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

[KageTokage]

This thread is no longer beating a dead horse nope. Thread has dug a hole half to China now.

Why do you even care, though.

It's like the mere existence of this topic offends some people, but they keep sticking their hands into the proverbial fire and looking it at anyways when the only thing they can offer are sarcastic quips and snark.

It does have a tendency to retread subject matter, but it's usually because of someone new offering their opinions which more often then not echo sentiments that have been voiced previously.

[AziraSyuren]

Most real end-bosses arent as lame as Meteion. Even Yu Yevon from X had a reason for being underwhelming.

Zeromus, Cloud of Darkness, and Necron were all comparably lame tbh, at least story wise. Gameplay wise, well, getting memed on by Grand Cross is something I’ll always remember fondly and Necron was probably the most atmospherically stunning boss that the hardware could possibly muster at the time. But the former two were pretty lame in that department too.

Yu Yevon is incomparable to those two either way, we knew he was there from the start of the final act and the only lame part of him was the gameplay.

[Xeronia]

This thread is no longer beating a dead horse nope. Thread has dug a hole half to China now.

If I may I have been replaying the story via alts and that is why I made my comment of "I can see now how people would see Hydaelyn as manipulative and honestly re-watching a lot of this she really does come off as that when you know the full story." One of the things I like doing is re-reading stuff I enjoy and so to go back with a fine tooth comb of what EW has presented us just has made me see further a lot of the points of the thread here and clarified my own misgivings about the story. I did enjoy stuff in EW of course, I wouldn't still be here if I truly hated the game and I found it beyond something I could enjoy but this thread isn't about how much I loved the caster role quest and how perfectly it finally gave some resolution to the tensions between Aymeric and the church. I wish it was a thread about how much I adored and would die for the baby hippos in the Arkasodara quests trust me but again that is not what this thread is for.

I would also say the point I mentioned is rather relevant as Omega: Beyond the Rift actually does give you a choice to pick who you felt most justified during the events of the original Final Days and there have been posts here that the choice presented did make people go "None of them were" instead of having blind faith in any of them which I will applaud as a good realization moment after Omega has laid out the cases for you from a new perspective. Sadly that is not in the MSQ and will be bypassed by a ton of people despite how great it is laid out for the player to really solidify their thoughts on the events of EW.

[Iscah]

This means that the WoL specifically willed Emet & Hyth to be there, which I think throws another sinister wrench into the mix. Other translations also have Emet in UT saying that 'Venat doesn't like to lose', which makes it seem like he was an insurance policy, one that's reliant upon his bond with Azem. Them being there at all is reliant upon the WoL's fondness for Emet as well for them to have such a strong, heartfelt wish to call them there.

While that sounds all nice and fuzzy on the surface, wow, is it emotionally manipulative AF. This woman's whole plan relies upon these two souls who are attached to each other regardless of incarnation. I'm consistently baffled how this woman is not presented as an antagonist or why the WoL doesn't have any issues with her.

This just seems like choosing to be offended for the sake of it.

Why see it as "emotionally manipulative" over "having faith in the power of friendship reaching through time to bring together the people who can save the universe"?

[Lauront]

[Rulakir]

Rulakir I want to applaud your signature art for constantly reminding me how manipulative you can read Hydaelyn and it really isn't even that hard to get that interpenetration.

Thank you! It's rare to find what I'd consider realistic art of Venat. Granted, this particular piece takes a more sinister view of her, which it's difficult not to knowing what she did, why, and to whom. I don't know how long you've followed the thread, but a common topic of discussion is the fact that in every way she is an antagonist except for how the game frames her. I'm consistently baffled that this made it past SE's ethics department. I don't know in what world (other than FFXIV apparently) where the person responsible for genocide had 'good reasons' for it and is ultimately a tragic 'heroine', especially given that argument could be applied to the Ascians as well which the game does consistently treat as being wholly in the wrong. EW was incredibly morally confusing, including the fact that the Scions love and support a character who embodies villain ideologies they have consistently stood against in the past. The more you reflect upon EW, the more you can see how the story and the characters within it were completely broken to uplift this one individual who, at the end, is 'turbo dead'. Was it worth it?

This just seems like choosing to be offended for the sake of it.

Why see it as "emotionally manipulative" over "having faith in the power of friendship reaching through time to bring together the people who can save the universe"?

Offended isn't the word I'd use, flabbergasted would be more like it. Neither Emet or Azem consented to being pawns in Venat's gamble, nor did they find out they were until it was far, far too late. So, yes, that makes it emotionally manipulative AF given that she expressly needed those two and their bond with one another to 'win'. I'm viewing it that way because that's exactly what it is. I'd say seeing it as you described is incredibly generous to put it mildly, especially considering that aside from Elidibus, Emet has the worst fate of any character in the game. The only reason Azem can't be livid about it is because their soul was sundered and they have no memories of how wronged they were as the WoL.

[Necrotica]

As a person who loves villains I think part of the reason I hate Venat is that she could have been such a good villain if they just presented her as such.
A convocation member that thought she was to important to die. As arrogant as Zenos.
Would rather the Ancients that sacrificed themselves remain trapped in Zodiark forever. (A spiteful jab at Emet to keep him separated from Hythlodeus as well as forcing more people to rely on her)
Permanently killing her followers to godhood without ever telling them why.

Add some maniacal laughter and she could have been my favorite villain of all time.

But the sanctimonious hypocrisy of it all just ruins it.

[Kazhar]

As a person who loves villains I think part of the reason I hate Venat is that she could have been such a good villain if they just presented her as such.

Exactly my thoughts. I have no issue with Venat herself. The character they presented in Elpis is very charismatic and likeable in my opinion. Thus, the thought of having this character become a major antagonistic force with Hydaelyn would have been a fantastic story they ALMOST told.

Then for some reason, while they did all the groundwork to make Hydaelyn as despicable as she could, the story never frames her as such. The Scions are surprisingly ok with everything she does, even callous acts such as sacrificing all of the shards for a really dubious escape plan. There's a lot of potential character-based drama they could have done around this, but they chickened out at every single occasion. Thancred doesn't care about Ryne that much anymore, Krile is ok with the body hijacks, Y'shtola loves senseless genocide now. All in the name of making Hydaelyn look good. Telling us that, but never showing. How did they think it was worth it? Why did it seem that pushing Hydaelyn was more important to them than writing a good story?

It's like trying to write Breaking Bad, but in an effort of never pushing your audience out of their confort zone, there's never any real consequence to Walter White's actions. What is the story even trying to tell?

[Iscah]

Then for some reason, while they did all the groundwork to make Hydaelyn as despicable as she could, the story never frames her as such.

I agree with this much, and your final question. But it makes me go in the opposite direction to the "Venat should have been a villain" argument: rather, because everything surrounding it seems to be okay with her actions, it seems that the intention for the sake of the wider plot was to have her actions be acceptable – so how did they go so wrong in deciding what her actions were?

There was no need to make her consciously guilty of a deliberate sundering. It could have been an accident, an unintended consequence of some other action, or at very least a mistaken judgement by "Hydaelyn", an amalgamated primal will who is distinct from Venat as an individual.

They could have written that one scene to portray any number of scenarios, and the rest of the narrative really doesn't change around it, so I am more inclined to point to that scene and not everything else as the anomaly – especially when it doesn't add up with any of the information established in Shadowbringers about how the Sundering happened.

What happened in production? Was there a late rewrite? Did they somehow lose sight of everything they had already written in the rest of the story? It certainly feels like it.

[Theodric]

This just seems like choosing to be offended for the sake of it.

Why see it as "emotionally manipulative" over "having faith in the power of friendship reaching through time to bring together the people who can save the universe"?

Huh?

It's been pointed out by many over the years that Hydaelyn came across as emotionally manipulative and sinister to a decent amount of us. Furthermore, the 'power of friendship' does little to obscure the whole 'deliberate genocide'. To me, the 'power of friendship' would be finding some manner of third way forward and working to save both the Unsundered and the Sundered instead of weirdly trying to justify acts of genocide after previously declaring them to be a red line to never be crossed.

I would have liked the Sundering to have either been entirely accidental or for Venat to be framed as a well meaning antagonist along the lines of Yunalesca. I believe quite a few people posting here share my thoughts on that front.

Instead we get a bizarre scenario where Venat is ultimately responsible for absolutely all the suffering throughout the setting amongst both the Unsundered and Sundered alike...but the game itself gaslights the player into overlooking that.