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

[Lauront]

I think it's because people take claims driven by nostalgia, like Emet's, or the ghosts on the moon, or moments where wounds are still raw, like the strawman ancients, which refer to perfection or paradise etc., and just run with it. To me it is very clear why, compared to the sundered world, they would see their world as relatively far more idyllic and refer to it as such. It doesn't need to be capital P perfection to qualify as such - it was a world that was better in many ways and which they miss - but oh no, they used the dread P word, doomed, now all speed ahead to the Plenty train crash.

[Lucida3b]

I just legit find the concept anti-thetical to what characters preach if you think about it. It inherently implies you should stop making things better at some point which feels so antithetical to the whole 'for those who walk after' spiel constantly uttered in the game.

It just reminds me of another japanese franchise that went down a even further route with its obsession with immortality/improvement bad

[Skyborne]

I just legit find the concept anti-thetical to what characters preach if you think about it. It inherently implies you should stop making things better at some point which feels so antithetical to the whole 'for those who walk after' spiel constantly uttered in the game.

It just reminds me of another japanese franchise that went down a even further route with its obsession with immortality/improvement bad

What franchise out of curiosity?

I just can never see eye-to-eye with such a message because it seems so arbitrary to me. Or are only the protagonists allowed to invent things and cure diseases (John Globalcitizen world here we come if you dare to cure cancer!)? The same deal with claims of 'arrogance'. Is the ideal society the Azim Steppes, or are they also arrogant for controlling the lives of their herd animals?

In any case, I've unsubbed due to the story and its direction (which has been torn apart to its atomic essence for the last 500 pages) and gameplay not appealing to me much anymore,with only raid obligations keeping me around this long thanks to so many missed nights and having to scramble to find people mid-tier.

I certainly thought I was totally alone in December as it all unfolded, though it seems like the honeymoon period ended. Have you noticed? There seems to be more desperate attempts to go "you're just a minority!" and the main defense is unironic "to be fair you need to have a 200 IQ to enjoy Rick and MortyEndwalker and be familiar with Nihilism/Nietzsche, Buddhism, Gnosticism, Christianity, the book Utopia, the works of Plato and Homer ... you just don't understand!"

It's been fun and a comfort to read all your posts and funpost with you all. Never forget the Great Moon Disappointment, the Subversions of Expectation, Childish Strawman "Looks The Same So Is The Same" Planet To Justify Genocide, and the Burning of TeldrassilAmaurot.

[Lauront]

Another interview for those still interested - seems like even Yoshi was not completely happy with how Y'shtola was presented.

[aveyond-dreams]

Another interview for those still interested - seems like even Yoshi was not completely happy with how Y'shtola was presented.

Thank you for sharing this. Finally even he is realizing that something is off with those sort of scenes. If only they had cared a lot earlier about not turning G'raha Tia into a joke but that ship has long since sailed. I am thankful that he has rightfully gone against indulging the people who call characters like her "mommy" because going down that path just makes for characters that are palatable *only* to the twitter roleplay crowd and insufferable anyone who wants a story that takes itself seriously.

The problem is so much damage has already been done. I can only hope that the return of writers from FFXVI results in overall better storytelling and development. I am also happy that Adventure Plates will be added to dungeons, but I hope they figure out how to stop them constantly resetting before they do this.

[Lunaxia]

I'm very confused about what statement they're trying to make regarding the Ancients. (Sorry if this is a bit incoherent, I'm tired.)

Prior to EW, I assumed they would ultimately make Emet-Selch out to be more of an unreliable narrator; that their world was not so idyllic, and that their aversion to displaying individuality, working for the common good and trying to put themselves "above" base, negative emotions and such was actually a form of repression of basic human nature that created anger, resentment and instability and would inevitably lead to their collapse. I wondered if the phoenix from the Tales from the Shadows story with its tortured soul was perhaps a foreshadowing; mayhap many similar likewise souls festered within the lifestream and caused the "corruption" that "stacked to the heavens", or hinted towards an underground anarchic sort of resistance with Fandaniel at its head, unhappy with the current state of affairs.

Hilariously inaccurate as it is now, it was the only way I could conceive the Ancients might have failed, and that might show why mortals are better suited to carrying on mankind's legacy, since otherwise it just becomes a bizarrely hypocritical story in which we condemn the remaining Ancients for merely trying to do what we are; to survive, and protect our people, and not really being any less suitable for it (more so, if anything.) We fancy ourselves heroes in defiance of fate while never really acknowledging that our victory is built on the bones of the Ancients, and our "victory" in the first place... is just down to a matter of luck, really, in that somehow the sundering makes us more adept at manipulating some rogue form of energy. I can't really find much satisfaction in a story where it's simply a case of "well, that's unfortunate for them", and their cheap shot right at the end to make them seem less sympathetic and say "see, they can't handle the difficulties in life!" falls flat and just doesn't feel believable when they go out of their way to thoroughly humanise the Ancients through the Ascians, Elpis and Pandaemonium and show us they very much do have their own struggles, and how similar we actually are.

From my point of view, they should have gone one of two ways: applied the dynamis angle more strongly, making the sundering a tragic necessity that is acknowledged as such, rather than some self-righteous, genocidal judgement (and perhaps offer a a potential chance of redemption akin to the destroyed stars), or played the "can't handle negativity" slant straight as I said earlier and have them doom themselves from the outset, rather than some peculiar, weak combination of the two filled with plot holes. The race we are shown do not match the actions they take in the story.

[Brinne]

Hilariously inaccurate as it is now, it was the only way I could conceive the Ancients might have failed, and that might show why mortals are better suited to carrying on mankind's legacy, since otherwise it just becomes a bizarrely hypocritical story in which we condemn the remaining Ancients for merely trying to do what we are; to survive, and protect our people, and not really being any less suitable for it (more so, if anything.) We fancy ourselves heroes in defiance of fate while never really acknowledging that our victory is built on the bones of the Ancients, and our "victory" in the first place... is just down to a matter of luck, really, in that somehow the sundering makes us more adept at manipulating some rogue form of energy. I can't really find much satisfaction in a story where it's simply a case of "well, that's unfortunate for them",

Funnily enough, this reading in a vacuum is exactly how I took (and still take) how Shadowbringers lays out the situation, and why I thought it was profound and excellent - laying out that situation (minus the "condemnation" EW adds), putting forth a scenario where there were no true villains as the culmination of the expansion titled Jet-Black Villains. It's effective and challenging when embraced as a tragedy; that in finishing off the Ancients, we had done "a great and terrible thing." And the tacit acknowledging that this situation is fundamentally a tragedy where nobody actually deserved to lose, and showing compassion to Emet at the end as a result. And the overall feeling of validation to those whose bones we built our survival on, and gratitude for what they had done, and understanding that they deserved to be remembered and admired, rather than deliberately wiped from history as they were.

Then EW tosses in the judgmental element to justify Hydaelyn, and it turns into, well, exactly what you laid out, and deeply, deeply unpleasant. Death to Cookingway.

I think understanding and embracing the idea that our victory essentially comes down to pure luck rather than some strange, nebulous idea of merit through suffering we had that made us "stronger" than the ones who succumbed to the Song would have done a lot to salve the wounds, and made it a much more compassionate scenario overall, but, well, heroic fantasy gonna heroic fantasy.

[Lunaxia]

snip.

You are quite right, I was going to say they did indeed actually go this way during the climax in Amaurot with Emet (but my post was perilously long as it is), and that, for the reasons you eloquently outlined, is a huge part of the reason why SHB and its ending are so beloved even now. Emet-Selch's self-awareness and his dialogue about the victor writing the tale is still one of the best pieces of writing in the game to this day.

...which honestly makes the slapdash revisions in Endwalker to make everything much more simplistic and justifiable all the more galling. Why?

Another interview for those still interested - seems like even Yoshi was not completely happy with how Y'shtola was presented.

An interesting and expected but no less disappointing confirmation that they have been writing the characters based on what they think FF fans on social media want to see rather than what actually suits the characters themselves.

I didn't necessarily hate Emet and Hythlodaeus in Elpis, but I wonder what we might have gotten without the fanservice lens, especially with Hyth.

[AziraSyuren]

snip

This really is what gets me about EW. They really went out of their way to portray Ancient society as idyllic and the only things that could make it seem otherwise were either silly little quirks or mostly justified, and the only true condemnations are so weakly justified as to be hard to believe.

[Lauront]

From my point of view, they should have gone one of two ways: applied the dynamis angle more strongly, making the sundering a tragic necessity that is acknowledged as such, rather than some self-righteous, genocidal judgement (and perhaps offer a a potential chance of redemption akin to the destroyed stars), or played the "can't handle negativity" slant straight as I said earlier and have them doom themselves from the outset, rather than some peculiar, weak combination of the two filled with plot holes. The race we are shown do not match the actions they take in the story.

My view on this is they shouldn't've leaned so hard on trying to justify it. They didn't do a good job of it, and they had another approach available to them, which was to allow for the possibility of sabotage and/or the Sundering being an accident. Couple this with how Elidibus being the heart seemed to erode away his persona to some extent, and they could've mirrored this approach in Hydaelyn to produce something like Yunalesca - a well meaning antagonist whose methods were nonetheless flawed or at the least disagreeable to some degree, connecting this to primal powers like tempering and a zeal to fulfil her directive. Although this is down to personal taste at the end of the day, I wouldn't've been much happier if they genuinely tried to make the ancient world a crypto-dystopia, as it'd undermine the sympathy built in SHB for the Ascians and, more broadly, the ancients. There's been one too many games I've played which take this approach, and it just ends up being a case of "woohoo they're gone! they had it coming!" Bizarrely, some take this approach with the ancients anyway, and I can't say it makes a lick of sense to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ That isn't to say I never think such a theme would fit, but in this case it'd just undo a lot of what made me like SHB's storytelling.

I didn't necessarily hate Emet and Hythlodaeus in Elpis, but I wonder what we might have gotten without the fanservice lens, especially with Hyth.

My hope is that they stop obsessing so much over this and instead think about what suits the character, as obsessing over what this or that site likes ends up just agglomerating fan headcanons/tastes into a character rather than letting them be their own authentic thing.