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

[CrownySuccubus]

I think the Thirteenth is the only shard worth visiting at this point. They could contrive a similar reason why we can only visit parts of it. The Void been part of the lore for far longer than any other shard. It would serve as a good balance to the First. I would feel happy and I think the world would feel reasonably complete if we went there and didn't bother to visit the other remaining shards.

We have actually been to the Thirteenth, though.

That's what the World of Darkness raid is. Maybe there is more of it to see, but we've definitely seen part of it.

[Rulakir]

Still, I could see that rectification becoming something to 'stop', sadly. Unless it were to take place over a long time frame...

Unfortunately. Although, the only reason it was 'necessary' to be able to interact with dynamis was because of Meteion who's no longer a threat. However, I wouldn't put it past them to write Venat as having known this. Given her concern for the shards appears to be little more than collateral damage, it could hint that she knew the sundering would be temporary.

Yes, had they not destroyed a number of stars in pushing the plotline they did, that may have been less of an issue. Now they've pretty much just got the reflections and maybe more distant stars.

I hadn't thought about it, but you're right. I'm not keen on visiting other planets that have nothing to do with Etheirys. It was different in WoW where Outland was integral to the history of Azeroth, but the only places I know of in FFXIV where that might be true would be the dragon star and possibly Omega, both of which were used in EW.

Narratively I think a natural rejoining would be very unlikely after they've staked so much on the value of the individual souls of each shard and that it would be a tragedy to lose them.

It depends on how it's written. More personal headcanon, but I like the idea that the aetherial sea between the Source and the shards is re-connected, so those who die on the shards end up funneled back to their original souls. Eventually, this leads to everyone being whole again and reborn on the Source.

I suppose I should've clarified I see this as a long process, not a sudden boom all 4-5 shards collide into the Source causing the calamity to end all calamities. The Ascians may have found a MO that worked through polarization necessary to break through the barrier, but without that being the case now it might just be a slow trickle of aether from each one back to the Source that takes ages to even be noticeable. Probably starting with things like reduced magical ability and eventually lifespans. Once everyone's funneled back to the Source, by the time the shard fully rejoins there likely wouldn't have been anyone living on it for years due to the decreased aether. All just speculation though. :P

[Sicno]

From what I recall from the FSH quests it's not that the aether currents are "correcting themselves to a previous state", it was that the aether released with Zodiark's death caused a surge of aether in the currents and affected the fishes. And we need to give him a pre-Zodiark fish to compare the differences in aether levels.

But I may be wrong, it's been a while.

Speaking of the Studium quests, I think my favorite story in this entire expansion (MSQ included) has to be about making bread.

[kpxmanifesto]

snip

IMO, I don't think the writers were anywhere near the level of elaboration as you make it out to be. We can speculate about whether the writers truly sought to address things like morality, paradise, despair, etc., but to me, having all the events play out as they did despite the WoL traveling back in time and revealing the future to the ancients feels like the writers were just going through the motions and trying to complete the story without spending too much extra time on it. If the sundering didn't happen or the circumstances surrounding the sundering were changed somehow, the writers would have to deal with an altered timeline or a multi-verse timeline like MCU, and it would be significantly more work. To be completely honest, the fact that we have to speculate about different characters' intentions and the story on an internet forum is further testament that the writers did a poor job at explaining things. We're seeking to fill the story in with our own thoughts and ideas because the writers failed to do so.

[CrownySuccubus]

IMO, I don't think the writers were anywhere near the level of elaboration as you make it out to be. We can speculate about whether the writers truly sought to address things like morality, paradise, despair, etc., but to me, having all the events play out as they did despite the WoL traveling back in time and revealing the future to the ancients feels like the writers were just going through the motions and trying to complete the story without spending too much extra time on it. If the sundering didn't happen or the circumstances surrounding the sundering were changed somehow, the writers would have to deal with an altered timeline or a multi-verse timeline like MCU, and it would be significantly more work. To be completely honest, the fact that we have to speculate about different characters' intentions and the story on an internet forum is further testament that the writers did a poor job at explaining things. We're seeking to fill the story in with our own thoughts and ideas because the writers failed to do so.

I don't really think I said anything elaborate. There was a definite, deliberate effort to make the Ancients more morally-grey. That's obvious the instant you reach Elpis, and the Ancients start calling you "it" and telling you to kill butterflies to make new clothes. I recall at the time thinking it was weird that Hythlodeus claims the WOL was "shocked" by how coldly they transformed the butterflies into clothes. I didn't understand why the hell the WOL would even care, given the number of "Go kill X creatures and bring back Y parts" fetch quests we commonly get sent on. It started to make "sense" when the rest of the Elpis story thread started highlighting how nonchalant the Ancients were to death; especially that of constructs. It even became the central axis of Hermes' motivation, and thus the impetus of the entire FFXIV saga. It's pretty clear that casting a new, morally-grey light on the Ancients was a deliberate focus of the writers.

Like I said, they just did it in such a heavy-handed way that they turned around to actually making them morally "dark". We are clearly meant to see them as flat out wrong, and this is only furthered by the fact that Deka-hepta was stated by the devs to be where Eitheirys was headed before the Sundering.

[HollowedDoll]

I don't really think I said anything elaborate. There was a definite, deliberate effort to make the Ancients more morally-grey. That's obvious the instant you reach Elpis, and the Ancients start calling you "it" and telling you to kill butterflies to make new clothes.

Morrally-grey to whom? Twitter people? As if nobody ever called an animal an it, or wore leather clothing.

[kpxmanifesto]

snip

Sure, it could've been an effort to paint the ancients as morally grey. But from my perspective, I thought that the game director's intention was to really drive home the point that Elpis and its occupants are scientists that experiment with living organisms, and not necessarily to portray the entire ancients civilization as morally grey.


Edit:

I don't really think I said anything elaborate.

It's probably not elaborate for you, but for the writing team that worked on EW? Yeah, it just might be.

[CrownySuccubus]

Sure, it could've been an effort to paint the ancients as morally grey. But from my perspective, I thought that the game director's intention was to really drive home the point that Elpis and its occupants are scientists that experiment with living organisms, and not necessarily to portray the entire ancients civilization as morally grey.

There's no "could have" here. We are flat out told several times that the society of the Ancients was not the paradise they thought it was. Hermes has an existential breakdown wondering why he's the only one who sees the flaws while he demonstrably shows that his comrades are way too quick to give up on living beings. We're treated to a major cutscene when Venat tries to convince her fellow Ancients that they can't ignore suffering, only for them to disregard her, and force her to sunder the world so that mankind can know suffering and overcome it.

And, as I mentioned, we have the devs outright telling us that one of the doomed planets we saw was exactly where the Ancients were heading if they ever achieved the "perfection" they craved.

If you see all this and think "well, I don't see how they were intentionally painting them as morally-grey", then I don't know what to tell you.

It's probably not elaborate for you, but for the writing team that worked on EW? Yeah, it just might be.

This is high-school-book-report levels of theming. It's not elaborate. Hell, the one guy who wrote Attack on Titan created an entire narrative expressing themes of defeat, isolation and kyriarchy. Endwalker was written by a team of writers, who had two full versions and four expansions to draw material from, not to mention other games in a billion-dollar franchise.

It's not that elaborate.

[PawPaw]

I recall at the time thinking it was weird that Hythlodeus claims the WOL was "shocked" by how coldly they transformed the butterflies into clothes.

This was so strange to me as well, I remember thinking "...OK? Thanks for the robe, man!" It was so awkward that this was clearly meant to be a moment where the writers assumed I'd be horrifically offended; but I wasn't at all, nor did I think that my character, who murders animals all of the time for FUN and PROFIT would be rattled in any way. She definitely would not be be judging others for it. I was also obviously supposed to be utterly offended at being called a "thing" but again, who the hell cares? To them I was a creature unlike any they had ever seen before. I look nothing like them or the humans they know, not even like any familiars they know, so there's no reason for them to see me as anything but an unusual entity. The attempts to move me to Twitter levels of outrage over the way the Ancients viewed life were clumsy as shit.

[Lauront]

To me, it's morally grey if they expect us to suspend all critical thinking abilities and not look at how the sundered, or humans for that matter, kill lesser creatures for much less. I don't doubt that they were, to some extent, pushing this idea that they're not "perfect", although whatever the intention, even with all that in mind, the ancients are about as close as a species can come to it, IMO.

This was so strange to me as well, I remember thinking "...OK? Thanks for the robe, man!" It was so awkward that this was clearly meant to be a moment where the writers assumed I'd be horrifically offended; but I wasn't at all, nor did I think that my character, who murders animals all of the time for FUN and PROFIT would be rattled in any way. She definitely would not be be judging others for it. I was also obviously supposed to be utterly offended at being called a "thing" but again, who the hell cares? To them I was a creature unlike any they had ever seen before. I look nothing like them or the humans they know, not even like any familiars they know, so there's no reason for them to see me as anything but an unusual entity. The attempts to move me to Twitter levels of outrage over the way the Ancients viewed life were clumsy as shit.

I mean I was doing the sidequests on a reaper, with an avatar sidekick that devours the souls of beings for fuel, and did the main quests with a relic weapon forged from crystallised misery, having routinely partaken in the outdoors slaughterfests known as fates. At this point, if they're expecting me to take the character's "shock" seriously, it just paints them as delusional.