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

[Rulakir]

I always have a hard time buying into the idea that largely silent protagonists are super charismatic.

Doesn't matter. The WoL is hot and everyone has a bit of Limsa lust in them. :P

Azem seemed charismatic, not so much the WoL. I suspect in their case it's because they're willing to take on others' burdens/fights, that's typically endearing.

[RoroCookies]

That being said how in the world does someone compare the Venat situation to being the only one working on a group project? Venat was a heroine *at one point* and then she fell to hubris and the world of the Ancients was partly destroyed due to her lack of taking appropriate action. The only logical comparison I can make to her is to that of a fallen angel, a role she fills more accurately than being a "supreme deity."

If anything Venat is the person that refuses to help on the project and watches her teammates struggle to get the project done in enough time. Right as the project is turned in she emails the professor to say everyone else wasn’t doing their work and that’s been doing the entire project alone by herself. She even makes up some fake screenshots as proof to convince the professor that everyone else is failing. Venat then takes all the credits and gets an A.

[PawPaw]

If anything Venat is the person that refuses to help on the project and watches her teammates struggle to get the project done in enough time. Right as the project is turned in she emails the professor to say everyone else wasn’t doing their work and that’s been doing the entire project alone by herself. She even makes up some fake screenshots as proof to convince the professor that everyone else is failing. Venat then takes all the credits and gets an A.

Gods this is accurate. Thanks for the laugh!

[Nilroreo]

Not to mention a certain dark god symbol of hope and salvation carrying the whole world on his beefy winged back for 12k years. More than that, considering the time between his summoning and the shattering.

Shush! His name must he scrubbed from the annals of history. From now on, we refer to him as "Manifestation of that ill-fated wish."

G'raha haters rejoice? :P I'm not going to lie, it's impossible for them to give me too much Emet unless they go full stupid with him like they have with other characters in mascot costumes or doing cutesy voices.

I feel we were a quarter of the way there with Elpis. I liked his dynamic with Hythlodeus, but I feel I would've grown to dislike him as well if we stuck around any longer. I could practically feel the flanderization kicking in as he slowly devolved into a hardcore tsundere the longer it went on lol. Also, "Remember us, remember that we once lived" was such a good line that I really wanted that to be my final memory of him.

Anyways, Y'shtola would probably be mine. Don't hate her, but damn, she could've been scrubbed completely from EW's MSQ and I likely wouldn't've noticed.

[PawPaw]

Minfilia's the only character I hate. I even skip her cutscenes, I just can't stand her.

Edit: I repressed Hermes/Fandaniel from my memory.

The only character I actively hate is Venat/Hydaelyn. Even reprehensible figures like Valens I feel less vitriol for because he is never presented as anything other than what he is, a particularly nasty villain. And Hermes? He's an absolute donkey but in the end he wiped his own memory like a coward so that he had no idea what was coming. Venat retained hers and and remained nothing but calculating and manipulative to the last. She doesn't even have his pathetic excuse. The writers' attempt to force me to believe that she is my light and savior and all things good has forced the complete opposite reaction from me. I can't even see the suggestion of a big, blue crystal without cringing. That necklace and earring they gave as part of the 6.1 quest? The ones that look like little bit of Hydaelyn that you can wear over your heart forever and ever? Could not toss that shit away fast enough. May it lie in the dust of Revenant's Toll for eternity.

[Rulakir]

The main reason I don't say Venat is because she was likeable at one point, Minfilia never was for me. I might not even feel as adverse towards Hermes if he'd kept Asahi's VA. It's not for lack of acting talent, I just find the new voice difficult on my ears.

I still think Venat is arguably the game's main antagonist simply because every issue we encounter is a direct result of the sundering not the Final Days. I'm also not convinced that the Final Days would've been as bad as they were had the Ancients been given the knowledge to prepare for them, which is also squarely on her. Had they not committed to subverting expectations by trying to portray her as a tragic heroine she might've made one Hell of a villain.

[Theodric]

Speaking of Valens, he was exactly what I was hoping that Zenos and Fandaniel would be. I couldn't help but feel disappointed that Endwalker had so many creepy aesthetics to call upon yet still managed to be fairly subdued when push came to shove. It's actually kind of weird. We explore a big fleshy tower and there's elephant people fused into the walls but somehow they all escape completely unscathed. We do get to see some grotesque looking blasphemies later on but by that point Fandaniel had already left the picture. I think it's a real shame he didn't go out with a bigger bang.

In the end, both Zenos and Fandaniel barely inflicted any real harm upon the protagonists and seemed to exist mainly to just rid the chess board of both the Ancients and the Garleans.

[KageTokage]

Honestly, I would love if the remaining Garlean legions decided to band together into a unified threat using all of the nastiest magitek available to them like synthetic auracite and the Resonant along with all the horror that might entail for the people of the provinces given their precedent for use of human resources/testing.

I think them finding some way to exploit dynamis and blasphemies would be an interesting follow-up to the potentially important detail from the role quests that there's still enough fallout from the Final Days to permit transformations.

[Palslow]

I did think about that so much can be done in the hundred or thousands of years by Venat.....she could have at least tell Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus what happened and maybe save her world rather than just watch things progress like if the worrier of light never visited her....

I don't understand why she would wait for the worrier of light to do everything.....

[kyzy]

I don't understand why she would wait for the worrier of light to do everything.....

Because she was specifically waiting for a sundered being to rise to the occasion and prove that mankind has a reason to live. If noone arose, man would have failed in finding the answer to "the question", and their oblivion will have occurred. But that isn't Venats problem or something LOLOL