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

[DelSolstice]

• The mighty Zodiark, which has been build up as this mighty(evil) entity over several expansions, turns out to be nothing but filler trash for the first Endwalker trial

Killing Zodiark, after Fandaniel leaves us no real choice but to fight him, ensured that Eitherys' aether shield was gone. It's hardly filler. It leads right into everything after. It also was completely shocking in a good way. If he'd been the last boss that would have been boring to me.

• The true cause of the Final Days is a pet-project from an ancient which goes mad after observing countless dead world and possibly causing the death of several world by projecting negative emotions unto them, and is thus dead-set on bringing despair to every world, upon which said ancient goes mad and is now letting her run her course to test humanity if they can withstand/fight despair

Yes, he went mad at that point, as he felt that in a true paradise animals should have rights, especially sentient ones like Meteion, and finally snapped because he loved his daughter Meteion more than he loved other people. His actions also came from a fleeting moment of incredible rage and was not some carefully considered evil plan, which made it a lot more believable. Since Kairos erased his own memory too, he was much less able to help reverse this. My main complaint was it wasn't clear on the timing. Did Elidibus know that that was the crucial moment in history where the ancient world was doomed? Odd that he wasn't a little more clear about that.

• Venat, who hasn't had her memory wiped + still remembers you from being in Elpis, quite apparently doesn't lift a finger to learn about Dynamis herself or to mobilize the other ancients to end Meteion then and there, and instead chooses to turn herself into Hydaelyn, sunder the world and the inhabitants, thereby forcing them to live with and face despair and gambling that their resilience against despair might be enough to face Meteion one day

We see in 5.2 when exploring the Anamnesys archives that she quite literally got more ancients involved and tried to get other convocation members involved on the Hydaelyn project. She was absolutely not working alone, it was a whole group of people. Who do you think the original Watcher was? Her confrontation at the temple in Amaurot wtih members of the Zodiark project happened both after Zodiark already did two restorations and also after she had taken on the power of Hydaelyn. You can complain that they didn't explain it a bit better, especially when the post-Elpis cutscene was mostly metaphorical, but that's a bit different


I have a few complaints about Endwalker, and do rank it a little below Shadowbringers, but none of them have to do with Zodiark, Venat, or the real source of the Final Days.