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.

[aveyond-dreams]

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The characters you mention rarely appear to be affected by their traumas these days with even Estinien being more restrained compared to his more entertaining personality back in Heavensward. Please note the key differences between how Ignis and Y'shtola were handled before you mention the suffering Y'shtola (allegedly) endures.

Fundamentally the reasons I am supposed to care for the problems of the main cast happened so long ago or have no relevant impact on present events. Thus, you cannot expect us to care. Perhaps if the main party provided the same degree of entertainment value as they did in Shadowbringers people would not be clamoring for the Ancients so much.

How am I supposed to tolerate a story where the characters do not grow, have homogenous personalities and ideals that make them indistinct from one another, and are constantly outshone by side characters and antagonists?

[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.

[Lyth]

The reason why it doesn't make sense for the audience to ask for specific character deaths it is intrinsically a conflict of interest. You're not trying to 'raise the stakes' as you loftily claim. It's about getting rid of a character that you dislike. You're never going to ask the writer to kill off your personal favorite character. That's why many of the individuals going on about making this story 'darker and edgier' also petitioned the dev team to let them retroactively alter the timeline and revive their favorite Amaurotians, during the last Q+A. The writers raised the stakes by killing off the characters that we really liked and you couldn't handle it, simple as.

It's not like individual characters need a new trauma every year to just to mollify the fanbase. Oh, no, Estinien hasn't been punished yet this expansion. Better get working on that. That's paint-by-numbers writing.

The events of 5.3 were never really about 'saving' G'raha from doom as it was about tying up loose ends and resolving a paradox of time travel. The time travel mechanics created two G'rahas in the same timeline. The bit about turning to stone just gave the writers an opportunity to merge them down into a single character. It didn't even create any real 'suspense' or 'tension', because it literally gets resolved in the next scene.

[kpxmanifesto]

The reason why it doesn't make sense for the audience to ask for specific character deaths it is intrinsically a conflict of interest. You're not trying to 'raise the stakes' as you loftily claim. It's about getting rid of a character that you dislike. You're never going to ask the writer to kill off your personal favorite character. That's why many of the individuals going on about making this story 'darker and edgier' also petitioned the dev team to let them retroactively alter the timeline and revive their favorite Amaurotians, during the last Q+A. The writers raised the stakes by killing off the characters that we really liked and you couldn't handle it, simple as.

Do you have any proof that this is his personal goal? Or are you just making wild assumptions about his intentions in bad faith?

[KizuyaKatogami]

The reason why it doesn't make sense for the audience to ask for specific character deaths it is intrinsically a conflict of interest. You're not trying to 'raise the stakes' as you loftily claim. It's about getting rid of a character that you dislike. You're never going to ask the writer to kill off your personal favorite character. That's why many of the individuals going on about making this story 'darker and edgier' also petitioned the dev team to let them retroactively alter the timeline and revive their favorite Amaurotians, during the last Q+A. The writers raised the stakes by killing off the characters that we really liked and you couldn't handle it, simple as.

It's not like individual characters need a new trauma every year to just to mollify the fanbase. Oh, no, Estinien hasn't been punished yet this expansion. Better get working on that. That's paint-by-numbers writing.

The events of 5.3 were never really about 'saving' G'raha from doom as it was about tying up loose ends and resolving a paradox of time travel. The time travel mechanics created two G'rahas in the same timeline. The bit about turning to stone just gave the writers an opportunity to merge them down into a single character. It didn't even create any real 'suspense' or 'tension', because it literally gets resolved in the next scene.

If youre going to engage in a debate,at least read every post. I like Thancred, i like estinien, i dont mind urianger, but i still would rather they face consequences and make the story realistic rather than continue to be filled with plot hole inducing plot armor.

It hasnt happened for 6 years. Theres a difference between 1 year and 6.You can assume all you want, but ive already destroyed most of your argument. Also... "we?" Youve made it pretty clear you dislike the ancients lol. Its not about handling it, its about fixing what horrible plot craters they left open, simple as.

[ThivraK]

The reason why it doesn't make sense for the audience to ask for specific character deaths it is intrinsically a conflict of interest. You're not trying to 'raise the stakes' as you loftily claim. It's about getting rid of a character that you dislike.

I like Shtola, yet I'd really prefer if she'd be written out, send her to the First to be with Runar
I like Thancred, who should've given his life for Ryne
I like Urianger, who could've done an Urianger thing and, of course, fool us once more, but this time at the cost of his life, maybe by mantling Zodiark or Venat to supress their powers