Zodiark's Presentation in EW

[Darkstride]

Was I the only one who wasn't surprised that Zodiark was dealt with so early on? I was always under the impression he wasn't our final boss in Endwalker. I never could have guessed that Fandaniel would have hijacked Zodiark's incomplete body, but I wasn't particularly shocked that he wasn't our endgame.

[KageTokage]

The introduction of the Final Days suggesting there was some greater existential threat at play made me assume that was going to be our final boss.

However, Final Days returning as a result of Zodiark's destruction was an "Oh duh" moment because it somehow didn't occur to me that the simplest way to bring back a problem would be to just get rid of the thing that stopped it.

[Cleretic]

Was I the only one who wasn't surprised that Zodiark was dealt with so early on? I was always under the impression he wasn't our final boss in Endwalker. I never could have guessed that Fandaniel would have hijacked Zodiark's incomplete body, but I wasn't particularly shocked that he wasn't our endgame.

I'm curious as to where exactly you expected him to go down. Because as I mentioned on the first page, I don't think a lot of people predicted him to be the first trial even if most of us predicted he wasn't the final boss; most common seemed to be to put him in the second trial spot, where Hydaelyn ended up, essentially as the third-act twist.

I'd say a lot of that was also aided by people's natural assumption that everything we knew prior to Endwalker's launch was more of the story than it was;. From what I saw, people largely assumed the only thing we didn't have was the final zone (which was true of our knowledge of Shadowbringers before its launch), so the general 'prediction meta' was to structure all the pieces we were aware of into the first five zones' worth, and then take your best guess as to where the sixth would go. It was up to the individual whether 'the best guess' was purely wishful thinking for what they wanted to see, a genuine extrapolation based on existing info, or a combination of the two.*

And all of those predictions fell over because we assumed we knew more than we did; we assumed the overall framing of 'go to the moon and fight Zodiark' was bigger than it turned out to be, so we placed that point later in the predictions than it was. That led to misinterpreting Vanaspati and the Dead Ends, getting Elpis completely wrong, so on and so forth.

*For what it's worth, my prediction was a combination, and looking back at it had that wonderful vibe of 'identified all the pieces that would be important, but put them all in the wrong places'. My final zone/dungeon pick was the Lunar Subterrane, which was both a really common prediction and a total whiff, and I had a really extensive permutation of the 'Two Fandaniels' theory which was complete bunk... but the Fandaniel theory was 'only one is an Ancient, the other is a mortal who hates those guys' which did somehow end up true in a sideways way, and my pick for the final dungeon/boss was 'an Ancient secret related to Fandaniel that recontextualizes what we knew of Amaurot', which was correct even if I got the specifics wrong.

[KageTokage]

It's pretty silly, but you can basically interface spoiler the entire zone progression of Endwalker just from looking at the Rowena collectables list because some of them spell out pretty plainly that they're from the moon, as well the Ultima Thule items that go on about how otherworldly they are.

You also know when the second half of Labyrinthos and Thavnair are going to play out from the level of the FATEs in those areas.

[Cleretic]

It's pretty silly, but you can basically interface spoiler the entire zone progression of Endwalker just from looking at the Rowena collectables list because some of them spell out pretty plainly that they're from the moon, as well the Ultima Thule items that go on about how otherworldly they are.

You also know when the second half of Labyrinthos and Thavnair are going to play out from the level of the FATEs in those areas.

Ooh, you've got a point there. it's a lot easier to predict after release than before it, even if you're still managing to go as spoiler-free as possible, just because of the minor interface spoils. You can tell loosely when Mare Lamentorum is, you can see the Labyrinthos and Thavnair revisits, you can tell that there aren't Garlemald and Mare Lamentorum revisits...

Even those minor, near-subsconscious interface spoilers are giving you more than we had before release, so you're gonna fall into less predictive holes and see things like the early Zodiark fight coming.

[SentioftheHoukai]

I'm curious as to where exactly you expected him to go down. Because as I mentioned on the first page, I don't think a lot of people predicted him to be the first trial even if most of us predicted he wasn't the final boss; most common seemed to be to put him in the second trial spot, where Hydaelyn ended up, essentially as the third-act twist.

I'd say a lot of that was also aided by people's natural assumption that everything we knew prior to Endwalker's launch was more of the story than it was;. From what I saw, people largely assumed the only thing we didn't have was the final zone (which was true of our knowledge of Shadowbringers before its launch), so the general 'prediction meta' was to structure all the pieces we were aware of into the first five zones' worth, and then take your best guess as to where the sixth would go. It was up to the individual whether 'the best guess' was purely wishful thinking for what they wanted to see, a genuine extrapolation based on existing info, or a combination of the two.*

And all of those predictions fell over because we assumed we knew more than we did; we assumed the overall framing of 'go to the moon and fight Zodiark' was bigger than it turned out to be, so we placed that point later in the predictions than it was. That led to misinterpreting Vanaspati and the Dead Ends, getting Elpis completely wrong, so on and so forth.

*For what it's worth, my prediction was a combination, and looking back at it had that wonderful vibe of 'identified all the pieces that would be important, but put them all in the wrong places'. My final zone/dungeon pick was the Lunar Subterrane, which was both a really common prediction and a total whiff, and I had a really extensive permutation of the 'Two Fandaniels' theory which was complete bunk... but the Fandaniel theory was 'only one is an Ancient, the other is a mortal who hates those guys' which did somehow end up true in a sideways way, and my pick for the final dungeon/boss was 'an Ancient secret related to Fandaniel that recontextualizes what we knew of Amaurot', which was correct even if I got the specifics wrong.

It's funny that you mention pre-release misinterpretations, since many people I know theorized Elpis had some inspiration/tie-ins to Chrono Trigger. If anything, Endwalker should have taken more inspiration from Chrono Trigger. Seeing as how it's a master-class act of storytelling, while Endwalker is.... not.

[KageTokage]

The release of the launch trailer ended up making me predict some things that weren't that far off the mark, such as the clip of the first portion of the Dead Ends making me think we'd end up having to go to another star entirely to stop the Final Days.

As much as people like to say "It's not a spoiler without context", the pieces very quickly start falling into place through process of elimination, interface spoilers, and other elements that quickly set expectations for how things are going to play out if you're paying attention.

[Iscah]

Yeah, I try very hard to not look at parts of the map I'm not up to yet, knowing it'll be a clear puzzle piece if I check what level FATEs are there or whatever.

Once I know them, I can't stop trying to assemble them into predictions.

[Rangiswimming]

Zodiark was so hot. Not to mention there's something very, very sexy about a bound god being overriden by a mortal and forced to do things against what the god was doing. Not only that, but having a male in the barrier maiden role??? Delicious simply delicious.