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

[Teraq]

Haven't been here in a long while, and I have to admit I have just read only the past 10 pages or so. Agreed that real life politics should stay out of game discussion. Politics are like musical tastes: a fantastic way to make any polite discussion go south incredibly quickly.

6.1 MSQ was... not as bad as I had feared, but I'll admit I went in with expectations low enough. I feel like it could never be as bad as 6.0 was for me. I'm pleased our little "adventure" was little more than a thinly-veiled excuse for Void shenanigans, because I'll confess I have a very hard time getting excited for average treasure hunting adventurer stuff, so any talk of Shard travel can only be better. I don't care much for Vrtra or dragons in general, but hey... Void stuff! How long until they make the Warring Triad quests finally required for MSQ? Because if I go there I want to go with Unu.

Speaking of, naturally, I'm grateful for the single mention of Elidibus with regards to Unukalhai and Cylva. This is the villain fetishist in me speaking here, but I shamelessly love when the plot reminds me that my favorite characters are bastards who did bastard things. Elidibus is the Manipulate, Mansplain, Malewife to Venat's Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss and I am here for it. With that said though, with the narrative's continued refusal to criticize Venat's actions, Y'shtola calling Elidibus out on his use of Unukalhai and Cylva feels pretty double-standard-ish, huh...

And, yeah. The codex entry. I liked it better when I hadn't read it and just thought "Hydaelyn" referred to the planet like the moron I am. idk how the English version goes, but the French entry says she did the Sundering "to stop those who would give all future lives in hopes of restoring days gone", and once again bashes us over the head with how much she loved the planet and its inhabitants over all. You know, it's... just... doubling down on this horribly disappointing story. Sigh. The very worst thing about this is how fantastic a villain she would have made. The under-your-skin toxic mother figure who simply knows what's best for you, sweetie. I mean, this is where I thought they were going with the Loporrits (and the hellscape that is Smileton), but then they didn't haha they're just super cute. Changing her into a villain would be excessively simple: literally just leave everything as is. You would only have to bring in someone calling her out. That her way might not have been the only one. That she gave up on them all and never gave them a chance. She allowed her people to drive straight off the edge, and then wagged her finger at them for not crashing down at the bottom of the ravine quite correctly enough.
I miss Shadowbringers when this had a semblance of greyness to it all.

Last thing: how long are we going to hang on every word Emet-Selch ever uttered before leaving? I feel like the plot has been (metaphorically – sit down, you!) fellating him for two and a half years after his actual death, though I suppose that's just the Lord of the Underworld for you. If I get another flashback of him listing off places to go, I might... idk, mildly sigh in resignation I suppose.

On a positive note though, great production values on the 24-man raid. Voice acting for all bosses and a song? Even the regular boss theme is decently epic. Very pleasantly surprised.

(snip)

Thank you for posting and echoing what many of us here felt. I have no idea why they decided to veer away from the "both sides had their points" greyness of Shadowbringers and replace it with "yeah, Venat knew everything and was right and her way was the only way forward (please don't look too closely)". It just diminishes everything.

Add me to the "I thought I was alone and going insane until I saw this thread" club.

Welcome to the club, we have Bird of Elpis tendies

And then Endwalker retroactively spat in it's face and worked to shatter everything its predecessor built up by going "actually the Sundered are just better" and trying to paint it like the original people were arrogant bliss-obsessed idiots instead of the scholarly gentle people we knew them to be, And of course, the person responsible for their eradication was the only one who knew the truth, and is just absolutely vindicated by being RIGHT.

It genuinely is so baffling that I almost refuse to believe they are written by the same person. I can only assume people higher up the food chain muddied these waters somehow, it's that insane to me.

Yyyyyup.

There is a reason why people loved the Heavensward light party of the WoL, Estinien, Ysayle, and Alphinaud so much, (Bear with me and try to remember the Alphinaud post ARR that had some true depth to him) and that's because it had conflict.

I recently played Heavensward again on alt #6, and I had this exact same reflexion – not just with Ysayle and Estinien, but also with my favorite non-Ascian, Nero. I loved rewatching the scenes with him interacting with the city state leaders, the Scions and his hubby. Not just because he's such a delight to watch and listen to (of course his pronoun would be ore-sama), but also because of the tension his presence creates. Endwalker direly lacked a morally ambiguous character or outright villain chatting with us, providing conflict within the main cast and a different point of view. In fact, considering the success of Shadowbringers largely rested on Emet-Selch's presence in the story, it is baffling the devs did not realize this.

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.

Thank you for putting words on something about Hermes that just peeved me and made me enjoy Fandaniel that much better. He doesn't even own up to his own acts. Just completely absolves himself from any responsibility under the guise of "objectivity" (I would argue any objectivity here was compromised by knowing the catastrophic results of his "test" BECAUSE A TIME TRAVELLER TOLD THEM). It's like the dude just pushed the doomsday button out of spite and then goes "uuhhh ha haha oops", whistling and pulling on his collar, just kinda pretending he wasn't there like a 5-year-old child. He had to be a coward about it, didn't he?

Edit: I repressed Hermes/Fandaniel from my memory.

Understandable, have a nice day.