Quote Originally Posted by vormela View Post
The entire story leading up to Ultima Thule--including the part in Labyrinthos that focused on survival (the things people need to get by) before making meaning of life--had me reading the journey more as a mental exercise in what it means to live and the metaphysical rather than "I hope no one dies."

We had been propelled there by the hopes and dreams (AKA THE PRIMALS) of all of the planet's civilizations.

We had been piloted there by magical bunnies blessed with the divine gift of interplanetary travel (this device "felt" a lot like how porxies--flying pigs--were the solution to tempering...absurd but so charming, as it can be argued most of the magic of undoing tempering came from being cared for by another person and so rather like a placebo effect...similar to the soup in Garlemald...or the hot cocoa in Coerthas... but they all "work" because they give the person's life meaning...they signify something).

We go through allegorical death in Endwalker in so many ways. As soon as Emet-Selch started narrating and Venat appeared on the ship with us, I was mourning characters who had been lost ALREADY. Mainly the player-character, who has no memory before the first time we log in. The whole arc about Kairos was specifically painful because it made you realize what it feels like to not be remembered. That was the loss Emet-Selch felt for so many lifetimes.

I don't know how the stakes aren't high when they bring out a memory wiper after your character pals around with Hythlodaeus and the Ancients. And that is AFTER meeting him in purgatory and realizing he doesn't remember you (because you only talked to a shade of him in Amaurot). I don't think they had to kill anyone off to raise the urgency and stakes. To focus on that is ignoring the intricacies of the storytelling.
by intricacies do you mean massive plot holes and theme contradictions?