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.

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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.