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

[KizuyaKatogami]

There's a difference between intent to portray something as negatively, from an author's perspective, versus the execution of that portrayal and whether it actually aligns with the manifested details within the writing. There is actually no question that the writers were hoping/anticipating we'd be disturbed by aspects of the Ancient society. We weren't, and many of us, for many reasons described, found the methods they used to achieve that either ineffective, unconvincing, or actually doing the opposite in making their society more appealing. So I feel like people are sort of having two different arguments here.

In that long Famitsu interview, there's a bit that wasn't translated directly where Yoshida actually goes into how he thought players would leave Elpis thinking the Ancient society was "scary" - listing all the reasons he figured they'd be a little disturbing - but that instead, most people came away with thinking they were just "good people" instead.

This has me so curious on what exactly was supposed to be scary in regards to them. It cant be their treatment of creations because the sundered are far worse in that regard. Cant be the whole relinquishing their title and returning to the lifestream because they viewed short lived lives as sad and tragic.

[Brinne]

Roughly, from the interview (I want to emphasize again that my Japanese is not great, so please, anyone feel free to smack me if I'm getting something drastically wrong), what he lists is: seeing the "return to the star" as beautiful, taking it upon themselves to create beings even with souls, feeling it's better to erase creations that are slightly flawed. He thought all of these would paint a picture that was "very scary," but acknowledges that that isn't what happened among the playerbase.

[Theodric]

I'm just not sure what is meant to be 'scary' about the Ancients when compared to people canonically being at risk of being eaten by monsters the moment they leave the safety of a settlement. For slavers to be actively kidnapping people and selling them. For a race of people typically unable to wield aether being persecuted and forced out of fertile lands and forced to live in the bleak, frozen wastes to the north. For poachers to hunt species to actual or near extinction.

There's numerous examples of the Sundered being far crueller and more callous than the Ancients. I rather suspect that the original plan was to have Venat consider the Sundered to be a failed experiment and try to Sunder them again - because they in no way passed the ridiculous 'test' she sought to enforce on them. Nothing they achieved was done without significant outside aid and with that in mind...she could have just had a conversation with the Convocation back in the Ancient world to attempt to resolve the Meteion predicament.

I am just as baffled by this as I was at hearing that he was surprised at people liking Emet-Selch while not liking Hermes and that being something he couldn't wrap his head around.

Given that he was also confused by people wanting stubble for male characters...I honestly believe he isn't getting any meaningful feedback from the official forum.

[Ixon]

There's numerous examples of the Sundered being far crueller and more callous than the Ancients.

Curious for curious sake, was there any sort of written or spoken proof that the Ancients were not prone to as malicious or cruel intentions as the sundered? I assume that just because we did not get a side quest where someone in Elpis tried to rob you or sell your organs doesn't mean all of Etheirys was innocent? We know that in Elpis specifically, if we considered all creations to be "life" some of their actions could be seen as "cruel" akin to things like animal testing(not exactly the same realm, but the closest thing I could relate it too). There were obviously laws and for those laws there must have been people breaking them. Even Hesperos in Pandemonium for all we know(so far) could be a more evil or cynical Ancient. Perhaps this was their thought of trying to present the Ancients as "scary" as possible without going too far off the deep end? just speculation for fun.

[CrownySuccubus]

This has me so curious on what exactly was supposed to be scary in regards to them. It cant be their treatment of creations because the sundered are far worse in that regard. Cant be the whole relinquishing their title and returning to the lifestream because they viewed short lived lives as sad and tragic.

Again, given that the game has the WOL specifically question the Ancients on both of those points, I believe that those were exactly what we were supposed to find "scary". They went out of their way to have our PC react in a specific way, with no regard for how the player would actually react or whether the narrative leading up to it was cohesive.

As I said, the moment Hyth said my WOL was "shocked" by how he killed butterflies to make my robes, it brought me out of the story and made me wonder what the hell he was talking about. I've murdered hundreds of things just to sell their body parts.

[Skyborne]

Again, given that the game has the WOL specifically question the Ancients on both of those points, I believe that those were exactly what we were supposed to find "scary". They went out of their way to have our PC react in a specific way, with no regard for how the player would actually react or whether the narrative leading up to it was cohesive.

As I said, the moment Hyth said my WOL was "shocked" by how he killed butterflies to make my robes, it brought me out of the story and made me wonder what the hell he was talking about. I've murdered hundreds of things just to sell their body parts.

My lvl 90 LTW WoL: "Wow, very efficient! Cutting out the middleman."

[Lauront]

My lvl 90 LTW WoL: "Wow, very efficient! Cutting out the middleman."

The other one that comes to mind is that NY fate with the sentient mochi, where it's summarily put to death... and the Allagan chimera in Azys Lla that's growing too smart, so it apparently has to be put down. There's countless instances of this stuff, but for a character that normally butchers just about everything in sight with little question, the butterfly thing is a comparative nothing-burger, so I can see what CrownySuccubus means by them trying to push the idea of it through that reaction, irrespective of how much (or rather, little) sense it actually makes.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Again, given that the game has the WOL specifically question the Ancients on both of those points, I believe that those were exactly what we were supposed to find "scary". They went out of their way to have our PC react in a specific way, with no regard for how the player would actually react or whether the narrative leading up to it was cohesive.

As I said, the moment Hyth said my WOL was "shocked" by how he killed butterflies to make my robes, it brought me out of the story and made me wonder what the hell he was talking about. I've murdered hundreds of things just to sell their body parts.

Yeah i see what you mean now, i mean just look at the Uldah coliseum. Literally killing wild animals for entertainment and sport. Or the diadem where one of the animals there is referenced to have almost gone extinct due to the mass amount of killings done by the "adventurers"(aka us)