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

[Kaoru_Nagisa]

On today's episode of "Things I personally found bad or lazy in Endwalker": What the heck happened to Venat's group of followers?

We're told back in Shadowbringers that - just as the Convocation pushed for the creation of Zodiark, so they may rewrite the laws of the Star in order to protect them from the Final Days, and thereafter restore life to the scorched earth - there was supposedly an 'anti-Convocation' of sorts. People who disagreed with their desire to sacrifice new life on the Star for the sake of the lives that freely gave of themselves to Zodiark as fuel for his miracles. This group was headed by Venat, who would go on to become the heart of Hydaelyn, as Elidibus became the heart of Zodiark.

It was the efforts of the group which summoned Hydaelyn into being, so that she might fight against Zodiark and Sunder the world. That is what we learn - not even through Emet-Selch, who could be considered a biased party, but through records left in Anamnesis Anyder by (we can only assume) that very 'anti-Convocation' group.

Why, then, does Endwalker display to us Venat singlehandedly Sundering the world and becoming Hydaelyn? Why were we given information regarding this group of her and her fellows, and then those other people end up as only a brief, passing mention by Venat in Elpis, right before we leave back to our time?

An argument could be made that "they just condensed the events down for the sake of wrapping up the procession of the timeline", but that rings very hollow when it was made such a huge deal back in Shadowbringers. And also just comes across as incredibly lazy, badly-paced writing - to effectively ignore the group efforts towards summoning Hydaelyn, to ignore Hydaelyn doing battle with Zodiark for the fate of the Star and ultimately landing a blow which rends he and the very world asunder.

Visually, yes - that segment of her Sundering the world was stunning and emotional. But, like so much else in Endwalker, when it's viewed afterwards through the lens of everything that has come before it - all of the information we have access to thus far regarding the old world and the Sundering - it becomes all flair with no substance. Retcons for the sake of visual spectacle. Condensing for the sake of empty emotion, and desperately trying to tie it all together with ARR's beloved theme 'Answers'.

We would have benefitted so much more from getting to see more glimpses of those other people, those who opposed Zodiark's creation and the sacrifices that continued to be made in his name. Just as so much else in Elpis (which is where the story genuinely seems to begin falling apart at the seams, I think), such as Meteion and Hermes, this 'anti-Convocation' group suffers from poor pacing and a lack of narrative focus or care given to that portion of the story. The desire to condense down and wrap up a 10 year story arc in one expansion ruined so many plot points and pieces of information left to us in Shadowbringers - ones which seemed to be set up for being further expounded upon later.

We lost so much potential because of Yoshida's desire to speedrun through the capstone to this story, and I'll die mad about it.