Current Problem Parallels

[Vrankyl]

I don't care about bad stories. If they wanted to make a drama, do it the first time we arrived in Sharlayan, not after we were in a hurry to save the world.



For real? I don't trust a bunch of teddy bears that say they terraformed the moon. Put someone charismatic but less silly and I'll take it seriously.



No, I'm throwing it in the guy's face, back there, that his writer didn't know how to write the story. I'm not saying "I didn't like it", I'm arguing because it's bad.
Again, they couldn't answer the questions about Hydaelin and Zoldiark, they created holes in the script, and they didn't even get a coherent narrative.
Why it is bad? Simple, because after Zoldiark died, there was no more time for cute bunnies on the moon. The expansion lacked urgency, leaving the "end of the world" story a joke.
In their urgency to make the characters the audience likes more "funny", they made most of them stupid, to the point where Graha, the Crystal Exarch we met in the first, a guy who stops in the middle of catastrophe, to talk about tapestry.
Elpis was irrelevant. If his goal was to build the boss, he didn't fulfill it. If his goal was to answer who Venat is, he did it wrong.



This.
Not only that. It was supposed to end the story, and what I see most in LL, are questions about Hydaelin, Zoldiark, Emet... But the story is already over, why are there still so many doubts?

A story being bad or not is extremely subjective. Yes there are some objective measures, and no story is ever perfect. It is still possible for people to disagree on whether a story is good or not though because of the subjective nature of art and literature. May classic pieces of literature were widely disliked during their time, but now are hailed as masterpieces.

That said you are being willfully obtuse on certain parts of the story which are fully explained in the story. Zodiark did require the sacrifices as in order to enact the kind of things being requested a huge amount of aether was required, so much so that those living had to sacrifice their lives to provide the aether. While Venat knew of what was going to happen there was little she could do, because she'd have to convince the entire convocation, not to mention the populace at large, without a single shred of proof other than her word. Seeing as people today straight up deny science the probability of her succeeding in that is so small it shouldn't be an option.

Hydaelyn's ability to split Zodiark isn't a feat of pure power either. As discussed in the Shadowbringer's MSQ, Hydaelyn's ability is incredibly niche allowing her to split her foe into multiples and reducing their strength by the number of multiples they were split into. She created a total of 14 separate entities, which because Zodiark was the will of the star split Etheirys into the source and 13 shards. This reduced zodiark's power by a factor of 13 making him weak enough for Hydaelyn to contain. As for why she didn't take on Meteion, this is also brought up directly in the MSQ. One, she did make it so Meteion could be tracked. Two, aether and dynamis are opposites. The Ancients, to include Hydaelyn, were too rich in aether to be able to counter dynamis. It is only due to the diluted nature of the sundered's souls that they are able to manipulate dynamis which was a requirement to being able to take on Meteion.

Now I will agree, the time travel thing could have been handled better and they should not have used two different types of time travel theory that stand opposed to one another in the same story. Time paradoxes are annoying to say the least. Not to mention there were indeed some plot holes, but the same can be said of any story. Most stories never answer 100% of the questions readers have. In many case most stories do leave readers with questions and a desire to know more. That's just the way of it. Having questions remaining doesn't make it a bad story, it just means there's a loose thread. Also the scene with Urianger was important character building. It was not drama for drama's sake, it was to help his character move on from the guilt he felt.

[Adamantini]

snit

Finally someone coherent to talk to.

Yes, I intentionally asked several questions, some even memes, to see how far the "it's bad for you because you didn't read the story" argument would go. My point was to prove that most people cannot talk with facts.

Yes, it's true that there would be no proof, but to say that she wouldn't get at least a few followers is also to deny that nowadays there are people who believe everything they read on the internet.
She had a tracker in Meteion, so I believe in the power of the ancestors to see an iota of sense in what she was saying. If not most, some.
The problem here is that Hermes had already been defeated in combat by us, he was at a disadvantage, and Venat could have called in more dogs and gotten everyone out of there before the wipe. Hyth had a bow, but preferred to wait for Hermes to configure the memory shift system. This story could have ended in Elpis.

It makes sense about what you said about Meteion. Really if she destroyed that one, the others would be left. As for Zoldiark, I really wish they had given more time to this character itself. In the end, we don't even see him in action, it's like he's a shell.
However, it's still weird to say that Hydaelin's plan, if all goes wrong, would be to take us to the moon. Meteion could easily destroy the moon. If not by Dynamis, by brute force. The place was not prepared to receive people, I doubt it would have prepared for an attack of that origin.

What I mean here is that they got the timing wrong. Drama stories, funny points, cute points... this could have been addressed at the beginning of the expansion, and after that, make us pay attention to the catastrophe. There could be "breath" points in urgency (one joke here, one cuteness there), but not too long, as they were made. History has become a nest of ideas, where we start from the point that the world is ending, but eating carrots with rabbits is more important.
You could skip the entire expansion if you wanted, but the only quest that was unmissable was the tataru shop. I know I laughed when endgamers said that not being able to skip this quest was getting in the way of world first, but why was this quest so important for that to happen?
The point here, in a nutshell, is that they didn't know how to dose things. Erase the whole story, and just put the timeline of events, that's what I'm talking about.

Edit: about loose ends, I partially agree. Something punctual and intriguing, it can even be left as a basis for theories, but depending on how it's done, it sounds like not even the writer knew what he was doing.

[PawPaw]

Yes, it's true that there would be no proof, but to say that she wouldn't get at least a few followers is also to deny that nowadays there are people who believe everything they read on the internet.
She had a tracker in Meteion, so I believe in the power of the ancestors to see an iota of sense in what she was saying. If not most, some.
The problem here is that Hermes had already been defeated in combat by us, he was at a disadvantage, and Venat could have called in more dogs and gotten everyone out of there before the wipe. Hyth had a bow, but preferred to wait for Hermes to configure the memory shift system. This story could have ended in Elpis.

No...not true. You don't need proof when the Echo exists, everyone there has the ability to utilize it and this scene happens very shortly before we enter Ktsis Hyperboreia.



Using "well no one would believe her!" as an excuse doesn't hold up. Especially when the writers themselves show us how easy it is for them to see the truth for themselves.

[Adamantini]

No...not true. You don't need proof when the Echo exists, everyone there has the ability to utilize it and this scene happens very shortly before we enter Ktsis Hyperboreia.
Using "well no one would believe her!" as an excuse doesn't hold up. Especially when the writers themselves show us how easy it is for them to see the truth for themselves.

I believe what he meant is that even with facts some people don't want to see it, and I agree with that. Emet Selch, in all his wisdom and power, prefers to act like a grumpy child when we present facts that we came from the future.

[PawPaw]

I believe what he meant is that even with facts some people don't want to see it, and I agree with that. Emet Selch, in all his wisdom and power, prefers to act like a grumpy child when we present facts that we came from the future.

Except he has his gut reaction and then comes back a little while later saying that even if he doesn't believe us, the investigation is worth doing for the sake of their star. There is no logical reason to believe that the rest of the Convocation, even if skeptical at first as they most likely would be, would be opposed to looking into it more deeply just to be absolutely sure they weren't putting their world at risk by being stubborn. And there would have been plenty of information for them to review in Elpis, including witnessing Hermes' breakdown.

[Adamantini]

Except he has his gut reaction and then comes back a little while later saying that even if he doesn't believe us, the investigation is worth doing for the sake of their star. There is no logical reason to believe that the rest of the Convocation, even if skeptical at first as they most likely would be, would be opposed to looking into it more deeply just to be absolutely sure they weren't putting their world at risk by being stubborn. And there would have been plenty of information for them to review in Elpis, including witnessing Hermes' breakdown.

Because of that I said that I believe in the power of the ancestors, of being able to see, through the Hydaelin's tracker (at least), that she would be right. Eu também acho que é impossível que o sistema de limpeza mental não registre quando foi usado.