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

[aveyond-dreams]

Ok anyway so maybe let's stop with the "philosophical" antagonists based off whatever it was they were trying to do and get back to people who are actually interesting and entertaining. I found the militaristic dictators and scheming manipulators like Varis, Emet, and even Thordan a lot better than "oh, there are really no clear antagonists!" thing they did in Endwalker.

[CrownySuccubus]

Ok anyway so maybe let's stop with the "philosophical" antagonists based off whatever it was they were trying to do and get back to people who are actually interesting and entertaining. I found the militaristic dictators and scheming manipulators like Varis, Emet, and even Thordan a lot better than "oh, there are really no clear antagonists!" thing they did in Endwalker.

Emet was an example of "there are really no clear antagonists". The fact that he actually had a good point (before EW tried to erase most of it) was one of the reasons he was so popular.

Likewise, when discussing HW, the antagonist most people remember is Nidhogg who, again, was someone who wasn't a clear black-and-white antagonist. On the other hand, the Garlean villains like Gaius, Varis, and Zenos have at best met with lukewarm reception.

If anything, I think the misstep here was trying to maintain a "gray" morality while also trying to state that there is one, objective way to deal with oblivion. Those two things are not compatible, because by definition, oblivion is the blackest possible morality, and thus whatever defeats it is being called the "whitest".

[Skyborne]

Ok anyway so maybe let's stop with the "philosophical" antagonists based off whatever it was they were trying to do and get back to people who are actually interesting and entertaining. I found the militaristic dictators and scheming manipulators like Varis, Emet, and even Thordan a lot better than "oh, there are really no clear antagonists!" thing they did in Endwalker.

Definitely on my list of 'things that Endwalker brings out in people' is the notion that liking the story or certain characters in EW makes you a super deep philosopher-king, and anyone who didn't like the story or whatever aspects of it is some knuckle-dragging trog pleb who just didn't understand it and never picked up a philosophy book in your life. Yeah, I get it, the "villain" was the abstract concept of despair. Amazing, clapclapclapclappityclap. If you liked it you liked it, no need to swaddle yourself in some sort of "I am very smart" security blanket. Might be rose-tinted glasses but I don't recall this sort of thing in HW or StB. A bit in ShB, but not at such a fever pitch.

Would've thought that the Q&A with the writers going "wow, I didn't think you guys would think about this so deeply" and admitting they often wrote stuff as they went along/improvised would've silenced a lot of it, but it continues. And then, on the other side, you have the extreme "don't think about the story of this story-driven game that gets endlessly praised for the story, okay, turn your brain off".