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

[Teraq]

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".

I considered addressing Amon in my post too, because it's yet another layer which makes the character of Fandaniel as a whole not make sense.

He insists he sees Hermes as nothing more than a memory/soul graft, and he makes at least a couple of comments on how much the man he used to be would hate what he's doing, and all I can think is... would he really? And then you have the obvious parallels with him always being a misanthropic scientist who's got something of a beef with death and the mEaNiNg oF LiFe, and even his death monologue inside Zodiark plays the Elpis night theme.

I want to say it's just him being in denial and honestly pretty cringe about it, but I'm not entirely comfortable with that conclusion either, because reuniting the two sides as one character works awkwardly at best IMO. But then maybe it's because Hermes himself is an awkward character in the first place, because the dude seriously went from "EVERY LIFE MATTERS AND IS EQUAL (EVEN THE SPRITES)" to "yeah I just pressed the doomsday button and I know what's gonna happen lmao (but I'll pretend not to)". I honestly much preferred Fandaniel as a chaotic evil gremlin with a penchant for body horror flesh towers with doors made of teeth and sphincter walls, who angrily snaps at people around him to JUST DIE ALREADY. At least that was consistent.

Again, I have sort of managed to reason this away with my headcanon of him being originally in mental distress then slowly rehabilitated: the Sundering literally broke his self into pieces, and it just so happens that his past trauma and alienation are much more salient in his sundered mind than whatever came after. This would integrate the fact that the Leo crystal we picked up in 5.3 was bizarrely faded/altered: as we know the crystals contain only memories from the persons' tenure as Convocation members, perhaps the fact that the memories of Fandaniel were so positive and incoherent with his own experience and instincts made him reject them (as it was implied could happen with G'raha and the Exarch's memories – but of course nothing of the sort happened with G'raha, because of course not), and that broke him even more.

[Lauront]

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?

I think they ran out of ideas from the minute we encountered Fandaniel. Seems like they wanted someone to kickstart the apocalypse and kind of make you think the ancients are 'scary' if you squint (only Elpis and Amaurot sidequests pour cold water on it) so that Venat was not cast in an antagonistic light. Whether this was the original intent or the result of squashing the plotline, I don't know, but other than brief clown moments in SHB and EW, I can't think of much I enjoyed about him.

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 believe they were using it as a further way to allow you cast doubt on Venat's reasoning, because the premise Omega is working with when he asks that is inherited from her own approach.

[CrownySuccubus]

I considered addressing Amon in my post too, because it's yet another layer which makes the character of Fandaniel as a whole not make sense.

He insists he sees Hermes as nothing more than a memory/soul graft, and he makes at least a couple of comments on how much the man he used to be would hate what he's doing, and all I can think is... would he really? But then you have the obvious parallels with him always being a misanthropic scientist who's got something of a beef with death and the mEaNiNg oF LiFe, and even his death monologue inside Zodiark plays the Elpis night theme.

I want to say it's just him being in denial and honestly pretty cringe about it, but I'm not entirely comfortable with that conclusion either, because reuniting the two sides as one character works awkwardly at best IMO. But then maybe it's because Hermes himself is an awkward character in the first place, because the dude seriously went from "EVERY LIFE MATTERS AND IS EQUAL (EVEN THE SPRITES)" to "yeah I just pressed the doomsday button and I know what's gonna happen lmao (but I'll pretend not to)". I honestly much preferred Fandaniel as a chaotic evil gremlin with a penchant for body horror flesh towers with doors made of teeth and sphincter walls, who angrily snaps at people around him to JUST DIE ALREADY. At least that was consistent.

Again, I have sort of managed to reason this away with my headcanon of him being originally in mental distress then slowly rehabilitated: the Sundering literally broke his self into pieces, and it just so happens that his past trauma and alienation are much more salient in his sundered mind than whatever came after. This would integrate the fact that the Leo crystal we picked up in 5.3 was bizarrely faded/altered: as we know the crystals contain only memories from the persons' tenure as Convocation members, perhaps the fact that the memories of Fandaniel were so positive and incoherent with his own experience and instincts that he rejected them (as it was implied could happen with G'raha and the Exarch's memories – but of course nothing of the sort happened with G'raha, because of course not), and that broke him even more.

To be fair, at least G'raha does say (in one of the best speeches of the entire game, I might add) that the confusion over where his older and past self end and begin is something that has bothered him. I can totally believe that G'raha, being a more stable person, with a larger support network, and with the best interests of others truly at heart had a better time working that out than Hermes/Fandaniel/Amon/The RZA/The Undertaker/Dwayne "The Rock" Maivia Johnson and his misanthropic ennui.

[RyuDragnier]

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?

I think it was more they wanted to get you to knock some sense into him. 3rd time was the charm, but by then we were all screaming, "HOW MANY TIMES DO WE NEED TO TEACH YOU THIS LESSON OLD MAN!?"

[Brinne]

This turned into a very strange variety of Cringe Ramble, so I apologize beforehand.

As I've said a few times, I really like Hermes - but that's from the angle of understanding that he wasn't being Fair, or was The Most Human - he was a selfish hypocrite in denial of his own emotional reasons, and no matter what he claims, puts himself and his own pain far and beyond anybody else's. The primary reason he seems to feel so deeply for others is that he's very good at projecting his pain upon them in a form of fundamentally cowardly expression of himself, because he's too insecure and disdainful of others to express them directly and risk them challenging his worldview or self-perspective. From that viewpoint, I think he's a fun character who you can really sink your teeth into, and provides a lot of opportunities to explore interesting topics. As a "oh, well, Hermes's actions were Fair though," however, beyond being deeply skeptical of that premise, I immediately fall asleep.

(That my reading of Hermes in this way might not match up to Author Intention doesn't necessarily bother me, but I completely understand it being a hard line for others. This is not the first time I've more or less gone through the "hey, author, you wrote a super compelling character here and totally didn't realize it, lmao" rodeo.)

Like, "Hermes finds out that he is in fact living in the best place and the best conditions possible and is still miserable" is potentially extremely compelling and a Grade-A opportunity to exert some Compassion (tm). However, the narrative didn't go out of its way to explore that angle, and Hermes's reaction - violence and hatred and destruction - quickly undermines any chances of using that as a platform for Compassion and Actually Understanding How Depression Works.

But you could still see him as a potentially compelling character! Humans are irrational, and oftentimes those irrationalities can be very interesting. I'm not saying this is true of Hermes - I don't believe it of him, actually, once again I think he's a Huge Hypocritical Jerk - but I do think people truly hit real breaking points. Points in which they become incapable of acting rationally or seeing outside of themselves - no, this is not the same as excusing the actions of culpability or somesuch - at which case, generally, there's a more complex and far more interesting conversation to be had than "were they justified?"

My favorite character in all of fiction is a brutal mass-murderer who enacted an elaborate plan to slaughter their entire family. Obviously, there is no justifying this action, and they objectively "had other options". It's ridiculous to even debate within that framework. However, they are so psychologically compelling and their situation is constructed as such that I "buy into" the idea that they hit their breaking point of being genuinely incapable of seeing any other way out. You can trace exactly how their worldview was constructed, and how events impacted them, that it mounted to a desperation that their way (mass murder!) was really the best way for everyone and the kindest action possible for them in the long run.

(Obviously, there's more nuance, and some element of self-serving justification wrapped up in that, but that makes them all the more compelling to me.)

This is a distinction between the likes of Emet-Selch versus Venat I think doesn't really get touched on in the midst of "whose action was justified and whose wasn't" (neither were or both were, genocide is never justified, glad we got that out of the way) that's a huge factor in the differing response to the characters - and an aspect of why, while Venat is popular, Emet-Selch basically set the world on fire in a unique way.

The construction of Emet-Selch feeling he had no other option is more detailed and compelling than the one given for Venat. I can understand him hating what he had to do for the Rejoinings, but if he dared even considering to stop, then he would be betraying everyone he loved and everyone who was relying on him to save them. I get why while, objectively, simply stopping was an option for him, it was not emotionally plausible given his situation. This leads to a compelling character whose scenes you can watch on several levels, because he's at war with himself the entire time and this bears out in his behavior. You can see him, one second, trying to enforce to himself he has to carry on, the next, obviously looking for a way out, and the next, somehow doing both at the same time.

Venat, I think, is magnitudes harder to understand why she might have felt "she had no other options." She provides mostly logistical "explanations" (because we don't want to introduce the idea of Venat's personal responsibility in these decisions) that aren't compelling, and therefore, you're (general you) inclined to scrutinize those on a logistical level, rather than Emet's psychological one - and they don't hold up. The more you scrutinize, the more ridiculous it all seems. You're scared to tell Hermes? Things could turn out worse? How could they possibly be worse than the future I just described to you? You're self-admittedly not even a Dynamis expert? Oh no, if you went to Emet-Selch, there's a chance Hermes could find out, and we can't take that risk (better to go the route we're certain will end in the world being destroyed!)

And because Venat is written to be an admirable figure to the player first and foremost, there's no room to provide context as to why certain options are so terrifying to her as to be emotionally implausible to her as an action. She's terrified of the Plenty. Why? Why did this scare her so much more than the descriptions of the other Dead Ends? What has happened in her life to make her so utterly petrified of a destruction revolving around peaceful stagnation as opposed to causing the violent deaths of everyone around her? Because Venat has to be "right" and a "good person" first and foremost, such possible "human" aspects aren't explored - so we're left to conclude, she's terrified of the Plenty simply because, according to the story, She's Right. And that leads to a whole new special level of "that doesn't hold up under scrutiny."

I find a lot of discourse when trying to talk about stories really exasperating because it often coming down to shouting matches over "is [x] good or is [x] bad" and that is, like, the most boring way to dissect fiction ever. Venat is a bad person and the narrative is exasperating for trying to sell us on the opposite, but equally important: she's also not compelling. All of the emotion surrounding her is an attempt to get you to feel for her, pure uncritical reaction, without thinking about any actual depth or conflict to be had in her character in any meaningful way. That's not what she's there for.

It's one thing to say "well, they did this because they felt they had no other options." But from a writing perspective, that's not enough. The next question that needs to be asked is: "Why?"

[CrownySuccubus]

My favorite character in all of fiction is a brutal mass-murderer who enacted an elaborate plan to slaughter their entire family.

Which character is this, by the by?

Incidentally, my favorite all-time villain (although Emet-Selch vies for the spot) is Kuja from FFIX -- who was a genocidal, racist narcissist who had such little empathy for the deaths of other people that he ordered his minions to painfully murder a child, tried to kill innocent people for no reason other than the fact that he found it funny, and then decided to obliterate all existence everywhere because he thought it was unfair for anything to exist after he died.

But Kuja was such an over-theatrical, card-carrying jerk that I couldn't help but feel entertained. Hell, I even thought his reasons (though still unsound and cruel) were at least valid; Kuja was fated to be born and die as a slave whose life didn't matter, so he jumped to the extreme opposite end and decided that ONLY he himself mattered.

Unlike Hermes, Kuja actually DID figure out why he was "wrong" just before he died, and though that in no way justifies or undoes his horrific actions, it was still interesting development and his selfish actions had the unintentional effect of teaching the rest of his race how to think for themselves.

[Brinne]

Which character is this, by the by?

Ahahaha. I'm risking giving away my identity in Other Online Spaces here, but it's "Yasuda" from Umineko no Naku Koro ni. (If you have any interest in reading that title, do not look up anything about that character or that series. It's structured as a mystery story where you are supposed to work out the culprit and is one of those uniquely frustrating works where "you can't explain anything about why you love it without spoiling everything.")

Kuja was a great character and I would definitely agree the Final Fantasy franchise's most emotionally compelling antagonist before Emet pranced his way onstage.

[Lauront]

I find a lot of discourse when trying to talk about stories really exasperating because it often coming down to shouting matches over "is [x] good or is [x] bad" and that is, like, the most boring way to dissect fiction ever. Venat is a bad person and the narrative is exasperating for trying to sell us on the opposite, but equally important: she's also not compelling. All of the emotion surrounding her is an attempt to get you to feel for her, pure uncritical reaction, without thinking about any actual depth or conflict to be had in her character in any meaningful way. That's not what she's there for.

It's why I wonder if the original intent was to have Venat come at the situation with Hermes's mindset. Emet-Selch had originally positioned her faction as somewhat frightened of Zodiark's power, and the factional conflict was over whether to sacrifice the "new life" (which now appears to be a red herring to mask her faction's true concerns) and restore the ancients sacrificed to resume stewardship of the star, or refrain from doing so and hand it over to that new life, and while with Hermes this emerges as a confused mess, to me this always allowed for the situation where whatever or whoever caused their original doom (you could even retain Fandaniel as the broker of it) seeking to exploit the paranoia of her group and the Convocation's desire to enact the will of the broader public in carrying out the decision it had come to, as a means of fomenting conflict that could remove the obstacle of Zodiark, only with it ending in a far messier way than originally envisioned, and her becoming altered as the primal's core, and more single-mindedly dedicated to her self-imposed mission with the passage of time. If you add in the facet of the Echo that can 'see' the future (thus, see their doom repeating), but not necessarily position this as accurate, particularly if some kind of time travel occurs that could mess with such predictive powers, I think she could've been an altogether more interesting character.

Although it wouldn't satisfy me hugely given the formation of an AU in the 8UC - a seemingly unnecessary at the time embellishment they nonetheless decided to include within the Tales from the Shadows - I don't really understand why they didn't more fully commit to the notion that she was desperately trying to constrain herself by bringing about the future the WoL had described, for fear e.g. of erasing the timeline. The approach they go with narratively seems to be the exact opposite - that she is actively conspiring to do this, for reasons which one can tie to a preference for the sundered, her brave little spark or the sundered world more generally, but nevertheless, it is not positioned as something her hands are bound by. It would work better than this idea that her way is objectively the best way, which ultimately is open to question, if not outright dubious.

[Theodric]

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

Yep. It happens on two fronts as well.

On one hand, the story itself will insist that the player has to consider G'raha Tia to essentially be their best friend. On the other, there's a portion of vocal players who insist that the player is obligated to dislike certain characters and factions. If they don't? Then they're attacked and accused of all manner of horrid things. It's very bizarre to me.

[YukikoKurosawa]

At least Ishikawa acknowledged that most people would not agree with or like him.

Than why did she even write him?