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

[Lunaxia]

Ishgard, Ala Mhigo, Eulmore, and now Garlemald. One after the other bending to modern day moral frameworks, shattering the fantasy with Alphinaud as the spokesperson for it all. The person preaching constantly about the virtues of freedom and democracy is always him. It's gotten tiresome. Each time sucking more and more of the fantasy out of FFXIV's world.

Technically, we were the ones who defeated three of those four, because two of them wanted to maintain a status quo or else instill a new kind that would bring about an apocalypse, another was forcibly ruling against the people's will, while the latter collapsed in on itself due to ongoing power struggles and Ascian influence. They were all later free to choose their own style of governance, Alphinaud had next to no influence on those matters. I don't see what fantasy that's shattering, other than that of living under tyranny. They were hardly sustainable forms of leadership, expect perhaps the theocracy in Ishgard before Thordan jumped off the deep end.

Eulmore's resolution was lackluster after having gone through 2 versions of the same tired plot, because by that point my patience was exhausted. I had hoped Garlemald would have been handled better. And then it wasn't.

Eulmore's resolution was incredibly boring though, I will give you that. I don't know if it was because the end of 5.0 was so spectacular or if 5.1 was handled that poorly, but I slept through most of it. They have developed a bad habit of going to all the trouble of setting up the stories of these various places and then promptly shoo-ing them off stage when it's time to move onto something else.

Which I think is great. I love Varis's sheer pettiness and singlemindedness about spiting his grandpa for the sake of spiting his grandpa because he hates him that much. It's grade-A black comedy and makes his ultimate fate at his own son's hands sort of poetic, after a fashion.

There's something very satisfying about when a game delves into the deeper psychologies behind its characters, and I think it's part of the reason Emet-Selch is so popular. They really dove right into what's going on behind the mask, and it made him that much more fascinating and complex to the extent many found him to be relatable, which is quite tremendous when you think about what he actually did post-sundering, even just during his tenure as Solus. We're shaped by such trivial things as our family, our childhood and our upbringing, even the big bads and seemingly all powerful rulers ever-present in these fantasy games, and I always enjoy when they remind us of that.

As another example, I appreciated how they frequently hint at Aymeric being deeply affected by the relationship he had with his father and how he still struggles with it. It's very subtle, yet I felt it really added a lot to his character.

[Brinne]

There's something very satisfying about when a game delves into the deeper psychologies behind its characters, and I think it's part of the reason Emet-Selch is so popular. They really dove right into what's going on behind the mask, and it made him that much more fascinating and complex to the extent many found him to be relatable, which is quite tremendous when you think about what he actually did post-sundering, even just during his tenure as Solus. We're shaped by such trivial things as our family, our childhood and our upbringing, even the big bads and seemingly all powerful rulers ever-present in these fantasy games, and I always enjoy when they remind us of that.

As another example, I appreciated how they frequently hint at Aymeric being deeply affected by the relationship he had with his father and how he still struggles with it. It's very subtle, yet I felt it really added a lot to his character.

The emphasis and depth given to exploring his emotional state and internal conflict is absolutely a huge part of the reason Emet-Selch is often considered a cut above the rest in terms of characters. The gaps within the contradictions between what we say, what we do, what we think and what we feel are largely what makes us messy, human, and worth exploring - and with Emet-Selch, you can talk at length about every single one of those aspects within him and how they work with and then clash with the rest of him, creating a character who often technically acts illogically, yet consistently once you grasp him on an emotional level. It rules.

With Varis, he certainly presents himself and says the words that may reflect an unflappable, dedicated leader of an empire at initial blush--but dive just beneath the surface and you'll still find the angry, insecure teenager seething from the hurt of his idolized grandfather not caring enough about him. There's a reason the first scene we ever see of Varis - his establishing scene - is him spitting on Solus's coffin. In that respect, I think Varis is a delight.

Aymeric was actually probably my favorite character in the HW era because I noticed that it felt like he had some neat layers to his character that were woven in just for the sake of rounding out his character; there was a consistent undercurrent of low self-worth and self-depreciation to a lot of his dialogue and scenes that wasn't strictly in service to the plot itself that I found really interesting.

If you're interested in narratives that revolve around exploring motivations and psychologies in messy, but authentic feeling ways, read umineko praise yasuda wait wait don't look up any details about either though for the love of god wait what? Not sure what happened there!