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

[anhaato]

I was listening to it in the car yesterday, which is why I posted it. The lyrics "Release your hands, for your will drags us under" hits in a very weird way now if you look at it from the Ancients point of view, lol.

That line sounded more like lamenting the human condition back in ARR but now it just sounds like a threat now that we know it’s her “I’m going to kill literally literally everyone” manifesto. Really doesn’t paint a picture of a benevolent god to be told “I’m going to dramatically weaken you and shorten your lifespans from thousands to tens of years TELL ME THE MEANING OF LIFE YOU HAVE 10 SECONDS.” And like, that’s completely fine. Turning its meaning on its head to something darker and more twisted isn’t bad, it just needed to accompany her actually being this dark and twisted figure she comes across as when you analyze her actions. In that sense they missed a huge opportunity to really slap the player in the face with the truth of her nature by connecting the song that accompanied a game-ending calamity to her actions that literally destroyed an entire world! They just didn’t have the balls to do it. Now it’s just like “why am I supposed to be shedding tears for this lady who destroyed a whole world with a theme song that sounds like she’s celebrating her actions?”

[Raoabolic]

That line sounded more like lamenting the human condition back in ARR but now it just sounds like a threat now that we know it’s her “I’m going to kill literally literally everyone” manifesto. Really doesn’t paint a picture of a benevolent god to be told “I’m going to dramatically weaken you and shorten your lifespans from thousands to tens of years TELL ME THE MEANING OF LIFE YOU HAVE 10 SECONDS.” And like, that’s completely fine. Turning its meaning on its head to something darker and more twisted isn’t bad, it just needed to accompany her actually being this dark and twisted figure she comes across as when you analyze her actions. In that sense they missed a huge opportunity to really slap the player in the face with the truth of her nature by connecting the song that accompanied a game-ending calamity to her actions that literally destroyed an entire world! They just didn’t have the balls to do it. Now it’s just like “why am I supposed to be shedding tears for this lady who destroyed a whole world with a theme song that sounds like she’s celebrating her actions?”

That would be such a crazy 180 I would start caring about the story again. I will buy 50 dollars of virtual items in their mogshop if they actually make her a villain, and i'm not talking about "Oh, it's her dark half!" or some copout like that. I want to see her go full Adachi when her master plan advances to the point not even the WoL could stop it. You hear that writers? 50 dollars on the table, make it happen!

[Kisshu]

I'm not actually convinced that the Void will even get its own expansion. I expect everything surrounding it to be resolved during the MSQ's and side content.

Personally I would have liked the Thirteenth to be left broken if there's no opportunity for further Rejoinings to take place. The Voidsent have been a consistent threat looming in the background that the writers could draw upon as needed so if the Thirteenth ends up being 'saved' then that's one less potential threat and mystery to tap into.

The game has an unfortunate habit of going scorched earth with intriguing plot threads that could be left hanging to add a bit of depth to the overall story. Furthermore, unless a character is lucky enough to trend on Twitter than the writers don't seem to spend much time following up on them anyway.

My predictions for the void story given what we've seen so far:
Vrtra's sister will be the dragon Golbez controls.
The four fiends will be the trial series.
The Void will be the exploratory area (where we end up defeating Golbez and saving the void).

No matter what happens I'm almost 100% sure that The Void will be saved before 7.0.

[Lucida3b]

That would be such a crazy 180 I would start caring about the story again. I will buy 50 dollars of virtual items in their mogshop if they actually make her a villain, and i'm not talking about "Oh, it's her dark half!" or some copout like that. I want to see her go full Adachi when her master plan advances to the point not even the WoL could stop it. You hear that writers? 50 dollars on the table, make it happen!

They could also do something like, if they just FOCUSED on the time between the timeloop and teh sundering.

One Idea i had was we could be able to intervene when venat starts turning into hydaelyn, like venat see's how the light aether is making her intolerent of others opinion, and how to someone under that, one option is superior even if it involves genocide and it horrifies her. maybe we get a trial to stop the transformation and help divert the sundering...

That's a way I think to rescue/please both venat fans and those who dislike the reasoning behind the sundering, wont help everyone but its a way to turn a shadow over ff14, to a slight shade or light shadow instead.

[jameseoakes]

They could also do something like, if they just FOCUSED on the time between the timeloop and teh sundering.

One Idea i had was we could be able to intervene when venat starts turning into hydaelyn, like venat see's how the light aether is making her intolerent of others opinion, and how to someone under that, one option is superior even if it involves genocide and it horrifies her. maybe we get a trial to stop the transformation and help divert the sundering...

That's a way I think to rescue/please both venat fans and those who dislike the reasoning behind the sundering, wont help everyone but its a way to turn a shadow over ff14, to a slight shade or light shadow instead.

This doesn't really address the issue that the plot as currently given has pretty weak justication for her becoming Hydealyn in the first place as there seems to be limited reason for needing to stop Zodiark now and the whole sundering seems to be mostly about Venats extreme ideology

[Rulakir]

I'm going to be annoyed if we're somehow able to save the void and everyone in it. First, because I don't like the idea that somehow we're capable of doing something unsundered Ancients weren't able to do after 10k+ years. Second, because we just went through a whole spiel about how if an entity's aether is corrupted long enough that physical transformations take place there's no going back. Third, because much like the First I don't particularly get any satisfaction out of saving desolate worlds. We'd be restoring the 13th for who exactly? Cyella and Unukalhai? Why? What purpose does this ultimately serve?

I could get behind a merge of the First and the 13th, if that's possible. I just don't want to start a trend where it turns out every shard has fared really poorly and is on the brink of collapse where we're able to save one small pocket of remaining humanity because for gameplay reasons we'll never explore the whole shard. Especially if we develop inter-shard travel, we may as well just move survivors to the Source and start mitigating rejoinings. :P

[Lucida3b]

This doesn't really address the issue that the plot as currently given has pretty weak justication for her becoming Hydealyn in the first place as there seems to be limited reason for needing to stop Zodiark now and the whole sundering seems to be mostly about Venats extreme ideology

Yeah, thats the issue isnt it, any suggestions for alternatives?

[Rulakir]

The only thing I can think of is we'd have to find a way to prove her wrong. Venat essentially had a crisis of faith in her people believing them both incapable of change and of manipulating dynamis. What we'd need are Emet and Hyth's memories restored ideally combined with the Convocation becoming involved to show her she's been consumed by irrational fear and isn't thinking clearly.

[Raoabolic]

The only thing I can think of is we'd have to find a way to prove her wrong. Venat essentially had a crisis of faith in her people believing them both incapable of change and of manipulating dynamis. What we'd need are Emet and Hyth's memories restored ideally combined with the Convocation becoming involved to show her she's been consumed by irrational fear and isn't thinking clearly.

Here's my hot take, feel free to rip it apart and spoilers for current content. We know the Convocation had their own plans when dealing with Metion situation, what if the twelve is their answer? When you talk to the Gods after the myth's of the realm raid even they say that they have always just existed and they do have a duty but can't tell you until the new patch drops. Did the Convocation know of Venant's plans and just made a plan B just in case? If you remove you/Azem and Venant/Hydelen then that leaves 12. I'm not a 100% and mostly spitballing but I would not be shocked if the myths of the realm answers what the Convocation did during the final days and the Pandemonium raids will delve into how the land became corrupt to the point the final days could occur.

[TyrAtatoskr]

hermes was an idiot and zodiark stopped being the "true" threat since shadowbringers, but i kinda feel you.


that said, i was kinda disappointed that EW moved away from the core of the story and i felt the introduction of dynamis was rather hamfisted, as well as the blatantly disrespectful treatment of zodiark (that wasn't really even played up to show how tragic it all was; perhaps a tsukuyomi-esque "spirits of the dead attack the boss" phase would've worked well to show the tragedy of the noble ancients, but we never got that), but the actual story was good.

like you said though, i don't quite understand why venat, with a group of aether-abundant-and-therefore-mostly-unaffected-by-dynamis unsundered, didn't immediately assault herme's keep. surely Venat and the then-current traveler (incredibly heavily implied to outright be you from the past) would know enough people that are able to overcome those emotions?

don't get me wrong, i love the story, but it felt as if it was 3 expansions/patch storylines put into 1 rather cramped storyline. even the emotional height of the story (the walk) was basically "remember all these people and things that happened in other expansions?"

ill also readily admit that emet-selch's character was also rather butchered in EW, post-mortem. he knew that it was dynamis (the lack of aether if you're pedantic, because it's never explicitly stated that Hermes told him about dynamis) that caused the final days, yet he spent millennia pursuing a bandaid fix that, by the nature of the final days, would never have permanently worked and was doomed to fail.

endwalker was fantastic, and i certainly don't think the story was poor, but i do think that if it were anything but the finale of the story it'd've received rather differently. i think the biggest issue was having several rather disparate potential plot points (the nature of the final days, garlemald's downfall, the ancient's dilemma, Zenos' whole deal, Old Sharlayan and more im probably forgetting) and needing to tie them up in one expansion. Zenos and Garlemald were 1 expansion at least with old sharlayan being a potential plot point, the final days and the zodiark/hydaelyn saga were easily another expansion of themselves.

it didn't quite feel like it's own thing, but rather a continuation of past storylines. in effect, it was Stormblood 2, but done better and with better source material. Heavensward and Shadowbringers were rather self-contained storylines that each resolved other storylines, whereas SB and EW could not have existed without 2+ expansions each, and only really served to resolve these storylines with some minor new material.

again, i'd reiterate that i love EW's story, but i don't feel i would without the other expansions to prop it up. i'd love to hear everyone else's thoughts