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

[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.

[kpxmanifesto]

There's no "could have" or "or" 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 foce 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.

Yeah, I still don't really see it. Remember we've only actually interacted with a few ancients, and ones that worked as scientists. That's a very small sample size. The ancients are an entire civilization and we've only seen a very small fraction of them.

This is high-school-book-report levels of theming.

What, like the endwalker story?

[CrownySuccubus]

Yeah, I still don't really see it. Remember we've only actually interacted with a few ancients, and ones that worked as scientists. That's a very small sample size. The ancients are an entire civilization and we've only seen a very small fraction of them.

Hermes specifically says that their entire society is like this. He felt this way long before he came to Elpis, furthermore, neither Emet-Selch nor Hythlodeus are scientists. Nor are the guys who want to sacrifice the non-Ancient lifeforms to Zodiark.

We are outright shown that being a scientist has nothing to do with this mentality.

What, like the endwalker story?

I mean...yes?

[KizuyaKatogami]

Hermes specifically says that their entire society is like this. He felt this way long before he came to Elpis, furthermore, neither Emet-Selch nor Hythlodeus are scientists. Nor are the guys who want to sacrifice the non-Ancient lifeforms to Zodiark.

We are outright shown that being a scientist has nothing to do with this mentality.



I mean...yes?

Hermes himself was flawed, as he thinks hes the only one with these feelings yet if he literally walked out of his huge doors and talked to people he would realize other people share his sentiments. As for the whole Venat scene....She confronted them after the final days had already hit, when she had the knowledge to potentially avert it altogether. She tries to preach to them that they need to learn suffering yet we know via side quests that the ancients did suffer countless times,including the final days itself.They didnt force her to sunder the world, she did that of her own free will, for not believing in her own people and not practicing what she preached about nothing is impossible and to not give up hope. Afaik, the devs didnt outright say the ancients were heading for the end that the dead ends people were, just that thats what Venat thinks and they were "probably" heading that way.

[kpxmanifesto]

Hermes specifically says that their entire society is like this. He felt this way long before he came to Elpis, furthermore, neither Emet-Selch nor Hythlodeus are scientists. Nor are the guys who want to sacrifice the non-Ancient lifeforms to Zodiark.

We are outright shown that being a scientist has nothing to do with this mentality.

I mean, sure, it's definitely a possibility. How's Hermes to know that information though? That dude is just another scientist. Emet and Hythlodaeus are already familiar with Elpis so it's not too hard to imagine that they became desensitized to these sort of things. Are the guys sacrificing non-Ancient lifeforms truly morally gray though? I'd do the same if it meant saving the entire civilization.

[CrownySuccubus]

I mean, sure, it's definitely a possibility. How's Hermes to know that information though? That dude is just another scientist. Emet and Hythlodaeus are already familiar with Elpis so it's not too hard to imagine that they became desensitized to these sort of things. Are the guys sacrificing non-Ancient lifeforms truly morally gray though? I'd do the same if it meant saving the entire civilization.

Again, I'm saying that the story presents as morally-grey. Like I said about the butterflies, it comes across as weird that our WOL is stated to be "shocked" by their callous attitude towards death. And this comes up again when they are explaining to the WOL about the concept of returning to the star. Hyth and Emet treat it like it's no big deal, Hermes becomes depressed about it, and Venat dodges the question when one of her fellow Ancients asks about when she'll finally do it, and then tells you that she probably never will. We're also told that returning to the star when one's purpose is fulfilled is seen as normal by the Ancients, and a choice to be celebrated. They said this applies to their society as a whole, not just scientists.

It's not unique to social media, though the world is a big place and not everybody is interested in entertaining the demands of those who ordinarily would never even interact with them in any way, shape or form if not for the presence of social media.

People have always cared about the scrutiny of other people, even if they never met them. As I stated, the fact that things such as the Cult of Domesticity, the Victorian Age moral system and other things exist demonstrates that people don't need to directly interact with other people to form opinions.

Also, Hermes wasn't always a scientist. Ancients clearly have children and live in more residential areas.

[kpxmanifesto]

Again, I'm saying that the story presents as morally-grey...We're also told that returning to the star when one's purpose is fulfilled is seen as normal by the Ancients, and a choice to be celebrated. They said this applies to their society as a whole, not just scientists.

I see. Yeah, I suppose that's an interesting analysis about how they could be seen as morally grey. Why is fulfilling one's purpose and returning to the star perceived as morally grey?