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

[FrightfulNight]

Also there is a lot of potential for an Ilsabard expansion. Just imagine, the main hub city is Landis which is implied to be the Constantinople to Garlemald's Rome, so we can have a magiteck city for a hub that is not destroyed, it adds more variety and Final Fantasy Aesthetics.

Since it seems that Ilsabrd is inspired by Eastern and Northern Europe with Garlemald taking some queues from Russia just think about some of the other zones we can have. We can have a zone inspired by Germany, Austria, and Switzerland in terms of Aesthetics, maybe one that draws on some classic Studio Ghibli like landscape designs now that Ishgard is frozen. There is actually a precedence for such a nation or nation existing with the addition of the Dirndl's Attire, and the Bergsteiger's Attire from the SE store. Then we can have a zone inspired by more Norwegian cultures, imagine the fantasy aesthetics they could do with that, especially with the popularity of Skyrim and the New God of War duology, this aesthetic has received some popularity in recent years, We can also have a Romania inspired zone that has a lot of Gothic Architecture and lore, maybe even blending Garlean Architecture with more older local styles, and of course we can have more Mediterranean inspired regions like Werlyt. Of course it would be kind of boring if these nations were just complete 1 to 1 recreations of their real world counterpart so i would like to see maybe them doing what they did in Thravnir were it serves as an inspiration but they have a more unique spin that fits the world of Ethierys

There is a lot of potential both Storywise and Aesthetically for an Ilsabrad expansion and right now I am more interested in helping the people recover there then exploring Meracydia or the New World or Other Shards because Adventure.

[KageTokage]

So did this thread reach the conclusion of "How dare the WoL fight against the Unsundered you big meanie Big Papa Emet was justified" yet?
Or was that already a thing?
I really don't want to read over several hundred pages and who knows how many posts. I already feel like my emotional and time investment in the story was basically a gigantic waste.

Oh no, people aren't trying justify Emet's actions at all.

They mostly dislike how everyone in the story seems to ignore the implications that Venat/Hydaelyn was directly/indirectly responsible for a lot more harm then just the Sundering yet is painted in a far more positive light then her peers simply because her path was framed as being the only available option for the world's survival by necessity due to how all the time travel/causal loop nonsense functions.

[Theodric]

A common take has been that it's perfectly justified for the Sundered to do everything possible in order to survive. On the other hand, the same can be said of the Unsundered - it's a reasonable expectation for the Ascians to do whatever is needed to ensure that their people aren't wiped out.

Shadowbringers took that approach and presented it all as an unfortunate but necessary clash of like wills. If Emet won, his people would be restored and the Sundered would be no more. On the other hand, with the Warrior of Light's victory it was the Ancients who were eliminated in their entirety. The problem, then is that it is Venat who put both sides in such a horrific position in the first place but all sorts of contrived plot devices are pulled out in order to try and awkwardly justify it instead of just straight up admitting that it was pretty abhorrent and selfish of her to do as much.

Worse yet, the Sundered didn't even pass her 'test' because at various points they required the aid of not only the Unsundered but various other powerful entities such as the dragons and Omega in order to succeed. The victory against Meteion wasn't entirely their own doing, thus 'Dynamis' comes across as little more than a sad excuse to try and pretend as if the Ancients 'deserved' to be wiped out because they couldn't wield it effectively. (Which has unpleasant implications - especially when Garleans are unable to wield Aether as well as the other races and led to their persecution and near extinction...)

[Skyborne]

'ate me time loops that have unfortunate implications for the WoL/Hydaelyn if you activate your brain.
'ate me memory wipe devices.
'ate me dynamis ex machina that is now being retroactively justified.
'ate me Garlemald just immediately being dumped offscreen, the towers just being resolved immediately, the body swap scene having no point other than a cool instance, and the whole first half feeling like it was stitched together from the remains of another expansion.
'ate me escort and stealth quests.
'ate me endless Scion speeches, filler that feels like it doesn't respect your time and is there so Yoshi can boast that it's the longest expansion by hours.
'ate me cheap emotional manipulation.
'ate me wet fart of a Final Days that only hits two regions in full and all the protags escape with nary a scratch.
'ate me fanservice that isn't really fanservice since we have to watch these people get screwed over and be told they were naughty and deserved it and mom knows best.
'ate me clumsy and forced themes.
Luv me Vrtra.
Luv me Hythlodaeus.
Luv me glory be soup.
Luv me Ra-La and John Globalcitizen.

Simple as.

[PawPaw]

'ate me time loops that have unfortunate implications for the WoL/Hydaelyn if you activate your brain.
'ate me memory wipe devices.
'ate me dynamis ex machina that is now being retroactively justified.
'ate me Garlemald just immediately being dumped offscreen, the towers just being resolved immediately, the body swap scene having no point other than a cool instance, and the whole first half feeling like it was stitched together from the remains of another expansion.
'ate me escort and stealth quests.
'ate me endless Scion speeches, filler that feels like it doesn't respect your time and is there so Yoshi can boast that it's the longest expansion by hours.
'ate me cheap emotional manipulation.
'ate me fanservice that isn't really fanservice since we have to watch these people get screwed over and be told they were naughty and deserved it and mom knows best.
'ate me clumsy and forced themes.
Luv me Vrtra.
Luv me Hythlodaeus.
Luv me glory be soup.
Luv me Ra-La and John Globalcitizen.

Simple as.

Skyborne, this glorious entry was post number 69 (nice). Please say it's not your last!

[Lauront]

Oh no, people aren't trying justify Emet's actions at all.

They mostly dislike how everyone in the story seems to ignore the implications that Venat/Hydaelyn was directly/indirectly responsible for a lot more harm then just the Sundering yet is painted in a far more positive light then her peers simply because her path was framed as being the only available option for the world's survival by necessity due to how all the time travel/causal loop nonsense functions.

It's that, but also the fact that they've framed it as a function of her belief (and to add to this, wrote it in such a way as you can sustain an interpretation like Brinne's, that she romanticised the sundered world based on the WoL's account to some degree), while also leaving some open plot threads that may have been utilised to lead to alternative outcomes, leading the 'necessity' part to be brought into question as well, as well as leaving the question: it worked, but at what cost? Understandably, for a storyline meant to close off the current arc and lead to a new one, many feel this was very messy, didn't do the plot points SHB had developed justice and left several other questions unanswered.

A common take has been that it's perfectly justified for the Sundered to do everything possible in order to survive. On the other hand, the same can be said of the Unsundered - it's a reasonable expectation for the Ascians to do whatever is needed to ensure that their people aren't wiped out.

Shadowbringers took that approach and presented it all as an unfortunate but necessary clash of like wills. If Emet won, his people would be restored and the Sundered would be no more. On the other hand, with the Warrior of Light's victory it was the Ancients who were eliminated in their entirety. The problem, then is that it is Venat who put both sides in such a horrific position in the first place but all sorts of contrived plot devices are pulled out in order to try and awkwardly justify it instead of just straight up admitting that it was pretty abhorrent and selfish of her to do as much.

Worse yet, the Sundered didn't even pass her 'test' because at various points they required the aid of not only the Unsundered but various other powerful entities such as the dragons and Omega in order to succeed. The victory against Meteion wasn't entirely their own doing, thus 'Dynamis' comes across as little more than a sad excuse to try and pretend as if the Ancients 'deserved' to be wiped out because they couldn't wield it effectively. (Which has unpleasant implications - especially when Garleans are unable to wield Aether as well as the other races and led to their persecution and near extinction...)

^This. The sundered as a whole are even more susceptible to it, with their souls being consumed, and even the strongest amongst them (outside your posse) succumbing to despair in several instances - and this is without the incident spreading anywhere near as far as the original did, or devastating the star to the same degree. We have to remember, enough ancients survived the entire ordeal to summon Zodiark in the first place, so it's not as though they were wilting lilies. The problem is that their creation magicks were also being hijacked in the process (the unaddressed subterranean sound, which the Watcher mentions as well), leading to powerful, corrupted monstrosities roaming the star, while the star itself was dying off, leaving them as the only source of aether to fuel into Zodiark - a being which itself protected the sundered world for 12k years.

[Rulakir]

The sundered as a whole are even more susceptible to it, with their souls being consumed, and even the strongest amongst them (outside your posse) succumbing to despair in several instances - and this is without the incident spreading anywhere near as far as the original did, or devastating the star to the same degree.

I feel like this isn't addressed enough. The sundered may be able to interact with dynamis, but the consequence of that is they're also devastatingly susceptible to it. The messaging about 'what breaks one person won' t another' is also inconsequential when it comes to nightmare creatures preying on you.

I thought the messaging of EW was extremely odd because of this. They make it sound like being strong in the face of despair protects you from the Song of Oblivion while not showing that to actually be the case. It would also require inhuman amounts of mental fortitude. I'm reminded of that one brief moment Estinien didn't have his defenses up and Nidhogg took control of him.

Also, when you have the 8UC timeline not being able to handle the after effects of Black Rose I'm definitely not convinced they could handle the Final Days had they had the chance to spread globally as they had during the Ancients' time.

We have to remember, enough ancients survived the entire ordeal to summon Zodiark in the first place, so it's not as though they were wilting lilies.

No, but I did get the impression their population had been decimated. Amaurot looks like NYC, which I believe has the population of 9 million people. Granted, there's a lot we don't know like whether they had other large metropoli or how many ultimately ended up being sacrificed to Zodiark, but their starting population was at least in the multiple of millions.

[Teraq]

So did this thread reach the conclusion of "How dare the WoL fight against the Unsundered you big meanie Big Papa Emet was justified" yet?
Or was that already a thing?
I really don't want to read over several hundred pages and who knows how many posts. I already feel like my emotional and time investment in the story was basically a gigantic waste.

Others have given very good replies, so I'll just take Skyborne's post, bold the parts that really rustled my jimmies personally and underline the worst offender:

'ate me time loops that have unfortunate implications for the WoL/Hydaelyn if you activate your brain.
'ate me memory wipe devices.
'ate me dynamis ex machina that is now being retroactively justified.
'ate me Garlemald just immediately being dumped offscreen, the towers just being resolved immediately, the body swap scene having no point other than a cool instance, and the whole first half feeling like it was stitched together from the remains of another expansion.
'ate me escort and stealth quests.
'ate me endless Scion speeches, filler that feels like it doesn't respect your time and is there so Yoshi can boast that it's the longest expansion by hours.
'ate me cheap emotional manipulation.
'ate me wet fart of a Final Days that only hits two regions in full and all the protags escape with nary a scratch.
'ate me fanservice that isn't really fanservice since we have to watch these people get screwed over and be told they were naughty and deserved it and mom knows best.
'ate me clumsy and forced themes.

(Everything stealth-related had me like, I knew all these years of being an MGS fangirl would pay off one day; you might say it had kept me waiting huh.)

I'll add that personally, as an unabashed Ascian enjoyer since before 5.0, I expected a lot more out of the closing chapter of Hydaelyn/Zodiark. I wanted this to be a high school reunion of Sundered Ascians with conflicting ideals and "what now?" questions, I wanted the Heart of Zodiark to have a lot more to do with the Hydaelyn/Zodiark expansion on equal footing with, you know, the Heart of Hydaelyn, I wanted Gaia to have any sort of significance at all, and you know what, I'll even take involving Unukalhai ever so slightly. I have my criticisms of 5.3, especially now in hindsight that it wasn't setting the scene for more involvement of my favorite character, but one of the things that really hyped me was seeing all the Convocation crystals embracing the Zodiac/FFXII reference and starting to flesh them all out for, presumably, relevance in the near-future. I mean, of course, I was a fool: this never was meant to be the Hydaelyn/Zodiark expansion in the first place, but the Hydaelyn/Sound expansion. I guess I should applaud SE for subverting my expectations. What a curveball! You little rascals.

Instead I got Damn Daniel, who never even bothers appearing in full Ascian regalia and showing us his absolutely-not-lion-shaped mask! I mean, I realise that's precisely his point because he gives zero shits, but I just want to be petty about it. Now that we've had confirmation that Gaius's obviously lion-shaped mask was not actually foreshadowing for an upcoming antagonist supposed to represent Leo (consider my expectations subverted again), we don't even know what Fandaniel's mask actually looked like and I am disproportionately irked by this, and I don't care if it's just me.
(And speaking of that particular Q&A regarding Gaius's masks, the fact that YoshiP opened with "Wow that’s really meticulous of you, you all are really paying close attention to this game." makes me feel a very particular way, like I can't help reading it as "wow, you guys care about this throwaway tidbit??? (proceeds to check notes)".)

^This. The sundered as a whole are even more susceptible to it, with their souls being consumed, and even the strongest amongst them (outside your posse) succumbing to despair in several instances - and this is without the incident spreading anywhere near as far as the original did, or devastating the star to the same degree. We have to remember, enough ancients survived the entire ordeal to summon Zodiark in the first place, so it's not as though they were wilting lilies. The problem is that their creation magicks were also being hijacked in the process (the unaddressed subterranean sound, which the Watcher mentions as well), leading to powerful, corrupted monstrosities roaming the star, while the star itself was dying off, leaving them as the only source of aether to fuel into Zodiark - a being which itself protected the sundered world for 12k years.

Sundered humans were actually lucky the Terminus beasts were actually them undergoing horrific transformation: this way there can only ever be an actually finite number of beasts instead of humans spawning several monstrosities like the Ancients presumably did. Truly, Venat was an unsung definitely sung enough genius.

(As for The Sound itself coming from the earth: I had just presumed it was Meteion's scream bouncing off the ground. I realise this is the most boring theory ever, but it's what we've got so far, and I doubt they're going to go back to that.)

[Kolsykol]

Imo I just wish at least one of the Scions had died.
I think Zenos should've killed one of them when possessing your body, it'd be especially disturbing and escalate the tension a lot.
I think some of the characters are just finished too as far as their character arcs goes, the twins can probably have more potential with a time-skip I think killing Alphy at least could've worked tho but I think Thancred should've died there.
Maybe he could've leapt to intervene when Zenos attacked with your body but Zenos/ your body was just too strong and went straight through his Gunblade or something and killed him.
Imagine after Zenos leaves too and you get your body back and Thancred's last words is just confusion about why you'd kill him, I think it'd fit the overall theme of despair too and be very dramatic and memorable.

Sure it'd be extremely messed up but I think in a good way.
Especially when you go back to the First and see Ryne again, it sounds really depressing but I think that's fine especially in the last expansion of this story too having some really traumatic moments like this would make it better imo.
Even if some people would've gotten mad about it I don't think it matters, there will always be people getting mad when you do stuff like that.
I mean Game of Thrones had a lot of people who got mad when characters died too but I think we can all agree that if no one died in the show that mattered then it would've been boring and not as memorable.

[Rulakir]

Sundered humans were actually lucky the Terminus beasts were actually them undergoing horrific transformation: this way there can only ever be an actually finite number of beasts instead of humans spawning several monstrosities like the Ancients presumably did.

I don't know, that didn't really work out in the Walking Dead. :P As long as there are babies being born there can be new blasphemies. Ooh, how creepy would it be if they could become one in the womb? Now it's a horror story!

Anyway, if any of y'all do Reddit, there's an interesting thread at the moment. I'm surprised to see so much criticism in a space typically intolerant of it. You wouldn't have seen this a couple of months ago.