Who knew the 6.15 Omega Quests… (Spoilers)

[SannaR]

Reddit, twitter, discord, and so on. The places where the playerbase appears on the surface to be so friendly and inviting yet turns hostile the moment you speak out against characters like Venat or G'raha, or say that you like the antagonist factions of Garlemald or the Ascians.

Oh so not on here, got it. And you mean the same places where you must also like Zenos? Or your crap for not liking if not loving such an Adonis?

[CrownySuccubus]

Reddit, Twitter, Discord and other sites are nebulous "them" scapegoats. In any fanbase or faction, it's always easy to find "You disagree with me, therefore you're bad" trolls. That's the nature of any kind of fandom. And those types can be found anywhere and in any opinionated faction.

Likewise regarding Garlemald and the Ascians and fans accused of being fascists or Nazis: as I've mentioned before, liking Garlemald is fine on its own, if the reasons are superficial like their armor aesthetics or cool machines. But on the other hand, if someone were...say...a fan of Garlemald because they admire or agree with their ideologies of militarism, conquest, genocide or Varis'/the Ascians' goal of a single superior race, then yeah...those are some fascist red flags.

In either case, neither of these points mean much without context.

[Rulakir]

Its funny, for as much as this thread claims the Watcher is to biased in his stance to be trusted, he's explicitly fine with people coming to there own conclusions and in fact encourages it and doesn't go out of his way to force his own opinion on anyone.

Okay? I never said he was going to waterboard the WoL for not agreeing. :P However, he also says: "I am a creation of Hydaelyn, and as such, I believed the age of the ancients would fade and be forgotten..." This can be easily extrapolated to her ideology as a whole, particularly as he does make frequent usage of "we" and "our" terminology. I think it's ridiculous after years of character agency being hand waved due to tempering, somehow an actual creation of a primal is exempt from any form of bias (especially when we see this isn't the case). He also suspects his recollection was limited by her and when he speaks of 'sharing her sleepless vigil' it's in the context of her being 'so resolved in her convictions'. His OG self couldn't have changed her mind if he wanted.

I actually like the Watcher, but I feel sorry for him. I view him (both versions) as one of many victims of Venat's path of destruction towards "the world we knew you deserved".

They haven't lost agency at all. It's still their own actions and decisions that will create the future, even if somebody else knows what will happen. Unless Hydaelyn is manipulating their every move, they are still in control of what they do.

She was manipulating it from the moment she spared Emet from being sundered while sundering Azem. She wouldn't have been ignorant of the bond between those two and, listening to the WoL's tales of the future, could be assured that Emet's sentimentality towards Azem regardless of incarnation would be his undoing. Likewise, Emet's saving the WoL from the rift in SoS within the context of EW has now turned into perpetuating the time loop (having regained his memories upon death) than the initial belief it was a kindness to Elidibus. (Instead, by doing this he seemingly dooms Elidibus to 'turbo death'.)

Reddit, Twitter, Discord and other sites are nebulous "them" scapegoats. In any fanbase or faction, it's always easy to find "You disagree with me, therefore you're bad" trolls.

I don't do Twitter, but I've been told by those who do it depends entirely on what your 'circle' is based on various filtration methods. As for Reddit, it's gotten better, but for 3-4 months after EW's release you couldn't say anything negative about EW without being downvoted into oblivion. I ended up chatting in private with several people who didn't like the story who'd messaged me because they thought they were alone. This is a sentiment I see a lot, especially any newcomers to the lackluster thread in general discussion. Most of the people I've chatted with on Reddit and more recently Discord don't post on the forums either. I know there seems to be some weird copium going on here that only about 3 people and their army of alts disliked EW and that's just simply not true.

[CrownySuccubus]

As for Reddit, it's gotten better, but for 3-4 months after EW's release you couldn't say anything negative about EW without being downvoted into oblivion. I ended up chatting in private with several people who didn't like the story who'd messaged me because they thought they were alone. This is a sentiment I see a lot, especially any newcomers to the lackluster thread in general discussion.

Like I said, this is sorta true. There are always going to be people who react harshly to anyone who doesn't like what they like or vice-versa. However, there's also the problem that mere disagreement is being lumped in with trolling and toxicity. Downvotes don't tell us anything, because someone downvoting a comment because they disagree, but can see some validity to your point has their vote counted exactly the same as Chucklefart01 who just vomits "lul looks liek some1 didnt read the storie properly lololol!1!1".

Most of the people I've chatted with on Reddit and more recently Discord don't post on the forums either. I know there seems to be some weird copium going on here that only about 3 people and their army of alts disliked EW and that's just simply not true.

I don't think that's true, either. At least I hope not. People probably feel that way because there's a few names that keep popping up in various threads repeating almost identically-worded arguments.

[Rosenstrauch]

I don't do Twitter, but I've been told by those who do it depends entirely on what your 'circle' is based on various filtration methods. As for Reddit, it's gotten better, but for 3-4 months after EW's release you couldn't say anything negative about EW without being downvoted into oblivion.

On Twitter, yeah, that's entirely true. A combination of factors (search terms, hashtags, high profile users, blocking/muting and getting blocked/muted) will wildly change what the fandom's landscape looks like. You have to go out of your way to find criticism, and if it's ever a reply to an official tweet or part of a hashtag there's a high chance of it getting responded to with "you didn't understand the story!" or trolling accusations. But if it's a high profile user voicing the criticism, or even just making observations, there will typically be a lot of positive response to them.

Reddit is, well, Reddit. 90% of threads will get downvoted upon creation, with only fanart, memes, and official announcement-related things being spared. The usual answer to why is "people pay to have bots downvote everything on the sub", which is absolutely absurd and yet unfortunately believable. But criticism of Shadowbringers and Endwalker tends to get downvoted the most, and often triggers the auto-hide function as a result. For all that the site likes to claim that "Downvoting is not disagreeing, it's for quality control", it's plainly obvious nobody actually uses it that way.

[Veloran]

She literally burnt through her soul. How was she not lacking in aether. This is stated consistently since the end of ARR.

She had enough power to fight WoL and the Scions in a pointless suicide trial. She had a giant crystal of aether, half of which wasn't even used for her plan. She resides in a literal sea of nigh-infinite aether. There is zero reason why she couldn't have contacted WoL or anyone else at any point throughout the story.

Its funny, for as much as this thread claims the Watcher is to biased in his stance to be trusted, he's explicitly fine with people coming to there own conclusions and in fact encourages it and doesn't go out of his way to force his own opinion on anyone.

It's extra funny when posters here keep talking about the writers writing "propaganda" because they decided it was to nice to one fictional character over the other.

Some pretty poor "propaganda" going on there, where what would logically be the most biased person in the setting being totally fine with disagreement and actively telling others to come to there own conclusions. And not getting in any way defensive of finger waggy if you directly lay it on his creator.

A lot of the Watcher's dialog implies or outright states that he was practically biased by design. Such as when he says that as a creation of Hydaelyn, he believed by default that the age of the Ancients would be forgotten. Or how his memories surrounding the Final Days and the Sundering were intentionally "cut away" so that modern people would be unable to look back on those events and reach any conclusions about them. Even when he talks about his final living memories, what he says about being sad she'd stand apart from her people and swearing to share her vigil backs up the idea from Anamnesis that suggests her summoners didn't know they were about to die.

I wouldn't say that the Watcher supporting people reaching their own conclusions is evidence that he isn't biased or that his opinion shouldn't be questioned, because both he and Venat were intentionally keeping watch over humanity to see how they developed, what sort of people they evolved into, and what conclusions they reached. Like Flow Together says, she was "weighing your every choice". That's not to say his opinion is without merit or anything, but when the one memory left to him is one of pure love for Venat and devotion to her cause and all the rest were stripped away in order to ensure the truth would be hidden for all time, we have to at least take it with a grain of salt.

[Kranel_San]

She had enough power to fight WoL and the Scions in a pointless suicide trial. She had a giant crystal of aether, half of which wasn't even used for her plan. She resides in a literal sea of nigh-infinite aether. There is zero reason why she couldn't have contacted WoL or anyone else at any point throughout the story.

I'm pretty sure she had zero idea of how much energy from the crystal is needed to reach Ultima Thule. Yes, she knows the location, no she probably doesn't know how much is the energy cost.

[Veloran]

I'm pretty sure she had zero idea of how much energy from the crystal is needed to reach Ultima Thule. Yes, she knows the location, no she probably doesn't know how much is the energy cost.

Maybe. But if we believe the developers, the Mothercrystal was just something that was randomly accumulated over time, not something that was intentionally collected by Hydaelyn. Meaning that she wasn't even particularly prepping power for the travel to Ultima Thule to begin with, it was just something which happened to work out.

Anyway the fact remains that there's no excuse for why she couldn't have had the energy to spare to talk to WoL. That entire plot element was obviously just written in when they hadn't even decided what Hydaelyn was or what she wanted, and the story they wrote later on just failed to justify it. Especially with the whole "No, Hydaelyn totally doesn't need to draw in energy like all the other Primals" thing.

[SannaR]

Maybe. But if we believe the developers, the Mothercrystal was just something that was randomly accumulated over time, not something that was intentionally collected by Hydaelyn. Meaning that she wasn't even particularly prepping power for the travel to Ultima Thule to begin with, it was just something which happened to work out.

Anyway the fact remains that there's no excuse for why she couldn't have had the energy to spare to talk to WoL. That entire plot element was obviously just written in when they hadn't even decided what Hydaelyn was or what she wanted, and the story they wrote later on just failed to justify it. Especially with the whole "No, Hydaelyn totally doesn't need to draw in energy like all the other Primals" thing.

Are you talking about the slower Aether collection bit? That was probably due to the prepping of the first and the source for a light aspected calamity?

[CrownySuccubus]

Especially with the whole "No, Hydaelyn totally doesn't need to draw in energy like all the other Primals" thing.

It was explained in ShB that neither Zodiark nor Hydaelyn required massive aether consumption under normal conditions because of the abundance of aether in the Ancients sacrificed to summon them. Modern primals require obscene amounts of aether because they are comparatively Aether-starved.