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

[aveyond-dreams]

When Thancred discovered the reflections would be abandoned, that would have been the perfect moment for him to show some backbone and aggressively lose his mind in protest. Full on Jack Garland. Instead, he just stood there and took it. A common trend we're seeing these days, I know.

In any case, the true "messiah" of the game was in fact Elidibus/Zodiark despite his monstrous appearance. Venat may have stubbornly believed her way was the only way inline with her supreme arrogance but rather than casting her down as quite literally a fallen angel whose pride damned all humanity, it's just a "trial of wills!" and then we move on to the full on hope vs. despair nonsense in Ultima Thule.

Please have the cast react like human beings and stop subverting expectations for the sake of subverting expectations.

[Skyborne]

When Thancred discovered the reflections would be abandoned, that would have been the perfect moment for him to show some backbone and aggressively lose his mind in protest. Full on Jack Garland. Instead, he just stood there and took it. A common trend we're seeing these days, I know.

In any case, the true "messiah" of the game was in fact Elidibus/Zodiark despite his monstrous appearance. Venat may have stubbornly believed her way was the only way inline with her supreme arrogance but rather than casting her down as quite literally a fallen angel whose pride damned all humanity, it's just a "trial of wills!" and then we move on to the full on hope vs. despair nonsense in Ultima Thule.

Please have the cast react like human beings and stop subverting expectations for the sake of subverting expectations.

When I got to the Moon with the Watcher basically admitting that yes, Hydaelyn did constantly lie about basically everything... but it was for a good cause! I immediately just pictured my WoL going "bullshit" and walking away... or interrupting the guy. In fact I got up from my seat and did just that, because my nodding lobotomized tool of a self-insert would not.

Anyway, the real lesson here is that you suck and deserve to go extinct unless you go through a convoluted and specific series of events and impress/suck up to the right giga-narcissist who holds the shiny keys.

[Brinne]

When I got to the Moon with the Watcher basically admitting that yes, Hydaelyn did constantly lie about basically everything... but it was for a good cause!

Man, my "most Venat-friendly" friend actually immediately said when that came up: "Um, isn't that exactly Thordan's logic? And at the time he was bad for it?" And then we joked a while about how Ilberd is clearly Hydaelyn's real Warrior of Light, because he aligns with her ideology and her methods perfectly, and furthermore, Ilberd Feare has probably won harder than any other FFXIV character ever has, in the long run.

Then I started vaguely thinking about how Hydaelyn and her motivations were, in fact, a weird amalgamation of all major FFXIV villains up until that point (save maybe Nidhogg?), only with those traits framed now as being "good". The rabbit hole deepens. My steps towards full Fandaniel-ization hastens.

[CrownySuccubus]

When Thancred discovered the reflections would be abandoned, that would have been the perfect moment for him to show some backbone and aggressively lose his mind in protest. Full on Jack Garland. Instead, he just stood there and took it. A common trend we're seeing these days, I know.

Umm, but he already knew. He asked the Watcher what would happened to the reflections and the Watcher confirms that they would also be destroyed. Then, just before they leave the moon, the Scions have already made up their minds that their primary focus is going to be on stopping the Final Days than running from it. Thancred flat out asks you to talk to Ryne before you go look for Elidibus and to tell her the truth and ask for her insights. She likewise gives you her blessing to focus on stopping the Final Days and says she believes in all of you. Thancred having a temper tantrum because the First would be abandoned would be redundant to what we'd already established and, furthermore, would have been absolutely pointless because there's no way for anyone except the Ascians and the WOL to travel between the worlds anyway.

But it literally gets rid of any nuance the scions had in ShB. Yshtola was skeptical of Hydaelyn,Thancred fought so much to save Ryne, yet here we are in EW, there’s no more skepticism of Hydaelyn from Yshtola, Thancred is somehow fine with a plan that would end in Ryne being killed, he says nothing about Minfilia being used as a vessel for hydaelyn and thrown away, and apparently everyone is fine with Krile serving as another vessel as well? Like come on now, this is 100% maximum bias towards Hydaelyn.

Minfilia chose to sacrifice herself to save the first. Krile flat out says multiple times that she chose to be used on the occasions Hydaelyn did it.

Again, I don't like Hydaelyn in EW either, but you guys are reaching too hard to find things to be angry about.

Both Elder Primals ended up being fought and killed, though.

Both out of unfortunate necessity, though. I'm not against the fact that you had to fight and kill the elder primals. I would have been against yet another "Only Mankind is the true arbiter of morality and destiny!" message.

We learn that Zodiark did nothing wrong and was falsely painted as a villain. The Scions didn't even bother trying to defend him in any meaningful capacity and despite it being revealed that Zodiark was the true saviour of both past and present Etheirys, he's barely mentioned again.

Teaming up with the demonic looking guy who is actually benevolent would have been more satisfying to me than being forced to stick with the delusional self proclaimed 'supreme deity' who slaughtered her own people.

I mean, Zodiark was a skin suit for Fandaniel the one time you see him, soooo....

[Theodric]

Both out of unfortunate necessity, though. I'm not against the fact that you had to fight and kill the elder primals. I would have been against yet another "Only Mankind is the true arbiter of morality and destiny!" message.

...but that's exactly what we ended up getting, though. Shadowbringers was presented as a battle between two opposing heroes seeking to safeguard their respective people and continue their existence. With the position Venat had put them both in, only one could emerge victorious. Endwalker decided to try and subvert that by pushing the idea that the Ancients deserved to be subjected to genocide because a nutty, unhinged individual decided to condemn them to endure the Final Days and when they didn't react how she wanted them to (with no attempt to tell them what she was worried about) she then opted to murder them all.

I mean, Zodiark was a skin suit for Fandaniel the one time you see him, soooo....

Putting aside the simple fact that he didn't need to be merely a 'skin suit' the game will insist on non-entities such as Meteion, Alpha and Omega as being treated as living, breathing beings...so there was really no reason for the story to break those established rules for Zodiark. He was a being simply awaiting new orders from Elidibus but was performing the task of keeping Etheirys safe in the process.

Furthermore, he had countless Ancient souls held within him. We get a brief scene where they try to speak to the player character but they're quickly silenced. I felt that was missed potential - and sacrificing something inherently more engaging than a lengthy, unskippable cutscene involving G'raha eating a burger or Venat's WW2 style manifesto about why the Ancients supposedly needed to be wiped out for their own good.

[Rulakir]

Meanwhile the team that brought us Heavensward is still locked into FFXVI which shows no signs of coming out anytime soon, so no one knows when they'll be back if at all.

I would have so much more hype for 7.0 if I knew Maehiro wrote the outline and/or would be returning as the MSQ writer.

Shadowbringers was presented as a battle between two opposing heroes seeking to safeguard their respective people and continue their existence. With the position Venat had put them both in, only one could emerge victorious.

This part is still so unforgivably sadistic to me. As if the fact that Venat sundering Azem, her protege, wasn't bad enough, she spares Emet, then knowingly pits the two against each other in a fight to the death. Once again, why in TF would I trust the person not only responsible for ending my original incarnation by splitting my soul asunder, but knowingly guiding me to the point that I had to kill one of the people who was dearest to me (and vice versa)? Frankly, on a psychological level, it's worse than any other antagonist in the game has done.