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

[Brinne]

I mean, it's literally the entire point of Endwalker.

What the Ancients were doing was dying, and the expansion's narrative theme was how precious it was to keep living, no matter what.

This just caught my eye, apologies. It's sort of odd when you consider "Flow," as described by Ishikawa, as a song about gently accepting death, and part of Meteion's answer as the song of hope to the universe. Endwalker is a very strange expansion, huh.

EDIT:

Seriously? Ugh. I know this thread is somewhat infamous now for being 200+ pages of EW criticism. I can only hope they have someone on the team reading it.

Well, if nothing else, again, he acknowledges outright in that interview that the audience had a very different reaction than the one he anticipated re: Hermes and Ancient society, and the tone on Venat in the Q&A was very different from the one in the game. Mistakes of execution versus intent in writing happen - I think the question is how they adapt to that disconnect going forward.

[Lauront]

This just caught my eye, apologies. It's sort of odd when you consider "Flow," as described by Ishikawa, as a song about gently accepting death, and part of Meteion's answer as the song of hope to the universe. Endwalker is a very strange expansion, huh.

EDIT:



Well, if nothing else, again, he acknowledges outright in that interview that the audience had a very different reaction than the one he anticipated re: Hermes and ancient society, and the tone on Venat in the Q&A was very different from the one in the game. Mistakes of execution versus intent in writing happen - I think the question is how they adapt to that disconnect going forward.

It does have me wondering if there were potentially conflicting perspectives or sentiments that went into writing the ancients, in all honesty, particularly because the sidequests almost fill in a narrative gap which goes to some length to humanise them more, almost picking up where Amaurot and its shades left off. I have to wonder if there was a divergence here in Ishikawa's sentiments on the matter, and Yoshi's. Very much second your closing statement.

[Rulakir]

I have to wonder if there was a divergence here in Ishikawa's sentiments on the matter, and Yoshi's.

I've said since the beginning that EW does not feel like the spiritual successor of ShB. It truly seems like someone told Ishikawa that Venat/Hydaelyn needed to be good and everything had to be rewritten to the extent of throwing Ancient society as a whole under the bus to make the her and the sundering seem more justifiable. There's also the issue that Ishikawa thought she'd have 1-2 more expansions to develop the story and instead was having to rewrite it up until 2 days before the deadline.

As far as I know, it's Ishikawa, Oda, and Yoshi-P who work on the story? I don't know enough about Oda. Yoshi-P's history of being confused by audience reaction isn't confidence building though.

Edit: I've never understood humanity's obsession with life. Natural selection doesn't exist for us, if someone born is capable of life then we will force them to live even if they will be unable of doing anything without assistance, if someone is dying they must be kept alive until they absolutely can't anymore even if they're barely functional and in indescribable amounts of pain. No other creature is treated this way. We euthanize animals for far less and consider it a kindness. Humans are expected to grab hold of and appreciate every second of life whether they want to or not and, if they don't want to, it must be because they're mentally ill.

[Brinne]

Edit: I've never understood humanity's obsession with life. Natural selection doesn't exist for us, if someone born is capable of life then we will force them to live even if they will be unable of doing anything without assistance, if someone is dying they must be kept alive until they absolutely can't anymore even if they're barely functional and in indescribable amounts of pain. No other creature is treated this way. We euthanize animals for far less and consider it a kindness. Humans are expected to grab hold of and appreciate every second of life whether they want to or not and, if they don't want to, it must be because they're mentally ill.

I, for one, as someone unable to live and do many activities without assistance, fully intend to keep living and, furthermore, posting, until all are converted to the following of appreciating Zenos. \o/

(Zenos is not even my favorite character. Emet-Selch is. This is a meaningless joke. ...maybe it's a joke. Maybe.)