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

[Nekokaori]

They didn't sunder the world, that was all Venat. And they didn't, or rather couldn't come up with a counter to Meteion because they had absolutely no idea that Meteion existed or what was causing the Final Days. Only Venat knew that and she wasn't sharing.

she did, she could have told her friends and saved everyone.. she act like a good friend to both of them and those around her it makes 0 sense what so ever she didnt even try and just accepted the path...

THink about this okay, what if someone connected to you showed up and told you something bad was going to happan around u effecting all those you care about everything around.. Would u accept this as a fact or would u get help from your friends and send out a party to deal with the issue..


Not only does it show vanet is a horrible person, but it also shows her as an uncaring friend. Not even counting how that doesnt suit her character which is why its bad writing.

She had the power, the tools and the knowledge to deal with before her people end before zodiark was even a thought .. she was shown in the light to be that kind of person yet she did nothing but sit on her fat ass with a thump up it accepting everything she learned and didn't even mention it to her so called friends

[Xirean]

They didn't sunder the world, that was all Venat. And they didn't, or rather couldn't come up with a counter to Meteion because they had absolutely no idea that Meteion existed or what was causing the Final Days. Only Venat knew that and she wasn't sharing.

That's basically the summed up reason people don't like her. She refused to give them a fighting chance. If we were shown them trying to stop Meteion and failing then we get our go, I'd feel a lot better about the story, but the forced time loop bit really just doesn't work when we have a giant crystal building and a red cat boi to show that time loops don't have to exist.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Honestly i was thinking today. I remember seeing quite a few posters back around the end of ShB bashing and hating on Mitron for wanting to have Loghrif back and getting rid of her memories etc. But it’s just so incredibly baffling to me that those same people who hate mitron for wanting to get rid of her memories are the ones praising and worshipping Venat who did that exact thing but on a much grander scale. Just another set of double standards i suppose.

[Caurcas]

Overall, I think the Endwalker plot issues can be summarized as three root causes: 1) Emet-Selch\\'s breakout status, 2) the desire to "subvert expectations" and 3) pandering to the players\\' sense of Power Fantasy:

Point 1: The entire Elpis storyline felt sloppy, IMO, because the writers wanted to milk Emet for fanservice. They know that he was the most popular thing about ShB, and fans reacted positively to Emet showing up to save you from Elidibus. So, more Emet is no-brainer, right? Thus, an entire story thread where you get to interact with the real Emet-Selch, and constantly get pounded what a tragedy it is for such a good man to turn into a villain.

Point 2: The story could have made either Zodiark, Hydaelyn or both the villains. They\\'ve been hinting since ShB that there was no real "good" or "evil" between the two, so they really could have gone anywhere. But, they added a third element in ShB (a mysterious sound that caused the Final Days) and decided to make that the main villain. So we wind up with Zodiark, the big villain they\\'ve been hyping since ARR, dying first. Then Hydaelyn, the other side of the conflict, dying second. That means we now have to focus on the final "true" villain that only gets introduced in this expansion. This once again puts a lot of heavy lifting on Elpis.

Point 3: The main theme of EW is overcoming despair and always moving ahead to a brighter tomorrow. For this story to work, we must accept that the WOL (our character) is somehow doing things in the morally "correct" way. Otherwise, nothing in the story would make sense (the WOL never even hints that they might turn into a blasphemy, and they HAVE to be the last person standing when we get to Meteion). Further, this position also makes it necessary to paint the Ancients as "wrong" somehow. In order to prove that the new races (and, especially, our WOL) have somehow "overcome" the problem that killed the Ancients and that they have the power to create brighter tomorrow, we have to portray the Ancients as bad.

BUT, due to Point 1, we also don\\'t want to tarnish our beloved cash cow Emet too badly, so we have to make the Ancients "bad, but not TOO bad". This creates silly scenes like being told our WOL is unhappy when Hyth creates butterflies out of robes and being offended when other Ancients kill a monster that can\\'t fly, while I\\'m walking around in clothes I crafted from the skins of 100 jabberwocks, using a Relic Weapon I got from slaughtering everything on several maps. Combined with Point 2, this also means that Venat (aka Hydaelyn) has to be portrayed as correct, which is why we get that nonsensical post-Elpis scene where she argues with a bunch of cartoonishly strawmen Ancients, and when we then combine Point 3

I can atleast some what agree with this because it critiques the story as a whole rather than getting bogged down on a singular character.

[Lauront]

Well, this was a surprise. Quite a long comment thread on Reddit criticizing EW with awards and upvotes!

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...mment/i3gbmig/

Yeah, it goes to show that there's a lot of issues with it even besides Venat. Smooshing what could've been another 1-2 expansions into one came at a cost. Someone there made the comment that Elidibus is killed off too early, which is true.

[CrownySuccubus]

I can atleast some what agree with this because it critiques the story as a whole rather than getting bogged down on a singular character.

I've been trying to mitigate some of the arguments which, to me, seem unfair to Venat. Even as someone who thinks the philosophy she (and thus the story) expouses is nonsense at best and problematic at worst.

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

[KizuyaKatogami]

Think the argument of fair goes out the window when she refused to be fair and tell her people what was going on but to each their own. I simply point out the hypocrisy of her actions and the heavy bias that revolves around her.

[PawPaw]

Elpis was more or less ideal in very clearly showing them as, overall, incredibly sweet, good people who nonetheless had room to express a variety of individual personalities and idiosyncrasies.

In a way, this caused the impression I got to be the opposite of what the devs intended - both Amaurot and Elpis, compared to Eorzea and in many ways the real world, actually made me feel uniquely comfortable and "safe." The Ancients' world was a peaceful, benevolent place, but it still had people who got annoyed, people who were annoying, people who disagreed with one another, people who expressed themselves poorly and stepped on one anothers' toes - which made it feel as "ah, there WOULD be room for someone like me in a place like this!" except without the danger of being meaningfully harmed by someone else, or secure in the knowledge that there wasn't genuinely malicious intent. Oh no, Ancient Bob thinks my ideas are stupid and dumb! What's he gonna do, challenge me in a week to the debate hall where at the end we'll thank each other and shake hands for the rigorous discussion and exchange of thoughts?

This is precisely how I felt and feel about the Ancient world and its people and why its senseless destruction hit like a ton of bricks. It appeared as a paradise but was also populated by inherently human, flawed and relatable souls and I felt happy there. Thank you so much for summarizing this perfectly for me.

[Lauront]

Think the argument of fair goes out the window when she refused to be fair and tell her people what was going on but to each their own. I simply point out the hypocrisy of her actions and the heavy bias that revolves around her.

Well one of the biggest issues is the time loop, and how they made use of it, which ties directly to Elpis and her decisions. It's difficult to ignore her role in events when she's central to them, but at the same time, you have other issues, like how dynamis and Meteion were introduced, which felt rushed.

[PawPaw]

If I've played through a story in which a single character has managed to make decisions terrible enough to ruin the entire narrative to this point for me, then I am most certainly going to give criticism where criticism is due. EW has a lot of problems from start to finish, but my point of no return is and will always be Venat and her characterization and decisions (as well as the game doggedly insisting that she was a hero who made all the right choices at every turn). And I'm not going to shy away from saying that.