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

[DevonEllwood]

I had completely forgotten about this:

@Ayuhra

"Now two expansions of the story, where one ended in Anima with the post MSQ ending on the moon and the next started up with the world in flames would mean a whole lot of Fandaniel and Zenos which probably would upset people.... Fandaniel is my favorite character in the game but I know most people dislike him and his archetype."

More Fandaniel? I wish. He's my second favorite only because Beatin comes off more as a person and less of a "character" character. I see him in people I know and in myself and I am glad so many events happen in Gridania because that just means he has more chances to appear. I'm still miffed at all you people not voting for Bert. You denied the world more Beatin and that is a crime.

I used to hate Hermes though, I felt he was a complete letdown and he kinda still is. After several months though, I realized I agreed with a lot of what he had to say. His statements on souls was almost completely forgotten through the rest of endwalker and I really wish it had more focus, but, no one else agreed with them. Venat didn't care, and the sundered definitely don't care. I like that he never gives a direct answer of Meteion having a soul or not. Instead we get a long explanation and demonstration on it doesn't matter if she has one or not. It doesn't matter for anything because we all share the same basic needs and justify our existence. I really would like to see more on that in future expansions. Maybe we can have a character that is born like everyone else but doesn't have a soul. Make there be a reason, make it a mystery to figure out. How would the character feel being denied something that everyone else has? How would they feel knowing upon death their entire existence is null and void and this single life ticket is all they have?

Another thing I agreed with is that not everyone needs to have a purpose. Or really everyone has the same goal in life as everyone else: to be happy. I really wish Endwalker would have focused more on this than some more "concrete" concept of purpose. There could be a person who spends their entire life working as a grocery store clerk, never changing. They could die unhappy knowing they could have done more with their life, or die happy just vibing with whatever is thrown at them. The same for the scientist who works to better humanity; die happy knowing you did a good job, or die unhappy because you could have done more. This is just basic philosophy but Endwalker seemed to have favored the "concrete" niche approach. I just don't buy the "you need to find your place in the world/society" bs. This could be "oh, cultural differences" except this is prevalent in humanity everywhere.

I just really hate Hermes's whole " I feel I am the only one that suffers therefore everyone else needs to suffer" schtick. It just brings back bad memories.

If everything was taken away from the stories of the expansion, all the music, all the cinematography, all the voice acting, and just leave the "on paper" stories, I feel every expansion is roughly the same. Excluding Heavensward patches and some aspects of Shadowbringers ("And all the friends were actually okay!"), they're all just adequate. Except Endwalker. Endwalker, with the exception of a few instances, comes off as a confused collaboration between a teenager and a 9 year old. I'm not saying a 9 year old can't write a good story, but why is the moon a spaceship. Is this some other game reference I'm not understanding?

People have brought up "bringing characters back" and I am okay with the writers doing that. As long as they DO something with it. Should Gosetstu have died? Probably, but I really like the interaction between him and Tsuyu. Him seeing his dead daughter in her, her getting her memories back but hiding it because she was happy for once in her life. I love that she, found her own self irredeemable and would rather die with her happy memories with "grandpa". The scions all being alive for Shadowbringers actually brought something; further characterization and conclusions to their arcs. Them being alive for Endwalker brought almost nothing except for npcs to have to do stuff with.

@Skyborne

We had a character like that, not by your specific example, but that was literally Emet. He traveled the world and was willing to throw everything away after the birth of his son. The line people like to throw around is him relating the sundered to ants or something. I don't know who is weirder: The people who take him literally and say "he has a point", or the people who say "cool story, still genocide". It's a coping mechanism. If you are killing people you either accept it for what it is or you dehumanize the enemy. He took the second option and tried convincing himself even though deep down he knew it wasn't true. He saw the sundered as children, just like Hydaelyn. He was delusional and so was she, the difference being he cracked after 12k years of suffering and pressure, she was coo coo out of the gate.

Hydaelyn only acknowledged what she did once and that's because she realized the amount of suffering she caused was horrible, but it had already been done. She based her understanding of the sundered world on a single individual and a massive outlier. What story did we tell her on the bridge? You think we told her about the two sisters who got mauled to death in the snow? Maybe everyone getting massacred in the waking sands? The dragon who had to kill her own tempered children? The refugees starving in the streets? No we probably just told her about some arbitrary crap that wasn't scary and it probably involved moogles.

I was going to add on more stuff after work, but pawpaw beat me to it. I'll just put in Venat should have lost her memory too and the sundering should have been an accident. Problem solved.