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

[jameseoakes]

A large part of the problem is that the likes of Moenbryda are pushed as much more important than they actually were. Moenbryda's demise didn't really have any huge consequences. The Scions were upset because she was a good friend of theirs and a colleague. Her parents were upset because they're family. Yet beyond that, there's no deeper consequences.

A good death is a death that has lasting impact beyond making a few characters 'sad'. We really need someone on the level of Aymeric or Nanamo to die. A leader figure perishing for one reason or another would plunge a nation into chaos and if written well that very same chaos could bring back some of the grit and intrigue that many of us wish to see. With so many nations already introduced into the game itself, it makes no sense to me for every single one to go in the same 'safe' direction with no meaningful instability to speak of. I would have liked Merlwyb to perish during the negotiations with the Beast Tribes which would not only cause relations with the Kobold and Sahagin to sour but allow a new leader figure to step up and push Limsa deeper into piracy. Maybe Sicard could have fulfilled that role - and given us a male leader figure to rule at least one of the three starter city states.

I kinda liked some of the content around her as I did find it quite emotional but I find it odd that other character like Poplymedio and Yda were almost completely forgotten.

[aveyond-dreams]

A pirate nation actually being able to embrace piracy and all the potential grit and allure of it? Sign me up no questions asked. Aymeric taking the field and sacrificing himself for Ishgard in the same way that many of his fellow countrymen did over the course of Heavensward? Definitely a better ending for him than having him be practically a hostage of the House of Lords. This is the kind of deeper and more interesting storytelling I'd like to see, not this global alliance angle. Throw a wrench in it, stir up some chaos and make for a better experience.

[Quuoooote]

It's less that she's opposed to the sacrifices, and more that she's concerned that if they were to complete them and restore their world and return to things as they were, they'd reach the fate of the Plenty

Oh don't worry, I'm painfully aware of that fact. I feel the same way about the Plenty as I do Dynamis: They are a plot contrivance written to justify to the player why the Ancients needed to be destroyed. Unfortunately I don't really buy the strawman the writers constructed with both the Plenty and the Ea (because one suicidal 'perfect' civilization just isn't enough to beat us over the head with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer); mostly because the concept is dumb, but also because the entire purpose of Zodiark in the first was to survive in the face of impossible, apocalyptic odds. He is literally mankind's final hope, a manifestation of the Ancients' desire to struggle and suffer in the pursuit of life, which is more than a little contradictory to the Plenty's endgame. Do the writers want us to believe that Emet-Selch struggled to resurrect his people for 12,000 years because the Ancients were ultimately apathetic to the point of self-destruction? I don't think so.

To elaborate on the 'dumb', I don't really think the Plenty were well thought-out on a sub-textual level. The messaging of perfection = bad—which is straight up bizarre when interpreted as a moral for real life—raises more questions, like where the line is drawn between acceptable advancement and dangerous perfection. Did the Ancients need to be Sundered because they were too close to said line? If so, how does Sundering them and wiping them out resolve this problem? Would sensitivity to Dynamis prevent this ultimate fate, or were the Ancients essentially dealt an impossible hand in life? Are the Sundered going to be at risk if they advance too far, or are they immune to such apathy and/or existential dread because they have Dynamis?

Not to mention the fact that the only Plenty-adjacent action taken by the Ancients that was shown to us was Hermes' predecessor choosing to return to the lifestream after having lived a fulfilling and complete life in service to Etheirys—something that hardly measures up to the apathy of the Plenty, and even becomes a bit ironic when considering the Ea. Since part of the Ea's despair stemmed from their formless and immortal bodies that forced them to simply exist until the heat death of the universe, they are meant to (I think) be an argument against the Ancients' immortality. If you take this into consideration you realize that the Ancients are in a lose-lose position: If they return to the lifestream, they're too much like the Plenty and need to be Sundered. On the other hand if they live forever they become too like the Ea, which would probably also mean they need to be Sundered. The Ancients are in a rigged, unwinnable situation because they're battling plot contrivances designed to kill them.

[Raoabolic]

Despite Dynamis being the key that is allegedly everywhere, undetectable, and more abundant than the much-stronger Aether, we never actually really learn how to manipulate it. The Sundered never feel as though they're more equipped to deal with the issue of Meteion other than being told "you just are", and ironically they are presented as much weaker than their Unsundered counterparts. The aetherical density of the Ancients provides them innate resistance to the Dynamis / blasphemy-inducing effects of Meteion's song, but the Endsong easily smothers and snuffs out the aether of the Sundered, resulting in complete and total soul erasure. Go, suffering.

The more I think about it, the more dynamis fees like the Midichlorians of XIV. That's weird, lol.

[LordGiggles]

It was so clear early on in UT that the characters were not going to stay dead that it really killed those parts for me and made most of the setup for each 'death' just feel so overdone and empty

Edit: not helped by the fact the game as really fallen in to a habit of doing these fake outs a lot

Honestly I could be on board with it if the sacrifices weren't intended to have emotional impact on the player, with it being more focused on the actual arguments and reasons to press on the individual scions have, but I don't think it did that well. Urianger just hopping into the temporary suicide club with Yshtola because they couldn't figure out where else to put him is the best example of that I think, but there's a lot of pretty tropey nothing takes or just outright dumb stuff said by them in general.

Also yeah hard agree on the fake deaths, I was over that in heavensward. Yshtola getting one (or a "will she die????" moment) every expac since is just incredibly weak, uninspired writing.

[Lauront]

excellent points about our straw-based broken aesop lifeforms

Totally agree with all the points you raise. The Plenty is just so basic that it passes as nothing other than a shallow visual parallel to the ancients attempting to cave our heads in with the "point", hopefully disabling any remaining cerebral functions with which to question it. I just can't take the Plenty seriously on any level, because what they are presenting me with shows a supposedly very sophisticated people, who just didn't plan ahead much and then were hit with a dread ennui. Doesn't really seem much like the ancients, and even after the Final Days, the Convocation's aim in realising the final sacrifice was for them to resume custody of their star. They were aware of the risks of becoming stagnant, as per one of the Amaurotine shades' dialogue. Given the lens through which they evaluate decisions, if they became apprised of either the fate of the Ea or the Plenty strawmen (did they suffer an existential crisis if they touched grass? too similar to what they're made of?), they were not compelling ultimate destinations for their society. After the Plenty, I pretty much exited the game and did not come back for two weeks or so, because it was so utterly contrived and stupid in what it tried to do.

Yoshi can even bring in an ultimate, with his self-insert's head floating around, telling us "NOOO! BAD! YOUR LUMINESCENT EYED HUSBANDOS ARE DOOMED! AND THEY'RE HAPPY ABOUT IT!" if we try save the ancients in it, and I'll still consider it to be contrived trash.

Also another chance to shill the discord Rulakir mentioned: https://discord.gg/FVph63yH

[Cutes]

To elaborate on the 'dumb', I don't really think the Plenty were well thought-out on a sub-textual level. The messaging of perfection = bad—which is straight up bizarre when interpreted as a moral for real life—raises more questions, like where the line is drawn between acceptable advancement and dangerous perfection. Did the Ancients need to be Sundered because they were too close to said line? If so, how does Sundering them and wiping them out resolve this problem? Would sensitivity to Dynamis prevent this ultimate fate, or were the Ancients essentially dealt an impossible hand in life? Are the Sundered going to be at risk if they advance too far, or are they immune to such apathy and/or existential dread because they have Dynamis?

There is also a moral problem which lies in the decision that “Men shall walk” solely being made by Venat as she becomes Hydaelyn. Even if one were to argue that Venat was trying to spare the Ancients the fate of the Plenty or the Ea, using their ends as a justification for her actions ex post facto, is it morally right for her to be the sole individual to make this decision for her fellow men? The story presents her as a caring Mother, but even a parent that wants the best for their children can make mistakes. One could say the supporters of Hydaelyn believed the Sundering to be acceptable but at least half the Ancients would not have agreed as they wished to struggle and save their star and society under Zodiark or they would not have summoned Him in the first place. Even if Venat had popular support, she is still operating with the foreknowledge that she would become Hydaelyn and cause the Sundering in the first place, the causality loop once again robbing her of her agency and any logical or moral choice. Any moral conflict can be absolved with “well since I am meant to become Hydaelyn, this must have been the reason. Therefore, it follows I must become Hydaelyn”

[Lauront]

Part of the issue I have is they don't really want to commit and just say she is doing it because of the time loop (this can be seen from the Q&A responses Yoshi gives) - they instead give the impression that she's choosing to do this (=ensure the timeline doesn't "go awry") of her own accord, for her own reasons, and when these reasons are interrogated, Yoshi defaults to the defences I mentioned before and tries to frame this as the way an ancient would think (never mind that we've seen several sundered antagonists do the same now.) Probably because those reasons fall apart under scrutiny.

[Rosenstrauch]

The more I think about it, the more dynamis fees like the Midichlorians of XIV. That's weird, lol.

It's funny, 'cause things like Dynamis are fairly common in anime and Japanese stories, and to a lesser extent western ones inspired by such. Think Undertale's "Determination", or "Spiral Power" from Gurren Lagann. The difference is that their respective "Believe in yourself!" magic systems were built into the setting from the beginning, while Dynamis is rather haphazardly thrown in.

I'm not sure if I want the writers to expand on Dynamis, ignore it going forward, or to dismiss it outright. Like, going "Actually Dynamis is completely unusable, and everyone who appears to use Dynamis was actually just using Aether". No matter what they do, I don't expect them to make it a worthwhile addition to the setting. But it's already poisoned the well, so to speak. You can try to take the poison out, but someone in the village still drank it and died.

[Raoabolic]

I'm not sure if I want the writers to expand on Dynamis, ignore it going forward, or to dismiss it outright. Like, going "Actually Dynamis is completely unusable, and everyone who appears to use Dynamis was actually just using Aether".

I would laugh hard at a retcon like that. I do agree that it's in a lot of shonen stuff (Gee, I wonder why EW felt like I was reading Shonen jump. lol) but the whole Dynamis thing feels a lot like they are "jumping the shark" ala Star Wars: Ep 1 in the sense they tried to explain stuff that really didn't need explaining. In hindsight I really hope we are not getting Ep2 and 3 for 7.0 and 8.0. Now I gone and depressed myself, lol. :/