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

[Teraq]

(damn great post)

Cue Emet-Selch finally learning that neither the unspeakable extinction-level tragedy that engulfed the entire planet nor the Sundering that literally ended his entire race and culture and wiped its existence from history were random accidents, natural events or otherwise unplanned, but that both were, in fact, knowingly manufactured and inflicted upon humanity by two of his peers with full knowledge of the consequences... and he expresses nothing but faint grudging praise for Venat, and playfully chides Hermes in a single line for "making him forget" (ay lmao RIP one of the most impactful lines of the entire arc).

(While Omega does try to excuse Hermes in a way, that's a different context, as Omega was not personally impacted by his actions, and itself comes from a survival-of-the-fittest hellscape that would favor interpreting his actions the way it did.) (Meta-wise, however: Ishikawa please stop trying to push him being in any way justified please and thank you.)

GOD. That goddamned Ultima Thule scene. It's ––– I'm sorry it makes me so mad I'm not sure how to qualify it.

[Lauront]

I also have a personal, seething hatred for these kinds of messages (along with "just world fallacy"-type threads and "protagonist-centric morality," which I consider to be my Ultimate Mortal Nemesis in storytelling), as to me, they usually amount to being transparently self-serving and trying to throw a coat of pretty, manipulative rhetoric over enforcing existing power structures or justifying why it's okay that people other than us suffer. Why it's okay to leave them in a state of suffering and not extend what power we can, while pretending "well, actually, doing nothing for anyone else or ever going out of my way for anyone else is the morally correct thing, and for their own good, if you really think about it, trust me bro." One question I usually ask when it comes to this kind of heavy-handed theming is - okay, who is this message for? Who does this narrative serve?

The thing this game tends to do, which drives me insane at times, is this "this looks like that, so it's the same" (coupled with the "it's ok when we do it", which 6.1 actually managed to whip out pretty fast...), where it will take two things that aren't really analogous (someone dying in the conventional sense vs the state of the ancients in the Zodiark purgatory, to use an example here), ignore that difference and try hit you over the head with the same thing over and over, with very cheesy dialogue at times. I wasn't familiar with the term "Broken Aesop" until Lurina brought it up, but when I read through its description, it hits on so many of the weird inconsistencies in EW (generally, 14's, but EW is by far the worst) messaging. It comes across as a very hypocritical form of preaching, and yeah the term you use, protagonist-centric morality, seems apt.

I've mentioned it before but a theme I tend to detest in RPGs is the notion that it's right and proper for what I'll term "elder races" to just accept dying out and fading from the world whilst trying to present attributes such as immortality/longevity as inherently bad somehow (again with the sundered being the Goldilocks golden mean here), and depending on how they handled the Sundering, I was concerned it'd cross into that territory, as opposed to framing it the way SHB did and you articulated. I'm glad the Omega quest refuted the whole notion that there is some proper response to despair, which these alien/ancient races, lacking, could do naught but crumble. I just hope they avoid trying to realise the crypto-dystopia Amaurot plotlines through some other area, like Pandaemonium, though I'm hoping they've properly imbibed their learnings now from EW.

Cue Emet-Selch finally learning that neither the unspeakable extinction-level tragedy that engulfed the entire planet nor the Sundering that literally ended his entire race and wiped its existence from history were random accidents, natural events or otherwise unplanned, but that both were, in fact, knowingly manufactured and inflicted upon humanity by two of his peers with full knowledge of the consequences... and he expresses nothing but faint grudging praise for Venat.

(While Omega does so, in a way, for Hermes – but that's a different context, as Omega was not personally impacted by his actions, and itself comes from a survival-of-the-fittest hellscape that would favor interpreting his actions the way it did.)

GOD. That goddamned Ultima Thule scene. It's ––– I'm sorry it makes me so mad I'm not sure how to qualify it.

But it's unquestionable proof that Venat's plan is Certifiably Ironclad, that the ancients had no other way of resolving the issue, and that no other outcome was conceivable. Yes, that's the power vested in that single line of his - whether this makes any sense in and of itself, given his subsequent words, or given the refinements to it in some of the other localisations.

[Theodric]

There's also an unpleasant - and perhaps unintentional - habit of condemning desperate people for doing terrible things in situations where they are afforded no other choice. Nobody can be expected to simply just roll over and die when the alternative is harm befalling their loved ones.

That goes for the antagonists as well. I sympathise more with the Ancients and the Garleans purely on the basis that they didn't have a convenient 'I WIN' button to press whenever they needed to get out of a desperate corner that they were forced into by circumstances outside of their control.

The 'it looks like this, so it's that' has also frustrated me as well. It's something many players do in an effort to reach a specific conclusion that isn't necessarily present. I tend to switch off when people start pushing the idea that the Ancients were going to end up like the people of the Plenty because not only was that simply Venat's belief, the Ancients were never told of the threat that Meteion posed. It's the equivalent of someone knowing that a zombie virus is going to break out and spread across the globe only to keep that knowledge hidden and kill the survivors for trying to build an isolated community that tries to capture some of the comforts present pre-apocalypse.

[Rulakir]

Going back to the question of "who is this story for?"

A lot of people seemed to love it and I haven't been able to pinpoint the disconnect other than generally the people who did accepted the conclusions that were presented. Namely: 1) You cannot change the past, 2) The Ancients were 100% going to become The Plenty, and 3) The Ancients could never figure out a way to deal with a dynamis threat. This, by extension, led them to fully accept that the sundering was not only necessary, but the lesser of two evils. A such, yes, Venat is the tragic heroine as depicted, subjecting mankind to an unthinkable act but the only one which potentially ensured their survival.

Unfortunately, as has been hashed out repeatedly, this case simply wasn't made. Venat's excuses after Ktsis are all easily debunked with information we received starting from Elidibus in the CT to that point. Both Yoshi-P and Ishikawa refer to Venat's "beliefs". They weren't objective truths nor could they be as it would require her being able to predict with absolute certainty the future of the Ancients. She says herself she has a "basic understanding" of dynamis, but it's not her field of study, so she also lacked the knowledge to conclude the Ancients couldn't counteract Meteion. It also seemed ridiculous to me that Meteion is an Ancient created problem, but Ancients can't create a solution to it?

According to the internet :P, I'm exactly the type of person to whom Hermes should have resonated and I didn't understand him at all. I found him instead to be emotionally immature and illogical when it came to the subject of death, certainly not the "most human" of the Ancients (a descriptor I see frequently). His temper tantrum in Ktsis was at least consistent with this characterization. The problem is, again, they're trying to re-frame it as something else. Everything regarding the Ancients could be summed up with they show us one thing but tell us it's another. It's the gaslighting expansion.

Thematically, I can't figure that out either. There doesn't seem to be any consistency as I've seen many people with depression say it spoke to them and many people with depression (like myself) who found it full of platitudes. I absolutely hate the "forge ahead" message they keep pushing. I'm immediately reminded of the people who give unsolicited advice to someone who's suffering, usually without having any idea of what the person is going through. As if a supposedly uplifting quote can be blanket applied to everyone in every situation. Not to mention that this doesn't affect the WoL or Scions at all. None of whom lost anything, display any emotional or psychological damage, or (aside from the WoL in a quest chain that's locked behind a 2 expansion old raid) feel the need to reflect. It's just business as usual. The world itself outside of two zones barely experienced the Final Days, which I was hoping would cause the sundered to have more empathy for the Ancients. Instead, it just feels like a "We're #1!" situation despite their heavy reliance upon the unsundered to succeed.

All I know for sure is I was not the target audience for this expansion and this is the first time I've experienced this feeling in an RPG. As I said, I think they were focused more on themes and messages than telling a good and compelling story. There are other issues, of course, like being strong-armed through the narrative, my character being forced to react in ways contradictory to myself, and being expected to accept conclusions without the writing having taken the necessary steps for me to reach them.

This turned into a ramble. :P

GOD. That goddamned Ultima Thule scene. It's ––– I'm sorry it makes me so mad I'm not sure how to qualify it.

Same. Especially after the NieR crossover doubled down on Emet's 12k years of "hatred and heartbreak". I could accept what Brinne said about Emet not wanting to upset the WoL, but the leap to commending Venat was too much. I can't help but wonder if that was also Yoshi-P's doing because it was so character inconsistent and didn't match with the surrounding dialog. "We need to have fan favorite, Emet, praise Venat too to really sell her character!" Speaking of which, did anyone else notice his Elpis description of her essentially paints her as a Mary Sue? She's apparently the best there is at everything. :| This also seems in conflict with his other dialog that suggests he didn't like her even back then.

[Lucida3b]

Depending on how literal you wanna take the nier crossover, either they literally stopped being people for a long time and were just mindless lumps of aether or they were rendered back to pre stoneage levels...

[SentioftheHoukai]

Simple. They had an army. We had a WOL.

That said, Ishgard abandoning its isolationism made sense. That was imposed by a tyrannical theocracy to keep people ignorant and secure said religious dictator's power hold.

But now that you mention it, I can't help but notice that most cases of the WOL ending an isolationist society results from "They have X and we need X to save the world. Therefore, we have to force them to give us X", which basically comes across as a 15th-Century "How to Justify Colonial Expansion" manual. I mean, yeah, the fact that the player usually needs to upturn some society to get what they need to save the world is both true and not exactly new to RPGs, but it IS noticeable how often it happens to the Scions.

No offense, but the WoL died from Black Rose. We're not some unfallible deity, if Garlemald in its prime threw the worst it had to offer at us and they all dogpiled us I'm rather certain we'd die. We're not a freaking Super Saiyan, or a character in a musou plowing through literal regiments of enemy soldiers simultaneously. The only reason the threat Garlemald proffered was defanged was because Zenos slaughtered them all offscreen so the Garlemald expansion didn't have to happen.

Same. Especially after the NieR crossover doubled down on Emet's 12k years of "hatred and heartbreak". I could accept what Brinne said about Emet not wanting to upset the WoL, but the leap to commending Venat was too much. I can't help but wonder if that was also Yoshi-P's doing because it was so character inconsistent and didn't match with the surrounding dialog. "We need to have fan favorite, Emet, praise Venat too to really sell her character!" Speaking of which, did anyone else notice his Elpis description of her essentially paints her as a Mary Sue? She's apparently the best there is at everything. :| This also seems in conflict with his other dialog that suggests he didn't like her even back then.

This worries me, tbqh what with how Y'shtola seems to be leading the next patch cycle/possible expansion. Y'shtola feels like a developer's mouthpiece more than a character to me these days. Black Mage job switch, the most fanatically devoted to Hydaelyn of all the Scions, etc. Feels like we're gearing up to be smashed in the face with more faulty ideology with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

[CrownySuccubus]

No offense, but the WoL died from Black Rose. We're not some unfallible deity, if Garlemald in its prime threw the worst it had to offer at us and they all dogpiled us I'm rather certain we'd die. We're not a freaking Super Saiyan, or a character in a musou plowing through literal regiments of enemy soldiers simultaneously. The only reason the threat Garlemald proffered was defanged was because Zenos slaughtered them all offscreen so the Garlemald expansion didn't have to happen.

No offense, but you're overreacting to a single line that was meant as a joke.

No s--t the WOL isn't invincible. That doesn't change the fact that they have fought and/or defeated an impossible number of threats up to and including the literal embodiment of oblivion itself.

[Lunaxia]

I'm really relieved to see other people taking issue with the perspective on suffering (outside of religious/ writing viewpoints.) It was possibly my biggest gripe with the game, but I felt reluctant to voice it because even in more critical circles it isn't touched upon and I was left wondering if I had read the game wrong. But I just couldn't help feeling like the game's overarching theme of "suffering is not only inevitable but something to appreciate because it makes the good times seem even better!" was an absolutely horrible message. More than anything, I felt angry; while I'd rather not touch on my personal experiences, suffice it to say it is incredibly patronising to say to someone going through the worst kind of pain that somehow their suffering is necessary or beneficial. It is not. Grief is not. Unrelenting physical pain, mental anguish, illness and traumatic events are not, and never will be. You endure and live through them because you have to, there is no reasoning or justification behind any of it, and I highly doubt if you offered to remove that pain from any given individual, anyone would actually refuse. It's the sort of meaningless platitude you give to someone going through a breakup or some sort of stressful period in their life - something you look back on and realise was a period of change, or learning about relationships, yourself, and so on (which the Ancients did!), not torment and suffering the likes of which Venat bestowed upon mankind with the sundering.

And on a similar note, while I don't have a problem with the notion of letting yourself depend on and seek help from others in times of difficulty, to me the game seemed to push this underlying message that your life is essentially meaningless and intolerable without people around you, which is… really, really awful, although they've been at this for a couple of expansions with their habit of turning isolated and tormented characters suicidal and/ or into irredeemable villains. Some people are unfortunate enough to go through painful and difficult periods of their life alone, or lacking a loving and supportive network around them, and there is something offensively tone deaf and potentially harmful about the way they write off such characters as doomed or hopeless. I think Krile alone had one line prior to UT about remembering/ holding onto your passions because they are what drive you, which for a moment was a breath of fresh air and seemed like a promising exploration of what other kinds of "meaning" life might hold for someone… only to add that it's because "you share them with others!" It was like G'raha in Garlemald during the Final Days section, where he gets angry about the future they fought for being jeopardised, and for all of 0.5 seconds behaves like a character with his history would. For a fleeting moment, I actually found him a promising character.

…and then in UT he's trailing around after the WoL with all our friends supposedly gone in the middle of a potential cataclysmic universal destruction event with no clear end in sight asking if he thinks he'll be in a song one day.

Utter confusion and bewilderment, followed by brief rays of hope… only to be even more disillusioned than before. It sums up my issues with Endwalker quite well, in all honesty. I'm glad to have found this thread and find some catharsis, at least.

[Theodric]

It's exactly why I think that a broader variety of viewpoints need to be brought to the forefront and pushed as acceptable. I'm honestly getting pretty tired of reading things along the lines of 'Venat had no option but to...' in response to any suggestion that murdering her own people and then lying about it was a pretty messed up thing to do. I really don't understand what was so hard about having someone be disgusted with it all and very sternly call it out during the MSQ's.

That aside, the game has players from many different countries, backgrounds, belief systems and personal experiences. Trauma is regrettably not something few have dealt with though many players have experienced it and I'm pretty weary of it being pushed that Hermes was 'totes relatable111' when that simply isn't the case. At least Ishikawa acknowledged that most people would not agree with or like him.

[CrownySuccubus]

And on a similar note, while I don't have a problem with the notion of letting yourself depend on and seek help from others in times of difficulty, to me the game seemed to push this underlying message that your life is essentially meaningless and intolerable without people around you, which is… really, really awful, although they've been at this for a couple of expansions with their habit of turning isolated and tormented characters suicidal and/ or into irredeemable villains. Some people are unfortunate enough to go through painful and difficult periods of their life alone, or lacking a loving and supportive network around them, and there is something offensively tone deaf and potentially harmful about the way they write off such characters as doomed or hopeless. I think Krile alone had one line prior to UT about remembering/ holding onto your passions because they are what drive you, which for a moment was a breath of fresh air and seemed like a promising exploration of what other kinds of "meaning" life might hold for someone… only to add that it's because "you share them with others!"

What you experienced in Endwalker is another example of this; you are correct in that Endwalker's ultimate "lesson"...the thing that the audience is supposed to take away from the story...is "life sucks but it sucks less when you're part of a collective, so make sure you're part of that collective at all costs". The "bonds you share with others" is repeated and touted over and over again as the key to everything..

Japan is an extremely collectivist society. How collectivist? Collectivist to the point that people are afraid that helping someone on the street would make them stand out too much. Japanese culture praises the value of the group over the individual. It's one of the reasons that social change is very difficult there; pointing out problems or stating that something isn't good for society is shunned because it's considered worse to introduce negative feelings.

For more on the subject, I have to recommend this video by "Let's ask Shogo", who is a Japanese man who explains it better than I do.

It's exactly why I think that a broader variety of viewpoints need to be brought to the forefront and pushed as acceptable.

This is not an issue that could be solved by a "broader variety of viewpoints", unfortunately. Subjects on matters of mental health, depression, suicide, etc. are, in fact, the opposite.

It's a subject that you should not be bringing up without listening to the experienced and trained professionals who handle it.