The Ancients still deserved better, after everything

[Semirhage]

Why didn't the eagles just fly to Mordor? Why didn't Will just use the subtle knife to planeshift next to the Authority and Metatron and take them out with his godslaying weapon? Why didn't Harry just use the killing curse? Why didn't Aslan just kill Jadis instead of banishing her? What an idiot. Think of all the people he murdered from that inaction. Whole series ruined. Any other literary themes I should How It Should Have Ended handwave away?

[Skyborne]

Why didn't the eagles just fly to Mordor? Why didn't Will just use the subtle knife to planeshift next to the Authority and Metatron and take them out with his godslaying weapon? Why didn't Harry just use the killing curse? Why didn't Aslan just kill Jadis instead of banishing her? What an idiot. Think of all the people he murdered from that inaction. Whole series ruined. Any other literary themes I should How It Should Have Ended handwave away?

Reminded of this...

It will never stop being strange to me that people interpret, or choose to interpret, criticism of the mechanical construction of stories as an attempt to usurp authority from the writers instead of what it is, which is commentary on the work. It's like the "why didn't they just fly the eagles to Mordor" question. It's not that people believe that by pointing out this apparent contradiction between the actions of the protagonists and the resources established as being at their disposal, they can somehow defeat Tolkien and force him to re-write the saga in a way where it ends two thirds into Fellowship and prevent Boromir from dying. Rather, they're illustrating that he forgot to wipe up some spit off the narrative windshield, and it took them out of the experience and made the struggles of the characters feel less meaningful. Because if it's never made clear why the eagles could not easily resolve the central conflict, Boromir's arc can feel less like the cathartic tragedy of a man's personal weakness and his noble attempt at redemption, and more like a senseless series of events caused by the characters being too stupid to have Gandalf talk to some giant birds.

That's a very hyperbolic example, and likewise, I think a lot of this conversation on the textual realism of the Ancients creating an anti-Meteion to beat Meteion is a little silly - of all the things that felt strange about Endwalker, I'm not sure the story never addressing the possibility even makes the list for me. It's basically fluff, you know? It doesn't have any connection to the actual themes of the story.

But regardless, neither criticism is an attempt to "control" the fictional world. It's judgement. Even if you're only interested in discussing the lore literally and not meta-critique on it as a product, that's clearly not the scope of the conversation.

Do I agree with the 'literary theme' and the premise of it? Yeah, but I still think Endwalker fumbled it.

--

I'm not sure why you are so against a simple "Imagine if <x> was treated as <y> in this cutscene with all the weird dissonance that came with it, what would the playerbase's reaction be?" comment and insist on treating it as literal.

[Saraide]

The point of the comparision is 'let's take this terrible action and then soften it by portraying the victims as strawman crazies and its perpetrator(s) as sad and somber about it'. Also, as of EW, her back is not really against the wall, not anymore, because... time loop, she knew everything.

Wait hold on, where are the ancients portrayed as strawman lunatics? Where was Zenos ever sad and somber about what he did? The more we interacted with the ancients the more the wol understands that they werent lunatics disconnected from reality but loving and diligent people. This is the beast tribe treatment all over again.

Her back was always against the wall, knowledge of the coming demise does not stop it already. Her options were: tell the ancients about it again (and risk hermes betraying them again and consigning the wol's world to oblivion) or dont tell them and instead work for a contingency plan for the wol's crew to handle the situation (consigning the ancients' world to oblivion). A situation she had reason to believe we were much better equipped to handle than the society of the ancients because of the nature of the threat at hand. As powerful as they were, they were not well equipped to face up against despair itself.

[Elesh]

TBH, it's a morally grey story. It's important that we not all agree on it, and it's a sign it was done fairly well for all the flak it gets around here.

I personally found the Ancients hard to come to terms with. They felt... cold and distant. I couldn't fathom the arrogance to constantly create life and judge whether the life I just created was 'good enough' to live. I can't imagine what that level of power would do to a person - or a society's - head. And, thus I found it extremely hard to relate to most of them as much as I did enjoy the Elpis story-telling. And I could see why they would struggle with the idea of being so in tune with their emotions and accepting that suffering was a part of existing, and thus why it might not be possible for them to find a means to address the Meteion question before it was too late.

But that was just my interpretation, and yours has merit too. The beauty of this type of story is that we don't have to agree with how it made us feel - we're all allowed to feel our own way.

There is one thing that I do want to point out... If we assume Emet is being honest and accurate with us, then Venat did keep most things a secret... but even Emet Selch begrudgingly agrees that her solution was the best chance for life to survive as a whole and that the Ancients couldn't have found a solution on their own. His exact words to us, if I recall the quote correctly, were "You took humanity further than we COULD HAVE" which strongly implies that, now that he knows the full story, he saw no way their people could have solved that situation, as loathe as he was to admit it.

[TaleraRistain]

My WoL would gladly have sacrificed his existence to save the Ancients, and it is likely the Scions existed whole on the Unsundered world, and even more likely he knew them as his unsundered self in said unsundered world.

If we're talking out WoLs, my WoL wouldn't sacrifice half the population for any reason.

Emet confronts us about that in ShB and asks would the Sundered do the same. And he framed it as a negative and that they wouldn't because they were selfish.

My WoL and I feel the Scions as well would absolutely refuse that path. They would give up their own lives for others, but not sacrifice others by summoning a god to devour their essence.

The Ancients weren't evil but by their nature of being long lived and with the ease of creation magic able to solve their problems, they may have respected life but they didn't truly value it and hold onto it tooth and nail no matter what. They didn't have a fire to live and survive burning in their souls. And that's absolute will to survive is what was needed most against Endsinger's song of oblivion.

[SentioftheHoukai]

Reminded of this...



Do I agree with the 'literary theme' and the premise of it? Yeah, but I still think Endwalker fumbled it.

Thanks. I am hardly delusional, I don't expect Square and Yoshi-P to bend over backwards and write Endwalker to my satisfaction. The start and end of this post was nothing more than me being sad a bunch of people I liked died, for a cause I personally believe was preventable and presenting my reasoning for why I think this. It seems this was an overstep in the eyes of some however, else I wouldn't be facing an endless army of plot corrections and cast shade.

Wait hold on, where are the ancients portrayed as strawman lunatics? Where was Zenos ever sad and somber about what he did? The more we interacted with the ancients the more the wol understands that they werent lunatics disconnected from reality but loving and diligent people. This is the beast tribe treatment all over again.

Her back was always against the wall, knowledge of the coming demise does not stop it already. Her options were: tell the ancients about it again (and risk hermes betraying them again and consigning the wol's world to oblivion) or dont tell them and instead work for a contingency plan for the wol's crew to handle the situation (consigning the ancients' world to oblivion). A situation she had reason to believe we were much better equipped to handle than the society of the ancients because of the nature of the threat at hand. As powerful as they were, they were not well equipped to face up against despair itself.

Perhaps the Ancients were equipped to face Despair, perhaps they were not. However, I ask you to show me someone who is. Beyond Venat's arbitrary word that they were not, it feels to me a logical assumption that a good chunk of the reason WHY they plunged into despair so quickly is because their world's end quite literally came from nowhere. Which was preventable, if only Venat had the temerity to tell the truth. When faced with what they were due to missing or false info, what people with the means WOULDN'T summon a God? I fully believe if Venat fully equipped them perhaps even Zodiark would not be necessary.

[KizuyaKatogami]

If we're talking out WoLs, my WoL wouldn't sacrifice half the population for any reason.

Emet confronts us about that in ShB and asks would the Sundered do the same. And he framed it as a negative and that they wouldn't because they were selfish.

My WoL and I feel the Scions as well would absolutely refuse that path. They would give up their own lives for others, but not sacrifice others by summoning a god to devour their essence.

The Ancients weren't evil but by their nature of being long lived and with the ease of creation magic able to solve their problems, they may have respected life but they didn't truly value it and hold onto it tooth and nail no matter what. They didn't have a fire to live and survive burning in their souls. And that's absolute will to survive is what was needed most against Endsinger's song of oblivion.

???
They did have that fire to live and survive, after all they survived the final days. Compare that to the sundered who if they didn’t have 4-5 specific people, they’d have all succumbed to despair and perished. Ironworks was fine with the idea of sacrificing the entire timelines worth of people(trillions probably) to bring back the wol and undo the calamity. The WoL and scions don’t even bat an eye at that.The sundered have almost always had higher up help to solve their problems. Literally since ARR through every single expansion. How is that any different than the ancients summoning and relying on Zodiark?

[DPZ2]

Which was preventable, if only Venat had the temerity to tell the truth. When faced with what they were due to missing or false info, what people with the means WOULDN'T summon a God? I fully believe if Venat fully equipped them perhaps even Zodiark would not be necessary.

The time loop would be unbound in that case. We were never born. The information did not go back in time with us. Nobody learned of Hermes information. The Ancients all die. End of story.

[Kozh]

The time loop would be unbound in that case. We were never born. The information did not go back in time with us. Nobody learned of Hermes information. The Ancients all die. End of story.

Do people just forget about what happened in ShB? You know, with the Exarch coming from different timeline...?

[AnEmissary]

I'm okay with a broken time loop and WoL's ceasing to exist as long as it leads to a better end for the Ancients. I have minimal interest or care in the Sundered characters--the individual who said above that they found the Ancients cold and distant? That's exactly how I feel about the Scions, and have for years.

Venat's presence for the situation in Elpis was assured whether WoL went back in time or not. She has the information. Perhaps, without the assurance of their later involvement, she would have been motivated to act on it in a proper manner in her own time, instead of resorting to such senseless destruction as the Sundering.