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

[AziraSyuren]

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.

There were moments in Endwalker that actually did resonate with me pretty strongly. The big one is the scene with G'raha in Thavnair, because learning when to throw a wrench in it has saved me many a spiral into a depression/anxiety-ridden mess. Seeing a literal manifestation of that was something I enjoyed a lot.

I also love works where life-affirmation is a central theme, no matter how shallow they might be. There are plenty of other stories where I felt it was executed better, but you could throw it in anything and it'll set off the happy brain chemicals. I didn't much appreciate the "just deal with it 5head" aspect of it but squaring up with the literal embodiment of despair was pretty cool because of the Gurren Lagann vibes it had. I can't say it "spoke to me" on any meaningful level aside from the aforementioned part, though. If I wanted Gurren Lagann I'd just watch Gurren Lagann, because nothing does TTGL like TTGL.

[Carin-Eri]

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.

Outside of alternate timelines it's also worth mentioning the final fight against Zenos, or rather it's conclusion. That was certainly a reminder that, determination and Echo notwithstanding, the WoLs body is still mortal and it was pretty clear that the WoL would've died if the emergency teleportation device hadn't appeared.

[redheadturk]

snip

To reference current events, this smacks to me [the argument about "You must embrace suffering", that is] of the same rhetoric people arguing against gun control and social programs are using right now. "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!" and "Murders are going to happen even if we ban semi automatic rifles, people will just use knives!" Yeah, so what? Our job on this planet is to minimize the suffering of other people to the best of our abilities. To do otherwise is to do a massive disservice to humanity. It's probably why the messages around Venat bother me as much as they do, it's the same rhetoric I hear in real life to justify injustices that utterly disgusts me.

[Rulakir]

Y'shtola feels like a developer's mouthpiece more than a character to me these days.

Frankly, Yoshi-P has the polar opposite personality of mine. I already have issues with Azem being written as some kind of "chaos goblin", as I've seen on Reddit, and now my WoL is apparently a traveler at heart who is always in search of greater challenges. Since when? It feels like Yoshi-P has a certain idea about the typical gamer he wants to superimpose on the WoL that is just not me. I also don't care for Y'shtola, she's one of my least favorite Scions, so if she's going to become the developer mouthpiece it means I'll never have a moment's peace from her.

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.

It is. I suspect that chronic health issues weren't a factor in the writing, which unfortunately makes the messaging come across as tone deaf. I especially hate the "forge ahead" nonsense, which is just another version of 'bootstrap'. At least the Social Darwinism was walked back in the Omega quest chain, although, it amusingly also made the sundering even less justified in the process. The way 6.0 made it appear, basically if you had mental health issues you were screwed.

I can't remember where I heard it, but something about studies showing that the people who suffer the least were the happiest overall and I couldn't help but laugh because the exact opposite is portrayed in EW. It's one of those r/im14andthisisdeep things that isn't rooted in reality.

I also love works where life-affirmation is a central theme, no matter how shallow they might be.

I don't know that I look for themes. I'm more of a character person. As far as characters went, Emet is the one who spoke to me the most. His feeling compelled to continue even when he didn't want to, using sleep as an escape, being isolated with his feelings. All of that is what resonated with me. It's also why I wanted to see him get a happy (or at least happier) ending. Despite all the platitudes of EW, the characters I cared about the most had the worst outcomes so it certainly wasn't a feel good or uplifting story for me.

[jameseoakes]

Frankly, Yoshi-P has the polar opposite personality of mine. I already have issues with Azem being written as some kind of "chaos goblin", as I've seen on Reddit, and now my WoL is apparently a traveler at heart who is always in search of greater challenges. Since when? It feels like Yoshi-P has a certain idea about the typical gamer he wants to superimpose on the WoL that is just not me. I also don't care for Y'shtola, she's one of my least favorite Scions, so if she's going to become the developer mouthpiece it means I'll never have a moment's peace from her.
.

The story really seems to be trying to push a characterisation that's almost come out of nowhere on the player character and I find it really jarring as it just kills my immersion and I am finding the supporting cast friendships increasingly forced, I feel like I am being used by Y'stola and not that we are team mates

[Teraq]

(HQ Hermesposting)

Late to the party on this, but I've held off dunking on Hermes long enough (as in, it's been 3 days at least).

In a way you could say Venat is hogging the spotlight for Endwalker complaints because the discourse around her is very polarized, and the fact that the game heavily pushes her as a hero is suuuper egregious. Hermes, meanwhile, while I do think the game justifies him too much, it seems the playerbase's opinion of him is a lot more ambivalent. I found it's at least rather common to find people dunking on his dubious scientific methods and finding the writing around him weird/unrelatable. Of course, you then have the typical Twitter creature (or OF troll, god forbid) who thinks he was a soff boi and the only human Ancient and totally relatable and you don't understand depression, but I think this is a minority opinion.

1. I've not gotten the impression from anything I've seen that it was Ishikawa's intention to depict Hermes as mentally ill, autistic, or any other diagnosis I've seen applied to him. (Feel free to post information to the contrary.) He is spoken of as a rational individual with no disorders that would have led him to making the decisions he did. This is important because many of his thoughts and actions have been excused for these reasons.

While I have myself thought of him as depressed or neurodivergent, I fully agree that this didn't seem to be the intention at all. Both YoshiP and Ishikawa are pushing him as judging humanity in a "fair" way which presumably implies rationality. The reason why I do headcanon him as depressed (as his Ancient self anyway) is so I can make sense of him, because I swear this character ping-pongs uncomfortably between extremes.

He cares a LOOOOOoooot (too much) about bad concepts like the unstable charybdis and the murder wolves, but he doesn't bother mourning the alkonosts they murdered? Meteion obviously wants to shield his fragile psyche from her sisters' report and is in extreme distress but he doesn't do anything to abort the entire thing?
He snaps (holes himself up into Ktisis), then he unsnaps (seems about ready to hand himself and Meteion in after the fight), then he snaps again (KAIROS), and then he... unsnaps again, as we are told he fought against the Final Days in earnest even though he resents humanity so much??? I'm sorry, but I don't believe wiping his memories of the last couple of days would suddenly not make him an edgy, resentful militant vegan. Am I supposed to believe his OMG-I-CANNOT-COPE-WITH-DEATH-IN-ANYWAY self would support the idea of Zodiark? The first, the second, and most egregiously of all, the infamous third sacrifice (which we have so little concrete information on, it regularly makes Venat supporters go on tangents even though it really is beside the point as far as her motivations go according to the most recent Q&A)? I suppose Hermes, of all people, going with the third sacrifice is like... the single strongest headcanon evidence for the stupid Zodiark tempering having any effect at all on a character lmao.

I can reason my Hermes-was-ill headcanon as such:
1. It serves to explain some inconsistencies in his writing when you can handily invoke cognitive bias.
2. Him eventually receiving appropriate care and treatment and eventually getting better and opening up would be a working explanation for his weird 180° turn on defending humanity, as well as justifying why they eventually accepted the guy to the Seat of Fandaniel, because holy expletive I cannot imagine this dude whom I have just watched have meltdowns every other scene in Elpis would actually seat on the highest council of mankind in any sane world. Hence I cope by imagining everyone really did notice that HERMES IS LITERALLY UNWELL.
3. It makes Ancients way more sympathetic.

4. The gaslighting with him is eerily similar to Venat. We're told he has a "pure" and "noble" soul, yet he acts in contradiction to this. He may have moments where he expresses a seemingly sincere desire to change society, but beneath that appears to be a deep seated resentment towards others not thinking and feeling the way he does. (This seems to be a theme of EW that if people aren't behaving the way you want it's okay to force that behavior through violence.)

Honestly I kind of resent it when people say the game unambiguously presented him as wrong. No, the gaslight was fairly strong around him too. HERMES IS SAD HUMANS DO NOT RESPECT ANIMAL LIVES! CAMERA PANS TO A LITTLE FAMILY OF ADORABLE HEDGEHOGS. Oh this is definitely the sort of subtle storytelling I came here for! His reasoning for "testing humanity" and the whole thing about it being "fair" in any sort of way (see your 3rd point lmao) worked well enough on some people who fully bought into it, at least. Probably Ishikawa herself, to begin with.

5. Learning from Meteion's report that Etheirys is essentially the best place in the universe must have been particularly galling given his issues with his people. As Teraq said, he's a first world problem. :P

Yes and it's unironically a far more understandable motivation for him snapping than his largely unrelatable existential quandary straight out of /r/im14andthisisdeep. WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M ACTUALLY REALLY WELL-OFF METEION??? THEN WHY DO I FEEL SO SAD???????? TRULY NOBODY UNDERSTANDS ME!!!!!!!!!!

Special mention to his dumb lines about what if humanity ever reaches perfection, will they all die with a smile on their faces then? (INSERT NEON LIGHT ARROWS POINTING TO THE PLENTY IN THE DEAD ENDS HERE) What kind of abstract question is this, you smooth-brain? I am so disappointed Emet-Selch didn't bluntly reply "Yes" like the Chad gamer meme. Would you rather be hit with the horrific Grebulof pandemic that turns you into a walking boil? Or perhaps the planetwide world war? I'll take the peaceful suicide with a smile on my face dude tyvm.

I'd like to know if anyone else had an issue with how Hermes' character has been presented in interviews and this quest chain?

Not so much an issue as a mitigating factor that IMO absolutely should be brought up whenever Omega's lines are referenced: Omega was a person, now machine, that lived in a constantly at-war culture and a survival-of-the-fittest hellscape, whose very design is to constantly evolve. I'm not exactly surprised then it would come up with "ackshually Hermes good because brutality results in evolution".

I'm more disturbed by Ishikawa herself asking whether he was the first step for mankind or not, and I am free to reject that, just like their shallow Plenty parallel. (Ra-la take me, though.)

[Misplaced_Marbles]

The story really seems to be trying to push a characterisation that's almost come out of nowhere on the player character and I find it really jarring as it just kills my immersion.

EW is like the dark knight story in that regard.

[Teraq]

EW is like the dark knight story in that regard.

Very good point, and it's a reason why I personally didn't care this much for the DRK quests.

[CrownySuccubus]

While I have myself thought of him as depressed or neurodivergent, I fully agree that this didn't seem to be the intention at all. Both YoshiP and Ishikawa are pushing him as judging humanity in a "fair" which presumably implies rationality. The reason why I do headcanon him as depressed (as his Ancient self anyway) is so I can make sense of him, because I swear this character ping-pongs uncomfortably between extremes.
He cares a LOOOOOoooot (too much) about bad concepts like the unstable charybdis and the murder wolves, but he doesn't bother mourning the alkonosts they murdered? Meteion obviously wants to shield his fragile psyche from her sisters' report and is in extreme distress but he doesn't do anything to abort the entire thing?
He snaps (holes himself up into Ktisis), then he unsnaps (seems about ready to hand himself and Meteion in after the fight), then he snaps again (KAIROS), and then he... unsnaps again, as we are told he fought against the Final Days in earnest even though he resents humanity so much??? I'm sorry, but I don't believe wiping his memories of the last couple of days would suddenly not make him an edgy, resentful militant vegan. Am I supposed to believe his OMG-I-CANNOT-COPE-WITH-DEATH-IN-ANYWAY self would support the idea of Zodiark? The first, the second, and most egregiously of all, the infamous third sacrifice (which we have so little concrete information on, it regularly makes Venat supporters go on tangents even though it really is beside the point as far as her motivations go). I suppose Hermes, of all people, going with the third sacrifice is like... the single strongest headcanon evidence for the stupid Zodiark tempering having any effect at all on a character lmao.

I appreciate the titanium-laced reinforcement for my opinions on why I utterly despise Hermes as a character.

It reminds me of the time someone told me, "But in the end, he apologized for his actions!" and I replied "WHEN!? When he was gleefully still trying to murder me in the freaking AFTERLIFE while taunting the futility of my efforts?" or do you mean when the game tried to give me that stupid "Next time let's find the answers together" nonsense of a response after I kicked his butt a third time?"

And as I told that person...yes, I know that Amon and Hermes claim to be two different people, but the game makes it clear that two operate on "overlapping soul logic" and Amon clearly references Hermes' desire for answers as his motivation. So regardless of how "different" they claim to be, the Amon we fight in the Aitiascope and the Hermes we fight in Ktisis pretty much amount to "close enough".

[AnaviAnael]

Can I also mention how utterly lazy it is that we technically fought Hermes/Fandaniel three times in Endwalker?

1. Fandaniel piloting Zodiark.
2. Hermes in Ktisis.
3. Amon in the Atiascope.

Did the devs run out of ideas for bosses?