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

[AwesomeJr44]

Yup. Predictable doesn't mean bad. In fact, some degree of predictability is pretty good, especially for the conclusion to an arc: it means the internal logic was consistent and that the plot delivered on points that were set up.

Very true. Subverting expectations for the sake of it almost never ends up with a good story. This is the exact problem Star Wars had. The director for the 8th movie threw out the plotline that the previous movie put down and decided to subvert our expectations instead and it tore the franchise's story apart. It was so bad, that the next movie (RoS) had to resurrect the first six movie's main villain who was supposed to be dead, which ruined the first six movies.

This mindset of 'subvert expectations at all costs, even at the cost of the story's consistency' has been proven to fail time and time again. While it can be used well for plot twists, Endwalker reeks of subverting expectations for the sake of it. Why is there a twitter bird in space causing all of this stuff? Cause you didn't expect that! Why are Fandaniel and Zenos shoved to the side after the first trial? Cause you didn't expect that! I can only hope that this mindset was a one-time error from the writing crew, and not something they're going to be doing going into the patch quests and 7.0.

[Teraq]

Why is there a twitter bird in space causing all of this stuff? Cause you didn't expect that!

This was actually rather predictable, if you take the focus off Meteion herself and more onto "The Ancients created their own doom".

People were allllll over that in ShB, as far as I can remember.

I mean, I hate it, of course. I would much rather have had the Final Days be a tragedy that randomly befell a fundamentally good people, some kind of Eldritch being/phenomena the Ancients had nothing to do with and no control over. But they went with blaming the victims, of course. Muh (broken) aesop.