by.

[NanaWiloh]

Yes, but that is certainly not something we get out of Endwalker. Your character always smiles at Venat after receiving the flower, and the scions do not have a critical view on what she did. The scions had a critical view on Emet-Selch despite understanding where he's coming from, but no such display happened with Hydaelyn. They lacked showing that she made mistakes in the game, and that is a big issue. If they wanted to show both made mistakes, they failed to bring forth this idea in Endwalker. By this i mean in the general feeling when playing the game, not with interviews. Yoshida did kind of admit she wasn't all good, but he shouldn't have to say this outside of the game, it should've been clear they were saying this inside.

Their lack of a critical view on her I agree is a mistake but only up until they meet her. Dont need the old trope of lets question this person now while the world goes to Hell around us. It makes characters look like morons when they decided to question someones motives or trust while the world burns around them.

[Rulakir]

I've never understood humanity's obsession with life. I don't believe ending one's life has to be justified. As far as I'm concerned, it's none of anyone's business outside of family under certain circumstances. I understand others don't feel the same, but we're talking about a culture that didn't have a stigma about it. I sure as Hell wouldn't want to live forever. Even if I had a perfect life, at some point I'd just get tired with continued existence. Their souls were eternal and would be reborn, so it's not as if they were permanently gone - at least until they were sundered.

The ancients were kind of a mistake to me as they just superseded everything else in being interesting.

*sigh* Same. I've been struggling to think of anything in 6.1-7.0 that would be a hook for me at this point. I'm rather disappointed they decided to be done with the most interesting storyline the game's had since 3.3. It wasn't a 10-year arc either, it really only started in ShB so it feels abruptly cut short for seemingly no good reason.