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

[Rulakir]

The closest we've gotten in regard to the scions is Urianger lacking trust, but I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that never really goes anywhere meaningful.

Urianger is the Scion I like the least specifically due to his duplicity. I'm frequently reminded of that old saying, "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me." We're long past that to now accepting this as an immutable quality of his character and I'm not okay with it.

The Alliance leaders all seem to get along very well with no heavy disagreements, despite all being from very different cultures and having different values and different needs

It irritates me to no end how Aymeric throws Ishgard into every Eorzean conflict now as some sort of reparation, particularly as if he owes it to my WoL. I keep wanting to remind him that I was a refugee, forced to flee due to being framed for regicide. I was not acting as a representative of the Alliance during the Dragonsong War, in fact, I was irked at the treaty signing.

[Nilroreo]

Fundamentally even if you love venat there is a clear dissonance between what even she says and what the narrative portrays her as.

And the devs are in a extremely odd position now where they either have to clarify or make the narrative around her more honest or ignore it. the latter which would make it fester, since it seems the views are not calming down around venat. But that In turn risks turning off people who bought the initial premise on Venat.

They have to very much thread a very awkward needle.

I'm not convinced that this is ever going to happen, as it would require the devs to acknowledge there is a problem with her in the first place which they made it clear they themselves don't agree there is. When they tell us that "Hydaelyn is not the bad guy," I have no choice but to take them at their word and trust that they genuinely believe that to be the case, just as I would if a character in game unironically believed 1+1=3.

The Ancients believed the world they cultivated to be perfect when in reality it was just as flawed as ours, but the game expects us to hyper fixate on their use of the word "perfect" and consider it symptomatic of inevitable nihilistic self destruction. It shows us the Plenty which exhibited superficial similarities to them and expects us to treat that as definitive proof that they were a lost cause. It treats their desire to desperately hold on to the world they knew as its forcibly pulled from their grasp as unnatural inhuman behavior that needs to be expunged. This is what the game WANTS us to believe and the values the developers themselves seem to hold.

On another thread, It was argued that because G'raha had no intention of enjoying the fruit of his labor and had expected to be erased alongside his original timeline at the end of ShB, that his actions stand in contrast to that of the ancients who attempt to restore their world for their own benefit by sacrificing innocent lives, conveniently side stepping the fact that G'raha's body count would've been astronomically higher. The mere fact that he wouldn't've been around to see the world he longed for is being treated as justification to exonerate him of his actions in the event that things had actually gone his way. It's ok that he threatened to end the lives of everyone from his world because he never would've personally benefit from it anyways. But the game never brings attention to any of this, so I have no choice but to assume the devs want me to consider his actions here to be purely altruistic and not delve any deeper.

Hydaelyn's actions are treated similarly. Her abandonment of her own people leaving them scrambling for a solution in ignorance results in the creation of Zodiark as a being designed SPECIFICALLY to shield the planet from dynamis. I personally fail to see how they would've been expected to discern the true nature of the final days on their own other than at best the method by which it targeted them. Zodiark's capability for combating the calamity was limited to shielding the planet, but this limitation was somehow ultimately their fault and attributed to any number of flaws within their society instead of... yknow... the fact that one of their own held the truth a little too close to their chest. Either way, the game has already decided they were a problem and needed to go.

As decided by Hydaelyn, they along with 7 worlds needed to die in order for us to reach a conclusion to this story, But Hydaelyn is not the bad guy so this will never be addressed. It attempts to justify all those deaths by convincing us the sundered are inherently better than the ancients for their ability to overcome despair, ignoring the fact that this quality never plays a role in our discovery of the true nature of the final days and that Etheirys and the remaining shards would've died had the WoL taken after their new best friend and simply withheld the truth from the world... But Hydaelyn is not the bad guy so this will never be addressed.

What all this tells me is that the game operates under the belief that anyone can be absolved of their crimes as long as they claim to feel bad about their actions and/or they never expected to benefit from their own actions in the first place. Words (And developer intent) are taking precedence over actions, and I've yet to see any criticism of our heroes from the devs, so its safe to assume they genuinely don't agree there's anything worth fixing.

[Heavenchild]

I liked the EW Story a lot. Just the story around Zenos didn't make much sense to me.
But all in all I really enjoyed EW.

[MellowMink]

I quite liked the story a hecking lot actually, so to each their own.

[Cach]

That's the problem with the Scions; there's no change, and thus no ability to really grow closer with them. The reason there is no change is because there is no conflict. They are always in uniform agreement on essentially every issue and function as yes-men machines to get the plot moving in whatever direction the writers want. They are not characters now, they are vehicles.

Most Scions would have been better served by pulling a Lyse and taken 2 steps to the side. I would have been more than ok with Thancred dying in ShB to finish his arc, for example. But I guess the JRPG party death quota is already full. I could barely contain my eyes from rolling every time Ultima Thule tried to fake death a Scion. Yeah game, sure.

I'm hoping we swerve away from the almost Whedon-esque style. Don't get me wrong, levity is okay, specially after a lot of heavy stuff has ended. But 6.1's tone was all over the place.

[Theodric]

The way in which Lyse was handled is pretty decent all things considered. She didn't fade into complete obscurity and she shows up every now and then whenever Ala Mhigo is of relevance...but for the most part, she's taking a backseat. If nothing else, the game is meant to serve a broad variety of tastes and on that basis alone we desperately need more variety and conflict amongst the major characters.

As it stands, ever character just seems to end up completely on board with whatever the player character and Scions suggest. Even when something they intend to do is exceedingly risky or controversial. I would not have enjoyed FFIX as much as I did if there weren't entire story arcs involving friendships and rivalries between the various characters. Of which, Steiner is the most prominent. By the end of the game there's a mutual respect for each other but for most of the game Steiner really dislikes Zidane and the feeling is mutual. Steiner isn't just there to be a hate sink or attack everyone, though. He cares about Garnet (since protecting her is his sworn duty) and he has respect for Vivi based on the little guy's mastery over magic.

I really hope that we're not set for another decade of the Scions being front and centre. Rebranding them as the 'Students of Baldesion' doesn't help much if the 'new' characters are just going to think and behave in the exact same manner as those we interact with already.

I don't have anything against Y'shtola, personally, though I do hope the eventual inevitable return to the First will result in her deciding to stay with Runar. Alisae and Alphinaud, once they've done their part in restoring Garlemald, are in a prime position to just go and live peacefully with their mother and father in Sharlayan.

I just hope that the writers don't just decide to write off characters as potential companions just because they aren't as popular as the likes of G'raha or Estinien.

[KurohNeko]

1. I agree with the Zodiark one. Should have been a wayyyy bigger deal.
2. The Fermi's Paradox with a dead space answer is hardly lackluster. And makes me questions ones intelligence for not finding really entertaining and interesting considering the magic fantasy game actually did something unique and have aliens and real world philosophical questions beyond the normie level of good vs evil in it.
3. She avoided the mind-wipe if you were paying attention. Literally the only one who did. Hence her actions and foreshadowing to the protag.
She sundered the world and did what she did because she couldn't mobilize the ancients. Tried with her speech, they didn't listen. The ancients also lacked a strong amount of Dyanmis as it was said that it's basically anti-matter to aether and the only reason team protag and modern man can use it well is due to their souls being fragmented and having a higher level of Dynamis.

[aveyond-dreams]

The post Elpis cutscene is not reflective of actual events. To be fair, it is unlikely anyone would have believed her preaching doom about a rogue bird that went off into space because the plot surrounding Meteion and Hermes is just too ridiculous to be taken seriously.

[PawPaw]

The post Elpis cutscene is not reflective of actual events. To be fair, it is unlikely anyone would have believed her preaching doom about a rogue bird that went off into space because the plot surrounding Meteion and Hermes is just too ridiculous to be taken seriously.

Considering they go out of their way to make a cutscene showing us precisely how easy it is for anyone of that time to review events of the past and see the truth for themselves, I'd say getting people to believe her is a nonissue.

She avoided the mind-wipe if you were paying attention. Literally the only one who did. Hence her actions and foreshadowing to the protag.
She sundered the world and did what she did because she couldn't mobilize the ancients. Tried with her speech, they didn't listen. The ancients also lacked a strong amount of Dyanmis as it was said that it's basically anti-matter to aether and the only reason team protag and modern man can use it well is due to their souls being fragmented and having a higher level of Dynamis.

Um, she never tried to mobilize the Ancients, as we are told on several occasions by several different Ancients that no one knew the cause of the Final Days. This includes Emet-Selch, Elidibus and her very own ally, the Watcher on the Moon. She kept the truth from the greatest minds of the time and the leaders of the world. And remind me why everyone needed to be sundered fourteen times when every single person who "defeated" Meteion was at minimum 8/14 except for the two that were 9/14? Oh I know, it's because she needed those extra worlds to serve as fodder for the creation of her champion. No one here was not paying attention.

ETA: And as aveyond said above, nothing from that cringe music video was indicative of actual events.

[aveyond-dreams]

Considering they go out of their way to make a cutscene showing us precisely how easy it is for anyone of that time to review events of the past and see the truth for themselves, I'd say getting people to believe her is a nonissue.



Um, she never tried to mobilize the Ancients, as we are told on several occasions by several different Ancients that no one knew the cause of the Final Days. This includes Emet-Selch, Elidibus and her very own ally, the Watcher on the Moon. She kept the truth from the greatest minds of the time and the leaders of the world. And remind me why everyone needed to be sundered fourteen times when every single person who "defeated" Meteion was at minimum 8/14 except for the two that were 9/14? Oh I know, it's because she needed those extra worlds to serve as fodder for the creation of her champion. No one here was not paying attention.

Ok, that gives her even less excuse for her failure.