Endwalker vs shadowbringers story, which did you enjoy more and why? (spoilers)

[Lyth]

...

Everyone has seen their share of hardship. Estinien lost his family and hometown. The twins lost their Grandfather. Thancred lost Minfillia. Urianger lost Moenbryda. Y'shtola went blind. They're no stranger to frustration and despair. That's literally the point behind the lines 'We've been here before/Many a time/And thus do we know/To never give up.' Bad things that happen to characters are never 'consequences'. The writers aren't out to punish people. They're just bad things. They're a part of life.

And again, while writers do use character deaths as a way of 'raising the stakes', that's not something that you, the audience, can ask for. You'll always ask for the characters that you don't like to be eliminated. And they'll always do the opposite, going after the characters that you're deeply attached to.

But what I think is truly foolish about this line of thinking is this Warcraft faction-based mindset. Well, 'team Ascian' suffered a setback, so thus 'team Scion' needs one too. Your faction's capital city gets burned, so the enemy faction's city has to get blighted to keep things balanced. Those factions don't exist in the first place here. Was that not the big reveal of Shadowbringers? We are Amaurotian, and are the long lost best friend of the ex-leader of the Ascians. So much so, that we nominated Emet to his position. And in our time of need, he came to our aid as well.

In fact, you're going to run into this same issue with pretty much every antagonist. We beat them up and then befriend them (except for Thordan VII, he's just dead). This is a one faction game. It's called 'Etheirys'.

[KizuyaKatogami]

snip

Except this is all a lie. Then why didnt graha/exarch stay dead after 5.3.vWas the community not deeply attached to him? Also many people in here have stated that so many people are attached to yshtola hence she'll never die, so your line of thinking doesnt seem to work here.

The scions lost nothing in Endwalker. All of the things you mentioned happened 3 expansions ago if not longer. Also, it is something we as the audience can ask for, just as much as the audience can and has asked for the devs not to kill anyone off, which is more than likely what influenced 5.3's ending and has continued to influence the scions' plot armor. The problem is there is not realism. You cannot tell me in a planet decimating apocalypse that the main cast not getting even a scratch on them makes sense.Also if you want to bring up Yshtola's blindness, can we talk about the fact the plot thread of her life slowly draining away has just been ignored for 3+ expansions? Oh but we wont talk about that, because cant have a deeply attached character have consequences right? This isnt a warcraft based mindset. It's called real life. No one goes through life without anything bad happening to them or loved ones. This is something 14 has forgotten about while trying to teach us a lesson in suffering. Its ironic because even yoshi p addressed it as a problem that the main cast hasnt suffered any loss in a long time and the story feels very one sided. ITs what makes me think even more its community influence that has prevented any meaningful losses or struggles for the main cast.

Again. there is a divisive situation when one "faction" exists at the expense of another. That is the case here in 14.Also please, ex leader of the ascians? Where are you getting that Emet is the leader lmao. This isnt the case whatsoever.

[kpxmanifesto]

And again, while writers do use character deaths as a way of 'raising the stakes', that's not something that you, the audience, can ask for.

Lmao, who are you to tell what people can and cannot ask for? Lol, someone's on a high horse.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Just gonna pop this in here because it kind of refutes some people's narratives.

“Some fans bring up Haurchefant, and some people say that, ‘oh, he was killed because he was popular.’ And we think it’s actually backward,” Yoshida states. “We had really fleshed out his character. We wanted to have him know what he’s fighting for, what his goal was, what his stance was in everything. He was fighting for a certain cause. And that was already determined before he was even introduced in the narrative.”
“We don’t like adlib in terms of like, ‘Oh, this character is going to go or this character is going to die.’ It’s not random, either. At the same time, yes, people might notice that those in the core cast may not have died over the course of the story,” he explains. Since Final Fantasy XIV constantly depicts wars, conflicts, and battles, he says it’s “unrealistic to not have any sort of sacrifices even on the ally side. So I mean, I don’t mean to scare you… this is not, by any means a threat of any sort, but don’t get too comfortable knowing that, ‘Oh, these characters are safe’ because you might be in for quite a shock.”

[EgilTheStressedMage]

Please don't turn this into another Endwalker rage thread, we have a containment thread for that exact purpose already.

Anyway, Shadowbringers.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Please don't turn this into another Endwalker rage thread, we have a containment thread for that exact purpose already.

Anyway, Shadowbringers.

You're about sixteen pages too late for that, unfortunately.