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

[Rulakir]

Here's a no doubt non-inclusive list of all of the contrivances, plot holes, and outright idiocy one has to accept in order to get through Endwalker's trainwreck of a plot. THIS is how far one's Disbelief must be Suspended

I could've suspended disbelief for most of it, but not:

1) The Scions' admiration of Hydaelyn despite her being an amalgamation of antagonistic ideologies they have historically opposed. They do unfortunately have a history of zealotry towards her dating back to ARR. However, Krile goes from supposedly being skeptical of Hydaelyn's nature and motivations to embracing her wholeheartedly because she was just too charming to resist (and the game does not attribute this to tempering). Not a single Scion gives a sanctimonious speech about how wrong her methods were or the fact that they're benefactors in a literal crime against humanity. Nor do they address the deeper implications of that given they're supposed to be our moral paragons in the game.





2) The conflict between the presentation of Hermes (villain) and Venat (heroine) despite not only their motives (dissatisfaction with Ancient society) and results (end of Ancient civilization) being similar. Why is one bad and one good? Yoshi-P even compares Venat to the Ascians and, again, I'm left wondering why she's not also bad when she's guilty for as much and more while having less sympathetic intent.

3) The reasons for the sundering as a whole were not sufficient. Quoting Lurina from the lore forum: "The more controversial a plot element, the tighter the plot has to be to get people to accept it in good faith, and 'cultural genocide was the right call to save the world' is about as close to maximum controversy as you can get. I think the fact that these forums, the comments on Venat's entry in the JP character poll, and pretty much everywhere else the story is being discussed are filled with people expressing discomfort or irritation with it self-evident proof that the writers didn't quite make it."

4) Nobody being angry with Venat after the fact. The WoL clearly cared about Emet and Hyth, they trusted Venat to do the right thing, and she arguably didn't (don't @ me with tImE lOoP). The WoL nevertheless is "fond" of her. Emet, who is everywhere presented as having suffered through 12k years of "hatred and heartbreak", waffles between taking digs at her (I only accept the reason he wasn't furious is because he'd either already gotten it out of his system or, like Brinne said, didn't want to upset the WoL) and commending her, which was so inconsistent with his character it wasn't believable. We got more bitterness out of Elidibus, who died never learning the truth.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some things that may come to me after I post this. :P

[CrownySuccubus]

2) The conflict between the presentation of Hermes (villain) and Venat (heroine) despite not only their motives (dissatisfaction with Ancient society) and results (end of Ancient civilization) being similar. Why is one bad and one good? Yoshi-P even compares Venat to the Ascians and, again, I'm left wondering why she's not also bad when she's guilty for as much and more while having less sympathetic intent.

That's just it -- according to the writers themselves, they didn't intend EITHER of them to be considered "bad". They use terms like "mistake" and "important first step" to describe Hermes' actions. To the writers, the Ancients are not a group of people unfairly and unjustly murdered, they're a group of wannabe gods that thought themselves above suffering and death before being ready for it.

As I've mentioned, there's a sort of "human worship" that the story fully buys into, whereas the present day humankind (that is, all intelligent species) are inherently better or more worthy than other forms of life. Avoiding that was why I was hoping that END didn't devolve into "punch God with the power of friendship" that most other JRPGS do, but it arguably did something just as bad with "Something else already punched our strawman for God, so now punch THAT instead with the power of friendship".

the comments on Venat's entry in the JP character poll

I missed this. When/where did this happen?

My initial understanding was likewise that the goal was to MINIMIZE casualties, particularly to tempered Garleans that were otherwise civilians. And I was totally okay with that. But then we got the scene where Estinien drops some Garlean grunt and Y'Shtola chides him for even INJURING the guy because the two teenagers have said we aren't supposed to kill ANYONE. And then throughout the gameplay in that segment everyone I crack over the skull with my big ole honking axe just falls down with a boo-boo.

Instead of writing anything remotely intelligent for how our characters smartly minimized casualties, they just had The Plot Itself declare that NO ONE DIED LOL. It could be said that I'm being very uncharitable in interpreting what's being shown in that Y'Shtola and Estinien clip, and that despite it suggesting the opposite, the understanding among the characters and in the plot is that there were casualties, and we simply tried to keep them to a bare minimum. But there is still no excuse for no one bringing up the Conquerer's Chain. That is a mistake literally none of these characters could conceivably make.

Eh. I can see the problem, sure. But I guess it didn't bother me any more than the 10,000 other missions we do where our mission is to spar with or weaken some type of target without killing them. If I can shoot somebody with a steampunk shotgun at short range and have them just down on their knees and panting in the next cutscene, I've already checked out of expecting realistic wounds regardless of the level of violence.

[Rulakir]

That's just it -- according to the writers themselves, they didn't intend EITHER of them to be considered "bad". They use terms like "mistake" and "important first step" to describe Hermes' actions. To the writers, the Ancients are not a group of people unfairly and unjustly murdered, they're a group of wannabe gods that thought themselves above suffering and death before being ready for it.

I'd accept that if the Ascians weren't presented as being wholly in the wrong even as recently as the Omega quest chain. Meanwhile, history's two biggest antagonists are a "first step" and a "herois". It seems like if it happened to the Ancients? It's fine, they deserved it. Did it happen to the sundered? Unforgivable atrocities.

Note, I'm not trying to say the Ascians were right. I'm simply saying they set a precedent that is inconsistent with what came after despite the crimes of the Final Days and the Sundering being far more egregious.

I missed this. When/where did this happen?

You can find the character poll link here along with some of the translated comments.

[jameseoakes]

I'd accept that if the Ascians weren't presented as being wholly in the wrong even as recently as the Omega quest chain. Meanwhile, history's two biggest antagonists are a "first step" and a "herois". It seems like if it happened to the Ancients? It's fine, they deserved it. Did it happen to the sundered? Unforgivable atrocities.
.

Yeah this is my problem, the actions Hermes and Venat take are as wicked as any of the antagonists the game as had before but it seems it's OK when the victims are arbitrarily called the wrong kinds of people so it's OK to systematically purge them. It's only bad when it's the the right kinds of people are going to be the victims

[anhaato]

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These are all great but the #1 thing I cannot suspend disbelief for is the fact that we had to maintain the course of events when we went back in time, but G'raha gets to "if histree must be unwritten... let it be unwritten" all day and CREATE A SPLIT TIMELINE. Guess we're the only ones who deserved a better fate getting to avoid the 8UC, meanwhile this entire race of good people isn't allowed to avoid their literal extinction.

[Lauront]

I'd add the Plenty to all the above. As I said, I just couldn't take it seriously. Ditto with UT and the fake death march.

These are all great but the #1 thing I cannot suspend disbelief for is the fact that we had to maintain the course of events when we went back in time, but G'raha gets to "if histree must be unwritten... let it be unwritten" all day and CREATE A SPLIT TIMELINE. Guess we're the only ones who deserved a better fate getting to avoid the 8UC, meanwhile this entire race of good people isn't allowed to avoid their literal extinction.

And any other stars that fell in the crosshairs of the Meteia's cosmic temper tantrum of despair.

[CrownySuccubus]

I'd add the Plenty to all the above.

I've had a hard time deciding whether this or the Ea were the stupidest.