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

[anhaato]

I dunno the exact context of what he said and how.
But I think there is such a thing as thinking too much about it, if people were as hypercritical about any other game, movie or show as they are about this it'd all fall apart too.

This perfectly eclipses all of the people who come in here to try to argue with us. As if it's our fault that upon any sort of critical analysis the Broken Aesop syndrome of the story becomes abundantly obvious. Is this story not deserving of critical analysis?

[Skyborne]

The chad "I want to put the world back together so I can hang out with my friends in my paradise" vs. the virgin "You are mean to animals and could improve society somewhat so I'm gonna just blow everything up!! This is a totally fair and objective test btw, mindwiping myself"

[Theodric]

To be fair, it doesn't exactly take much effort to find ways in which Endwalker's story contradicts itself. The expansion is also meant to be the conclusion to many beloved storylines that players have been invested in for up to a decade and yet does little for anyone who doesn't consider the Scions to be their 'faves'.

The exact same surface level fanservice that the Game of Thrones final season was criticised for. I daresay some inspiration was even taken from it given how quickly Venat and Hermes pull a 'Mad Queen'. Though at least Game of Thrones had the decency to avoid declaring that the mass murder of innocent men, women and children was, in fact, a good thing done by a pure and righteous person.

I'm not picky. I don't need a story to be super deep in order to enjoy it. I just need it to make sense and be consistent.

[jameseoakes]

Tbh to some extent it doesn't matter what you personally feel, because our characters are not actually us.
We don't have any real choice in our characters personality and what they think and feel ( outside of very small details ), what matters is what our characters feel which is something the writers control.

It's not just us it's everyone else too, I also think that our '' past '' as Azem plays a role too in how we feel even if on a subconscious level.
Sorta like how Hythlodaeus almost felt like we were Azem and opened up more to us.

This I see as big issue, the WoL has in general been a blank slate while the game has given some bit of character to him and in general I find a lot of the in game friendships can be poorly written. Though if they wanted us to be friends with him they should have written someone likeable, at best the guy is a creep he unloads his massive issues caused by him doing a job he is completly unfit for and makes worse for himself by intentially isolating himself and creates an emotionally unstable empath to force to be his coping mechanism. Any bond we had with him is violated when he attempts to violate our memories, a disgusting thing to do. He's an abusive creep so I don't see any level on him being a friend to the main character

[Lucida3b]

The chad "I want to put the world back together so I can hang out with my friends in my paradise" vs. the virgin "You are mean to animals and could improve society somewhat so I'm gonna just blow everything up!!"

I feel like they should've altered the angle on how hermes snapped if they wanted to make it come across better, and yes this would violate 'muh aetheric density lore' but how about this. Have metieon basically beam the despair into his mind or show him like 1000s of years worth of suffering. Lot easier to make someone snapping that badly understandable if they were subjected to that

And on Venat and her plan, the funny part is the only reason the scions survived when they got to ultima thule was a complete accident, thancred literally charging in and giving them all a means to survive and exist in that space, like it seems venat literally made little attempt to study ways to counteract dynamis when we fucking know ancients can with the bloody elpis flowers that emet and hyth did!

[Lauront]

cool ideas

I like what you outlined a lot better than what we got, so it's a mixture of enjoyment and sadness reading this. I'd probably want to see an even-handed approach to Garlemald, i.e. also showing the provinces that were either unchanged or benefited from its rule, much like Bozja, rather than it just being a case of unadulterated "empire bad", and still retain elements of what they did with EW for the Garleans, but otherwise, I think this would be a much more satisfactory and better paced trajectory to me.

[Lucida3b]

One of the things i liked about the bozja storyline is at the end when there penning the new countries laws it's noted they took a lot of inspiration from garlean laws set in the country before, cause it would be foolish to ignore some of the stuff like the attempts to fix the social inequality OG bozja had.

[Theodric]

I'd have liked Garlemald to have been handled like Archades. I'm really not sure why this game has such an obsession with dismantling power structures that are unique and add some genuine flavour to the setting. I'm not as fond of the earlier Final Fantasy games as I am of the 'newer' ones as the former lean on black and white morality whereas the latter tend to be more nuanced. FFXII appealed to me quite a bit precisely because it did not seek to disband its Empire but instead made a move to install a more agreeable Emperor inclined towards diplomacy and trade rather than war.

[Midareyukki]

I like what you outlined a lot better than what we got, so it's a mixture of enjoyment and sadness reading this. I'd probably want to see an even-handed approach to Garlemald, i.e. also showing the provinces that were either unchanged or benefited from its rule, much like Bozja, rather than it just being a case of unadulterated "empire bad", and still retain elements of what they did with EW for the Garleans, but otherwise, I think this would be a much more satisfactory and better paced trajectory to me.

I like this idea, especially because of the message it brings. Because at that point a lot of Garleans would be struggling to come to terms with their identity. Up until now, it was okay to treat anything below a military rank (ie, anyone titled fae and lower) like hot garbage, ESPECIALLY if they were aan. It was okay to look at foreigners and treat them like the actual spawns of satan. That it was okay to feel pride in being the cool Ceruleum-based race that withstood adversity and prejudice and stuck it to the others. Only for everything to come crashing down on their golden heads when they realized "...are we the baddies?"

By having the provinces weigh in a bit more and see what they could take away from Garlean rule, it also could have them extend a balm to the Garlean people themselves. Show them "Yeah, you were duped and you weren't thinking outside your prejudice. If you're willing to learn, I'm willing to work with you". Which carries the usual tone FF14 has of forgiveness and coming together.

However I do want to point out that it's also a delicate subject, given also more recent developments in the western world. It IS realistic for provinces to only see Garlemald as evil incarnate and not want to associate or take anything away from their rule. In fact, keep in mind Bajsaljen himself was met with rather strong opposition to his idea and he had to know how to turn them around. You can't just erase decades of mistreatment and pretend you can now sing kumbaya together without having any form of justice done or being repaid. Sure, this is a fantasy world, but it's one that's somewhat grounded at times, and it's played and enjoyed by real people who probably don't want to forgive Garlemald at every turn.

[Lucida3b]

Oh I agree not every person wants to forgive garlemald, but I dont think its wrong to say most people are willing to pity or feel bad or like certain citizens.

Mr. turncoat populares who's name escapes me or gaius are massive examples of this, gaius was very explicit that he didn't deserve forgiveness or this didn't earn him forgiveness, Honestly some of the more realistically dark? moments in EW were the parts in garlemald, the suicide, the siblings dying in the snow, the propaganda/denial of reality. Those were really good parts and it stood out to me even now.

But I can understand frustration at what happened to garlemald as well