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

[Caurcas]

Embrace the Republic. Also Bozja started strong, but ended weak. The IVth became comically evil despite their stated goals. Misija is perhaps the angriest the writers have ever made me by trying to make her sympathetic and my character understand. That went out the window when she was flooding her trousers while betraying WoL and the Bozjans. Lyon was cool though, and Noah had potential but it was squandered. Sidenote, noticing alot of disappeared post in this thread.

[Lauront]

I'm mostly hoping it doesn't just end up being "good Garleans + the Eorzean alliance vs. bad Garleans" and that perhaps the people of provinces end up stirring up their own issues that need to be dealt with.

With Garlean influence weakened, other powers might intend to move in to fill the voids left behind and the provinces regaining their independence may not be an entirely good thing.

That's what I'm hoping.

[Rulakir]

Re: Elpis time travel

Personally, I considered it the only morally correct choice for me to try to avert the Final Days for the Ancients. The cost without an AU is a future that simply wouldn't come to be and I'm perfectly fine with that given the mess the sundering and rejoinings caused over the subsequent millennia. As far as an AU, well, this just exemplifies how much of a failure Venat's plan was. No WoL = Meteion is never defeated and Etheirys is destroyed. (I don't know how anyone rationalizes AU and time loops. More power to you if you can, but the mental gymnastics are too much for me.)

I don't know about EW memorability since most of my memories starting from Elpis aren't pleasant.

Re: SB

The main reason I didn't hate SB is because parts of the eastern half reminded me of Okami, a.k.a. the best game ever made. The journey itself left much to be desired. First of all, I hated Ilberd and I was irked to no end that we decided to give him everything he wanted, especially when the reasons why nobody had done so before hadn't changed. Secondly, neither Ala Mhigo or Doma had any hope of standing toe to toe with Garlemald. Were I to summarize my experience I'd say I traveled the world forcing people to do things they didn't want to do that were almost assuredly going to lead to their detriment. I was extremely uncomfortable badgering a bunch of farmers with pitchforks to stand up against magitek. Not to mention manipulating the Naadam to forcibly involve the people of the Steppe who previously had no quarrel with the Garleans. Both sides were also heavily reliant on the Scions and the WoL to the extent that I became their poster child for victory and I did not like being turned into a war mascot.

The story barely worked out only because Zenos didn't care/became obsessed with us and Elidibus was arguably incompetent. Had Varis or virtually anyone else been in charge both nations would've been crushed underfoot with Garlemald barely breaking a sweat. Then every reason why the people we talked to expressed they didn't want to fight would've come to fruition. While I didn't hate Lyse, her being promoted to Resistance leader due to familial ties while Raubahn was more qualified and still doing all of the work was nonsensical.

[tokinokanatae]

The thing that makes me especially laugh (bitterly) about SB in hindsight regarding the Naadam is that Werlyt postulates that the Empire is especially racist against Au Ra. Seems like a good idea to bring the potential wrath of a militarized super power against a people they especially loathe and would be humiliated to lose against. Guess it's a good thing they collapsed before something horrible could happen...

[KizuyaKatogami]

The thing that makes me especially laugh (bitterly) about SB in hindsight regarding the Naadam is that Werlyt postulates that the Empire is especially racist against Au Ra. Seems like a good idea to bring the potential wrath of a militarized super power against a people they especially loathe and would be humiliated to lose against. Guess it's a good thing they collapsed before something horrible could happen...

I thought it was only Valens that was that way. I don’t remember it being a thing that it was a widely felt thing that garleans were racist against them unless i’m just forgetting stuff.

[Brinne]

Hien is a bit of a mini-Venat to me in the sense of his likability and personal charisma being enough to paper over his, uh, rather questionable attitude and actions, as long as you don't think about it too hard. He's not actually important enough to be a serious issue for me overall, but whenever he shows up, it's more like a light-hearted "Oh! Look! It's Hien! He's terrible! Rope any uninvolved cultures into fighting your wars today, Hien?"

[KizuyaKatogami]

Hien is a bit of a mini-Venat to me in the sense of his likability and personal charisma being enough to paper over his, uh, rather questionable attitude and actions, as long as you don't think about it too hard. He's not actually important enough to be a serious issue for me overall, but whenever he shows up, it's more like a light-hearted "Oh! Look! It's Hien! He's terrible! Rope any uninvolved cultures into fighting your wars today, Hien?"

Ngl that’s partially why i like him. He isn’t some picture perfect character like the scions or venat. It adds a sense of realism of him not exactly making the best choices, and i don’t think the story paints him as some flawless monarch. Compare that to how some other characters are treated and..yeah i’ll take him over the others any day.

[Brinne]

Ngl that’s partially why i like him. He isn’t some picture perfect character like the scions or venat. It adds a sense of realism of him not exactly making the best choices, and i don’t think the story paints him as some flawless monarch. Compare that to how some other characters are treated and..yeah i’ll take him over the others any day.

Agree to disagree; I felt that the story painted Hien as basically 100% a good guy and a more or less perfect figure/role model as a leader (Lyse is inspired by him and all, Gosetsu is utterly devoted and this never changes, Yugiri is utterly devoted and this never changes, he's not personally held to account or is even particularly involved in the ugliness of Yotsuyu's backstory as we explore it; I don't remember a single time we express significant disagreement with he or his methods), and his actions re: the Nadaam and other things were never seriously questioned. He does have a very nice, smooth voice that is very easy on the ears, though, I'll give him that!

[Theodric]

It is a bit jarring that the 'good guys' are never held accountable for the same actions that they kill and enforce regime change over elsewhere but if I had things my way the game would either take a consistent stance across the board or ditch the preachy sophistry altogether.

[Lauront]

I'm willing to make an allowance for the fact that when dealing with state actors in such a setting that they can probably get their hands fairly bloody without their morals being brought into question. Again, it would be nice if you could express some of your views via your character to perhaps dispute it, but I think with Venat it's the sheer scale and extent of it that made it much harder for me to ignore.

By the by it's also why I find it funny when Yoshi tries to brush off Venat's or Hermes's mentality to "it's just an ancient thing, bruh...they're just so scary"... when multiple sundered characters pass rather similar judgements on the rest of mankind or make such decisions on similar bases.

The story barely worked out only because Zenos didn't care/became obsessed with us and Elidibus was arguably incompetent.

In what sense? Elidibus's goal is to usher in a calamity, which barring the time travel, he managed to do. I think the issues with Elidibus are more in a retrospective sense - i.e. given that we learnt he was a primal, why didn't he do x,y or z. However, at least until 4.5, he seemed to be moving rather cleverly; its Varis's agenda which was curtailed as a result. Technically speaking, if we remove the Exarch (re the kidnapping of the WoL) and Emet-Selch (5.3) from the equation, Elidibus would've succeeded in ending the WoL twice through his own methods. Or do you mean with the equilibrium shifting too far to light i.e. he let the WoL become a problem for them?