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

[Lauront]

I think the writers would be more accustomed to writing light-hearted slice-of-life stories if I'm being completely honest. Serious, dark stories are clearly not for them and they should stop trying since they just refuse to commit to them.

It's made all the weirder by the fact that both Ishikawa and Oda claim to like darker stories, so it may be a case of what they were allowed to write in the time they were given to write it.

Is it possible that the intention is that the sound was The Endsinger? I know it comes from within the planet, but magic? idk just a thought.

I can't say for sure but I almost get the vibe that they're hoping people don't look too closely at it and just take it as a given that it's the same thing. There's possible explanations of things Endsinger might have perturbed, such as the mysterious elementals, or other things inside the star, but my feeling is they're just hoping people run with it and don't look too closely at how much sense it makes.

[YukikoKurosawa]

I'm automatically less interested in whatever is going on with Panda Express because it's already established to happen in the past and all we get is a vague "this will somehow effect your future very badly if you don't go back in time and deal with it" is not particularily compelling. Maybe that's just me. And tying the source of the sound to this storyline is just wasted potential. We're finally dealing with this well after the fact, in a side storyline, and it's way back in the past. Okay.

And don't even get me started on how we're sent back in time to Elpis again but this time we're magically not incorporial and are also ancient sized.

[Rulakir]

At the end of the day if you want to tell a story like they were trying to tell in EW you need to commit to consequence and to make me care you need someone that actually mattters to me to suffer consequences (generally that being death).

I don't require death, although, given that the Scions have been through multiple wars and a universe ending threat the fact that nobody died except for people who were already dead was ridiculous. (Side rant: Thanks for bringing back fan favorites just to have to watch them die a second time and not be able to do a thing about it, that was great. -_-)

Having said that, there are no consequences for the Scions at all. Thancred's inability to manipulate aether is a minor inconvenience. Y'shtola's 'blindness' essentially became a super power and Matoya commenting she was burning through her life force viewing the world that way has never been addressed since. Estinien and G'raha did have the more compelling arcs when they were relevant. Now, they both generally seem fine, no adverse side effects for Estinien having fused with the essence of a dragon (again, superpowers) or G'raha having barely made it through 3 apocalypses now. Does no one have PTSD at a minimum? All of the Scions should be experiencing some mental health issues or other psychological setbacks that could be compelling. Instead, we end the story with Thancred commenting about not even having a scar to brag about and Estinien joking that still won't stop him.

I'd wager this is a large reason why people love the Ancient characters because they are endless tragedy despite being good people and your heart breaks for them. I think whoever coined the term "comfort characters" for the Scions had the right of it. They don't seem to serve a purpose of being anything more than that.

[Theodric]

I'd just like Pandaemonium to either grant the Ancients a happy ending by shuffling them away into their own alternate universe...or just be subdued enough to have some cool fights without being another round of cruel trauma and consequences for no reason other than to stimulate 'feels'. If they're not going to allow the major protagonists to suffer any major consequences then there's no real reason to force the sympathetic antagonists to endure every indignity.

[PawPaw]

And don't even get me started on how we're sent back in time to Elpis again but this time we're magically not incorporial and are also ancient sized.

Yeah, this bothers me so much more than it probably should. Also really annoyed that the portal Elidibus made, which hasn't been changed by him in any way since, now dumps us near Lethe/The Mourning Dew instead of Propylaion when we go back to meet Themis. Why? Nothing should have changed so why does the portal now randomly change our spawn point as well as "fix" our being incorporeal and small automatically when he couldn't do so himself before? It's still the exact same portal we used the first time.

[PawPaw]

tl;dr hey have you heard I am a little upset with Final Fantasy Fourteen Online Endwalker six point oh

Great post, btw.

[Eorzean_username]

I have heard the "keening beneath the earth" line was a translation error exclusive to the english version, but I haven't seen any proof of this.

Both the CN and JP versions of those statements seem to parse out very close to the EN script, so I don't think the translation was wrongly-handled in this case.

The main issue is that CN and JP use a word which is more vague and broad, and determined more by context. By default it refers to sounds made by animals, what you might use English "cry" for ("cry of a bird", "cry of an animal"). But with context, it can quite easily validly apply to sounds in general (even bells or alarms), buzzing insects, or just "noise".

In CN the word is paired with a "loud noise" indicator that, at first glance, would suggest something more like "roar" or "rumble"... but it doesn't literally have to. It would just be the first intuitive parse, without further context.

In JP it has similar ambiguity as CN, at first glance it might be "animal sound" or "bird cry", but with context it could easily mean "crying", "sound (vague)", etc... or even "whining" or "singing". The Kanji character chosen is also homophonous with another word that more specifically means "whining, wailing, weeping, cry, grieving(sound)"... etc, which may or may not be intentional wordplay on the part of the JP script.

I think this ambiguity may be why the EN chose "keening", which could ambiguously be interpreted as something natural ("a keening wind") or personified ("a keening mourner")... so, trying to lend it that same unspecific and eerie quality.

However, it's a slightly unfortunate choice because "keening" has been used all the way back to 1.x EN script to refer to the agitation of the Twelveswood Elementals, but in the JP script, the word isn't the same at all. JP references to the agitation of the Elementals refer to something more like "noisiness" or "murmuring"... a general sense of just "making a lot of noise" and "being restless (vocally)". So the connection with the Elementals that you could interpret the EN as implying is not there in the JP script.

Sadly, looking back in retrospect, it seems like all the scripts may have been trying to be intentionally vague because no one knew what the actual answer was yet.

[Fiel_Tana]

Do the other languages also say it came from within Etheirys or are they different?

[Eorzean_username]

Do the other languages also say it came from within Etheirys or are they different?

I'm not a professional translator or anything close, so don't take this as 'the final word' on the matter, but here's some rough examples:

EN

They say it began with a keening sound from the land itself...

—
JP
Note: My best understanding so far is that 大地 here indicates "earth/land", but in a broad sense... not so much the sense of just some ground or soil, but the more 'storybook' sense of 'the land'. But not THE LAND in the pronoun way... hopefully I'm making sense. Broad and regional (it could refer to the entire earth), but not specific (it's not that land, as in a certain city or kingdom, etc).

直前に大地が鳴くとか……

Just before it happened, they said that the earth/land would begin (crying out / singing / whining / wailing / making noise ...).
—
CN

据说在末日前夕大地曾发出轰鸣……

It was said that just on the eve of doomsday, the very earth itself gave out a deafening roar...

EN

The Amaurotines spoke of a “keening” sound that rose from the land itself just before a region was visited

—
JP

それが起こる前には「大地が鳴く」と語っていた、
アーモロート市民もいたそうだね。

There were citizens of Amaurot who said that before it happens, "the earth/land (cries/sings/etc)". (Note: the quote marks are there as part of the JP script, as in, quoting actual words from the shades of Amaurot)
—
CN

亚马乌罗提的市民似乎提到过，
在末日降临前大地曾发出轰鸣。

The citizens of Amaurot mentioned that the earth/land would always let out a deafening roar before the end came.

EN

Tis said it starts suddenly, a cacophonous keening from beneath the earth.

—
JP

聞いた話によると、ある日突然、大地が鳴きだすんですって。

According to what I've heard, one day, the earth/land just suddenly began (crying/squealing/whining/making noise/...).
—
CN

我听说有一天，大地突然发出了轰鸣。

I heard that one day, the very earth trembled suddenly and gave a deafening roar.

[Lucida3b]

Yeah, it's odd and yet another case of 'it's okay when we do it' at play. Smileton is also the attempt by the Lopporits to create a paradise for the people of Etheirys which suggests that Venat never warned them about her fears for the future. Which suggests to me that her motives were changed significantly during the rewrite(s) and that is why so little consistency is to be found.

Meanwhile the lopporbits accidentally with zero prompting nearly destroy the entire moon through there 3d printer robot they made with creation magic