Who knew the 6.15 Omega Quests… (Spoilers)

[Lyth]

I don't think that Endwalker was ever about passing judgement at all. Here's a little interview snippet about Ishikawa's views on antagonists from Stormblood, although I can't find the original interview link right now. I think that the move towards more sympathetic antagonists represents a more gradual shift in the storytelling since Heavensward.

You don't have to agree with someone's actions to understand the 'why' behind it. You don't need to personally experience their emotions to be able to empathize with what's being expressed.

One thing that I will say - I've always been impressed at how patiently this game's writers have historically been able to sit on secrets for the sake of a bigger dramatic payout down the road. T12's extended cutscene nearly three years after the original 'End of an Era' one is an excellent example. That's one of the main reasons why I think there's not much point formulating a judgement until after Pandaemonium and Myths are fully out.

Full disclosure, I find it interesting that people assign lore dumps to be “propaganda,” implying there’s some unvarnished truth being suppressed or ignored by the biased writers. There’s certainly examples of propaganda being used by in game actors who the writers intend to be untrustworthy, but to accuse the writers themselves of it is a bit like hearing a prophecy from the Fates and going “no way nerds you’re just lying.“

What makes it so bizarre is the fact that the story writers' words are the only thing that we have to go on. If they want to paint a character in a negative light, they can just choose to characterize them as maliciously evil. I think they've actually chosen the more challenging writing task by trying to get the playerbase to empathize with all parties involved, when some fans seem to want to polarize everything down into factional absolutes.

On the subject, though - I do note that a lot of the discussion in this thread has been unfortunately been derailed by a particular individual posting on alt accounts. I ordinarily wouldn't have an issue with such, ah, roleplaying, shall we say, but I dislike the fact that it's being used as a means for targeted harassment. He's been very careless, though, across his very extensive posting history, and you even accidentally managed to catch out two of his alts at one point. It then made it relatively easy to completely unravel the rest once I knew precisely what I was looking for. I do hope that he comes to his senses and reins it in a bit, because he does put out some well-written and interesting posts on his main posting account despite being unnecessarily stubborn. This is really not worth it for him in the long run. Sometimes it's just better to 'agree to disagree', right?

[SentioftheHoukai]

Full disclosure, I find it interesting that people assign lore dumps to be “propaganda,” implying there’s some unvarnished truth being suppressed or ignored by the biased writers. There’s certainly examples of propaganda being used by in game actors who the writers intend to be untrustworthy, but to accuse the writers themselves of it is a bit like hearing a prophecy from the Fates and going “no way nerds you’re just lying.“

Full disclosure, you might not remember Greek mythology too well for the Fates were kinda tyrants themselves. They didn't spout prophecy so much as that they had the power to reinforce reality so as to ensure it follows the path they decided was best. You don't give people the ability to quite literally decide who dies and when up to and including the very gods and expect them NOT to abuse it.

I'm not really sure I'd call anything in the Omega quests "propaganda" personally, especially with how the Watcher states that while he's satisfied with how things resolved, you shouldn't consider your own thoughts on the matter to be without merit.

It felt more like they were trying to encourage viewing things from a broader perspective then a simple matter of right/wrong...though I can't say I felt as though the Endwalker MSQ proper really spun things that way.

I call it propaganda, because they tried to inject "nuance" into the quests only to end by reinforcing the perspective they'd prefer you leave with. Just like they did in Endwalker, frankly just more of the same.

snip

See my above part to address the first part of this. As for the second portion, shame on you Lyth. Way to devalue people and dismiss their opinions with your usual wild assumptions. I know the person of which you speak as personally as one can know someone on the internet (that is to say, I interact with them more..... personally than they'd ever deign to entertain you with) and I know for a FACT that they are not, in fact alts of the same person. Despite them, and I quote, "Now sharing the same face". Isn't that rather unavoidable when you play an MMO with 4 face options per race/gender combo? Honestly.