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

[CrownySuccubus]

Yeah, Occam's Razor suggests that that scene was yet another retcon, along side Venat's "faction" sundering the world to keep Zodiark in check, and Tempering being an intentional defect of the Ascian's design instead of what primals inherently do.

Because if this was Venat's own self-propaganda, the "I did this with the blessings of other like-minded Ancients who believed their brothers had gone too far" would have helped her case.

But yeah, the entire scene was just stupid. Like you said, it throws the Ancients under the bus to make Venat "right". If Elpis had done its job properly and actually made the Ancients feel "scary", like intended, that scene wouldn't have been necessary. But no, they had to try one last time to drive in the "Ancients bad" nail and it "succeeded" only by way of character assassination.

Elpis in general was just a disaster of writing. All of the flaws that exist in EW can be traced back to the decision to go there and then come up with some sort of plot device (Memory-Wiping Tech that only Hermes knows about/can use! How convenient!) to justify why the rest of FFXIV still happens.

[Brinne]

Because if this was Venat's own self-propaganda, the "I did this with the blessings of other like-minded Ancients who believed their brothers had gone too far" would have helped her case.

Ah, but if we had seen/been reminded that Venat had a number of supporters among the Ancients, that would have undermined her argument that the Ancients as a race were just incapable of change, all of them just too far gone. And it wouldn't have allowed us the tragic, powerful imagery of her standing all alone against the world and then wading by herself through its mire and plague.

It's less a retcon--the Q&A brought up Hydaelyn having a faction again, IIRC--but it is a very, very deliberately manipulative presentation. Hence, "propaganda" that I can't help but be, uh, pretty grossed out by.

Plus, the sundering happening after Elidibus had exited Zodiark to mediate is also a bad look. I can understand it from a strategic point, what better time to go after Zodiark than when he's sans pilot, but it's also implied they were in the middle of negotiations when she went on the attack.

JUSTICE FOR TH--[gunshot]

[KageTokage]

Ah, but if we had seen/been reminded that Venat had a number of supporters among the Ancients, that would have undermined her argument that the Ancients as a race were just incapable of change, all of them just too far gone. And it wouldn't have allowed us the tragic, powerful imagery of her standing all alone against the world and then wading by herself through its mire and plague.

It's less a retcon--the Q&A brought up Hydaelyn having a faction again, IIRC--but it is a very, very deliberately manipulative presentation. Hence, "propaganda" that I can't help but be, uh, pretty grossed out by.

That's probably the main reason why the live letter Q&As and following interviews just soured my opinion of Elpis further.

As much as they explained in an attempt to make the whole situation seem gray, the in-game presentation is deliberately skewed to make you only put much thought into Venat's perspective on things; to make you feel bad for her specifically for making a "difficult" decision instead of her people and friends she condemned with extremely questionable reasoning/logic.

After seeing several opinions on the matter, it became pretty obvious that it did succeed at making the majority only follow her perspective on things which is pretty...disappointing compared to Emet-Selch's take on the Sundering that comparatively seemed to make many actually consider both sides of the argument.

[Brinne]

I really doubt Themis is related to Venat, but on the remote chance he is, my ascension to maniacal chaos demon with accelerate a thousandfold. If Themis is her son/brother/what have you and Venat still did what she did to him, and we were truly expected to sympathize and side with her, we have transcended from "kinda bitterly funny in an ironic way" to full Fandaniel-ization farce comedy mode. Soon my hold over Zodiark shall be complete! Mine, all mine! Ahahahaha!

As much as they explained in an attempt to make the whole situation seem gray, the in-game presentation is deliberately skewed to make you only put much thought into Venat's perspective on things; to make you feel bad for her specifically for making a "difficult" decision instead of her people and friends she condemned with extremely questionable reasoning/logic.

I could write a lot of words about the narrative's choice to actually, in full sincerity, take the stance of "the real tragedy here is how much it hurts me to hurt you," but.

[CrownySuccubus]

I really doubt Themis is related to Venat, but on the remote chance he is, my ascension to maniacal chaos demon with accelerate a thousandfold. If Themis is her son/brother/what have you and Venat still did what she did to him, and we were truly expected to sympathize and side with her, we have transcended from "kinda bitterly funny in an ironic way" to full Fandaniel-ization farce comedy mode. Soon my hold over Zodiark shall be complete! Mine, all mine! Ahahahaha!



I could write a lot of words about the narrative's choice to actually, in full sincerity, take the stance of "the real tragedy here is how much it hurts me to hurt you," but.

That's Japanese philosophy 101. Japanese society emphasizes the suppression of self, whereupon one is not supposed to speak too much about how something makes themselves feel and instead, direct attention to how someone else feels. It's considered a taboo to even tell someone "No" outright; you always have to mince your words in phrases like "It would be difficult" or "I will put it under consideration" because telling someone "no" supposedly indicates how little you care that it hurts them.

Naturally, it's a system that is highly abusable, since Japan is also strictly hierarchical. Someone who is lower in social standing or in less of a unique position, always has to take the feelings of those above them in mind (and those equal to them, but that's a lesser concern). The constant emphasis on how Venat felt when she sundered the world and how Hermes felt when he...well, basically fisted the universe up its rectum...is a very Japanese thing. It's supposed to be like, "These were very respected and powerful people who held unique agency over every life on the star, so we should be respectful how difficult it must have been for them to do the very stupid things that they did."

[Brinne]

I'm not really sure how comfortable I am filing it away under "it's a Japanese thing" in this case. I understand the importance of cultural context when judging work, but I'd also want to be careful about blanket statements or essentialization of their culture, too. I certainly won't pretend to be an expert in it - but I can say that, I know that there are at least some JP fans who object to Venat on similar grounds as us, and that over way too many years of enjoying Japanese media, the dissonance/potentially cultural disconnect in this specific regard has very rarely hit me as egregiously as it has here. And this particular form of, to be blunt, abuse apologism, is hardly unfamiliar to the West.

[CrownySuccubus]

I'm not really sure how comfortable I am filing it away under "it's a Japanese thing" in this case. I understand the importance of cultural context when judging work, but I'd also want to be careful about blanket statements or essentialization of their culture, too. I certainly won't pretend to be an expert in it - but I can say that, I know that there are at least some JP fans who object to Venat on similar grounds as us, at least, and over way too many years of enjoying Japanese media, the dissonance/potentially cultural disconnect in this specific regard has very rarely hit me as egregiously as it has here. And this particular form of, to be blunt, abuse apologism, is hardly unfamiliar to the West.

But the thing is, every single aspect of Endwalker's story easily fits within the lens of Japanese values. The entire story is centered on "Mono no Aware" ("All things are impermanent"), which is a Japanese Zen Buddhist value which is central to much of its culture. Hermes' struggles with wondering why he doesn't fit in is also highly analogous to Japan's taboo about standing out or being too different. Venat's belief that life is about accepting suffering is analogous to the common Japanese mantra "It can't be helped", which is all about accepting that life sucks and is unfair, but it's "unfair for everybody", so you just learn to deal with it and not complain and just accept your lot in life. The Scions' constant speeches about learning to get through despair by forming "bonds with others" also conforms to Japan's communal culture.

In a vacuum, a lot of these things can definitely be found in other cultural mores (almost every society has some sort of lesson about family/community), but the cultural dissonance between what is often thought of as "good" in Japan versus the west is pretty noticeable by the number of people who are just outright confused by some of the logic posed in Endwalker's story.

[AziraSyuren]

That's Japanese philosophy 101. Japanese society emphasizes the suppression of self, whereupon one is not supposed to speak too much about how something makes themselves feel and instead, direct attention to how someone else feels. It's considered a taboo to even tell someone "No" outright; you always have to mince your words in phrases like "It would be difficult" or "I will put it under consideration" because telling someone "no" supposedly indicates how little you care that it hurts them.

Naturally, it's a system that is highly abusable, since Japan is also strictly hierarchical. Someone who is lower in social standing or in less of a unique position, always has to take the feelings of those above them in mind (and those equal to them, but that's a lesser concern). The constant emphasis on how Venat felt when she sundered the world and how Hermes felt when he...well, basically fisted the universe up its rectum...is a very Japanese thing. It's supposed to be like, "These were very respected and powerful people who held unique agency over every life on the star, so we should be respectful how difficult it must have been for them to do the very stupid things that they did."

Hear me out: Ancient society was heavily built around this idea and the first person we were shown who butted heads with it (Hermes) proceeded to go absolutely insane and doom their society and potentially the universe. I think part of the reason this flew over people's heads and/or fell flat is because we were never shown the true consequences of this outside of Hermes himself.

Instead, we were shown that it works, and were never even asked if we would want to live in a society like that because we were led to believe that the guy who had a problem with it was the crazy one and that everything was fine. Ancient society was too good for the story's own good.

Were we not shown that, it would've been easy to buy that the Ancients were supposed to be "scary." Literally all it would've taken is a few throwaway lines of dialogue at least, although it would've been preferable to spend more time showing us otherwise.

[Rulakir]

Instead, we were shown that it works, and were never even asked if we would want to live in a society like that because we were led to believe that the guy who had a problem with it was the crazy one and that everything was fine. Ancient society was too good for the story's own good.

This reminded me of a ridiculous comment I saw on Reddit calling Elpis a slaughterhouse. I thought, wow, must be nice to be so ignorant of what truly happens in slaughterhouses or in animal testing. Elpis was an absolute paradise for all creatures by comparison.



Truly a horror show.

[AziraSyuren]

That's probably the main reason why the live letter Q&As and following interviews just soured my opinion of Elpis further.

Yeah, I feel this too. The answers they gave in the Q&As showed that they could've written a much more interesting and less tonally dissonant story instead of doubling down on mommy vibes that get weirder and more uncomfortable the more you think about it. Like I said earlier, it's like how they put most of the things that made Zenos such an amazing character in side materials. They'll probably retroactively improve Elpis a lot in further side materials, but the damage is already done. Most people aren't gonna read those and aren't gonna listen to "no, here's why it's good, actually!" if the reasons for it being good aren't in the main story itself, even if they fully redeem it.